The recently concluded Magic Arena Players Tour Top 8 held last night until this Sunday morning was topped by probably what the people expected, Temur Reclamation. While this version is four-color because of White splash for Teferi to deal with the mirror match, it was interesting to see that his Finals matchup is one deck that sort-of went below the line.

The deck is Mono Black Aggro and the list is slightly adjusted for this tournament metagame. This was played by Riku Kumagai and check out the decklist below.

25 LANDS
4 Castle Locthwain
2 Mobilized District
19 Swamp

28 CREATURES
2 Blacklance Paragon
4 Gutterbones
4 Hunted Nightmare
4 Kitesail Freebooter
4 Knight of the Ebon Legion
1 Murderous Rider
3 Rankle, Master of Pranks
4 Spawn of Mayhem
2 Tymaret, Chosen from Death

7 INSTANTS and SORC.
3 Duress
4 Heartless Act

SIDEBOARD
3 Agonizing Remorse
4 Cry of the Carnarium
3 Grasp of Darkness
1 Kaervek, the Spiteful
1 Murderous Rider
3 Noxious Grasp

Reference:
https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=26617&d=405545&f=ST

I remembered back when I was playing Humans in Modern, the Kitesail Freebooter was very essential in knowing the opponent’s game plan aside from temporarily taking their best noncreature nonland out. That plus the copy effect of Phantasmal Image basically cuts them off while you proceed to aggro then with cheap creatures.

This is the same strategy with the Mono Black Aggro deck. This supports the maindeck Duress which I said that the deck’s slight adjustment which is also does not affect the mana curve as it is only for one Black mana.

Another thing I noticed in the creature lineup is the playset of Hunted Nightmare. It replaced the slot that for Rotting Regisaur and though it is at a lesser power, it cope up with the Menace ability and also that the drawback of Deathtouch counter is not that relevant given that most decks in the tournament only has three to four creatures in their decks.

Here below are a few video clips of their matchups during the Top 8.

Our first #PTFinals Quarterfinal is done, with @seminiki's Mono-Black Aggro running right over @raphlevymtg's team of Teferis and Yorions.

But Levy isn't out, he's just into the lower bracket! pic.twitter.com/cdSwgfOZSB

— Magic Esports (@MagicEsports) August 1, 2020

With a Heartless Act, @seminiki is up a match in the #PTFinals Grand Finals against @Lava_Axe.

I's a best-of-three matches format, so don't count Prinz out yet. Watch live at https://t.co/GF4H5so3jq pic.twitter.com/fmGII1zJQy

— Magic Esports (@MagicEsports) August 1, 2020

Aggressive-wise, this list is still consistent with the most one-drops are still included. I might try this again on the local tournament while the Nightmares are still pretty cheap at currently less than a dollar.

That is about for this deck tech highlight. Until the next blog post.