First, the bad news: There was only ONE Island in the entire top 8 of Worlds this weekend. It was in a Bant deck piloted by Manuel Bucher, who was eliminated in the quarterfinals.
Now, the good news: I’d heard about this tech a couple of weeks ago, but it’s becoming more and more widespread. This weekend at Worlds, Gerry Thompson did a video deck tech about a Standard build he designed, which he dubbed “Spread ‘Em” after its primary strategy:
See, the thing about Jund (and many other popular Standard decks right now) is a not-quite-reliable manabase. This deck attacks that weakness, and seems to be having some success. As I write this, I’m watching live video of the team finals of Worlds. The Standard portion is a URW deck (not at all unlike my own current build) facing off against a Jund deck. Spreading Seas has entirely shut down the red mana sources of the Jund deck, slowing things down enough for the control player to stick an Ajani Vengeant and a Sphinx of Jwar Isle to win the game.
In a format with few Islands, Spreading Seas is essentially a cantripping land destruction spell. I absolutely love this strategy, and no doubt I’ll be trying it sometime this week.
I tested the Spread ‘Em deck and it seemed pretty strong. I think it could be a major player but Nissa Monument seems impossible to win and you have to rely on your sideboard to beat the aggro decks. But bringing in 15 cards should shift the post sb games a lot.
On the other hand, it destroys the multicolor decks like Jund.
Well, I can see where turning Oran-Riefs and Forests into Islands could at least slow down an Eldrazi Green player enough to take control of the game. I can’t wait to try this out.
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