Week one of the Throne of Eldraine split is off to a hot start with Bant Golos dominating the round-robin matches in the Sapphire Division.
The Throne of Eldraine (ELD) split kicked off this week featuring the Sapphire Division. Reid Duke’s impressive GW Adventure deck was getting all the hype (which it lived up to). But it is now being overshadowed by Rei Sato’s Bant Golos deck, as he heads into the top-four playoffs as the number one seed.
Sitting in the number two seed for the playoffs is Jessica Estephan with her Bant Food deck. After being added late to the MPL this season and having a rough start, Estephan is back in at the top and showing off her skills.
The lower bracket of the playoffs consists of Duke in the third seat with his GW Adventure and Piotr ‘kanister’ Głogowski sitting in fourth with his Golgari Adventure deck.
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Sato will have his hands full in round one, facing off against Estephan and the star of the ELD set, Oko, Thief of Crowns. Sato has a dominating trio in the Bant Golos deck starring Hydroid Krasis, Beanstalk Giant, and Golos, Tireless Pilgrim. All three, however, run the risk of being turned into 3/3 Elk tokens by Oko, though.
The odds might be in Estephan’s favor with her four copies of Hydroid Krasis and Teferi, Time Raveler, but Sato also has two Krasis’ and two copies of Agent of Treachery.
In the lower bracket, the action will likely be equally intense as Duke’s GW Adventure goes up against Kannister’s Golgari Adventure. Duke is running a strong go-wide offense with Faerie Guidemother to provide flying to the midrange cards such as Lovestruck Beast and Venerated Loxodon.
Duke also has four copies of March of the Multitudes, two copies of Tristani Discordant, and one Unbreakable Formation.
Kannister, on the other hand, is all about disruption, power, and removal. Having three copies of Rankle, Master of Pranks and four Murderous Riders, Reid might not be able to go as wide as he needs to.
In addition, Kannister’s Golgari Adventure deck has four copies of Questing Beast and Lovestruck Beast for extra power. All together Kannister has 10 removal spells, not including Massacre Girl and Foulmire Knight.
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The Sapphire Division playoffs will air on MTG Twitch TV this Saturday (Sept. 6) via MTG Arena at 2pm CT.
