Takeaways from the 2026 SCG Richmond 1K
The SCG Richmond 1K was an awesome time. 51 players came out for one of our biggest events to date, and several Shardless Agents were in attendance. While none of us made top 8, the metagame and impacts of this event will alter how people play this format for a while. Let’s look at some of the major impressions of the event, and what I think the metagame will become going into the next few months leading up to SCG Cincinnati, which is sure to be the biggest Value Vintage event ever.
1. It put Eldrazi-based Green Post back on the map.
Green-base Cloudpost had died off for a while in favor of Blue Post, due to Green Post’s perceived miserable combo matchup. But with the Eldrazi engine of Warping Wail, Sowing Mycospawn, Devourer of Destiny, Breaker of Creation, and in some lists Glaring Fleshraker, the deck beat everything else in the field to win the event. Warping Wail in particular has a ton of text against both the fair and unfair matchups, as it counters the cascade spell payoffs while also sniping sweepers from control that would dare kill your board of bunguses. Combo is less of an issue than ever between Wail and The Stone Brain, the latter of which can completely incapacitate a combo deck if deployed and cracked on curve.
Looking at the data, Green post variants went 14-5-1 across three pilots on the day, for a 67% win rate. Not bad for a deck deemed worse than its Blue counterpart due to its worse combo matchup. Moving forward, I expect this deck to start seeing more play in online events, and the Post archetype as a whole position itself as the one to beat moving into SCG Cincy.
2. It was a huge reassertion for Boros Energy, Burn, Thopter Sword, and Affinity.
Richmond proved these decks could still do well given strong pilots and good matchups. All of these decks made top cut after being relatively absent from the metagame for a while. Thopter Sword especially came to play, as the pilot went undefeated in Swiss and only fell to Post in the finals, which is truly just not a winnable matchup for Sword unless they are heavily teched against it.
The top 4 for Boros Energy came especially as a surprise to me, considering the price of a set of Guide of Souls was about $15 before the event. The pilot actually borrowed my cards after we sat together and cut the budget down the night before the event, and he slayed out to a top 4 finish. While the run was stopped by the eventual winner of the event and drawing a truly absurd amount of lands in game 2, I’m going to be re-investigating Boros in the coming months. There’s a lot of directions to take the deck moving forward, and I’m very optimistic for the decks’ future. (Ban Guide of Souls in modern please and thanks.)
The Data (from Non-Thopter Sword)
Boros Energy: 11-8-1 across 3 pilots, 55% win rate
Burn: 16-14 across 5 pilots, 52% win rate
Affinity: 12-12 across 4 pilots, 50% win rate
3. Elves.
Elves I think is going to be the biggest breakout from this event. People love tapping mana dorks and playing typal strategies (and honestly I’m looking at picking it up, the deck looks very much up my alley despite its sketchy combo matchup). In talking to the pilot, they expressed that they don’t really care about Damping Sphere due to just how wide the deck goes, and it certainly produced some truly insane boards while I was birding its matches both in Swiss and top 8. The technology of Glacier Godmaw as the dedicated haste enabler of choice is genius, as it’s a relatively cheap 7 mana that can provide a stacking buff with its inbuilt guaranteed Lander token, plus returning your own lands with Quirion Ranger.
4. The meta is just waiting for a combo deck to really blast itself into the forefront.
I think Restore Balance would have cleaned house in this field. Rhinos had a single pilot who didn’t do well. There were two Rhinos pilots at the Friday side event and I don’t believe either of them showed up to the 1K. High Tide and Channel Mirror were nowhere to be seen, and would have feasted in this field. Maybe it’s suffering a similar perceived boring nature as Rhinos? Maybe folks were intimidated to pick the decks up? I’m honestly not sure. Only time will tell.
It is also very relevant to mention that Spirit Guides are going up in price to an almost unplayable level, which means the format is headed for a period of relative fairness. Broken decks will still be around, but they won’t be able to leverage their broken fast mana pieces to the same degree, which in my opinion is a huge net positive.
5. Graveyard combo piles are still something to be thinking about.
Don’t let the top 8 fool you, the graveyard decks everyone packs 3-4 Soul Guide Lanterns in their sideboard to beat up on are still a threat. The only reason Oops wasn’t in top 8 was because the pilot punted his win and in against Burn. Nadu Breakfast lost their win and in to the top 8 placing Affinity list that was on maindeck Tormod’s Crypt and Metallic Rebuke after losing earlier in the event to Burn. These degenerate decks are beatable as long as you are willing to play the interaction that beats them. Some of the hate cards you might consider only good in the sideboard are honestly just fine to snipe game 1 from them in the maindeck!
The Future
Moving into SCG Cincinnati, I think the sideboard cards of choice will have to change slightly to accommodate the increasing presence of Post. Post is no longer a deck you can just punt to due to its lower play rate, it’s an archetype you have to respect, especially for slower decks. If you’re a midrange or control deck, you HAVE to have a plan. Land destruction may be harder to come by, but it’s the best plan of attack against Post.
Damping Sphere is no longer enough.
Even when backed up by pressure, Oblivion Stone and Wastescape Battlemage are the common outs to the ball that Post has been playing, and Ancient Stirrings going so deep helps them find the anti-hate more consistently. Sphere is by no means bad given how strong it is in other matchups, but gone are the days you can just slam Spheres in your sideboard and just call it good enough to beat post.
Graveyard combo piles are also still around, as are fairer graveyard decks. Keep the graveyard hate around, folks. Nadu also will continue to spike wins from a lack of activation based hate, and such hate pieces also can affect key cards from Post (most notably Trenchpost and Oblivion Stone).
Sideboard Pieces for Consideration
Which of these pieces you play depends wildly on the deck you're building. A word of caution about Volatile Fault: I've been testing it in the maindeck of some stuff, and it is exclusively a sideboard card. It's too clunky as a virtual Wastes in a lot of matchups where it is either actively bad or totally impossible to activate.
Up-And-Coming Decks to Watch
Elves
While it’s a deck that could get caught by activation hate, I believe we’ll start seeing Elves pop up more and more. The deck is fast enough to be able to race the turn 3 combo decks, which is a crazy statement for a mono green deck with 30+ creatures.
Mono Black Aggro
It seems no matter what era of Value Vintage we’re in, mono black Dark Ritual aggro seems like it will always be good. The build at Richmond absolutely sauced me, and looked extremely impressive all weekend. It’s essentially mono-black Rhinos with more disruption and the ability to curve out more. Mulligan for a hand that either Rituals into something broken or curves out and run them over.
The format looks to be coming into a great place for the coming year. There is much work to be done. See you all at Cincy!
Written by
Doot