The fourth SCG Tour Online Championship Qualifier of Season Two kicks off tomorrow, marking the fourth straight weekend of Core Set 2021 Standard action. This will be the third event on the SCG Tour following the latest Standard bannings of Wilderness Reclamation, Growth Spiral, Cauldron Familiar, and Teferi, Time Raveler.
Format
Sultai Ramp has emerged as the dominant deck, taking six of the Top 8 slots in last week’s Championship Qualifier, including Alexander Gordon-Brown’s winning list that was tuned for the mirror. The deck went from 26% of the field in the first week after the bans to nearly 38% in the second week. Will the deck continue to rise in metagame share or will players find an answer to the default home for cards like Nissa, Who Shakes the World, Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath, and Hydroid Krassis?
While Sultai Ramp is considered the top deck, the way to build it varies. Some variants go heavy on planeswalkers, others load up on interaction for mirrors, and some even go to combos with Emergent Ultimatum.
Creatures (11)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (27)
Spells (18)
- 2 Negate
- 1 Disdainful Stroke
- 4 Thought Erasure
- 4 Aether Gust
- 2 Mystical Dispute
- 2 Eat to Extinction
- 3 Shark Typhoon
Sideboard
Creatures (8)
Planeswalkers (9)
- 3 Nissa, Who Shakes the World
- 1 Tamiyo, Collector of Tales
- 3 Narset, Parter of Veils
- 2 Teferi, Master of Time
Lands (28)
Spells (15)
Creatures (5)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (25)
Spells (26)
Non-Sultai Ramp decks that have performed lately include the two outliers in last week’s Championship Qualifier Top 8: Mardu Winota and Izzet Aggro.
Creatures (32)
- 3 Judith, the Scourge Diva
- 4 Lazotep Reaver
- 4 Knight of the Ebon Legion
- 4 Fervent Champion
- 2 Blacklance Paragon
- 4 Stormfist Crusader
- 3 Woe Strider
- 4 Winota, Joiner of Forces
- 4 Basri's Lieutenant
Lands (25)
Spells (3)
Masaru Abe made Top 8 with Izzet Aggro while on the same weekend Anthony Arevalo won the most recent Red Bull Untapped International Qualifier with a similar deck.
Creatures (15)
Lands (20)
Spells (25)
Creatures (14)
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (17)
Spells (25)
Sideboard
Other decks that continue to put up solid results include Mono-Red Aggro, Temur Adventures, and Mono-Green Aggro. Each deck qualified a player this week with a 4-0 finish in a Challenge.
Creatures (29)
- 4 Runaway Steam-Kin
- 3 Tin Street Dodger
- 4 Scorch Spitter
- 4 Robber of the Rich
- 4 Fervent Champion
- 4 Bonecrusher Giant
- 2 Torbran, Thane of Red Fell
- 4 Anax, Hardened in the Forge
Lands (22)
Spells (9)
Creatures (24)
- 4 Lovestruck Beast
- 4 Beanstalk Giant
- 4 Edgewall Innkeeper
- 4 Bonecrusher Giant
- 4 Fae of Wishes
- 4 Brazen Borrower
Lands (27)
Spells (9)
Creatures (28)
- 4 Scavenging Ooze
- 4 Pelt Collector
- 4 Barkhide Troll
- 4 Lovestruck Beast
- 3 Questing Beast
- 4 Stonecoil Serpent
- 2 Gemrazer
- 3 Garruk's Harbinger
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (25)
Spells (4)
Players to Watch
- Corey Baumeister
- Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa
- Autumn Burchett
- Ari Lax
- Ross Merriam
- Kyle Boggemes
- Brandon Burton
- Marcio Carvalho
- Nam Dang
- Daniel Goetschel
- Adam Hernandez
- David Inglis
- Eli Kassis
- Shaheen Soorani
- Austin Yost
Coverage
Coverage starts at 10 AM ET on Saturday. Cedric Phillips, Patrick Sullivan, Ryan Overturf, and Todd Anderson will call all the action while I do my usual job of picking feature matches, interviewing players, and running things behind the scenes. Watch all the action on twitch.tv/starcitygames and check out the tournament page for the event on MTG Melee.