National Qualifiers

May 15, 2010

Welcome to National Qualifiers week!  This Saturday, around the United States, players will attempt to qualify for the US National Championships in every state.  Here's a quick factsheet on what to expect at your local NQ.
Format: Standard Constructed
Structure: Swiss pairings with a cut to Top 8.  In NQs with two or four slots, single elimination playoffs will be played until the desired number of players are left.
REL (Rules Enforcement Level): Competitive.  No takesy-backsies, be prepared with sleeves, pen and paper, counters, etc.

You should also prepare to play against a few different archetypes that are sure to be popular, either based on tournament success or because of ease of access to the cards.  Here's the gauntlet of decks I'm looking at preparing for.

U/W/R Planeswalkers

This deck came storming out of the gate at the StarCityGames 5K in Atlanta.

The plan is pretty simple - get control of the board through either color denial with Spreading Seas or creature negation with Wall of Omens, Path to Exile, and Oblivion Ring.  Play planeswalkers.  Use planeswalkers to win the game.  The deck leverages the sheer versatility of the most powerful cards in Standard to win from a lot of different positions.  I don't like the single red source in the deck, as Spreading Seas is a popular card in the current environment and getting your lone red source cut off makes games where you need an active Ajani pretty awkward.  I also really like Kor Sanctifiers in the sideboard to deal with opposing Pithing Needles, Oblivion Rings, and random other troublesome artifacts and enchantments.

Jund

The 800-pound gorilla on the format that has been losing its grip since the Eldrazi arose.

The decks in the format evolve to beat Jund, and Jund evolves to beat them back.  The deck has taken one of the blue envelopes this PTQ season, and it did it in an interesting way.  How do you beat an 0/4 Wall on turn two?  How about a 5/5 first striker each turn for the foreseeable future?  Plated Geopede combined with fetchlands, both of the Zendikar variety in Verdant Catacombs and the Rise of the Eldrazi variety in Evolving Wilds!  Why Evolving Wilds?  To fetch up the lone Island in the sideboard post board so that he could cast Sedraxis Specter!  It's hard to post one example deck or just have one Jund deck in the gauntlet, but it's going to be extremely hard to beat all the variants.  Use the usual suspects like the deck above as your basis for testing.

U/W Control

Sometimes called Tap Out because, well, it taps out for big X spells like Mind Spring, Martial Coup and Everflowing Chalice.

Similar to U/W/R Planeswalkers, this deck uses more large creatures to finish the game as opposed to Gideon Jura powered up by Elspeth.  The old Walletslayer teams up with Sphinx of Jwar Isle and Martial Coup tokens to take down the opponent.  Permission in the form of Deprive and Negate keeps the game under control.  Mind Spring refills your hand.

Mythic Conscription

What happens when you attack with one creature while Sovereigns of Lost Alara is in play?  It gets +10/+10, trample, and annihilator 2!

The plan is to get Sovereigns out and then attack with a creature, tutoring up Eldrazi Conscription and getting in for X+11.  Barring that, accelerate out Baneslayers, planeswalkers, and other awesome creatures and be the beatdown.

Red Deck Wins

Kill it.  If it can't be killed, burn it.  RDW has a simple philosophy - it just wants to watch the world burn.

The plan is simple.  Lay down fast, aggressive creatures.  Burn out anything in the way.  Finish them off with Devastating Summons and Goblin Bushwhacker.  RDW has always been the budget player's deck of choice - it's deadly consistent and has the power to win even in a field of dedicated control decks.  The only issue is that Jund is also relatively cheap to build, and it has a lot better track record.  It's up to you whether or not you want to have RDW in your gauntlet, but I can guarantee you at least a few people will be sleeving up little red creatures and burn.  Be prepared.

Polymorph

They're like Transformers.  They're more than meets the eye.

The goal for the Polymorph deck is to get a creature into play with either Awakening Zone, Khalni Garden, or Garruk Wildspeaker, then use the namesake sorcery to turn that creature into either Emrakul or Iona.  Deprive and Vines of Vastwood protect your monsters from opposing spells until they can end the game.

Good luck to everyone playing this week in National Qualifiers tournaments!