| Team MetaGameGurus.com has arrived. I've been covering SCG Tour events for almost four years now and during that time, I've seen just about everything. I've seen Tom Ross win back-to-back Invitationals. I've seen Team Sealed events won by the Peach Garden Oath. Heck, I've even seen Reid Duke lose a feature match before! One thing I've never seen? Total team dominance. Yet that's exactly what happened at #SCGINDY this past weekend. Jim Davis, Danny Jessup, and Kevin Jones are likely names you're familiar with if you watch the SCG Tour with regularity. Andrew Jessup and Pete Ingram? Not so much. But after watching the two good friends and teammates play one heck of a match in the finals of #SCGINDY, their names are two you had better get used to seeing. The five of them make up Team MetaGameGurus.com and since #SCGBALT, they've been cleaning up the SCG Tour. Davis won #SCGBALT with their metagame-warping take on Bant Company and with #GPCharlotte right around the corner, Ingram's win with Jeskai Control and Jessup's runner-up finish with G/U Infect will be setting the paces of the Modern metagame. Speaking of #GPCharlotte, that fantastic event is taking place this weekend! I'm excited to be in attendance playing some Magic for a change, so like you, I too will be preparing to play some Modern Magic. I'm also pumped to meet Guest of Honor, Rob Alexander, our featured cosplayer, Christine Sprankle, and see all that The Queen City has to offer this weekend. The question I'm trying to answer right now—play Jeskai Control or beat Jeskai Control? Thus far, that hasn't been an easy one to answer. Congrats once again to Pete Ingram, Andrew Jessup, and the rest of Team MetaGameGurus.com on an impressive performance at #SCGINDY! I look forward to seeing many of you at #GPCharlotte! — Cedric Phillips, Media Manager @CedricAPhillips | |  | The Good Advice Players Just Don't Get Enough Of Mark's been on a roll lately with his articles and this one about how to improve at Magic is no exception. Should a player stress over what they can and cannot control? Is there a ceiling to how good you can be at Magic? Mark answer those questions and many more with his usual charm. |  | Breaking Nahiri, The Harbinger Gerry took a trip out to Seattle for the Magic the Gathering Online Championships and came up just short of the title and an invite to the World Championships. Preparing for four formats is tough but there's one deck he knew he got right — Jeskai Control for Modern. Read on as Gerry explains why. | | | Check out the finals of #SCGINDY where Team MGG teammates clash to decide the champion. Which player will pick up their first Open win: Pete Ingram on Jeskai Control or Andrew Jessup on Infect? |  | | I wanted to breathe life into something new for #SCGINDY, but instead I took a new spin on something old to a Top 8 berth. Dredge was sweet, but I got crushed by too many copies of Rest in Peace on Magic Online last week for me continue playing the deck. Instead, I played a deck that mostly shrugs off graveyard hate that people bring in against it anyway, which is a much better position to be in. Delver was once a major villain, though I was surprised at just how many people have contacted me saying how happy they were to see the formerly maligned one-drop return to the spotlight. I had a great tournament in Indianapolis, and with a huge weekend for Modern coming up I recommend the deck for the Grixis mages of the world. I unfortunately won't be able to attend #GPCharlotte hosted by StarCityGames.com, though I'd be delighted if somebody else carried the torch with my list. | | Terminate is great. Mana Leak is great. Lightning Bolt is great. Serum Visions is… mandatory… I've been getting some questions on some of the particulars, so I figured this would be a good place to relay some information on card choices. 
The deck is billed as a Delver deck, because let's face it, most of the games that you don't have to work for with this deck are on the back of the one mana 3/2 flyer. That said, Modern is flush with Lightning Bolts, Abrupt Decays, and Terminates. Delver's odds of surviving are much more concerning than his odds of flipping. What he does is gives you a realistic route to race against decks like Tron, Living End, Hexproof, and Infect. Delver's inclusion also enables you to run pretty lean on lands and still be able to play a proactive game plan while leaving up mana for counter/removal spells. This is simply not possible with Young Pyromancer, which is just as fragile and inefficient. Most of the games that I lost over the course of the tournament involved missing on my third land to interact in the way that I would like to, and Young Pyromancer makes you want to draw even more lands while also requiring that you cast spells for any meaningful payoff.  People seem to be quite skeptical of Spell Snare, but I cannot overstate the significance of trading up on mana with your counterspells—in particular when you're on the draw. Delver is a significantly more suspect card than Spell Snare, and I frequently eschew casting a Delver to leave up Snare. This gives you plenty of game against Tarmogoyf, and also has tons of utility in nearly every matchup. Tagging a Blighted Agent, Farseek, or even a Sylvan Scrying out of Tron wins a staggering number of games, and the card is clutch in any Snapcaster Mage mirror. I don't believe that many other players have adopted four in any archetype, though I stand by them and will continue to recommend them. 
I've gotten a number of questions about the 3-1 split with regard to Tasigur over Gurmag Angler, and while the Gurmangler is larger and not legendary, it comes with its own set of downsides. Specifically, a fetchland and a turn one Thought Scour enables a turn 2 Tasigur, while you have to work harder or wait longer for Gurmag Angler. The ability on Tasigur actually matters a lot as well. This isn't Legacy, and we can't Daze and Brainstorm away excess lands. Tasigur enables the deck to put those lands to work, and turns close games into runaways. 
Delver of Secrets is just bad against removal-heavy decks, especially when they have Electrolyze. I was boarding Delver out plenty before Ancestral Vision was unbanned, though my thoughts so far in the wake of the unbanning is that having your own Visions is the best way to keep up with opposing Ancestral Vision. Outside of playing against opposing Ancestral Vision the card is unnecessary, and I hate that it eats up four sideboard slots, though until I find something better, assuming there even is a better option, I will continue to run the Visions back. The deck requires some tight play, though more free wins are available than you'll get with Grixis Control, and with Delver providing a solid aggressive plan you have better game against nonsense like Tron. The combination of a fast clock and generic disruption sort of has the Force of Will effect in Legacy, where no matchup can realistically be unwinnable—though Lingering Souls is very rough. I've been playing Delver decks for years, and have kept up on Grixis Delver in Modern since the printing of Tasigur. This list has been a labor of love, and it would be amazing to see somebody crush GP Charlotte with the deck. — Ryan Overturf, @RyanOverdrive | | Another Open weekend, another new leader of the SCG Tour Player of the Year race. Despite having a rough time at the #SCGINDY Modern Open, Andrew Tenjum spiked the Standard Classic to jump into the lead in the POY race. Tenjum vaulted over Jeff Hoogland as well as Joe Lossett, who had claimed the lead one week after his runner-up finish at the #SCGMKE Modern Open. Hoogland climbed past Lossett with a Top-32 finish in Indianapolis while the Miracle Man finished 34th, for two fewer points. Tenjum is in the lead for the first time this year, though Hoogland is only a point behind from reclaiming the position he has occupied for the majority of 2016. Pete Ingram's #SCGINDY Modern Open win boosted him into the Top 32 of the POY race and second place in the Season Two race, combining his points from the win with his Top-32 finish in the Columbus Invitational. Ingram joins the rest of Team MetaGameGurus.com in the Top 32, with Andrew Jessup and Jim Davis in the Top 16. |  | | Ingram is slotted at 24th, while his teammates, Kevin Jones and Danny Jessup, follow in 25th and 26th respectively. Their movement up the leaderboard is no surprise—Team MGG dominated #SCGINDY, with Ingram defeating Andrew Jessup in the finals of the Open and Davis making the Top 8 of the Legacy Classic. Josh Dickerson continued his climb on both the POY and Season Two leaderboards this past weekend, using a runner-up finish in the Standard Classic to move up to ninth in the yearlong race and fifth in the Season Two race. Dickerson has been crushing this season, winning the Standard Open in Columbus, taking 35th in the Modern Open in Milwaukee, and taking second in the Standard Classic in Indianapolis. If Dickerson continues his current streak, he will be a Players' Championship competitor in no time. The SCG Tour takes a break this weekend as StarCityGames.com plays host to Grand Prix Charlotte. The SCG Tour returns June 4 for a Standard Open in Atlanta. Watch as the race for Player of the Year continues at twitch.tv/scglive! |  |   If you would like to unsubscribe and stop receiving these emails please click here. |
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