RCQ Power Rankings: Week Two

Long weekend. I played in Collector Legion's 100 man RCQ on Saturday, the 9th, where I placed thirteenth on Grixis Control (teammate Devin Fong placed 18th at the same tournament, both at 5-2). I followed that by throwing games in a sealed 1k the next day at my local store, TC Rockets. That day there was a second RCQ up at Spellhold Games, where Logic Knot member Prez Kuhnke placed second overall with Rhinos. Here are the top 8s for each tournament:

Collector Legion RCQ 9-9-23

I do not have the order of the top 8 for legion (yet). But the decks that made it were: Scam, Tron (x2), Amulet Titan, Yawgmoth, Domain Zoo, Coffers (7th) and Living End (8th, which I know because we played in the swiss and I missed because of that breaker I lost).

Spellhold RCQ 9-10-23

1 - Prez Kuhnke - Temur Rhinos
2 - Bryan Ferguson - Izzet Murktide
3 - Michael Li - UB Shadow
4 - Damian D - E-Tron
5 - Dana Fischer - Boros Burn
6 - Cooper Levin - Rakdos Scam
7 - Adan Avalos - Amulet Titan
8 - Chris Iaali - GW Druid Combo

RCQ Top 8 Totals (Season 4):

2 Tron
2 Titan
2 Scam
1 Yawg
1 Living End
1 Burn
1 GW Company
1 UB Shadow
1 Eldrazi Tron
1 Murktide
1 Rhinos
1 Coffers
1 Domain Zoo

Overall, I think most of the power rankings from last week were reasonable. Assuming that this is a somewhat accurate representation of top8s in SoCal featuring reasonably skilled players, I have made some changes to the power rankings:

10 - Domain Zoo

9 - Burn

8 - 4CElementals

7 - Yawg

6 - Living End

5 - Murktide

4 - Titan

3 - Rhinos

2 - Scam

1 - MonoGreen Tron

Breach prowess has been removed from the list. In addition to not doing well, the deck also had little to no representation this past week. The fact that people are picking Burn over Breach means a lot to me, when both are relatively underrepresented. Additionally, I have taken hammer off. Too many decks seem to be able to cover aggression (which, to be fair, is always the case).

10 - Domain Zoo

An altogether new addition to the power rankings, Domain Zoo is a midrange deck which concentrates on playing two types of cards: the best ones and the ones that have "Domain", both officially and spelled out. There are a LOT of different ways to build the list, but TLK member Hoang Huynh has provided the above list for your viewing pleasure. As you can see, it concentrates on pressuring early, before tempo-ing the opponent enough to push through damage with your excessively large creatures. Throwing in some utility doesn't hurt either.

9 - Burn

Burn is back! Once again proving all the haters (me included) wrong. Burn is top-8ing large RCQs and looking to hit people with their famous seven card combos. I still think this deck has flaws, the main one being inconsistency, but its favorable matchups against Scam and Tron have been pushing this deck up the ladder. That said, this deck does suffer from the problem of people knowing its coming and always saving a sideboard slot for it.

8 - 4CElementals

4c Elementals had a bad weekend and is significantly less represented than I thought it would be, particularly from players such as Ivan Espinoza and other crushers out of Top Deck Keep and Collector Legion's teams. Although I have never personally been a fan of the deck, I believe enough good players think the deck is solid to the point where keeping it on the list is a good idea. The deck is still clearly powerful, and the new Beanstalk tech is very interesting.

7 - Yawgmoth

Yawgmoth occupies the same spot as last week. While the deck has weaknesses, some pretty large ones, its still very serviceable and often benefits more from player skill than other decks. While the old version still offered a very solid gameplan, new technology is now available with Agatha's Soul Cauldron, so stay tuned. There may be Walking Balistas and Spike Feeders in your future.

6- Living End

Hidden boss Vinnie Fino was playing this at the Collector Legion RCQ this weekend and absolutely whooped me. After speaking with him about the deck and its position, I've been persuaded that I underestimated its power level. In addition to putting him in top 8, I think that with good, solid, and perhaps most of all patient play, this deck can really prey on people who did not come prepared with enough cascade and graveyard hate. Its secondary gameplan of just casting its guys is surprisingly powerful, and it hits land drops very consistently with the land-cycle cards from LOTR.

5 - Murktide

With more Scam and less Elementals running around than previously assumed, and Titan moving up the bracket, Murktide looks even more well-positioned than last week. Favorable matchups against all of these along with a 50-50 against Rhinos seems like a premium spot in today's modern format. It does struggle accounting for everything, a classic counterspell deck problem, but it has the luxury of proactivity to hopefully rely on in the harder matchups. And to all of SoCal? I'm playing this list this week. Run my fade.

4 - Amulet Titan

A big winner from this weekend, Titan is just really strong in the right hands - and SoCal got HANDS. This deck suffers from a more polarized matchup spread than the decks above it, but it can have such powerful starts that it can make up the difference. The additional angles of attack from cards like Urza's Saga and the various outs to Blood Moon provide excellent hedges against hate brought in against the deck.

3 - Rhinos

Rhinos had a showing less impressive than I had origonally anticipated, but TLK member Prez Kuhnke did take the deck all the way to second place at the Sunday Spellhold RCQ. I think we are all aware that this deck is quite strong. Flame of Anor is cracked. I think going forward, we will see more results from this deck, and we will adjust accordingly if we do not.

2 - Scam

I might have been a bit overzealous pushing Scam to third last week, and it had what I would call a proportionate showing at this weeks RCQs. Two lists making top8s is reasonable, but it is worth noting that this was the second most-represented archetype as well. This works both for and against it, and frankly, I think I just overshot a bit last week. This deck is certainly volatile, but for now, I think number two makes sense.

1- Tron

Unga Bunga best deck. Yeah, tron is busted. What's new? This freaking deck just won't ever die and we're gonna have to live with it. Tons of tron at each of the RCQs, and I honestly think there would have been more Tron in top8s had it not been for bad breakers and the numerous Tron mirrors throughout the day. The deck is still really, really good, and you should probably play it.

We'll be trying to get a new post out on the 27th, considering the lack of RCQs the weekend of the 24th. I'll see y'all back at Collector Legion on Saturday!

-Kazi