Modern Metagame Review pre MKM

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

This article was drafted on 1/30, before MKM’s release, so the metagame described is the pre-MKM one and may not apply to the MKM environment.

Before We Start

This article was actually supposed to be finished before the Lunar New Year, but a bout of laziness struck and I dragged it out until now.

Before we begin, let’s look at the current RC schedule:

• European (Legacy): LEC Ghent @ Jan 26 ~ 28
• Brazil (City Class Games): CCG Showdown Cycle 5 @ Jan 27 - 28
• USA (DreamHack): Regional Championship - Denver @ Feb 9 ~ 11
• Canada (F2F Tour): Ottawa Weekend @ Feb 9 ~ 11
• Japan & Korea (Big Magic): Champions Cup Final Season 2 Round 2 @ Fab 11 ~ 12
• Mexico & Central America & Caribbean (Yellow Rabbit): The Gathering Showdown Series @ Mar 1 ~ 3
• Australia & New Zealand (Good Game): ANZ Super Series Cycle 5 Regional Championships @ Mar 8 ~ 10
• Southeast Asia (Oracle Events): MTG SEA Championships Weekend Season 2 Round 2 - Bangkok @ Mar 8 ~ 10
• South America (Magicsur): Final Regional de la Ronda 5 de la South America Magic Series @ Mar 8 ~ 10
• Taiwan (GameSquare): MIT Championship Cycle 5 @ Mar 9 ~ 10
• China (Kadou): TBA (or I’m just terrible and didn’t find it)

Of these, Europe and Brazil ended on 1/28. I watched some of the European RC stream, maybe about sixty percent of the matches (?
As for the Brazilian RC, I completely forgot it existed XD

Legacy European Championship Ghent

This European RC was held in Ghent, Belgium, and as usual lots of people took part: together with the LCQ the day before, there were 948 players in total.
It was again 15 Swiss rounds followed by a single-elimination top eight, again split across two days, and only players with 6-3 or better on day 1 (18 points total) could advance to day 2.

Melee link

First, let’s look at the deck count statistics, counting only decks with 20 or more copies played.

As usual, the top ten individual cards by copies played:

From this we can actually see that the environment is still dominated by black and red. In addition, more Subtlety is played to fight Scam, more Chalice of the Void to fight Rhinos and Living End, and Engineered Explosives is brought for Rhinos and Scales.

Finally, the top eight decks:

Yawgmoth, Yawgmoth, Yawgmoth, Yawgmoth everywhere you go.
Honestly, Yawgmoth performed quite well at LEC Ghent. Meanwhile, Murktide was wiped out entirely: on Day 1 Arne Huschenbeth went 8-1 but went 2-4 on day 2 and was out; Andrea Mengucci seems to have blown up at 2-4, with no Brotherhood’s End at all in his sideboard, and then ran into Scales and Hammer Time back to back.

Temur Rhinos

The two decks are basically the same, differing by just one card in the main deck, where one chose Murktide Regent and the other chose Mystical Dispute; the sideboards also differ by one card, where one chose Flame of Anor and the other chose an extra Boseiju, Who Endures.

What’s more interesting is that both players chose to play one Ertai’s Scorn in the sideboard, mainly for the cascade mirror when on the draw.
Let’s assume both sides have smooth hands, and the player on the play has Violent Outburst available on turn three. They will usually pass the turn and cast the cascade during the opponent’s upkeep, because the opponent usually has no mana to counter it, and Force of Negation can’t be cast for free on your own turn, so the player on the draw can only watch helplessly as the opponent successfully resolves Crashing Footfalls. Ertai’s Scorn should be the only card that can counter Crashing Footfalls for two mana without blocking your own cascade.

Golgari Yawgmoth

The three Yawgmoth builds that made the top 8 this weekend are broadly the same, differing only in small details.

Living End

The Living End build is fairly standard, though perhaps because Living End itself is a bit more aggressive than Temur Rhinos, there is no Ertai’s Scorn in the sideboard.

Mono-Green Tron

Another standard Tron build. Although Fury is gone from the environment, it still chose to play three Dismember.
The sideboard is all toolbox cards.

Izzet Breach

This was the deck that impressed me most across two days of watching the stream. It doesn’t play the combo of Grinding Station and Thassa’s Oracle, and unlike Murktide it has no mid-to-late-game creatures, so it is a thoroughly tempo deck. In the mid-to-late game, once there is enough mana and graveyard, it drops Underworld Breach and keeps escaping Lightning Bolt to burn away the opponent’s life.

I’d say this deck is more like Murktide, just with the finisher replaced by Underworld Breach, but the mana requirement for the kill is too high, so I still prefer the version with Murktide Regent, or otherwise a more controlling deck.

City Class Games Showdown V | Ciclo 2 Ano 2

Melee link

The Brazilian RC was held in São Paulo, with 195 players in total, playing 8 Swiss rounds followed by a single-elimination top eight.

Again we first list the deck statistics, here only listing decks with 5 or more copies played.

It’s basically the same as Europe, just with fewer people playing Tron.
The meta is somewhat more spread out.

That’s right, wall-to-wall Scam. Brazilians, could you be a little less unimaginative? = =

Rakdos Scam

I can’t say they’re similar; they’re identical.
The decks are over 90% similar, and apart from slight differences in land configuration and removal configuration, everything else is basically the same.
This should become the standard build for the next few weeks to a month.

Izzet Murktide

In contrast to Murktide being wiped out in Europe, one Murktide deck survived here in Brazil.
I think that in the current environment this matchup is no longer that hard to play, at least you won’t get turn-one monkey, turn-two DRC DRC and then get swept away by a Fury scam on the opponent’s turn, and there isn’t such great life-total pressure either.
And because of the extra card filtering, compared with other decks it is relatively easier to handle a turn-one Grief scam.

Also, this build chose to play one Test of Talents in the sideboard, which should be quite comfortable in the mirror or in cascade matchups.

Also note that this deck is a 62-card build, and I can’t currently think of a reason to build it that way.

Amulet Titan

One is a very standard Titan list, and the other list is a bit more interesting, adding lands not usually seen as a backup / faster mana acceleration, which lets it more reliably land Titan on turn three without necessarily relying on the Amulet, since in the current environment some matchups are won as long as you have a Titan as a blocker.

Golgari Yawgmoth

A pretty standard Yawgmoth build. Choosing Zulaport Cutthroat is presumably to dodge the protection from everything of The One Ring.
But honestly, Yawgmoth should be able to win during the opponent’s upkeep, and Blood Artist also triggers when the opponent’s creatures die, so it should be somewhat better.

Let me add a note on the advantages of Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat.
Blood Artist: drains whenever a creature of either side dies
Zulaport Cutthroat: can get around hexproof / does not need to target
According to the Yawgmoth players on our writing team, each has pros and cons, depending on personal choice.

Predictions for the Upcoming RCs

I’ve roughly looked through the MKM card list, and it shouldn’t affect the Modern environment much.
So far it looks like only Rhinos might use the new surveil lands to replace the earlier triome slot, since Rhinos easily has nothing to do on the first two turns, and using fetch lands to find a surveil land and filter the top of the library would be a good choice. Murktide or other slower decks (such as control) can also consider playing them.

Personally, though, I don’t much like how it performs in Murktide, which we’ll talk about when we have the chance (digging myself another hole).

Also, I’m not very familiar with the player community distribution in other countries, but combining the meta performance of these two weeks and the RC results, Rakdos Scam and Temur Rhinos should be the biggest shares.
If I were to go into detail, it would look like this:

1. Rakdos Scam and Temur Rhinos are the biggest shares, together probably around 35% ~ 40%
2. Yawgmoth, Murktide, and Titan won’t be small either, probably each around 10%, with Yawgmoth slightly higher
3. Burn and Tron, decks that don’t need much practice, should still show up, together around 10%
4. Coffers, Scales, and Hammer Time should also appear sporadically

I should keep updating the recent Modern metagame reviews, with at least two more articles before MIT.
Next week should be an update on the RCs in the US, Canada, Japan, and Korea. See you next week!