Week 4/5 RCQ Power Rankings

There were 3 RCQs in SoCal on the weekend of the 30th. Two slots were up for grabs on Saturday at two different locations, Game Ogre in Westlake, and On-Board gaming in North San Diego, followed by one more slot for the taking at BAM Cards, a newer store in Santa Barbara. Congratulations to the winners, Vinnie Fino, Damian Del Nero, Issac Sears, Greg Blakely, and Peter Greig. The Logic Knot had a tougher showing this weekend, putting only Joe Vetti in the top 8 of the Game Ogre RCQ on Cauldron Yawgmoth. Team Dave’s Hot Chicken’s Nick Tu also continued his streak of RCQ top 8s only playing Titan, netting his third out of three events he has played in. Collector Legion’s squad continues to crush SoCal standings, putting... I dunno, let’s say 10 people in various top 8s this weekend, qualifying two of them (Isaac and Vinnie). The next week only featured one RCQ, which had TLK member Prez Kuhnke top8ing, alongside local celebrity Dana Fischer, and more local crushers like Jae Yi, Dan Silver, and the eventual winner Liam Calahan. Also if you cannot tell I just didn't finish last week's rankings, so week 5 has been tacked on in post.

Here are my new power rankings up top, if you didn't want to read the rest of the article.

10. Burn
9. Murktide
8. 4c Elementals
7. Living End
6. Hammertime
5. Yawg
4. Amulet Titan
3. Tron
2. Rhinos
1. Scam

Top8 Standings after Swiss:

On-Board Gaming

1. Nick Tu - Titan
2. Anthony Gonzalez - Rhinos
3. Isaac Sears (Q) - Rhinos
4. Oliver Goble - Izzet Scam
5. James Gates - RG EScape-Shift
6. Seyhak Uy - Scam
7. Jake Bailey - Cauldron Yawg
8. Greg Blakely (Q) - Humans

Game Ogre

1. Jae Yi - 5c Domain Rhinos Cascade Drake thingy
2. Damian Del Nero (Q) - 4c Omnath
3. Will Dewey - Scam
4. Joe Vetti - Yawg
5. Vinnie Fino (Q) - Living End
6. Adan - Living End
7. Otto - Twiddle Storm
8. Sebastian Rivzi-Neuman - 5c Creativity

BAM Cards

1. Peter Greig (Q) - Scam
2. Eric Han - Scam
3. Seyhak Uy - Scam
4. Randy Ludwig - Hammer
5. Wappa Hamada - Rhinos
6. Bruce Li - Rhinos
7. Austin Zeng - Cauldron Scales
8. Luke Tooker - Hammer

Shuffle and Cut Top 8

1. Liam Cahalan (Q) - Amulet Titan
2. Dana Fischer - Burn
3. Elite Magic Player, Playoff Prez Kuhnke!! - Rhinos
4. Mikey Bishara - Scam
5. Dan Silver - Hammer
6. Cooper Levin - Scam
7. Jonny Huynhngo - Hammer
8. Jae Yi - Domain Rhino Cascade Drake Zoo

Cumulative Top8 totals:

10x Scam (Q)
9x Rhinos (Q)
6x Titan (2Q)
5x Hammertime (Q)
5x Yawg
4x Tron (Q)
3x Murktide (2Q)
3x Living End (Q)
3x Burn
2x Coffers
2x 4c Elementals (Q)
2x Creativity
1x GW Company
1x UB Shadow (Q)
1x Eldrazi Tron
1x Domain Zoo (Q)
1x Breach Combo
1x Izzet Scam
1x EscapeShift
1x Humans (Q)
1x Scales
1x Twiddle Storm

 Three more RCQs and a lot of movement in terms of top8 numbers. Scam and Rhinos both showing up five times in a single weekend seems to bring them back around to reflect their placing on the tier list a bit more. Yawgmoth slowly creeping up in representation seems to follow Cauldron being really REALLY good. I expect to also see more scales as the season progresses. The Indomitable Creativity deck was piloted by the same player for both of its top8 finishes, and I think he will continue to do well even if the deck itself does not. Perhaps the biggest surprises were the lack of relative top8s from Tron and Murktide. The Izzet Scam deck that did well looks like a Murktide control list, even if it does have a definitively different gameplan from the classic tempo shell, it does play a lot of similar cards. Tron not showing up is unusual, and even some of the best Tron players in the world play in our region, and had some rough showings these past few weekends. I'm willing to chalk that up to variance for now. Amulet Titan has been piloted to ANOTHER top 8 finish by Nick Tu, and to a win outright by Liam Calahan, saving it from potential demotion from tier one this week.

 For the honorable mentions I really just want to address DomainRhinoZooThing and Twiddle Storm. One of the top 8 lists this time around was a Rhinos list with a Domain Package in it. I catergorized it under Rhinos, but it was definitely using some tools previously largely seen in Zoo. I don't think I want to distinguish between this list and the traditional Rhinos list, as they have relatively similar play patterns, strategies, and threats/win conditions, but differentiate in their manabase and removal suite. They do have a really cool sideboard plan depending on matchup, where they can side into potential Territorial Kavus, or Drannith Magistrates depending on matcup. Definitely something to look out for if it continues to do well, and we'll post a list in next weeks breakdown if we start seeing more Domain in top8.

 For twiddle storm, I just didn't get it. So I asked my buddy Russel Salerno (Slunk on MTGO) for his opinion, as he recently switched from Rhinos to twiddle. He said the following.
 My take for twiddle being good is that modern right now has a lot of decks that are bean value or big mana.  I think 4c/5c omnath are the decks to beat and they will push things like hammer/scam either slowly out of the meta, or out of the top tables in big tournaments. I think mono black coffers is another top deck, and its decent against 4c so its another deck I expect to see near the top. Something like storm makes a lot of sense to me when the best decks are these big mana/value decks
 Twiddle I believe is the best option because the ring has made it so you aren't fully reliant on the graveyard like past in flames storm. Your plan A is breach graveyard combo, but you can win with a plan b of drawing your deck with twiddle + ring.
 I also think the archetype got huge upgrade with ring + preordain and hasn't been explored very much, and the people that are playing the deck now are already putting good results with untuned lists. The real reason I want to play the deck though is that the decks twiddle loses to are the decks that I think will get beat by the best decks in the format.

Let's get into this list... again.

10. Burn

 Burn still good. It's getting a bit more borderline, missing this weekend's top8s entirely, but I still think it has the edge over decks like Domain Zoo for now. That being said, we could definitely see this moving off the list entirely with a lack of performance over the next couple of weeks. Much like the deck itself, burn's spot on this list is very volatile. However, Dana Fischer has been keeping the deck on life support on her own for a minute down here in SoCal. Hopefully she doesn't make the hard switch to Tron, or burn may not be on this list moving forward.

9. Murktide

 Murktide is still playable, but with Rhinos, Yawg, 4ce, and Living End seeing significant upticks in play, it feels much worse than it did pre-Eldraine. Additionally, decks like scales and Heliod Combo which Murktide used to crush now have much more game because of Agatha's Soul Cauldron. Titan and Tron trending downward is also not good for the deck at large. At the same time, if Hammertime continues to rise, Scam stays on top, and Rhinos starts playing cards which care more about the board than the stack, or if Tron starts doing well again, Murktide could very well make a comeback.  

8. 4c Elementals

 This deck is in such a weird spot, in my opinion. The people who are high on this deck seem to be shifting the window of opinion on it on their own. But at the same time, I don't see a ton of them doing well consistently in paper, and I think SoCal's numbers reflect that. We did see a list qualify for the first time in our region, and that guy deserves all the credit, especially considering his brutal bracket. However, less Murktide, more Living End, more Yawg, more Rhinos make me doubt that it performs at a high level. That being said, card for card, the deck is extremely powerful.

7. Living End

 We spoke about Vinnie a few weeks ago when we introduced living end after his first top8, and he has now qualified for Denver! I think the deck is strong. Some of the other poor matchups becoming a bit less relevant has been good for it, and the incease in board-based combo deck is a boon for a deck that plays 8x copies of Plague Wind+. I also believe it has a very good Rhinos matchup, and is pretty good against Scam and only slightly losing to Tron.

6. Hammertime

 This deck seems to refuse to really die. Unlike a lot of other decks on this list, I don't really have a good opinion as to why it is well-positioned. If I were to guess, considering the RCQs I have played at, this deck did somewhat poorly, I would say that with less Mukrtide this deck just does better. It probably struggles with Rhinos, but probably does better the more linear your opponent's strategy. Classic midrange/"fair" decks like Jund are probably this deck's worst nightmare, but those have been slowly getting worse over the course of the season. Perhaps Hammertime is taking advantage of the other linear strategies and outspeeding them. It has been putting up a TON of numbers in the past couple of weeks, and if the trend continues the deck will move up further.

5. Yawg

 Soul-Cauldron is getting more and more solved, and this deck is getting better and better because of it. Two more Yawg lists found their way into top8s on the fourth weekend, and I don't expect that trend to really stop. I do sincerely believe it is possible for this deck to crack tier one, but it's not quite there yet. It does suffer from some iffy-to-bad matchups against some of the other linear combo decks, but it has so much game against midrange and control with flexible board slots and tutors for creatures it may not matter. Shoutout TC Rocket's Chas Tanner for the sick list. Expect to see him at Denver, too.

4. Amulet Titan

 After a pretty face-up vote of confidence in this archetype in the most recent rankings, Titan had a relatively flat weekend, followed by a win in the only RCQ running the next. It is still responsible for the third-most top8s out of any deck in the format, but Rhinos list reverting back to the more Subtlety-based strategies is a huge problem for the deck considering the amount of Rhinos in any given room. The Domain list also plays the type of removal which as a positive interaction with Titan, and it is now struggling to maintain its status as a tier one deck. For now, it remains the fourth deck our of the big four in the format in paper, but I would not be surprised if I decide to reduce tier one to three decks again in the near future.

3. Tron

 Jennifer Carson, one of Finch and Sparrow's RCQ winners from the week before last was kind enough to share her list and some thoughts on Tron with me this week. While you may want to follow her twitter if you have more in depth questions, she played something more akin to the famous handshake list we saw at the recent Pro Tour and following it. I do think this type of list is actually much better than it was a couple weeks ago, even, especially with Rhinos becoming more and more prevalent, as well as Tron itself taking up less spots at the top tables. As for the deck overall, it is in a bit of a drought. The deck has had issues, seemingly with Rhinos' and Rakdos' easy access to Blood Moon. It still certainly has a place, but it would be hard to say it has any heavy favorables against any of the other three decks in tier one at the moment. That being said, it always crushes jank, and is just very very strong when its online.

2. Rhinos

 This deck and Scam both seem to have been the big winners from these past few weeks. In particular, Rhinos seems to have gotten away from the full four copies of Flame of Anor, going up Subteltys and Mystical Disputes in those slots. The deck now usually finds itself on two copies of Flame, 2 Dispute, and 3-4 Subtlety main. This has served to really shore up its matchups with Titan and Scam, There is also that aforementioned domain list, and while I think 4/5-color versions of this deck are still solid, I do think they are in the same category but slightly worse, albeit with their own specific merits in certain matchups.

1. Scam

 This deck came back in a BIG way. After weeks of underwhelming performances, the archetype has crushed in SoCal since Worlds. A mixture of talented players and the slightest bit of extra saturation allowed this one to flourish in a way where, coupled with the relative fall-off of Tron, has made me think that it is probably the outright best deck again. Two things are huge here; first off the deck is just good and has probably been underperforming relative to its power level in the region. Second, less murktide and burn means that there are far fewer decks with winning matchups or enough removal to combat the nature of the decks best turn ones in order to keep it in check. I expect this deck to continue running rampant short a ban on the 16th.

Ok I'm done writing go away now byeeeeee.

<3

-Kazi Baker