Meta Makers: SCT Spring 2024

 Hello, Tiny Leaders!

Welcome to another installment of Meta Makers! Today we will discuss what happened in the Spring SCT and which cards are making the top decks successful. Lots of graphs today as there is so much data to sift through, but it is my hope that I will be able to present it in an interesting manner.

Part 1: Favorites Fall, New Faces Rise

Going into the bracket, high seeded players faced off against their lower seeded counterparts, which had some quite surprising results as a few key upsets took place, most notably number 15 seeded Skooma beating out number 2 Carbon. In that same vein, one of my personal favorites to win this tournament, Esper, lost their round one matchup against Mahra. Another notable player and committee consultant, Zula, also dropped their match against Epeboch.  Coming out of the first round on top we have: Gitrogatog, Skooma, Epeboch, Zyxia, Mishra, Mahra, Minicrab and Cosmerian. The key matches in round one were: Carbon v Skooma, and Mecha v Minicrab.
The bracket continues to develop,  and we end up with our first deck I want to highlight:

Minicrab's Kaya, Ohrzov Usurper


Making use of a unique playstyle, Minicrab's Kaya enjoyed surprising success in the SCT. With this being their second ever tournament in the server, many people were unprepared to see this commander in their games. Although Kaya ended up falling to both Leovold and Slimefoot and Squee, it is still awesome to see a unique deck like this in the format.

Part 2: Removal is King

With 10 of 16 decks being black, and 10 of 16 being red, our color pie ends up looking like this:
Obviously, with so many red and black decks being present, the staple of success in this SCT ended up being who drew into their removal first. Essentially, players were trading haymakers back and forth, just waiting for the other to be unable to answer a hit. This also lead to a lot of graveyard recursion as part of the meta. A great example of this is:

 Mishra's Leovold

Utilizing Snapcaster mage, Uro, and Profane Command, this Leovold package had a lot of ways to bring back its threats. It was also packing graveyard hate in the sideboard in the form of Unlicensed Hearse.    Also in this line of packing recursive threats is:

 Lexi's Slimefoot and Squee, taking from Carbon's original list and slightly modifying it. 


Taking second overall, Lexie's list focuses on packing as much removal as possible while also playing many threats. The strength of Slimefoot can't be overstated, and this Jund deck has been terrorizing the format for many months.

Part 3: Winner takes Forth

After everything is said and done, one of the stand out strongest cards from this SCT is without a doubt, Forth Eorlingas! With Gitrogatog's Yoshimaru-Rograkh taking first, and both Urza's Mathas and Skooma's Marath enjoying success, any deck that can play Forth does. Forth wins games, plain and simple. Red is still very good, and many a red deck wins!

Final Thoughts

While my participation in the SCT was not what I was hoping for, I really did enjoy the opportunity to be involved in it in the way I have been. Overall, my opinion of the meta is that it is relatively stable going into MH3, and that should anything get banned, it will be further down the line. Congratulations to Gitrogatog on the win, and as always, Stay Tiny!
-Mecha


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