Twelve Thoughts on Premodern's Largest Event Yet
PLUS: The meta and win rates for every deck at Lobstercon and making tournament flyers in Google Docs
Biggest Premodern event yet… wow. Well done to the tournament organizers and players for making the event a special one, even for someone like me who unfortunately wasn’t able to attend. Don’t feel too bad for me though, I was posting in the Wild Speculations thread of the Premodern Discord while enjoying a tropical cocktail on a beach a few days prior. This issue focuses on Lobstercon but there are a ton of great issues coming up, so please subscribe and share with your friends. Thank you and enjoy!
Lobstercon 2025
The North American Premodern Championship took place this past Saturday at Lobstercon in Boston with 280 players — a new record! This was the first year where the event was run by The Duress Crew and they absolutely executed with perfection. Congratulations to the whole team on a hugely successful event! If you want to catch the replay of the main event, check out their Twitch channel (and subscribe, if you can).
The Top 8 of the NA Champs
The winner of the event is none other than Rich Shay, who had previously been runner-up in 2022, piloting GW Enchantress. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, Rich also won the Old School portion of Lobstercon last year, meaning he is the reigning Premodern and Old School champion of Lobstercon! A real icon of the format. Here’s the full Top 8:
GW Enchantress by Rich Shay — A heavy favorite going into the event, Rich had seen a lot of success with Replenish leading up to the event but opted for Enchantress instead. In the Premodern Discord, he stated his reasoning that 1) Replenish was top of mind for many players (e.g., red decks loading up on Tormod’s Crypt and Stiflenought preparing with Brain Freeze and Parallax Tide), 2) he couldn’t convert the Burn and Stiflenought matchups to be any better than even at best, and 3) he used Enchantress in the Spring Fling and found the deck powerful and fun. Of note in his list, two Gaea’s Blessing in the sideboard to combat the Brain Freeze plan out of Stiflenought. He’s slated to have an interview on The Hardcast podcast, so keep your eyes open!
Mono U Stiflenought by Justin Provencal — Justin’s list packs four Accumulated Knowledge in the main at the expense of one Gush, Daze, Opt, and Impulse. The sideboard is fairly clean with no Dominate or Brain Freeze, opting for just the Parallax Tide plan.
Elves by Jens “Slayjay” Jaeger — A community legend and runner-up to Rich Shay in last year’s Old School championship, Jens’s commitment to traveling across an ocean to play in Lobstercon is admirable. Jens’s list uses Rishadan Port and Tangle Wire in the main with Winter Orbs in the side, providing a stronger prison angle than many contemporary Elves lists.
UW Tide Control by Joshua Kuchinskas — Just a real elegant list. I like control lists like this which have a nice balance of modern Tide elements while still retaining parts of classic UW Landstill lists. Do people still know how to play against a Standstill? Or is that lost knowledge? I’ve been kind of high on the card recently…
Devourer Combo by Kinan Abouzelam — One of the two Devourer (AKA Onigiri Shoot) decks in the event, Kinan’s opts for the Oath of Druids plan — though he says it didn’t trigger a single time. What I love about this build is how resilient it is to counter magic with four Defense Grid, four Xantid Swarm, and four Pyroblast across the 75. The Phyrexian Processor in the sideboard is a nice little twist too. Don’t forget to check out Kinan’s tournament report!
Devourer Combo by Nate Gates — The second Devourer deck (both made Top 8) by Nate looks relatively traditional until you spot the three Ancestral Knowledge, which would typically be a card like Impulse. In a rather clever choice, Ancestral Knowledge is basically a super Impulse, digging far deeper and removing irrelevant cards. Devourer often is looking for the last piece, whether to combo off, remove hate cards, or provide protection and being able to filter out your lands, mana rocks, and duplicate combo pieces is huge. What I like about Ancestral Knowledge here is that Devourer plays cards like Mind Stone and Chromatic Sphere, letting you draw the card you stack to the top the same turn.
Angry Hermit by Chris Hall — Angry Hermit, piloted by Flint Espil, famously took down in the 2022 North American Championship and it’s back on the stage once again. Amazingly, the core remains remarkably similar, with an Elvish Spirit Guide and a Stifle swapped for two additional Vision Charms as the only changes in the main. Chris makes some nice changes in the sideboard, running five Pyroblast effects to address the expected meta. For more on his tournament, read Chris’s great report.
GW Enchantress by Mike Packer — The second Enchantress deck to make the Top 8, is another player like Rich Shay who had seen lots of success with Replenish but opted to for Enchantress. Given that Replenish is one of Enchantress’s worst matchups, it’s probably a nice little bonus to have two great Replenish players sidelining the deck! Mike put in a ton of work into Enchantress in preparation for Lobstercon and I can’t really add on anything other than what he already wrote about in his report. I think my favorite difference between Mike’s deck and Rich’s deck is how they approached the anti-blue sideboard with Orim’s Chant and Abeyance in the former and Xantid Swarm and Carpet of Flowers in the latter. Will be curious to see which, if any, is proven to be stronger in the coming weeks.
The Meta
The Duress Crew kindly provided links to all the deck lists, standings, and pairings to the community so that data heads like myself could pore over them. I went through every single deck list in the main event (280 players) and the side event (188 players) to categorize each deck and then used the records before Top 8 to determine each deck’s win rate. Here are the results for decks with at least three appearances across the two events:
The Takeaways
In no particular order, here are my reactions to the results, meta, and win rates…
Stiflenought Stifled — Stiflenought came into the event as the big bad and people were prepared. Anecdotally, while I was crawling through each of the deck lists, I saw a few decks with anti-Stiflenought cards in the main that would have usually been in the side. Not a significant amount of decks did this, but some did. With a perfect 50% win rate across both days, calls for ban action on Stiflenought appear to be quelled for now, at least at the highest level of tournament gameplay.
Stiflenought is the Most Played Deck — Stiflenought’s meta share of 11.8% in the main event was the highest of any deck. Last year, Stiflenought was 12.7% of the meta, meaning despite being viewed as the top deck, representation declined as players likely felt that a lot of hate was heading its way.
The Fall of Burn — Long viewed as the most common deck you would see at any event, Burn only made up 5.2% of the main event this year, down from 14.3% in 2024. Lots has already been said about Burn’s troubles (namely unfavorable matchup against Stiflenought), but the splitting of Lobstercon this year into separate Premodern and Old School weekends perhaps played a part as there were fewer “format tourists” who often pick up Burn as an affordable and strong option. That said, Burn’s win rate was respectable and about in line with historical results, so I wouldn’t expect the deck to decline in popularity.
Terrageddon the Bully — Terrageddon had rather stark differences in win rates between the main event (43.6%) and the side event (63.4%), perhaps supporting Lanny Huang’s theory that the deck just beats up on weaker decks but isn’t powerful enough to hang with the big boys.
Is the Side Event Still for Brewers and Rogue Decks — Despite the point above, it does seem like this year’s side event featured just as many top tier decks as the main event. Previously, the side event had been held the day after the main event, meaning players often relaxed a bit and played rogue or more “fun” decks. This year the side event was before the main event, prompting some to wonder if players would use the event to practice their main event decks. Based on a rough estimate using the most popular 14 deck archetypes in 2024 and in 2025, we can see that 2024’s side event featured more decks outside the top 14 while 2025’s events were roughly in line. This isn’t a perfect measure, of course, but directionally shows a vibe shift (note: Stiflenought was a greater share of the meta in the side event at 12.6% than it was in the main event at 11.8%).
Pushing Black… Goblin Style — Goblins actually saw a sizable increase in meta share this year, up to 8.1% in the main event from 5.7% last year. The last few months has seen a resurgence in the black splash of Goblins and although the green splash was more common (24 copies of green over the two events, 11 copies of black), the black splash had a 53.8% win rate while green had just 48.6%. Meanwhile, the three copies of white splash had a 52.1% win rate…
Not Too Hot, Not Too Cold — Decks that were among the 6th to 11th most played over the two days had pretty good win rates (Burn, Elves, Tide Control, Terra Oath, Enchantress, and Replenish), while decks that were among the most played to 5th and then 12th to 20th most played had relatively weak win rates. These decks seemed to be in the right spot of powerful and tuned but not at the forefront of people’s attention to hate out.
My Pre-Lobsteron Predictions — In the section about “under-the-radar decks or strategies” in my pre-Lobstercon prediction newsletter, I mentioned RB Goblins (53.8% win rate over the two days), Elves (56.3%), Terra Oath (60.2%), Enchantress (62.8%), and Full English Breakfast (52.4%) as my top picks — not bad! I also had another section on more surprising picks… which I was not as successful at: Ux Control (45.7%), Stasis (50.7%), Tireless Tribe (53.6%), and Gro-A-Tog (47.4%).
No One Predicted Devourer… Except One Person — Devourer Combo surprised people by converting both pilots to the Top 8 of the main event. The deck remains a powerful choice that people have slept on for a while now, despite placing Top 8 at Lobstercon a few years ago. For a while, the deck was getting hit by a lot of hate while Parfait was a top deck (Null Rod and more artifact hate) and Elves was more top of mind (Engineered Plague). However, times change… and people underestimate how fast Devourer can combo off or how to interact with it (Engineered Plague can hit Devourer and cause it to die instantly, giving no time for pump effects). But you know who wasn’t surprised to see Devourer on top? Check out the Premodern Roundtable to see a familiar name…
High on Hoath — The breakout deck in my mind isn’t Enchantress or Devourer… it’s Lan D. Hoath (Replenish Oath), which saw three players pilot the deck in the main event with a combined 70.4% win rate. The deck was also seen in round four with Anthony Ho battling against Brian Selden on UW Landstill. If you like grindy control games, this one is a treat.
Survival Rock Remains a Tantalizing Mystery — One of the breakout decks of the last year or so, Survival Rock was the fourth most played deck this year (classic The Rock was 2.0% of the meta in 2024’s main event). The results are a mixed bag with a respectable 52.1% win rate in the side event but only 45.7% in the main. Nine rounds of a Survival deck is something I think few pilots have the endurance for though…
What to Do About Black Decks — When looking at black, black adjacent, and black-ish decks, we see a mixed bag with some bright spots. Mono Black Clerics has been on my radar for a while (psst… I’m doing a deep-dive with interviews and deck tech on it in a future newsletter) and saw fairly solid results. The “Mono Black” deck was a midrange deck played by the same player both days, if I recall (sorry, spicerack is down right now). Other than those two, Dance Academy, and Iggy Pop, the rest of the decks had somewhat inconsistent results, an unfortunate trademark of many black decks.
Do I think Martin Berlin will take any sort of unban action following these results? I have no idea. But I do feel like this was one test to see if Premodern could “fix black” on its own and it didn’t necessarily pass — though from a meta share perspective, depending on what you classify as a black deck, about 19.9% meta share is not bad if you include all the below decks.
The Bonus Thoughts
NYC Almost-Dominance — The NYC crew took home the trophies in the first three events of the week, with Bill Ellis winning Thursday’s event at Pandemonium with RG Terra Oath, SWB winning Friday’s Unchained event with Force of Will Mono U Stiflenought, and James Smits winning Friday’s event with RB Goblins. We didn’t have any Top 16 representation in the main event on Saturday though!
Top 8 Draft — I gotta thank Michael Phillips for drafting me in the I’ve Got ?????’s draft for the North American Premodern Championship. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend this year but I appreciate his support! Last year, Tom Metelsky drafted me… but I was unable to attend as well. 2026 will be my year!
Bigger and Bigger — This year’s main event had 280 players. Last year was 238. The years before that, 186 and 111. There was some discussion about how grueling the one day main event was (nine rounds plus a Top 8) and that in the future the event may be split across two days. Space constraints are another issue with tickets selling out within hours. I’ll be curious how The Duress Crew and the Lobstercon organizers proceed for the year ahead — but I’m thankful for their efforts in supporting the Premodern community in this huge task!
Unchained — The Unchained event was streamed on Friday and featured many innovative brews. The finals featured a Force of Will Mono U Stiflenought mirror while the rest of the Top 8 included Entomb Reanimator, two Necropotence Pit Rack, Force of Will UB Stiflenought, Force of Will Stasis, and Mana Vault Devourer Combo. Note that the event did not allow proxies, which may explain the lack of Tolarian Academy decks! You can check out the rest of the deck lists here. Here’s the meta breakdown of which banned cards were played:
Crew Love — I love seeing all the crews express their identity in a healthy and community-building way. I saw a ton of pictures of branded clothing and neat giveaways. This kind of thing really amps up the Lobstercon event as a community moment above just a big tournament. The NYC crew is already brainstorming more apparel and accessories for the coming year! And yes, I am still in the process of building the Premodern crew map… maybe next newsletter.
Some Highlight Brews — Gotta shout out Andrew Walker’s Thorn Elemental Oath deck, Nick Moutinho’s Red Aggro deck that was classified simply as “Burn”, and Erik Higbie’s unique take on Raging Glaciers. I went through every single deck list and these were some of my favorites! Also shoutout to Miguel Lugo’s Domain Control deck and Ryan Grodzinski’s Battle of Wits deck (again, sorry spicerack is down right now or I’d link it directly).
The Lobstercon Content
🦞💀 Hardcast has a quick podcast episode following Lobstercon with thanks and upcoming events to look out for
🍙🔫 Kinan Abouzelam, who made Top 8 of the main event with Devourer Combo, wrote a tournament report on The Well of Knowledge featuring matchups and reflections on the deck
😠🧙♂️ Chris Hall, who made Top 8 of the main event with Angry Hermit, wrote a tournament report, including sideboard choices made and deck changes for the future
🧙♀️🌱 Mike Packer, who made Top 8 of the main event with Enchantress, wrote a tournament report with a background on the tweaks made to the deck for the event
🎥🦞 Zac Clark and Phil Blechman discuss on Eternal Durdles why Lobstercon is quite possibly the best event in Magic
🚗🦞 Lanny Huang is joined by Bill Ellis and Andy Levine on Spike Colony as they reflect on their Lobstercon while driving back to New York City
⚖️🌊 Zac Clark recaps his Lobstercon run with Stasis and Mono U Tide
🐉🧝 Ty Thomason has a nice tournament report on his blog covering Draco Blast in the Unchained event and Elves in the main event. Also, more Premodern players should have blogs (or even better, Substacks).
5️⃣🎴 Philip “Flippi” Böhm reviews his Lobstercon experience, playing Nefarious Lich Combo in the side event and going 7-2 in the main event with, you guessed it, UW Flippi
🦐🥣 SamuraiFunn wrote two tournament reports, one about his 2nd place finish with Mono U Stiflenought at Thursday’s Lobstercon pregame event at Pandemonium and another about their 16th place finish with Survival Cheerios (!!) in Friday’s vanilla Premodern side event
⚖️🤍 David Gleicher recaps his time playing Balance in the Unchained event and Rebels/White Weenie in the main event
Making Flyers in Google Docs…
Additional details for the Sacred Torch Showdown in New York City on July 19 have been revealed (and more surprises will be announced too)! We’ve got 59 signups so far and if you have any questions about the event, definitely reach out. Registration is here!
Content
Read
🐐🏰 Philip “Flippi” Böhm organized a massive 104-player, two-day Premodern event, Grand Prix Frankfurt, and wrote a tournament organizer’s report for us to enjoy. A true legend of the Premodern community!
Listen
👶🎙️ Chris Budesheim joins The Monster of the Week podcast to discuss playing at Grand Prix Frankfurt
Watch
🐂💫 Lannynyny brewed up a Bant Survival deck with Meddling Mages and Stampeding Wildebeests! He also took a crack at Attunement-less Replenish with some fresh technology in its place.
🥦🥣 I Play Magic has a deck tech on Broccoli Soup
🐜⛈️ Combo enthusiast TonyScapone plays Iggy Pop
Great writeup, Phil—thanks for all you do
Ok, First question, Stiflenought: 50% win rate (only in this tournament, last EU gp he came first and second in the Swiss round and top 8 also) still Place second and top tier deck like enchantress played something like 12 cards SB? Is it fair sacrificed main and SB cards only to play even against Dreadnaught?