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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:
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 |
