Worlds Top 8, seeded:
1. Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa, BRA (UB Control)
2. Love Janse, SWE (Eldrazi Green)
3. Guillaume Wafo-Tapa, FRA (UB Control)
4. Guillaume Matignon, FRA (UB Control)
5. Eric Froehlich, USA (B/r Vampires)
6. Lukas Jaklovsky, CZE (UB Control)
7. Christopher Wolf, AUT (UB Control)
8. Jonathan Randle, ENG (UW Control)

5:22 PM, Saturday: Wizards is offering a live webcast of the Top 8 competition at their website, www.wizards.com. I'll encourage all of you to watch the video feed live, as it will be more entertaining and more informative than anything I could write up in the moment. @magicprotour on Twitter has been a particular brand of awesome in terms of getting breaking news on The Internet 🙂

Worlds is my favorite time of the year for Magic, and this year has been no exception. Enjoy the rest of the tournament 🙂 Analysis to follow throughout the next week!

5:45 AM, Saturday: Standard results for each top 8 competitor:

1. Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa : 5-1
2. Love Janse : 4-2
3. Guillaume Wafo-Tapa : 6-0
4. Guillaume Matignon : 3-3
5. Eric Froehlich : 6-0
6. Lukas Jaklovsky : 6-0
7. Christopher Wolf : 5-1
7. Jonathan Randle: 3-3

5:05 AM, Saturday: Top 8 Standard decklists have been revealed!

The brackets are as follows:

Damo da Rosa, UB Control versus Randle, UW Control
Janse, Eldrazi Green versus Wolf, UB Control
Wafo-Tapa, UB Control versus Jaklovsky, UB Control
Matignon, UB Control versus Froehlich, B/r Vampires

If I may be so bold as to make predictions...

Damo da Rosa should have the edge in the Blue Control semi-mirror. Both players pack 4 Tectonic Edges, both players have 2 Jace Beleren and 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor, but Damo da Rosa has a more threatening creature suite with 3 Grave Titan versus Randle's 3 Baneslayer Angels, and Damo da Rosa has a much more versatile sideboard to go along with 4 Inquisition of Kozilek in the maindeck.

My pick: Damo da Rosa in 4 games.

Christopher Wolf might have a slight edge in his matchup against Eldrazi Green in a 3-game set, but Janse packs 4 Acidic Slimes and an extra Eye of Ugin in his sideboard. With up to four games postboard, I like his chances. I'm not sure if he's going to bring in the Oracle of Mul Daya as well, but that could prove further problematic. Wolf, for his part, has 3 Flashfreeze and 2 Mindbreak Trap that could be relevant.

My pick: Love Janse in 5 games.

Guillaume Wafo-Tapa is a master of Blue Control. Here he is again playing the deck, this time in a mirror match against Lukas Jaklovsky. Both decks are going to board into a very similar configuration most likely, and the 75-card lists are not very different. As such, I like Wafo-Tapa's chances to advance.

My pick: Guillaume Wafo-Tapa in 4 games.

Guillaume Matignon is playing an identical 75 to fellow Frenchman Wafo-Tapa [Note: MTGSalvation user Kengy pointed out that this is, indeed, not the case. Wafo-Tapa sports 2 Stoic Rebuttal and 1 Jace Beleren versus Matignon's 1 Cancel, 1 Deprive, and 1 Disfigure. Thanks! -Dylan]. Eric Froehlich is playing a standard B/r Vampires list. Froehlich's 3 maindeck Dark Tutelage will probably be his most important card here. Notably, he has maindeck Vampire Hexmage (notable against Jace), but is missing the 4th Viscera Seer. He has 3 Duress and a Sarkhan the Mad waiting for him in the sideboard. Matignon, for his part, has 2 maindeck Consume the Meek and 3 Ratchet Bomb in the sideboard. He also has 2 Disfigure maindeck and 2 more in the sideboard to replace the otherwise-dead Doom Blades. Overall I like Froehlich's chances in this match, although Matignon appears to be as well-prepared as any UB Control deck could be against the B/r Vampires threat. Spreading Seas, Disfigure, and Consume the Meek should be too much for the Vampires to handle.

My pick: Guillaume Matignon in 5 games.

4:18 AM, Saturday: First look at a Polymorph decklist from deckbuilding genius Akira Asahara. I believe this is the man to credit for Squadron Hawk Control in Standard, as well.

Bitterblossom (and Black's disruption team of Duress & Thoughtseize) make this deck much, much, much scarier than last season's Standard decks along the same line (using Awakening Zone and Khalni Garden to make tokens).

A few oddities. There's a Murmuring Bosk, but no Green or White in the deck. It's important to note that this allows Misty Rainforest to fetch up a Blue source or a Black source, which is most likely the reason for inclusion. And I wonder how necessary a second Emrakul is? This deck has Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Thoughtseize to purge it from hand. That being said, Asahara is very well-versed in building decks so I have to imagine he considered all of this.

I like the mini transformation in the sideboard with the Wurmcoil Engines. From the sounds of the coverage, this is a card that's been popping up quite frequently throughout the format.

Asahara was 3-2 with his brew going into the 6th and final Extended round. Full round 18 results are not public yet.

4:03 AM, Saturday: Of course, it's a little anticlimactic to report this after finding the Top 8, but this is the part that I know most of you are interested in for Extended coverage. Here is the composition of the Extended field at Worlds 2010:

Jund, 48, 15.2% of the field
"Vivid" Control, 41, 13.0%
Scapeshift, 32, 10.1%
Faeries, 30, 9.5%
GW Hideaway, 28, 8.9%
White Weenie, 21, 6.7%
Elves, 17, 5.4%
Merfolk, 17, 5.4%
Polymorph, 13, 4.1%
Mono Red, 13, 4.1%
Doran, 7, 2.2%
Pyromancer Ascension, 7, 2.2%
Reveillark, 7, 2.2%
Tempered Steel, 7, 2.2%
Others, 28, 8.9%

Broken down further (subjective groupings, this is rough at best):

Aggro: 120, 39.0%
Aggro-Control/Midrange: 47, 15.3%
Control: 60, 19.5%
Combo: 81, 26.3%

With 8 unaccounted for without seeing the decklists.

More deck analysis to come as soon as decklists are made available!

3:38 AM, Saturday: @magicprotour on Twitter looks to be implying that Love Janse and Adam Witton played out their match, and Janse was victorious. Sorry Australia. 🙁

That means your World Champion will be one of the following:

Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa, BRA
Guillaume Matignon, FRA
Guillaume Wafo-Tapa, FRA
Lukas Jaklovsky, CZE
Eric Froehlich, USA
Christopher Wolf, AUT
Love Janse, SWE
Jonathan Randle, ENG

Pending final standings... [Note: Final standings in, this is your Top 8!]

3:28 AM, Saturday: on Twitter confirms that da Rosa, Matignon, Wafo-Tapa, Jaklovsky, and Froehlich have all drawn into the Top 8. Congratulations!

12:15 AM, Saturday: Thanks to @magicprotour and @rtassicker from Twitter, it looks as if the three players sporting this deck are Conley Woods (@conley81), David Williams (@dwpoker) and Eric Froehlich (@efropoker). Pretty solid players to say the least! 😉 From one professional poker player to a couple of others: Keep kicking ass with this awesome brew!

11:59 PM, Friday: We have a decklist! Lots of combos!

What Makes This Deck Tick

Necrotic Ooze is a card that I've been trying to find a home in Standard for months. It's also been featured in some of Gerry Thompson's (and other's) brews breaking Survival of the Fittest in Legacy. Above is Conley Woods' take on an Extended deck featuring the Scars of Mirrodin rare. According to @magicprotour, the deck is 5-1 through the first 2 rounds of Extended (played, obviously, by Conley Woods and two others), with the only loss coming from a misplay.

So how does it actually work?

4 Fauna Shaman
4 Necrotic Ooze

This engine is the glue that holds the deck together. With these two creatures in play and without summoning sickness (we'll get to Thornling later), you can start to do some degenerate things. Note that, with a Fauna Shaman in the graveyard, Necrotic Ooze can pull double-duty by turning on the rest of the combo.

4 Devoted Druid

Fauna Shaman is normally limited to a single activation per turn. However, with a Devoted Druid in your graveyard, Necrotic Ooze gains the ability, "Put a -1/-1 counter on Necrotic Ooze: Untap Necrotic Ooze." Most notably, that allows you activate Necrotic Ooze's "G, T, Discard a creature card: Search your library for a creature card, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library," c/o Fauna Shaman. Conveniently, Necrotic Ooze's 4/3 body allows you to do this twice without expiring. Every Green mana you have open can potentially be another Fauna Shaman activation with a Necrotic Ooze in play.

That is, until Quillspike hits the graveyard.

1 Quillspike

Assuming all of the pieces are in the graveyard for Necrotic Ooze to borrow their activated abilities, Quillspike and Devoted Druid allow you to generate infinite mana (Tap Necrotic Ooze for G thanks to Devoted Druid, or for any color thanks to Birds of Paradise, then put a -1/-1 counter on it from Devoted Druid to untap it, and remove a -1/-1 counter from Necrotic Ooze to give it +3/+3 thanks to Quillspike. Quillspike is like the turbo-speed button for the deck.

1 Molten-Tail Masticore

Molten-Tail Masticore gives you an incredible outlet for your infinite Green mana. Fauna Shaman tutors for it, and with a deck full of creatures, you can probably deal enough damage to win (though it's important to note that it's not infinite damage, just infinite mana). Masticore also gives Necrotic Ooze Regeneration, and the upkeep cost is not copied.

1 Grim Poppet

When in the graveyard with a Devoted Druid, Necrotic Ooze gains the ability to distribute infinite -1/-1 counters among any number other target creatures.

1 Thornling

You can make infinite Green mana, you can kill every creature on the board, or you can just grow your Necrotic Ooze to massive proportions. Too bad you can't give it Haste (remember Anger in old-school Reanimator circa Odyssey Block?). Except with Thornling, you can. And you can make your Necrotic Ooze Indestructible, or give it Trample, for G. Note that Path to Exilecan still be a problem.

1 Shriekmaw

Removal you can tutor for with Fauna Shaman. Solid.

2 Primal Command

This card pretty much does anything. Tutor + lifegain, land destruction + tutor, land destruction + graveyard hate, or any other combination thereof. Look at this deck so far, and try to imagine fighting against it with a Control deck in this format. What the hell do you pick to answer? It looks like there are so many threats, and answering any non-Ooze threat just threatens to power up any Necrotic Oozes up anyway when they finally do hit play.

Yikes.

2 Makeshift Mannequin

This might be my favorite part of the deck. Instant speed Necrotic Ooze? Gotcha. Multiple uses out of Reveillark (with Fulminator Mage and Acidic Slime to abuse)? Sure thing.

4 Acidic Slime
4 Fulminator Mage
2 Tectonic Edge

This is extra awesome. Nonbasic lands are going to be everywhere this season. We all already know that. This 10-pack of land destruction should be enough to keep your opponent off of a color (Or that critical second or third of a color - Yes, I'm looking at you, Cryptic Command). Especially when combined with Fauna Shaman to find a Reveillark to abuse these 2-power creatures, I would not look forward to sitting across from this deck with any sort of 4- or 5CC style of deck.

4 Thoughtseize

And as if all that disruption wasn't enough... Because the combo package is all creature-based and you have Fauna Shaman, there is so much built-in redundancy to the combo package. This frees up a ton of extra space for the deck to cram in all of this utility and disruption.

Mana

4 Birds of Paradise
3 Swamp
3 Forest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
4 Twilight Mire
1 Murmuring Bosk
1 Misty Rainforest

The five fetchlands help find Murmuring Bosk, which is the only way (alongside Birds of Paradise, of course) to cast Reveillark. Again, an extremely efficient package, this time to provide White mana with only 1 truly extra card (Murmuring Bosk itself - the Verdant Catacombs would be present anyway, and Misty Rainforest should often be the same as a Forest otherwise.

Twilight Mire, Gilt-Leaf Palace and Verdant Catacombs form the basis for a rock solid G/B manabase. Ironically, having such amazing options for pretty much any color combination allows for some extremely creative mana bases, but also provides a huge liability when it comes to cards like Fulminator Mage or Anethemancer.

All in all, an extremely cool deck. I'm pretty certain that this will be one of the big forces when it comes to the upcoming PTQ season.

10:55 PM, Friday: Hello and welcome back once again to The Brewery!

Tonight figures to be a big night for fans of Magic: the Gathering's Constructed formats... The first round of Extended at Worlds, 2010 in Chiba, Japan has already finished!

Rumor has it that Conley Woods (and others perhaps) have broken Necrotic Ooze. Will it use Quillspike and Devoted Druid? Gigantomancer? Something else entirely? I'm excited to see. 🙂

Meanwhile, what will the rest of the field look like?

Check back with Quiet Speculation throughout the night for up-to-the-minute news and analysis of the event and format! For The Brewery's live analysis of Standard's Caw-Go deck (as played by Brian Kibler), check here.