We take a break from our regularly scheduled programming to present you with my version of the Ultimate Standard Tournament. Peter Jahn recently did this, but I have some issues with the way he ran things, along with some issues with his deck selection, so I'm going to redo the tournament. Of course, the real reason is that it just seemed like a whole bunch of fun. I've wanted to do something like this for a while, and I've been setting it up in my spare time.

The first thing to set up is the ground rules. Magic has undergone a number of rules changes, some of them being absolutely critical to the way decks operate. I felt like it would not do the decks justice to change the rules they were played under, thus my first rule:

1. Whenever possible, the deck in question should be played under the rules when it was Standard-legal.

   
   

   Of course, this is not a problem when the game has independent checks for each player (like using Wishes, or losing the game), but what happens when you have interactive things (mostly combat)? The answer was to do a seeded bracket, and have the higher seed gain the benefit of using their rules. Thus, Rule 2:

2. When a rules conflict arises during interaction between two decks, the rules that the deck with the higher seed uses shall be used to decide the conflict. In the event both decks have the same seed, the deck with the higher aggregate record (in games) during the tournament will have its rules used.

With these two rules determined, we have a basic structure—a seeded tournament much like the NCAA tournament (fitting that it's almost March). That means we need four sub-brackets. I would really like to do sixty-four decks, but that is way too much work for just me, so I'm going to do thirty-two. If someone else is really gung-ho about getting into this, e-mail me and I can expand the bracket to sixty-four, but the number of man-hours involved in doing that is something I'm not willing to do myself.

Having set the basic structure of the tournament, the next thing to do was to set the bracket, which involves first selecting decks, then seeding them. First, deck selection:

The No-Brainers

Jund

Faeries

Affinity (with Skullclamp)

Academy

U/B Psychatog

These five decks were absolute powerhouses in their respective Standard formats, clearly at the top of the food chain both in terms of power and consistency. Their resiliency for hate and ability to put up consistent results made them absolute monsters, and the UST would not be complete without any of them.

The World Champions

Popular archetypes that took down the biggest tournament in Magic shouldn't be ignored; thus, the following decks make it in when I look at the results from Worlds:

Cunning Wake

Dragonstorm

Doran

Rec-Sur

Covetous Wildfire

Ghazi-Glare

Caveat—I am starting with the 1996 World Championship, which I consider the first “modern” World Championship. You'll notice that I left off a few decks:

Tom Chanpheng, 1996 – White Weenie

Jon Finkel, 2000 – Tinker

Tom van de Logt, 2001 – Machine Head

Julien Nuijten, 2004 – G/W Astral Slide

André Coimbra, 2009 – Naya Lightsaber

Guillame Matignon, 2010 – U/B Control

There were reasons for each exclusion:

White Weenie – I feel that this archetype is better represented by Kithkin, so I will run that instead.

Tinker – This was originally in, but became a casualty when I found I had too many other old decks. Finkel gets his due in this tournament, and I felt Tinker was the reasonable cut, despite its Worlds win. This was the cut I still regret the most.

Machine Head – I don't feel like this archetype really stood the test of time, so it didn't make it.

G/W Slide – I think the R/W version was played for longer by more people, so that is my choice to represent Slide decks.

Naya Lightsaber – This really didn't have the longevity needed to make this tournament.

U/B Control – I made the selections before 2010 Worlds, and this color combination is already represented twice by control decks. No reason to put this particular version in.

Dealing with these, we add a couple more decks:

R/W Slide

Kithkin

Important Decks in Magic History

These decks have had tremendous historical influence, and by that have made their mark on tournament Magic. They are:

ProsBloom

Napster

My Fires

The Rock and His Millions

These four decks deserve inclusion as well.

Archetype Representatives

There have been many different decks built along similar molds, archetypes that have seen play across many formats that deserve to be represented. White Weenie is one, but we've taken care of it. The others I feel are as follows:

Mono-Red beat-down

Ponza

R/W beat-down

R/G beat-down

Draw-Go

U/W control

Tap-out control

Archetypical representatives I selected are as follows:

Mono-Red beat-down – Deadguy Red

Ponza – Veggie Ponza

RW beat-down– Boros Bushwhacker

RG beat-down – Heezy Street

Draw-Go – CMU Blue (Buehler Blue)

U/W control – modern-era U/W

Tap-out control – 5cc

After getting this far, it was time to take stock. The current decks stand as follows:

Jund

Faeries

Affinity (with Skullclamp)

Academy

U/B Psychatog

Cunning Wake

Dragonstorm

Doran

Rec-Sur

Covetous Wildfire

Ghazi-Glare

R/W Slide

Kithkin

ProsBloom

Napster

My Fires

The Rock and His Millions

Deadguy Red

Veggie Ponza

Boros Bushwhacker

Heezy Street

CMU Blue

U/W control

5cc

That's twenty-four decks, leaving eight more slots. Next up are two decks that are fun and were played by many people while putting up great results:

Goblin Bidding

U/G Madness

Bidding was the only deck that could consistently stand up to Skullclamp Affinity, which is a huge feather in its cap. U/G Madness was—well, U/G Madness, probably the second-best block deck in history (Jund has likely taken that crown). Shoving those two in leaves six more slots.

Now it's time to do a count. Given that Invasion began what I felt was a new stage in Magic design, I wanted to have a good selection of decks from both sides of that set. A count is in order.

Invasion and before: nine

Post-Invasion: seventeen

Right now we are skewed towards post-Invasion, which I want to fix. So, let's look at pre-Invasion archetypes that I feel deserve to be represented:

Angry Hermit was a pretty cool mid-range Green beat-down deck, a popular strategy. In with Angry Hermit.

Yawgmoth's Bargain deserves to be represented, and one of the best Bargain decks was the one Finkel played at the 1999 Invitational—Sabre Bargain.

Necropotence should also be represented, but to my recollection, the major deck that people remember that card for, Trix, was an Extended deck. There were two Black Necro decks, a beat-down version featuring pump Knights, and a control version featuring Corrupt. I'm not sure which is better.

Replenish was a powerful old combo deck that also very well deserves representation.

That gives us four more old decks, which I'm reasonably happy with, since Invasion is actually a tad before the halfway mark. Two more slots to go. I next looked at a number of modern decks, and settled on these candidates:

Dralnu du Louvre is a modern Draw-Go archetype, and given how important that strategy has been historically, I feel okay putting it in the tournament (the fact that it represents arguably the best control player in history doesn't hurt, either).

Mythic Conscription is a modern update of My Fires, showcasing the power of mana acceleration, making it worth a slot as well.

B/G Elves is a modern deck representing one of Magic's greatest tribes. Elves have a long history of showing up in Standard decks and deserve their day in the sun as well. This archetype deserves a slot.

U/G Heartbeat – This is my personal call. I like this deck, and I'm going to run it.

Final deck list:

Jund

Faeries

Affinity (with Skullclamp)

Academy

U/B Psychatog

Cunning Wake

Dragonstorm

Doran

Rec-Sur

Covetous Wildfire

Ghazi-Glare

R/W Slide

Kithkin

ProsBloom

Napster

My Fires

The Rock and His Millions

Deadguy Red

Veggie Ponza

Boros Bushwhacker

Heezy Street

CMU Blue

U/W control

5cc

Goblin Bidding

U/G Madness

Angry Hermit

Sabre Bargain

Necro (of some sort)

Replenish

Dralnu du Louvre

Mythic Conscription

B/G Elves

U/G Heartbeat

Oops, that's thirty-four decks. Now comes the hard part. I have to make two cuts. Sadly, I believe that Doran and Rock are very similar, and thus, as much as I like Sol, he becomes a casualty of bracket size. The last slot comes down to Kithkin versus Boros Bushwhacker, and I think Bushwhacker brings more to the table, so I will run it. The final part is seeding the tournament. I divided the decks up randomly into four sub-brackets, then seeded each bracket. They were as follows:

North Bracket:

1. Academy

2. Goblin Bidding

3. Necro (of some sort)

4. Sabre Bargain

5. 5cc

6. Heartbeat

7. Doran

8. Veggie Ponza

South Bracket:

1. Affinity

2. U/B Psychatog

3. Replenish

4. Cunning Wake

5. CMU Blue

6. Dragonstorm

7. Napster

8. Heezy Street

East Bracket:

1. Faeries

2. B/G Elves

3. Rec-Sur

4. Ghazi-Glare

5. Deadguy Red

6. Covetous Wildfire

7. Angry Hermit

8. U/G Madness

West Bracket:

1. Jund

2. ProsBloom

3. My Fires

4. U/W control

5. Dralnu du Louvre

6. Astral Slide

7. Mythic Conscription

8. Boros Bushwhacker

There was one last hole (beside the Necro deck list)—should I use a modern build of U/W control or an old build? I settled on a modern build because I felt like Jace, the Mind Sculptor should get his chance to take this thing down. After all, Umezawa's Jitte, Bloodbraid Elf, Bitterblossom, Yawgmoth's Bargain, Tolarian Academy, and Necropotence have all stepped up to the plate; why should Jace be any different?

That's all for setting up the tournament. I still have to determine which Necro deck to use, though. Thoughts?

Chingsung Chang

Conelead most everywhere and on MTGO

Khan32k5 at gmail dot com

UST deck lists are here.

Note: The bracket doesn't work so well in GoogleDocs, so I won't post the link. Suffice to say, North Bracket is opposed to South and East to West, so the finals will be the winner of the North and South match against the winner of the East and West match.