When selecting a deck for an event such as the Mythic
Qualifier
First, it is important to identify what the decks are which
populate the current meta, as these are the decks that one is more likely to
face at the qualifier. I use MTG Goldfish as the basis for this and identify the
following decks as Tier 1 and Tier 2, including estimates of their current
share in the meta.
Yorion Lukka (19.55%)
Yorion Bant (14.75%)
Jeskai/RW Cycling (10.62%)
Temur Reclamation (8.31%)
Jeskai Fires (7.01%)
Obosh Sacrifice (5.25%)
Winota Midrange (4.12%)
Rakdos Lurrus (2.66%)
Mono Black Obosh (2.54%)
Mono Red Aggro (2.49%)
Clearly, Yorion decks seem to have taken over the meta.
However, Yorion Lukka and Bant Yorion are not the same decks. The numbers show
that you are at least twice as likely to see Yorion Lukka than each of the
other decks with the exception of Bant Yorion, and you are thrice more likely
to see a Yorion deck (Bant or Lukka) than each of the other decks. This should
lead you to infer that whatever deck you choose, it must be a deck that is good
versus Yorion decks.
Yorion Lukka
Of course, the best Yorion Lukka deck list has a 50% chance
of winning against the same Yorion Lukka deck list. Thus, a disadvantage of
choosing this deck is you are subjected to the coin-tossy nature of mirror
matches. However, this can actually work to your advantage if you can learn the
deck well enough to know it better than the average player who will bring it to
the tournament.
More importantly, Yorion Lukka is not enjoying a 19.55%
share of the meta just because it is popular. It is popular because it is
powerful. I did some testing with the deck and found that it can stabilize
easily and close out games quickly.
The deck is such that the restriction of having 80 cards is mitigated
by the consistency of the list, and ensuring that you have Yorion to cast when
you want to cast him lets the deck really explode when the opportunity presents
itself. That said, a natural weakness of the deck is that it sideboards poorly.
It does not matter what your sideboard contains, your chances of drawing those
cards are far less than if you had 60 cards in your deck. This makes the deck
somewhat predictable. For example, when considering if the pilot has a counter spell
or some other hate card in hand, chances are the he/she does not. Thus, I think that the deck is favored versus every
deck in the list except Jeskai/RW Cycling,
Yorion Bant, RDW, or Temur Reclamation.
Yorion Bant and Temur Reclamation are faster than Lukka because of their
ramp aspect, while Cycling and RDW are still fast aggro decks that can close
out games before the Lukka Yorion deck can stabilize.
Jeskai/RW Cycling
The cycling deck is pretty impressive. No rare in the main
board except for Lurrus, and you don’t even need to cast Lurrus most of the
time. The deck is resilient to mulligans, making aggressively taking mulligans to
get a turn 1 Flourishing Fox a valid strategy. Not only is it good versus
Yorion decks in general, but it gets better after sideboarding because of the
inherent weakness of Yorion decks to utilize a sideboard. However, the deck
does have its own bad matchups. It is likely that any aggressive deck with some
interaction to dispatch the fox has a positive win rate versus this deck. The
matchup gets worse post board as these aggressive decks can then adjust to be
the control deck in the matchup. This is especially true for decks like Obosh
Sacrifice, Rakdos Lurrus, or even RDW. Nonetheless, all of these decks that the
cycling deck is bad against are Tier 2 at best. Thus, it is less likely that
you will face them compared to the decks that cycling is good against. Of
course, this does not mean that you will absolutely not face them in the
tournament, but the cycling player is definitely banking on the well-thought chance
that he/she wont.
Jeskai Fires
Jeskai Fires was once king of the hill. I took the deck to
two 7-win finishes in the Metagame Challenge and only did less than 3 wins once
in 8 runs, whereas my 3 runs with the cycling deck was a disappointing 3-wins, 1-win,
1-win. This shows how much and how quickly the meta can change. Fires is an excellent
choice in a field of Lurrus and Obosh decks, decks that are fast enough to be
considered aggro decks but give up speed in order to lord it over smaller aggro
decks like RDW or Cycling. Unfortunately for Jeskai players, Yorion decks have
pushed those decks back, and Yorion decks are themselves resilient enough to withstand
the initial burst of damage from Cavaliers and Kenriths while having a much
more powerful late game. Still, there is a good argument to be made that in a situation
where most players overthink and make their deck choices based on the
assumption that most of the decks will be Yorion or cycling decks, they will
end up choosing decks that are good matchups for Jeskai Fires.
Temur Reclamation
Temur occupies a curious spot. Huey Jensen called it thebest deck without a companion. It is faster than Yorion Lukka and Fires decks
and carries enough counterspells to get those decks off their game plan. It is
weaker than either deck to aggressive strategies, but with RDW mostly absent in
the meta, only the cycling deck is left as a true aggressive threat to Temur
Reclamation. Both Obosh and Lurrus dictate decks to play smaller creatures
(more one drops in the case of Obosh), making them more susceptible to flame
sweep after sideboarding.
Winota Midrange
Winota is one of those decks that does well or does not
depending on the underlying probability related to doing what it wants to do.
It has little in the way of stalling or ramping like Yorion, Fires, or
Reclamation decks do, but convincingly wins on turn 4 when it does get to fire
its guns. Whether or not to choose decks like this really depends mainly on how
well it’s been found to perform, and in the case of Winota, it seems that it
has been found wanting. There are likely more games when you will need to do
without Winota to win than games when you will get to execute the combo.
Rakdos Lurrus/Obosh Sacrifice/Mono Black Obosh
Players who choose either of these decks are hoping that, as
has happened in many big tournaments, people end up choosing aggro as their
weapon of choice. Also, knowing that Fires has been pushed back, it may be
possible that either deck can sideboard well enough to focus on beating Yorion
Lukka, and maybe altering the list to be aggressive enough to kill Bant Yorion and Temur Reclamation before either deck can execute their game plans.
Other decks?
In choosing a deck that is not among those that were already
considered, it is important to consider how the deck would fare against each of
the decks identified in the list. For example, I briefly tested Simic Flash
based on the contention that it had been very good before versus Fires and
Reclamation decks and is likely good against 80-card decks. Testing the deck, I
found that while the deck is indeed good versus Yorion Lukka decks, it
struggles considerably versus Uro, Growth Spiral, and Shark Typhoon, cards that
are in both Yorion Bant and Temur Reclamation. Add to this its inherent
weakness versus small aggro decks and I conclusively decided to drop the idea.
Conclusion
Ultimately, there is no 100% correct choice for which deck
to use in the Mythic Qualifier tournament. You can choose RW Cycling and get
matched versus three Rakdos Lurrus decks in a row, getting your big bad fox
stolen and exchanged for two food tokens each game. Remember that even if you
end up correctly choosing a deck that has a 70% win rate versus the field, that
still only translates to an 11.29% chance to make it to 10 wins before your
second loss. Nonetheless, choosing a deck that has a true win rate of only 50%
translates to a 0.57% chance, so there is definitely value in making the most
reasonable decision you can.
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