The Modern Meta of the Pro Tour
With Pro Tour: Edge of Eternities behind us, the Modern meta effectively solidified for the near-term. The Pro Tour breakdown is a mix of some old, some new, and some revived archetypes:
Let’s dive into a few of these standout decks and what pieces make them tick!
Esper Goryo’s
While this deck may not have taken home gold, it certainly was the most represented at fifty entries, while also boasting one of the highest win rates of all decks over the weekend. Oddly enough, only one deck of this variety finished in the Top 8.
Within that particular deck lie some recent market movers, with
Now, the biggest hit from this deck is, of course, its namesake:
The solutions to all these problems really only arrived in the past five years: Finding access (card draw) was fixed with Psychic Frog; most recently Quantum Riddler, Psychic Frog,
For all these reasons, and its rise to prominence, Goryo’s is spiking significantly right now with most listing prices jumping up to $40 after the Pro Tour. Is it really a $40 card? Probably not. Realistically, I’d expect it to settle somewhere between $20 to $25, which is still a sharp increase from the $10 to $15 it was sitting at previously.
Keep an eye on this archetype! As discard outlets, card advantage engines, and payoffs continue to improve in this color combination, so too will the power of this shell.
| Quantum Riddler | ||
| Quantum Riddler (Borderless) | ||
| Psychic Frog | ||
| Psychic Frog (Borderless) | ||
| Goryo's Vengeance | ||
| Goryo's Vengeance |
Tameshi Belcher
How good is Tameshi in this meta? Good enough to win the Pro Tour. Michael DeBenedetto-Plumme took Tamishi Belcher to first overall at the end of the Pro Tour weekend. How does this deck work? Simple: play
But there’s a catch! Charbelcher can only kill your opponent if you have zero lands in your deck. A problem with the archetype for years was that playing zero lands and still retaining some level of consistency was nearly impossible. But in a world with MDFC cards, it’s easy to have a “no land” deck with MDFCs that function as your mana base.
Effectively, this deck wants to play Tameshi with a Lotus Bloom in the bin that can be recurred repeatedly to make the seven requisite mana to search for and/or active Goblin Charbelcher, thereby flipping over your entire deck and killing your opponent.
The funny part of this deck is that most of the cards are fairly inexpensive. Tameshi, the MDFC lands, and so forth are all pretty cheap. Charbelcher on its own is pretty inexpensive, too, although it is on the rise after this weekend, and sitting at around $3 or so – an increase out of bulk status. The really heavy hitters in this deck are
The irony of this deck is that its most important staples are actually the most affordable pieces, while its auxiliary pieces and interaction package tend to pack the most punch financially. Keep an eye on Sea Gate, and Charbelcher, too, as they both look primed to continue to rise, so long as this deck sticks around, which it most certainly will after comprising 46% of the Pro Tour meta after the weekend.
| Tameshi, Reality Architect | ||
| Tameshi, Reality Architect (Showcase) | ||
| Sea Gate Restoration | ||
| Goblin Charbelcher |
Boros Energy
While this shell didn’t have any decks finish in the Top 8 of the Pro Tour, it was the third most-represented overall, which makes it worthy of discussion. Not a ton to talk about here aside from the usual standouts:
One notable inclusion in the highest-placing Boros Energy deck was
Also of note in the sideboard is
| Goblin Bombardment | ||
| Goblin Bombardment |
Other Standouts & Closing Things Up
As discussed in my last article, Izzet Affinity continues to put up terrific results, in no small part due to
Overall, the Pro Tour boasted a relatively diverse field with some known quantities putting up numbers we shouldn’t be too shocked by, although it looks like we are solidly past the days where Energy soaks up most of the meta share, which makes for more interesting financial and speculation opportunities. As metas diversify, so too does the utility of cards available to the format that can be of service to more than one dominant archetype.
The key singles discussed today might be worth grabbing earlier than later, especially if pursuing one of these decks is of interest for you.
The other beautiful thing about a diverse meta is that you as the player have much more control or choice as to how you wish to play the format, which is a benefit to all parties and participants in the Modern format. Demand spreading out beyond one or two decks also pushes the financial opportunities for staples from lower-performing, but still viable shells, which wasn’t a possibility two months ago.
| Pinnacle Emissary | ||
| Ugin, Eye of the Storms |
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Corey Williams
Corey Williams is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Shippensburg University in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. He considers himself a macroeconometrician with his research body reflecting work in applied macroeconomics and econometrics. Corey is an L1 Judge who started playing Magic around Eighth Edition. He enjoys Modern, Commander, cEDH, and cube drafting. Outside of Magic, he loves running, teaching, and the occasional cult movie.