{"id":1465,"date":"2012-10-17T08:46:52","date_gmt":"2012-10-17T12:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ajmtg.com\/?p=1465"},"modified":"2012-10-17T08:46:52","modified_gmt":"2012-10-17T12:46:52","slug":"a-joes-path-to-top-8-at-states-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ajmtg.com\/?p=1465","title":{"rendered":"A Joes Path to Top 8 at States 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here and I think that with this recent triumph\u00a0marks an\u00a0appropriate time\u00a0for me to write again.\u00a0 Two of the Average Joes Team made it to top 8 for the 2012 Florida States tournament, congrats to Shawn Ellis and Bryan Elliott (myself).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The states tournament had the largest turnout in its history with 251 of the best players in the state showing up to compete.<\/p>\n

Preparing for this tournament for me started about 2 weeks before Return to Ravnica was released.\u00a0 I literally had probably 20 lists by myself that I was contemplating on playing at states.\u00a0 I actually had a U\/W\/R list made up 1 week before it won the SCG Cincinnati tournament, so when it won the tournament I felt very confident I may end up playing a similar list.\u00a0 Unfortunately after playing it for a couple days I found that the deck relied too heavily on Entreat the Angels<\/a> and simply lacked a solid win condition other than that; so I backed off of the idea.<\/p>\n

Shawn Ellis in the meantime was working on restructuring a deck that he has had great success with over the past 6 months, taking down a 5k, top 8ing in a 2k, and crushing any competition in the mean time.\u00a0 This deck is known as Grites, or Griselbrand Rites.\u00a0 It was originally\u00a0 a B\/W\/R list packing powerful cards like Whipflare<\/a>, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite<\/a>, Griselbrand<\/a>, and Liliana of the Veil<\/a>.\u00a0 But with Return to Ravnica alot of the deck was lost.<\/p>\n

The thing is, the deck gained so much more than we ever thought.\u00a0 With shock lands being reprinted the mana was no longer an issue, so we tried new cards out which previously couldn’t be played because of mana problems such as Mulch<\/a> and Wild Guess<\/a>.\u00a0 With the addition of Angel of Serenity<\/a>, which we severely underestimated when it was spoiled, the deck became almost unbeatable in playtesting.<\/p>\n

Then came the addition of Thragtusk<\/a>, mostly to deal with Rakdos Aggro and Zombie matchups, which the deck seemed weak against.\u00a0 And let me tell you guys something, there is nothing better than cycling through infinite Thragtusk<\/a> with Angel of Serenity<\/a>.\u00a0 It is ABSURD!<\/p>\n

In the end, as you can tell if you’ve read the article thus far, Shawn and I decided on 4-color Grites as the most powerful deck in the format with the greatest chance to do well at States.<\/p>\n

Here is my list:<\/p>\n

Bryan Elliott - GRITES - States 2012 - Florida <\/h4><\/div><\/div>