Pro Tour Eldritch Moon: Day Two Review

After an exciting first day of Pro Tour Eldritch Moon, highlighted by the emergence of Zombies, the rise of delirium, and some sweet new Eldrazi decks, we're back here today to keep you up to date on all the day two action. While the live theme will continue from last night, today we're going to focus a little bit less on discussing decks round by round because we've already seen a lot of the new and exciting ones. This said, the same warning about the middle-of-the-night, energy drink fueled writing applies. If you missed our live decklists, you can find all the new deck techs from day two here, and all of the 6+ win Standard decklists here.

Some of the questions we'll be looking to answer today include: is Bant Company still the best deck in the format? It was the most played deck yesterday, but it didn't actually get much camera time. What build of delirium is the best? Are Zombies actually good, or just heavily played? Are emerge decks just the flavor of the tournament, or do the have staying power? Are there any less played, under-heralded decks performing well? Of course, we'll also talk about anything else that comes up over the course of the night as well. 

Financial Review of Day One

Yesterday we talked about a lot of cards that looked like they had potential to be winners, and now a day later we can actually look at the numbers and see just what's happening with prices. 

The biggest winner from day one of Pro Tour Eldritch Moon was unsurprisingly Emrakul, the Promised End, the finisher of choice for a ton of different archetypes. This facilitated a massive jump of 143% from $13 to $31. Maybe the biggest boon for Emrakul, the Promised End is that some of the top performing decks (for example, Temur Emerge) are playing up to three copies in the main deck, which is a major shift from the one-of play that she had been seeing at SCG tournaments over the past couple weeks. Can Emrakul, the Promised End stick at $30? It would be pretty amazing, considering it's technically a 13-drop (making it much more difficult to play in multiples than something like Voice of Resurgence or Jace, Vryn's Prodigy), but if every deck is running multiple copies of Emrakul, the Promised End, it's not completely impossible. My guess would be it falls towards $20 over the coming weeks, but the new version of Emrakul has certainly staked her claim as being one of the best cards in Standard. 

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Also near the top of our winners list are the staples from GB Delirium. As I mentioned yesterday, what this group has in common is that they see play in basically every version of the deck possible. While some decks play Grim Flayer, some play Distended Mindbender, and some play Grapple with the Past, if you're playing GB Delirium, you're always playing Ishkanah, Grafwidow (up 85% to $14), Liliana, the Last Hope (up 8% to $47), and Traverse the Ulvenwald (up 65% to $3.29). Maybe the more interesting question is whether or not these cards are done increasing. I think there's a realistic possibility that we end up with multiple GB Delirium decks in the Top 8 (the best performing team in constructed on day one was Team Face-to-Face, playing primarily a GB Delirium deck), in which case we could have $20 [[Ishkanah, Grafwidow]s, $60 Liliana, the Last Hopes, and $6 Traverse the Ulvenwalds. Over the mid-term, I can't imagine most of these cards being able to maintain their new prices. Liliana, the Last Hope has looked incredibly good on camera, but even so, $50+ mythics just aren't something we see all that often. When it does happen, it usually involves cards that are playable in eternal formats, which Liliana, the Last Hope (at least so far) is not, just because Liliana of the Veil is almost always better in the same slot. 

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Elder Deep-Fiend and Kozilek's Return were the two big winners from the emerge archetype. The Eldrazi Octopus jumped 36% to nearly $6 while Kozilek's Return increased 62% to just over $9. Even with these gains, I think there's an argument that both of these cards were under-represented on coverage on day one. Plus, they are key pieces of Owen Turtenwald's Temur Emerge deck, and as of right now (during round 10), Owen is undefeated. While not technically locked for Top 8, seems an extremely strong bet [editor's note: he made it]. Getting to Sunday means a massive bump in camera time, which can do crazy things to card prices. I would not be the least bit surprised if we come out of the weekend with Kozilek's Return pushing $20 and Elder Deep-Fiend in the $10 range. While Elder Deep-Fiend will probably trend back down towards $5 because it's still being opened, Kozilek's Return has a chance to stick: It's a mythic, no one is opening Oath of the Gatewatch anymore, and it seems unlikely to get a surprise reprinting anytime soon. Some people think emerge also has a shot in Modern, and if it does, we could see Kozilek's Return go along for the ride. 

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Last but not least, we have our Zombie/emerge/dredge winners. Prized Amalgam (which has sneakily become a Modern staple over the past month) increased 32% to nearly $4, and Voldaren Pariah shot up a massive 139% to about $3. Maybe the most impressive thing about these cards is we've hardly seen them on camera at all so far, which means that could have room to grow on day two. We often see a reset of the narrative on the second day of a Pro Tour, with decks that were relatively unseen on day one becoming the focus of day two. Regardless, these two seem among the most likely to stick at their new price points. Rather than being good cards that are shooting up based on Pro Tour hype, they give the appearance of legitimately underrated cards that are finally gaining an audience. 

The Day Two Metagame

• Bant Company was horrible on day one of Pro Tour Eldritch Moon. In fact, it performed so poorly that it was leapfrogged as the most played deck on day two, which is especially stunning considering Bant Company started day one with 58 players while GB Delirium had only 37. Of course, like all Pro Tour data, it's complicated by the fact that we're dealing with a split format, but one thing that is clear is that Bant Company was bad this weekend and GB Delirium was good.
• Even more surprising is the fact that it it wasn't just Bant Company that performed poorly. Actually, pretty much all of the most popular decks from the first two weeks of Eldritch Moon Standard had horrid showings on the first day of Pro Tour Eldritch Moon. GW Tokens and UW Spirits put up epicly bad conversion rates. 
• On the other hand, a lot of the new decks performed incredibly well. GR Ramp lead the way, with all forms of GBx Delirium putting up great rates as well. Apparently a deck called Legendary Naya was also pretty good, but we haven't seen in on stream yet so we don't know exactly what it contains. My guess would be a midrange brew built around Thalia's Lancers, but we'll have to wait for the deck lists to be published to find out for sure.

Round 12

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While the focus has been on the new emerge Eldrazi and delirium, in Round 12 we get an old school Eldrazi sighting in the hands of Antonio Del Moral Leon. His deck looks a lot like the Mono-Brown Eldrazi deck we played on stream this week, except it's splashing red for a handful of powerful cards like Kozilek's Return and Chandra, Flamecaller (who hasn't been popular at all this weekend). Unfortunately, even though the deck has put up a decent record, the bigger takeaway is that only one player decided to play this style of deck. While some powerful standalone Eldrazi are still seeing a lot of play, Eldrazi tribal looks to be on the downswing. Otherwise, the Round 12 feature matches look pretty much as expected. LSV continues his run for a third straight Top 8 beating GB Delirium with his Bant Company deck, while the second backup feature match is the same matchup (GB Delirium versus Bant Company), but the result goes the other way in favor of Samuel Pardee. 

A few minutes ago we talked about how Bant Company was one of the worst decks at Pro Tour Eldritch Moon, so what exactly should you do with your copies of Collected Company? My vote would be to sell them as quickly as possible. While I expect that Bant Company will still be popular on the SCG Tour over the next couple of months, people don't really like the deck, so I expect the results of Pro Tour Eldritch Moon will give players the freedom to play other, newer, more interesting, and fun decks. Of course, Collected Company is still playable (and good) in Modern, so while I expect the card to trend down as we head towards rotation, it won't crash. I'd be surprised if it ever goes below $10, even with the extra supply from the Clash Pack printing. Still, if you can sell for $18 and buy back in for $10, it's probably worth your time. 

Round 13

Over the past couple of weeks, one of the questions we were asking was "how do you beat Bant Company?" Most people thought the answer was to either go underneath the deck with something very aggressive, or go over the top with cards that don't get hit by Spell Queller. At Pro Tour Eldritch Moon most players decided that going over the top was the right plan, but Sam Black and the ChannelFireball crew went with the "go under" plan and built a sweet Madness Zombie deck featuring Crytbreaker and Wharf Infiltrator. 

Apparently the deck absolutely crushes Bant Company and GW Tokens, posting somewhere around a 75% win percentage during testing. The problem is the deck pretty much scoops to Liliana, the Last Hope and everyone is playing the new black planewalker. As such, it's pretty clear that the go under plan is in a difficult spot. If you do go under, you want to make sure you have a plan for beating Liliana, the Last Hope's -2/-1 ability. The good news is the go over the top plan seems to be working out extremely well. 

As far as feature matches this round, we start on LSV—one of the few players posting good results with Bant Company—against Reid Duke playing a GR Delirium Ramp deck, which is essentially the old GR Eldrazi Ramp deck, but featuring some extra delirium synergies in an effort to be the fastest Emrakul, the Promised End deck in the format. We also get a quick peek at the Legendary Naya deck; while it does indeed seem to be a midrange toolbox deck built around Thalia's Lancers, unfortunately we don't get a long enough look to say a whole lot about the deck. 

Rounds 14/15/16

I decided to jam the last three rounds together because by this point in the tournament, we've seen pretty much everything. In all seriousness, maybe the biggest take away is how consistent the top tables have been on day two. Almost every match is some flavor of an Emrakul deck (like GR Delirium Ramp or Temur Emerge), GB (and occasionally GBr) Delirium, and LSV who seems to be the only player still in the running with Bant Company. 

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Sitting here in Round 14, nearly 80% of the way through the Swiss portion of the tournament, it just struck me that I haven't seen a Gisela, the Broken Blade all weekend. In fact, I'm not even sure I've seen a creature get exiled by Declaration in Stone, and I can count the number of Gideon, Ally of Zendikars I've seen on one hand. It wasn't that long ago that these cards were the talk of Standard. Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and Declaration in Stone were two of the most played cards in the format only a month ago. But at Pro Tour Eldritch Moon, GW Tokens was bad and Mono-White Humans didn't even bother to show up. To be fair, people are still playing WB Control, and the Legendary Naya likely has at least some of these cards, so part of it might just be the randomness of the feature matches (we've spent a lot of time on Owen Turtenwald, Reid Duke, LSV, and a handful of Face-to-Face guys), but the percentage of white has dropped significantly compared to the first two weeks of Eldritch Moon Standard. So which colors were the most popular on day two of Pro Tour Eldritch Moon?

As you can see, green is by far the most popular color, mostly because it picks up demand from both Bant Company and GB Delirium, not to mention most of the emerge and ramp decks that are looking to cast Emrakul, the Promised End. Blue is quite popular, based not only on play in Bant Company, but many emerge and Zombie decks as well. Black comes in at second, except instead of benefiting from Bant Company, it picks up demand from GB Delirium. This finally gets us to white, which only a couple weeks ago was showing up in 90-ish percent of top performing decks, but is now only the fourth most played color. In fact, the only color worse is red, which comes in at the bottom because it doesn't see major in either of the big decks on day two at Pro Tour Eldritch Moon, and when it does appear, it's usually a splash color. 

Randy Buehler

Another big story to come out on the second day of Pro Tour Eldritch Moon was the retirement of Randy Buehler from the coverage booth. While some people don't especially care for his commentary, personally I really enjoy his unique perspective on the game. Not only is he a Hall of Fame player, but he also worked at Wizards and has been at pretty much every Pro Tour in the game's history. Most importantly, one thing that is abundantly clear is that Randy loves the game more than just about anyone and has endless enthusiasm when it comes to Magic. The good news is that he'll still be doing Vintage Super League and will still be involved in Magic, just not from the coverage booth. 

Heading into the last round of the swiss, the Top 8 of Pro Tour Eldritch Moon is taking shape. From what we can tell LSV is in with Bant Company, Sam Pardee is in with GB Delirium, and Reid Duke is in with GR Delirium Ramp along with a BW Control deck and a second Bant Company deck. Based on the other matchups at the top tables, it seems likely we get at least on more Emrakul, the Promised End deck, and possibly two. 

There's also two big stories to follow heading into the last round. First, Owen Turtenwald, who was sitting pretty at 10-1 a few rounds ago has lost three straight win-and-ins, but he'll have one more shot to make the Top 8 in Round 16. Making the pressure even greater, a Top 8 also earns Owen the Player of the Year title. The second story is Daniel Cathro, an RPTQ winner with a grand total of 3 GP's under his belt playing a win-and-in with UB Zombies after sneaking out a win in Round 16 with a Liliana, the Last Hope emblem in his very first Pro Tour! 

Thanks to a new pairing system designed to increase exciting matches in Round 15 and 16 our feature match for the last round is a win-and-in between the two players I just mentioned. Cathro takes down the first game in an extremely close and long battle involving multiple copies of Kozilek's Return versus multiple flips of Voldaren Pariah. Owen takes the second game quickly as Cathro stumbles on mana and spends most of the game discarding to hand size. In game three, Owen lands multiple copies of Elder Deep-Fiend and Emrakul, the Promised End to take the match and secure his place in the Top 8 with Temur Emerge. 

Top 8

After sixteen grueling rounds of Magic, here's your Pro Tour Eldritch Moon Top 8:

Conclusion

Anyway, that's all for today. What were your impressions of the second day of Pro Tour Eldritch Moon? What are you looking forward to tomorrow? As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me at Twitter @SaffronOlive, or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.