Vinnie Fino won the Regional Championship at SCG CON Houston with Jeskai Blink on Sunday.
Creatures (19)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (24)
The sentiment this weekend from top players was “if you aren’t playing Amulet Titan, you better be playing Quantum Riddler” and Fino did exactly that. The powerful mythic rare from Edge of Eternities dazzled for many, but no one did it better than Fino, who was the first person to lock up a Top 8 slot, secured the No. 1 seed, and proceeded to crush all in his path behind the card-advantage Quantum Riddler supplied.
Amulet Titan was the most-played deck in the field of 1,045 and put one player in the Top 8, but Fino and Jesse Hampton showed off the power of Jeskai Blink, the top-preforming archetype on the weekend that had a Day 2 conversion rate of 50 percent and put two players in the elimination rounds.
Fino dispatched Hampton in two quick games in the quarterfinals, then had just enough disruption and pressure to defeat Collins Mullen, on Amulet Titan, in the semifinals to lock up his World Championship qualification that joined his Pro Tour invite from making Top 8. Team Scrapheap member and friend, John Puglisi Clark, waited in the finals after carving up the other side of the bracket with Boros Energy.
Quantum Riddler delivered in the first game, providing enough value for Fino to overpower the smaller creatures from Boros Energy. Puglisi Clark stole the second game with a Turn-2 Blood Moon that locked Fino out from playing almost any spells, setting up a deciding third game.
Creatures (26)
Lands (22)
The two traded resources in the early game, but Quantum Riddler showed up again and gave Fino just the boost to pull ahead. Then, combined with a flipped Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, Fino made copies of the flying Sphinx to close out the tournament in magnificent fashion.
On top of the Pro Tour and World Championship invites, Fino also walked away with $10,000 a trophy and the title of Regional Champion. Puglisi Clark will join him at the PT and Worlds while also taking home $5,000.
Amulet Titan had its strongest weekend since the deck’s creation of the format, being the most played individual deck at 121 copies. While all Blink variants combine for a higher number, Esper Blink was the most-played Blink deck at 69 copies. Rounding out the Top 5 archetypes were Esper Goryo’s, Izzet Prowess, and Boros Energy.
Day 2 consisted of 246 players that reached 18 match points on Day 1. See how the archetypes converted below.
View the Top 8 decklists from the Regional Championship. For all the decklists from the event and final standings check out the Melee page for the tournament.
Regional Championship Houston Top 8 from left: Collins Mullen, Vinnie Fino, Jesse Hampton, John Puglisi Clark, Gage Hergert, Sam Clayton, Andrew Debevoise, and Noe Leal Jr.
SCG CON will be back in action next in Baltimore on 24-26.
