Week 8/9 RCQ Power Rankings

It has been an interesting few weeks in SoCal for RCQs.

I think I was wrong in my last report. I think the meta corrected much faster than I anticipated, and the tier list I made ended up inadequate. I just sincerely thought people would stick to beans a little bit longer than they did, but I suppose I should have seen it coming. Usually these "twitter fad" type of decks have very short lifespans at the top of the metagame, and while the cascade beans deck is good, it is definitely not THAT good. I think its placing on the last list (fifth) may have actually been one of few reasonable things in that article, because it is very clear from these last couple weeks of data that we have basically gone back to where we were before. Here are this week's top 10 lists if you want to save yourself the analysis and time:

10. Black Coffers
9. Burn
8. Hammer
7. Murktide
6. 4C Beanpile
5. Titan
4. Tron
3. Rhinos
2. Yawg
1. Scam

The weekend of the 17th we had RCQs at TC Rockets (1 slot), Magic and Monsters (1 slot) DarkSide Games LA (2 slots), the Game Cellar (2 slots), and Brute Force Games (2 slots). The top8 breakdowns are as follows:

TC Rockets - 1 Slot

1. Kevin Lai - Scam (Q)
2. Justin Huang - Scales
3. Nick Tu - Titan
4. Gage Thompson - MonoBlack Coffers
5. Giovanni Cisci - Scam
6. Rob Schlom - Tron
7. Bryan Dorman - Scam
8. Max Milechman - Murktide

Magic and Monsters - 1 slot

1. David Oakin - Deep-Fiend Beans (Q)
2. Jacob Heybl - Cascade Beans
3. Alex Molnar - Scam
4. Crosby Lewis - Scam
5. Roque Garcia - RB Saga
6. ? - RG Scapeshift
7. Anthony Tan (?) - Rhinos
8. Eric Kearns - Living End

DarkSide Games - 2 slots

1. Peter Quach - 4c Rhinos (Q)
2. Peter Yee - Cascade Beans (Q)
3. Alston Cao - Murktide (splash Bowmasters)
4. Ivan Espinoza - 4c Bean Elementals
5. June Bone - Scam
6. Carlo Negrete - UB Control
7. Evan Sonenberg - Creativity
8. Kris Sims - MonoBlack Coffers

Game Cellar - 2 Slots

I found absolutely no data from this one. No clue what happened here. Perhaps it was a psy-op?

Brute Force Games - 2 Slots

1. Matt Donathan - Scales
2. Ian Rasmuson - Yawg
3. Jonathan "Nemo" Salem - Scam (ft. Questing Druid, Q)
4. Quinton Sullivan - Titan
5. Riley Hutchinson - Scam
6. Jer Lydia - Samwise Food Combo
7. Tyler Poniktera - Burn
8. Max Milechman - Tron (Q)

The weekend of the 24th, we had a few RCQs, with two slots available at Next-Gen Games and one more available at A Hidden Fortress.

Next-Gen Games - 2 Slots

3x Scam
2x Murktide
Miles Nossett - Rhinos (Q)
Kris Sims - Coffers (Q)
Asmo Food

Hidden Fortress - 1  Slot

3x Coffers
Ivan Espinoza - Bean Elementals (Q)
1x 4c Cascade Beans
1x Yawg
1x tron
1x Hammer

Cumulative top8 totals - Season 4

32x Scam (5Q)
19x Yawg (3Q)
17x 4c Elementals/Beanpile (6Q)
16x Rhinos (5Q)
14x Tron (3Q)
13x Murktide (2Q)
11x Titan (2Q)
11x Hammertime (Q)
10x Coffers (Q)
6x Living End (Q)
5x Burn
4x Creativity
3x Scales
2x Domain Zoo (Q)
2x ScapeShift
1x GW Company
1x UB Shadow (Q)
1x Eldrazi Tron
1x Breach Combo
1x Breach Prowess
1x Izzet Scam
1x Humans (Q)
1x Twiddle Storm
1x Izzet Control
1x Samwise Food Combo
1x UB Ring Control
1x RB Midrange Saga
1x Asmo Food

I think the #10 slot is still a bit weird at the moment. It seems to be a rotating carousel of Living End and a few different decks which seem to be inconsistent but occasionally getting results. This week it'll beCoffers, but if we start seeing the deck fall off over the next few weeks, we may be discussing it again. I also would not be surprised to see burn fall off the list.

Scales has an insane matchup against Scam. Outside of that, the gameplan is still powerful, and people have started to figure out more and more how to leverage Agatha's Soul Cauldron in the deck. Many of the problems the deck has seem to be borne of inconsistency. It tends to take inefficient turns up until the point where they basically kill you. There is no way to make up for missing on Arcbound Ravagers. But when the deck is online, it feels virtually unstoppable. Those turn fours where the deck makes two two-mana plays are incredibly hard to deal with. I do think that with some refinement and consistency we could still potentially see this deck on the list more in the future, or even moving up if it just gains some popularity. But for now, it is an honorable mention.

Living tends to be a bit cyclical, but has significantly more autonomy over the outcomes of its matches that other honorable metnions in the past. While as usual, the game one for this deck is almost a certainty in most situation, getting to the point where sideboard games are more winnable is often based on how good the pilot is at sideboarding and leveraging their anti-hate. There's not too much I can say about it, because frankly, I don't play it, but I do think this deck is no longer something I would sincerely recommend over...

10. Mono-Black Coffers

MonoBlack Coffers has had another few weekends putting up a couple finishes. Every so often this just kind of seems to happen. Coffers tends to be a metagame call, and its current iteration does prey pretty hard on Beans variants, and consistent Sheoldred's and bowmasters as primary threats tend to be very strong against the amount of card draw cascade can generate. The deck suffers from a lack of bridge plan, between a piece or two of situational removal and resolving rings and Sheoldreds and Karns and the like, the deck tends to wheelspin a lot. If you can keep up with them and answer the few threats they generate, usually the deck doesn't actually topdeck all that well compared to most. That being said, against other decks that wheelspin pretty hard, it tends to do well, especially if those plans involve drawing cards, like Beans. That all being said, it has now put itself in top8s regionally more than 10 times, which is far more than most decks can say. So it makes the list.

9. Burn

Burn still gud. I just assume this deck will be at this exact spot until the end of time. Coffers is definitely threatening it, though, especially with the amount of Coffers we are seeing now.

8. Hammertime

This deck suffered more from the Beans decks than I originally though, and it just hasn't felt nearly as consistent as it has in the past. It's been a while since this deck got a real new tool. and I think it is starting to show. Perhaps with some new innovations, this deck can start seeing a bit more success again, but right now, I think it is basically stuck in this set of slots reserved for powerful strategies that just seem to be missing that little bit to really push it over the hill.

7. Murktide

I was wrong last week. Murktide actually does relatively well against the new Beans Cascade lists, as the amount of trouble they have dealing with turn one and two threats, and how quickly we can close games is actually quite difficult for them to deal with if you take disciplined mulligans. That being said, it's not like the rest of the metagame is great for the deck. It has a slight favorable against scam, but slightly loses to Rhinos and gets crushed by Yawgmoth, which is quickly starting to look like it may not only be one of the best decks in the format, but one of the most popular as well. Still, Ragavan + counterspell is really really strong. I think this is the hardest deck to consistently top8 with right now which you still reasonably can.

6. 4c Beanpile

The meta adjusted much faster than I originally anticipated. I do think this deck is still very, very good in specific rooms, especially those oversaturated with "fair" decks, as this deck "fair" in the least fair way I have ever seen. However, it seems that people have realized that this deck is not nearly as explosive as a lot of the decks ranked above it, as this deck very rarely gets free wins, and getting under it is significantly easier than any of the decks ranked above it. However, I do think that this deck has a lot of adjustable moving pieces, and a lot of refinement can be done with the list depending on the room you are playing into.

5. Titan

Nick Tu's stranglehold on top8s in SoCal, and more specifically San Diego has finally ended. That being said, despite missing a top8 for the first time in who knows how long, his deck is strong. In the 1k which took place at the same store the week after, there were two more Titan decks in the top8, including, again, Nick Tu. It still has a lot less top finishes than it did before the release of Wilds of Eldraine, but Tu feels that there are plenty of reasons to play the deck. Even then, the meta becoming more Scam-Centric again is bad for the deck's viability, but in the hands of skilled pilots it is still extremely powerful. Additionally, a lot of pilots feel as if the Scam matchup is not nearly as bad as some make it out to be, as without Blood Moon, they feel very favored off the back of Urza's Saga and good topdecks.

4. Tron

I missed on this one y'all. Bean decks being less prevalent, combined with Yawg, Scam, and Rhinos being at the top of the meta mean that this version of the deck is significantly better than I previously thought. It's really important to have fair hedges in this deck right now, and even though I still have personal beef with the card Urza's Saga, this deck is still much much better at playing a fair game post-board than the iterations of Tron more slanted towards making the thing happen on turn 3.

3. Rhinos

Rhinos is still just generically strong. It has an even-to-favored Yawgmoth matchup, and still slightly wins against Scam, but definitely suffers from having a less consistent gameplan than a lot of other decks. While yes, it doesn consistently make 4/4s on turn 3, it is inconsistent how good that actually is in a given situation. The main reason why this deck is a bit lower is because despite the meta correcting the new versions of the Beans decks are very strong against what Rhinos is doing, whereas the versions of the deck before the recent changes were about even in the matchup. That being said, I think this is still a very strong deck, and is really good at rewarding players who have good Magic fundamentals, such as threat assessment, understanding tempo, and how to mulligan moreso than almost any other deck. This week we are featuring Miles Nossett's list, which took down Next-Gen games, and gives a glimpse into what the white splash gives, particularly, better removal, extra cascades, and some sideboard cards in exchange for missing blood moon and significantly weirder mana.

2. Yawgmoth

This deck didn't put up many results this week. Yet, I actually think this deck is still insane. I think the lack of results is partially due to a lot of players who actually pilot it having already qualified, and underrepresentation, and also Scam does prey on it pretty hard. I think it has even to winning matchups against literally the entire meta except for exactly Scam. I still dislike ranking this deck so highly, because it has the exact problem rhinos doesn't, in that rather than rewarding magic fundamentals, it directly rewards you for how much time you put in on this deck specifically, and the ways you understand how it can and often does fundamentally deviate from playing fair magic. That being understood, this deck is insane. It has a lot of decision points in every matchup, rewarding players who can really lock in or understand what this deck does. Often oppoenents will not be as intimately familiar with the deck as they potentially need to be to properly apply their own fundamentals, and this list is extremely explosive. I am a big fan.

1.Scam

This deck is still just great. As always, the deck can play really fair, or really unfair depending on your opener. Some games you just win on turn one with a Scam play because your opponent has literally nothing they can do about it. Additionally, there is now experimentation happening again with the list, as Nemo Salem qualified out of San Diego on a list playing four copies of Questing Druid. This deck fills out that quota of explosiveness + consistency I keep talking about. Even if the deck isn't consistently explosive (think Rhinos), it is the most explosive when it is online, and when it is not being explosive, its good hands still tend to be more than serviceable in plenty of matchups while still having the opportunity to do degenerate things if they draw any of a number of specific cards on any given turn.

I think that's about it for this week. I think any deck on this list is capable of winning an RCQ in SoCal right now, althought I do think that as you get up the list the decks matchup spreads get better and the decks get more consistently strong. Congratulations to the last few weeks RCQ winners, Ivan Espinoza, Kris Sims, Miles Nossett, Max Milechman, Peter Yi, Peter Quach, David Oakin, Nemo Salem, and Kevin Lai.

-Kazi Baker