Hello, and welcome back to Metagame Mentor, your weekly guide to the top decks and latest Constructed developments on the path to the Pro Tour. Over the past two weekends, nearly 3,600 invited players battled for cash prizes, event promos, and premier event qualifications across five Regional Championships for the United States (Los Angeles); Europe, Middle East, and Africa; Mexico, Central America, and Caribbean; Canada; and Japan and Korea.

Together, these high-stakes tournaments awarded 100 coveted invitations to Pro Tour Nauctis, scheduled for February 2027. You can find event summaries for each Regional Championship, along with decklists, standings, photos, brackets, and more, on the Magic.gg event page. Congratulations to the newly crowned champions Nate Green, Alexander Rosdahl, Allan Ayapan, Kaya Gregg, and Tatsuaki Yajima for claiming the trophies in their respective regions. All five champions, along with finalists Henry Romero, Timothée Blondiaux, Will Shayne, and Kazuaki Kurokawa, earned invitations to Magic World Championship 33, set for December 2027.

In this article, I'll break down the evolving Modern metagame, examine win rates across the major archetypes, and highlight the standout strategies and new Reality Fracture cards that rose to the top.

The Modern Metagame and Win Rates

Modern is a nonrotating 60-card format based on expansion sets, core sets, and straight-to-Modern sets from Eighth Edition forward, save for cards on the banned list. The table below presents the combined raw metagame numbers from the aforementioned Regional Championships for the United States (Los Angeles); Europe, Middle East, and Africa; Mexico, Central America, and Caribbean; Canada; and Japan and Korea, alongside match win rates for each deck archetype (excluding mirror matches, byes, and draws). I assigned archetypes myself based on each deck's contents, disregarding any self-reported deck labels on Melee.

In this table, each archetype name hyperlinks to a top-performing decklist that closely reflects its aggregate build. The "Other" category covers decks with less than one percent of the field, including Eldrazi Ramp, Grixis Reanimator, Golgari Yawgmoth, Esper Ketramose, Jeskai Energy, Hollow One, Izzet Metalcraft, Golgari Necro, Izzet Murktide, Jund Cosmogoyf, Merfolk, Four-Color Ritual, Samwise Gamgee Combo, Grixis Wizards, Hammer Time, Boros Burn, Dimir Mill, Gruul Valakut, Simic Ritual, Azorius Blink, Bant Chant, Dredge, Eldrazi Aggro, Ascendancy Combo, Rakdos Darklight, Sultai Ritual, Five-Color Creativity, Dimir Reanimator, Eldrazi Breach, Orzhov Blink, and more.

In terms of both popularity and performance, Broodscale Combo has been dominating competitive Modern. Its metagame share has climbed from 6.3% at Magic Spotlight: The Hobbit to 12.6% at the first two Regional Championships of the cycle, and now to 17.3% across the last five Regional Championships. Over the same stretch, its win rate has remained strong and steady: 54.3% at Magic Spotlight: The Hobbit, 55.3% at the first two RCs, and 54.8% at the last five. In the Modern metagame of the past month, the deck has outperformed the field to a statistically significant degree.

Basking Broodscale
Kozilek's Command
Emrakul, the Promised End

However, the metagame is slowly adapting. Decks with poor matchups against Broodscale Combo, such as Esper Goryo's, Esper Blink, Eldrazi Tron, Boros Land Destruction, and Dimir Midrange, are gradually declining in popularity. This made it surprising that the finals of the Regional Championship for Mexico, Central America, and Caribbean featured Esper Goryo's versus Esper Blink; that's more of a testament to the skill of their players than to the positioning of their decks in competitive Modern right now.

Meanwhile, at the Regional Championship for Japan and Korea, the finals pitted Izzet Prowess against Domain Zoo, the latter powered by Wild Nacatl and Tribal Flames. Both archetypes appear slightly unfavored to roughly even against Broodscale Combo, based on data from all five RCs combined, though their sideboard copies of Consign to Memory and Obsidian Charmaw do help substantially.

At the same time, decks with favorable matchups against Broodscale Combo, including properly tuned Boros Energy, Jeskai Blink, Jeskai Chant, and Azorius Chant, have been climbing in popularity. Azorius Chant in particular went 149-76 against Broodscale Combo across the last five Regional Championships, good for a 66% matchup. As a result, Azorius Chant has emerged as one of the best ways to defeat Broodscale Combo. In upcoming events, expect plenty of Broodscale, but also plenty of players prepared for it.

Out of curiosity, I constructed a win-rate matrix for the eight most popular Modern archetypes, using all recorded match results from the last five Regional Championships. The corresponding metagame equilibrium, rounded, consisted of 6% Broodscale Combo, 4% Esper Blink, 34% Izzet Affinity, 31% Azorius Chant, and 25% Domain Zoo. Within this equilibrium metagame, each of these five decks would have an expected win rate of 50%, and any other archetype would fall short of that. This indicates that the current Modern metagame is far from equilibrium and that the tools to adapt to the threat of Broodscale Combo are, in theory, already available.

Of course, this theoretical model has its limitations. It assumes a finite set of inflexible decks that won't adapt their card choices to metagame changes, as well as players who can switch decks frictionlessly, without any concerns about experience or card availability. In practice, real metagames evolve more slowly. While I am not a member of the Play Design team and have no involvement in ban decisions, I will note that the October 12 banned and restricted announcement stated: "If things don't begin to correct soon through organic metagame churn, it's very likely that we take a very hard look at the Eldrazi package."

Let's now take a closer look at the most notable Modern developments and new Reality Fracture standouts to emerge from the last five Regional Championships.

Broodscale Combo Dominates

3 Ugin's Labyrinth 3 Blade of the Bloodchief 6 Forest 4 Basking Broodscale 4 Eldrazi Temple 1 Cavern of Souls 1 Shifting Woodland 1 Springleaf Drum 4 Kozilek's Command 1 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth 4 Malevolent Rumble 4 Ancient Stirrings 4 Sowing Mycospawn 3 Glaring Fleshraker 2 Vexing Bauble 1 Haywire Mite 4 Emrakul, the Promised End 1 Soul-Guide Lantern 2 Boseiju, Who Endures 2 Devourer of Destiny 4 Urza's Saga 1 Sire of Seven Deaths 3 Thought-Knot Seer 2 Nature's Claim 1 Vexing Bauble 1 Pithing Needle 2 Dismember 3 Trinisphere 2 Grafdigger's Cage 1 Sire of Seven Deaths

As mentioned, Broodscale Combo was the most popular archetype at 17.3% of the field, and its 54.8% win rate was the best among the top five most popular deck archetypes. At the Regional Championship in Ghent, Belgium, Alexander Rosdahl emerged victorious in a Broodscale Combo mirror match against Timothée Blondiaux in the finals. Unusually, Rosdahl ran zero main-deck copies of Dismember, opting instead for three copies of Glaring Fleshraker, a choice that paid off perfectly with fast combo finishes.

The deck still attacks from many different angles. You can either assemble the Basking Broodscale and Blade of the Bloodchief combo quickly or ramp into an early Emrakul, the Promised End. Add the fast mana provided by Eldrazi Temple and the versatility of Kozilek's Command, and the deck has it all. That blend of power and speed is what makes it shine.

Azorius Chant Emerges

1 Theorist's Sanctum 1 Thundering Falls 3 Silence 1 Otawara, Soaring City 4 Flooded Strand 2 Erode 3 Arid Mesa 1 Monumental Henge 2 Hallowed Fountain 1 Floodfarm Verge 4 Orim's Chant 2 Consult the Star Charts 1 Force of Negation 2 Island 4 Teferi, Time Raveler 1 March of Otherworldly Light 1 Spell Snare 1 Polluted Delta 1 Mystic Gate 4 Narset, Parter of Veils 2 Meticulous Archive 2 Prismatic Ending 3 Day's Undoing 2 Sink into Stupor 4 Solitude 2 Plains 3 Wrath of the Skies 1 Supreme Verdict 1 Geier Reach Sanitarium 1 Kaheera, the Orphanguard 1 Surgical Extraction 3 High Noon 4 Mystical Dispute 4 Consign to Memory 1 Supreme Verdict 1 Spell Snare

At Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering® | Marvel Super Heroes in July, many of the successful control decks relied on traditional tools like Counterspell and Teferi, Hero of Dominaria. Since then, however, more and more decks have adopted Orim's Chant and Silence to disrupt opponents while setting up the combo of Narset, Parter of Veils and Day's Undoing, which leaves the opponent with at most one card in hand. Given the dominance of Broodscale Combo, this development makes sense: Counterspell doesn't stop the trigger of Emrakul, the Promised End and is a liability to hold in hand when your turn gets controlled. Because these strategies have moved away from traditional control, I've relabeled them Azorius Chant. At 4.6% of the metagame with a 59.2% win rate across the five RCs, they did exceedingly well.

After Kaya Gregg won Canada's Regional Championship with Azorius Chant, the deck took off. This past weekend at the United States Regional Championship, Nate Green defeated Henry Romero in an Azorius Chant mirror match in the finals, and his winning list differed from Kaya Gregg's by only a couple of cards. Nate Green was one of the few players to cut the one-of Isochron Scepter from the main deck, adding Erode for extra interaction.

Theorist's Sanctum

Nate Green's list also added a one-of Theorist's Sanctum to its mana base, as it's a fetchable Island that can produce value in a long game, effectively contributing a surveil and a free draw every two turns. Since this list has no Jaces to behold, the Sanctum will always enter tapped, but it does turn Flooded Strand into a relevant card in long games, so it's a welcome upgrade. Theorist's Sanctum was the fifth most played new Reality Fracture card in Modern, finding homes as a one-of in Azorius Chant, Dimir Midrange, Jeskai Blink, Esper Goryo's, and various other decks with blue fetch lands. I'll cover the four cards ahead of it later in this article, as the new set has made a considerable impact.

Ruby Storm Adopts Twinned Vision

1 Elegant Parlor 4 Pyretic Ritual 1 Gemstone Caverns 1 Grapeshot 3 Arid Mesa 2 Twinned Vision 3 Reckless Impulse 4 Ruby Medallion 2 Scalding Tarn 4 Ral, Monsoon Mage 1 Sunbaked Canyon 2 Wish 4 Mountain 4 Desperate Ritual 3 Past in Flames 4 Wrenn's Resolve 2 Valakut Awakening 1 Wooded Foothills 1 Sacred Foundry 1 Artist's Talent 1 Commercial District 4 Manamorphose 4 Hex Magic 3 Bloodstained Mire 1 Gemstone Caverns 3 Orim's Chant 3 Wear // Tear 3 Prismatic Ending 1 Past in Flames 1 Empty the Warrens 1 Grapeshot 2 Brotherhood's End

Twinned Vision

The fourth most played new Reality Fracture card was Twinned Vision. Most Ruby Storm players included it as a two-of in their main deck. When you control Ruby Medallion or Ral, Monsoon Mage, it becomes a one-mana cantrip with flashback, which helps you dig toward additional Rituals. But it truly shines when exiled by Hex Magic, Reckless Impulse, or Wrenn's Resolve.

Thanks to its wording, Twinned Vision draws two cards when cast from exile, making it a remarkably cost-efficient source of card draw. Past in Flames, meanwhile, lets you cast it from your graveyard for its mana cost rather than its flashback cost, sparing you the discard while still drawing two cards. With so much synergy, it's a useful addition that brings more consistency to the archetype's combo turns. Max Dore took the decklist shown above to a 4th-place finish at Canada's Regional Championship.

Amulet Titan Adds Roiling Canopy

1 Echoing Deeps 1 Otawara, Soaring City 4 Gruul Turf 4 Arboreal Grazer 4 Scapeshift 2 Forest 1 Tolaria West 4 Amulet of Vigor 1 Dryad Arbor 3 Simic Growth Chamber 1 Misty Rainforest 1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking 3 Green Sun's Zenith 4 Crumbling Vestige 1 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth 3 Malevolent Rumble 4 Primeval Titan 4 Spelunking 2 Roiling Canopy 1 Hanweir Battlements 1 Cultivator Colossus 1 Commercial District 2 Boseiju, Who Endures 2 Summoner's Pact 1 Mirrorpool 4 Urza's Saga 1 Vexing Bauble 2 Dismember 1 Mjölnir, Hammer of Thor 2 Trinisphere 1 Six 1 Guerrilla Gorilla 1 Skyline Cascade 1 Aftermath Analyst 1 Shifting Woodland 1 Bojuka Bog 1 Grafdigger's Cage 1 Elvish Reclaimer 1 Flame Blitz

Roiling Canopy

The third most played new card from Reality Fracture was Roiling Canopy—a reimagining of Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, except with a Giant Growth effect rather than a Lightning Bolt effect. Almost every Amulet Titan player added one or two copies to their main deck to unlock new lines of play. Julien Henry, who earned a Pro Tour-qualifying finish at the Regional Championship in Ghent, Belgium, played two copies of the new land.

The main appeal lies in the synergy with Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth, which turns each land into a Forest. This means that if you cast Scapeshift and sacrifice six lands, you can fetch two Roiling Canopy; Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth; and three other lands. This results in 6 Forests entering the battlefield, each of which sees 5 other Forests, for a total of 12 Roiling Canopy triggers. Suddenly, that humble Arboreal Grazer might rumble in for 36 damage! If you don't control a creature but do have Amulet of Vigor or Spelunking, then you can include Dryad Arbor and Hanweir Battlements in the Scapeshift pile to concoct a lethal hasty creature out of thin air.

Rakdos Delirium Exploits Dark Matter Manipulator

2 Swamp 4 Thoughtseize 1 Arid Mesa 4 Lightning Bolt 1 Fatal Push 1 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Blood Moon 4 Street Wraith 2 Troll of Khazad-dûm 1 Mountain 4 Dark Matter Manipulator 1 Verdant Catacombs 4 Moonshadow 4 Mishra's Bauble 4 Fear of Missing Out 4 Nethergoyf 2 Raucous Theater 4 Detective's Phoenix 2 Unholy Heat 3 Blood Crypt 4 Bloodstained Mire 3 Marsh Flats 1 Fatal Push 1 Surgical Extraction 1 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Blood Moon 1 Inquisition of Kozilek 3 Obsidian Charmaw 2 Grafdigger's Cage 2 Meltdown 1 Ingot Chewer 2 Glistening Deluge

Dark Matter Manipulator

The second most played new card from Reality Fracture was Dark Matter Manipulator, which inspired a brand-new archetype that put up amazing results. Known as Rakdos Aggro or Rakdos Delirium, this new deck aims to fill the graveyard with self-mill and discard effects. This enables delirium for Fear of Missing Out and Unholy Heat, fuels the collect evidence cost on Detective's Phoenix, and grows Moonshadow and Nethergoyf.

Dark Matter Manipulator is the perfect setup piece for this sort of strategy, as it mills three cards and provides a body that can quickly attack as a 3/2. That's an excellent deal for a single black mana. Hall of Famer Shuhei Nakamura took the list shown above to the Top 8 of the Regional Championship for Japan and Korea, after which the archetype soared in popularity on the following weekend. With an overall win rate of 57.1% and a slightly favorable matchup against Broodscale Combo, Rakdos Delirium has made a remarkable Modern debut.

Izzet Prowess Explores Pompous Battlemage

4 Dragon's Rage Channeler 1 Thundering Falls 3 Expressive Iteration 2 Arid Mesa 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Preordain 1 Assault Strobe 2 Scalding Tarn 4 Mutagenic Growth 3 Pompous Battlemage 3 Mountain 2 Slickshot Show-Off 3 Wooded Foothills 4 Mishra's Bauble 4 Cori-Steel Cutter 1 Unholy Heat 3 Steam Vents 4 Monastery Swiftspear 2 Fiery Islet 4 Lava Dart 2 Bloodstained Mire 4 Consign to Memory 2 Spell Snare 2 Spell Pierce 2 Obsidian Charmaw 1 Tormod's Crypt 1 Meltdown 3 Unholy Heat

Pompous Battlemage

The most played new Reality Fracture card, by the total number of copies across all Modern main decks and sideboards, was Pompous Battlemage. It appeared almost exclusively in Izzet Prowess, where it offers both an aggressive one-drop and a rummage spell that triggers prowess on the Battlemage itself and on the rest of your team. Since it alone triggers Cori-Steel Cutter, it's an appealing inclusion.

Yet there was no clear consensus on how many copies to play. The stats broke down as follows:

• 0 Pompous Battlemage: 217 Izzet Prowess players; 47% win rate
• 1 Pompous Battlemage: 21 Izzet Prowess players; 49% win rate
• 2 Pompous Battlemage: 53 Izzet Prowess players; 51% win rate
• 3 Pompous Battlemage: 37 Izzet Prowess players; 52% win rate
• 4 Pompous Battlemage: 66 Izzet Prowess players; 48% win rate

Although the differences are small given the sample sizes, the early indications are that 2–3 Pompous Battlemage is the sweet spot. Many lists, including the one by Sung Kim who finished 28th at the United States Regional Championship, cut several copies of Slickshot Show-Off to make room, as you want to retain a well-balanced mix of creatures and noncreature spells. This version might very well become the norm going forward.

Four-Color Kethis Qualifies for the Pro Tour

1 Otawara, Soaring City 2 Agatha's Soul Cauldron 4 Starting Town 4 Grinding Station 1 Sevinne's Reclamation 1 Teferi, Time Raveler 3 Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student 1 Island 4 Mox Amber 4 Mox Opal 4 Emry, Lurker of the Loch 4 Mishra's Bauble 4 Malevolent Rumble 1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge 4 Kethis, the Hidden Hand 4 Plaza of Heroes 2 Sewer-veillance Cam 4 Giant's Boulder 1 Haywire Mite 1 Jace, the Perfected Mind 3 Urza's Saga 3 Boseiju, Who Endures 2 Erode 2 Nature's Claim 1 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Toxic Deluge 1 Forest 1 Vexing Bauble 1 Stone of Erech 1 Teferi, Time Raveler 3 Consign to Memory 2 Metallic Rebuke

Sam Holcombe went 11-3-1, finishing in 12th place at the United States Regional Championship, with a spicy Four-Color Kethis list that hardly anyone saw coming. In fact, across the 3,594 Regional Championship decklists that I analyzed for this article, Holcombe was the only player who registered Kethis, the Hidden Hand.

The deck features multiple combo lines, but an important one starts with Kethis and Grinding Station on the battlefield. You then exile two legendary cards to play every Mox Amber and Mox Opal from your graveyard, each of which taps for mana before being sacrificed to Grinding Station to mill yourself. These milled cards fuel another Kethis activation, and you repeat the loop until you've milled essentially your entire deck while generating plenty of mana. Finally, you can replay and ultimate Jace, the Perfected Mind several times to mill your opponent out, winning the game when they're forced to draw from an empty library in their next draw step.

The newest addition to the deck, from Magic: The Gathering | The Hobbit, is Giant's Boulder. In the early game, the one-mana artifact offers cheap card selection when it enters, letting you look at two additional cards and boosting the consistency with which you can assemble your combos. In the mid-game, its color filtering helps you cast spells across all four colors, and it counts toward metalcraft for Mox Opal. Finally, in the late game, when you have mana aplenty, it turns into a hard removal effect. While Giant's Boulder performs none of these roles more efficiently than other cards, its unique package of useful abilities may have taken Four-Color Kethis to the next level.

Five-Color Creativity Qualifies for the Pro Tour

2 High Noon 1 Thundering Falls 1 Valgavoth, Terror Eater 4 Wrenn and Six 1 Jetmir's Garden 4 Arid Mesa 1 Xander's Lounge 1 Raph & Mikey, Troublemakers 4 Indomitable Creativity 1 Stomping Ground 2 Scalding Tarn 1 Mana Tithe 1 Mountain 3 Teferi, Time Raveler 4 Galvanic Discharge 4 Wooded Foothills 2 Pawpatch Formation 2 Sacred Foundry 1 Prismatic Ending 1 Wrath of the Skies 3 Dwarven Mine 3 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker 1 Plains 3 Way of the Paradox 1 Commercial District 1 Steam Vents 1 Blood Crypt 4 Leyline Binding 1 Archon of Cruelty 1 Bloodstained Mire 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite 1 Surgical Extraction 1 Forest 3 Mystical Dispute 4 Consign to Memory 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria 1 Veil of Summer 2 Boseiju, Who Endures 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

The final spicy decklist I'd like to highlight belongs to Sidney Mayer, who piloted it to a 10-3-1 finish at the Regional Championship for Europe, Middle East, and Africa, good for 32nd place. Only six players across the five RCs registered Indomitable Creativity, making it a decidedly fringe choice.

The game plan is to fetch three Mountains, follow up with Dwarven Mine to create a Dwarf token, then cast Indomitable Creativity to turn that token into a game-winning threat. Hitting Raph & Mikey, Troublemakers first is ideal, as their haste lets them attack right away, hit Archon of Cruelty, and overwhelm the opponent.

The newest Reality Fracture addition to the deck is Way of the Paradox. In essence, it's an Explore effect with free surveils and life gain attached. By itself, that's already decent, letting you dig toward Indomitable Creativity while potentially setting up a Creativity for X=2 sooner. But the synergy with Wrenn and Six is what truly stands out. Every time you activate Wrenn's +1 ability to return a fetch land, Way of the Paradox lets you play an additional land. With two planeswalkers triggering the enchantment, this can propel you to eight mana by turn four, allowing you to hard-cast one of your creatures without even needing Indomitable Creativity. It proved to be an excellent addition.

What's next for Modern?

So far, the Regional Championships have made one thing clear: Broodscale Combo is the deck to beat. Yet they have also shown that it is far from unbeatable. Azorius Chant in particular has performed exceptionally well against it, while a range of novel strategies, including Rakdos Delirium, have demonstrated that there is still plenty of room for innovation in Modern.

Here is the remaining schedule for this round of Modern Regional Championships, along with the corresponding Melee links:

• October 17–18: Southeast Asia
• October 24–25: South America and Australia/New Zealand
• November 1: Chinese Taipei

The next few weekends will reveal whether Broodscale Combo can hold on to its throne or whether the rest of the format can adapt in time. I can't wait to see how Modern evolves as these tournaments unfold!