Week 6/7 RCQ Power Rankings

More RCQs! More invites! More decks!

 Two weekends since the last report, and a slew of RCQs to report on. We have had 9 more events to report on, and it has been a crazy set of weeks. From a very reasonable week 6, I expected things to continue more as less as normal into seven, but then twitter exploded with the advent of the Beans cascade decks. Considering the efficacy of posting screenshots of stupid elementals interactions for clout, I knew immediately people would jam this deck WAY too much and it would create a terribly saturated set of events for the 21st and 22nd.

Finch & Sparrow- 2 Slots

1. Zachary Aymie - 4C bean (Q)
2. Wappa Hamada - Temur rhinos (Q)
3. Peter Yee - Murktide
4. Zane Toledo - Yawgmoth  
5. Christos Dalis - Amulet Titan
6. Austin - Murktide
7. Joey Nguyen - Temur rhinos  
8. Thomas Vivieros - 4C bean

Fire and Dice - 1 slot

1. Todd Oman - Scam (Q)
2. Joseph Salama - Burn
3. Lukas Frank - Scam
4. Rad Piecka - Rhinos
5. Dan Silver - 4c Beans
6. Sam Kennedy 4c Beans
7. Nolan Smith - Murktide
8. Alex Schleicher - Breach Prowess

Darkside Games - 2 Slots

1. Seyhak Uy - Rhinos
2. Sebastian B - Titan
3. Carlo Negrete - 4c Beans
4. Kent O - 4c Beans
5. Ryan Slone - Yawg (Q)
6. Zane toledo - Yawg (Q)
7. Eli Loveman - Yawg
8. Evan - 4c Creativity

Paper Hero's - 1 Slot

1. Max - Mono Black Coffers
2. Morgan Maynard - Rakdos Scam (Q)
3. Talon Lesle - Rakdos Scam
4. Elijah Balter - Azorius Hammer
5. Tristan Simpson - 4C Omnath
6. Michael Sherman - Tron
7. Daniel Gad - Tron
8. Sam Robinson - Domain Zoo

WildCardCyclone - 1 Slot

1. Alan L - Scam
2. Julio Euribe - Izzet Control
3. Ricky Henriques - UWg Hammer
4. Vincent Bi - Tron (Q)

On-Board Gaming - 2 Slots

1. Truong Hai Nguyen - 4c Bean Cascade
2. John Balla - Scam
3. Michael G. - Murktide
4. Alex Gimmi - Yawg
5. Rob Schlom - Tron
6. Jake Bailey - Yawg
7. Eli Loveman - Yawg
8. Ian Rasmussen - Yawg

Turn Zero Games - 1 Slot

3x Scam
1x Tron
1x Azorius Hammer
1 4c Bean (Cascade)
1 Amulet Titan
1 Mono Black Coffers

Paper Hero's Games - 1 Slot

2x Yawg
1x Tron
1x Hammer
1x Rhinos
1x Scam
1x Living End
1x Murktide

The Game Cellar - 2 Slots

1. Angel Zamora - Yawgmoth
2. Michael Reedy - Izzet Murktide
3. Maurice Vancini - Hammer
4. Crosby Lewis - Living End
5. "Playoff" Prez Kuhnke - Temur Rhinos (Q)
6. Guillermo Sida - Rakdos Scam (Q)
7. Joe Lossett - Tron
8. Noah Walters - Yawgmoth

Cumulative top8 totals - Season 4

21x Scam (3Q)
17x Yawg (3Q)
15x Rhinos (3Q)
11x 4c Elementals/Beanpile (3Q)
11x Tron (2Q)
10x Hammertime (Q)
9x Titan (2Q)
9x Murktide (2Q)
5x Living End (Q)
4x Burn
4x Coffers
3x Creativity
2x Domain Zoo (Q)
1x GW Company
1x UB Shadow (Q)
1x Eldrazi Tron
1x Breach Combo
1x Breach Prowess
1x Izzet Scam
1x EscapeShift
1x Humans (Q)
1x Scales
1x Twiddle Storm
1x Izzet Control

 Of note: Not many friends attended the two one slotters in week 7, namely Paper Hero's and Turn Zero, so I do not know who top8'd or qualified from those. I will update this article eventually to reflect those results.

After week six (and importantly before the explosion of a week wherein beans decks were half of the room at a bunch of events), we were at exactly 100 lists for the season, which means: PIE CHART!!!!

 I actually think there will be a lot of movement this upcoming week. We'll address the Beanstalk Piles when we get there, but with nine different events and 68 lists being added to the fray, we just have a lot more to go off of. I think the tiers are starting to be a lot more self-evident. First things first, Living End is moving down to honorable mention tier, while in weeks past it has been a lot higher. The advent and rise of the beanpile decks, and the mainboard hatred coming from the Yawg decks combined with a really good sideboard plan have seemingly been pushing the deck to the side since the newest set release.

 The metagame seems to have been violently shaken up. The advent of the popularity of Beans has been format-warping, although I will be taking a lot of time in that deck's section to speak about my personal opinions on it. This has allowed for some pretty neat decks to pop up. There has also been a lot of movement in tier one. I predict by the time we drop our next breakdown, things will have settled significantly, and things will have regressed to what I would call a more reasonable representation of power level within the format, but for now we have a slightly weird ordering of our top decks in the format.

10. Twiddle Storm

This deck is GAS. It plays a bit similarly to the older Spell-based combo decks like Storm. It really abuses a lot of broken cards, like The One Ring, Lotus Field, and Underworld Breach in order to generate the resources and count it needs to Thassa's Oracle or Grapeshot people depending on build. It's also rocking four copies of Wish which allows it to play a lot of silver bullets in its sideboard. The main reason why this deck is here is because it has very good matchups into Yawg and Elementals, however, it certainly suffers much more against decks which can interact with it. I have this deck pretty low because of how diverse San Diego's meta is even in the face of the massive saturation of beans, but I think it is still playable, and if you anticipate playing against a lot of Beans as you win, its is a very strong deck in certain rooms and playable in all of them. I will say, as the meta corrects, I do expect this deck to get worse. But for now, it takes a spot here, where it belongs

9. Burn

Burn gud. These past few weeks we saw a list top8 in SoCal not piloted by Dana Fischer…but only because she was crushing 10ks at the recent MXP in Portland. Same deck as ever. Consistency issues, weird matchup spread, I do expect this deck to take a bit of a hit with the advent of Beans and fall off of Tron, but I think with some adjustments (four copies of Roiling Vortex) they’ll adjust and keep their position… at least for now.

8. Murktide

This is a consequence of Beans becoming significantly more prevalent in the meta. We are going to be saying that a lot today. Murktide suffered from a poor four-color matchup before the printing of Beans, but sneaking in those tempo wins is even more difficult now because of how freely the deck plays pitch cards and generates value. It is still possible to win, but a little harder, and Beans is much more present than elementals was in its previous iteration. That being said, for some reason, I saw a TON of this deck this past weekend at the RCQs, not necessarily at the top tables, but just around. I have no idea why, it was really weird. Not sure why you would pick Murktide at the moment unless you were thoroughly dedicated.

7. Hammertime

This deck is in a very odd position. It has seen a lot of success lately, and I’m not really sure why. After consulting with Ariel Kimmok (RCQ winner of Finch and Sparrow alongside Tron player Jennifer Carson), we came to the conclusion that it ends up more or less in the same place. While the elementals matchup is now probably losing, other decks lost much more from the advent of Beans, and it maintains a 50/50+ matchup against Yawgmoth.  

6. Titan

 Having a really, really poor Beans Cascade matchup, and a relatively middling Beans matchup otherwise has pushed this deck fully out of the upper echelon. It's still very, very good, but I think against the iterations of Tron that are good right now, Titan is unfavored, it loses to Beans, Scam, and is probably even against Rhinos, which means it has a lot of matchup ground to make up. It still preys on other random decks, and it still wields a very powerful gameplan especially with hours on the deck, but I am not nearly as high on this deck as I would have been a few weeks ago.

5. 4c Beanpile

 ahem

 This archetype is good - but just good. I understand why it feels so powerful. It's game against midrange/fair decks is insane. I just feel like it has some very defined weaknesses, suffers from cutting some of its early game for consistency purposes and the cascade package, and is mostly popular because screenshots of this deck on MTGO are good content. That being said, I would not play this deck if I had the option to play any of the four decks above it. Why? First of all, I think this deck has a huge target on its back, and unlike decks like MonoGreen in pioneer, when you decide to target this deck, you will win. Linear combo decks like Twiddle Storm, Tron, or even to a lesser extent Yawgmoth fare extremely well against these lists. The Beans decks tend to interact very favorably on-board, but lack ways to interact with lands or on the stack in a very positive manner. It is certainly powerful, but just not something I would recommend to most unless you come up with some new tech, like the list above. And congratulations to Truong Hai Nguyen for doing that and crushing his RCQ this weekend.

 Second thing, more for logistical purposes, 4c Beans decks will be categorized under the same archetype for the purposes of the breakdown, however, the list featured will be my preffered one for the given time. I would also lump in the Bring to Light lists, traditional ring/karn lists, and also the counterspell lists into this pile of four color goodstuff decks. Just for housekeeping.

4. Scam

 This list has taken a huge hit, and I was seriously debating moving it to fifth. Its beans matchup is just extremely poor, and it has been having more trouble with Rhinos lately too, at least in the SoCal top8s. The meta is still correcting, and I think 4 color piles will still be overrepresented for the next week or even two, and I would not bring this deck to a tournament where I felt like elementals was extremely present unless I felt extremely comfortable against it.

3. Tron

 First and foremost, the above list  is a personal creation, and I think that the Handshake/Jennifer Carson's Ballista list is still very strong, however, right now, I think I want to be casting large things that interact well with an oversaturated Elementals meta, which actually does well against a lot of the hedges Tron has been playing recently, but is very poor against the original Tron gameplan. I think this is the best way to specifically target the Elementals decks, if you just feel sick and tired of playing against those for whatever reason. I anticipate going back to Jennifer's list upon some corrections being made in the meta, and Rhinos and Scam rising back to the top over the next two weeks, just not quite yet.

2. Rhinos

 This is probably the deck that lost the most points against the 4c pile decks with the printing of beans. The significantly more consistent ability to get engines online has been really really bad for Rhinos. This matchup was a virtual 50/50 until the Beans revolution, and seems to now be outright Beans favored. I worry about this deck's place in the meta going forward, but I think that there will be some correction as we continue on. That being said, it maintains a positive matchup with Yawg, Scam, and is about 50/50 against Tron, while still outperforming basically any other midrange or tempo strategy. Shoutout to my teammate Prez Kuhnke for the above list, which he just piloted to an invite to Denver.

1. Yawg

 I was really reluctant to put this deck at one. I'm not saying the stats don't bear out this placing, or that the deck is not powerful, but mostly because it's so hard to play I would feel remiss really pushing it like this. However, I think right now, and for the next week or even two, this will be the best deck you can play in a given room. It has strong favorables against some of the most prevelent decks in the meat, especially Beans piles, and if you feel like you have a skill edge, you should probably try and put in the hours to get clean on this deck if you feel like you have the capacity to do so. This deck is just insane in rooms heavily saturated with Beans and Murktide, and we saw a ton of both of those decks in the rooms we were in this weekend. I think this deck is top dog, at least for now. Also huge shoutout to Jake Bailey (trophy leader AwesomePossum on MTGO) for sharing his list with us, and congratulations to him taking down the only paper RCQ he played this season. I expect to see his name amongst the top finishers in Denver.

 I think this meta is temporary. I think as people pick up decks that beat Beans, people will start to play the decks with better coverage such as Scam and Rhinos, and the meta will basically correct after the next week or two, just in time for the release cycle of Ixalan. At least I hope it does.

-Kazi Baker