Evidently impatient about her new cards, Marianas still managed to sail into a first place finish using the classic Path To Middiogin Majik/Majik Wishing Well draw package in combination with a Majik Mask focus. The two new Mask exalted cards, Legendary Majik Mask - Many Faces, and Majik Mask Monstrosity, Malediction, have offered some impressive recursive recovery power to the archetype.

Coupled with powerful Majik Void stax pieces, and everyone's favourite Twilight package, and we've got a Bounty Brew with a surprising amount of power.

While I did expect the Majik variant of Marianas to continue to be a solid option, it'll be incredibly interesting to see how the more midrange versions of Marianas leaning into the powerful Bounty Stax pieces stack up against the more aggressive version of Marianas we'll see bolstered with the release of her structure deck.

A deck long overdue for a tournament placement, Merrisod was able to find great success in this tournament with a single addition from ELP: Terrafirma, The Crater Quake Dragon. The addition of an incredibly useful high attack Dragon is a great pair with the incredibly powerful Dragon Tail Beatdown from GCD.

Several other cards from GCD including Dragon Dangerclaw and Geode, Crystal Scales Dragon, have given the deck solid strengths in pushing incremental damage and ripping boardstates apart for a while, although the deck hasn't seen much high level experimentation until now.

One of the most appealing factors of Dragons is it's strength against control decks like Gaia and Mal'ady, but the deck was able to find strong performance still in a meta lacking either list. 

Notably, I did find the deck to struggle a bit against Grimm. Their average deck starts can be incredibly difficult to upend without cards like Spirits Of The Brackus Pond, and Sunrise, Consumed By Courage.

A well-known competitor with a well-known Warlord, but this time with a new twist on the focus of the deck. While Pat stuck with Sharn Aggro, his top-8 build of the deck brought in the new Orcbane tools centered around Wartorn Wasteland.

With Sildud's Call finding Orcbane Wildness, and We Bleed For This as a split-second backline destroyer, this deck has more opportunities to shut down control tools than almost any other. 

While Boars aggro is likely the more consistent list with access to Desolation Outpost Of The Outer Rim, Outer Rim Exclusion Zone, and Temple Of Duskzog.

Regardless, it'll be interesting to see how these two builds stack up in the ELP metagame.

Speaking of an old archetype learning new tricks, our 6th place Alero list splashes into a multitude of archetypes, but focusing on the new tools afforded to the Magi, paired with the Stronghold Of The Mortal Flame Wall Synergies.

Ancient Magi Academy and Sanctum Of The Ancient Magi offer interesting value/removal options with the ability to push in burn damage in conjunction with Cornelius, The Magi Changeling, one of only 4 Warriors in the deck.

The Wall tools in the deck then offer the other win-con pieces, alongside a handful of Ancient Relics.

From there a huge splashing of Hero Fortified cards give the deck plenty of options when in comes to controlling the game.

As a huge fan of Castiel, I was incredibly excited to see the Warlord make top 8, and this list explores a selection of interesting new pieces for angels.

For one, this deck carries an interesting burn gameplan backed by Steadfast Courage. While this adds 4 total damage to Lost Messiah Soul Archer, Esme, it also has a sweet synergy with Majik Mask - Three Eye Dark alongside either Archon or Mastema. This combo gives you the ability to crash into your opponent's Warriors repeatedly, with Condemn/Superiority hitting face.

We can also see The Grand Ascendent Foundry in play here, as a strong way to find additional copies of your important Angel cards, while also picking up a couple of holy counters all the while.

From the other half of the Divinity Realm, we can see Michael experimenting with similar tools to Castiel, namely Mastema, The Divine Prosecutor, and Bastion Of Holy Light.

Mastema is comparable to Archon, Avenger Of Light, as a big beater with the ability to push damage face, albeit losing Rift, and the ability to be tutored by Help From The Chaos Divine. On the other side however, it can be found using Angelic Blitz Strike, which this deck also pairs with Rochciel, Seraphim Gladiator as a secondary tutor target. In addition to tutoring out your high-attack Warriors, Shockwave and Gust are a great pairing for removing all kinds of Warriors, and getting additional value out of yours by triggering Perishes, or reusing abilities like Wisdom.

Additionally, Seraphim Rectitude is a nice Angel equivalent to Dismantle for Michael.