Over 60 percent of the field at Magic: The Gathering’s Mythic Championship VI is playing some form of a Food deck, but it’s the sacrificial archetype that is raking in the wins.
Everyone knew Oko, Thief of Crowns and Food decks were going to be a metagame nightmare at Mythic Championship VI. In an effort to thwart Oko, players have been playtesting the Cauldron Familiar and Witch’s Oven combo in a variety of archetypes since the ban on Field of the Dead.
The combo was typically found in Mono-Black, Rakdos, and most recently Jund. But the win percentage was still low when paired against a variety of Food decks. There’s an old saying, “if you can’t beat them, join them.” And that’s exactly what Magic pro player Sam Sherman and his playtesting team did in their own unique way.
Sultai Sacrifice mashes together the best of two archetypes, Food and Sacrifice. On the Food side, there is the infamous Gilded Goose and Oko, Thief of Crowns combo. These two cards generate Food tokens relentlessly while controlling the battlefield’s tempo in conjunction with Wicked Wolf.
Combined together with the cat and oven combo, in conjunction with Trail of Crumbs, and the deck becomes more powerful than the other Food shells. Trail of Crumbs allows a player to search the top two cards of their library when a Food token is sacrificed. And with Cauldron Familiar/Witch’s Oven on the battlefield, a Food token is always getting sacced.
Increasing the tempo of the deck through Trail of Crumbs allows a player to find the answers they need against other Food decks quickly. These include cards like Massacre Girl, Vraska, Golgari Queen, and Noxious Grasp. With four copies of Once Upon a Time in the deck, in conjunction with Trail of Crumbs, finding the cards one needs is easy and extremely efficient against Sultai Food decks.
Of all the different Food archetypes at Mythic Championship VI, Sultai Sacrifice recorded a 73 percent win rate in the day one Standard Constructed match rounds. It was the highest win percentage of all the decks being played at MCVI, mostly because 37 percent of the field is playing Sultai Food.
“We thought the metagame would be a lot of Sultai Food, and this is the best against that deck,” said Sam Sherman to Wizards of the Coast in a post-game interview. “It beats what they’re trying to do.”
With over 500 of the best Magic players in the world attending Mythic Championship VI, only six are playing Sultai Sacrifice. And Sherman is leading the pack with a 7-1 record heading into day two. If he can pull out a 2-1 record in the ELD Limited Draft rounds and only take one loss during the Standard Constructed matches, Sherman is all but guaranteed a seat in the top eight.
Related: Breaking down the Magic: The Gathering Mythic Championship VI Food metagame
Watch Sherman and his Sultai Sacrifice deck at Magic’s Mythic Championship VI, with the day two shenanigans starting at 8am CT today.
