Welcome, everyone, to the Mox Insights breakdown of SCG Dallas. We’ve got Day 2 decklists and a lot of things to talk about – did you hear that Wizards of the Coast unbanned Stoneforge Mystic? – so let’s dive right in!
Forging a New Modern
The banning of Faithless Looting frankly caught us by surprise. While Faithless Looting had been an oft-mentioned problematic card and decks had been consistently performing well with Faithless Looting, it wasn’t by a significant margin – not like, say, Krark-Clan Ironworks decks had been high performing. Izzet Phoenix was a strong performer but War for the Spark had introduced new tools to fight back against the deck; Narset, Parter of Veils and Teferi, Time Raveler were significant upgrades to Azorius Control. Further, Dredge was poised to make a strong resurgence after the superior graveyard deck of Hogaak was banned. We would’ve liked to see a more conservative approach to the format than what happened so that we could more accurately see how the countless variables in the Modern format play out. But in the words of the Rolling Stone(forge mystic)s: you can’t always get what you want.
So, Stoneforge Mystic in Modern for the first time ever. How did this impact the format? Where did we end up at the end of SCG Dallas?
An Overview of the Tournament
As usual, we did a breakdown of the most popular archetypes and see how they paired up against each other. We’re going to dial into some of the bigger decks of the tournament to tell a story about the changing new nature of Modern later, but this is the broad cross-section to start with:
| Burn | 9-3 | 10-15 | 6-3 | 6-5 | 3-2 | 2-5 | 3-4 | 4-1 | 2-2 | 0-2 | 6-2 | 3-2 | 1-1 | 1-2 | 16-21 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mono-Green Tron | 3-9 | 7-4 | 1-7 | 6-0 | 4-2 | 1-3 | 4-2 | 2-2 | 2-2 | 0-3 | 0-1 | 1-1 | 2-0 | 1-3 | 12-15 | |
| Four-Color Whirza | 15-10 | 4-7 | 1-5 | 4-5 | 3-5 | 6-1 | 4-0 | 2-4 | – | 2-2 | 2-0 | 0-3 | 1-3 | 2-1 | 11-10 | |
| TitanShift | 3-6 | 7-1 | 5-1 | – | 2-3 | 3-1 | 3-2 | 0-1 | 0-1 | 1-4 | 2-0 | – | 2-2 | – | 11-12 | |
| Jund | 5-6 | 0-6 | 5-4 | – | 2-1 | 3-1 | 2-1 | 1-2 | 4-1 | 1-0 | 0-2 | 2-1 | 0-1 | 2-0 | 8-6 | |
| Humans | 2-3 | 2-4 | 5-3 | 3-2 | 1-2 | 1-1 | 1-0 | – | – | 0-1 | – | 0-1 | – | 0-1 | 6-4 | |
| Azorius Control | 5-2 | 3-1 | 1-6 | 1-3 | 1-3 | 1-1 | 0-2 | 1-0 | – | 1-0 | – | 2-0 | 1-0 | – | 5-4 | |
| Mono-Red Prowess | 4-3 | 2-4 | 0-4 | 2-3 | 1-2 | 0-1 | 2-0 | 2-0 | 2-0 | – | 0-1 | – | – | – | 5-4 | |
| Grixis Death’s Shadow | 1-4 | 2-2 | 4-2 | 1-0 | 2-1 | – | 0-1 | 0-2 | 1-0 | 2-0 | – | 1-0 | 0-1 | – | 11-2 | |
| Bant Stoneblade | 2-2 | 2-2 | – | 1-0 | 1-4 | – | – | 0-2 | 0-1 | 1-0 | 0-1 | 1-1 | 2-0 | – | 7-3 | |
| Infect | 2-0 | 3-0 | 2-2 | 4-1 | 0-1 | 1-0 | 0-1 | – | 0-2 | 0-1 | 1-0 | – | 0-1 | – | 3-5 | |
| Amulet Titan | 2-6 | 1-0 | 0-2 | 0-2 | 2-0 | – | – | 1-0 | – | 1-0 | 0-1 | – | 1-0 | 1-0 | 5-4 | |
| Gifts Storm | 2-3 | 1-1 | 3-0 | – | 1-2 | 1-0 | 0-2 | – | 0-1 | 1-1 | – | – | – | 1-0 | 3-3 | |
| Abzan Company | 1-1 | 0-2 | 3-1 | 2-2 | 1-0 | – | 0-1 | – | 1-0 | 0-2 | 1-0 | 0-1 | – | – | 0-2 | |
| Eldrazi Tron | 2-1 | 3-1 | 1-2 | – | 0-2 | 1-0 | – | – | – | – | – | 0-1 | 0-1 | – | 2-2 | |
| Other | 21-16 | 15-12 | 10-11 | 12-11 | 6-8 | 4-6 | 4-5 | 4-5 | 2-11 | 3-7 | 5-3 | 4-5 | 3-3 | 2-0 | 2-2 | |
|
Burn
|
Mono-Green Tron
|
Four-Color Whirza
|
TitanShift
|
Jund
|
Humans
|
Azorius Control
|
Mono-Red Prowess
|
Bant Stoneblade
|
Infect
|
Amulet Titan
|
Gifts Storm
|
Abzan Company
|
Eldrazi Tron
|
Other
|
| 80 | |
| 70 | |
| 60 | |
| 50 | |
| 40 | |
| 30 | |
| 20 |
So what sticks out? Let’s start with the most-represented deck in the format, Burn. In the absence of significant guidance in the format, it’s not a bad idea to approach things almost as if a new set had dropped the weekend of SCG Dallas. While sometimes the Top 8 is a poor representation of the tournament, taking up three out of the Top 8 slots is a fair representation of Burn’s success in this tournament.
Creatures (12)
Lands (20)
Spells (28)
- 4 Lightning Bolt
- 4 Lava Spike
- 4 Lightning Helix
- 4 Rift Bolt
- 4 Searing Blaze
- 4 Boros Charm
- 4 Skewer the Critics
Sideboard
Dylan Donegan’s list is a great example of a deck that was not only ready to get aggressive; it was prepared for the mirror. In fact, all three Top 8 Burn decks had a full play set of Kor Firewalkers in the sideboard.
The other major aggressive archetype was Mono-Red Prowess, which had a lot smaller representation, so it’s harder to draw commentary on. We decided to run the numbers in terms of how Mono-Red Prowess and Burn stacked up against each other and the rest of the format:
|
Mono-Red Prowess |
Burn |
Other |
|
|
Mono-Red Prowess |
— |
57% |
45% |
|
Burn |
42% |
— |
52% |
So, while Burn was slightly unfavored versus Mono-Red Prowess, Mono-Red Prowess didn’t fare as well against the rest of the field as Burn did. While Burn struggled against Whirza and Azorius Control, it generally fared well against the rest of the field.
When we plotted decks’ win rates versus the popularity of these decks, we weren’t particularly surprised to see TitanShift in the sweet spot of “high-performing deck with high representation,” even with Burn being an atrocious matchup for it. We’ve been quietly advocating TitanShift as a deck players pay attention to and play and this was a good weekend to do so.
Mono-Green Tron, on the other hand… well, we’ll talk about that later. But we kind of told you so.
In the far right of this, though: Grixis Death’s Shadow players, has your time come again? Grixis Death’s Shadow had an extremely small representation in this tournament, but we’d like to think that the days of Temur Battle Rage-ing people are here again. Now that the format has slowed down enough with the banning of Faithless Looting, these players can again ask their favorite question: “What’s your life total?”
We wanted to highlight how “old” stalwarts like Humans and Jund fared. Humans was slightly suboptimal, one of its worst performances, which still wasn’t that bad. Jund players are starting to stay above the 50% line, which is a place these Golgari-based midrange decks haven’t been in a while. Jund’s main predator was Mono-Green Tron this weekend, although we should note that, curiously (and perhaps fortunately), all the Jund players dodged playing TitanShift in SCG Dallas. We don’t expect that to be a good matchup, so Jund with caution in the future.
The Sword and the Stone and the Molten Pinnacle and Karn Liberated
One of the things we wanted to do was explore how some of the newer contenders for the top dog of Modern played off each other this weekend. We broke this down into Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle; Karn Liberated; Stoneforge Mystic; and Urza, Lord High Artificer as pillars for the format to work with, against decks that were not playing any of these “new” toys.
Creatures (12)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (24)
Spells (21)
|
Karn Liberated |
Urza, Lord High Artificer |
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle |
None |
|
|
71% |
42% |
28% |
55% |
Stoneforge Mystic decks seemed extremely prepared to fight Mono-Green Tron decks. This suggests to us that Mono-Green Tron as the “control killer” deck that prevented control decks from being successful in Modern is likely a dead trope.
Decks like Edgar Magalhaes’s have a clock that can finish the game fast enough while also preventing those Mono-Green Tron players from being able to land the haymaker threats like Karn Liberated they need to finish the game. Since these Stoneblade-style decks are already playing Path to Exile, Wurmcoil Engine isn’t a problem.
Urza and Valakut decks tell a different story. Both these archetypes tend towards what could best be described as a combo style, so they’re prepared to dodge the primary Batterskull plan that Azorius and Bant Stoneblade decks are trying to execute. It should be noted that Valakut decks in SCG Dallas were exclusively TitanShift decks: Force of Negation and Path to Exile won’t be that effective against these decks that are redundant enough to fight through interaction.
And against the rest of the format, Stoneforge Mystic decks fared well enough, a 55% win rate no doubt carried by some of the better players in Day 2 still saying that the Stoneforge Mystic package helps these midrange packages and a style of play that previously only Jund could do in Modern.
Creatures (7)
Planeswalkers (10)
Lands (19)
Spells (24)
|
Stoneforge Mystic |
Urza, Lord High Artificer |
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle |
None |
|
|
28% |
60% |
12% |
50% |
Mono-Green Tron has been one of the most mediocre decks in recent times, and SCG Dallas did nothing to move the needle on that. If anything, it looks rather poor against the new top dogs of the format. Whirza decks have clearly identified that the Mono-Green Tron matchup is a problem, but the abysmal win rates of Karn Liberated versus the other two significant decks – especially TitanShift, a deck which looks extremely well-positioned versus Stoneforge Mystic archetypes – tells us to steer clear of Mono-Green Tron. Against the rest of the format, it won 31 matches and lost 30, as close to 50-50 as you can get without being right on the nose. It’s time to have a frank conversation: if you’re taking Mono-Green Tron to a tournament hoping to spike it, you might be making a mistake.
Creatures (7)
Lands (20)
Spells (33)
|
Stoneforge Mystic |
Karn Liberated |
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle |
None |
|
|
57% |
34% |
28% |
52% |
Whirza decks posted a slightly better spread from our vantage point. They handled Stoneforge Mystic decks ably and did fine against the rest of the field but struggled mightily against the “big mana” decks of Mono-Green Tron and TitanShift. We wanted to highlight Harlan Firer’s SCG Dallas-winning list because of his sideboard. Firer was clearly prepared to shore up the weak Mono-Green Tron matchup with Assassin’s Trophy and Ceremonious Rejection, and if you want to have success against the broad Modern format where people will, for some reason, continue playing Mono-Green Tron, Firer’s approach is a very smart one, and the other top-finishing list from Zach Allen also played three Assassin’s Trophy.
Firer and Allen also played Galvanic Blast in the maindeck, which we think is a good preparation for the mirror where you may not always be able to get a consistent trigger on Fatal Push. But you do want maindeck interaction against enough of the decks in Modern, especially against Burn – although once the combo of Urza and Thopter Foundry plus Sword of the Meek is assembled, Burn will die, and likely will struggle against that combo even without Urza.
Creatures (9)
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (24)
Spells (26)
|
Stoneforge Mystic |
Karn Liberated |
Urza, Lord High Artificer |
None |
|
|
71% |
80% |
71% |
40% |
As we mentioned, we’ve been saying TitanShift deserves more attention. It’s been quietly making multiple Top 8s across SCG and MagicFest events. While Valakut didn’t fare as well against the rest of the format as a general rule, it trounced these new power players in Modern in SCG Dallas. Looking at the overall results of the tournament, TitanShift seems like the premier Primeval Titan strategy and surprisingly great against what everyone else is doing. There are lots of reasons we could suggest it being effective: it attacked on an axis that most decks were not prepared to fight, and was extremely redundant and consistent as a combo deck. With some slight adjustments to its approach in the format hard-targeting its subpar matchups, we think TitanShift is an excellent choice still and deserves some deck selection.
Moving Forward
Decks to try: Overall, we want to note that with Faithless Looting gone, the overall win rate across the top-represented decks didn’t have any strong divergences. Most decks were within five percent of a 50% win rate, with the exception of Grixis Death’s Shadow, which we believe is a good marker that it warrants more attention. Grixis Death Shadow’s representation was extremely small, but also extremely promising. We would recommend making sure this deck is on your testing radar and it deserves a lot more exploration against the rest of the format. Abzan Company also had a small representation, not enough for us to plot, and didn’t do that well, but the Stoneforge Mystic package is interesting. It didn’t fare extremely well in this event, but it has potential if TitanShift decks put pressure on the rest of the format.
Decks to tune: TitanShift was also one of our sweet performers that we’re high on moving forward. TitanShift players probably need to tune their sideboard for these aggressive decks: particular weak points were Burn and Infect. But this deck is great and it’s good to see it finally getting the accolades it deserves. Remember your Reclamation Sages, though.
No one made the clip @strong_sad & @RyanOverdrive asked for of @RossHunneds on the broadcast and I had 5 minutes sooooo here you go: pic.twitter.com/xZwJ6bjIEn
— Jonathan Choi (@heresasianjon) September 2, 2019
If you want to play with the new, expensive packages of Urza and Stoneforge Mystic, it’s kind of hard to go extremely wrong with either of these decks. They should be safe options moving forward against the non-big mana part of the format. If you can build tools to fight TitanShift, you will be in a good place.
We look forward to bringing you more Mox Insights for SCG Syracuse and exploring where Legacy has evolved. While Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis might be banned in Modern, those who have been paying attention to Magic Online results might anticipate its return.