Mythic Championship V

Mythic Championship V
Date	October 18-20, 2019
Location	Long Beach, California, United States
Attendance	68
Format	Traditional Standard Best-of-Three Constructed
Prize pool	$750,000
Winner	Javier Dominguez
Previous Pro Tour: Mythic Championship IV Barcelona Next Pro Tour: Mythic Championship VI Richmond

Mythic Championship V was the second Mythic Championship to be played on MTG Arena in 2019. It took place on October 18-20, 2019 at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California, United States.

Contestants

The tournament was made up of 32 members of the MPL and 36 Challengers. Magic MPL Core Split Division winners Seth Manfield, Carlos Romão, Ben Stark and Lee Shi Tian earned automatic advancement to Day Two.

Challengers

As the second Arena Championship, the invites followed a similar trend to the previous, but with a slight variation. Rather than the previous Pro Tour winners, the four highest placing Challengers were selected - winner Matias Leveratto, 3rd place Kai Budde, 11th place Gregory Orange and 14th place Raphael Levy. Following some community concern, the top 16 of the Mythic Championship Qualifier Weekend (MCQW) were effectively expanded to the Top 18, encompassing the last two players with identical primary tiebreakers. Included in the qualifiers were long-time players Constructed Masters for 2017 Sebastian Pozzo and 2016 Oliver Tiu, Ondřej Stráský, Pro Tour Champion Stanislav Cifka, and Mythic Championship London Top 8 competitor Chris Kvartek. Big community names invited include Gabriel Nassif, Caleb Durwood, Kenji Egashira, Gaby Spartz, Yuuki Ichikawa and David Williams; and various smaller names round out the other fourteen invitations.

Format

The format across all three days is Traditional Standard Best-of-Three Constructed. Identified quickly as relevant mechanics from Throne of Eldraine were the power of Food cards (Oko, Thief of Crowns and Gilded Goose) and Adventure payoffs (Lucky Clover and Edgewall Innkeeper). However, it became apparent that the specter of Scapeshift was still lingering over the format as all the good answers to Field of The Dead rotated, so the end-game of the format was not a traditional card advantage or planeswalker control deck, but rather a deck that could create two to four 2/2 Zombies with every land drop. Hence, opposing decks would need to overcome not only an unrelenting swarm of Zombies but also the stabilization power of Hydroid Krasis and Wraths.

29 players submitted Golos-powered decks, five of which also added Fires of Invention. Questing Beast acted as the greatest proactive check on the Zombies in the format, with 28 players registering 98 copies. Coming in second were Simic Food decks that had maindeck Disdainful Stroke to punish the expensive spells the Field decks used, alongside the Ramp decks that act similarly. Six Golgari Adventure decks were the other major flavor of midrange deck. Finally, the aggro decks of the format leant on the power of Embercleave as a card with incredible burst power, with support from either green for Questing Beast and Collision//Colossus; or in a Knights shell with Acclaimed Contender and Tournament Grounds.

Of the five colors, only six players did not register Forests as part of their mana base - three Knights decks, a Rakdos Sacrifice deck, a Jeskai Fires of Invention deck, and a mono-Red deck.

Day One

Players battled it out in Modified Swiss in up to seven rounds. Players who earned five wins automatically advanced to Day Two. Players who lost four matches were eliminated, as there were enough 4-3 players to make up 24 players. Unfortunately, some of the competitors experienced MTG Arena crashes on the machines that were being used.

The players to qualify on Friday were:

Rank	Player	Wins	Group
1	Chris Kvartek	5-0	MCQW
2	Jean-Emmanuel Depraz	5-1	MPL
3	Matt Nass	5-1	MPL
4	Ondrej Strasky	5-1	MCQW
5	Stanislav Cifka	5-1	MCQW
6	Alexander Hayne	5-1	MPL
7	William Jensen	5-1	MPL
8	Martin Juza	5-2	MPL
9	Mikel Diez	5-2	MCQW
10	Kenji Egashira	5-2	Invite - Streamer
11	Andrea Mengucci	5-2	MPL
12	Shahar Shenhar	5-2	MPL
13	Sebastian Pozzo	5-2	MPL
14	John Rolf	5-2	MPL
15	Ken Yukuhiro	4-3	MPL
16	Theo Moutier	4-3	MCQW
17	Mike Sigrist	4-3	MPL
18	Gabriel Nassif	4-3	Invite - Hall of Fame
19	Lucas Berthoud	4-3	MPL
20	Marcio Carvalho	4-3	MPL
21	Christian Hauck	4-3	MPL
22	Autumn Burchett	4-3	MPL
23	Javier Dominguez	4-3	MPL
24	Andrew Cuneo	4-3	MPL

Day Two

The Top 24 from Day One joined the four Magic Pro League divisional champions from the Core Split in a seven-round Swiss event. All seven players who reached five match wins moved on to Day 3. Javier Dominguez rounded out the Top 8 for Day 3 based on his tiebreakers on Day 2. Though 40% of the Day 2 field was made up of Golos variants, only one Golos deck made it into the Top 8. Only two Challengers made the Top 8: Stanislav Cifka and Gabriel Nassif.

Day Three

Eight players competed in a true double-elimination tournament. In the grand finals, the winners in the Upper Bracket and Lower Bracket faced off. The player in the Lower Bracket had to win two matches to win the tournament.

The Top 8 were:

Place	Player	Prize	Pro Points	Deck	Comments
1	Javier Dominguez		50	Gruul Aggro
2	Jean-Emmanuel Depraz		42	Bant Golos
3	Andrea Mengucci		37	Bant Food
4	Gabriel Nassif		37	Simic Food	Challenger
5	Stanislav Cifka		32	Bant Ramp	Challenger
6	Lee Shi Tian		32	Mono-Red Cavalcade
7	Ken Yukuhiro		32	Mardu Knights
8	William Jensen		32	Simic Food