Magic: The Gathering Ironworks Combo Surprises in Grand Prix Oakland’s Top 8

Krak-Clan Ironworks dominated the Top 8 at Grand Prix Oakland yesterday! KCI managed to secure 4 of the Top 8 decks at the tournament. Here are the Top 8 decks:

1st Place - Izzet Phoenix by Eli Kassis
2nd Place - Ironworks Combo by Hunter Cochran
3rd Place - Azorious Control by Alex Olsen
4th Place - Ironworks Combo by Matt Nass
5th Place - TitanShift by Marshall Jankovsky
6th Place - Hardened Scales by Garth Dracoulis
7th Place - Ironworks Combo by Sam Black
8th Place - Ironworks Combo by Steven Haker

Ironworks combo ended up losing in the finals to Izzet Phoenix, but we didn't get to see a full match. The Ironworks player conceded the match after only 1 game in order to catch an airplane flight on time (read more here). It's not surprising to see Ironworks in the Top 8, but it's unusual to see so many copies of one deck in a format as diverse as Modern.

Perhaps Ironworks success at GP Oakland shouldn't come as a surprise. During GP Atlanta, the MTG community came together to report wins/losses of matches to analyze the Modern metagame (click here to view). At the time of that survey, KCI was more of a fringe combo deck, seeing only 1-2% of the meta according to sites like MTGGoldfish.com. With 98 matches recorded, KCI had the highest reported win rate at GP Atlanta with a 59.18% win percentage. After this data was shared, more pro players have started piloting KCI decks at large events. Now, just two months after GP Atlanta, MTGGoldfish lists Ironworks as the 2nd most popular deck in Modern (Izzet Phoenix has first).

It's clear that KCI isn't in the shadows anymore. Despite being a more difficult deck to pilot, players have become willing to learn its intricacies in order to take advantage of a supposed higher win rate. You can watch a replay of Grand Prix Oakland Day 2 on Twitchhere.