This past weekend hosted one of the largest Magic tournaments of all time and the largest Legacy event ever. Over four thousand competitors gathered in New Jersey to play Legacy, the whole time planning to play or beat Treasure Cruise.

Whatever your opinion of Treasure Cruise and its power level, based on attendance alone, no argument can be made that to say that it’s bad for the health of the format. There are an enormous number of playable decks in Legacy right now and while some are better choices than others, the metagame is still pretty healthy.

Looking over the results sheds some light on the true situation of the format as well. Even with all of the Treasure Cruise hype, only five of the Top 16 decks utilized the card as a three- or four-of component of their deck. Two more players had one copy to support their strategy. Another aspect to consider is that three players chose to play Dig Through Time in place of Treasure Cruise.

Moving forward I think there certainly will be more decks playing these two Standard cards, but it will be interesting to see if they will stay legal in the format or if Wizards will remove them from the card pool.

The most interesting thing for me this weekend didn’t have anything to do with the gigantic Grand Prix in New Jersey though. Much of my interest was peaked by the other Grand Prix happening across the pond, so to speak, over in Madrid, Spain. Over the past few weeks I’ve spent a lot of time working with Modern decks through tournament preparation as well as deck building, so this event held more interest for me.

GP Madrid had the following Top 16 metagame break down. The complete Top 8 decks can be found here and the Top 16 lists here.

4 Melira Pod
2 Twin
3 Delver (U/R, Jeskai, and Temur)
2 Scapeshift
2 Abzan Midrange
1 Blue Moon
1 Through the Breach
1 Martyr Proc

Looking at just the deck names, not much seems to have changed in the metagame. Certainly we have the resurgence of Delver of Secrets // Delver of Secrets-based decks due to Treasure Cruise, but other than that, nothing much sticks out as out of the ordinary.

Taking a closer inspection at the decks themselves reveals some startling new tech. Dissecting the decks from this event, we see that only two of the Top 16 decks did not play any Khans cards. The other 14 decks all had cards from Khans of Tarkir! I don’t think there has ever been a set that has been printed that affected the Modern metagame this much.

The first card I want to talk about is the one that has me the most excited.

[cardimage cardname='Siege Rhino']

Four of the Top 8 and an additional two more decks in the Top 16 used Siege Rhino to stomp their way to victory. All four Melira Pod decks in the Top 16 played one or two copies the card while the two Abzan Midrange decks each played three or four copies of the Standard powerhouse.

When I saw these inclusions I was stunned. Not only are players playing Siege Rhino in Modern but they are having success with it across multiple decks!

The insurgence of Siege Rhino into the metagame is in part due to the burn-heavy nature of the format, thanks to multiple different versions of Burn decks as well as Delver. When you put all the metagame pieces together, the Rhino charging into the metagame should not surprise anyone.

I do question whether we should be playing Siege Rhino over Obstinate Baloth, but each has pros and cons. Rhino seems a bit more well positioned than Baloth for the moment.

Let’s take a look at what these decks look like that utilized this new card.

There are some interesting card choices in this list, but the major one is the four-of Siege Rhino. Not only is the Drain Life ability relevant, but five toughness helps get around some removal spells and trample breaks through ground stalls. Those two aspects push Siege Rhino out in front of Obstinate Baloth a little bit.

I think determining which of those two cards to play says a lot about the metagame you are trying to compete in. If you are more likely to play Obstinate Baloth, the metagame would still need to be heavy on burn spells but also on discard spells as well. Both get the job done, but they have positive qualities against different decks in Modern.

As a final note, I love Golgari Charm in this deck. I think it could even replace one of the Abrupt Decays maindeck so that you have access to two copies in your seventy-five. It may be weak to some of the combo decks but it has applications against most decks in the field.

Melira Pod also took advantage of Siege Rhino at this event. Take a look at this list that played two copies.

This was one of three Melira Pod decks in the Top 8. It was the only one of the three to have two copies of Rhino. The other two decks had the Standard card in their lists as a one-of threat to tutor for.

I find this version of Melira interesting because the trend of cutting the deck's namesake continues and I find that odd. You don’t need the Melira combo to win, and you still have the Angel combo as a fallback plan in this deck. So, it’s obvious that the deck is so consistent and powerful that it can win with multiple versions. In this Top 8 alone, there were three different versions!

Up next we have some combo decks that utilized an unsurprising card from Khans, Dig Through Time, to land in the Top 16 of the event.

[cardimage cardname='Dig Through Time']

First up is one of my favorite new decks. Ok, ok, yes it’s not a new deck but it feels like it from my perspective. It seems like Dig Through Time has pushed this deck up quite a bit in power. Making a combo deck more consistent is always a dangerous thing. For Scapeshift, I think Dig has made the deck a viable choice to compete with. I’m excited to play with this deck and utilize this powerful new draw spell.

Take note of the Obstinate Baloths in the sideboard. Prepare for the metagame you expect otherwise you will not be successful. Players will be throwing a lot of burn spells at your face, so make sure you have a response to that type of game.

Additionally, I love that players have adopted Izzet Charm. That spell's modes are sweet, especially in this deck. I’ve been sneaking that card into lots of different decks since the inception of Modern. I’m glad to see other players getting on board.

Every time I see Patrick Dickman playing in an event it seems like he is raising my respect for him. Not only is he a great deck designer and player but he is also a great deck tweaker. What I mean is that he’s been playing Splinter Twin for what seems like forever, but he rarely plays the same version. He is always adapting and changing the cards he plays alongside the combo.

For this event, it seems like he worked with a team to develop this list because two of the Top 16 have virtually the same version. The latest incarnation in a long line of brilliantly designed lists utilizes Dig Through Time, fueled by Thought Scour, to find the missing pieces of the combo or cards to protect it. While this seems great in theory, you really need to re-envision the deck in order to make Dig playable in this deck.

This deck has everything I could want from a Splinter Twin deck. My first thought would be to cut one Dig for one Thought Scour, balancing the cards at three and three. I have enough respect for Patrick Dickman that I wouldn’t make any changes without testing the deck out first. There are not many players I would say that about.

Last up on the Dig Through Time excursion in Madrid is Blue Moon. In this hateful control deck, Dig acts like a tutor for whatever cards you need to get you out of your current situation or to lock down the game.

This deck reminds me of U/B Control in Standard. Both decks are trying to control the game in formats where it is quite difficult to do so. Blue Moon has an easier job since it has more powerful tools at its disposal, but with so many viable decks in Modern, playing this deck is like fighting against the current.

[cardimage cardname='Treasure Cruise’]

The final decks I want to mention are the Delver of Secrets decks. Here is the most interesting one from the event.

Treasure Cruise has opened up the world to the disruptive tempo of Delver in many varieties yet again. We’ve all seen many copies of the blue-red version, as well as some splashing white, in the short time since Khans has been legal. I was anticipating someone figuring out how to play both Treasure Cruise and Tarmogoyf in the same deck and in this version we have just that.

In the Temur version of the deck, we have the upgrade of Monastery Swiftspear by over one hundred dollars to that of Tarmogoyf. From a financial perspective, unless you already have your Goyfs, I doubt many players will be running this version over the straight blue-red one. In this deck I think sadly that both cards are comparable in power level. For example, I’ve often seen Swiftspear as a four- or five-power creature. The difference is that Tarmogoyf is less susceptible to burn as removal.

In addition to getting a powerhouse threat, green also opens up some powerful options in your sideboard. Regardless of which version you choose to play, the strategy is quite good though.

Overall, Khans of Tarkir has made more of an impact on every format than we could have dreamed a set would do. The last time I recall this happening was in Zendikar block where we were graced with many cards that were eventually banned in Standard, are now banned in Modern, and that dominate play in Legacy.

We could see a very similar progression with Khans, though I doubt that any of them are powerful enough to be banned in Standard. Only time will tell. Have you found other cards from Khans that have impacted older formats? Share in the comments.

Until next time,
Unleash the Khans Force!

Mike Lanigan
MtgJedi on Twitter
Jedicouncilman23@gmail.com