Pro Tour Rivals Of Ixalan

This weekend players from all over the world traveled to Bilbao, Spain for Pro Tour Rivals Of Ixalan. 

The formats for this PT were draft and modern, so there wouldn’t be any aftermath of the standard bans from a couple of weeks ago. Going into this weekend players would first be tasked with three rounds of Ixalan block draft. This meant two boosters of Rivals Of Ixalan with one Ixalan booster to round it off. 

There’s been a lot said about the Ixalan draft format: different tribes being the dominant tribe, evaluations of cards fluctuating. Everyone has there own preference and, for the most part, there are many viable strategies that aren’t just drafting all the Merfolk you see. That’s not to say that this wasn’t an employed strategy for some players though as the colour/metagame breakdown attests. Out of 58 3-0 decks, blue and black were the most represented colours, both appearing in 26 decks a piece,  but not necessarily always together. Red, white and green weren’t too far behind having a handful less than blue and black but on the whole all five colours were showcased fairly evenly. Despite black and blue having the highest showing the colour pairings that were the most prominent were black/white and green/blue. Out of the tribes of Ixalan vampires was one of the front runners this weekend as black had a strong showing and most of the black or white creatures are vampires, alongside pirates contributing a lot of the heavy blue play as well as black. 

There are a smattering if key cards in Ixalan limited, some that can pull you into a tribe and some that are just out right really good. Obviously seeing cards like Shapers Of Nature, Jade Bearer and Silvergill Adept will more often than not take you into playing Merfolk. The same is said for pirates if Fanatical Firebrand, Lightning-Rig Crew and Hostage Taker, though Hostage Taker is a limited bomb anyway. That isn’t to say that it all has to be tribal inspired: cards like Aggressive Urge, Bombard and Dive Down are all easy to splash and very good spells to have in the pocket.

Among the 58 players at 3-0 some familiar names started to rise to the top, including Javier Dominguez, Raphael Levy, Lucas Esper Berthoud and Ben Stark. As the players geared up for the first modern portion of the weekend everyone was awaiting what the meta would look like. 

Almost 500 decklists we’re registered for Pro Tour Rivals Of Ixalan, below is a quick breakdown of the metagame.

The first thing that I noticed from these numbers is there isn’t a deck that has over 10% of the metagame. It’s a nice change of pace having such a healthy format, as opposed to standard in recent months, while also having such a plethora of archetypes around. 

At the top of the list on day one was 5-colour Humans with 43 copies taking 9.3% of the meta. This is a very strong deck but it does suffer with mana issues from time to time thanks to it playing lands like Ancient Ziggurat and Unclaimed Territory. Because the deck is mostly creatures it can play almost any one or then every turn but every now and again the “creature only utopias” hinder it a little like when it tries to cast Collected Company. 5-colour Humans did get bolstered a bit with the recent addition of Kessig Malcontents, which gives the deck reach for those last few points.

The rest of the field was made up of of a melting pot of archetypes including the big bad Death’s Shadow in various flavours along with the ever present Eldrazi Tron and some of the old guard like Burn, Dredge and Storm. One deck did jump out at me though, B/R Hollow One.

You all remember Hollow One, that five mana 4/4 from Hour Of Devastation. This Black/Red deck has utilised the discard clause on the artifact creature and really shown off the potential. By using cards like Burning Inquiry and Goblin Lore (yeah, remember that card?) you could easily have multiple Hollow Ones in turn one or two. As “fair” as that may sound having a three turn clock on your opponent is a big threat in any format. It’s such an innocuous deck, you don’t initially know what you’re supposed to be playing against and it can easily have turns that completely turn the tide of the game. 

Going into day two everyone was ready for three more rounds of draft. Black and blue were again the clear colours de jour with another wave of vampires and pirates being the tribes of choice. A handful of players found favour with these decisions, many switching from one to the other over both drafts off the weekend, coming out of the second draft portion with a 6-0 record.

As the second section of modern was set to begin only 6 points sat between the top 48 players. A couple of games dropped and it could all change, this meant that Jon Stern and Pascal Vieren - sitting at the top of the standings - had to stay on the ball if they wanted to remain in contention for the top 8.

Modern is widely known as the best format. It may not be some people’s favourite and it may not always be the most fun but the sheer variety of archetypes and decks offers players so many options, there’s a deck for everyone. 

5-colour Humans was definitely the deck to watch on day one showing 9.3% of the metagame. However on day two there was only a 67.4% conversion rate of that original 9.3% of the field. Aggro decks as an archetype only had a 63.2% where as blue based control decks like Jeskia, U/B Faeries, U/R Pyromancer and U/R Breach had a massive conversion rate. Blue control decks as an archetype had the highest conversion rate of all the archetypes with 73.8%. 

Through the last rounds of modern a handful of players secured there places in the top 8: Andrea Mengucci on 5-colour Humans, Jean-Emmanuel Depraz with Traverse Shadow, Reid Duke piloting Abzan, Gerry Thompson opting for Mardu Pyromancer, Javier Dominguez also riding the 5-colour Humans wave, Ken Yukuhiro innovating with B/R Hollow One, Luis Salvatto getting tricksy with Lantern Control and Pascal Vieren dominating the Swiss with U/R Pyromancer. 

Well start with a look at the quarterfinal match up between Reid Duke and Ken Yukuhiro. Reid Duke has had a lot of success with green based mid-ranged decks in the past, so you can imagine how confident he was in the modern sections of this Pro Tour running Abzan and how that would carry over to top 8. Ken Yukuhiro had opted for the newer B/R Hollow One: a deck that intends to dump a few cards to the graveyard and then cast some 4/4’s for free. 

In the first game Duke mulliganed to six cars on the draw. Yukuhiro’s Game plan was clear and executed pretty much perfectly, Cycling a Street Wraith follows up by a first turn Burning Inquiry. Both players ditched three cards which allowed Yukuhiro to drop not one but two Hollow Ones to put Duke on a three turn clock. Reid would only be able to use his first turn casting an Inquisition Of Kozilek which unfortunately hit a Flamewake Phoenix. Suddenly Yukuhiro’s board was now representing a two turn clock thanks to his two 4/4’s and 2/2 flyer, Reid could only find a Tarmogoyf to buy a turn but it wasn’t enough.

Game two was a bit grindier playing more to the speed of Duke’s Abzan deck. Reid kicked things off with a first turn Inquisition Of Kozilek taking a Burning Inquiry from Yukuhiro’s hand. It was a good thing too after Reid saw two Hollow Ones once again in Yukuhiro’s opening hand, alas Yukuhiro only had a land on his first turn and nothing else. A Scavenging Ooze from Duke was the first creature of the game to give the Abzan play some board presence while being able to utilise the graveyard. Yukuhiro attempted to fight back with a Tasigur, The Golden Fang but the Sultai legend met its end to a Maelstrom Pulse. A Goblin Lore helped Yukuhiro put a Hollow One into play while unfortunately discarding the second copy, Lightning Bolt took care of the Scavenging Ooze. 

Tarmogoyf was deployed from Reid overshadowing the 4/4 artifact creature a bit but Yukuhiro refueled by chaining draw spells enabling him to return a discarded Flamewake Phoenix and cast a Gurmag Angler. Going on the attack Yukuhiro’s Flamewake Phoenix was met with a revolted Fatal Push from Duke giving his Tarmogoyf the extra power and toughness it needed to profitably block the attacking Hollow One. A third Goblin Lore into a last ditch Faithless Looting spelled the writing in the wall that Yukuhiro was running out of options and he promptly conceded so they could move onto the third game.

The third one was another quick affair with Yukuhiro starting off with a Burning Inquiry into two Hollow Ones. Once again an Inquisition Of Kozilek from Duke revealed a Gurmag Angler in Yukuhiro’s hand and instead of prolonging the inevitable, Reid let this one go to move onto the fourth game.

Game 4 was kicked off by Duke pointing a Duress at Yukuhiro’s hand. The Duress successfully hit a Burning Inquiry which meant that the B/R player was left with a whole load of cards that weren’t doing anything anytime soon. With enough time brought Reid dropped a Liliana, The Last Hope but Yukuhiro had found another Burning Inquiry. Unfortunately the red sorcery only made things worse for Yukuhiro as he discarded a Flamewake Phoenix, Flameblade Adept and a Hollow One. A Collective Brutality took a Lightning Bolt from Yukuhiro’s hand while a Nihil Spellbomb exiled any fuel for the Gurmag Angler the Brutality couldn’t take. Liliana, The Last Hope steadily ticked up while Yukuhiro sat there without much action. Lingering Souls came down to protect black planeswalker while on the other side of the table Yukuhiro had finally started to play the game. A Burning Inquiry let Yukuhiro play a Hollow One and get back a Flamewake Phoenix but it was all a little bit too late as Liliana hit her ultimate and created an emblem to secure the game for Reid.

As both players shuffled up for their final game of this quarterfinal they knew how tight this game could be and what was on the line. 

Yukuhiro got things under way with a Faithless Looting discarding a Flamewake Phoenix which was met by a Grafdigger’s Cage on Duke’s first turn. With Yukuhiro’s main game plan set back a little he opted for an early game Gurmag Angler using fetch land and discarded cards from Faithless Looting as fuel. Reid was struggling to find any action and was forced to use his Nihil Spellbomb to dig for some while exiling little from Yukuhiro’s graveyard. With lands as far as Duke could see he needed to find an answer to the big zombie fish in the other side of the table. All Reid could muster was a Tarmogoyf. With a couple of draw spells from Yukuhiro the B/R player was able to discard a Big Game Hunter to deal with the Tarmogoyf, Reid saw the writing on the wall and conceded.

Yukuhiro advances to the semi final with a 3 - 2 win over Reid Duke.

Moving on to the second quarter final that saw Luis Salvatto take on Jean-Emmanuel Depraz. 

Luis Salvatto, representing Hareruya Latin, had perfectly shown off the power of the Lantern Control deck: the aim is to stop your opponent from attacking with Ensnaring Bridge and stopping them drawing any useful spells with a combination of Lantern Of Insight and wither Codex Shredder or Pyxis Of Pandemonium, attacking the top of the opponent’s deck.

Depraz on the other hand had brought Traverse Shadow to the table, a deck that utilised Death’s Shadow’s immense power as a one drop that easily comes down at 5/5+ on turn one. The Traverse element consisted of Traverse The Ulvenwald and the ability to use the graveyard to the decks advantage to find Death’s Shadow or Tarmogoyf at a moments notice for one mana.

The first game was a quick affair. Luis Salvatto essentially dropped his hand on turn one: Spire Of Industry, Mox Opal, Mishra’s Bauble, Pyrite Spellbomb and Pithing Needle naming Street Wraith (stopping Depraz from Cycling the five mana creature for two life). Depraz could only retaliate with a Thoughtseize taking a Lantern Of Insight, but when Salvatto has nothing on his second turn that allowed Depraz to deploy a 4/5 Tarmogoyf. Salvatto was now looking for an Ensnaring Bridge but it didn’t come, an attack from Tarmogoyf took the Spaniard down to 16 as Depraz threw another Tarmogoyf into the mix. Salvatto now faced a two turn clock and as the two Tarmogoyfs took him down to eight he managed to find an Ancient Stirrings which showed him the Ensnaring Bridge. The game wasn’t over but it was looking better for Salvatto, over the next few turns he found a Codex Shredder, Lantern Of Insight and Academy Ruins, allowing him to use the Codex Shredder to rebuy the Ancient Stirrings and the Ruins to get the Shredder back. He had found the lock and shortly after Depraz decided to move onto game two. 

Game 2 has a bit more back and fourth about it. Depraz could only find one land and spent his first turns firing off Inquisition Of Kozilek after Inquisition Of Kozilek to take out a Mox Opal, Thoughtseize and more importantly Ensnaring Bridge. Salvatto retaliated in a similar fashion to take a Tarmogoyf and Abrupt Decay. 

Depraz was on a low enough life total to produce a 2/2 Death’s Shadow that grew to a 4/4 after a Thoughtseize, however Salvatto once again found an Ensnaring bride and then there wasn’t much else that Depraz could do. He watched as Salvatto built up his defences and eventually found the lock to secure the second game.

After sideboarding Depraz could finally switch out a lot of the useless removal spells for actual function artifact removal to give him a much better chance. 

With Depraz on the play in game three he was hoping that his two Thoughtseize opener would be good enough, however Salvatto made the first move dropping a Leyline Of Sanctity. Depraz made the most of what he had by using a Stubborn Denial to stop Salvatto’s Inquisition but a follow up Thoughtseize from Salvatto took a Maelstrom Pulse. Depraz wasn’t in a good position especially as Salvatto assembled a Codex Shredder, Lantern Of Insight and Ensnaring Bridge to put a pseudo lock on Depraz and to make things even worse Depraz could only find more Thoughteizes and Inquisitions. They hand disruption didn’t go to waste and Depraz could use the Thoughtseizes to lower his life total to give himself a 9/9 Death’s Shadow. To stop the top of his deck from getting even more ruined, Depraz used an Ancient Grudge on the Codex Shredder, then a turn after flashed is back on the Bridge to attack with a Temur Battle-Rage out of nowhere to take game three.

The start of the forth game was unexciting for Salvatto, with a Leyline Of Sanctity, Welding Jar and Mishra’s Bauble. Depraz on the other hand was getting off to a great start thanks to a couple of fetches and cycled Street Wraiths giving him access to two 1/1 Death’s Shadows on turn two. A third turn Ensnaring Bridge from Salvatto didn’t help much while he was holding three cards and it got even worse when Depraz really showed the power of Liliana, The Last Hope. Using her second ability to return a Street Wraith he opted to hold it for a turn and hit Salvatto for 4, while Salvatto could only use his turn to reduce his hand to one to stop any attacks. With the Bridge in full effect Depraz needed something special and special it was. He used Liliana’s first ability to make one of his Death’s Shadows a 0/1 so it could attack. Before any damage could be dealt Depraz cracked a fetch land for an untapped Blood Crypt and then cycled two Street Wraiths knocking Salvatto down to 8 life. A Liliana Of The Veil from Depraz took the last card out of Salvatto’s hand, this was swiftly followed up by a Traverse The Ulvenwald for a Hostage Take to rid the board of the Ensnaring Bridge and Depraz’s pair of 9/9 Death’s Shadows even up the match.

The previous four games had been very good to watch. Both players shook hands before the fifth and got underway.

Salvatto has the first play with an Inquisition Of Kozilek revealing Depraz’s action heavy but one land hand. Seeing Marsh Flats, Inquisition Of Kozilek, Thoughtseize, Street Wraith, Death’s Shadow and a pair of Lilianas (Of The Veil and Last Hope respectively) Salvatto opted to take the Death’s Shadow. Salvatto’s second turn consisted of him sculpting his hand thanks to a pair of Ancient Stirrings and casting an Ensnaring Bridge. Depraz was land shy and it was starting to show, Salvatto jumped on this and changed things up a bit. Instead of restricting lands Salvatto let Depraz have the fetches he was seeing with Lantern Of Insight and using Pithing Needles to prevent Depraz from finding any actual lands. One Needle for Polluted Delta and one for Verdant Catacombs took Depraz’s five in play lands to two thanks to three of them being fetch lands. With enough breathing room Salvatto could bow start to assemble his lock on the game. With a loop of Whir Of Invention, Codex Shredder and Academy Ruins Salvatto was able to find all four Codex Shredders and both Pyxis Of Pandemonium, that spelled the end of the game for Depraz. 

Salvatto 3 - 2 Depraz 

Our third quarter final saw Andrea Mengucci take on the undefeated Pascal Vieren. Mengucci had brought 5-Colour Humans to Bilbao and it had come good for him. Vieren had gone for U/R Pyromancer, a deck that can really abuse the namesake of the deck two mana human with a lot of powerful card draw and removal spells to generate a tonne of tokens.

Vieren had picked up two intentional draws as well as two unintentional draws throughout the tournament to keep him afloat, but undefeated is undefeated right? 

Game one had little back and forth. Mengucci had a first turn Æther Vial but Vieren had the answer in the form of Abrade to let the cheap artifact getting out of hand. Vieren did follow up his artifact removal with the decks namesake Young Pyromancer but with Mengucci using the one-two punch of Kitesail Freebooter and Meddling Mage (the former to get information for maximum use of the latter), Vieren was left with few available instants or sorceries. The Freebooter had taken away a Spell Snare which had allowed Mengucci to cast Meddling Mage naming Roast. This wouldn’t hold Vieren back as much as Mengucci had hoped however as a Snapcaster Mage flashed back the Abrade from earlier on to take out the Meddling Mage which freed up Roast to deal with a fourth turn creature from Mengucci. Through all of this Mengucci had only found two lands, and with one of them being Horizon Canopy the damage was adding up. Vieren’s elemental tokens, courtesy of two Young Pyromancers, were also adding up. It wasn’t long before Vieren was able to tap down any remaining creatures on Mengucci’s board with Cryptic Command and attack through to win game one.

Game two was an unfortunate affair. Mengucci was on the play but had to mulligan to six cards. He kept a one lander with no one mana spells and despite scrying the top of his deck to the bottom, he didn’t find another land over the next three turns. By turn four’s dead draw he picked up his one land and both players shuffled up for game three.

Mengucci knew what he was doing and knew that his chances of drawing a land would decrease as the turns went on. Mulliganing to five cards would probably put those odds on the tedious side of awkward, whereas the six cards (even with one land) stood slightly more of a chance in Mengucci’s mind.

The third game was definitely the stand out of this match. Mengucci came out of the gates fast and with purpose, over the first few turns deploying constant effective creatures. Thalia, Guardian Of Thraben followed up by a pair of Kitesail Freebooters (poaching a Roast and an Electrolyze) and a duet of Meddling Mages (naming Cryptic Command, which had been seen via a Freebooter, and Lightning Bolt complete in the dark). To top this all off Mengucci also had found a Thalia’s Lieutenant to bolster his team, things were looking up. Mengucci has the game on virtual lock down while all Vieren had was a tapped Young Pyromancer, two elemental tokens and restricted access to a lot of his useful spells. This is where the come back began. An instant speed Opt gave Vieren a surprise third blocker to triple block and deal with the Meddling Mage naming Cryptic Command. Vieren could then use the Command to buy himself another turn while also waiting for an Ancestral Visions to unsuspend. With three fresh cards, and his draw for the turn, Vieren found a Roast to deal with the second Meddling Mage which freed up any Lightning Bolts to be point at the pair of Freebooters. Vieren had all of his removal exiled back in his hand and finished it all off with an Anger Of The God’s to wipe the board. Another Ancestral Visions gave Vieren even more spells along with a Vendilion Clique, Mengucci was flooding out and couldn’t stop the 3/1 flyer and it quickly closed out the game.

The highs and lows of this match gave it a lot of character, both players played well and gave it their all. Mengucci was unfortunate to be on the business end of a white wash but he was magnanimous in defeat and wished Vieren good luck in the semi finals.

Finally, the last quarterfinal pitted Javier Dominguez against Gerry Thompson. Out of all four quarterfinals this was definitely the one that caught my eye. I’ll let you in on a little secret: Gerry Thompson was my pick to win this Pro Tour ever since I saw him in day two. His deck was strong and he played it well, despite Gerry not having much experience playing Mardu Pyromancer. Rattling off a 9-0-1 record in modern is pretty impressive. Javier Dominguez was attempting to stop the American platinum pro from progressing any further with his weapon of choice 6-Colour Humans. The Spaniard, ranked 19th in the world, picked up the deck of the tournament and had gone on a tear. 

Gerry T’s gameplan consisted of making a two mana 2/1 in the form of Young Pyromancer and, using all of his instants and sorceries, create an overwhelming board advantage with 1/1 elemental tokens. Getting to the top 8 one of the all stars in his deck was certainly Bedlam Reveler. This eight mana 3/4 may look odd at first but it very quickly turns into a two mana draw three in Mardu Pyromancer thanks to the amount of instants and sorceries in your graveyard. Dominguez’s Human list had a similar idea in mind to Thompson’s. Flood the board with creatures but these creatures could prove slightly more effective. Creatures like Champion Of The Parish, Thalia, Guardian Of Thraben, Kitesail Freebooter and Thalia’s Lieutenant could all add up to an explosive board position early, not to mention the all star creature Kessig Malcontents. 

Game one went pretty much as you would have expected. Dominguez, on the play, dropped human after human: Noble Hierarch, Meddling Mage (naming Lightning Bolt) into another Hierarch. As Thompson dispatched the first Mage with a Terminate another took its place again naming Lightning Bolt, Thompson cast a Faithless Looting to find a Collective Brutality to deal with the second Mage, but it didn’t stop there. A Third Meddling Mage hit the table and surprise surprise the named card was Lightning Bolt. Dominguez now had a second Hierarch and was innocuously whittling down Thompson’s life total. To add insult to injury the Spaniard now had a Reflector Mage to increase the clock on Thompson. With nothing in play Gerry had to dig deep. A Fatal Push dealt with a Hierarch which opened the door for Thompson’s Bedlam Reveler to draw him three cards with no drawback. The devil horror was followed up by a Young Pyromancer, things looked like they were shifting a bit. A Mantis Rider off the top for Dominguez put Thompson down to 4 life before Thompson pointed a removal spell at the three powered flyer, this gave Bedlam Reveler the space to start taking chunks out of Dominguez’s life total. The fourth Meddling Mage came down and named Faithless Looting, this time actually hitting a card in Thompson’s hand, without the red card draw spell Thompson could only cast and flashback a Lingering Souls to stop himself from dying. While the game may have started to shift in Thompson’s favour it was quickly shifting back, anther Mantis Rider Prompted a triple block from Thompson. This attack was followed up by a weak looking 1/2 flyer in the form of Kitesail Freebooter, not much on its own but when Dominguez found a third Mantis Rider for exactly four damage the next turn, the first game was over.

For the second game Dominguez kept a dodgy hand and it went downhill from the get go. Thompson led off with a first turn Inquisition Of Kozilek followed by a second turn Young Pyromancer, getting off to probably the most powerful start he could. With nothing on turn two from

Dominguez and a third turn Inquisition Of Kozilek to take a Mantis Rider, it looked like Thompson was in the drivers seat. Dominguez did attempt to get on the board with a Reflector Mage to bounce the Pyromancer but Thomson used this to his advantage, pointing a Fatal Push at the Reflector Mage thanks to the raid trigger. That wasn’t even the worst part for Dominguez as he was then staring down a pair of Young Pyromancer. Dominguez was flooding out and needed help, two Horizon Canopy’s would give him a couple of extra outs but they were also hurting him. He found a Thalia’s Lieutenant to boost his team as a Phantasmal Image copying a Bedlam Reveler to draw three cards. The tide was turning, but Thompson had other ideas as he Thoughtseized away a Meddling Mage and landed a Liliana, Of The Veil to take Dominguez’s hand apart. Bedlam Reveler started attacking in and the race began. Dominguez had ideas of attacking but Thompson chumped with his tokens. A Kolaghan’s Command replaces those tokens the following turn and Thompson drew three more cards courtesy of a second Bedlam Reveler. Dominguez tried to follow suit, retaliating with a Phantasmal Image again to copy the Reveler but it wasn’t enough, an attack followed by a pair of Lightning Bolts allowed Thompson to take the second game.

Both players had turn one plays in game four, Thompson with an Inquisition Of Kozilek that revealed Kitesail Freebooter, Sin Collector and Thalia (which was taken by the one mana spell), while Dominguez set up nicely with an Aether Vial. A Thoughtseize took another card from Dominguez’s hand and suddenly his start wasn’t looking as good as it had. Both the Kitesail Freebooter and Sin Collector whiffed while revealing a pair of Bedlam Revelers and a Young Pyromancer. Thompson refueled with the Reveler and dropped a Pyromancer to start making some additional tokens with Lingering Souls, Dominguez could only add a Kambal, Consul Of Allocation to the board making any spells Thompson would play awkward on his life total.

The black/white legend met his end with a Terminate but the board was getting cluttered with humans and tokens alike. Suddenly, an Izzet Staticaster looked like it was going to take the game in Dominguez’s favour, taking out all of Thompson’s spirits which let him get in with a double exalted Kitesail Freebooter. A Kologhan’s Command off the top for Thompson gave him some wiggle room, making tokens and getting a Bedlam Reveler back to refuel his hand again, this was followed up with a third Bedlam Reveler to net Thompson more tokens but he couldn’t find a way through. With the life totals sitting at 13-3 in Dominguez’s favour it looking like the Spaniard could take the game, until Thompson went on the offensive forcing blocks from Dominguez. In the nick of time Thompson found a Collective Brutality to stay alive, get rid of the Freebooter and attack through to take game three.

Another strong looking start for Dominguez as his opener consisted of Noble Hierarch, Kitesail Freebooter and Thalia, which he led off with over the opening turns. His estimation of his opening hand probably dropped a couple of notches when he saw Thompson’s stacked hand of Lightning Bolt, Collective Brutality, Lingering Souls and Terminate. After your opponent has sett up with a first turn Inquisition then a second turn Young Pyromancer, this is not what you want to see. Thompson set to work cleaning up Dominguez’s board and, while being mindful not to play any Bedlam Revelers that may get copied with a Phantasmal Image, a mass of tokens was enough to get him to the finish line. 

This match was probably the highlight of the quarter final, two incredibly good players showing exactly why they’d chosen the deck they had. Thompson put on a masterclass with Mardu Pyromancer, really relying on his life as a resource at times, and Dominguez did all he could with the front runner of the tournament, 5-Colour Humans. Unfortunately he couldn’t do enough as Thomson progresses to the semi finals.

Thompson 3-1 Dominguez

Moving onto the semi finals and the first one we’ll take a look at is Luis Salvatto vs Ken Yukuhiro.

With Yukuhiro’s B/R Hollow One deck being able to get off to some explosive starts he could get an edge in this match if he can drop one or two first turn Hollow Ones. Other than that Salvatto had Ensnaring Bridge and his deck was designed to restrict access to cards while also putting a halt on combat.

There first game was short. A first turn Botanical Sanctum and Codex Shredder isn’t the best start for a Lantern player. However, when Yukuhiro’s turn consisted of a Burning Inquiry and nothing else things start to look up. Yukuhiro put together a board of double Flamewake Phoenix and Flameblade Adept and looked to be mounting an offence. An Ensnaring Bridge swiftly put a stop to that and Yukuhiro couldn’t do anything about it, he scooped.

Game two was longer but probably just as exciting for both players. Yukuhiro got out of the gates early with a Flameblade Adept followed up by the discard of Flamewake Phoenix and Gurmag Angler. Without anymore land he could only get in for 3 damage and awaited Salvatto’s response. Salvatto was very busy, card selection via Ancient Stirrings along with extra card draw thanks to double Mishra’s Bauble, Lantern Of Insight and an Inquisition (taking a Goblin Lore) for good measure. He found an Ensnaring Bridge but he was at 8, this meant that the Lightning Bolts in Yukuhiro’s deck were live. This was remedied by a Whir Of Invention for a Witchbane Orb and the players reach for their sideboards for game three.

Keeping in theme the third game was another quick one, but this time in Yukuhiro’s favour. Cycling two Street Wraiths on turn one and then Burning Inquiry is a very powerful start but he still couldn’t find any Hollow Ones. A second turn one mana Gurmag Angler and a third turn Tasigur, The Golden Fang was good enough to secure the third game when Salvatto couldn’t find the Ensnaring Bridge to stop them. 

Salvatto had made a habit of good starts with Lantern Control, almost like the Deck was designed that way or something. Game four was no different, with Thoughtseize taking a Hollow One followed up by a Pithing Needle (naming Bloodstained Mire) along with a Grafdigger’s Cage, it looked like Yukuhiro was already done for. He tries his best however, dropping two Flameblade Adept and picking away at Salvatto’s life total with the two creatures and an Escalated Brutality. Salvatto was at 7 when he emptied his hand and landed an Ensnaring Bridge which meant Yukuhiro had to fall back on direct damage to win him this game. Fortunately he had a Grim Lavamancer to get him there but only six cards in his graveyard to total 6 damage. A Lightning Bolt or Collective Brutality would put him over the line but with Salvatto having a Codex Shredder to pick and choose what hit Yukuhiro’s hand, things might be a bit harder than first seemed. Salvatto was taking Burning Inquiry’s off the top of Yukuhiro’s deck like his life depended on it, because it did. Yukuhiro got Salvatto down to 1 life, at which point Salvatto has to shred a Burning Inquiry into Yukuhiro’s graveyard, one more card in the bin for Yukuhiro and the game was his. Yukuhiro flopped over the next card on top of his deck (due to Lantern Of Insight). Up flipped a Hollow One which Yukuhiro quickly drew and cycled for the last point of damage.

Spire Of Industry, Mox Opal, Codex Shredder and Lantern Of Insight. This is almost a perfect start for the Lantern Control deck and Salvatto had it on turn one, all ready to screw with Yukuhiro’s draw steps before he’d even taken a turn. Nonetheless Yukuhiro was giving the old college try with a first turn FlameBlade Adept and second turn Hollow One. He used Goblin Lore to fuel his graveyard for Gurmag Angler and with a total of ten power on the table a two turn clock was on. Before Yukuhiro had the chance to attack though Salvatto showed the last card in his hand, Whir Of Invention. With X equalling three he was able to find Ensnaring Bridge to nullify any possible attacks from Yukuhiro. Ancient Grudge would have been an out for Yukuhiro, it would’ve if it hadn’t been for the Grafdigger’s Cage sitting in front of Salvatto. Yukuhiro thought for a bit and concluded that he wasn’t going to get there. He extended his hand and conceded the match to Salvatto, wishing him luck in the final.

It went the distance but in the end Lantern Control proved too much for Yukuhiro’s B/R Hollow One deck to handle.

Salvatto 3-2 Yukuhiro 

The second semi final had two very similar decks on either side of the table. Gerry Thompson had gone for Mardu Pyromancer, a deck that allowed his card selection to consist of card selection In the form of Faithless Looting but more importantly access to removal like Fatal Push, Terminate and Dreadbore. Vieren had opted for a a two colour version of a Pyromancer build, blue and red to be exact. While he did lose a colour the blue gave him a more controlling side to his deck with Cryptic Command and other counterspells, Ancestral Visions and Serum Visions acting as his card draw and Snapcaster Mage to get double use out of his instants and sorceries to trigger Young Pyromancer multiple times. 

In the first two turns of game one both players traded draw spells, Vieren with a Serum Visions and Thompson with a Faithless Looting, followed by two drops. Thompson landed the decks namesake Young Pyromancer but Vieren had something slightly mor effective up his sleeve in the form of Thing In The Ice. Vieren also had the removal for the Young Pyromancer leaving Thompson at a loss for board position and without any of his main deck answers such as Fatal Push, Dreadbore, Terminate or Liliana Of The Veil to hand he was losing ground quickly. Thompson found some turns by chumping with spirits, thanks to an earlier discarded Lingering Souls, and even found a Terminate off of the three cards drawn with Bedlam Reveler but at this point Vieren had already landed a Young Pyromancer and was busy making tokens and drawing cards of his own thanks to an Ancestral Visions. Thompson couldn’t find a way out and decided his best bet was moving onto game two.

More card draw spells started off game two for both players. While Thompson had the Faithless Looting for the second time Vieren went on better with his dream start of Island Ancestral Visions. Thompson’s tried to fight back with an Inquisition Of Kozilek but was set back a little when he saw Vieren holding triple Cryptic Command. Over the next few turns Vieren’s controlling hand with Commands, Snapcaster and Thing In The Ice made light work of any tokens Thompson had managed to amass. A flipped Thing In The Ice, into Awoken Horror, returned all of Thompson’s tokens and made for his life total and without an answer Vieren took the second game.

Thompson was now in a position where he had to rattle off three games in a row to take this match.

He started off his come back with a quick game three wherein he landed a Young Pyromancer and proceeded to cast spell after spell. Vieren couldn’t find an answer and tried to match Pyromancer for Pyromancer, Thompson had other ideas. A Collective Brutality made short work of the red two drop and got a Cryptic Command out of Vieren’s hand.  Bedlam Reveler to refuel and Thompson had taken the third game and was on the board. 

Vieren has the advantage in game four, or at least it looked like he did. With two Thing In The Ice on the board within the first three turns (one with one counter and the other with two counters) it looked like Vieren would take the third game and this semi final. It got even worse when he was able to Roast one of Thompson’s Bedlam Revelers and transform a Thing In The Ice into an Awoken Horror. Vieren took Thompson down to 4 and it was looking bad for the American Pro Tour champ. All of a sudden there was a shift in the match, when Thompson drew into a Liliana Of The Veil. The Black planeswalker dealt with one of the creatures on Vieren’s board but there was still the small matter of the second creature. A Faithless Looting drawing into a Fatal Push made short work of that however and Thompson was now In the driving seat. Any combination of burn spells for Vieren would have spelled the end for Thompson but he couldn’t find any, all the while Thompson was setting up his board with a Young Pyromancer and a Bedlam Reveler. A couple of attacks with the pair of creatures and the forth game was done with Thompson equalising the score, one more and those three wins in a row could be achieved. 

The final game got off to a good start for Vieren with a first turn suspended Ancestral Vision despite his mulligan to six. Thompson also had his now standard first turn play of Faithless Looting which discarded two Lingering Souls to get off to pretty much the best start. With Thompson’s spirits, courtesy of Lingering Souls, hitting the board Vieren was tasked with finding answers to the 1/1 flyers, buying time until his Ancestral Vision came off suspend. Within the four cards drawn in Vieren’s turn (three from the Vision and one from his draw step) he was able to find a second copy of Cryptic Command. Opting for the more controlling route he passed the turn with four mana available. Thompson decided to attack Vieren’s hand with a Thoughtseize which put the blue/red player in a bit of a bind: counter the Thoughtseize with the Command and get some value with the card draw mode or let the Thoughtseize resolve and let Thompson take one of the Cryptic Commands. Vieren chose to go for the former and countered the one mana black sorcery and this turned out to be his downfall. With Vieren tapped out this opened up the door for Thompson to land a Bedlam Reveler, the card advantage with the 3/4 Prowess creature gave him the opportunity to take control of the game. Hand disruption and removal spells were flying every which way and with Thompson able to recur a Bedlam Reveler thanks to Kolaghan’s Command chaining spells together was a piece of cake. Vieren thought long and hard to try and find an answer to all of this card advantage and board presence, ultimate though he couldn’t. Vieren extended the hand and took his first defeat of the weekend at the hands of Gerry Thompson winning three games in a row to make it to the final. 

Thompson 3-2 Vieren

This semi final match was a showcase of class from Gerry Thompson making a huge comeback from 2-0 down. This alone shows just how skilled the American is and can be a force to be reckoned with.

Eighteen rounds of magic had been played between 465 players in Bilbao over the weekend. A lot of different decks had come and gone along with their pilots and now we were down to the last two: Luis Salvatto and Gerry Thompson. 

Going into this match Salvatto had said that even though the match up wasn’t entirely bad he would’ve preferred to play someone else in the final. Salvatto went on to acknowledge Gerry Thompson’s skill as well as his decks ability to deal with artifacts. Thompson however, estimating just how bad this match up would be for himself, seemed to be resigned to the fact that this would be as far as he went. 

The first game was a short order and had more of a casual air to it than the previous games in the top eight. Thompson started it off with a mulligan to six and kept his Scry on top as was confirmed by Salvatto. "It's so good. In fact, it's delicious. I'm so happy right now." Thompson declared, trying to lighten the mood a bit, though he wouldn’t get access to the top of his deck as Salvatto started off his game with a Pyxis Of Pandemonium to exile it. Codex Shredder, Mishra’s Bauble (which Salvatto sacrificed to fix his draw), Lantern Of Insight and Ensnaring Bridge followed up the one mana Theros block artifact over the next two turns while Thompson could only deploy two spirit tokens via a Lingering Souls. Everything was coming up Salvatto and his lock was nearly complete, he could now pick and choose what Cards Thompson drew. The players joked about Thompson’s chances of winning from his current position. “What are my odds of winning from here? Zero?" Thompson’s said with through a smile, "I think it's about 1%," Salvatto answered. "You need to have all three Kolaghan's Commands on the top of your deck stacked one after another. And even if that happens, I can use Codex Shredder and Pyxis of Pandemonium to get rid of the first two, and I can sacrifice Lantern of Insight to force you to shuffle away the third. You might have a chance if you draw it back immediately." Thompson thought for a bit, ran through his actions of the first game, he had made five in total, and opted to move onto the second game. “It's like you're playing the evil turn-three kill combo deck instead of a control deck now." Thompson quipped while shuffling his deck.

Thompson had to take a mulligan in the second game but this time he was joined at six cards by Salvatto. 

To kick things off Thompson landed a Young Pyromancer which was quickly dispatched by an Abrupt Decay from Salvatto. A Thoughtseize from Thompson was met by Salvatto revealing the last card in his hand to be Whir Of Invention, which he used to find a Codex Shredder. With the coast clear and enough mana Thompson found and cast a Bedlam Reveler. The devil horror found nothing for the American and Salvatto took full advantage of that fact with a pair of Pithing Needles, an Ensnaring Bridge and a pair of Codex Shredders. The players discussed Thompson’s chances of winning once again and this time Salvatto put him at 3%. This quickly changed however as Salvatto drew his next card and saw Whir Of Invention, “Sorry, it's 0% now.". Thompson joked about his situation being very similar to the one he had seen in the semi finals, having to come back from 2-0 down and sweep the next three games.

Game three was probably the most Interesting of the final. Salvatto got things going with a Lantern Of Insight but was a little tangled on mana, he didn’t have the third artifact to enable the metalcraft on Mox Opal and therefor only had two blue mana sources which kept the Whir Of Invention in his hand. Thompson tried to get off the mark with a Young Pyromancer but it came face to face with an Abrupt Decay. Thompson drew an Inquisition Of Kozilek and a Molten Rain showed itself on top of his library which hit Salvatto’s Botanical Sanctum the following turn. With successive draws of Welding Jar and Botanical Sanctum Salvatto Whir’d for an Ensnaring Bridge to halt Thompson’s offence. Salvatto still didn’t have a Codex Shredder or Pyxis Of Pandemonium to really interact with the top of Thompson’s library. He has to result to using the Lantern to shuffle cards away, a second Mox Opal for himself and a Liliana Of The Veil on top of Thompson’s deck. Ancient Stirrings from Salvatto found a Codex Shredder and the screws were tightening on Thompson. Then a second Shredder hit the board and the door was closing with a few rays of light for Thompson shining through, Faithless Looting and Bedlam Reveler. Either of these cards and the Pro Tour Amonkhet Champion could draw into something live, Salvatto knew this and made sure Thompson wouldn’t have access to them. Milking himself into a Pyxis Of Pandemonium and Salvatto has it locked up: no way of attacking for Thompson, direct damage not being a viable win condition and, at Salvatto’s whim, the top three cards of Thompson’s deck were dead.

 "Congrats on winning the Pro Tour buddy," Thompson said as he extended his hand to the roar of the crowd. 

Salvatto 3-0 Thompson

Although the final had only gone three games both players looked like they enjoyed it, jokes flying around with Thompson spearheading the banter. Salvatto has played a very good deck very well, which is taking nothing away from Thompson, but this was a bad match up from Mardu’s side. Salvatto had all the answers, the skill to back it up and, after battling through 19 rounds of magic, definitely the endurance. 

Congratulations Luis Salvatto on a thoroughly deserved win, enjoy your Pro Tour trophy and $50,000. Looking more towards the metagame over the weekend though, does this mean Lantern Control is going to be the new target to beat? 5-Colour Humans had the biggest showing and had two copies in the top 8. Pyromancer also had a good weekend with two copies making it to the top 8, though they were doing slightly different things, along with one of the new boys R/B Hollow One (which may have just become my new favourite deck). Maybe the recent unbannings of Jace, The Mindsculptor and Bloodbraid Elf might shake things up even more but what I think it’s apparent is that modern is in a very healthy place at the moment. Some decks are very powerful but not unbeatable, Dredge used to be the big baddie but was only 3.7% of the meta on day one to highlight how the mighty can fall, in a sense. Most decks are tier 1/1.5 which means you can viably get away with almost anything in modern, there are answers to everything and this is where you can play them. 

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