Pro Tour Lorwyn Eclipsed Analysis

This past weekend, we witnessed a seasoned professional player, Christoffer Larsen, put on a show, winning the Pro Tour in an entertaining fashion. I've known Chris since I was a mainstay on the Pro Tour. He's one of the scariest people you'd encounter, until you have a conversation with him and realize he's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet.

Chris is always fun to watch. He puts on a show for the cameras, and after several attempts, I'm happy he finally got to hoist the trophy on the Sunday stage.

With AC11 coming up in just two weeks, Standard was on my mind the entire time, and I watched the coverage live on stream. The event's narrative was that Cub decks were the ones to beat, and beaten they were. Cubs were destroyed over the course of the tournament, posting a 40% win rate or worse throughout. This is rare for a deck as popular as Cub. We normally see the other side, where the most popular deck posts a win rate close to 50% because the more popular the deck is, the more likely it is to hover towards 50%. Cub decks were far below 50%, which is extremely concerning if you are an enjoyer.

Everyone came to the Pro Tour ready to beat Badgermole Cub. There are cases where this happens, and many teams are incorrect about their matchup being favorable. In this instance, everyone cracked the code, leading to an event where a new meta was created of the decks that preyed on Cubs. Specifically, Sunderflock was a popular card that reset the board and forced the Cub decks to redeploy and potentially get their battlefield picked up again.

Moving forward, that means we have a new metagame and new decks that will rise to the top. Then, we'll have more churn as these decks become targeted.

This is Larsen's deck that won the event. I like this deck as one to beat moving forward. It's tough to attack because it can completely shred your hand, so adding a sideboard card or two just won't get it. You need to beat this deck by adopting a winning strategy against it, rather than decks like Spellementals that popped off at the event with an exceptionally high win rate despite not putting anyone in T8. Spellementals, by the admission of the team playing it, folds to Rest in Peace, so any deck playing that card has a good shot.

Demons won the Pro Tour. It's the deck on everyone's minds because of its ability to navigate the Cub decks' metagame.

Next is Spellementals, which not only overperformed but also saw every single player make day two of the event. While this has happened before, it's rare and the sign of a successful PT by the Boulder team.

Here is Andy Garcia-Romo's list as their top-performing player. He lost a win in the last round to, you guessed it, a Rest in Peace Control deck. This was a tough pairing for Andy, but this deck is still a force to be reckoned with in the future. It's far less resilient than Excruciator, making it easier to adapt. It's also weaker than the bigger elemental decks, as we saw on camera. The elemental decks go bigger, and Sunderflock gets turned off, meaning everything will stay on the battlefield.

This deck was exceptionally good for the event, but I'm more skeptical moving forward.

The last deck from the Pro Tour was designed by no other than cftsoc, Temur Harmonizer, and piloted by Toni Portloan, who is quickly advancing to become a dominant player in today's Pro Tour scene. I've watched a lot of Toni's matches recently because of his success, and he plays with unbelievable precision. He almost always makes the right play and misses nothing. I had no idea who Toni was a few months ago, and now I can't wait to watch him play the next event.

This Harmonizer deck is brilliant for the event. It attacks Cub decks in a unique way they don't want to react to, which is filling their deck with interaction.

The deck is weak to interaction, but if the opponent is forced to tap out on their own turn, it will punish them, much like Splinter Twin did.

I also expect Harmonizer to disappear over the next couple of weeks because it's too soft to interaction. It can be built to "protect" the combo, but it will become less consistent in this process, either having to trim some of its card selection or interaction, which will make it weak to a variety of other archetypes.

One-tournament decks exist, and it was the first thing I told people after a Pro Tour finals appearance I had with UR Ensoul Artifact. That deck was designed for one tournament, not to dominate Standard. This deck is exactly that, and Toni was not shy about saying this during coverage. It's a fun deck to play, but I'd advise against it for serious upcoming tournaments. I am unlikely to register a deck like this for AC11, but who knows how things shift until then, as I'm expecting a lot of volatility.

I'll write about Standard over the next few weeks, as it's what I will focus on. I'm fortunate it's a very good format so far and hasn't been dominated by a single deck. However, with a set of cards this powerful, it may only be a matter of time.

I was surprised and happy about Elemental's breakout success because the decks have made the format more fun and interesting.

Stay tuned for updates on how the metagame is developing.