| And who said Modern isn't a brewer's format?! Coming into #SCGMKE, many expected dominant performances from Modern mainstays like Bant Eldrazi, Dredge, and Infect. Others expected a resurgence from decks we haven't seen in a while that appeared to be well positioned like Scapeshift, Zoo, and Affinity. But nobody expected to see a Modern tournament with more than 800 players be won by Drogskol Captain, Mausoleum Wanderer, and Steel of the Godhead. Except for Caleb Durward, of course. Durward has always marched to the beat of his own drum. When he first burst onto the Magic scene back in 2010, it was with an innovative Survival of the Fittest/Vengevine deck that ended up being so powerful that it got the broken enchantment from Exodus placed onto the Legacy banned list. From there, he's always looked for obscure ways to attack formats, but his performance last weekend in Milwaukee may be his magnum opus. It's not every day you see a Modern tournament won by a deck that absolutely no one saw coming. Though the SCG Tour may be on hiatus this weekend, Season Three heats up in a big way in the month of November. It all starts with some Legacy action in Baltimore on November 5‑6, followed up by Modern in Columbus on November 12‑13, and then Standard in our return to Knoxville on November 19‑20. As Season Three winds down and players look to position themselves for the Atlanta Invitational and Players' Championship, the results in November may be the most important of the year for many. Until then, enjoy a weekend of playing Magic and congrats to Caleb Durward on an impressive victory at #SCGMKE! — Cedric Phillips, Media Manager @CedricAPhillips |  | Delirium: Your Sideboard Guide Sometimes in Magic, you're one week too early. For Mike Sigrist, that was the case at Pro Tour Kaladesh. The former Player of the Year picked the wrong Pro Tour to play B/G Delirium in, but he felt it was going to be a good deck moving forward. And after its win at GP Providence, it looks like Siggy was right! |  | Exclusive Commander 2016 Preview! You know what's better than watching Justin Parnell, Stephen Green, Jonathan Suarez, and Jeremy Noell play Magic? Watching them preview a new card from Commander 2016 of course! The Commander VS crew is here this week to do exactly that and it looks like they've been given a doozy! |  | So You Don't Want To Play W/U Flash? You didn't think Reflector Mage and Spell Queller were just going to disappear with the rotation of Collected Company did you? W/U Flash was one of the best performing decks at Pro Tour Kaladesh and Michael Majors is ready to explain why it's here to stay and what you can do to beat it. | | | When Tom Ross breaks out his Modern Infect deck, he means business! Check out this match to see if the Boss can navigate past Keenan Davidson on Bant Eldrazi. |  | | The Legacy Open at #SCGBALT is a couple weeks away, but I am already getting excited to play one of my favorite formats! Esper is normally the name of the game when I play Magic, but for this event I'm simplifying things by dropping a color. Check out the deck I plan on playing in Baltimore: | | I've been playing Esper Stoneblade since my first Invitational Top 8 back in 2012. I borrowed the deck from a buddy and decided to battle with it until the deck failed me in a major tournament. It took four years, but now I finally had to stand back and determine the flaws of my pet deck. On the car ride home I was riffling through my deck and counted the amount of black cards in my three color deck. There are four total in the entire 60-card main deck. I have been playing four Thoughtseize at the expense of butchering my mana base to be vulnerable to Blood Moon, Back to Basics, Wasteland/Stifle, Rishadan Port, and a whole host of other land denial strategies. There are copies of Lingering Souls, which require black, however there is a decent substitute win condition in True Name‑Nemesis that works. I've always liked Lingering Souls better than True Name‑Nemesis, because it is tough to stick threats through counter magic and hand disruption in Legacy. Lingering Souls allows for the first half to be stopped, while gaining some value from the second half. True Name‑Nemesis also has its pros and cons, and requiring just blue is the biggest plus for my needs. 
Where do we go from here? I am changing my deck drastically for #SCGBALT to straight U/W Stoneblade. I crafted this list a few months ago when I came to the realization that the black splash is more detrimental than helpful. The biggest boost to this deck's power level is the addition of Back to Basics. There are a few horrendous matchups that have gashed Esper Stoneblade and I tried slapping a Band-Aid on it instead of finding a permanent fix. The biggest patch used to plug the hole on the worst matchup, Lands, was the addition of Telemin Performance. Telemin Performance gave me a win-and-in victory at the last Legacy Open, defeating a Lands player by decking. This temporary "solution" has lost capital since then, with mages adding annoying creatures to their Lands sideboard. They evolved and it is time we evolved. Not only does Back to Basics help answer the worst matchup, it also has splash damage versus Eldrazi, which is another tough one. There are very few decks where Back to Basics is a dud, so I have thrown one in the main deck with an additional one in the sideboard. The real test of this deck is determining whether counter magic can handle the workload that hand disruption did so well with before. 
U/W Stoneblade is the king of consistency. This deck plays out every game in a very similar fashion, hitting land drops, countering spells, and playing cheap/powerful win conditions to end the game as quickly as a control deck can. The deck is resilient to all hate and doesn't have the same pitfalls as Esper Stoneblade did. Losing with your basic Swamp out is not something that can happen when you're on the two color plan. Dodging those types of losses will be the key to winning with one of the "fair" strategies at #SCGBALT. 
Gisela, the Broken Blade definitely feels out of place for most people on the outside looking in. A card that is relatively new in Standard, which doesn't see much play there, now in a Legacy deck! Moat is a card that can shut down a few big decks in Legacy, and Gisela, the Broken Blade provides aerial support in those circumstances. She also is great against every Sultai deck, and other creature-based decks that don't have Lightning Bolt. Baneslayer Angel was in that slot originally, but the one less mana made a huge difference. The lifelink, evasion, first strike, and post board safety she enjoys from our opponents not keeping in a ton of big removal, are the reasons why Gisela, the Broken Blade earned a spot. 
Nahiri, the Lithomancer is my favorite card in the sideboard by far. She comes in against all of the grindy matchups, where resources are at a premium. We've seen people work in Academy Ruins as a hedge to beat the mirror, or any deck blowing up our equipment, but I've found that the planeswalker here does a much better job at it. The cost is quite high, however grindy matchups go long and this is just another game ending threat if it resolves. The last incarnation of Esper Stoneblade I did well with contained Nahiri, the Lithomancer as a one-of and I expect her to perform well in an even more consistent shell. — Shaheen Soorani, @Shaheenmtg |  | | For the first time in 2016, Jeff Hoogland is no longer standing atop the StarCityGames.com Player of the Year race. Tom Ross finally chased Hoogland down, using a Top-16 finish in the #SCGMKE Modern Open to take a six-point lead over Hoogland, who failed to make Day 2 in the Open. The Boss trailed by one point going into the weekend, but his strong performance in the Open combined with Hoogland only making Top 32 in the Legacy Classic allowed him to take charge in the yearlong race. While Ross has jumped to the top of the POY race, Brad Carpenter continues padding his massive lead in the Season Three race. Carpenter took down a third straight event, winning the Standard Classic after winning the Orlando Modern Open and the Modern Classic in Indianapolis. While Carpenter had a rough day in the Milwaukee Modern Open, he rebounded by taking home another plaque with W/U Flash in Standard. Carpenter now has a 14-point lead in Season Three, widening the gap between him and Ted Felicetti, who made the Top 64 in the Modern Open. |  | | Team Cardhoarder's Jacob Baugh used a second-straight Open Top 8 to continue his rise up the POY and Season Three leaderboards. Baugh earned 15 SCG Points for his Top 8, moving up to No. 9 in the POY race and now trails Todd Stevens by 15 points for the third yearlong at-large berth to the Players' Championship. Baugh also is fifth in the Season Three race, and only trails Jadine Klomparens by two points, making him live for an #SCGPC slot in two separate races. Todd Anderson, like his Roanoke testing partner and friend Tom Ross, also played Infect to a Top-16 finish. The man with the most Open Top 8s in history kept his race for the Players' Championship alive and is just three points behind Baugh in the yearlong race, meaning he is 18 points behind Stevens and that final at-large spot for the #SCGPC. More importantly, Anderson moves up to 50 points in Season Three, where he only tails Klomparens by 11 points to earn a berth into the year-end tournament with a finish in the top three players of Season Three. The SCG Tour takes a break this weekend, but will rebound in November for a slate of three straight Opens to kick off the month and the home stretch of Season Three. Stay tuned to all the action on twitch.tv/SCGLive. |  If you would like to unsubscribe and stop receiving these emails please click here. |
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