The Dragons of Tarkir have arrived, and this weekend, in Brussels, Belgium, they are out in force. Two days of competition are in the books, and a Top 8 for Pro Tour Dragons of Tarkir has been determined. In jut a few short hours, the players will put all of their testing on the line and find out who the real dragonmaster is. Team Gathering Magic has been keeping up with all the exciting content and coverage this week had to offer, and we're ready to share our favorite stories from this weekend and beyond.

Picks of the Week: April 12, 2015

Alex Ullman is Associate Editor for Gathering Magic, a renowned Pauper (cube and Constructed) player, and member of the victorious 2009 Magic Online Community Cup team.You can find him on Twitter as @nerdtothecore.

Another set means another Pro Tour. While I was not able to watch the action from Brussels entirely live, I relived my Bird-Johnson days by absorbing a lot the goodness on tape delay. I was saddened I was unable to drag myself out of bed to watch the game’s very best draft since I find myself enjoying Dragons/Dragons/Fate quite a bit at the moment, I had to settle for catching up later.

So what flexed their muscles in Brussels?

Dragons

I remember Scourge rather well. It was one of the few prereleases I attended during my college years. I had a solid if unremarkable red-white deck that leaned heavily on Aven Farseer to win the day. Scourge was ostensibly a dragon set and I won my matches with birds.

Sure.

That was not the case this weekend. Wizards had a titanic task in making Dragons matter in both Standard and Limited while also keeping the format relatively balanced. It appears, from my perspective, that they succeeded. The tyrants of the sky showed up in both formats and across a wide range of decks - from Dragonlords Ojutai and Silumgar in traditional control to Dragonlord Atarka in ramp (and some Abzan decks), there were wing shaped shadows on the battlefield.

Dragons are important to Magic. The scaled ones are synonymous with the epic fantasy on which the game is based. The fact that dragons matter right now, at the height of the Magic’s popularity (still trending up, of course), makes me remember cowering in fear of the once might Shivan Dragon and the desire to open my reptilian rex.

ChromantiFlayer? ChromantiFlayer!

Leave it to Zvi Mowshowitz to make Chromanticore and Soulflayer sing a Pro Tour caliber duet. The goal is to get Chromanticore into the graveyard and then use it as part of the delver cost on Soulflayer, giving all those glorious keywords to the Fate Reforged demon. The deck is strung together with Den Protector and features a few gods from Theros block to add indestructible to Soulflayer’s CV. Zvi even managed to craft a mana base capable of bestowing the five color enchantment creature.

Fellow member of the Pantheon Jamie Parke piloted the deck, and, well, see for yourself:

The Top 8

There three stories that stand out to me on the final day of the Pro Tour, for drastically different reasons.

First up is the gentleman holding home court advantage for all of Sunday if he wins - Ondrej Strasky. Piloting Red-Green Devotion with Dragonlord Atarka and See the Unwritten, Strasky is younger than the game and is making an appearance in his second Top 8. Put another way - I had already been playing Magic for two years on Strasky’s zeroth cake day. Put a third way I feel old.

But as for Strasky, he is an incredibly impressive player who has drawn the eye and praise of the last generation of Eastern European pros. Tournament Magic is certainly entering a golden age where the greats of yesterday (like the two other players I’m watching in the Top 8) are putting up numbers and competing against the new guard of people raised on the game.

Speaking of yesterday, my second favorite storyline is one of the Mad Geniuses of Madison making it to his first Pro Tour Top 8. Adrian Sullivan is the definition of a dinosaur. One of the game’s early theorists and innovators, he gave shape the way we process Magic today. He took “Who’s the Beatdown?” and evolved it into the concept of Strategic Moments. On top of this he is also a prolific writer with a keen wit and a way with words. Sullivan has recently redoubled his efforts to succeed at the highest level and this Top 8, as so many have said, is a long time coming and a long time deserved. In fact, I’d want him to win this Top 8 if not for my third player to watch.

Shota Yasooka is a pro’s pro. Already with a Top 8, a win, and a Player of the Year title, Shota has a reputation for his excellent play, his sharp deckbuilding skills, and his unique approach. He is also eligible for the Hall of Fame and his potential election is the subject of much debate. Can someone with a resume short on benchmarks and off the charts in intangibles join the hallowed halls? Sunday, April 12th, is another step towards answering that question. Adding a second Top 8 is one small step but winning a second Pro Tour is a giant leap. I’m pulling for Shota so he can get the recognition he rightly deserves.

Plus he’s playing dragons in his Blue-Black Control deck, so the fix is in.

Blue-Black Control - Dragons of Tarkir Standard | Shota Yasooka, Top 8 Pro Tour Dragons of Tarkir

• Creatures (6)
• 2 Dragonlord Silumgar
• 3 Icefall Regent
• 1 Silumgar, the Drifting Death

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

• Spells (27)
• 2 Bile Blight
• 3 Crux of Fate
• 3 Dig Through Time
• 2 Dissolve
• 2 Foul-Tongue Invocation
• 3 Hero's Downfall
• 3 Jace's Ingenuity
• 1 Murderous Cut
• 4 Silumgar's Scorn
• 2 Thoughtseize
• 2 Ultimate Price

• Lands (26)
• 4 Dismal Backwater
• 1 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
• 6 Island
• 2 Opulent Palace
• 4 Polluted Delta
• 3 Swamp
• 4 Temple of Deceit
• 2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth[/Lands]

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Bile Blight
• 1 Ultimate Price
• 2 Stratus Dancer
• 2 Disdainful Stroke
• 1 Dragonlord's Prerogative
• 3 Drown in Sorrow
• 3 Duress
• 1 Negate
• 1 Virulent Plague

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Carlos Gutierrez is an Associate Editor for Gathering Magic, an engineer-in-training, and a Commander and Pauper enthusiast. By day, he works as a STEM educator, but he spends his weekends hitting all his land drops and trying new board games, puzzles, and video games. You can find all of him sharing Commander craziness, baked goods on Twitter, and complaints about graduate school at @cag5383.

Pro Tour weekends are some of the most exciting in the Magic year. New technology and decks, names and stories; what could be more compelling? Unfortunately, for the first time in a long time, I was completely unable to follow content as it was happening, and couldn't even keep up with the replays running throughout Friday afternoon. Fortunately, I did catch everything Saturday, and I can't express how excited I am for Sunday, in large part due to one player.

Shota Yasooka is an incredible competitor who has been in and out of the public eye in the last few years. He has a reputation as an incredible deckbuilder and exceptional player, doing all of his testing on his own and putting up incredible performances with decks that no one else in the room sleeved up. He paced the field with an 11-1 record at the first Players' Championship in 2012 and has been in the mix in Hall of Fame discussions, though mostly because people are lamenting the fact that his stats don't yet give them a reason to put him on their ballot.

Personally, I couldn't be more excited to see Shota put up a long-deserved Top 8, as his deckbuilding is absolutely unmatched. Regardless of the format, Shota puts together something that forces interaction along interesting axes and creates inevitability in unexpected ways. Just take a look at his Gifts Rock with Emeria, Modern Tezzeret, and Eternal Command deck. Through and through, Shota is a true patron saint of control mages everywhere, and the lessons that I've learned from playing his decks have informed so much of the way that I try to build my own decks. I can't wait to see how deep Shota's run goes tomorrow and I'm unreasonably excited to see what he does next.

Eternal Command - Modern | Shota Yasooka

• Creatures (13)
• 3 Eternal Witness
• 4 Snapcaster Mage
• 3 Tarmogoyf
• 3 Vendilion Clique

• Spells (26)
• 4 Aether Vial
• 4 Cryptic Command
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 3 Mana Leak
• 2 Remand
• 2 Serum Visions
• 3 Spell Snare
• 2 Thirst for Knowledge
• 2 Vapor Snag

• Lands (21)
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 2 Copperline Gorge
• 3 Flooded Grove
• 1 Forest
• 4 Island
• 3 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Mountain
• 4 Scalding Tarn
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Stomping Ground

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Ancient Grudge
• 2 Combust
• 2 Glen Elendra Archmage
• 1 Grafdigger's Cage
• 3 Huntmaster of the Fells
• 2 Spell Pierce
• 2 Threads of Disloyalty

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Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

Ever since she was first printed, I've loved Tamiyo, the Moon Sage. The first time I played her was in Avacyn Restored Standard in a Jeskai Control deck. In the very first game I played, Tamiyo locked down a Geralf's Messenger until she went Ultimate, at which point I got to go off with infinite Thought Scours as Ancestral Recall until I found Pillar of Flame and Celestial Purge to loop. I was hooked on her Emblem then, and since then I've tried playing her in all manner of decks across all kinds of formats. Standard. Modern. Legacy. Cube. I've tried it all.

When I originally built my Ephara Planeswalkers deck, the idea I had in mind was trying to do ridiculous things with a Tamiyo, the Moon Sage emblem. Unfortunately, in almost two years I was never once able to get an emblem, so I ended up cutting many of the cards that enabled that path. I've been playing a lot more Commander recently than usual to try to get my gaming fix in before I put my head down and finish up my schoolwork for the year. In the last week, I've gotten to emblem up twice, and I couldn't be happier.

There's nothing quite like the feeling of having literal infinite cards and getting to do almost anything. Planeswalkers plus infinite Faith's Rewards to protect them from removal is pretty good. So is infinite Merchant Scrolls or Thirst for Knowledges. The possibilities are endless, hilarious, and unbelievably powerful. I was only able to win one of the two games that I ultimated a Tamiyo, but it's been a long time since I had that much fun losing a game of Commander.

Suburbia

One of the things I love most about Constructed Magic is that I get to build my deck. I get to choose a plan that I think is powerful, choose the cards that help execute it as effectively as possible, and then try to pull all the pieces together. There's no feeling better than getting to see a deck of your own design running smooth as silk and leaving opponents battered in its wake. Consequently, I'm a huge fan of deckbuilding games like Dominion and Ascension. Any game where there are lots of different factions and strategies, and I get to build a collection of cool interactions is one I'm going to really enjoy.

Suburbia does that, but with tiles rather than cards, and does it in a way that's much more interactive and dynamic. Different tiles generate population, money, reputation, or income. Different types of tiles, like residential, industrial, corporate, and governmental enable different kinds of strategies. Do you want bursts of money or a high static income? Do you try to race to the highest possible population with no regard for reputation or income? Or do you slowly build a high reputation that will grow your community over time? The strategic element combined with puzzling out the tile placements that maximize your outcomes is enormously interesting to me. I didn't think that managing a small municipality would be this exciting, but I can't wait to play Suburbia again!

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