Flaring Pain

The Top 8 is familiar territory for professional Magic player Dave Humpherys. With over $130,000 in career winnings and a Pro Tour championship on his resume, "The Hump" advanced to the Worlds semifinals for the second year in a row where he lost to eventual champion Daniel Zink. The blue-green madness deck he played has been a Standard mainstay for more than a year. It revolves around Torment madness cards like Basking Rootwalla and Circular Logic, together with discard-enablers like Aquamoeba and Wild Mongrel. Humpherys, who recently earned his Ph.D. from MIT, credits this version of the deck to Norway's Sigurd Eskeland.

Daniel Zink, a student from Bochum, Germany, players the control deck that defined this year's World Championships. The white-blue-green "Wake" deck is named after the powerful enchantment that's the heart of the deck. Once Mirari's Wake is in play, the deck produces more mana, draws more cards, counters more spells, and makes more Soldiers than opponents can possibly handle. Zink had help from fellow German and 2002-2003 Player of the Year Kai Budde in adapting the "Wake" deck to the post—Eigth Edition environment.

Counter target spell unless its controller pays 1 for each card in your graveyard. Madness U (If you discard this card, discard it into exile. When you do, cast it for its madness cost or put it into your graveyard.)

Hometown hero Peer Kröger played his own version of the classic "Reanimator" deck to an impressive record during this year's World Championships. The twenty-eight-year-old communications and computer science student nicknamed his deck "Herbert Wise" after the famous H. P. Lovecraft work "Herbert Wise—Reanimator." Winning with this deck is a two-step process: Step 1. Use Entomb or Buried Alive to quickly get daunting creatures into the graveyard. Step 2. Bring the creature back to life with Zombify or Doomed Necromancer. The mostly black deck also uses Burning Wish to find just the right answers to deal with opponents' plans.