Mythic Championship VI Richmond

Mythic Championship VI Richmond
Date	November 8–10, 2019
Location	Richmond, USA
Attendance	495
Format	Standard Constructed and Throne of Eldraine Booster draft.
Prize pool	$500,000
Winner	Ondřej Stráský
Previous Pro Tour: Mythic Championship V Next Pro Tour: Mythic Championship VII

Mythic Championship VI, or Mythic Championship Richmond 2019, took place on November 8–10, 2019, in Richmond, USA.

Format

Standard Constructed and Throne of Eldraine Booster draft.

With the schedule running three Mythic Championships in Standard over three months, the metagame was not expected to be particularly different between them - however, testing for Mythic Championship V showed that the power cards made for a difficult balance. Field of the Dead was banned just after the event, which opened up the format for conventional control decks, but Oko, Thief of Crowns supplying Food to Wicked Wolf and Gilded Goose; making all opposing creatures 3/3s against the endless stream that Nissa, Who Shakes The World also creates; and the consistency boost of Once Upon A Time made the Simic deck the easy frontrunner, which was easily seen already at MCV. With Once Upon A Time giving effectively 10 card hands to look for Pelt Collector in Gruul, Edgewall Inkeeper in Adventures, and smoother mana overall, the metagame was tilted far more to green than any color in any format for years, enough that Noxious Grasp made for a respectable maindeck card.

Course of events

Day 1

Draft 1: Mike Sigrist goes 3–0 with Red/Green; featured drafters Jessica Estephan and Shahar Shenhar went 2–1 with Mono-White and Blue-Black respectively.

The metagame for Standard painted a poor picture for the health of standard; more than 1300 copies of Oko, Thief of Crowns, Once Upon A Time, and Gilded Goose were registered - the total proportion of Oko decks was at 70%, a dominance that was never before seen, even in the world of Mirrodin's Affinity and Hogaak at Barcelona. Sultai Food was most popular, for the black anti-planewalker decks, at 37%, with straight Simic and Bant following at 19% and 7% respectively. The first two non-Oko archetypes were both green, going under with Golgari Adventures (6.7%) and over with Temur Reclamation (4.2%), and the first two non-green decks being Jeskai Fires of Invention (4.2%) and Azorius Control (2.4%).

The top eight players after day one:

Rank	Player	Points
1	Eli Kassis	24
2	Brad Nelson	24
3	Maxwell Mick	21
4	Stefano Vinci	21
5	Austin Bursavich	21
6	Christian Hauck	21
7	Dylan Lerch	21
8	Sam Sherman	21

Day 2

The featured drafters followed Brad Nelson, as well as fellow MPL player Christian Hauck. Nelson's aggressive Green-Red deck struggled from a heavy curve and mana density, and his luck would not change over the day - from 9-0 went to 9-2 and later dropped to 9–5. Kassis, the second leader, would also go 1–2. Hauck's Black-Green deck managed to go 2–1; Austin Bursavich took the pod and lead the tournament at 10–1, trailed by Josh Utter-Leyton at 9-1-1.

The Standard metagame did not show any particularly innovative decks making good runs, as Oko, Thief of Crowns and the Food decks continuing dominance. Within those archetypes, the Trail of Crumbs variant proved successful through giving the Food decks a superior payoff compared to Wicked Wolf. Gruul Adventures were a surprise winner, but of the three pilots only Javier Dominguez stood to make Top 8, but with three losses in draft he lost the last two matches to end at 11–5.

Bursavich took the first place in round 13 with 12–1, but with three more rounds he was to play round 14 against Andrew Cuneo and winning, going to a clean 13–1. Louis Deltour got to 12–2 against Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa. Cuneo and da Rosa defeated Maxwell Mick and Grzegorz Kowalski respectively for their 12th wins; Kassis battled back from the Draft and defeated Dominguez, and former Constructed Master Sebastian Pozzo defeated Burja Munoz. These six players made up the top three pairings, leaving two more to be decided - while there were nearly 500 players, there were a high incidence of draws, resulting in a less-than-average number of 12-3 players. The final two were of Oscar Christenson defeating Elliot Boussaud, and Ondřej Stráský defeating Mick, both moving from 34 points to 37, leaving a clean cut.

Top 8

The Top 8 battled it out on Day 3.

	Quarterfinals					Semifinals					Finals
	1	Austin Bursavich	1
	8	Sebastian Pozzo	3
						8	Sebastian Pozzo	2
						5	Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa	3
	4	Andrew Cuneo	2
	5	Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa	3
											5	Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa	2
											7	Ondrej Strasky	3
	3	Eli Kassis	2
	6	Oscar Christensen	3
						3	Oscar Christensen	1
						7	Ondrej Strasky	3
	2	Louis Deltour	1
	7	Ondrej Strasky	3

Place	Player	Prize	Mythic Points	Deck	Comments
1	Ondřej Stráský	$50,000	50	Simic Food	Third Pro Tour Top 8
2	Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa	$20,000	42	Simic Food	Thirteenth Pro Tour Top 8
3	Oscar Christensen	$15,000	37	Sultai Food
4	Sebastian Pozzo	$12,500	37	Simic Food
5	Austin Bursavich	$10,000	32	Sultai Food
6	Andrew Cuneo	$9,000	32	Selesnya Adventure	Third Pro Tour Top 8
7	Eli Kassis	$7,500	32	Golgari Adventure
8	Louis Deltour	$6,000	32	Sultai Food