RW Beatdown at the World Championship

By Shuhei Nakamura

Shuhei Nakamura is a member of the Pro Tour Hall of Fame, former Player of the Year, and is one of just six players with more than 400 lifetime pro points.

Worlds Week, held on the first week of December, was a week full of high-level competition from the world's top players and exciting battles between nations ending with a dramatic topdeck finish.

It was a week packed with everything Magic is all about.

Of course the decklists were no different.

Each deck, built and developed for this very day by national top pros, was a deck you would want to try out at your local FNM.

This week, I would like to talk about such Standard decks.

First off, the RW Beatdown Sam Black brought to the World Championship.

I have already introduced the prototype of this deck developed by Brad Nelson: it's constructed of prowess creatures and token-generating spells, backed up by burn and Chained to the Rocks.

However, Sam added his own essence to the deck, bringing it to the next level.

Surprisingly, he removed arguably the best creature in the format, Goblin Rabblemaster, and added Heliod's Pilgrim.

Perhaps he predicted matchups against Sylvan Caryatid and Courser of Kruphix. Rabblemaster is not very good against green creature decks. The Goblin tokens simply rush to their own doom. So I feel choosing a different card altogether is not a bad decision.

Chained to the Rocks and Eidolon of Countless Battles are what the deck achieved in exchange.

This creates the option of going large in addition to the original tactic of going wide; creating a whole different dimension to the deck.