Modern Meta Inspection Post-MKM

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

Before We Start

After the European and Brazilian RCs last time, next up are the US, Canadian, and Japan/Korea RCs.
MKM also happened to release in the middle of all this, adding some new cards to the metagame.
So which new cards made it into the format? Let’s find out.

DEN24 Sat 9:00 - U.S. Regional Championship - presented by Laughing Dragon

Melee link

Let’s start with the US RC. First, congratulations to ClarkShih for finishing 28th with Temur Rhinos and qualifying for PT Seattle!

There were 1,331 players, again split over two days: nine Swiss rounds on day 1, then four Swiss rounds plus a top-8 single-elimination on day 2. Only players at 6-3 (18 points) or better after day 1 advanced to day 2.
The event was streamed on Twitch again, but it was so late that I only watched a little bit.

This format is so sick. Why are Subtlety and Endurance the most-played creatures, and Force of Negation the most-played spell?

Cascade decks all over the top tables. Somewhat surprisingly, one Creativity deck made top 8. The format is fast right now, and slower decks like Creativity are not doing well in it.

Also, the finals were won by Temur Rhinos in an unfavorable matchup. A shame I missed it on stream.

Temur Rhinos

As mentioned in the last meta inspection, Rhinos seems to be one of the decks that will add surveil lands to the build. After all, the Rhinos usually have little to do in the first two turns, so it is quite flexible to use a surveil land to filter the top of the library.

Living End

Although it is also a cascade deck, Living End needs to cycle creatures early on, so it does not run surveil lands.
This list is a bit unusual: it runs four Living End. Living End decks in the current format usually run only three to avoid drawing too many (after all, unlike Crashing Footfalls, Living End in hand does not have a very cheap suspend cost).

Golgari Yawgmoth

Yawgmoth has been performing quite well lately, and you can see it in quite a few top 8 decks.
The builds are basically the same as before, though some players are trying a single surveil land, since stuffing creatures into the graveyard as fodder for Agatha’s Soul Cauldron is still pretty good.

5C Creativity

A Creativity deck that barely plays blue. It even swapped Spell Pierce for Mana Tithe, probably so that when it fetches a Sacred Foundry on turn 1 for Prismatic Ending, it is guaranteed to have a Mana Tithe to use (after all, the opening hand may not have multiple fetch lands).
The blue that remains is just the main deck’s four Teferi, Time Raveler, one Prismari Command, and Flusterstorm in the sideboard.
It includes one red-black surveil land. On turn 1 you will usually fetch a Naya tri-land or a Grixis tri-land, and black is not as important as white, so the Rakdos shock land slot was swapped for the surveil land.

Domain Rhinos

You could call it the breakout star of this RC (?). If I remember correctly, Luis Scott-Vargas was also playing this deck.
The key card is the five-color Leyline Leyline of the Guildpact, and it is probably one of the few Leylines you actually want to cast from hand (provided, of course, you have Scion of Draco on the battlefield or in hand). Besides giving every land every basic land type and making all nonland permanents five-colored, it also lets Scion of Draco reliably come down on turn 2.
That alone might not sound like much, but don’t forget that Scion of Draco gives creatures of the matching colors extra abilities, and being five-colored means you get all five abilities.
In other words, every creature has vigilance, hexproof, first strike, lifelink, and trample. Turn 2 Scion of Draco, turn 3 cascade into Rhinos, and the board is a wall of first-strike lifelink creatures with 12 power. This game is so hard…
It also chooses to run Drannith Magistrate to fight the cascade mirror. With a hexproof Drannith Magistrate plus Scion of Draco, you will basically win just by attacking the opponent relentlessly.

4C Omnath

If I remember correctly, this 4C Omnath list went undefeated on day 1. It runs two main-deck Chalice of the Void, setting it to 0 against cascade matchups, or to 1 against Murktide and Burn, which works quite well.
As a counter-measure, the deck runs no Lightning Bolt or Delighted Halfling, and it can also add Kaheera, the Orphanguard as a companion, as fodder for Solitude or to add to the board.

チャンピオンズカップファイナル　シーズン 2 ラウンド 2　Champions Cup Final Season 2 Round 2

Next up is the Japan/Korea RC. It seems Japan has a long weekend right now, so the tournament ran from Sunday to Monday.

There were 257 players, with 12 Swiss rounds before the top 8. Day 1 was eight Swiss rounds, and day 2 was four Swiss rounds plus the top 8. You needed to be at 5-2 (15 points) or better after the first seven rounds to play round 8 and day 2.

The deck distribution is more concentrated at the top of the meta, and it looks like Japanese players prefer cascade decks.
Also, Burn unusually made up more than 5%, while Murktide’s usage was on the low side.
There were also more random decks, though many were variants of existing decks (for example, Mardu Scam, which splashes white for enchantment removal, and Rakdos Coffers, which splashes red for Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and Wish).

The metagame is quite different from back at the European RC, but there are more black decks, and there are quite a few Chalice of the Void in response to the format.

A pile of cascade = =
Japan, you aren’t very creative either.

Also, from a quick skim, Japan has not yet been plagued by Domain Rhinos; their Rhinos are still Temur builds.

Living End

Let’s look at the champion’s deck first. It runs an extra Incubation // Incongruity in the main deck, which is quite interesting: it smooths draws and can also serve as removal.
The sideboard does not carry many answers; instead it has plenty of haters (for example Bonecrusher Giant, Leyline of the Void, Brotherhood’s End).
The idea is probably to find the necessary answers with aggressive mulligans, especially since there are not that many graveyard haters around right now, and some matchups do not necessarily need those cards.

The other list is quite standard, with everything it should have.

The other two players also chose to run four Living End, and neither prepared a black mana source, so they do not consider the situation where they need to hard-cast Grief at all (when you can hard-cast Grief, you are probably about to lose anyway…).

Temur Rhinos

Rhinos is… well, it looks like that. Nothing much to say (I’ve said it so many times I’m sick of it).
One notable thing, though: one player’s sideboard has a Kellan, Inquisitive Prodigy as an answer to artifacts. Early on it can ramp, and in the mid to late game it is a way to push through damage while destroying an artifact. Quite interesting.

Rakdos Scam

This looks like a player who really hates Rhinos: one main-deck and two sideboard Legion’s End. It should also be useful in creature matchups, and it is a nice way to cut Yawgmoth’s creatures.

Goryo Reanimate

It has been a long time since I saw Goryo’s Vengeance show up in the meta.
This is basically a reanimator deck: after dumping powerful legendary creatures like Atraxa, Grand Unifier and Griselbrand into the graveyard, it uses Goryo’s Vengeance to bring them back onto the battlefield. They gain haste so you can get one attack in, but they are exiled at end of turn. Still, both creatures have powerful card draw, so if you find a blink card (Ephemerate or Touch the Spirit Realm), you can exile the creature and put it back onto the battlefield to dodge that drawback.
Also, since Goryo’s Vengeance is an instant and both blink spells can also be used at instant speed, you can wait until the opponent attacks or until the end of the opponent’s turn to bring them back.

Amulat Titan

This Titan build is also a common version, unlike the Brazilian one last time with its many wild lands.
This list also runs two Storm’s Wrath and two Firespout as sweepers, which is somewhat rare.

F2F Tour Championship - Ottawa Round 5 (Regional Championship)

Melee link

Finally, we get to the Canadian one (at last).
There were 478 players, with 13 Swiss rounds before the top 8. Day 1 was eight Swiss rounds, and day 2 was five rounds plus the top 8. You needed to be at 5-3 (15 points) or better to play day 2.

The deck distribution is relatively balan… best. Fine.
Can anyone explain to me what is going on with that pile of Rhinos? This format is super unhealthy.

The One Ring ranking 10th in usage is quite unexpected.
The rest of the cards are all common components/haters of cascade decks.

I can’t say their top 8 is boring, only that it is extremely dull. Other than cascade, it’s all control. What is there to watch in those matchups? Watching whether control draws a Supreme Verdict before dying? Or watching whether the cascade player can hurry up and land another cascade spell after the sweeper?

Living End

The main deck is a very standard Living End build. The sideboard has one Mine Collapse as cheap removal, plus four Leyline of the Void as graveyard hate. After all, not having a black Leyline in the mirror is a real pain.

Azorius Control (Kaheera)

The two players’ builds differ slightly, but you can see roughly the same system: Narset, Parter of Veils + Day’s Undoing shuffles the opponent’s graveyard and hand back into the library while you draw seven and the opponent can only draw one (any card after the first is stopped by Narset, Parter of Veils).
If you have activated the [+1] ability of Teferi, Time Raveler, you can even cast Day’s Undoing during the opponent’s draw step. At that point the opponent has already drawn a card for the turn (the draw step card), so they draw nothing, and since it is still the draw step, Teferi, Time Raveler stops them from responding with any spell, so by the main phase they have no cards left to use.
Alternatively, after emptying the opponent’s hand, you can activate Geier Reach Sanitarium during the draw step, so again they cannot draw a second card and can only discard one.
Both players also chose not to run Counterspell and instead run Reprieve, which can dodge some uncounterable spells and filter an extra card, at the cost of having to face that spell again next turn. But considering how many cascade decks are in the format, any card that must be suspended to be cast means you don’t need to worry about facing it again. Also, compared with traditional control, this deck can pressure resources earlier: after stopping a spell with Reprieve, you may get to shuffle it away next turn with Day’s Undoing, so the impact is smaller.
To adapt to the format, they also moved some of the Supreme Verdict, which usually sit in the main deck, to the sideboard, while putting four Subtlety in the main deck.

The sideboards are similar too, both with Veil of Summer to dodge discard spells and the like, and with Declaration of Naught and Curse of Silence
respectively, aimed at decks that rely heavily on specific cards (such as Crashing Footfalls or Living End). Very pointed.

Temur Rhinos

The builds are… well, they look like that. Basically the sideboard ratios are all about the same.

Domain Rhinos

Much like the one from the US RC top 8 above, but with a different color of surveil land, and different sideboard cards for the mirror (it uses Teferi, Time Raveler instead).

Other Decklist

Besides Domain Rhinos, here are a few more interesting or promising lists I happened to come across.

Rakdos Scam w/ Money Toolbox

Decklist

Let’s start with another take where it’s “I want it all.”
There used to be a Rakdos Money Toolbox deck. Builds varied a lot, but they all had in common being expensive (?), packing high-value cards, and a Beseech the Mirror toolbox package, for example a Reanimator build mixing in Archon of Cruelty and Persist, plus some spells costing four or less as toolbox pieces.

But they also shared another trait: they were slow. For the first three or four turns there was basically no pressure, and they could only stall the board with some removal or discard.

This Scam list mixes in an Urza’s Saga toolbox and a bit of a Beseech the Mirror toolbox. Both are small systems that take up little space, shoring up Scam’s tendency to run out of gas.
Personally, though, I don’t really like the sideboard design. Maybe Alpine Moon would be better than Magus of the Moon, at least it wouldn’t be awkward when you draw your own Urza’s Saga, though the downside is that it is not as good against Tron.

Amulet of Titan w/ Worldsoul’s Rage

I forgot which RC I saw this deck at and could not find the original source.
Broadly, though, you can think of it as using the new MKM card Worldsoul’s Rage as an additional way to win.
Basically it combines Mirrorpool, any bounce land, and two Amulet of Vigor.

First, use Primeval Titan or any other land-fetching method to get Mirrorpool onto the battlefield with two Amulet of Vigor out. Then cast Worldsoul’s Rage with X = 2 or more, hold priority, and in response activate Mirrorpool’s ability, sacrificing it to copy Worldsoul’s Rage on the stack. When the copy resolves, put Mirrorpool from the graveyard and any bounce land from hand or graveyard onto the battlefield tapped together. The lands get untapped twice by Amulet of Vigor: the first time, tap Mirrorpool for colorless mana and return the bounce land to hand, and again hold priority, sacrifice Mirrorpool to copy Worldsoul’s Rage, and repeat the above. Infinite burn kills the opponent.

Some people are also already developing new Scapeshift or Titan Shift builds that use a similar win condition as an extra way to finish the game, which wins even if the opponent locks down Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle with Alpine Moon.

Conclusion

I have to say the format is really sick right now, with cascade everywhere.
Domain Rhinos especially: just don’t be an idiot, open with Leyline of the Guildpact, turn 2 Scion of Draco, turn 3 cascade into two Rhinos, and you push and win with zero effort.
When Scam was everywhere, I could at least write that turn-1 Scam isn’t actually that easy and try to whitewash it a bit. Now Domain Rhinos is basically writing its rules text with its feet = =
Honestly, compared with today’s Domain Rhinos, I’d rather play in the Fury & Up the Beanstalk era; at least Fury scam had a chance of being answered without a sweeper.

Also note that the next BnR update is on 3/11 (barring surprises, at 10 or 11 pm), the day before MIT.
So congratulations! Even if cards look like they will be banned, you still have to obediently collect the cards and play the tournament!

Next week is the Central America RC, and then comes our MIT, plus the ANZ, China, and Southeast Asia RCs (everyone wants to cram in at the end).
I plan to put out another article, provided I can finish writing it.
I was also thinking of writing a new Murktide guide (

Also, the Season 7 schedule is out. It’s Pioneer, with Springleaf Drum for participation, Goblin Guide for top 8, and Seasoned Pyromancer for Championship participation (Championship top 8 get foils).

See you next week (hopefully)!