Mythic Championship Richmond Post Event Analysis

Congrats to Ondrej Strasky on being your Mythic Championship VI winner!

This was a career defining tournament for Ondrej, who now gets to play in the World Championship in early 2020 and is also on the fast track for a likely MPL spot. Ondrej is great ambassador for the game, and it is fantastic to see all the hours and dedication he and the other Czech powerhouses put in paying off like this. With this Victory, Ondrej now gets to commit to Magic even more head on, with a nice $50,000 payday in this tournament and the share $1million split between the 16 competitors at Worlds.

Here is your completed top 8 bracket:

To nobodys surprise, the top 8 was completely dominated by the food decks. The two adventure decks did not make it to the semi's, despite Eli Kassis getting off to a 2-0 start before the sideboard games. Golgari Adventures posted a sub 50% win rate against the food decks all weekend, so this shouldn't have been too much of a surprise. Selesnya Adventures on the other hand had to have been the favorite heading into the top 8, but Andrew Cuneo had two unlucky draws in his first two games to go down 0-2. He was able to claw his way back to a game 5, where he unfortunately kept a very slow hand allowing PVDDR to become the aggressor and put Cuneo away. The two semi finals matches were absolute midrange slugfests, with the games going around 2 hours each. As far as mirror matches go however, these games were relatively interesting, with many tempo swings and over the top plays to take or lose the advantage. The top 8 was a statement for Simic Food being better than Sultai, with all 3 of the Simic decks making it to semi's, and the one Sultai deck losing 3-1 in that round.

The first three games of the finals went pretty quickly as far as food mirror matches were concerned, with decisive victories on either end. Heading into game 4, PVDDR was up 2-1 on Strasky. Game 4 ended up being the headline game of the entire tournament, in which Strasky perfectly navigated himself out of a desperate looking situation to force a game 5. This was made possible by a key Gadwick, the Wizened , which allowed Strasky to draw the needed answers for the two Hydroid Krasis on PVDDR's side. Mass Manipulation was often the key card for Strasky during the tournament, and was able to clinch him the win in that game and in game 5! Now that Oko is hopefully leaving the picture on Friday, lets see what the Czech players will brew up for the post Oko meta!

Breakout Decks

Although neither of these decks made it to the top 8, there were two standout decks from the tournament

1) Sultai Sacrifice

Sultai Sacrifice Visual

CMC

Compact

Export Main 60 cards (20 distinct) Lands - 25 Side 15 cards (8 distinct) Main 60 cards (20 distinct) Lands - 25 Side 15 cards (8 distinct) $€Tix Main 60 cards (20 distinct) Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, Artifact (12) Witch's Oven $0.43€0.210.01 Trail of Crumbs $0.25€0.080.01 Noxious Grasp $0.28€0.200.03 Once Upon a Time Creature (16) Wicked Wolf Murderous Rider Massacre Girl Gilded Goose Cauldron Familiar $0.99€0.250.01 Planeswalker (7) Vraska, Golgari Queen $54.50€0.0010.65 Oko, Thief of Crowns Liliana, Dreadhorde General Land (25) Overgrown Tomb $11.82€6.630.99 Watery Grave $9.87€8.040.57 Swamp Island Forest Fabled Passage Castle Locthwain Breeding Pool Side 15 cards (8 distinct) Rotting Regisaur $3.29 Lovestruck Beast Thrashing Brontodon Negate Leyline of the Void $8.15 Duress $0.19€0.060.04 Aether Gust $0.99€0.560.30 Veil of Summer $8.51€5.711.12



Although this a new archetype, don't get too excited because its basically just a grindier version of the food decks we already know. The deck replaces cards like Nissa and Mass Manipulation and instead runs the package of Cauldron Familiar , Witch's Oven and Trail of Crumbs . This gives the deck a constant source of card advantage, and can control the board with Massacre Girl and Liliana untill it pings you to death. The deck posted a 67% win rate overall in the tournament, which is far and away the best for any deck with a significant sample size.

(To see the numbers for how all the decks performed, click here to see the breakdown from MTG Goldfish)

2) Gruul Adventure

[MC VII] Gruul Adventure Visual

CMC

Compact

Export Main 60 cards (14 distinct) Lands - 23 Side 15 cards (9 distinct) Main 60 cards (14 distinct) Lands - 23 Side 15 cards (9 distinct) $€Tix Main 60 cards (14 distinct) Creature (32) Bonecrusher Giant Rimrock Knight Edgewall Innkeeper $0.25€0.090.01 Lovestruck Beast Questing Beast Paradise Druid $0.68€0.300.01 Pelt Collector $2.10€1.440.31 Gruul Spellbreaker $1.00€0.800.10 Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, Artifact (5) Domri's Ambush $0.25€0.110.03 Embercleave Land (23) Forest $3.91€2.211.42 Mountain $2.85€1.601.42 Stomping Ground $8.69€7.323.36 Fabled Passage Side 15 cards (9 distinct) Embereth Shieldbreaker Shifting Ceratops $0.55€0.331.95 Thrashing Brontodon $0.25€0.070.04 Cindervines $1.23€0.981.89 Flame Sweep $0.28€0.100.03 Lava Coil $0.46€0.210.01 Return to Nature $0.19€0.070.01 The Great Henge Domri's Ambush $0.25€0.110.03



This deck was only piloted by three players, however when one of them is Javier Dominguez that certainly demands attention. Although none of them made the top 8, the deck did fantastic in the standard portion of the tournament. The deck put up a 66.7% win rate overall, with a 65.2% win rate against food decks. Unfortunately, Javier Dominguez lost his last two matches of day two, or we would have seen him in yet another top 8. Although the deck operates similarly to other Gruul decks in terms of smashing through with an Embercleave , the inclusion of the Edgewall Innkeeper engine gives the deck a long term card advantage strategy that Gruul often is lacking. Interestingly to note as well, Javier Dominguez said maybe his favorite card in the deck is Rimrock Knight . I guess boosting your double striker with trample by 2 power isnt half bad!

Bonus

This Temur Planeswalker deck also posted a very high win percentage of 75% against food decks, but with only 2 players in the field running the deck the sample size was a little low to definetively come to a conclusion on it.

Broadcast Recap

Overall I have to tip my cap to Wizards for the streaming coverage of this event. I think they really stepped up there game this time around. Despite a few brief moments of dead air where the casters mics were not on, it was really terrific. The casters as always did an impeccable job in their analysis and play by play, and they actually came up with interesting content to fill time between matches. The segments at the news deck were excellent, and I appreciated the focus they had on making the featured matches as interesting as possible. They also made sure to make it clear they were not trying to pretend the meta was anything other than it was, but were just not showing Oko mirrors for audience entertainment. However, the in person viewing experience is pretty dreadful to be honest. I was there in Richmond on Saturday, and it was next to impossible to watch the featured matches. Considering there was a convention center filled with thousands of people right next door for Magic Fest, I think this is a missed opportunity for audience engagment. As the game grows more and more popular, the live viewing experience definetly needs to be improved.

One month from now we have another Arena tournament for Mythic Championship VII, and hopefully we see much more varied gameplay and continued improvement from the broadcast team!