Mythic Championship 1 Cleveland: Day Two Wrap Up
The first day of a Mythic Championship is mostly about feeling out the format and seeing if anyone decided to bring a spicy, unknown deck. On day two we shift gear and start to figure out which decks are performing best at the tournament, finally culminating with the top eight at the end of the day. If you're feeling antsy and want to jump straight to the results, you can see the Top Eight decklists here. While we'll have a full breakdown by the numbers tomorrow, here's everything you need to know about day two of Mythic Championship Cleveland.
Day Two Meta
You can view the entire day two metagame breakdown here!
At first glance the day two metagame looks roughly like the day one metagame that we discussed yesterday, but if we dig into the numbers, we get our first glance at how decks are performing this weekend at the Mythic Championship. While our numbers are somewhat complicated by the limited portion of the event (a bad limited performance can keep a good Standard deck out of day two and a great limited performance could allow for a comparatively bad Standard deck to show up in our sample), we can still get a pretty good idea of how decks are performing based on their conversion rate (the percentage of day one players that managed to make it into day two). Field-wide, roughly 63% of players made it to day two, so decks that put more than 63% of their players into day two performed well and decks that came in with less than 63% performed poorly.
| Deck | Day One Players | Day Two Players | Conversion Rate |
| Top Five Decks | 345 | 226 | 65.5% |
| Everything Else | 154 | 89 | 57.8% |
In general, the five most -played decks at Mythic Championship Cleveland performed well on day one. Simply playing one of these decks allowed a player to win roughly 8% more often than playing anything else in the field. This suggests that the top tier decks of the format are besting the lesser-played options. As far as individual decks are concerned, by far the best performing deck on day one of Mythic Championship Cleveland was the deck that we saw on camera the least yesterday: Nexus of Fate managed to put 71.8% of its players into day two, nearly 9% above the expectation.
On the other end of the scale, we have Mono-Blue Tempo, which actually performed about 3% under expectations. This is somewhat strange considering the deck was on camera constantly yesterday with several players at the top tables. This said, the players on the top tables with Mono-Blue are some of the best in the world, so it might be a situation where the best of the best were able to perform well with the deck while the average Mythic Championship player had less luck.
While not one of the "big five," there was one fairly heavily-played deck that was even worse than Mono-Blue Tempo: Izzet Drakes. The deck started with a respectable 6% of the day one field, but only put 43.3% of its player into day two. That isn't just a bad performance, it's an awful performance. While the smaller sample size does complicate things (maybe Izzet Drake players are especially bad at limited for some reason?), it's hard to argue against Izzet Drakes being the biggest flop on day one of Mythic Championship Cleveland. On the other hand, Izzet Phoenix managed a 100% conversion rate (albeit with a small sample size of just seven players). Moving forward, if you are playing Izzet, you should probably have Arclight Phoenix in your deck.
As far as the lesser-played decks, both Gruul and Esper Midrange performed well with a handful of players (both posting an 80% conversion rate with 10 and 5 players respectively), while non-Nexus of Fate versions of Gates fell flat, with all four of its players missing out on day two. Meanwhile, if you want a scary statistic, it seems like decks with Wilderness Reclamation are killing it, almost regardless of what colors you play. The Nexus of Fate heading includes a few Nexus of Gates builds, but is primarily Simic Nexus (61% of the day one Nexus decks were of the Simic variety) which posted a 71.8% conversion rate. Meanwhile, Temur Reclamation put 77.8% of its players into day two (with nine day one players) and the lone Sultai Reclamation player also managed to make it into day two. Apparently untapping all of your lands every turn for free is powerful.
Finance Update
In the past, Pro Tour weekends were crazy from a finance perspective with cards spiking by hundreds to thousands of percentage points. With the move to Mythic Championships being six weeks after a set release instead of a couple of weeks after a set release, things have quieted down quite a bit. These days it's pretty rare for a player or team to show up to an event with a completely unknown deck or card and break the format. However, we did see some price movement based on day one of Mythic Championship Cleveland, with the biggest winners being various pieces of Mono-Blue Tempo.
On the other hand, if you're looking to get ahead of the pack, perhaps the best bet at the moment is cards for the Nexus of Fate deck. In large part, coverage determines which cards spike, which is why Mono-Blue Tempo looked like a winner yesterday even though it actually performed poorly and Nexus of Fate looked like a loser even though it was the best deck in the format. Based on the result of day one, it wouldn't be surprising to see Nexus of Fate decks be a bigger part of the story tomorrow during the top eight.
If you're looking for penny stocks, the two key uncommons from the deck are decent options. The most heavily-played uncommons in the format — cards like Pteramander, Lava Coil and Chart a Course — are all in the $3 range while Wilderness Reclamation is only $1.50 and Frilled Mythic is just $0.40. If Simic Reclamation is the story of the top eight, it wouldn't be a surprise to see both of these cards double up (or more) tomorrow.
On the other hand, the other key pieces of the deck, Hydroid Krasis, Nexus of Fate, and Search for Azcanta are already pretty expensive. While it's possible they increase if Simic Nexus dominates, unless you need the pieces to play the deck, it's probably better to avoid buying in. Nexus of Fate is already banned in best of one play on Magic Arena and considering how much people dislike Nexus of Fate, it's not impossible that Wizards finishes the job and bans Nexus of Fate in best of three as well.
Deck Tech Decks
Wrap Up
Perhaps the biggest story of day two of Mythic Championship Cleveland is Mono-Blue Tempo. Even though the deck didn't perform all that well in general on day one, in the hands of really good players, it seems to be one of the best decks in the format, commanding at least 25% of the top eight.
Marcio Carvalho also managed to lock up a top eight early with Azorius Aggro, but not without controversy. In round 14 there was a situation where Marcio's opponent cast a Cry of the Carnarium which should have exiled a Dauntless Bodyguard. While Marcio sacrificed it in response, with Cry of the Carnarium it doesn't matter since it exiles all creatures that go from the battlefield to the graveyard the turn it was cast. Speaking of awkwardness on camera, we also had a pretty epic punt on the top tables where a player in contention for top eight used all of their mana to make Biogenic Ooze tokens, leaving him unable to cast a life-saving Root Snare against an empty-handed Reid Duke.
We also got to see some Nexus of Fate on day two, although always as a backup feature match. It seems like Wizards went out of their way to avoid showing it on camera any more than necessary, which was probably a good plan considering how much people hate the deck.
While the Magic was good on both days one and two, the one downside is that there simply weren't any new or spicy decks. The only spice was a Mardu Vampires list by Joe Soh listed below. This has become the norm since Pro Tours were pushed back to six weeks after the release of a set, and that will likely be the norm until something changes in terms of Mythic Championship scheduling. This said, our next Mythic Championship should be the exception to the rule since Mythic Championship London will feature Modern with a test of a new mulligan rule, which should really shake up the format. Even if the rule itself flops, the idea of a Mythic Championship with such a weird new format will make for must-watch television the last weekend of April.
Top Eight Decks
Your top eight competitors for Mythic Championship 1 Cleveland. You can view the full decklists here.
- Marcio Carvalho (Azorius Aggro)
- Reid Duke (Mono-Blue Tempo)
- Autumn Burchett (Mono-Blue Tempo)
- Yoshihiko Ikawa (Esper Control)
- Michael Bonde (Simic Nexus)
- Julien Berteaux (Mono-Blue Tempo)
- Alex Majlaton (Gruul Aggro)
- Luis Scott-Vargas (Izzet Phoenix)
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. What stood out to you on day two of Mythic Championship Cleveland? What are you hoping for tomorrow? Let me know in the comments! Speaking of tomorrow, we'll be back to break down the entire tournament by the numbers. Until then, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive, or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
