MPL/Rivals November Zendikar Rising League Weekend – Results and Standings

2020-2021 Magic Pro League season continued with a second weekend of competitive play – November Zendikar League Weekend. MPL players and Rivals League players each was scheduled to play 12 Standard best-of-three matches over the course of Saturday and Sunday within their respective leagues. In this article, you can find results and stats from the event (thanks to Twitter user Ball Lightning who provided source info).

MPL/Rivals 2020-21 Format Refresher: MPL and Rivals League play is divided into 3 splits, each related to the latest Magic set. The current one – Zendikar Rising split – consists of two League Weekends (in October and November) and a League Championship (in December). By winning matches at League Weekends and scoring high finishes in League Championships, players earn points that contribute to their final league standings. At the end of the season, 8 of the worst-performed MPL players are relegated to the Rivals League, and 12 worst-performed Rivals are knocked out of the Rivals League.

There’s also an end-of-the-season Gauntlet system, through which some additional promotion/relegation slots in MPL and Rivals League will be determined. There will be an MPL Gauntlet, Rivals Gauntlet, and a Challenger Gauntlet in 2021 that will conclude the 2020-21 season. To learn more about the 2020-21 Magic Pro League Season, check out this official explainer piece.

Also feel free to catch-up on the previous MPL/Rivals event:

• October League Weekend decklists
• October League Weekend results and standings

---

MPL Standings after November Zendikar League Weekend

Standings	Name	Deck	Points*	Points Total*
1	Rei Sato	Gruul Adventures	4	15
2	Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa	Dimir Rogues	6	15
3	Gabriel Nassif	Gruul Adventures	6	14
4	Marcio Carvalho	Gruul Adventures	6	14
5	Reid Duke	Gruul Adventures	6	14
6	Carlos Romao	Dimir Rogues	5	13
7	Ondrej Strasky	Dimir Rogues	6	13
8	Raphael Levy	Mardu Doom Foretold	6	13
9	Andrea Mengucci	Esper Doom Foretold	7	13
10	Jean-Emmanuel Depraz	Esper Doom Foretold	7	13
11	Seth Manfield	Gruul Adventures	6	12
12	Ken Yukuhiro	Mono Green Food	8	12
13	Autumn Burchett	Esper Doom Foretold	4	11
14	Martin Juza	Gruul Adventures	5	11
15	Brad Nelson	Gruul Adventures	3	10
16	Javier Dominguez	Gruul Adventures	3	10
17	William Jensen	Gruul Adventures	5	10
18	Shahar Shenhar	Gruul Adventures	6	10
19	Chris Kvartek	Mono Green Food	7	10
20	Piotr Glogowski	Gruul Adventures	7	9
21	Lee Shi Tian	Dimir Rogues	3	8
22	Shota Yasooka	Jeskai Control	4	8
23	Brian Braun-Duin	Dimir Rogues	5	8
24	Andrew Cuneo	Izzet Control	4	7

* 1 win = 1 point. ‘Points’ column – points earned in November Zendikar League Weekend, ‘Total Points’ column – points earned throughout the entirety of the MPL 2020-21 season.

Based on end-of-season results: places 1-4 – MPL 2021/22 and World Championship qualification; 5-12 – MPL Gauntlet 2021; 13-16 – Rivals Gauntlet 2021; 17-24 – relegated to Rivals League 2021/22.

MPL Archetypes Performance in November Zendikar League Weekend

For the second week, almost half of the MPL field chose what was widely agreed upon as the best deck of the format – Gruul Adventures. This unusual aggro deck that has an impressive late-game resiliency thanks to The Great Henge and Vivien, Monsters’ Advocate hasn’t dominated the weekend though in terms of results, granting less than 5 points on average to its pilots.

After Azorius Blink flopped hard in October Zendikar Weekend, MPL players decided to stay clear of that Yorion variant. However, Doom Foretold performed very well in November – to the big degree, thanks to its favorable matchup against Gruul in particular. Creature-based strategies is what Doom Foretold is very well-equipped to deal with, so both Esper and Mardu builds of the deck showed up with a decent performance.

All in all, it was a very tight weekend of league play in MPL this time around – no player or archetype were really able to break the parity and run away too much from the peloton.

Archetype	Decks	Points Total	Points Average
Gruul Adventures	11	54	4,9
Dimir Rogues	5	25	5
Esper Doom	3	18	6
Mono Green Food	2	15	7,5
Mardu Doom	1	6	6
Jeskai Control	1	4	4
Izzet Control	1	4	4

---

Rivals League Standings after November Zendikar League Weekend

Standings	Name	Deck	Points*	Total Points*
1	Luis Scott-Vargas	Gruul Adventures	9	18
2	Matthew Sperling	Esper Doom Foretold	9	17
3	Bernardo Santos	Gruul Adventures	7	16
4	Stanislav Cifka	Esper Doom Foretold	7	16
5	Eli Kassis	Dimir Rogues	7	15
6	Jacob Wilson	Selesnya Blink	7	15
7	Kenji Egashira	Azorius Blink	7	15
8	Mike Sigrist	Gruul Adventures	7	15
9	Shintaro Ishimura	Temur Ramp	9	15
10	Christian Hauck	Gruul Adventures	7	14
11	Frederico Bastos	Dimir Rogues	7	14
12	Ivan Floch	Dimir Rogues	7	14
13	Emma Handy	Esper Doom Foretold	8	14
14	Zachary Khiine	Gruul Adventures	8	14
15	Chris Botelho	Mardu Doom Foretold	6	13
16	Thoralf Severin	Gruul Adventures	6	13
17	Yuta Takahashi	Gruul Adventures	7	13
18	Lucas Esper Berthoud	Gruul Adventures	8	13
19	Kenta Harane	Gruul Adventures	4	12
20	Miguel Simoes	Gruul Adventures	5	12
21	Simon Goertzen	Four Color Cycling	5	12
22	Yoshihiko Ikawa	Gruul Adventures	5	12
23	Jessica Estephan	Esper Doom Foretold	6	12
24	Luca Magni	Esper Doom Foretold	7	12
25	Theo Moutier	Esper Doom Foretold	7	12
26	Matthieu Avignon	Mono Green Food	8	12
27	Matthew Nass	Selesnya Blink	3	11
28	Riku Kumagai	Gruul Adventures	3	11
29	Greg Orange	Dimir Rogues	4	11
30	Ma Noah	Mardu Doom Foretold	6	11
31	Matias Leveratto	Gruul Adventures	6	11
32	Ally Warfield	Esper Doom Foretold	7	11
33	Ben Stark	Orzhov Doom Foretold	7	11
34	Kai Budde	Gruul Adventures	7	11
35	Louis-Samuel Deltour	Esper Doom Foretold	7	11
36	Corey Burkhart	Selesnya Blink	3	10
37	Grzegorz Kowalski	Gruul Adventures	6	10
38	Brent Vos	Mardu Doom Foretold	3	9
39	Alexander Hayne	Gruul Adventures	4	9
40	Luis Salvatto	Gruul Adventures	5	9
41	Eli Loveman	Esper Doom Foretold	4	8
42	Jakub Toth	Gruul Adventures	4	8
43	Joel Larsson	Gruul Adventures	4	8
44	Sebastian Pozzo	Gruul Adventures	4	8
45	Ryuzo Fujie	Mono Green Food	7	8
46	John Rolf	Esper Doom Foretold	4	7
47	Beatriz Grancha	Gruul Adventures	5	7
48	Austin Bursavich	Gruul Adventures	5	7

* 1 win = 1 point. ‘Points’ column – points earned in November Zendikar League Weekend, ‘Total Points’ column – points earned throughout the entirety of the MPL 2020-21 season.

Based on end-of-season results: places 1-4 – MPL 2021/22 and World Championship qualification; 5-20 – MPL Gauntlet 2021; 21-32 – Rivals Gauntlet 2021; 33-36 – Rivals League 2021/22; 37-48 – relegated to Challenger 2021/2022.

Rivals League Archetypes Performance in November Zendikar League Weekend

Just as it was the case in MPL, Rivals meta was overflowing with Gruul Adventures, while Azorius Blink has almost vanished from existence. The only player that dared to bring the UW Yorion deck was Kenji Egashira – and in fact he did put up a solid showing with it, earning 7 points throughout the weekend.

The most prominent meta shift of the League was also in the fact that as a response to Gruul we saw many players dropping Dimir Rogues in favor of Doom Foretold variants – be it either an Esper, Mardu or even straight-up Orzhov color combination. There was a total of 14 Doom decks, which is not that far behind Gruul’s share (22). Picking this control archetype has proved to be a wise choice as it earned its pilots 6,3 wins on average during the weekend.

Interestingly enough, there was 3 different archetypes that posted a 9-win result at the end of the weekend – Gruul Adventures by Luis Scott-Vargas, Esper Doom by Matt Sperling, and also Temur Ramp by Shintaro Ishimura. It is the only Temur Ramp list that was registered between both MPL and Rivals League fields.

Archetype	Decks	Points Total	Points Average
Gruul Adventures	22	126	5,7
Esper Doom	10	66	6,6
Dimir Rogues	4	25	5
Mardu Doom	3	15	5
Selesnya Blink	3	13	4,3
Mono Green Food	2	15	7,5
Azorius Blink	1	7	7
Orzhov Doom	1	7	7
Four Color Cycling	1	5	5
Temur Ramp	1	9	9

---