Grand Prix: Shanghai has concluded this weekend, bringing a varied and interesting Top 8 for us to digest. First, though, let's recap from last week.

• I talked about an innovative bigger mono-red aggro deck that could be great post-rotation.
• We saw a host of Den Protectors and Deathmist Raptors, the most of any event so far.
• Esper Dragons didn't place in the Top 8.
• Mardu Dragons saw some high-profile attention.
• Collected Company gained $3 as people played it alongside both their Raptors and Den Protectors.

Let's see how that stacks up to this week. The decks to beat last week used near-infinite recursion of Den Protector to bring back Raptors. The natural way to beat that is by flying over top, and that's what many successful players ended up doing. Our Raptors only showed up in one deck--the winning one. Let's dive into this Top 8 and mine it for finance.

R/G Devotion Is a Natural Foil to Raptors

What's the best way to deal with small, deadly lizards? Bigger ones that fly! Three R/G Devotion decks managed to Top 8. Their common goal was to gum up the ground, ramp and eventually land one of the three-of Dragonlord Atarka to cruise to victory. An 8/8 flier puts things away pretty fast. The decks could also fall back on Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and other assorted planeswalkers.

One big theme I picked up on was that each of these decks ran a full set of Whisperwood Elemental. That card originally caught on fire with the G/W Devotion deck sporting Mastery of the Unseen. Well, the Elemental is still a great card in a world full of Crux of Fate.

It's $7.50 now, down from about $14 at its high and $11 more recently. I had not expected it to drop below $10, so I am happy to see it affordable right now. The Elemental is going to still be great going forward, and 12 copies across the three Devotion decks is pretty good. Interestingly, one Abzan Aggro deck even packed one on the sideboard!

Actions: I've talked about Whisperwood Elemental because I think it can live beyond a R/G Devotion deck. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the deck rotates. It's got great acceleration and even a stellar dump for mana in Polukranos. Pumping 24 mana into that guy is satisfying.

Aside from that, though, what's worth ramping to? In the fall, will we even have the tools to hit See the Unwritten? Will we have the time to cast Ugin? I'm recommending that you avoid the other cards in here, which isn't exactly a cutting-edge controversial position.

Dragons Are Still Everywhere

I want to talk now about three cards: Thunderbreak Regent, Haven of the Spirit Dragon and Crux of Fate. We can understand a great deal of our metagame with these three cards.

The Regent has been a potent monster since printing. When we were first looking for value in DTK, he was an easy one. Even an event deck printing hasn't done much to dampen his luster. I'm seeing him in Mardu Dragons and R/G Dragons, among other concepts.

The format is shifting to sacrifice-based removal, so his "Bolt you in response" ability isn't as great. On the other hand, the ramping decks can toss out a ton of Elves and Caryatids to die to an edict.

Haven of the Spirit Dragon has started enabling downright crazy strategies. Makihito Mihara posted a perfect record of 9-0 on Day One with a four-color Dragons list. He went on to an astounding 10th place finish. Yuuya Watanabe made 11th with the same deck. If either had done a little better, this would have been a totally different Top 8.

It was through Havens that Mihara could cast and recast his monsters. It allowed him to run Silumgar in a deck that preferred to be Bant, for instance. Haven is such a low-cost land to run that players are packing them anywhere they have dragons. The reason is clear: dragons are hard enough to kill the first time, much less on the rebound.

It has made cards like Silumgar's Scorn a bit worse, for instance. If you countered my Ugin once, you better be able to hit him again. It was at PT:DTK that we first started seeing Havens show up and I'd wager most of the control decks at that event wouldn't be able to handle the number of Havens that are around now.

Finally, Crux of Fate has been popping up in non-dragon decks. Abzan is often sporting two copies of Crux in the 75 as a reset button and a way to kill hexproof dragons. Abzan is the deck to beat and little elements of tech like this are good to watch.

Crux has been trending downward and is about $3.15 right now. I'm going to wait for it to hit about $3. This is that card that people will groan about paying $5 for later in the year.

Actions: To make a bet on Haven or Crux is to make a bet on whether you think Dragonlords and Thunderbreak Regent will continue to define the metagame. If you're not confident that this (frankly rare) era of big gold creatures will continue, then divest those cards. If you see them playing a role down the road, invest.

I'm fascinated by how much we still have left to explore with the dragons. Dromoka is a Baneslayer Angel of sorts, for example. She is $7.50 and is the next Dragonlord to hit $15. Silumgar was Mihara's favorite removal spell. It's a good chance in my mind that this hodgepodge of dragons will be hard to beat for the next year.

Esper Dragons Is Pretty Close to Dead

Out of 900 competitors, five Esper Dragons players made Day Two. I was surprised it was that many. The deck of Silumgar's Scorn and Dissolve has sat back for awhile. It could shred Jeskai Tokens decks with its Drown in Sorrow but cannot compete with Deathmist Raptor recursion. Even simple Den Protectors or Havens pulling back countered spells have proved enough to overwhelm the one-for-one based deck.

What Esper Dragons wants is a better comes-into-play ability on its finishers. It's got things like Silumgar and Ojutai and even Pearl Lake Ancient, so it's not bereft of a good killer. The deck needs something that will draw four cards or nuke a bunch of lands or something else swingy.

As it is, those dragons are dying to crappy little Den Protectors bringing back spare copies. When everything must be countered, something will always get through.

Quick Hits

Let's roll through some important things that need not merit a paragraph of explanation.

• It's always wise to look at what the Japanese players are running. They often think differently with list building and four-color Dragons is no exception. Haven of the Spirit Dragon is a four-of in that deck and at $4.50 right now. It's far more abundant than Mana Confluence is print-wise but I could still see Haven run up closer to $10. It's played in similar numbers.
• Mono-Red is on the fringes, in part because it has such a rough time beating 3/3's like the Raptor.
• The winning deck has 61 cards. If you were sitting next to me, you'd see my eyes rolling right now.
• Hornet Queen is the natural answer to most of this dragon foolishness.
• Elspeth, Sun's Champion continues to do solid work in this metagame. She blocks Raptors, blows up dragons and more. It's a shame we're losing her so soon.

Until next week--if something happens, you'll read about it here!

-Doug