Pro Tour Eldritch Moon: Day One Review
Pro Tour Eldritch Moon kicked off in Australia today and it's time to catch up on all of the action! First off, I should apologize in advance if this article comes across a little looser and/or more scattered than most of my articles; I'm pretty close to a Zombie, fueled by endless pots of coffee and energy drinks. So you've been warned. If you want the tldr; and a quick hit of the decklists, be sure to checkout our Pro Tour Eldritch Moon Day One Live Decklists.
Rounds 1–3: Limited
While we'll focus mostly on the constructed rounds, I did want to briefly mention limited. The good news is that the format looked solid; it was slow enough that a lot of the flavorful and grindy decks have a chance to shine. So while many of the tribes of Eldritch Moon might not be good enough for Standard, the limited rounds at Pro Tour Eldritch Moon gave us a chance to see Werewolves, Zombies, Humans, and Vampires battle it our for supremacy.
The bad news is that the drafts themselves were close to unwatchable. One of the features at Pro Tour Eldritch Moon is that the booster packs used for the drafts were opened ahead of time and all the cards were sleeved (this started at Pro Tour Shadows over Innistrad). This was done to prevent some weirdness involving double-faced cards (some seats at the draft table would be able to see more double-faced cards than others). The idea was that sleeving the cards would make drafting fair for everyone, no matter what seat they ended up in. The unintended consequence of this change was that the glare was over the top.
Not only was it almost impossible to make out most of the cards watching from home, but even the announcers couldn't really see the cards (although they did a admirable job making the best of the situation). The troubling part is that this situation was completely (and easily) avoidable. According to The Professor from Tolarian Community College (who knows sleeves better than anyone), using Pro-Mattes sleeves from Ultra Pro would have eliminated the glare. Simple changes to the lighting would have also had the same effect. As a result, the drafting segments ended up feeling (and looking) like Wizards didn't bother to test the lighting and the sleeves beforehand, which is surprisingly unprofessional for Pro Tour-level coverage.
The other interesting part of the first three rounds was a segment which went inside the Team Channel Fireball house. While the piece itself was about what you'd expect—interviews with team members and some light banter—the part that stuck out was the testing. While we didn't get a lot of close ups of cards, it looked like nearly every player was on some sort of red/black deck. This could mean nothing, but I'll be keeping an eye out over the constructed rounds to see if the team deck was spoiled early thanks to a filler segment.
Round 4
We kick off the constructed rounds with Andrew Cuneo on GB Delirium versus Owen Turtenwald on Temur Emerge. The GB Delirium list looks pretty similar to the ones that have been making a mark on the SCG circuit, but with a heavier focus on filling the graveyard. It looks like the big innovation of the deck is the inclusion of cards like Vessel of Nascency and Grapple with the Past in the two-drop slot over Grim Flayer and Sylvan Advocate, which had been popular options. Meanwhile, the Temur Emerge deck is pretty spicy, playing an interesting mixture of synergies: delirium with Gnarlwood Dryad, Grapple with the Past; emerge with Elder Deep-Fiend; and GR Eldrazi Ramp with Nissa's Pilgramage. While it's too early to know if either of these decks are the "team" deck for Channel Fireball, it seems possible. In between rounds we see that Paulo is also on the GB Delirium deck, which is another vote in favor of it being the default Channel Fireball build. If they are, it's likely we'll see both in day two and possibly on Sunday as well; that's the benefit of having many of the best players in the room on your team. Here's my best guess at Temur Emerge:
In between games we get a peek at the back tables where Patrick Dickmann is playing some ungodly mashup featuring Elvish Visionary and Reflector Mage alongside Reality Smasher and Drowner of Hope. He's up against Brad Nelson who appears to be on a GB Delirium build that's splashing red for Kozilek's Return (which may be the Team EUreka team deck) and also features some emerge synergies with Distended Mindbender. Later we see our first Voldaren Parish out of a spicy UB Madness Control deck in the hands of Ben Seck. Unfortunately, the UB Madness deck was only on camera for a minute, getting soundly beaten by Sylvan Advocates and Tireless Trackers.
While it's obviously early in the tournament, the biggest winner so far has to be the emerge mechanic as a whole. Both Elder Deep-Fiend and Distended Mindbender were extremely hyped during spoiler season but faded away during the first two weeks of Eldritch Moon Standard. It appears that the homes for these cards simply weren't as obvious as sticking Spell Queller in Bant Company. Thankfully, it looks like the pros figured out emerge. Considering the caliber of players we've seen playing these cards, it wouldn't be a surprise to see them on Sunday. This would matter not only financially (both Elder Deep-Fiend and Distended Mindbender are candidates for a double up if they make the Top 8, especially Elder Deep-Fiend which is normally a four-of), but it would be a great sign of a potential shake up in Standard moving forward.
Round 5
Round 5 begins on Reid Duke playing Red-Green Delirium Ramp against another GB Delirium deck in the hands of Matt Sperling. In all honesty, neither of these decks are all that new. The Red-Green Delirium Ramp deck is essentially the old RG Eldrazi Ramp deck, except it's also looking to get some cards in the graveyard with the help of Vessel of Nascency and Gather the Pack to cast Emrakul, the Promised End as quickly as possible. Sperling's GB Delirium deck looks to be the same build we saw earlier from Cuneo, cutting Grim Flayer for two-mana spells that can fuel delirium. So instead of spending a ton of time discussing the deck, let's discuss some more early winners and losers.
Grim Flayer is the biggest loser at Pro Tour Eldritch Moon so far. If you look at the GB Delirium decks from the past couple of weeks on the SCG Tour, almost all of them played the two-drop as a four-of, but it seems that the pros figured out that the card simply isn't that good. It gets wrecked by Languish (even with delirium), and Languish looks to be everywhere since there are a ton of Bx Delirium decks. It also matches up incredibly poorly with Sylvan Advocate in the Bant Company matchup, which means Grim Flayer is bad against a huge portion of the meta. As a result, every single delirium build featured thus far have dropped Grim Flayer for spells that don't need to deal combat damage to fill the graveyard. Moving forward, I expect this to become the default, which means Grim Flayer will likely trend down towards $4 over the next couple months. It might be better once Reflector Mage and Sylvan Advocate rotate, but that's a long, long way in the future (next spring rotation).
As far as winners, it's pretty much anything that uses or fills the graveyard. Liliana, the Last Hope gets a bump because there are so many graveyard decks playing black. While I'm not sure how much higher she can go, it's possibly she comes out of the weekend in the $60 range before starting her slide, especially if we get some delirium action in the Top 8. Emrakul, the Promised End seems to be in every deck. So far, in less than two rounds, we've seen at least four different decks/color combinations all built around powering out Emrakul, the Promised End as quickly and efficiently as possible. Meanwhile, Kozilek's Return is incredibly powerful with not only Emrakul, the Promised End, but emerge Eldrazi like Elder Deep-Fiend and Distended Mindbender as well, to the point that some decks appear to be splashing red primarily to have access to the sweeper. As a relatively cheap mythic, it might stand to gain the most out of all the cards we've talked about so far. It has already increased 42% on Magic Online, and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see it go from $5 to $15 by the end of the weekend. Here's my best guess at the GR Delirium Ramp deck that Reid used to quickly win his match this round.
Round 6
For Round 6 we start on Mr. LSV who disappointingly decided to take the easy way out and play Bant Company. He's up against Steve Rubin who is playing a more traditional build of GB Delirium, similar to the decks that have been performing well on the SCG Tour, featuring Tireless Tracker, Sylvan Advocate and Grim Flayer.
As such, there really isn't much to say about these decks; they are both known quantities and the builds appear to be fairly stock. The good news is that Day One Metagame Breakdown was just published so we still have something to talk about.
First off, the fact that Bant Company is a bit less than 20% of the meta is a bit surprising. In the past, we've seen 25–30% be a fairly common percentage for decks that are clearly the best in the format, which suggests that the pros are not all that hot on the deck. We'll know more once we get to look at conversion rates tomorrow and the final standings on Sunday, but it appears that a lot of pros think they can beat the format's boogeyman. While the second and third place decks—WB Control and GB Delirium—were expected, the third and fourth most played decks are fairly surprising. If you had told me yesterday that UB Zombies would be played nearly three times as much as UW Spirits, I would have laughed at you. But that's exactly what happened on day one of Pro Tour Eldritch Moon, with UB Zombies coming in as the fourth most played deck and UW Spirits being a blip on the radar. Meanwhile, if you combine Temur Emerge and Four-Color Emerge, they would jump up to just behind GB Delirium as the third most played deck in the format.
Overall, we have a good news/bad new situation. Yes, Bant Company is by far the most played deck, which is a bit disappointing (although not at all surprising), but it isn't dominating the format. Yes, we are seeing quite a bit of the same old stuff, but we are also seeing the rise of some new archetypes in Zombies and Emerge. Even some of the "same old decks" are looking a lot different than they did a week or two weeks ago. At least thus far, the Standard meta is looking surprisingly healthy. If things look like this tomorrow and Sunday, it will be safe to say that fears of a Bant Company summer will be overblown.
I mentioned a moment ago that Zombies is one of the surprising breakout decks at day one of Pro Tour Eldritch Moon (even though it has gotten very little camera time, getting one backup feature match that only lasted a couple minutes). Some of the builds are pretty sweet, almost bordering on Standard versions of Dredge. Instead of being straightforward tribal aggro decks, the the Zombie builds we've seen are really Prized Amalgam decks that look to generate a ton of repeatable advantage by discarding the 3/3 using Haunted Dead and Stitchwing Skaab, only to get them back to sacrifice for Voldaren Pariah and emerge creatures, and then repeating the process over and over again. Apart from being another vote of confidence for emerge in general, one card to keep an eye on is Voldaren Pariah, which might be a lot better than most people thought. It nearly tripled in price on Magic Online over the past two days, and if UB Zombies can make a run for the Top 8, it may only be a matter of time until paper prices follow.
Round 7
Round 7 begins with Jacob Wilson with yet another GB Delirium list against Olivier Ruel on a Sultai Control list that looks very much like the one Ali Aintranzi has been using to great success at the last two SCG opens. In all honesty, I'm running out of things to say about GBx Delirium decks—it probably doesn't help that it's currently 5am. The big takeaway seems to be that graveyard decks are the big winners on day one of Pro Tour Eldritch Moon. In fact, every single feature match thus far has had at least one delirium deck, and some of the feature matches have been pseudo-delirium mirrors. While the feature matches make the deck look like one of the best decks in the room, it's also the second most played, and it seems to be the go-to choice for many of the best players in the room who decided to fight against Bant Company instead of joining the darkside.
The other big question is which build of GB Delirium is better. So far we've seen three different versions of the deck. First, there's the deck that Cuneo and Sperling are playing that goes with Grapple with the Past and Vessel of Nascency over two-drop creatures, which seems to be the slower version of the deck. Second we have the build that Wilson and Rubin are playing, which is essentially the known version with Grim Flayer. Finally, we saw Brad Nelson on Jund Delirium, which looks like the Cuneo/Sperling build, except it's playing Kozilek's Return and Distended Mindbender to trigger the sweeper from the graveyard. Hopefully by the end of the weekend we'll have a clear answer as to which build of GB Delirium is best, and this is one of the things we'll be watching heading into day two tomorrow.
Round 8
By the start of Round 8, things have started to look pretty familiar. In fact, we've already seen both of the decks, GB Delirium and Temur Emerge. It is of note that both are undefeated, and while it might be tempting to call the Temur Emerge deck good, it could also just be that Owen Turtenwald is very good at Magic (which is true; he was just elected to the Hall of Fame). Rather than talking about the decks, let's wrap up our coverage with a quick review:
- Delirium is the biggest winner on day one. As for individual cards, I'd look towards Liliana, the Last Hope, Ishkanah, Grafwidow, and Emrakul, the Promised End. While there is still a lot of disagreement over which Delirium deck is best, those three cards are important to all of the builds.
- Emerge also seems to be a winner, both as a deck, but also the individual cards. Elder Deep-Fiend is the most important, but Distended Mindbender has shown up a couple times as well. Honorable mention to Kozilek's Return, which seems to be on the upswing thanks to Emrakul, the Promised End and the emerge Eldrazi.
- The jury is out on Zombies. While they are one of the most played decks, they've only been on camera for five minutes. Does that mean the deck isn't performing? We'll know more tomorrow.
- Some things we haven't seen? Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Humans, or GW Tokens. We also haven't seen very much Bant Company, but it seems very possible this will change tomorrow as the field narrows.
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. What were your observations from the first day of Pro Tour Eldritch Moon? What are you looking forward to tomorrow? What are your predictions for the Top 8 on Sunday? Let me know in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive, or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
