Just over 4,300 players showed up to battle in Richmond. Fresh off of a weekend of a Modern Pro Tour in Barcelona, there was a lot of excitement about how the metagame would shape up in Richmond. Would we see continued domination of Splinter Twin and Birthing Pod strategies? Or would the Wild Nacatl and Cryptic Command decks find a way to adapt and attack the unfair decks of the format?

After fifteen rounds and no less than 18 players qualified for the Pro Tour, it turns out that Birthing Pod and Cranial Plating are both pretty good cards. Various Pod strategies accounted for a full five slots of the Top 8, joined by two Affinity decks and one Splinter Twin deck.

The big names for this Top 8 included Luis Scott-Vargas, Scott McClain, Jamie Parke, and Ben Friedman, all of whom were knocked out of contention in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, we saw a Birthing Pod mirror match between Oscar Jones with Melira, Sylvok Outcast and Brian Liu with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker on one side of the bracket and an Affinity mirror between Vipin Chackonal and Michael Sigrist.

In the end, it was Brian Liu and Vipin Chackonal who faced off in the finals, and Brian Liu managed to use a combination of Restoration Angels, Kitchen Finks, and Qasali Pridemages to keep the artifact aggression under control until he could piece together his combo.

Congratulations to Brian Liu, champion of Grand Prix Richmond!