The Best Decks & Stories from Modern LMS Prague

There's a lot you can learn when you go from casting spells as a player to the role of caster, doing commentary. Here are stories from behind the scenes, notes on the latest Modern developments, the sweetest decklists, and more from the highest level of current European tournament Magic!

The commentary team of LMS Prague

About one week ago ended LMS Prague. The format was everyone's beloved Modern, and more than a thousand players set out to fight through fifteen rounds of Swiss plus elimination matches to hoist the trophy. This leaves us with a lot of information to digest, so let's get to it!

The Modern Metagame

Let's begin with a look at the metagame coming in. Day 1 started out with 1,055 players! As far as recent history goes, it was the biggest European tournament and probably one of the biggest on the globe, bested mainly (possibly) by Magic's 30th Anniversary. The hall was full of players, and here's what they brought to the table.

day 1 meta

The most represented deck was Murktide, much to nobody's surprise. However, despite being the most popular, it still comprised just 10% of the metagame, which I don't think is a lot. It's a good proportion for the most popular deck. The next four had very similar representation at around 5%. It's fair to say that Murktide, Creativity, Rhinos, Scam, and Hammer were the top five decks of the tournament coming in.

It's worth noting that the metagame overall proved supremely diverse. If you combine all the decks that were played by 1% of players or fewer, we'd get around 370 decks, which is over a third of the entire field! I saw multiple wild strategies like Control, Monored Prison, Reanimator, Dimir Faeries, or Boros .

Day 1 concluded with two players undefeated at 9-0, Ben Jones on Five-Color Creativity and Marco Cammilluzzi on Temur Rhinos. What makes their storyline interesting is that they met in the first round of Day 2 and then again in the semifinals for a rematch.

To advance to the second day, players had to go 7-2 or better. It's a tall order, so only the best of the best managed to achieve it, a mere 84 in total. If you made it, you were in the top 8% of players already. The Day 2 metagame looked similar, but also showed notable differences. The most represented deck was now Creativity, while Rhinos fell off substantially.

day 2 meta

What I want to dig a bit deeper into are conversion rates between Day 1 and Day 2. Only 10% of all the Murktide aficionados managed to advance, while almost 25% of Creativity players qualified. Creativity was the story of the tournament, sprawling all over the top tables.

Murktide, meanwhile, did not perform as well as some might have expected. Out of 84 players, the first Murktide player finished as low as 43rd place in the standings. As the tournament went on, you wouldn't see any Murktides at all! It made choosing coverage matches that much easier.

The Top 8

top 8

To get to the elimination rounds one had to go at least 12-3, and even that score was no guarantee. Two players with this record missed out on the playoffs.

There were six unique archetypes in the elimination rounds, namely Scam, Living End, Rhinos, Hammer, Keruga Elementals, and three copies of Creativity. Let's take a look at the lists.

Rakdos Scam by Mateusz Kopeć
Main DeckSideboard
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  •  
  • 3
  • 3
  • 2
  • 2
  • 3
  • 3
  • 2
  • 2
  •  
  • 3
  • 1
  • 4
  • 4
  • 3
  • 3
  • 1
  • 1
  • 3
  • 1
  • 1
  • 2
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 2
  • 1

Starting in eighth place we have got Scam. Although the archetype is widely feared for its opening of into , it didn't cause that much grief. Overall it didn't live up to expectations, but Mateusz was able to get that 12-3 record and secure a Top 8 slot.

Living End by Atte Vartiainen
Main DeckSideboard
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 2
  •  
  • 3
  • 4
  • 4
  • 3
  • 2
  • 4
  • 1
  • 2
  • 2
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 3
  • 2
  • 3
  • 2
  • 3
  • 2

lost a lot of metagame presence due to the rise of Scam, famously a bad matchup when you need to play through , , and . However, looking at Atte's matchups, we see wins against Scam, Creativity, and twice against Rhinos, with a few other decks sprinkled in, losing only to Merfolk and two future Top 8 players. This list went for double main to combat miscellaneous permanents.

Temur Rhinos by Marco Cammilluzzi
Main DeckSideboard
  • 4
  • 3
  • 3
  • 3
  •  
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 3
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 2
  • 2
  • 2
  • 1
  • 1
  • 4
  • 4
  • 3
  • 3
  • 1
  • 4
  • 4
  • 2
  • 1

The only copy of Rhinos in the Top 8 is highlighted by the presence of main-deck and also … ! So the only deck that ran the Dragon in the Top 8 was Rhinos. Mystical Dispute counters a very problematic but also helps against more mundane or . In blueless settings it still works as an expensive .

Five-Color Creativity by Fabian Winner
Main DeckSideboard
  • 4
  •  
  • 1
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 2
  • 4
  • 2
  • 4
  • 3
  • 1
  • 4
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 2
  • 1
  • 3
  • 4
  • 4
  • 2
  • 1
  • 1
  • 2
  • 2
  • 1
  • 2
  • 2
  • 2
  • 1
  • 2

Playing Five-Color Creativity, Fabian Winner did his best to live up to his name, losing just twice in the Swiss. This list does lean more into the angle to make use of discarded that one happens to draw naturally.

Azorius Hammer by Jonas Nieke
Main DeckSideboard
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 2
  • 1
  •  
  • 4
  • 4
  • 3
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 3
  • 2
  •  
  • 4
  • 4
  • 3
  • 3
  • 3
  • 3
  • 1
  • 1
  • 3
  • 2
  • 2
  • 2
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1

This Hammer player really did not want to fold to removal. With two copies of , accompanied by double and triple , this version was ready for a metagame full of and . It certainly paid off.

Four-Color Creativity by Immanuel Gerschenson
Main DeckSideboard
  • 4
  •  
  • 1
  • 4
  • 4
  • 1
  • 3
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 3
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 4
  • 1
  • 4
  • 1
  • 4
  • 2
  • 1
  • 2
  • 1
  • 1
  • 3
  • 1
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 2
  • 1
  • 2
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1

When glancing over the list, one might think it's just another Creativity build, but there is a lot here that wouldn't be considered stock. has historically not seen play in the shell at all, nor has . The deck also lacks white, which is not what you expect nowadays. It didn't stop Immanuel from going 12-2-1 in the Swiss, though.

Five-Color Creativity by Ben Jones
Main DeckSideboard
  • 3
  •  
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 3
  • 2
  • 2
  • 2
  • 4
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 4
  • 3
  • 3
  • 3
  • 1
  • 4
  • 1
  • 3
  • 3
  • 3
  • 1
  • 2
  • 2
  • 1

As already mentioned Ben Jones went 9-0 on Day 1, but he was on fire on Day 2 as well, going a combined 13-1-1 in the tourney. Between all the removal, planeswalkers, and even , this list looks like Five-Color Control with a combo just added on top.

Five-Color Elementals by Markus Leicht
Main DeckSideboard
  • 2
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 2
  •  
  • 4
  • 4
  • 2
  • 4
  • 4
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 3
  • 1
  • 4
  • 1
  • 1
  • 4
  • 1
  • 2
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 3
  • 1
  • 3
  • 3
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 2

Markus Leicht, better known as RespectTheCat, was the undisputed number one after the Swiss. His Keruga Elementals is not a deck one sees often, but he had been streaming it frequently on his channel to master it, and the mastery did pay off. Markus went a combined 17-1 over the weekend! It's a wild performance. At the end of the day, he was the one hoisting the trophy, emerging victorious in this thousand-player event.

The champion: Markus Leicht, also known as RespectTheCat
The champion: Markus Leicht, also known as RespectTheCat

The Stories of the Weekend

The tournament did not lack interesting plays and storylines. RespectTheCat being a fan favorite and taking down the event is certainly the highlight. Ben Jones and Marco Cammilluzzi getting a rematch in the semifinals and Marco getting his revenge was an exciting plot twist as well.

We also witnessed multiple plays that made us go "wow" in the commentary booth. End step finding to blow up setting free was a wild turnaround for a game. We also saw a player ultimate and retrace the same three times!

However, the motif that came back over and over again was and players dancing around to free up their permanents from underneath, whether with the popular and maindeckable , bouncing it with , or by using one's own Binding. Once there were multiple Bindings on the field and one of them got removed, we watched a house of cards collapsing at a moment's notice.

Personally I had a ton of fun doing commentary on Modern alongside great casters, a fantastic tech team, and highly professional and friendly judges. I got to meet the Cardmarket video crew and even teach the Basic Land Game to others.

All in all the weekend was a blast! The turnout was twice as big as for previous such events, the hall was jam-packed with hungry Modern players ready to compete, side events were capped, more judges were added—all for The Gathering .

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, not of Cardmarket.