Pro Tour Eldritch Moon: By the Numbers

Pro Tour Eldritch Moon is in the books, which means it's time to break down all of the happenings by the numbers! Here's the plan for today. First, we're going to look at the six most played decks at the event and see how they stack up against each other and the field at large. Then, we'll talk about a few of the most interesting decks that managed to pick up at least six wins at Pro Tour Eldritch Moon. Finally, we'll wrap up by looking at the individual cards and talking about the 20 most played cards from the tournament as a whole, and the 20 most played cards from Eldritch Moon specifically. Remember, you can find all the decklists on the Pro Tour Eldritch Moon tournament page.

The Big Six

Heading into day one of Pro Tour Eldritch Moon, six decks made up at least five percent of the field. How did these decks perform across the event? That's what we are going to try to figure out. 

First off, some important numbers. Pro Tour Eldritch Moon started off with a total of 302 players, with 185 performing well enough to make day two. This means that 61.3% of the day one field came back for the second day of competition. In the end, 82 players ended up posting a record of 6-4 or better in constructed (27.15%), 43 ended up with at least seven wins (14.23%), and 13 posted at least eight wins (4.3%). Of course, these numbers are somewhat problematic thanks to the split format of the Pro Tour, since people who performed extremely poorly in limited on day one likely missed out on day two regardless of their constructed performance, which means they had no chance of showing up in our sample, but this is the best we have to work with. That said, these numbers set a baseline for the decks we are about to look at. Decks that posted percentages above the baseline performed well, while decks that came in with percentages below the baseline performed poorly. 

GB Delirium

GB Delirium was the best deck on day one of Pro Tour Eldritch Moon by a fairly wide margin. It did a great job of putting players into day two, at 24% above the baseline, and then backed this up by posting above-average results at every point on the curve. As such, there really isn't any doubt that GB Delirium is a good deck—the numbers clearly show that it is. The question is which build of the deck is best. 

The big debate is whether the deck should be more aggressive and play Grim Flayer or be more controlling and play cards like Noose Constrictor or spells like Grapple with the Past to fill the graveyard. While we (unfortunately) don't have the exact number of players on each build of the deck, if you look down the list of best performing decks, you'll see that the Grim Flayer builds seem to be somewhat better. Nine of the 16 GB Delirium decks with at least six wins were on the Grim Flayer plan, while seven were other builds without Grim Flayer. While this isn't a huge difference, it probably won't really matter because the one GB Delirium deck to make the top eight was a Grim Flayer build, and as a result, it got an extra day of coverage, which will likely make it the default build moving forward. 

Bant Company

The best thing I can say about Bant Company is that it didn't actually end up being as bad as it looked on day one, when it posted the worst conversion rate of any of the big six decks, coming in at nearly 8% below the baseline. Normally, you'd expect a performance like that to doom a deck—performing below average on day one means fewer players on day two, which in turn leads to lower percentages across the board. 

The thing is, Bant Company actually comes in slightly above average, as far as having players finish with six or seven wins, which is even more impressive considering the dismal day one performance. Here's my theory: UB Zombies is apparently the Bant Company assassin. Sam Black mentioned in his deck tech that their testing showed the deck had something like a 75% match win percentage in the Bant Company matchup. As a result, UB Zombies was (surprisingly) one of the most played decks in the field on day one. The problem is that UB Zombies can't beat Liliana, the Last Hope decks like GB Delirium. So, Bant Company had a lacking day one performance, thanks to all of the UB Zombies decks running around, but UB Zombies performed equally poorly against the rest of the field and wasn't near the top tables on day two. As such, Bant Company had a much better day two, since one of its worst matchups was no longer a major part of the meta. 

All in all, I'd say this is a mixed performance by Bant Company, but it has the potential to come away from the weekend as a winner. It's one of the three decks that had two players in the Top 8, which means it has to be considered one of the favorites to win the event. So, while Pro Tour Eldritch Moon proved that Bant Company is beatable, it also showed that the deck is still good enough. Moving forward, I expect that Bant Company will return to "just another tier one deck" status, rather than being the bogeyman of the format like it was for the first two weeks of Eldritch Moon.

WB Control

WB Control was the definition of an average deck at Pro Tour Eldritch Moon. It was within a few percentage points of the norm at nearly every point on the curve. As such, there really isn't much we can take away from its performance. It can obviously compete in the Pro Tour meta, but didn't do anything to suggest it as being one of the best decks in the format or anything like that. 

Heading into the Pro Tour, the most popular build of WB Control was the Angel-centric deck that had been putting up some results on the SCG Tour. However, the Pro Tour builds suggest that BW Angels isn't really the way to go. Out of the seven WB Control decks that managed at least six wins in constructed, only one was playing Gisela, the Broken Blade and her angel friends. Most of the decks were light on creatures altogether, with a few being 100% creature-less (at least in the main deck) and the rest playing a couple of copies of Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and perhaps some number of Archangel Avacyns. Moving forward, it seems likely that we'll be seeing fewer creatures in WB Control and more planeswalkers and non-creature finishers like Secure the Wastes. 

UB Zombies

I talked a bit about UB Zombies in our discussion of Bant Company, so I'm going to shy away from taking about the matchups again, other than to say that the deck is apparently very good against Bant Company but very, very bad against Liliana, the Last Hope. Out of the big six decks at Pro Tour Eldritch Moon, UB Zombies was pretty clearly the worst of the bunch. Not only did it post the second-worst conversion rate, but the day two numbers are amazingly awful, coming in about 17% below expected for giving players at least 6 wins. 

The good news is that a lot of pro players thought UB Zombies was good enough to bring to the Pro Tour, which wasn't exactly expected based on the results from the first two weeks of Eldritch Moon Standard, when we didn't really see any Zombie decks at all. Moving forward, the big question for UB Zombies will be what direction the metagame heads. It could be a good choice if people trend back towards Bant Company; on the other hand, if everyone jumps off the Bant Company ship for GB Delirium and emerge strategies, UB Zombies might have to wait for the rotational metagame shakeup in a couple of months to have another chance to shine.

Four-Color Emerge

Four-Color Emerge is my pick to be the most underrated deck from Pro Tour Eldritch Moon. If you compare it to GB Delirium and Temur Emerge—two of the biggest winners from the event—you'll see that the numbers are strikingly similar, putting a significantly above average number of players into the 6 and 7+ win brackets. The problem for Four-Color Emerge is that the deck lacked a big finish. While it did a fine job of giving players good finishes, it didn't manage to give even one single player a great finish. As a result, it missed the Top 8, which is a huge deal for the deck's future. While numbers geeks like me will know it was essentially just as good as GB Delirium and Temur Emerge, come Monday, all anyone will be talking about is the Top 8 decks, because that's the nature of Magic tournaments and Magic coverage.

As such, my advice is not to write off the deck. The numbers looked good, and the deck looks quite spicy, almost being a Standard-legal version of Dredge, so even though it will miss out on the all-important Sunday and won't get the hype that comes along with making a Top 8, don't forget Four-Color Emerge. It deserves to be mentioned alongside the best decks in the tournament, even though it just missed on putting up a big finish. 

Temur Emerge

Temur Emerge is likely the biggest winner from Pro Tour Eldrich Moon. Apart from an average conversion rate, its numbers are among the best in the field for all of our data points, but unlike a deck like Four-Color Emerge, it actually has several big finishes to back it up. In fact, if your goal was to get at least eight wins in constructed, Temur Emerge was the best deck at Pro Tour Eldritch Moon, more than tripling the expected number of 8+ win finishes. Because of this, Temur Emerge is one of three decks that put multiple players in the top eight, which means it has a leg up in winning the entire tournament, not that it really matters, because the real benefit of making the Top 8 is the epic amount of camera time and coverage a deck receives. The only deck that can match it is Bant Company, but people already hate Bant Company, so Temur Emerge will likely benefit from being the most seen and most popular deck during the Top 8. 

Maybe the most impressive part of Temur Emerge is that the three best performing builds (the two in the Top 8 and another that ended up 9-1 in constructed but missed the Top 8) are all unique. Owen Turtenwald's build is designed to ramp into Emrakul, the Promised End and is actually pretty skimpy on creatures to sacrifice to emerge, with just three copies of Pilgrim's Eye as true emerge targets. Essentially, it's a hybrid emerge / delirium / ramp list. Meanwhile, the other build in the Top 8 (played by Andrew Brown) isn't even playing Emrakul, the Promised End in the main deck; instead, it's overloaded on value creatures to sacrifice, like Primal Druid and Matter Reshaper, while also playing a ton of creatures with the emerge keyword, including four copies of Wretched Gryff, three Elder Deep-Fiends, and even a Lashweed Lurker. Finally, we have Immanual Gerschenson's nine-win build, which almost walks the line between Owen's build and Brown's build, playing the same value sacrifice package as Brown but cutting back on the actual emerge creatures in favor of Emrakul, the Promised End, more copies of Ishkanah, Grafwidow, and even a couple of Traverse the Ulvenwalds. Which build is best? I have no idea. The big takeaway is that the archetype itself must be strong, because even without a default build and with significant disagreement about card choices among the top players, it still put up perhaps the best results in the entire tournament. 

The Rest of the Field

Now, it's pretty foolish to try to break down the numbers on decks that make up less than 5% of the field, just because the sample size is so small, so instead of giving these lesser played decks full writeups, here are a few general observations about the rest of the field. 

• I said this after the first week of Eldritch Moon Standard, and I'll say it again here: GW Tokens is dead. If I had to pick one deck to be the worst in the entire Pro Tour field, this would be the one. Its conversion rate was pathetic, at just over 42% (nearly 20% below expected), and even more amazingly, the deck didn't manage to get a single player to six or more wins, even though it started out day one with 14 players (putting it at the seventh most played deck, just missing out on being in the big six). 
• On the other hand, if I had to pick a winner from the rest of the field, it's pretty clearly RG Ramp, which posted truly epic numbers in a small sample. On day one, the archetype had eight players, and seven made it through to day two (87.5%, 25% above average); then, six players ended up with at least six wins in constructed (75% of the day one total, almost triple the average of 27.5%). Most impressively, the deck put two players into the Top 8. This means a full 25% of the players who registered RG Ramp for Pro Tour Eldritch Moon are playing on Sunday. 
• Jund Delirium also posted reasonable numbers, putting five of its 12 players into the 6+ win pool. That said, if you had told me heading into the tournament that Brad Nelson would 6-0 limited and have an above average Standard deck but not make the top eight (or even get six wins in constructed), I wouldn't have believed you. If Brad Nelson—the greatest Standard player in the multiverse—can't win with Jund Delirium, can you or I?
• Esper Control had one player—one—even though the Pro Tour had plenty of long-time control supporters. This said, that one Esper Control player went 7-3 in constructed with a planeswalker-heavy build. Of course, this doesn't really mean anything because the sample size is nonexistent (for all we know, his opponents could have mulled to five each game), but it's a nice piece of Pro Tour Eldritch Moon trivia. 
• Finally, Legendary Naya put up decent results with a limited number of players. Six started out with the Thalia's Lancers brew on day one, five made it to day two, and three managed to put up at least six wins, so if you are looking for something different and midrangey to try out over the next couple of weeks, this might be the place to start. 

The Three Sweetest Sleeper Decks

Pedro Carvalho picked up nine wins in constructed playing a Fevered Visions, Thermo-Alchemist, Thing in the Ice burn deck. If you like casting a lot of spells and are looking for something that's both budget friendly and competitive, this might be the deck for you. 

Legendary Naya is one of my favorite decks to come out of Pro Tour Eldritch Moon. Of course, it's playing the typical good green cards like Sylvan Advocate and Tireless Tracker, but the core of the deck is a super sweet toolbox package made possible by Thalia's Lancers. So, just what can you search up with the white Rare? A whole bunch of sweet one-ofs, including Gisela, the Broken Blade, Archangel Avacyn, Sigarda, Heron's Grace, Dragonlord Dromoka, Dragonlord Atarka, Bruna, the Fading Light, and Linvala, the Preserver!

If burn spells and midrange creature decks aren't really your thing, maybe Esper Control is more your speed. This is the one Esper Control list to show up at Pro Tour Eldritch Moon, and apparently it was pretty good, considering it picked up seven wins in constructed. The downside is there really aren't many exciting new cards in the list, apart from Fortune's Favor, which goes to show that no matter how bad they make a Fact or Fiction, people will still try to play it. Speaking of new cards, let's break down the most played cards from Pro Tour Eldritch Moon!

Most Played Cards

• It's long been known that Tireless Tracker and Sylvan Advocate are two of the best cards in Standard, so it's not really surprising to see them top the list of most played cards at Pro Tour Eldritch Moon. What is a bit surprising is that another green card—Traverse the Ulvenwald—came in third on the list, nearly matching Tireless Tracker and Sylvan Advocate in its level of play. 
• Four cards on the list showed up as four-ofs in every single deck that played them: Grapple with the Past, Grasp of Darkness, Reflector Mage and Collected Company.
• Apparently, the right number of Emrakul, the Promised End is one and a half; however, the most interesting number regarding Emrakul, the Promised End is 41—the number of decks that played at least one copy of the Eldrazi titan. This put Emrakul, the Promised End in a tie for fourth on our list, which is especially stunning considering that she technically costs 13 mana. Emrakul, the Promised End was quite literally everywhere at Pro Tour Eldritch Moon. 
• Ishkanah, Grafwidow had Emrakul, the Promised End-like numbers, although it was more likely to be a two-of than a one-of. Probably the biggest take away about Ishkanah, Grafwidow from Pro Tour Eldritch Moon is that you don't really need to be able to activate the drain ability to play it—plenty of decks played Ishkanah, Grafwidow without any black mana in the deck.  

• Elder Deep-Fiend was another one of the breakout cards of the event, just missing out on the overall top 20 list and coming in sixth out of the Eldritch Moon cards. Plus, unlike a card like Summary Dismissal, which showed up in quite a few decks but always as a one-of, the people who played Elder Deep-Fiend wanted to draw them often, playing an average of 3.39 copies each. 
• Haunted Dead was a staple in Zombie decks and in some of the Four-Color Emerge decks as well, with every single deck playing the full four copies. The synergy with Prized Amalgam is extremely strong, and I won't be surprised to see more people working with the shell in upcoming weeks. 
• Tamiyo, Field Researcher and Thalia, Heretic Cathar are still getting a lukewarm reception in Bant Company. While more decks than not play some number of both, the average number of copies is fairly low, and they sometimes come in from the sideboard. 

Conclusion

Anyway, that's all for today. What do you see in these numbers? What surprised you at Pro Tour Eldritch Moon? What went as expected? What do you think about Bant Company moving forward? How about GB Delirium and the various emerge decks? Is Zombies bad, or was it just a bad choice for the Pro Tour Eldritch Moon metagame? Is GW Tokens really dead? Let me know in the comments, and as always, you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive, or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.