This last weekend we hosted our November TGS Magic The Gathering: Arena Standard. The biggest monster of this tournament was the newest planeswalker Oko, Thief of Crowns. One of his abilities makes his target lose all abilities and becomes a green Elk creature with base power and toughness 3/3. This planeswalker dominated the TGS space as half of the Top 8 finishers had Oko incorporated in their deck. Those who didn’t have him in their decks made sure to build a deck that could withstand his over-powered nature. Here’s a look at our Top 8 finishers and their game-winning decks!
Winner
Heisenb3rg
Jordan “Heisenb3rg” Cairns has returned to The Gaming Stadium to assert his MTG: Arena dominance! Heisenb3rg recently competed at the Mythic Championship Qualifiers (MCQ) and has advanced on to the MCVII, which will take place next month. He believes that the best deck in the format is Simic Ramp (also known as Bant Food), a build he ran for the MCQ; with this, he created an experimental deck to try and beat this top-tier deck. This deck changes things up with its same colour combos, and uses 2/3 mana spells to counter Simic Ramp’s expensive 4/5 mana spells.
Phoenix “Spandy” Bradshaw finished at second place with his Sultai Midrange deck. Spandy commented that this version of an Oko deck is based off the conventional base deck, but with a few key cards that help give him an advantage. This deck is effective at going toe-to-toe with other Oko-centered decks due to his 10 main deck Planeswalkers, 6 main deck Creatures, and two extra cards. One of the cons of this deck, Spandy remarked, is that the match-up against Flash decks can be scary– regardless, his deck is still strong in the late game and is still holds a 40/60 odds of winning.
Sebastian “Mr. Sparkle” Denno returned to The Gaming Stadium with a brand new Jeskai Fires deck. Mr. Sparkle chose this deck due to its powerful cards and enchantments that can win unwinnable games. During a qualifying match in this series, he was able to attack for 39 hit points with three stacks on his Cavalier of Flames; needless to say, this deck can pack a punch! This deck is good against Oko because Oko is not effective against large haste creatures, or two co-existing threats.
Vincent “Pack1PickTWoo” Choy approached the Oko meta with a unique build. With credits to his friend Tim for introducing him to the deck, Pack1PickTWoo took on the competition with a deck of many names: 5-Colour Fire, Cast the Uncastable, and Jeskai Fires Superfriends. This deck has a lot of Planeswalkers, and is a lot of fun to play. Pack1PickTWoo noted that Planeswalkers dodge the +1 Oko ability, and that his Vraska, Golgari Queen card can kill Oko. While the deck is slow and vulnerable against aggressive decks, he remained confident in the fact that aggressive decks lose to Oko decks.
Kurt “Kurtical” Stockbrugger featured an Espur Stax for this tournament. If you are new to Magic the Gathering or don’t have a lot of experience with the game, Kurtical noted, this is the deck to try out. Espur Stax is easy to pilot and straight forward. The good match-ups are very good, and the bad match-ups are not so bad, making it an easy deck to get comfortable with. The deck begins to suffer when you fall behind due to the three colour mana base, but it can still have the potential to snowball.
Alex “***HELLO***#71471” Hagedorn ran a standard Oko deck with the addition of Voracious Hyrdas. With this deck, he is able to pull up really explosive turns while also being very mana efficient. This deck is slightly more prone to flooding due to the amount of Lands in the main deck, but continues to a efficient adjustment to the standard Oko deck.
Drew “fingerku” Christensen believes in the raw power of Oko, and his deck reflected that! He ran a Blue/Green Food deck, also known as Simic Ramp, which is centered around the Planeswalker Oko. While Drew hadn’t played too much of this deck going into the competition, he became a quick believer of its power when he watched his friend and fellow competitor Heisenb3rg play it. While he only placed in the Top 8, he still believes in the raw power of this Planeswalker and will continue to play him until he inevitably gets nerfed or banned.
Carolyn “themightylinguine” Kavanagh (aka MOOSERS) made her top 8 debut with her Golgari Adventures deck. She had only picked up the deck that morning, but was impressed with how good it is against Oko and other newer Planeswalkers. This deck has a lot of cheap 1 mana 1/1 cards, giving her the advantage to out-grind her opponents. The deck is relatively inexpensive to work with, and does not have a ton of large cost cards to deal with.
Check out the other decks from the tournament here. Interested in attending the next Arena tournament? Make sure to join our official TGS Discord server to be notified of our next standard tournament!
