Covering the Modern 10k at SCG Con Baltimore MTG Highlights

Recapping the Modern 10k Tournament at SCG Con Baltimore

Dive into our recap of the Modern 10k Tournament at SCG Con Baltimore. Get insights on top decks, key matches, and standout players from this MTG event!

We recently received word that Wizards did not plan on banning Nadu before the next scheduled B&R on August 26th. Some of us hoped that we would be able to start the Modern RCQ season knowing exactly what decks weren't going to be allowed in the format. Some want Grief to be banned, as well as The One Ring. The no-ban announcement left the door wide open for SCG Con to be littered with a heavy Nadu Meta. This ended up being my first modern tournament, and first time playing it in paper, and it went about as well as I expected it to. I ended up dropping out after round five after falling to a two and three record, but I'm not the star of the article this time! I'll go over a little bit of my experiences in the article today, and I'll go over a deck that I believe is incredibly well-positioned. I'll save you a Google Search, and it was no surprise that things went this way. The top 5 decks of the tournament were Nadu decks. Half of the top 16 were Nadu decks. It continues to illustrate the point made by Magic players all over the world that appears to be falling on deaf ears: Nadu has to be banned. Ideally, we wish for it to happen before the Modern RCQ Season starts in early August, but it appears there will be at least three weeks of Nadu tearing up Modern Events until the next B&R. Anyhow, let's go over some other noteworthy parts of the tournament that should hopefully show some good signs to come for the Modern Format.

Total Cards:

Reanimator combos are fun in any format - and they're especially fun when we can play them in a competitive environment. The Goryo's Vengeance Deck in Modern accomplishes that, and it makes great use of three of the five elemental creatures. Also, it reanimates Griselbrand, and who doesn't love that?

Key Combo Cards

Magic the Gathering Card - Psychic Frog - MTG Circle

Right off the bat, this already good deck gained a new friend when MH3 came out. We have a creature that gets big as we discard cards, and we already want to discard cards to reanimate powerful creatures. What's not to like here? If we end up with stuff in our graveyard that we do not need to reanimate, we can also give the frog flying so that it has built-in evasion. I like to think that this card is a great early gameplan for the deck that allows it to be aggressive before and during the assembly of the combo.

Magic the Gathering Card - Goryo's Vengeance - MTG Circle

This is really what makes the deck work incredibly early in the game. We now have access to surveil lands, and this can allow us to get a creature reanimated onto the battlefield as early as turn two. If you want to wait until turn three so you can blink it and get around the exile trigger, you can do that too, but the deck can really pop off quickly. The fact that this spell is only two mana is beyond broken. Creatures in the format have such powerful enter the battlefield effects and attack triggers these days. Even if you don't benefit from the attack, there are multiple creatures in the deck that have lifelink, and since Goryo gives them haste, we are talking about massive lifegain very early in the game. If you can make the creature stick without it being removed, you are pummeling the opponent very early.

Magic the Gathering Card - Ephemerate - MTG Circle

This is our way to get around the fact that we have to exile the creature at the end step. It is also extra relevant because most of the creatures in the deck have a very strong ability just from entering the battlefield. Since Ephemerate also has rebound, we are talking about grabbing up to 15 cards with an Atraxa, or taking up to three cards from an opponent's hand with Grief. Also, Subtlety is another one that can get pretty ridiculous with this ability. Since it can continually place cards on top of the opponent's library, there is a way to effectively timewalk the opponent for a few turns, which effectively locks them out of the game while we take over the board and win.

Key Creatures in the Deck

Magic the Gathering Card - Griselbrand - MTG Circle

When I first heard that this deck can play Griselbrand and it's actually good, I immediately wanted to try it. The fact that you can give the creature haste to attack and gain 7 life, then draw seven cards with the free life you just gained is phenomenal. It basically allows you to mulligan to 3 or 4 cards and not care. Really powerful early game abilities.

Magic the Gathering Card - Atraxa, Grand Unifier - MTG Circle

Atraxa is known in every format as a bomb of a card. It's no surprise here that it's an easy target for Goryo in this deck. The enter the battlefield effect is too good to leave out. Because of the deck wanting to be able to run a mana base that allows for it to hard cast Atraxa, it even lights up one of the best removal cards in Magic: Leyline Binding. Even if Atraxa isn't going to be able to attack, or it gets removed after entering, we are still going to grab five cards. Even if you only get to do that, you effectively looked at ten cards and hand-picked three to five of them to put in your hand. That is the case, and it's hard for it to be bad that way.

Magic the Gathering Card - Grief - MTG Circle

We all know that this card is also facing a possible ban. Many players are calling for it, saying that it interrupts the play experience, and that getting Grief Scammed on turn one makes it really hard to win the game after that. This deck absolutely wants to play it, and it wants to blink the creature as much as possible. There is no better feeling than reanimating a ton of creatures without having to worry about any interaction, and then working towards winning the game.

Magic the Gathering Card - Subtlety - MTG Circle

Although this deck doesn't play Subtlety, there are a lot of the Goryo decks that do. It really creates a difficult situation for the opponent as they are forced to choose what cards they want to be able to keep on top of their deck, but it never really gives them a good choice. This is where the styles of the deck can vary. It appears the list from this past weekend focuses more on simply removing threats, which is also fine. I think the reason for that is because there are a lot of Eldrazi spells that have cast triggers. You don't want to let an opponent cast a card that has a strong cast effect, and then put it right back on top of their deck and let them get that same effect again the next turn. There are situations where Subtlety can lock out the game, but also situations where it could be bad. This deck opting to use Solitude definitely makes sense, but any of the element within the Esper Colors are strong in the build in their own way.Now this deck is undoubtedly strong, but it's unfortunate that it didn't have a slightly better performance over the weekend. Although it had a good win rate at 6-3, it really leaves us to wonder if it would have done a bit better without Nadu being so prevalent. Who knows, if Nadu gets banned, the Goryo's Vengeance on turn two or three could make this the fastest deck in the format!

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I am a Magic The Gathering competitive player, and streamer. I specialize in homebrew decks. My favorite formats are: Standard, Pioneer (Explorer on Arena), and EDH. I first started playing MTG in 2001, and have played on and off since then.

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Explore the highs and lows of MTG 2024, from format shakeups to standout cards and controversies. Discover key changes in Standard and more.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Recapping MTG in 2024

2024 was a huge year for MTG. It was a lot of things. Controversial, exciting, frustrating, promising, and refreshed. We saw some formats get ruined, then fixed, then ruined again. We saw some great changes to Standard that not everyone was fans of at first, but they seemed to quickly warm up to them. We saw Wizards effectively abandon a format in favor of propelling Standard into a more prominent position. We saw some great cards printed for Standard, and some promising things to come in the next year that were announced. Along with that, a fair amount of people were still bothered by the new trajectory of the format. Some are calling into question the longevity of MTG now with the heavy lean into Universes Beyond. A little bit of everything happened this year in the MTG world, and it was interesting if nothing else. On a personal level, it was also a hell of a year for me, as I took down two different events and grew a lot as a player. We are going to look at The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from this year! The Good I have to admit, I'm pretty excited that we have an infinite gain and drain combo in Standard right now. With Enduring Tenacity and Bloodthirsty Conqueror having made a lot of my dreams come true in my favorite format. Although the deck isn't the most viable in the format, it is incredibly fun to play, and I'm just happy that we had such exciting cards printed in the format. It leads to good card design going forward, and gives us promise for what's to come in the next year.

Want to WIN Games in Standard? Play These Cards!

People often discuss win rates when cards are included in a deck, or maybe win rates if a card is drawn during a game. There is even something to take from the percentage of decks a card appears in. Sure, we can say x and y are good cards to put in your deck, but what cards are truly the best? Which ones give you the best chance of winning a game after you cast them? We are going to look at those cards today. We are effectively examining the biggest bombs in the format. There is still a concept of not relying on one card to win the game, and using synergies to win. I get it. I would invite you to consider, however, even if you do not plan to play any of these cards, you should definitely be aware of what is a bomb that needs your attention in the format. Without further ado, let's check out the bombs in Standard, and see how insane their win rates are. Standard Cards with Highest Win Rate (When Cast) Note that this statistic is simply if the card was cast from someone's hand. It does not look at whether or not the spell was resolved. I think this has bearing on the outcome of the game as well. If it gets countered or removed, we know it is also that much more important. This is why I believe looking at win rate when cast is the best metric for the biggest threats.

This Deck is Giving Everyone PROBLEMS in Pioneer

This is starting to feel like déjà vu. Remember the last time a Rakdos Deck was extremely powerful and the most popular deck in Pioneer? Interestingly enough, it is another midrange shell with a powerful combo. What's different this time, however, is that the cards are a lot more fair. This list is a little bit more well-balanced in my opinion. There is no broken turn three "deal with a Veinripper or lose" in this deck. It simply uses all of the best midrange value cards so well and with such synergy that most decks in the format cannot keep up. Nothing in the deck really feels broken to the point where you could pick out what card to ban. A lot of the cards that are good in the deck are played in other decks, so bans could have adverse effects that aren't good for the format. Nonetheless, the meta will either have to adapt to it, or we will need to see some new cards printed that make another deck good, or there will possibly end up being a ban. Rakdos Demons currently takes up 46% of the metashare, and it has plenty of top finishes in every tournament that it's in. To put things in perspective, the next closest deck in the format when it comes to metashare popularity is a few decks that have 6%. Rakdos Demons has consumed the format, and it would be hard to find someone who would tell you that it isn't the best deck. What's nice about it is that it is also playable on Arena, and because of Pioneer Masters, we aren't even missing any cards. You can jam this on MTGO, or Arena, or in paper. Either way you spin it, this deck kills! What I find interesting about how this deck has developed is that the list only plays two actual demon spells now. We have moved past the other demons that were in the list that could make things a bit clunky. Now, the deck is much faster. It has a lot of plays on turns two and three, and plays threats on those turns that demand answers, as opposed to dropping bombs on turn four. This deck oddly enough, only has 2 four mana spells. It's astonishing how much the list has evolved, and also how aggressive it has become with the tweaks. You've likely seen a few of these lists floating around, as it has been a deck for a few months now, so I will go over a couple of cards that have been added to it recently that contribute to the aggressive nature of the deck. New Additions

It's Official, We've Lived Long Enough to See Ourselves Become the Villain. Time for Mono Black Discard

There comes a time in every Magic player's tenure where they are simply fed up with everything that they are seeing in the meta. Some move to playing decks that remove everything, or decks that counter everything - sometimes both. Some of us simply don't let our opponents have any cards in hand, and that's what I've opted to do today. There's something that just feels right about making the opponent have zero cards in their hand while we continue to draw and play threats onto the board. Discard went well in the meta a few months ago before Duskmourn came out, and I think it is possible for it to be good again. The win rate so far with our deck is solid, but it is different from the one we played before. This time we are looking to add some card superiority into the list, and the same card that accomplishes that allows us to play fewer creatures to focus on more discard spells, and efficient removal. Let's take a look at the new discard deck in the Foundations Meta. This deck got a little bit more consistency and some extra win conditions from Duskmourn, and it is refreshing to know that we have more threats to draw, and we now have a higher likelihood of drawing them. We want to try and draw as many cards as we can with this deck, because some of the better lists that are out there will also draw a ton of cards. We look to punish our opponent for drawing cards, and for not having cards in their hand. We also look to benefit from drawing cards while punishing our opponent simultaneously. The list has a ton of removal, because frankly there are some cards that are just too difficult to deal with in Standard and I got sick of waiting to sideboard and hoping that I drew the answers. We will go over the key changes from previous versions, and then we will go over the sideboard guide! New Additions to Mono Black Discard

Checking in on MTG Modern After the Recent Bans (and Unbans)

We are almost two weeks out from the recent bans in Modern, and there is now enough data to see if anything has really changed. Banning cards like The One Ring and Amped Raptor was an attempt to level the playing field in a format where it seemed as if it was difficult to win if you didn't play those cards. Both cards were two of the most popularly played nonland cards, and it was getting to the point where player sentiment about the format was increasingly poor. Wizards knew that they had to do something, and they also needed to do something that kept things interesting after banning two powerful cards. To keep things fresh, Wizards also unbanned Splinter Twin, Green Sun's Zenith, Mox Opal, and Faithless Looting. This seems to be somewhat reasonable so far. All of the cards light up different archetypes, and this was a clear effort to breathe life into the format. Now that Wizards has made their intentions clear on what they wanted to see out of the format, it begs the question: Has anything actually changed? Most Popular Cards in the Format Post-Bans Although it is refreshing to not see The One Ring as the most commonly played card in the format, there are still some of the usual suspects that round out the top ten most played nonland cards. Long story short, the energy decks are still the most popular, and the cards that are staples within the lists unsurprisingly are the most commonly played nonland cards in the format. Oddly enough, it appears that Mardu Energy has now become more popular than Boros Energy, which is an interesting shift.

A Product Change is Coming to Play Booster Boxes, and People are NOT Happy

Although we are still getting used to the new cards brought to us by Foundations, we have begun to get announcements about the next Standard-legal set, Aetherdrift. Aetherdrift will be the first set to come out in 2025, and it will also be the first Universes Beyond Standard-legal set. For those who aren't familiar, Universes Beyond sets are the ones that do not exclusively involve the traditional MTG characters and planes, although they can still be incorporated. What they do for the characters in the Universes Beyond sets is to have somewhat of a crossover between MTG and another universe in popular culture. We have seen them do Lord of the Rings, Assassin's Creed, etc. What is unique about the Universes Beyond sets going forward is that they will now be Standard-legal - something that has not been the case up until now. In fact, almost all of the Universes Beyond sets were strictly Commander, Legacy, and Vintage-legal up until now, with the exception of Lord of the Rings also being legal in Modern. That is a change that we did know about , however, but the latest updates follow up on the new changes that we will see starting next year. Changes to Play Booster Boxes So what is this big change? How will it affect MTG?

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Recapping MTG in 2024