Gifts Ungiven

Let's take a look at the top eight. You can see the top eight decks by clicking here.

Takayuki Takagi's deck is a four-color Doran-ish build that takes the "massive pile of aggressive creatures" approach to the format. From Eventide, Takagi grabs Twilight Mire for the main and a Wickerbough Elder (i.e. Indrik Stomphowler) for the sideboard. That's not a lot of novelty.

Katsuya Ueda's Faeries deck is also pretty stock, although it does pack a quad of Peppersmokes and two Ponders. In the sideboard, we have a pair of Snakeforms, presumably to kill Colossi. An interesting note from the coverage is that the Peppersmokes are awfully good for killing off things reanimated by Makeshift Mannequins.

Hiroshi Yoshida's deck looks like it builds on the Red-Black aggro decks that Saitou and friends took to the last block GP of this season. Notably, it contains a full set of Figure of Destiny, triple Soul Snuffers to kill off Faerie Tokens and non-destined Kithkin, as well as a full set of Puncture Blast and Stigma Lasher. I think there was some confusion between Yoshida's sideboard and maindeck, as his entry features a 67-card main and an 8-card side. Regardless, we'll assume that the full 75 we see listed is his full 75.

Tsuyoshi Ikeda brought a mono-red Elementals-Shamans deck that also featured a number of Eventide cards. The notable maindeck addition is triple Thunderblust -- sort of a Firecat for the current generation. Over in the side, we have triple Flame Jab. I'm curious about the circumstances under which Flame Jabs are brought in -- I'd tend to expect more of them in the maindeck, honestly.

Kataro Ootsuka's decklist is also a little screwed up, being down four cards. It's really unclear what might be missing, but maybe a set of Broken Ambitions? Over in the sideboard, we have six Eventide cards in the form of triple Snakeform and triple Soul Snuffers. Although I've been skeptical of the Snuffers' role as a mini-Wrath, there is something to be said for jamming a -1/-1 counter on each Persist creature as you're sweeping away all those pesky Faeries. Of course, if you can use it, Hallowed Burial does the same job, but far more effectively.

Shou Yoshimori's deck is another creature-heavy one -- I might call it a Kinship deck, as it packs both Leaf-Crowned Elders and Wolf-Skull Shamans. Other than a Twilight Mire in the main and a one-of Recumbent Bliss in the side, it packs no Eventide cards.

Masayasu Tanahashi's Kithkin deck diverges more from its classic archetype than some of the other builds we've looked at so far. He has the expected Quartet of Figure of Destiny, bolstered by quad Unmake in the main -- and a surprise addition (well, I've been surprised that this hasn't been done more often) of a pair of maindeck Ajanis. Over in the side, we see a third Ajani and the standout quirky addition, triple Hallowed Burial. Certainly not what you'd expect from a deck that tries to swarm the field with critters. I'm not sure when the Whiteclays come in, though.

Finally, we round out the top eight with Yuuya Takahashi's aggressive Faeries build. Takahashi eschews some of the traditional reactive control features of Faeries for board control elements such as maindecked Shriekmaws (he actually goes to three Cryptic Command, which seems vaguely heretical). Over in the side, he has triple Jace Beleren, which we haven't seen in top eight decks from American PTQs, as well as quadruple Stillmoon Cavalier -- the only Eventide card in this deck.

So far, I think we haven't seen the full potential of Eventide at work in block decks, although Tanahashi's addition of Hallowed Burial to the sideboard of his Kithkin build is pretty interesting.

In addition to the top eight, we have coverage of Shuuhei Namakura's BitterMirrorFolk deck. This is more like the kind of innovation we hope to see coming out of a major Japanese tournament. We're told that the original idea was to exploit the synergy between Bitterblossom and Mirror Entity, but the end result is this curious hybrid of Merfolk, some Faeries elements, and, of course, Mirror Entity. Shuuhei's maindeck uses no Eventide cards, but the sideboard features triple Hallowed Burial (much like Tanahashi's Kithkin, really).

I wish we could see more decklists -- perhaps all the day 2 decklists, for example. I'm really wondering why we haven't seen more Hallowed Burials running around, as it seems like such a great solution to many of the hard-to-deal-with creatures in the format. I'm also wondering if and when we'll see more decks that dip heavily into enemy colors only -- perhaps a B/G build, if nothing else.