So, let's talk Mythic Championship IV, shall we? Rich Hagon here, getting ready to bring you all the action in Barcelona, a place we've been to so often that it's not just the Sagrada that's Familia.

The Cheat Sheet

Here's the quick version of how it all works:

Friday – Three rounds of Modern Horizons Draft, then five rounds of Modern. All rounds are Best Two of Three and paired against someone on the same record (we call this "Swiss pairings").

Saturday – Same again, for everyone with 12 points or better, which means 4 wins and 4 losses.

Sunday – The Top 8, but this time Best Three of Five to advance in a single-elimination bracket. All Modern, using the same decks as the rest of the weekend.

Also Sunday – Somebody wins $50,000 and a seat at the World Championship. A total of $500,000 gets shared out, with every player guaranteed at least $500.

Team Series Finalists Decided

Another major story to watch come Sunday is the final standings for the Mythic Championship Team Series. The top two in the Team Series will advance to the Finals [Editor's note: The date and location for the Team Series Championship is still to be determined; it will not be at MagicFest Las Vegas as previously announced.]. Here's how things stand right now:

Remember, it's the top two who advance, so that's the target. The top eight teams above are significant, because all of them have their full complement of six players in the MC IV field. Since that's not true for anyone else, it's a virtual certainty that the finalists will come from that list above. Broadly speaking, it boils down to four scenarios:

• For Hareruya Sword, a 16-point gap down to Ultimate Guard and Legion is a big, big margin. Every match win past 8-8 accumulates extra points for the team, so even a solid collection of results will make Sword hard to pass.
• ChannelFireball are in the hot seat in second. Their 6-point lead over the third-place teams is very tenuous. Last year, it came down to the final of Pro Tour 25th Anniversary before we knew Ultimate Guard would advance and CFB would miss out. It could be that close again.
• For Ultimate Guard Pro Team, Legion, and KMC-Genesis, they are well within range. A single Top 8 slot more than CFB manages could easily push them into the top two, with a strong likelihood that they may need to win a specific number of Sunday matches to seal the deal.
• As for Cardboard Live, Mage X MTGMintCard, and The Comic Book Store, they are clinging on, but just barely. Realistically, they need to put two people into the Top 8, almost regardless of what the teams above them manage. Then they can start thinking about pulling off the upset on Sunday.

Broaden your Modern Horizons

Friday and Saturday mornings feature Modern Horizons Draft. Like many bespoke sets of recent years, there are clear "lanes" to draft, based around each color pair. Since it's very likely at least some of you won't have managed to draft every pair, we've thoughtfully employed Marshall Sutcliffe to walk you through the ins and outs of this delicious Limited format. You can read all about that tomorrow.

Meantime, you can look forward to Red-White Slivers giving each other all kinds of bonuses; to Blue-Red loving card draw even more than Blue-Red usually does; to the "Blink and you'll miss it" of White-Blue; the "you-know-nothing Jon" of Blue-Green Snow; and much, much more. All ten lanes are very different, and it's going to guarantee some great Limited gameplay in the early rounds each day.

Modern. But Which Modern?

For much of the eight years Modern has been around, a principal characteristic is that you can play "Your Deck" pretty much whenever you like, and always have a solid chance if you work hard and know how the metagame is shaping up. Will we see dozens of archetypes on display in Barcelona? Almost certainly. But will they be the usual suspects from 2011, 2014, 2017, or even earlier in 2019? Well, maybe.

The churn in Modern recently has been ferocious, and following the recent set releases and the blowing up of the Bridge from Below, the field is wiiiiiiide open. This sort of metagame conundrum needs math, and when you need math, you need Dr. Frank Karsten. Fortunately, we have secured his services for you, and you can read all about Frank's take on the Modern landscape this Wednesday, right here. And then, once the flag drops on the Constructed rounds each afternoon, we'll be all over the developing metagame like, well, like people who really care about the Modern metagame.

Mat Puts Gloss Finish on Vegas

Our reigning MC Champion is Matias Leveratto, and what a story that is. A long-time player from Argentina, Leveratto looked done in the game, with the essential intangibles never quite aligning. But Arena brought Leveratto a new lease of MTG life.

First, he qualified online for the first Arena Mythic Championship Qualifier Weekend. Then he qualified for MC III. Then he won a Mythic Championship Qualifier for MC IV. And THEN he chewed his way through an MPL-studded field in Las Vegas, finding Nexus of Fate at the last possible moment in the Finals against Brad Nelson and emerging as your MC III Champion.

So we know that he's all over Standard, using a plan—know your own deck inside and out, and then the format—that has always paid dividends in Modern. Watch this space.

To MPL and Back

Competing on the big stage on Sunday in Vegas alongside Leveratto were MPL members Brad Nelson and Shahar Shenhar, and a true legend of the game in Germany's Kai Budde. Off-camera but central to the Sunday story was Brian Braun-Duin, designer of the deck piloted to such success by Nelson and Budde (who clashed multiple times in the mirror match down the stretch).

There's every chance that at least one of these four standouts will be in the thick of things once again on Sunday. Brad was on the wrong end of that Nexus of Fate and now continues his quest for that signature career-defining tournament win that so narrowly eluded him.

Where's the Love (man) for The Book of Eli?

Fallen is obviously great, but Denzel Washington's performance in The Bo ... oh, my bad. So, our other reigning MC Champion, from over in Tabletop-land, is Eli Loveman. He came from seemingly nowhere to dominate at MC II in London. Thing is, his numbers were already really good before London, so his success wasn't a surprise to those who know him. Then, of course, London happened. So by definition he is very good at Modern. Which of our last two winners can go deep once again?

More Modern Masters

Modern has always rewarded format-specific excellence. Here are a few more names for your dance card who could make a run at the top tables in Barcelona:

• Samuele Estratti won the first-ever Modern Pro Tour at Philadelphia in 2011. He won an MCQ to be here.
• Samuel Pardee and Jacob Wilson are both Pro Tour finalists. Pardee's final came in Standard at Pro Tour Hour of Devastation, but he's long been known for his Modern prowess. Wilson, meanwhile, came within a whisker of winning Pro Tour Born of the Gods in 2014, in Modern. Both are outstanding.
• In a literal sense, so is Louis-Samuel Deltour, who comes here with the highest Modern win rate in the field. If there's a time for him to make a statement on the biggest stage, this is it.
• And, if Control is your thing, you can expect great things from two notable exponents of the art in Shaheen Soorani and Corey Burkhart.
• And finally, a master in a different sense—best of luck to Milan Bhayana, MCQ winner from MagicFest Niagara Falls in Legacy at just 13 years old. While we wait for Dana Fischer to qualify, Milan represents MTG youth at its finest.

Fact or Fiction

We're almost out of time, but first this: a few days ago, my fellow coverage colleagues and I were asked for some predictions about MC IV. The trouble with this, of course, is that I am right, and everyone else is wrong. Nevertheless, more important people than me decided that you should be allowed to see just how wrong everyone else is. So, here's that:

And with that, it's on to Barcelona. A city, a Booster Draft, and a Constructed format that are simultaneously modern and packed with history. For the next chapter in the MC season story, join us at twitch.tv/magic at midnight PT/3 a.m. ET/7 a.m. UTC on Friday. See you there!