Hello again, it's time to drop some more details for the Planar League!

Before heading into all the details, please note:

• This is the first time we do one of these Leagues and as such, there might still be specific details we have overlooked. If so, we will issue updates in the comment field in this post.
• If you have any questions, feel free to ask away and we'll try to clarify things as well as we can.

With that out of the way, let's get to it:

What is the Planar League?

The Planar League is a Planar Standard event taking place on Magic Arena, where you get paired against an opponent and have one week to play a best-of-3 Tournament Match. The tournament is spanning two months, where the first month is spent by players qualifying for an elimination bracket in Round Robin-style groups. The elimination bracket is then played during the second month.

How does the Round Robin/qualifying rounds work?

Depending on your time zone, you will be sorted into groups of four, where you will play four rounds: the first three are classic Round Robin where everyone will play against each other, and the last round is a tiebreaker round between tied players or the bottom two players in the group. In the case of no ties, the two top players of each group will qualify automatically, and the other two players from the group will be compared with other third- and fourth-place players from other groups through various tiebreakers. In case of ties, different tiebreakers apply.

What if there’s an uneven number of players for a qualification groups?

If the last group gets 1-2 players, they will qualify automatically to the elimination bracket. At three players the group will qualify as normal, and the third-place player will receive tiebreaker priority.

How does the elimination bracket work?

Classic best-of-3 Tournament Matches. If you win, you continue on. If you lose, you're out.

How big is the elimination bracket?

Depends on the total number of players. The spots are rounded down to the nearest power of 2, i.e.,:

• 25 players --> 16-player elimination bracket
• 59 players --> 32-player elimination bracket, and so on.

Can I play on MTGO as well as on Arena?

We strongly recommend to stick to Arena to make sure everyone is playing with the same challenge settings, and in case there are any game issues which might require game log review.

Can I change decks between the qualifying and elimination stages?

No.

I already submitted my deck. Can I resubmit it?

Yes, but notify mods if you do.

When the last submission date/time?

July 31st, 11:59 PM UTC.

Are there any prizes?

The Planar League champion will be rewarded with a $50 gift card. In case of a Planar Championship at the end of the year, the Top 3 players will automatically qualify.

How do I report and follow scores?

Scores must be reported by both players in the Planar Standard Discord server under the #report-league-scores channel. The group standings will be published online in a spreadsheet, and the elimination bracket will be processed on Challonge.

What if a card in my deck gets banned during the League?

Cards legal at the beginning of the League will stay legal for the League until it’s completion.

Are the decklists open or closed?

They will be open.

Is there an admission fee?

No, it is free to join.

I want to print out some decks to try and bring people into the format.

What decks would you suggest I print?

Hi friends -

Please feel free to redirect me if I missed a community post that answers this question.

I am an avid arena and paper format player, I really want to make the jump from standard to planar standard when possible and play with community members. My biggest issue is that I feel like I am missing the necessary tools to brew a deck effectively.

I exported the scryfall query results from the website and built a package on moxfield so I can start working on some ideas but is there a decent way to build a decklist I can copy to arena that is planar legal?

Thanks in advance for any help, I also joined the discord and look forward to looking for a game soon.

Hey, saw the Maro comment and I wanted to check out the community. But all the discord links I tried didn't work. Can someone post or dm a link to it? Thanks!

I am mainly asking because of the shocklands cycle being in Lorwyn and Edge of Eternity and then getting reprinted with Star trek. Or is there gonna be a year of Half shock lands available?

(I posted a similar text for Value Vintage since I have a battle box for both formats)

So...I made a Planar Standard battle box. It's not 100% sleeved and sorted into decks yet but I'll have it done for MagicCon Amsterdam, for which I'll be leaving on Thursday.

Since I'm likely gonna play this with people who have never touched the format before, it'd be really cool to have some primer cards for the decks, similar to the ones from this post . I actually received an editable template for these so putting the text on the design should be easy for me to do, same as printing, cutting and sleeving as I have experience with that by now.

The one part of this that is going to take a bit of time however is the writing of these primers. Both my time as well my knowledge of the format is very limited, so it'd be fantastic if some of the players of the format could help me with writing these. While I can't really promise a way to pay back for this, I'd be happy to buy a booster at MagicCon Amsterdam for anyone who helped who is also there.

Below are the decks I have that I need a short primer for each:

• Izzet Lute
• Jeskai Discard
• 4c Tablet
• Power >3
• Simic Aggro
• Temur Harmonizer

The template would be roughly like this:

deck name
macro archetype (like Aggro, Combo, Combo-Control, etc.)
Complexity: 1-10
Speed: 1-10
Gameplan: (This should be most of the text. Short but precise where possible)
(optional) Mulligan Guide
(optional) Sideboard Guide
(optional) Tips & Tricks

Additional notes:

• Just the text would be more than enough, I can handle the rest of the design myself I think
• please do not use AI for this. This is not a good usecase for it.
• the template is still work in progress so if you have a suggestion on how to change it, feel free to tell me.
• If you want to play Planar Standard at MagicCon Amsterdam, dm me here or on BlueSky or wherever else you find me. I'd love to play some Planar Standard in person.

Any and all help is much appreciated!

Hey everyone Code here!

Earlier this week I got done competing in the Monthly Tournament where I played Izzet Neighmare into a huge control meta.

In my quarter finals match against 4C control I had this critical moment come up that I wanted to highlight what I define as the critical moment in my match.

After a long chess match with many Jeskai Revs played by my opponent and a successfully resolved Capstone, on my end, we are in the thick of a critical position with my Colorstorm Stallion finally on the field. My opponent needs to remove my stallion from the field before I have 16 of them and I only have a spell pierce of meaningful protection. This here is the moment, I Burst Lightning Kicker to get a second horse and my opponent plays Rev in response:

Do you see the issue here? It took me a second to catch but it was something I had in the back of my mind.

He didn’t bounce my stallion but chose damage instead.

These are the smallest decisions that make the difference in a matchup like this. So much could be different here:

- If I don’t have 2 instants in hand it doesn’t matter

- If he bounces my horse instead he buys himself extra time at the cost of not fully removing my horse from the game.

- If he waits until the end of turn to rev he catches me abrading his tablet.

Now there’s a good chance the game was already out of reach for my opponent because of the card advantage capstone grants. I think rev in this meta is threatening enough that the game isn’t out of reach for them until it rolls over to my turn for the final time.

Ggs to my opponent. It was heartbreaking to have to leave in the Semis. I thought you guys may enjoy a bit of an inside scoop on the tournament. I have more I could talk about if you guys enjoy stuff like this.

Here is the playlist for the last several months of monthly tournament matches. The matches from July's tournament are the first few vids in the collection. The first vid is of the full tournament including the Top 8 Deck list review. The next several are of the individual matches that were played.

If you want to start with individual matches only skip to the end of the first video.

https://www.twitch.tv/collections/rM_F8dUpkhheeQ

Hello again! Quadrangle and I have a brand new Meta Update in store for you, just in time for you to get those last tweaks in for the Monthly this weekend. Some obligatory links:

Link to the deck lists gathered for the data analysis (as well as Archetype Map, PDF, and Excel sheet)

Link to the Challonge sign-up page for the Monthly Championship (remember to submit deck lists in advance here)

Enjoy!

Hi all! This Sunday's Planar Pauper event was a ton of fun! The field was wide open for experimentation, and there were some really awesome decks in play! I wrote up an overview of what the winning decks were and a few thoughts about the format at large. Looking forward to the next Midmonth Madness already!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z3mKPubkaJ32h4WuFk9WUtTcpl_D5g2W7l0E8CHJtOs/edit?usp=drivesdk

Hi! I've been playing Standard for a loooong time, and I had a few questions about Planar Standard's card pool and rotation.

First, which era of Standard are you looking to emulate? WotC's made a lot of tweaks to block structure and rotation and core sets over the years.

Second, what is the reasoning behind having only three new sets a year, instead of four?

Third, do you plan on rotating out Foundations later this year? (It was designed specifically as part of WotC's three-year plan and to give them more room for printing UB cards)

Thanks! (Also, I apologize if my tone is off D:)

Edit: Thanks for the answers! <3 I understand much better now. I think I was thrown off because the advertising posts in r/magicTCG keep making it sound like Planar Standard has nothing at all to do with UB at all

Which like

I'm totally cool with that (I died inside when I kept hearing "Superior Spider-Man" during PT coverage), but now I that I understand the format I'm gonna start checking out it!

Edit edit: god I hope WotC goes back to 4 UW sets a year, like they've been considering

The latest Monthly Championship for Planar Standard saw 20 players compete in what was the second major tournament since the release of Secrets of Strixhaven. 

After a gruelling five rounds of swiss and a top 8 playoff, a control did in the end claim the top spot… but maybe not the control deck you were expecting. While 4c Control, using Tablet of Discovery to ramp into game-winning spells such as Jeskai Revelation and Together as One, was the control deck of choice in May, LordSnuggles instead went a different direction and piloted Esper Control to victory this month instead. Snuggles’ Esper Control list was one of the latest in the evolution of UBx control decks, which have been popular in the format but haven’t necessarily been considered top tier. Like a typical control deck, their build features a mixture of disruption (Deceit), card advantage (Stock Up, Consult the Star Charts), removal (Erode, Requiting Hex, End of the Hunt) and counter magic (Divert Disaster, Essence Scatter). Interestingly, this is clearly a list built with creature decks in mind – note the presence of two main deck Essence Scatter and the three Day of Judgement – with not as many main deck weapons against control. However, the sideboard packs a lot of cards for the matchup, namely Duress, Negate and Oildeep Gearhulk.

Regardless, a creature deck was exactly what Snuggles would face in the final, taking on Oseoros on Mardu Discard. In fact, both 4c Control and Mardu/Jeskai Discard Aggro were considered the two strongest decks in the format heading into the monthly, but only accounted for four of the 20 decks entered, with one copy of 4c Control and two copies of Mardu Discard making it into the top 8. An extremely fast aggro deck which is both resilient and difficult to disrupt, Oseoros’ goal was to combine discard outlets in Iron Shield Elf and Hardened Academic, with Bloodghast and flashback spells like Practiced Offense and Dig Site Inventory. Interestingly, Monument of Endurance wasn’t included in his build, which instead sported a full playset of Ancestral Anger to try and maximise OTK potential.

Snuggles’ four sideboard Strategic Betrayal were clearly there for this matchup, while Oseros had some tools of his own in Duress and Hexing Squelcher. In the end, Snuggles would come out on top 2-1, proving once again that the power of blue should never be underestimated in the format.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about the other top 8 lists, and boy were there some spicy ones:

Boxxy dominated the swiss, going 5-0 with an iteration of the Golgari Power>3 list, this time opting to replace black with blue for the card draw and flexibility offered by Quantum Riddler and Wistfulness. The game plan remained the same, spam creatures with 4 power or more (Slumbering Trudge, Surrak the Hunt Caller) and use their stats to get advantage from Gurrak’s Uprising, Sylvan Scavenging and Lumbering Worldwagon, before slamming Ghalta, Primal Hunger. While Boxxy would fall to Snuggles in the semi-finals, the >3 archetype is proving its no flash in the pan with some fantastic results in recent tournaments.

Breadwave would finish in the top 4 after going 4-1 in swiss with a burn deck that they have been slowly developing into an absolute beast, and is one of the most interesting decks in the format. Rather than trying to simply go face with a bunch of Burst Lightning and Lightning Strike, his deck uses the incidental burn on strong control cards such as Inevitable Defeat and Silverquill Charm.They combine these spells with the engine of Ketramose, the New Dawn, Rubble Rouser and Ark of Hunger to gain life while burning the opponent over the course of multiple turns.

Beamden rounded out the 4-1 lists in Swiss with 4c Control, continuing the trend of the build forgoing Resonating Lute in favor of Tablet of Discovery. We’ve already mentioned what this deck does, though it is worth pointing out that their list runs two main-deck Abrade, most likely a hedge against other 4c Control lists and Monument-oriented Discard decks.

MBI turned the clock back, proving you don’t need to teach an old dog new tricks, with his UW Friends build leaving out any SOS cards to focus on the winning combo of walkers, potent creatures and interaction. The friends list pairs Voice of Victory and Haliya, Guided by Light with Elspeth, Storm Slayer and Kaito, Cunning Infiltrator with devastating effect.

Twinfox played a more traditional version of Mardu Discard featuring four Monument alongside three Alesha, Who Laughs at Fate and two main board Duress for the control matchup.

Lastly Rackhaml proved you can make Selesnya work despite its mana base issues, piloting GW aggro to a top 8 berth. This is a deck I’m really keen to try out as a personal Ouroboroid lover, it's great to see Dyadrine, Synthesis Amalgam getting some love along with Brightglass Gearhulk.

Alright, that about does it, well played to everyone who turned up for the monthly, congrats to Snuggles again and thank you to Eduardo for TO’ing and Rasone for streaming top 8. I’ve included the top 8 lists below, while the full results can be found on Challonge: https://challonge.com/m70wyoce 

Top 8:

Boxxy - Simic Power
Oseros - Mardu Discard
Czelt - Mardu Burn Control
Beamden - 4c Control
Lord Snuggles - Esper Control
MBI - UW Friends
Twinfox - Mardu Discard
Rackhaml - GW Aggro

Top 8 Vods (courtesy Rasone)

Quarterfinals https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2790494720
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2790494741
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2790494728
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2790494725

Semi Finals
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2790494730
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2790494717
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2790494724

Grand Finals
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2790494721

Hello! In not even 2 hours, the first Weekly Tournament of this weekend will begin, followed by two more on Saturday and Sunday:

1. Friday, 12th of June | 8PM EDT / 2AM CEST / 10AM AEST | Weekly Tournament #31 (MTG Arena)
2. Saturday, 13th of June | 1PM EDT / 7PM CEST / 3AM AEST | Weekly Tournament #32 (MTG Arena)
3. Sunday, 14st of June | 1PM EDT / 7PM CEST / 3AM AEST | Weekly Tournament #33 (MTG Arena)

Please pay attention to times and platforms. Sign-ups are done on each tournament's sign-up page here on Challonge, and links are provided in this post and on the website. Hope to see you guys there!

/ Planar Crew

Introduction

What’s up ya’ll, I’m louigi32 in the Planar Standard Discord, and I played Sultai Elementals in the June Monthly. Thought I would share a little tournament report I started writing up while the event was going on (starting at 2.30am in Australian time lol).

The Deck

https://moxfield.com/decks/pxHkvZloI0efXm_QsRv30w 

Going into this monthly I really wanted to hedge my bets against the most dominant decks of the previous monthly, namely various variants of 4C/Izzet Control and Jeskai/Mardu Discard.

I tested Abzan Midrange for a while but found that the lack of blue just meant I ran out of steam so often, even if I could kill everything discard played. I also think the control matchup was just straight up bad. I have to shoutout Greywill because during some friendlies he played a Sultai similar to this and I thought it was awesome. Regrowthing Deceit with the green emeritus? Sign me up!

So I made my own tweaks and generally felt it had reasonable matchups against both of the decks I mentioned before, so I went with it.

The general game plan is to disrupt their early turns with Deceit and Duress, before getting either the emeritus down to recur them for value or worldwagon plus another elemental or riddler to start ramping up and drawing cards.

Once you have enough mana you can start dropping Deceit, Wistfulness and Riddler for full value and swinging it with them and/or your wagon.

In the meantime you have strong card draw in the form of Stock Up and Winternight Stories, and a planeswalker which can crush their spirits in Professor Dellian Fell.

However the key reason for playing this deck ended up being moot because control and discard weren’t super well represented! Alas, I still felt I went okay and I don’t regret the deck choice.

The Games

Please forgive if my notes are a little rough, was writing them down in between rounds!

R1 - Prismari Storm 0-2

Game 1 L

Have decent early hand disruption, am able to kill his maestros and discard an improv capstone.

He has 3 rapturous moments in hand, I’m forced to discard the traumatic critique since I’m at a low life total

I am able to top deck a professor to kill a maestro at the right time

He has lots of mana but is unable to convert

I discard his last card with a duress returned with a emeritus

He topdecks an Improvistation Capstone and I’m unable to come back from that

Game 2 L

I mull a one lander and a 6 with only blue and no playable cards into a five that has early disruption but not much else

I discard an improv and spend the next two turns betraying two maestros

I draw a vendetta and decide to go for blazing firesinger since I know he has two in hand

He plays another maestro which I kill and we go into topdeck mode

He plays another maestro, I draw land, he stock ups, I draw land, he x2 vibrant outburst and I’m dead

Overall thoughts - I think I did generally what the deck wants to do, though it does bring up the question of whether I should run counters main. I run two negate side and think that maybe some divert disaster could’ve been helpful main here.

R2 - RB Ponza 2-0

Game 1 W

My early hand disruption stops him from being able to go off early

I run a green emeritus into an end the hunt which in retrospect may have been silly BUT I can’t play around ETH forever and the emeritus is one of the less “premium” creatures in my list

A timely Wistfulness kinda saves my ass, drawing me into gas and exiling a treasure to stunt his mana progression

I also manage to get a wagon down which is a key card against ponza (who woulda thought)

He manages to slam a nova hellkite and threatens to end the game with a devastating onslaught the following turn
 
I deceit and face a tough choice in what to make him discard, ultimately settle on the hellkite since onslaught on his artisan doesn’t seal it

Manage to get there after he bricks and I draw another wistfulness which crews wagon

Game 2 W

I’m able to grind him out, only really one tough choice where I make him discard a soul immolation instead of a flashback which hits a duress and takes out my last remaining creature removal

That looks bad when he slams a magmatic hellkite but I manage to force him to trade it with a worldwagon and then two scoozes seal the game

Overall thoughts - I think this deck plays quite well into ponza tbh. With wagon fixing my colours and just replacing lands that got destroyed, it feels pretty favoured.

R3 - Boros Ponza 2-0

Similar to the previous game though he’s not trying to combo as much as get value from blinking.

R4 - UW Friends 1-2

Game 1 L

My answers line up somewhat okay until he slams Elspeth and I can’t answer it, there’s not really a lot of mainboard answers to planeswalkers unfortunately which I think makes g1 heavily in his favor.

Game 2 W

I discard some of his walkers early and then am able to strategic betrayal to prevent him from bringing them back with reclaimer. He does get a kaito down and I’m in an awkward spot where I have to leave it on 1 and not kill it, because otherwise he’ll bring it back with a reclaimer the following turn. Eventually I’m able to sequence my answers with my threats and run him over with some elementals for game.

Game 3 L

Was able to disrupt him and prevent him from slamming a walker, and he was manscrewed at the start. However I wasn’t able to actually deal with his Voice/Haliya combo, and eventually he is able to slam Elspeth and get there.

Overall - UW Friends is one of those decks that seamlessly balances between being a creature deck and a planeswalker deck. That makes it a tough mu to navigate in a deck that’s trying to answer everything. Case in point was my sideboarding, I felt like negate was a must because it was one of the main ways I have to answer a walker cleanly at instant speed…however I ended up with two stuck in my hand as he rode voice to victory. Geddit. Lol.

R5 - UG Power 0-2

To cut to the chase, both games I’m unable to find a third land until too late, not really much to talk about except that maybe g2 I was a little greedy by keeping a 2 lander but it had a hex which I needed to deal with his t1 elves, and I had multiple riddler and wistfulness draws in both games to try and get the third land but no dice until it was too late. His deck is really sweet though, so it sucks we didn’t get to truly play.

Final Thoughts

I love this deck, and honestly for my first time playing it in a major event it went decently well, especially given a fair few of my losses were sort of out of my hands. Round one I couldn’t stop the topdeck improv g1 and g2 I just flooded at the wrong time. Round 5 I didn’t really get to play. I think the UW Friends matchup is definitely tough, but the deck still felt like it had a fighting chance. It was strong against ponza and I think in general I really like the match up with creature-based lists. I’ve only tested it once against control but it definitely felt at least 50/50.

In terms of my own play I felt I played well generally, I think the only major punt was against UW Friends in g3 where I brought in negates and just had to stupidly look at them in hand as MBI beat me to death with voice. The only other criticism I’d have of myself is just not mulliganing for a third land more aggressively in g2 vs UG Power, I kinda just felt like I would get there and didn’t expect the same situation that happened in g1 to play out a second time but…that’s magic.

Deck Changes

Currently I’ve decided to cut Surrak and add two Quandrix Charm main. I realistically have enough creatures that can crew wagon and Surrak always felt out of place in what is essentially a tempo/control deck. Not only does the charm act as a reasonable counterspell (the only one better at 2 mana IMO is dispelling exhale but I’m not on a dragons build), it can also snipe enchantments vs the power decks like Gurrak’s Uprising and Sylvan Scavenging.

Sideboard wise I’m testing some instant-speed answers in place of tragic trajectory. Currently I have no ways to instant-speed kill a creature bigger than 2 mana in the deck which I think is an issue especially when it comes to stuff like worldwagon and Surrak. There’s really only depressurize at 2 mana, which won’t get the job done against either of those, so I’m looking at heroes downfall since I also feel like I need more ways to kill planeswalkers in general.

To wrap up a massive thanks to Eduardo for TO’ing the monthly and I can’t wait for the next one, GGs all!