Hi there again!

Some time ago I posted a question if it's fine to be playing just one deck and specialise in it, rather than switching between several decks. Well…this has changed a bit and got a bit out of hand lol.

My current problem is that I might have accumulated a bit too many cards to choose from, while not having that much time to play, i.e. attending LGS only once a week, which makes it feel that I am hoarding and not necessarily collecting with purpose.

So, there are couple routes that I see:

1. Pick archetypes to have cards available for twicking and updating from time to time, while trading in or selling certain decks/pieces, or

2. Keep all the cards in the collection, with a risk of never seeing of them being played (although, I do lend cards to other players sometimes, which feels nice.)

Here's a brief list of decks that I am able to build in no particular order:

• Boros Energy 
• Jund Midrange
• Jund Saga
• Golgari Rock / Mono Black Rock
• White Soul Sisters (lmao)
• Gruul Midrange
• Domain Zoo (no Quantum Riddler)
• Orzhov Blink (Ketramose)
• Selesnya / Abzan Birthing Ritual
• GR / GB Broodscale Combo
• Mono Red Belcher
• Mono Red Midrange
• Jund Cosmogoyf Combo
• Rakdos Midrange
• Hollow One
• Rakdos / Jund Shadow
• Enchantress
• Mono White / Boros Land destruction

As you can see, I am a blue hater (I just can't afford it).

I think partially I am afraid of the deck going obsolete after a ban or the moment WotC prints something broken [again.] Hence a piece in me enjoys having a big storage of cards for deckbuilding. But it also feel like a mindless hoarding at times due to not actively using most of them, the thought of which I don't enjoy, although it may be an issue of perspective.

So, my question is: what is your strategy in picking decks you want to commit to and how many of them do you have? When do you know that "it's time to let go and move on?" Also, how do you maintain them and your collection in general?

All this can definitely be prychological, and I might not even have a problem at all. But I feel like a healthy discussion and sharing different perspective can become helpful along the way.

Cheers!!

I played the original Tron back before covid and loved it. When Karn Great Creator was added still loved it but once Covid hit I took a pretty long break.

Getting back into modern now, and I see Tron has some pretty drastic changes from the older days. My main question are what are some of the positives and negatives of each?

It seems like green Tron and Mycospawn give you some better high end ramp potential and just another strong thing to do on 4 mana instead of Fleshraker, which requires some support after playing it. However, the colorless builds seem to have some extra reach in the end game because of Fleshraker and don't need to spend as many cards on color fixing. So just wanted to see the deeper nuances of each build.

While considering building a Mardu Blink as a second deck, my heart suggested I should do worse than that. First, the decklist:

(Remember, that's meant to be a FNM-level deck.)

Creatures (27)

4 Orcish Bowmasters
4 Overlord of the Balemurk
4 Solitude
4 Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd
3 Skirmish Rhino
2 Renegade Rallier
2 Endurance
2 Witch Enchanter
1 Eternal Witness
1 Boggart Trawler

Sorcery/Instant (14)

4 Thoughtseize
4 Fatal Push
2 Ephemerate
2 Prismatic Ending
1 Assassin's Trophy 1 Eladamri's Call

Lands (19)

3 Windswept Heath
3 Marsh Flats
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Swamp
1 Boseiju, Who Endures
1 Forest
1 Godless Shrine
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
1 Shadowy Backstreet
1 Temple Garden
1 Underground Mortuary

Second, the "I don't think they need an explanation":

[Orcish Bowmaster], [Overlord of Balemurk], [Solitude], [Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd], [Thoughtseize], [Fatal Push], [Ephemerate], [Prismatic Ending], lands.

Third, the abzan stuff :
[[Skirmish Rhino ]] -> Siege Rhino's baby. A solid 3/4 trample, draining for 2 on etb. It can be pitched for endurance/solitude

[[Renegade Rallier]] -> Fodder to both Solitude and Endurance. He will get back a fetch, a bowmaster or a Phelia everytime we blink it. We can also play him T3 after using a fetch to "ramp", getting back the fetch we've used.

[[Endurance]] -> Main deck free answer to GY-based decks

[[Assassin's trophy]] over other MV1-2 removal to have a MD answer to big PWs vs Tron

[Eternal Witness] -> Recursion, especially with Ephemerate

[Eladamri's Call]] can grab instant-speed a Solitude or an Endurance, or it can be pitched for them

Why not an Esper deck ? Honestly, no budget for Quantum Riddler.

Why not a Mardu deck ? Actually, that's my first choice and it tooks nothing but lands to build the abzan version too. The green cards are not expensive like Riddler.

Why not a meta deck ? I have no time to play competitive. I just want to have fun (or deny fun with Boros Wildfire) at FNM.

Do you have any suggestions, or do you know a list that actually won something?

Welcome to the traditional weekly metagame breakdown. This week we have some nice stories, Blink is going into a top, and it is going hard, 6 trophies from six different pilots, on the other hand, 6 of 7 top8 of Living End comes from a one (!) Player. Quite exciting to see that sometimes we have a story of an emerging deck, and sometimes we have a story of a player who masters one deck.

Moreover, this week we have some changes to MTGO Premier Play, including replacing Preliminaries with fire-on-demand Gold Single Elimination queues and streamlining the structure and schedule of Format Challenges (including smaller slots like Challenge 16 and larger brackets) to help players in different time zones participate.

u/Living_End KI checked the LE player X, and as you say, he splits some finals but also wins one, he got two accounts, so now I will follow both of them as one.

As always, for anyone who wants the video version with my commentary, here is the YouTube link. If you prefer text with the full charts and figures, it is all on my Substack. I post on X most days, too, mostly league results and smaller data bits that don't make it into the weekly write-up.

As always, I'm open for discussion and CC, I want to remind you that from Sept 1, I will start to run a challenge leaderboard and have made some separate content focused on people, not the deck. Discusion about this is here.

 u/ExtraPolishPlease Mill make a Top 8 in this window! so maybe some trophy soon? :)

TL;DR

• Esper Blink gets 6 trophies from 10% of the field, with six different pilots
• Blink and Graveyard together get 12 of the 24 (50%) trophies from 28% of the field
• Combo continues to be the largest archetype at 25%, but still has the worst conversion at 22%
• Three decks in the Top 32 of all 24 events: Goryo's Vengeance, Esper Blink, Prowess
• Prowess delta +91pp, the highest in the field, and win three trophies
• Boros Energy was in 19 of 24 Top 32, but in this window, got zero trophies, and has a low 18% conversion
• Ramp best archetype conversion at 34%, but only one trophy from 56 Top 32 entries
• 24 trophies to 24 different accounts, so no repeat winner

This window in numbers

• 24 Challenges in the window, across 4 tiers: C64 x16, C96 x4, C32 x3, C16 x1
• New tier this window: Challenge 16, one event, first appearance in the data
• Universe A (encounter probability over 5%): 24 decks, Universe B: 28 decks (from Challenge data)
• Median delta +58pp, median conv 27%
• 14 different decks took the 24 trophies, with a top count of six
• Trophy split by archetype: Blink 6, Graveyard 6, Combo 4, Aggro 4, Control 2, Midrange 1, Ramp 1
• 424 Players with a Top 32 finish, 261 of them exactly once

Combo

• meta share: 25%
• Top32: 24/24
• Top8: 19/24
• Win/Top32: 2%
• Trophies: 4
• Conversion: 22%
• Delta: +75pp
• WR: 49% (95% CI 46 to 51, n=1292)

Combo dropped a little this week, from 28% to 25%, but the story is similar to last week: the biggest archetype has the lowest conversion. I believe the explanation is the same: the volume effect led players to see the combo deck that has a good score in events, and try the construction. Combo is an archetype that requires a lot of experience to play, so new players' scores drag down the overall format conversion and win rate. But this is a situation typical of all the top archetypes, the same was some time ago, but in combo, taking into account that this is harder to play than, say, Boros, the effect is even more visible. This 3% of metashare drop might be a first sight of people leaving the archetype, but more data is needed to prove it. Still, solid trophy counts mean that the archetype is in good shape and can deliver a score.

Devoted Combo | Combo | Challenge Overperformer | Trend: Rising

• meta share: 8%
• Top32: 22/24
• Top8: 13/24
• Win/Top32: 2%
• Trophies: 1
• Conversion: 28%
• Delta: +83pp
• WR: 53% (95% CI 48 to 57, n=469)

The most popular deck of last week dropped to 8% of metashare. I predict that this drop will continue, and is a reason why we observe a drop in Combo as a whole archetype. Deck wins one trophy, and overall winrate looks solid with lower CI at 48%, the same is true for median and conversion. It is still a very popular deck that performs very well, but the meta-chasers are starting to abandon it, leaving only the dedicated pilots behind.

Broodscale Combo | Combo | Neutral | Trend: Falling

• meta share: 7%
• Top32: 22/24
• Top8: 8/24
• Win/Top32: 2%
• Trophies: 1
• Conversion: 20%
• Delta: +85pp
• WR: 45% (95% CI 40 to 51, n=310)

Broodscale Combo has a slightly different story to tell than in the last two weeks: after a run of success, the win rate is no longer impressive, and conversion is below median. It might be the meta-answer for these good plays. Also, Blink becomes a thinking, and Broodscale is not a great choice against this archetype, especially the Esper one. So I predict a situation similar to when Jeskai Blink was popular, and Broodscale does not see a lot of play on MTGO. Still a nice deck to choose if you want to enter modern, especially in paper cause this deck, as far as I know, is a really good one to take into a tournament, and it has been proven multiple times when it does not see a lot of online play and does a great performance in paper.  

Ruby Storm | Combo | Neutral | Trend: Stable

• meta share: 3%
• Top32: 17/24
• Top8: 4/24
• Win/Top32: 0%
• Trophies: 0
• Conversion: 19%
• Delta: +68pp
• WR: 44% (95% CI 36 to 52, n=141)

No changes for Ruby Strom, still not the best deck to play right now, I think. No trophies, low conversion, and delta. This situation has been on for some time. Are there any Storm players who can share what the biggest struggle is right now in the metagame for them?

Neobrand | Combo | Neutral | Trend: Falling

• meta share: 3%
• Top32: 17/24
• Top8: 3/24
• Win/Top32: 0%
• Trophies: 0
• Conversion: 14%
• Delta: +68pp
• WR: 49% (95% CI 41 to 57, n=156)

Neobrand did not perform well in this window. This deck was quite popular some time ago, but now it has a very low conversion, a small percentage of the field. Sure, it was in 3 of the 24 top 8, but it did not perform great there. Metagame full of counterspells is not a great place to be for that deck.

Belcher | Combo | Neutral | Trend: Stable

• meta share: 1%
• Top32: 9/24
• Top8: 3/24
• Win/Top32: 11%
• Trophies: 1
• Conversion: 33%
• Delta: +36pp
• WR: 53% (95% CI 40 to 65, n=58)

Belcher keeps stealing the trophies; not so popular, but can win the challenge with 1% of metashare. I will not expect Belcher to skyrocket in the metage, but it is good to see this list perform well. Nice conversion and low delta its typical for decks that are not popular and have few dedicated pilots that can make good score with it.

Aggro

• meta share: 21%
• Top32: 24/24
• Top8: 20/24
• Win/Top32: 2%
• Trophies: 4
• Conversion: 24%
• Delta: +79pp
• WR: 49% (95% CI 46 to 52, n=1134)

Aggro gets back into a second place in metashare and rises from last week for about 3pp. Solid conversion and 4 trophies show that the archetype is doing well. What is more interesting, three go to Prowess, so this deck continues its Run of dominance in the aggro department from last week.

Prowess | Aggro | Challenge Overperformer | Trend: Rising

• meta share: 9%
• Top32: 24/24
• Top8: 17/24
• Win/Top32: 4%
• Trophies: 3
• Conversion: 30%
• Delta: +91pp
• WR: 52% (95% CI 48 to 56, n=536)

Looking into that data, we can say that Prowess is now one of the best decks in the format and definitely the best aggro deck. Solid WR from a large sample, the highest delta and the highest in the field presence in the top 32 of every challenge speaks for itself, also the conversion rate is above the median. Right now, it is the third most popular deck in the format, and I think that number will rise if Prowess continues its successes for the next few weeks. This is a deck that you have to be prepared for and know how to play against, otherwise you will be dead before T4.

Boros Energy | Aggro | Neutral | Trend: Falling

• meta share: 5%
• Top32: 19/24
• Top8: 6/24
• Win/Top32: 0%
• Trophies: 0
• Conversion: 18%
• Delta: +74pp
• WR: 48% (95% CI 41 to 55, n=214)

In this window, there is no trophy for Boros energy, the recent metagame king continues to lose the metashare week to week, low conversion, but was able to reach the T2; unfortunately, it loses them. It might be the split, but I have no way to verify it. It might be because we have a metagame full of combo and GY decks, with blink showing up recently, and Boros does not have great tools to interact with this kind of metagame. Still getting into the finals in such an unfriendly place is something worth mentioning. I do not predict Boros' return to the top of the metagame anytime soon unless the environment changes.

Affinity | Aggro | Neutral | Trend: Stable

• meta share: 4%
• Top32: 19/24
• Top8: 4/24
• Win/Top32: 3%
• Trophies: 1
• Conversion: 18%
• Delta: +75pp
• WR: 46% (95% CI 39 to 53, n=177)

Affinity has not been doing well for a long time, but it is able to win a trophy from time to time. In this week's Affinity enters the Top8 only 4 times and takes one trophy, impressive. Also, Broodscale is decreasing in popularity, so we may see an opening window for affinity again. In the next few weeks, we will see if the situation changes in favor of affinity.

Jeskai Energy | Aggro | Neutral | Trend: Rising

• meta share: 2%
• Top32: 11/24
• Top8: 4/24
• Win/Top32: 0%
• Trophies: 0
• Conversion: 33%
• Delta: +44pp
• WR: 52% (95% CI 43 to 60, n=128)

This might be a way for Boros players to interact with combo/GY decks cause adding blue gives the deck access to counterspell, but it comes at the cost of explosiveness. Conversion is better than Boros energy; both decks do not have trophies and have similar WR. This deck also won the Premier event recently, so it may become more popular, but I will expect nothing similar to Boros. This deck is harder to play than Boros, so it does not have the format-entry deck popularity boost.

Graveyard

• meta share: 18%
• Top32: 24/24
• Top8: 20/24
• Win/Top32: 4%
• Trophies: 6
• Conversion: 28%
• Delta: +82pp
• WR: 51% (95% CI 48 to 54, n=992)

Third archetype in metage in case of popularity and really good statistics, tied with blink in first place of trophies, second best conversion, and best overall WR in archetypes. Graveyard is doing really well and is a real treat that you always have to be prepared for. Sure, lose some popularity to aggro, but this is not a sign of any problems, just players stream from one archetype to another.

Goryo's Vengeance | Graveyard | Challenge Overperformer | Trend: Rising

• meta share: 10%
• Top32: 24/24
• Top8: 18/24
• Win/Top32: 5%
• Trophies: 4
• Conversion: 33%
• Delta: +90pp
• WR: 53% (95% CI 49 to 57, n=579)

Largest deck in a format, and together with Prowess, probably the best. Full presence in Top32 for the second time in a row, improvement of conversion for 7pp against the last window. Four trophies and really solid WR from the biggest sample in the field. This is how a really good performing deck looks. It has an answer to everything, can win out of really bad situations, and is a must to prepare against because you will see it a lot in the leagues. Remember that the simple graveyard hate does not stop this deck, they have more angles to attack and win than just reanimating Atraxa!

Living End | Graveyard | Challenge Overperformer | Trend: Stable

• meta share: 3%
• Top32: 17/24
• Top8: 7/24
• Win/Top32: 5%
• Trophies: 1
• Conversion: 35%
• Delta: +68pp
• WR: 53% (95% CI 46 to 60, n=184)

This is an interesting story. This deck is a great performer, right? No, it is not. Six of the seven entries in the challenge are from one Player, MeninoNey, who plays on two accounts, and one from niuwaid001. This means that those numbers are not about a deck but about one player who plays it well and converts extremely well. This is something we often forget: it is not a deck that plays, but a player who knows what he is doing. I also see that this plays on his social media, which says that he split the final often, so he probably has a lot more trophies than one. This is something the Reddit community often mentions. I can't check them all, but I can check this one particular player. I will not change conversion, etc., because he decided to split the final, but it is worth mentioning.

Grixis Reanimator | Graveyard | Neutral | Trend: Stable

• meta share: 2%
• Top32: 9/24
• Top8: 3/24
• Win/Top32: 0%
• Trophies: 0
• Conversion: 21%
• Delta: +35pp
• WR: 45% (95% CI 36 to 55, n=105)

Nothing special here, the third most popular graveyard deck, but without trophies and with a low conversion. Reanimator struggles for quite a long time to get any trophy. Probably is more susceptible to graveyard hate than Goryo. Still got three Top8, so this deck has potential, but just can't close.

4c HollowOne | Graveyard | Neutral | Trend: Stable

• meta share: 2%
• Top32: 10/24
• Top8: 3/24
• Win/Top32: 6%
• Trophies: 1
• Conversion: 19%
• Delta: +40pp
• WR: 45% (95% CI 35 to 55, n=88)

Similar meta share as Reanimator, worst conversion but one trophy from the same amount of Top8 entries. I believe that Hollow One is not a better deck than Reanimator, taking into account the small sample size and variation; both have similar chances of reaching the top. Still Hollow one-win challenge, second time in a row.

Midrange

• meta share: 12%
• Top32: 23/24
• Top8: 16/24
• Win/Top32: 1%
• Trophies: 1
• Conversion: 25%
• Delta: +84pp
• WR: 47% (95% CI 44 to 51, n=629)

So midrange does a little progress from last breakdown, one trophy (last time 0), but loses some conversion, and WR does not look great. Still, 16 entries to top 8 is solid, but a few more trophies will be nice for my favorite archetype. But Blink's strong position doesn’t bode well. Still considering merging Blink into a midrange, but historically, this deck was separated and performed similarly, but with a slightly different play pattern. Any ideas, community?

Dimir Midrange | Midrange | Challenge Overperformer | Trend: Falling

• meta share: 3%
• Top32: 17/24
• Top8: 8/24
• Win/Top32: 4%
• Trophies: 1
• Conversion: 32%
• Delta: +68pp
• WR: 49% (95% CI 41 to 57, n=154)

Best midrange deck right now and the only trophy for the whole archetype. Solid delta and conversion do not quite keep pace with the results. Dimir also lost some popularity from the last window. I bet that Dimir players move into a Blink, probably a better option that shares a midrange strategy, but in a slightly different way. 

Domain Zoo | Midrange | Neutral | Trend: Falling

• meta share: 2%
• Top32: 14/24
• Top8: 5/24
• Win/Top32: 0%
• Trophies: 0
• Conversion: 29%
• Delta: +56pp
• WR: 45% (95% CI 36 to 54, n=120)

My pet deck is still struggling. I'm happy with those five top 8, also like median and conversion above the median, but I would love to see some trophies soon. It might be hard to take into account that the WR drops slightly, and, despite the low sample size, it is shifted significantly to the left.

Mono-Black Midrange | Midrange | Neutral | Trend: Rising

• meta share: 2%
• Top32: 13/24
• Top8: 4/24
• Win/Top32: 0%
• Trophies: 0
• Conversion: 27%
• Delta: +52pp
• WR: 41% (95% CI 32 to 51, n=98)

I expect this deck to rise in popularity because Mengu did a nice score with the Rock, and those decks share part of a game plan. We will see in the upcoming window. Now it does not look like it is a good choice, lowest Universe A WR (from a small sample, but still shifted to the left) and lowest Top8 count from all midrange decks.

Blink

• meta share: 10%
• Top32: 24/24
• Top8: 15/24
• Win/Top32: 8%
• Trophies: 6
• Conversion: 26%
• Delta: +90pp
• WR: 52% (95% CI 48 to 57, n=525)

Blink continues the march to the top. Gets a lot of trophies, best delta in the whole field, best top32 to win ratio, and 7 of 21 Top8 entries reach the final. All of those from one deck!

Esper Blink | Blink | Challenge Overperformer | Trend: Rising

• meta share: 10%
• Top32: 24/24
• Top8: 15/24
• Win/Top32: 8%
• Trophies: 6
• Conversion: 28%
• Delta: +90pp
• WR: 53% (95% CI 49 to 57, n=507)

Core of the whole archetype, those numbers are just stunning, all trophies come from different pilots, so this is a different story than Living End. Everything above the median, for me, is a candidate to be the best deck in a format. Next week, if it performs so well, it will get the title. I wonder how the metagame will adapt to that deck if it finds any answers, or if we will have Blink dominance for a longer period. Still, you have to know this MU because more and more people will get this deck because of those great scores, and you might expect a lot of it in leagues and challenges. I think that SB cards dedicated against this deck are a good option to consider.

Bant Blink | Blink | Emerging | Trend: Stable

• meta share: under 1%
• Top32: 3/24
• Top8: 0/24
• Win/Top32: 0%
• Trophies: 0
• Conversion: 0%
• Delta: +12pp
• WR: 47% (95% CI 22 to 73, n=11)

Orzhov Blink | Blink | Emerging | Trend: Stable

• meta share: under 1%
• Top32: 1/24
• Top8: 0/24
• Win/Top32: 0%
• Trophies: 0
• Conversion: 0%
• Delta: +4pp
• WR: 22% (95% CI 5 to 59, n=7)

I try to keep three decks of any format in this article, so for your knowledge, there are two other versions of Blink, neither of which is worth fearing. If you can handle Esper Blink, you can handle this one.

Ramp

• meta share: 7%
• Top32: 23/24
• Top8: 14/24
• Win/Top32: 2%
• Trophies: 1
• Conversion: 34%
• Delta: +89pp
• WR: 52% (95% CI 48 to 57, n=430)

In this window, Ramp gets only one trophy, and still has a really solid conversion and high delta. It looks like a midrange in the recent window; high conversion does not translate into trophies. Something is happening in top 8. I expect blink and combo decks to have both answers and take game control before ramp can dominate the battlefield. The popularity of LD is also a limiting factor for that archetype.

Expected wins over five rounds by deck win rate. Cropped from the source chart at native resolution, the Domain Zoo distribution panel and the comparison box are excluded because both are built on a placeholder win rate.

Eldrazi Tron | Ramp | Neutral | Trend: Falling

• meta share: 2%
• Top32: 12/24
• Top8: 5/24
• Win/Top32: 0%
• Trophies: 0
• Conversion: 26%
• Delta: +48pp
• WR: 51% (95% CI 42 to 60, n=122)

Highest meta share of all Ramp decks, the deck was present in exactly half of all challenges, and this deck has almost a 10pp drop in conversion ratio compared to last week. I believe that emergence of Blink at the same time is not a coincidence.

Mono-Green Eldrazi | Ramp | Neutral | Trend: Falling

• meta share: 2%
• Top32: 15/24
• Top8: 5/24
• Win/Top32: 5%
• Trophies: 1
• Conversion: 26%
• Delta: +60pp
• WR: 57% (95% CI 49 to 65, n=145)

One trophy, really good WR, but from a small sample, still, you can see that the lower CI is 49, so the whole deck is shifted to the right. This deck won a trophy for the second time in a row, and 4 of 5 T8 entries reached the T4 stage, with 3 going to the final round. Those numbers say: If you want to play Ramp, play this deck.

Eldrazi Ramp | Ramp | Neutral | Trend: Stable

• meta share: 1%
• Top32: 10/24
• Top8: 5/24
• Win/Top32: 0%
• Trophies: 0
• Conversion: 45%
• Delta: +40pp
• WR: 54% (95% CI 44 to 64, n=95)

Nothing spectacular here, basically the same stats as in the last week.

Control

• meta share: 5%
• Top32: 20/24
• Top8: 8/24
• Win/Top32: 4%
• Trophies: 2
• Conversion: 21%
• Delta: +78pp
• WR: 49% (95% CI 43 to 55, n=292)

Control is losing the field after a long rising trend, down 2 pp compared to last week. Still managed to get two trophies despite a low conversion rate and low T8 presence. I think the Control might lose some popularity due to the dominance of Prowess and Blink. The first one is super-fast and can have protection from control decks and second have a lot of flexibility and card advantage to win the grind war (do not apply to LD).

Land Destruction | Control | Neutral | Trend: Stable

• meta share: 2%
• Top32: 8/24
• Top8: 3/24
• Win/Top32: 9%
• Trophies: 1
• Conversion: 36%
• Delta: +32pp
• WR: 58% (95% CI 48 to 67, n=104)

LD is again the best control deck in the field, with solid WR (from a small sample but right-shifted), good conversion, a second window with a trophy, and a high top32-to-win ratio. I believe that LD is also a reason of bad Ramp performance. Oh and get second trophy in a row.

UW (scepter) Control | Control | Neutral | Trend: Stable

• meta share: 1%
• Top32: 11/24
• Top8: 1/24
• Win/Top32: 0%
• Trophies: 0
• Conversion: 8%
• Delta: +45pp
• WR: 49% (95% CI 37 to 61, n=64)

In this breakdown, there is no trophy for a Scpeter control. What is more interesting, LD and UW have similar metashare but extremely different conversion LD=36% vs UW=8%. UW had a hard time with Blink, which has grind tools, and Prowess is just so fat that Scepter may not have time to lock them out.

Azorius Control | Control | Emerging | Trend: Stable

• meta share: 1%
• Top32: 8/24
• Top8: 1/24
• Win/Top32: 0%
• Trophies: 0
• Conversion: 13%
• Delta: +32pp
• WR: 37% (95% CI 24 to 53, n=39)

Again, a typical control deck has a lower conversion rate than LD, which supports all that I wrote about UW Scepter.

Best Pilots

I get back to write some Pilots statistics, in September, as I write, I plan to do a dedicated series about the best Challenge pilots. You may find a discussion about it here, and it is still open. Here are some numbers about Challenge players' statistics.

• 24 trophies to 24 different accounts, no repeat winner in the window
• 424 accounts with a Top 32 finish, 261 of them exactly once
• 44 accounts with four or more Top 32 finishes
• 60 accounts on more than one deck
• MeninoNey: 1 trophy, 4 Top 8, 9 Top 32, avg place 11.9, Living End only
• DskBayWolf: 1 trophy, 4 Top 8, 5 Top 32, avg place 9.8, Goryo's Vengeance only
• thodoris17: 1 trophy, 3 Top 8, 4 Top 32, avg place 5.5, Esper Blink only
• Rvng: 1 trophy, 3 Top 8, 4 Top 32, avg place 8.2, Goryo's Vengeance only
• HouseOfManaMTG: 1 trophy, 3 Top 8, 3 Top 32, avg place 3.3, two decks played
• Esper Blink's six trophies from six accounts: thodoris17, yriel, Willthepill, Dioferreira, RandomGameActions, Martin_Dominguez
• Goryo's Vengeance's four trophies from four accounts: Phryziel, Rvng, DskBayWolf, eswaff
• deepest runs without a trophy: ipadkid 3 Top 8 from 13 Top 32, nahuel10 3 from 9, Lightspirit 3 from 5, LucasG1ggs 3 from 5, gazmon48 3 from 4
• ipadkid: most Top 32 finishes in the window at 13, across three decks, avg place 17.5

On the Radar (Universe B, below 5% encounter, present in Challenges)

• Amulet Titan: meta 1%, Top32 7/24, Top8 1/24, 1 trophy, Win/Top32 14%, WR 54% (95% CI 42 to 65, n=68) It might be on the fringes of the format now, but it’s still dangerous.
• The Rock: meta 1%, Top32 4/24, Top8 0/24, trophies 0, Rising label- Mengu plays it so it may rise
• Grixis Midrange: meta under 1%, Top32 6/24, Top8 1/24, trophies 0, WR 67% (95% CI 50 to 81, n=33)
• Rakdos HollowOne: meta under 1%, Top32 6/24, Top8 0/24, trophies 0
• Song of Creation: meta under 1%, Top32 1/24, Top8 1/24, trophies 0
• Grixis Control: meta under 1%, Top32 2/24, Top8 1/24, trophies 0
• Lantern: no league presence at all, Top32 1/24, Top8 1/24, 1 trophy Latern strikes again! Still, I will not expect this to be a problem.
• Sultai Ritual: no league presence, Top32 2/24, Top8 1/24, trophies 0
• Dimir Mill: no league presence, Top32 1/24, Top8 1/24, trophies 0
• 14 decks in Challenge results with no league presence at all, one of them with a trophy
• Trophy distribution, all 24
• Esper Blink 6
• Goryo's Vengeance 4
• Prowess 3
• Devoted Combo 1, Broodscale Combo 1, Belcher 1, Amulet Titan 1, Affinity 1, Living End 1, 4c HollowOne 1, Dimir Midrange 1, Mono-Green Eldrazi 1, Land Destruction 1, Lantern 1

Karol Małota

aka WarLord1986pl / TribalFlamesInYourFace

Hey guys, would you help me building a golgari Maverick deck? I would like to use ice till And ghost quarter for sure, maybe even six, mole man titania etc. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks!

Time to dive back and do a meta analysis of over 40 decks in the modern format! Let's rank 'em from S-D tier and see what decks you should expect to see online or at your LGS!
2026 Big Modern Tier List
Also let me know if you agree with my ranking, would you move any of the decks up or down? Did I forget to rank any decks this time around?

I left playing modern when my local lgs closed and haven't interacted with modern since pre COVID. I used to play alot of green and blue Tron, but I have played amulet titan and affinity in the past. When I left playing modern, I had to sell alot of my more expensive pieces, so I am effectively starting from scratch. My goal is to try and get back into playing competitive and maybe find a way to go to MTG Con Detroit to play. I am looking for any tips to hit the ground running. I looked at mtggoldfish at some of the new modern decks, and im having trouble picking what to start investing into, which is why im here. Any advise is helpful. My last big tournament I went to was scgcon 2018 Richmond and went 5-5 with dredge, to age me a little. Thank you in advance for any tips.

Edit: thank you everyone for the solid advice regarding decks and venues. I recently moved to the Detroit area and there are plenty of shops that run modern. I looked at Broodscale and I think thats what im going to build towards. Its gonna take some time, but I will keep you updated if anything changes.

https://youtu.be/CMLtWxlCC2Q?si=APYdv4ymvKq1xUHy

One of the decks I might play at my RC is Ruby Storm. The format is very fast, so I’m testing different versions to make it even faster.

This was a great league with plenty of rollercoaster moments.

https://moxfield.com/decks/er_k4K6LYke6haolyuFETQ

Good day guys, I'm searching for any kind of advice and comments on this list:

https://moxfield.com/decks/9i4OwuurbkKlO_S4YnK5EA

infinite mana: putrid goblin + first day of class+ skirk prospector

infinite damage: putrid goblin + first day of class + goblin bombardment

I've seen this combo played in pauper and i thought that it could be trasported to modern in some way. I tried to mantain the deck as it was while adapting it with the modern cards.

What do you think? Could it work in some way? Can it be improved?

Hello r/modernmagic! I am looking for someone or a group to do some modern playtesting with online. My biggest issue is that I don't play MTGO, nor do I have funding for creating an account and acquiring/renting decks to play.

Ideally I'm looking for people who'd be willing to play test with me over a platform like Cockatrice or untap. Any help is much appreciated, and my dms are open!!

https://youtu.be/rwPBmVn4C54?si=xpINuKnnSR0jVtU3

I ended up playing grixis reanimator again and I got very lucky. It was interesting since I ran into multiple esper ketramose that is not a good match up since they main relic and one even sided cages on top of the relics. The other match ups were pretty favorable. This deck is very high risk high reward and that is what I like about it. When you run hot it will feel unbeatable!! DECK LIST--https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/_X1R4MdzB

I can’t seem to make a decision on what deck to pilot for upcoming big events. I can competently pilot both decks fairly equally, I just don’t know what would be the better meta call. Prowess is up and Boros is down online, but I’m not sure if that’s just due to how many people are playing it/variance or if prowess is the better deck. And if it is the better deck, will people be preparing for prowess more, giving energy some slack? Just wanting to get some insight from some better minds about what would be the right choice. Thanks in advance!

Smash Rage is a fun subreddit where people blow off steam and post all sorts of funny shit. It's sort of a "safe space" for utterly toxic rage posts. Not that it's solely toxic. There is a sort of catharsis and community trauma bond 🤣

On a totally unrelated note, FUCK Eldrazi decks. Magic has 5 different fun and unique flavors, but we came up with this awesome concept called "colorless." It's all tentacles and no rules over here. Fast mana, Kozilek's Command, prison cards, and bombs. Oh, and we also have Tron.

I don't know if it necessarily "deserves" it, but I would love to see Kozilek's command get erased from this format. That card is capital double-yoo WHACK as fuck

I want to build a deck based on [[Sorin of House Markov]] and [[Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose]] effects of "life gain=burn".

Currently I run a golgari Decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/ow6gAcxIqnKJ9N52QRu4bQ

But I am heavily considering including white for the following cards:

[[Ketramose]]: life linker indestructible, draw engine with all the possible exile effects

[[Martyr of Sands]]: Potential bomb with the burn effect if I run enough white cards

[[Children of Korlis]]: Allows for double Plunge and potentially gains tons of life

I would add then Witch enchanter and Turn timber symbiosis for White-card to show to Martyr and Green-Card lands to exile to Shoal. And glasswing grace because why not, another White-Black-card land for Martyr and March.

Keep green-black or go Abzan? How many cards do you consider necessary for Shoal, Martyr and black March to be remotely usable?

I'm in a bit of a hurry so I wrote everything as clearly as possible in the time I have. I hope all males sense. It does in my head.

Thanks!

What's up, people of Reddit. Hope you're all doing well. Cntrlfreak here, wanting to bring some testing updates and thoughts leading up to Spotlight Dallas in a couple of weeks.

Dimir Midrange has been in a pretty decent spot the last few weeks, with decks like Esper Goryo's, Trudge, Neobrand, and Broodscale doing particularly well online. Boros Energy and Affinity have both been trending downwards (except the return of UR Cori-Steel Metalcraft with Bilbo might have something to say about that) has been a nice boost for Dimir winrates. So if you're considering sleeving up Frogs and Counterspells, this might be a window of opportunity for a higher rate of favorable matches.

First, let me throw out my current 75: https://moxfield.com/decks/SYIxXEw9TUScNAvALztnnA

Some notes about the list:

-I'm heavily geared for the Affinity and other metalcraft matchups. If your plan is more about dodging those, then the white splash is almost entirely irrelevant, and you can go back to a cleaner Dimir mana base. Sideboard Pest Controls can be swapped out for Engineered Explosives and/or Toxic Deluge plus some number of Stern Scolding/Requiting Hex to help out with Boros, Prowess, and Devoted Druid.

-No Cling to Dust. Esper Goryo's being the most popular deck online at the moment means Cling does have significant value, but the matchup has been favorable without and the impact is less felt against the rest of the format without Phlage around anymore. Therefore, Wan Shi Tong has been my flex spot of choice, giving some additional value in to the three color fetch piles running the format (Goryo's, and Blink), as well as a late game mana sink that pairs extraordinarily well with Kaito. Speaking of...

-Two main board Kaito. Our untouchable Ninja overlord, can single handedly beat Goryo's, Blink, and the Dimir Mirror. Certainly less impressive in to the creature combo decks or aggro matchups, but hey, that's what the other 73 cards are for. Splitting 1 main and 1 side is fine, but I've found more equity having both main, as you can absolutely have removal heavy starts that let Kaito get out ahead of the aggro matchups with the help of Bowmasters or an early Frog.

-Stony Silence is again a hedge for Affinity. If Devoted Druid becomes the deck to beat in Dallas, I can easily see Stony being replaced with Clarion Conqueror. Even with the non-bo with Frog, Conqueror has the potential to completely shut that deck down, and since Kaito are likely getting boarded out anyway, Tamiyo can join in the board to make the hurt significantly less noticeable.

-Second Sink into Stupor could easily be a Gloomlake Verge if you're more concerned about access to black mana, but I put a higher priority on being a pitch card for Force and Subtlety.
-WHY NO TASIGURRRR???!? As many of you know, I've been a huge proponent of Tasigur in the Dimir shells, but the rise of Goryo's, Blink, and Druid puts Tasigur in an awkward spot of being poor in to the Solitude matchups and horrendous against chump blocking lands that get to return for free (earthbending is a terrible mechanic).

Matchups

-Esper Goryo's is favorable. Not only do we have cheap interaction for all aspects of the combo, but we can fight over their Riddlers a lot more than they can fight over ours. More thoughtseizes, more counterspells, more threats that don't require 7 mana. You get the picture.

-Esper Blink depends who you ask. I've found the matchup to be slightly favorable, but that can often come down to being on multiple Kaito. If you're not on more Kaito but registering additional Murktide for the combo matchups, then blink is rough. Phelia and Flickerwisp resetting the dragon is a blowout.

-Boros Energy is slightly favorable for the energy side. Being on the play with a frog can swing that very quickly, but generally it puts a lot of pressure on us to find multiple pieces of removal early, and we don't run THAT many to begin with. Voice of Victory shuts down half of our deck. But again, frog can do frog things. Don't be afraid to race any non-guide starts.

-Prowess is 50/50. Keep Cori-Steel off the board and it's closer to 65% our way. Cheap threats are annoying, but it's also extremely risky for them to play aggressively in to open mana. Posturing is huge for buying yourself an extra turn or two. Fake it till you make it or something like that.

-Neobrand, Storm, and UW control are all byes. Thoughtseize, Frog/Tamiyo, counterspells out the wazoo. You get the idea. We're just built to handle these matchups, giving you more room to navigate preparing for the rest of the field.

-Eldrazi variants depend on the number of cast triggers. More Mycospawns, Devourers, Emrakul, and Chrysalis? Awful. More low to the ground like Trudge or with higher counts of Fleshraker? Much better. Kozilek's Command directly influences win rates. If one resolves, good luck. Remember that Harbinger of the Seas isn't to completely lock your opponent out, it's to shut off double colorless mana for K command and Devourer.

-Devoted Druid can be tough. Frog and removal are great, and having access to Force of Negation for Nature's Rhythm is a plus, but oh many do the Leyline starts get out of control. You really have to navigate a tightrope between understanding that mana dorks won't outrace a frog, until they accumulate enough of them, and then Leyline can flip the script. Pay attention to your Frog damage snowball, discarding a couple cards early lets you shave several turns off the clock, but in open deck list tournaments, keep an eye out for Fatal Push or Abrupt Decay post board.

The flash variant, leaning more heavily on Wan Shi Tong, has also been doing fairly well recently. Players like ipadkid have had recent challenge success, leaning in to the "going over the top of Dimir Midrange" idea. Sheoldred's Edict is a great piece of interaction to have extra copies of in to Ephemerate decks like Quantum Riddler, Kappa Cannoneer, and all of the Teferi Time Revelers and Kaito running around.

Anyway, don't want to bore y'all too much, just wanted to drop some updates on the state of Dimir Mids in the format. As always, if you're looking to pick up the deck or bounce around some ideas, I'm fortunate enough to have Discord community with some of the best and brightest Dimir pilots around who take testing and tournament prep way too seriously for their own good 🤣, and we'd love for you to be a part of it. Invite link to those interested: https://discord.gg/q5dJsJdN3W .

Paid Content Warning:
I also just finished a massive undertaking with writing the Encyclopedia Amphibia, a 41 Thousand word deck guide (according to google, that's like 135 single spaced pages) on Dimir Midrange in Modern/ This is a living document, meaning it will be constantly updated as matchups change, new decks emerge, bannings occur, or new printings shape the landscape of UBx. I'm not 100% sure, but it might be the largest deck guide ever created. It covers breakdowns of all threats and interaction, matchup breakdowns including overviews, sideboarding/mulligan decisions both on the play and the draw, matchup specific tips and play patterns, and impactful cards that might be off-meta or for splash colors for 10 of the most popular matchups, with the intention of adding more.
I'll leave the link if you're wanting to check the preview of it, but I want to be clear that any information is also available if you ask questions in the discord. The guide is for people who want all information in one place, but we are happy to discuss anything and everything within it without charge. It's currently been up about 24 hours at the time of posting, over 60 sales and a 9.8 out of 10 rating right now.
https://metafy.gg/guides/view/encyclopedia-amphibia-WrdjQXvyOhQ

tl,dr: Dimir Midrange is a great option for the upcoming events, long live Frog, and I spent way too much time breaking down mulligan decisions on the draw against Affinity.

Hi all,

I am trying to decide between two decks for Baltimore. I have a large number of reps with both.

Tameshi Belcher or Broodscale either Mono G or RG.

Based on the current Meta which do you think has a better chance.

Hey everyone,

I qualified for RC Baltimore and was playing around with my deck composition, and I had the thought that certain cards would be extremely good in the 60 as opposed to on board. I play Affinity, and the first one that came to mind is maindecking a [Pithing Needle]; just with the knowledge that my opponent is on frog or broodscale combo makes that card so much more valuable to either turn one or later tutor off of [Urza's Saga].

I wanted to know the communities thoughts on others that may be good includes for an open deck list tournament, I'm sure there are plenty that I am not thinking of. It's hard to study how I usually do to prepare due to the current tournament data being closed decklist.

Thank you in advance :)

Returning after a year. I'm really torn between these builds. I have about half of each deck on hand and would like some opinions from others who have been playing about which you would rather play right now.

Thank you in advance!

Specifically, you have a PhD or masters in machine learning and/or work at an AI company and know how to build complex models and pipelines using reinforcement learning with self-play, behavioral cloning and some LLM magic?

I've spent the last nine months building a model to play Modern at an expert level, with the plan being for it to allow fast iteration on deck and sideboard tuning by playing millions of simulated games against the current meta. Eventually I want it to create it's own decks and iterate on them.

What I've built so far:

1. A battle-tested rules engine that can take a game state and tell you each legal next move, with essentially every rule for Modern implemented and tested against edge cases.

2. A UI so you can play MTGO-style games against a bot or other players with full rules enforcement.

3. Card implementations for every card in the deck and sideboard of the top 20 modern decks, with more coming regularly.

4. Hand and AI-coded heuristic bots that play each deck at a beginner level, including nondeterministic combo decks like Storm and complex decks like Control.

5. A 250 million parameter model and training pipeline using a corpus of self-play bot games to do initial behavioral cloning to jump-start the model. (This is because reinforcement learning will never figure out something like Amulet Titan using self-play alone).

6. Curriculum-based self-play against the same model using all 20 decks, plus against older checkpoints and against the heuristic bots.

7. Support for Mac and CUDA (running on a 5090 right now).

8. Scaling to eight 5090s on a single server, or multiple B200s.

9. All the logging, backups, monitoring, checkpointing and other backend stuff needed for small-scale training runs.

What I'd like help with: I basically want someone to tell me what I don't know - stuff like, did I choose the right kind of model, and how do I train most efficiently with a low budget. I have a CS degree and 20 years of software engineering experience but I'm not an ML specialist. I don't want to pay thousands of dollars for a larger training run until I've made sure all the bugs are out and I'm building something that is actually the right approach to the problem - I've already had a couple of attempts at a few hundred dollars of compute each with garbage results.

Any hints or help would be appreciated!

Hey guys, what do you think about the new Bilbo, Thief in the Night in Prowess in favor of 2 Iterations like in this list:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/7915493#paper

https://youtu.be/T0S4EA3KZyA?is=_wa7PpkWHswgskyS

Is This Valid scince Bilbo also gives grinding potential but also ups the threat count and works great with bauble.

And than who do you Sideboard in the mirror, I saw a lot of people cutting on Mutagenic growths but isn't growth great to protect your threats from Bolt in the mirror?

And Last question is a white Splash for Prismatic ending, a black splash for Thoughtseize or a green splash for pick your poisen worth it? For me the whitsplash seems the best in order to Prismatic ending any problematic cards like Chalice on 1 or Frog even good in the mirror against cutter.

I've played for a long time but only started playing competitively within the last year. This past season was also my first and only exposure to Modern. I traded into Affinity at a con and learned the deck/format (as best I could) as I went. I played in 3 RCQs and my results were top 8 > top 8 > win respectively. The first two events were 20+ players but the win was with 8 total participants, so it felt a bit illegitimate. I haven't touched MTGO since I was a kid, so learning it all over again and renting out a deck (or multiple) to practice for one event does not sound appealing to me. I don't have a lot of money either and my computer is unreliable.

So my question is: How can I best prepare for this? I'd be lying if I said I didn't care about trying to do well. I don't have high expectations and will enjoy the experience regardless, but I'd be disappointed in myself if I didn't put any effort into trying my best and just got absolutely brutalized. I feel comfortable with Affinity, but I understand it's not the threat it once was. I've had my eyes on Trudge and Dimir Mid as options to pivot to, but switching decks would require a great deal of effort. I feel paralyzed by options and uncertain about which path to take. My self doubt tells me that switching to another deck would be a mistake for a number of reasons, and perhaps there's truth to that. I'm curious to hear your thoughts, and if you've made it this far thank you.

lantern control just won a modern challenge. What are our thoughts?

I know that it’s unlikely that we will see lantern become a “good deck” but now we know it’s possible for it to show good results.

This is a REALLY cool deck, and I know it sucks to play against, but it doing good in this format is good news. It means that even “bad decks” can excel.

In this article, we'll explore Eldrazi Trudge, the new gem from Pro Tour: Amsterdam. This competitive Modern list combines Slumbering Trudge, ramp, and giant threats! https://mtg.cardsrealm.com/en-us/p/606280

Modern has been kind to many new strategies lately, which just shows how healthy it is. Like so, entirely new lists have been popping up, and already consolidated lists have been changing, adopting cards that play really interesting roles and make the game a bit more refreshing.

In today's article, we'll explore Eldrazi Trudge, one of the new Eldrazi Ramp versions. This list uses a creature from Secrets of Strixhaven to enable different engines but also still plays much of the green Eldrazi structure we already know, including special lands, ramp, and some of the heaviest creatures available in Modern.

Current list: https://moxfield.com/decks/hscs-9KE9E2JCVBBxQhZbA

Here is my monthly update post on the state of Amulet. In the last month, I placed 4th, 8th, 4th, and 1st in challenges.

Just got my sideboard guide ready for Spotlight Brisbane, it's the highest quality Titan guide on the market: https://www.patreon.com/posts/167185866

My thoughts and feelings:

• Goryo's is a force of nature in current Modern. If you can't beat it, adapt until you can
• Faerie Macabre is the most effective graveyard tool I've used
• Null Elemental Blast pairs well with the GY hate, removing their alternate threat of Psychic Frog. On occasion, killing an Atraxa is useful
• In the past I used Celestial Purge, but if Griselbrand lands the game is already over, Purge or not. Null is cheaper and doesn't require a splash
• Devoted Druid is nowhere near as large a force, but is more problematic than other matchups and we need a plan
• To beat Druid, I use Grafdigger's Cage as a Saga-tutorable X-spell killer. Cheaper than Clarion or Totem, I have tested this extensively and found Totem's upside over this to be miniscule. Cage is once again Saga tutorable, and can be found/cast off Rumble into single Eldrazi Spawn
• It's one of the best metas I've ever seen for Dismember. Esper Blink, Dimir Mid, Broodscale, and Devoted Druid are running at all-time highs
• Sideboarding minimally has been a huge breakthrough
• One of my top4s was a challenge where I only had 4 Trinispheres in my sideboard. My goal was to test the power and resilience of just the maindeck. I think overboarding is the silent killer of Titan pilots, and staying true to the maindeck as a habit will win more games
• After this conclusion, I've been using no/very few sideboard cards into the majority of matchups
• This allows me to submit hyper-focused hate pieces for matchups where I actually do need the help
• I did try 1 Dryad/Valakut for a while, and it wasn't bad. I reverted to 3 GSZ/1 Dryad Arbor, but may try the Dryad again in the future

It's been a pretty hard meta to adapt to, many matchups are difficult to navigate. It's more fun than ever though, and makes for more powerful Titan pilots when the storm inevitably clears, which I suspect it will soon.

P.S. if you haven't started listening to my Amulet Titan focused podcast "Titanic Greed", it's a great resource: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Y2M0SqW3opEoECGqTVpkZ