The Modern metagame was absolutely turned on its head after the release of Magic: The Gathering Modern Horizons. Hogaak Bridgevine took the meta by storm, forcing people to run tons of graveyard hate and resulting in the ban of Bridge from Below. After the ban, some hoped that the Hogaak menace would be over. It seems that belief was incorrect. Check out this infographic from the Mythic Championship IV in Barcelona.
Mythic Championship IV metagame
Leyline vs. Looting
First and foremost, we see Leyline of the Void is the most played card at Mythic Championship IV. If you’re curious as to why that is, just look at the #2 most played card: Faithless Looting. Looting has been at the center of debate in the MTG community for a while now because of how well it facilitates aggressive graveyard decks. Dredge, Izzet Phoenix, Mono-Red Phoenix, and now Hogaak all use Faithless Looting to fill their graveyards with free recursive threats. These decks (primarily Hogaak) are very powerful and very popular, so it’s no wonder that their main card draw spell (Looting) and their main counter (Leyline) are the top 2 most played cards at this event.
Thoughtseize and Lightning Bolt
We have our normal high-count cards in Thoughtseize and Lightning Bolt. A wide variety of decks run both these cards so it’s no surprise to see them up there.
Hogaak
Every other card in that metagame snapshot from Barcelona is in the Hogaak deck almost exclusively (Assassin’s Trophy is also in Jund and some Snow lists). The deck has been hyped on Twitter by lots of pros over the last week and is very popular. At the Mythic Championship, Hogaak decks are boasting a 21.4 percent of the metagame! With the deck being more than a fifth of the entire metagame, it’s no wonder that they made a huge portion of this snapshot.
Metagame percentages
What to expect
It should be no surprise if Hogaak decks overtake the top 8 of this Mythic Championship IV in Barcelona. If we see 2-3 copies in the top 8, it would kind of make sense given the numbers above. Expect a lot of people calling for a Hogaak ban, a Faithless Looting ban, and just in general not being happy that the Modern format has become so reliant on Leyline of the Void to keep Hogaak in check.
You can watch the Mythic Championship on the official Magic Twitch channel.
