Oh, I mostly agree with you. See my article going up in a few hours for more. But I also think there’s a lot of pilot DISadvantage at play in the Grixis lists. It was overhyped and a lot of players piled onto it, which means many of those who made day 2 with it could only be carried so much by their deck. At a certain point, their inexperience and/or incorrect deckbuilding would catch up to them. This was less so with UR Twin (it’s a very established list and gameplan). All of this is to say there are way more factors at play here than just the T8/T16, or even the conversion rate from day 2 to T8/T16.

Of course you can’t extrapolate from the Top 8 anything, but if you look at the entire Top 32, the trend is clear, Grixis under-performed its hype.

Grixis put in 2 Twin decks (out of 37 that made Day 2), 1 Delver (out of 10) and 1 Control deck (out of 6). That’s 53 Grixis decks on Day 2 and only 4 of them made top 32 (expected value is 5.45 based on 311 Day 2 players – very rough calc and a whole bunch of disclaimers on the number)

UR Twin: 2 out of 14 – and both those players ran Cavern Souls with Teferi in the sideboard (I wonder how many others were on that plan)
TarmoTwin: 2 out of 4 (now those two players are Huey Jensen and Patrick Dickmann so there’s some pilot advantages there)

Abzan Company put 4 players out of 9 Day 2 decks into top 8 as well – so there’s another deck that over-performed.

Then there’s Infect that put no-one into Top 32 despite having 17 decks in contention on Sunday morning, while only 2 G/R Tron players out of the 16 made it into Top 32 – possibly on the back of the SCG performances the week before.

Anyway – can’t wait for the article on Goryo’s Vengeance, definitely an up and coming deck. 😉

You really can’t extrapolate from the T8 like this. Chapin missed T8 by inches on breakers, and that’s always the case in enormous tournaments like this. If anything, his 9th place finish with a Grixis Control deck actually proves the viability of the archetype. Also, the two UR Twin decks that made T8 both ran Blood Moon. One of them actually ran it maindecked, and that was Wesley who finished second in the entire tournament.

So I guess that’s a good lesson for everybody who is quick to jump on the new cards and strategies bandwagon – there is time, Grixis will continue rising, but history teaches us time and time again that experience and knowing your matchups inside out is more valuable than simply playing the 60 best cards in the colour combination people are hyping the most, just like I’m pretty sure I can beat any of you with an Esper Midrange/Controllish deck the same way you can 10-0 me if you put me on Amulet, for instance.

Straight UR Twin once again shines – despite all the Grixis hype. Dickmann almost got there packing Tarmogoyfs (possibly the only TarmoTwin player in Charlotte). Still a fan of Tarmo and UR over Grixis and I feel vindicated in that belief this weekend. But honestly the differences are probably minor and would probably be meta dependent.

Bloom was in force but seemed to be managed by the more experienced players right at the business end of the event (thankfully – hate that deck). Shows the deck can be beaten – you just have to know what you’re doing (and I think you’ve been saying this a lot in your win % articles)

I think Ad Nauseam just got lucky on its way to top 8 – I can’t believe that deck has the consistency to go the distance every tournament. I’m willing to be proven wrong though.

This version of Goryo’s Vengeance, Bob Huang suggests that the only thing it loses to is Infect (and Ad Nauseam apparently). Maybe it’s real, maybe its a flash in the pan – 12-3 (all 3 losses were to Infect) and 14-2 were the records of possibly the only 2 pilots of the deck. Maybe someone finally broke Goryo in Modern.

Re: Merfolk
We have a bit of a sample size issue with Merfolk, but preliminary results do indicate that it’s a strong deck. I think Richard Adams’ 4th place finish with Merfolk at the SCG Invitational last weekend is telling in that regard. It’s a fast and linear deck (being proactive is good in Modern) with some catchall answers for lots of other decks in the format. It’ also Blood Moon-proof, which is going to give you lots of game against the decks that try to maindeck this card. The return of Bolt isn’t great for Merfolk, but it’s also not bad either because you still have big lords and Master of the Waves to push past it.

Re: Tron
Twin vs. Tron is a heavy Twin favorite. Tron just can’t interact with them for a while and Twin just needs a Remand to get to their combo. Tron decks with a maindeck Spellskite might better in that regard, or a few maindeck Spellskite, but I don’t see a lot of lists with more than 1. So this is probably going to remain a heavy Twin favorite in game 1, with a slightly more even games 2/3 match. Tron gets to bring in some combination of Nature’s Claim, Rending Volley, moar Spellskite, and maybe stuff like Boil/Choke. But that still leans towards Twin, which can switch to a midrange/control game and dodge most of those sideboard cards.

That’s not a bad bet. It’s strong in Affinity, Grixis lists, and, my personal favorite, Blue Zoo/Counter Cat decks (someone else mentioned these in the comment section of another article and I think they are spot on). I bet we see it in Affinity more than anywhere else, especially as a sideboard bullet to stop Commands.

Sorry for the late second question-

With tron on the rise (but not included in win rate project), how are the recorded matchups vs the top decks. Anecdotally, I understood the tron vs twin matchup to be heavily on twins side, which makes me wonder, is just jund carrying twin to the top tables?

A deck that is putting up solid finishes bit not getting any glory is merfolk. 4th in the invitational, other top 16 in open… It seems very solid. My view was that merfolk had good matchups against twin, jund, tron and amulet bloom being a proactive deck with removal. Is that not correct from the data gathered in the win rate project?

As a jund player, I am quietly hoping for another week of Jund under performing. .. There’s no need to paint a bigger target on its back. I know how good the deck is- no real reason to need that proven at the GP level.

Loving the site keep it going

I think se will see stubborn denial in the top 8.
this card seems rising in the current meta.

Speaking of exciting, wait until people see the Grixis Mentor build I and a couple other people developed. Yes, that’s right, Grixis Mentor. Let that sink in for a while. I swear I’m not crazy, they released me from the asylum with a clean bill of health for only 5 years.

It’s going to be there, but I don’t think it will be too present. There are just a lot of people who will be ready for Burn this time around. Another factor is the general undercurrent of the format, which is encouraging people towards all sorts of non-Burn decks. That’s also to say, Burn feels a bit boring, and I think players are feeling excited about this event enough to run different decks. Add that to the metagame context (Burn’s paper share is quite low these days at under 6%), and it doesn’t seem like it will be rampant at the GP.

Just curious how you think Burn will do at Charlotte. Do you think it’s in a downswing because of decks like Collected Company and general burn hate in sideboards all around?

I’m torn between the three versions (URg, Grixis and Tarmo), but I keep coming back to Llurgoyf lead version. Some of my reasons:

4 Tarmogoyfs are better than 2 (also I can play out 2 of my Goyfs while Grixis has to keep the second on the bench)
Remand is everywhere = blow-out if it lands on your BananaKing
Thought Scour is trash – with Tasigur it reads “U: add 3 to your mana pool, draw a card”, without, it’s a bad draw spell (fair enough TarmoTwin plays 2 Gitaxian Probe but those are ‘free’ and provide information)
A much better Tempo game with the Turn 2 Goyf being more consistent
I don’t think discard is where Twin wants to be.
Tarmogoyf is a mirror breaker – also helps in the dreadful Delver match-up

Reasons for Grixis:
Kolaghan’s Command is real, although I think slightly over-hyped. 3 mana is still a lot to commit to (which is why Ancient Grudge is such a bonus for the other 2 decks)
Late game grinding with Tasigur’s activated ability
Terminate, Roast is currently doing a bad impression

Reasons for URg:
Best Blood Moon plan
Seriously, your post-board game plan is probably the best of the 3
Most painless manabase – relevant against Burn and Zoo (which are likely to be a relevant portion of the meta)
List is most defined – we know what the ‘best’ list is for most of the deck, Grixis is still finding its feet while no-one is brewing with TarmoTwin at the moment (Todd Anderson excepted)

There’s a good argument for all of the above, I’m currently on TarmoTwin because there’s a significant Delver presence in my meta, but Affinity is also around in large numbers so there’s an argument to go with Grixis (although I think I gain more vs. Delver with Goyfs than I lose to Affinity with KolCom)

Prediction 1 – We’ll see a copy of Junk in the Top 8. Even more so, with a little bit of luck we will withness an “el classico” between the two BGx variants, which will once and for all (and by “all” I mean the next couple of months) determine which is better, in the minds of the audience. That’s how tournaments work and how crowds tend to react.

Prediction 2 – People will be so overprepared for Amulet that we won’t see a copy of it in the Top 8. This is a really bald one, I know, and even I’m not too sold on it, but right now it’s the deck-to-beat (or not-lose-to) and we are going to see that in sideboards and maindecks throughout the weekend.

Prediction 3 – Classic UR Twin will still have a better finish than it’s Grixis brother ( or sister? I don’t want to say counterpart for some reason).

Without research, off the top of my head, this seems plausible enough. I still think Amulet might prevail in the end, just because it’s so strong, but it’s either not going to make T8 or completely crush it (though personally I hope it gets rekt).