BPDC 2.01 - Lorwyn Unleashed

I spent a lot of energy creating the metagame report for the event, which can be found on the forums:

http://www.pdcmagic.com/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1412

That is the best place to go if you want information about what happened. In this article I want to talk about the future of the format!

It's Not Easy Being Green

For such a lush, verdant world as Lorwyn, there sure was a dearth of green-aligned beatmasters at the registration table. Neither Elves nor Treefolk had anything to say, though surely both archetypes have latent power. (For reference, see the discussion threads for Treefolk and Elves.) I particularly like Cloudcrown Oak to smack down the flying friends of Merfolk and Faeries alike. Fat + removal seems like a recipe for delight. The Treefolk can survive Festercreep.

Where Art Thou, Sensation Gorgers?

I'm not sure this one came from Kermit, but the fact remains: Goblins were nowhere to be seen. I'm talking B/R Goblins here, folks. They may not have all the speed or consistency of, say, a Kithkin deck -- but they make up for it with the three R's: removal, reach, and recursion. We have a bit of work to do with this list for the week, but I think we can crank out a competitor from Millar's shell. Or we could start from scratch! I think the Goblins need to get into the mix. A diverse blend of aggro strategies makes things scarier for control decks.

They Might Be Giants, But Are They Competitive?

Another option for the uncommitted are the giants, heavily supported by Changelings. There are apparently two varieties of Giants: the red-green giants and the red-white giants. Those two decks may need to merge, meld, swap cards (Millar was restrained to 4x each card for the whole project, so we'll need to bolster his experiments), but they are two forks off the same path. A good path? Let's find out!

Captain Planet, Eat Your Heart Out

How many flavors of elementals could there be? LECLERC tried a three-color (UBR) elementals build and did pretty darn well. There's also the two-color build (probably either blue-red or black-red) and maybe even a mono-red build. Red has some pizzazz and some depth in this block, and it will be a trusty friend and a loyal stalwart. I expect to see more and more elementals as the format develops and grows.

There are surely other options, but these listed above represent the decks I was surprised not to see. Luckily, the format is still young enough and unstable enough that even if every single player switched to a whole new deck, the earth's rotation would not reverse. I challenge you to do just that!