Welcome back, Modern Pro Tour! After an exciting Day 1 in Bilbao, Spain, the story of Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan is that the Modern format is extremely aggressive.
Though four of the top five Modern decks at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan were aggressive decks, UW or Jeskai control turned out to be the most popular individual archetype, mostly due to it’s good matchup against aggressive decks. All in all, UW Control made up 10% of the metagame and the Modern rounds actually started with a UW mirror, featuring Raphael Levy on straight UW and Paulo Vitor Dama da Rosa on Jeskai. The two played an epic 50-minute Game 1 that was decided on Turn 4 of turns with Levy targeting Dama da Rosa with a lethal Ancestral Vision.
Right on UW Control’s heels at 9.3% of the field each were Death’s Shadow Aggro and 5-Color Humans, followed by Affinity at 8% and Burn at 7.3%. Somewhat surprisingly, only 1.9% of the field, or nine players, chose to play Lantern Control.
After Day 1, Affinity is at the top of the leaderboard in the hands of Adriano Mascoto, who is the lone undefeated player. Pro Tour Aether Revolt champion Lucas Esper Berthoud is in second at 7-0-1 with his 5-Color Humans deck. Other notable players include Javier Dominguez, Paul Rietzl, Josh Stern, Reid Duke, and Gerry Thompson, who are all at 7-1.
Day 2 of Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan starts Saturday at 3am Eastern on twitch.tv/magic.
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