Welcome to this week’s Weekend Review where we’ll take a look at the Modern Action from the SCG Tour in Syracuse but first we’ll take a look at the two standard Grand Prixs in Rimini and Portland.

Italy and Rimini was the scene of the first Standard format Grand Prix since Pro Tour Eldritch Moon. Would players choose to adopt the powerful Emerge strategies, would they stick with the ever-present Bant Company or would a new brew steal the show?

With 272 players making Day 2, Bant Company was by far the most abundant deck:

Bant Company is simply the deck that will not, or cannot, go away! At least until rotation that is, by which point players will split on their opinion of Collected Company’s stay in Standard. But it was to be a Bant day for many players, whilst a few had the visions to ensure their path to victory, it was Arne Huschenbeth who collected his thoughts and navigated his way to the GP Rimini title.

Bant Company – 1st Place GP Rimini

Arne Huschenbeth

I seem to recall writing about Bant Company in nearly every Weekend Review for the last 12 months (this may not be factual but it certainly feels like it!). The deck has stayed the same fundamentally, whilst incorporating the latest in a flood of powerful 3 cmc, or less, creatures that Wizard’s Research and Development have been churning out in recent sets.

The latest developments have been cutting some Dromoka’s Command to the sideboard and adding some additional creatures, which is never a bad thing, in the form of Spell Queller and Selfless Spirit. The sideboard sees some innovative options in the form of Subjugator Angel and Summary Dismissal. Whilst Summary Dismissal is not the most efficient counter-spell at 4 mana, it is definitely needed in a metagame full of Emrakul, the Promised End.

Across the Pond the story was forming along similar lines with Bant Company showing up in high numbers once again, defying the hope that had sprung from the recent Pro Tour.

This table shows the Top 100 players at the End of Day One.

Again Bant Company showed up in big numbers but it was one of the good guys, in the form of Jund Delirium, that took the title of GP Portland for Robert Santana.

Jund Delirium – 1st Place GP Portland

Robert Santana

My midrange heart is overjoyed to see this deck taking down the GP and any G/Bx connoisseurs will understand my point of view. This deck is a masterpiece of utility creatures, card advantage, card recurrence, removal and the ability to take your opponent’s turn! If you haven’t cast an Emrakul then I would suggest sleeving up this deck and trying it for yourself.

The deck has undergone a few tweaks from the PT version, with the inclusion of To the Slaughter, an answer to opposing Emrakul’s. The sideboard contains the usual mix of removal spells, allowing you to customise your main deck configuration, hand disruption and additional utility creatures. I would enjoy seeing a World Breaker added to the 75 as a way to deal with troublesome enchantments as well as an additional way to ‘flash-back’ a Kozilek’s Return from the graveyard.

Modern was the name of the game as the SCG Tour rolled into Syracuse, with 65 players battling through to Day 2 there was the normal diversity in the metagame:

Whilst I would like to list all the singleton decks and archetypes, it would make the list far too long to digest. The top performing decks on Day 2 were some of the most traditional archetypes in the format; Burn, Jund, Jeskai and Dredge… Dredge? Isn’t that a Legacy deck? Well it would seem that players may have finally cracked Dredge in modern and it’s quite explosive!

Dredge, 1st Place – SCG Tour #Syracuse

Ross Merriam

Dredge is the new boy on the block, although it has been seeing a lot of play on MTGO in recent months. Merriam, Anderson and Co. all decided that Dredge was well positioned within the metagame, and it was certainly that in the hands of Merriam. The deck can have some pretty explosive draws, with wins coming pretty consistently on turns 3 or 4. The ideal starts involve some looting to put a Bridge from Below and a Dredge creature like Stinkweed Imp, Golgari Grave-Troll or Golgari Thug into the graveyard. The next turn you would like to hit a mix of creatures like Bloodghast, Narcomoeba or Prized Amalgam, preferably a mix of the 3. Once you have your set-up complete you can Suspend a Greater Gargadon and let the fun begin!Whilst I wish I could go into greater detail the deck, and lines of play can be pretty complex, so I would highly recommend watching some of the matches from the past weekend on Twitch or YouTube and then trying the deck for yourself!

That’s all from me this week, be sure to check back later in the week where I’ll be choosing a deck from the SCG Tour to look at in my Deck of the Week!