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Antoine Lagarde takes MagicFest Lyon! – "Magic: The Gathering"
The winner of MagicFest Lyon has been decided!
In news that should surprise absolutely nobody, MagicFest Lyon, lasting from November 1st to November 3rd, was dominated by players who used "Food"-based decks. Five of the decks in the Top Eight were based on Food, to be precise. There were other deck archetypes representing the Top Eight, including Azorius (blue-white) Control, Rakdos (red-black) Sacrifice, and Four-Color Sacrifice.
ChannelFireball put it best on the matter of the finals: "In the end, it was Antoine Lagarde (playing Bant Food) who was triumphant, defeating Francisco Jose Gonzalez Hidalgo (playing Sultai Food) in an Oko mirror in the finals."
During Game One of the final round, Gonzalez Hidalgo was mana-screwed with a mere two lands available for many turns. Meanwhile. Lagarde got a chance to capitalize on this issue with the help of Castle Vantress, which allowed Lagarde to scry during any and all opportunities.
During Game Two, Gonzalez Hidalgo managed to curve into a 10/10 Hydroid Krasis after a successful casting of Nissa, Who Shakes The World. This gave him the edge needed to get the win.
Finally, in Game Three, Lagarde managed to cast both the aforementioned Nissa and a copy of Oko, Thief of Crowns in the same turn which let Lagarde break parity to the point of victory.
It's clear that Oko, Thief of Crowns is a rather clear offender when looking into problems with the Standard format, having seen that six of the Top Eight decks use the Elk-making Planeswalker. Without Oko, the Food archetype becomes much more manageable and the format becomes more diverse as a result. But is this the way that competitive Standard ought to be played – as a way to troubleshoot itself? Time will tell before players will get tired of the format as it is, but thankfully Standard is a rapidly-shifting format so it won't be like this for good.
Congratulations to Antoine Lagarde on winning MagicFest Lyon's Grand Prix!