Two Regional Championships on opposite sides of the world, with one extremely diverse Modern metagame shared between them. That was the story last weekend as a pair of Regional Championships in China and the United States took place, giving us the first pair of Regional Championship winners for this cycle as well as the first several World Championship qualifiers.
In China, it was Yuchen Liu making history by winning his second consecutive Regional Championship, an unprecedented feat. He got there in absolutely dominant–perfect–fashion, going 7–0 before drawing into the Top 8 and then sweeping his matches once there to take down an incredible second straight Regional Championship title and fourth overall Regional Championship Top 8.
In the United States, Pete Ingram who took home the title and the trophy. He piloted the breakout deck of the tournament, Mono-Green Basking Broodscale combo, and used the powerful list to avenge one of his only losses of the tournament at the best possible time when he beat Curtis Lam in the finals to win it all in Baltimore.
Pete Ingram is your Regional Champion for the United States! Congratulations to the Broodscale Combo player for defeating Curtis Lam (who will also be headed to the World Championship) in the finals to win #SCGBaltimore! https://t.co/2kjS2LTK12
— PlayMTG (@PlayMTG) September 14, 2026
The double Regional Championship weekend featured nearly 2,000 total players (around 1,500 in the United States and over 400 in China) in the biggest test and most informed test of Modern we’ll yet see this year. The RC weekend followed Magic Spotlight events in Brisbane and Dallas that also showcased Modern, and all of that data was fresh on the minds of everyone who sleeved up a deck for the Regional Championship.
With that, the Regional Championship season is off and running, with the World Championship looming now just two months away. In the United States, there were 32 Pro Tour invites on the line, while China offered berths to each member of the Top 8.
Ingram is Best in Baltimore
It was truly a massive Regional Championship, and given that no deck comprised more than 13% or so of the metagame, players were very much in the dark about what they might play throughout the nine rounds of Day 1 and six rounds of Day 2 that preceded the Top 8. As is always the case with Modern, there’s simply so many decks to choose from that there’s rarely a single best option for what to play–although this weekend might have been the exception. Because while the Top 8 isn’t lacking for unique archetypes, it was very much dominated by what was the unquestioned breakout deck of the tournament: Mono-Green Basking Broodscale combo.
The deck leaned on its combo of
"Modern is an incredibly diverse format, and I wanted to do something proactive that had a lot of agency and play to it; Broodscale really fit perfectly," Ingram explained. "It is extremely powerful and I think there are a lot of decision trees you can make when playing games based on what you’re playing against. Having a plan for each matchup and knowing what you’re supposed to do is important."
There were 32 Pro Tour qualifications on the line in the United States, and many notable names who ultimately earned them including Hunter Ovington, who first put
You can find the top 32 decklists here.
It was the first of the three major Modern weekends where Izzet Prowess didn’t lead the field. Instead, Broodscale edged it out on Day 1, and then massively increased its metagame share up to almost 20% by Day 2 as most other things stayed the same. That’s a huge swing, and one that turned out to be a precursor to the Top 8 dominance that was to come for the deck; the rest of the Top 8 was filled out by Devoted Druid combo, Amulet Titan, and Esper Blink.
- Pete Ingram (Mono-Green Broodscale)
- Curtis Lam (Devoted Druid Combo)
- Chris Cherubini (Mono-Green Broodscale)
- Brett Kroeger (Mono-Green Broodscale)
- Aaron Schwarcz (Esper Blink)
- Terry Stratton (Amulet Titan)
- Kevin Li (Esper Bink)
- Ralph Zhou (Mono-Green Broodscale)
Joining Ingram at the Magic World Championship will be finalist Curtis Lam, whose run with Devoted Druid saw him defeat Ingram in the Swiss rounds only to meet him again the finals of the entire tournament–where this time Ingram took the match, title, and trophy in three very close games.
Liu Goes Back-to-Back
Regional Championships have been around for a handful of years now, and with three taking a place year there’s been enough time for these events to take on not just a unique regional set of qualifications, but also develop their own system of endbosses–that is, players who are dominant at the Regional Championship level even if it doesn’t quite translate to the Pro Tour yet.
In the case of newly crowned back-to-back Regional Champion win Yuchen Liu, it’s both. With this win he now has four Regional Championship Top 8 appearances, to go along with his three overall Top Finishes at the international level.
He accomplished the feat last week with Esper Goryo’s Vengeance, the
Liu’s perfect run started with a trio of close matches, with his first three wins all coming in the full best-of-three. While the Esper deck wasn’t unbeatable, it clearly had both the resiliency and power to operate in an open field, and Liu made the most of it as he didn’t drop a match on his to the Top 8. Once there, he swept zihao wang before winning three-game sets against Yiren Jiang and then Steven Li’s Izzet Prowess to win the Regional Championship–again.
You can find the Top 8 decklists here, and find out how to qualify for your next Regional Championship here.