Mythic Championship Richmond Top 8 Preview

The Top 8 is Set in Richmond

Despite many worrying about how Golos was going to dominate the previous Mythic Championship, the top 8 of that tournament was stunningly diverse, with 6 different archetypes and only 1 Golos deck. The same can not be said for the top 8 this go around.

With day 1 posting a 69% Oko deck rate, day 2 posting a 71% rate and the top 8 being 75% Oko decks, clearly nobody was able to find a consistent answer to the archetype. 

One semi interesting question that can be answered today (interesting within the degeneracy of Oko mirrors) is if Simic or Sultai food will reign supreme. On day one of the tournament, 37% of decks registered the Sultai version, while 19% registered straight Simic. Entering day 2, the Simic variation had a slightly higher winning percentage, and that appears to be the case after the day was complete too with an even 3/3 split between Simic and Sultai in the top 8. With two matches in the first round being Simic v Sultai, and a strong chance to see more of that matchup in later rounds, we will likely get our answer today. 

I travelled to Richmond yesterday to watch Saturdays action, and from talking with players I can tell you they were all worried about Andrew Cuneos Selesnya Adventures. This has got to be the deck to beat heading into the day and it posted a 3-1-1 record yesterday afternoon. Although Cuneo lost 0-2 to fellow top 8 player Austin Bursavich in round 15, he has to consider himself favored in the Oko match which he is guaranteed to play up untill the finals. The deck is a little draw dependent, relying heavily on having Edgewall Innkeeper in your opening hand, however the best of 5 format should favor Cuneo since those extra games can reduce variability at times. 

The deck I am least confident in is the other non Oko deck, Golgari Adventures. While this was the most popular non Oko archetype in the tournament, it really hasn't posted any great numbers head to head against Oko. The deck has consistently posted winning percentages in the mid 40s against food decks between this tournament and the last Mythic Championship, and having to beat two food decks back to back in best of 5 is a daunting task for this archetype to reach the finals.

There were a few other breakout decks in the tournament that performed well, but did not make the top 8, and I will have a breakdown of those in my full tournament analysis article tomorrow.

 Predictions

For the last Mythic Championship, I was wayyyy off on my bracket predictions, but for this top 8 I am looking to turn it around!

Round 1

Austin Bursavich Beats Sebasstion Pozzo

Andrew Cuneo beats Paulo VD Da Rosa

Oscar Christensen beats Eli Kassis

Andrej Strosky beats Louis Deltour

Round 2

Andrew Cuneo beats Austin Bursavich

Andrej Strosky beats Oscar Christensen

Finals

Andrew Cuneo beats Andrej Strosky

Andrew Cuneo in my opinion is best positioned in this top 8, and could have his dream scenario of all food decks between him and the trophy. I think it is Cuneo's tournament to lose, and he should be slightly favored in every matchup. He has been playing Selesnya Adventures since the MPL split so he is incredibly comfortable with the deck, and I believe the best of 5 matchup should help him out as well. Cuneo should have the advantage pre sideboard especially, since none of the Sultai decks play Massacre Girl mainboard. With the first two games being pre-sideboard, Cuneo will just have to win 1 of 3 with Massacre Girl in the opponents deck to come out victorious. Also, I think Simic Food is a slightly worse matchup against the deck than Sultai, and he gets to go up against the Simic variant in round 1. 

Good luck to all the competitors, and I look forward to hopefully watching Oko in a competitive environment for the last time!

Stay tuned for our full recap article tomorrow, and Podcast this week. Follow us on twitter for more updates! @MythicRarePod