Choking Sands

Destroy target artifact or enchantment.

Kühn, a fifteen-year-old high-school student from Hanover, Germany, played a red, white, and blue deck with a balanced mix of speed and control. It uses cards like Incinerate and Swords to Plowshares to deal with opponents' fast creatures, while increasing the mana base with Thawing Glaciers. For late in the game, Disintegrate and Hammer of Bogardan are excellent finishing cards.

Šlemr, a twenty-year-old computer analyst from Prague in the Czech Republic, said that he wasn't happy with his deck's 3—4 performance in the Standard (Type II) portion of the tournament. However, it came through for him in the elimination rounds. A black weenie deck at heart, it dips into all five colors. It also features a number of creatures that have an effect on entering play, like Man-o'-War, Uktabi Orangutan, and Nekrataal.

McCabe, a nineteen-year-old college student from Toronto, Canada, played a fast red-blue attacking deck. The deck's main strategy is to put the opponent on the defensive, using a large number of inexpensive, efficient creatures such as Suq'Ata Lancer, Cloud Elemental, Ophidian, and Man-o'-War. It also makes good use of several "pitch" spells like Force of Will and Pyrokinesis.