SCG CON Baltimore Modern Regional: Broodscale Dominates the Format
The SCG CON Baltimore Modern Regional Championship on September 14, 2026 produced one of the most one-sided format snapshots in recent memory: Mono-Green Broodscale ran five pilots into the Top 25 alone — including three of the top seven finishes — and the Top 8 split between just three decks. With Pro Tour proximity announcements landing the same week and Standard/Modern/Pioneer still catching up to post-Hobbit metagames, the Broodscale numbers put the format on watch for the next Banned & Restricted window. Melee.gg hosted the live bracket and decklist links, while Star City Games coverage recapped the headline winners.
What This Article Covers
- The SCG CON Baltimore Modern Regional Championship result: Mono-Green Broodscale takes five of the Top 25
- The Top 8 archetype breakdown: Broodscale, Devoted Druid Combo, and Esper Blink split the bracket
- Why Broodscale is the deck to beat going into fall 2026
- Which decks Commander and proxy players should keep on their radar
SCG CON Baltimore Modern: The Tournament Recap
The SCG CON Baltimore Modern Regional Championship drew a deep Modern field on September 14, 2026, with 9-round Swiss followed by a single-elim Top 8. The standings page, archived on Melee.gg, shows the dominant deck of the day clearly: Mono-Green Broodscale — the Basking Broodscale / Hardened Scales / Devoted Druid value engine — racked up five pilots in the Top 25, including Ralph Zhou in 2nd, Chris Cherubini in 4th, Clayton Strickland in 6th, Brett Kroeger in 10th, and Pete Ingram in 18th. Three of those players finished 8-0-1 or better.
Key Highlights
- Format: Modern Regional Championship, 9 rounds Swiss + Top 8 cut
- Headline deck: Mono-Green Broodscale — five pilots in the Top 25
- Top 8 archetype spread: 3x Broodscale, 2x Esper Blink, 1x Devoted Druid Combo, 1x Izzet Affinity, 1x Boros Land Destruction
- Standout winners: Curtis Lam (1st, Devoted Druid Combo), Ralph Zhou (2nd, Mono-Green Broodscale), Aaron Schwarcz (3rd, Esper Blink)
- Format signal: green-based creature combo decks ate up Day 2 — aggro-combo > fair midrange > control for the second regional running
Mono-Green Broodscale: The Deck That Defined SCG CON Baltimore Modern
Mono-Green Broodscale has been a quiet contender since Basking Broodscale and Hardened Scales landed in Modern Horizons 3 (June 2024), but the SCG CON Baltimore Modern field gave the deck its clearest validation yet. The core is brutally compact: Basking Broodscale grows whenever a creature enters the battlefield, Devoted Druid stacks +1/+1 counters via its untap loop, and Hardened Scales doubles every counter. Add a single Ozolith, the Shattered Oath and an end-step Ivy Lane Denizen and the combo can one-shot from a near-empty board.
What changed for fall 2026 was the support cast. The current list runs Walking Ballista as a finisher, Bloomburrow-era cards like Pawpatch Recruit and Innkeeper’s Talent for card velocity, and sideboard Haywire Mite + Force of Vigor for the Jeskai/Esper fair decks. At SCG CON Baltimore, the deck’s Day 2 conversion rate ran above 60% — exceptional for any non-blue midrange build.
The Top 8 Archetype Breakdown
The Top 8 at SCG CON Baltimore Modern split cleanly across four decks, which is unusual for a Modern Regional — most fall events see five or six. Here’s the bracket:
- Mono-Green Broodscale (3 pilots) — the breakout winner that ate the Day 2 Swiss
- Esper Blink (2 pilots) — Ephemerate + Skyclave Apparition + Solitude shells
- Devoted Druid Combo (1 pilot) — the Curtis Lam list that took the title
- Izzet Affinity (1 pilot) — Thought Monitor / Cranial Plating / Urza’s Saga shell
- Boros Land Destruction (1 pilot) — the James Baggett list that ran through the bracket
Why Esper Blink and Izzet Affinity Stayed Relevant
Esper Blink hasn’t been a deck most Modern pilots expected to see at SCG CON Baltimore, but Aaron Schwarcz’s Top 3 finish — plus Lucas Birch, Berkley Gryder, and Nick Cowden all in the Top 12 — proves the deck still has legs. The shell runs Ephemerate as a value recursion engine, Skyclave Apparition as a tempo play against Broodscale tokens, and Solitude / Fury as creature-hate that incidentally blanks Broodscale’s counter math.
Izzet Affinity, meanwhile, has been Modern’s quietest Tier 1 deck for two years running. Adam Schop, Thomas Lee, Alexander Beebe, and Peter Porcaro all piloted it into the Top 25 at SCG CON Baltimore, and Beebe took it to a 14th-place finish. The Thought Monitor / Cranial Plating / Urza’s Saga core is durable, fast, and resilient to the artifact hate most fair decks pack — and at the next Banned & Restricted window, this is the deck that’s been under everyone’s radar the longest.
What This Means for Modern Players and Proxy Builders
Modern has been the format where proxies matter most since 2021 — the Reserved List staples, the fetchland manabases, and the chase rares add up fast. The SCG CON Baltimore Modern results suggest three deck archetypes worth keeping on the proxy shortlist for fall 2026:
1. Mono-Green Broodscale — cheap rares, easy to proxy. Walking Ballista, Hardened Scales, Basking Broodscale, and the green creature core all run under $20 per playset. 2. Esper Blink — Ephemerate is bulk, but Skyclave Apparition and the creature suite are the chase cards. A full proxy list runs about $60-90. 3. Devoted Druid Combo — the cheapest Top 8 deck to build. Devoted Druid, Ezuri, Claw of Vigor — under $40 total for a full 75.
Why This Matters for Proxy Players
Top 8 deck costs at the SCG CON Baltimore Modern Regional ran $800-$2,400 for paper pilots, mostly from fetchlands and sideboard rares. For a proxy builder, that math flips entirely — a 75-card Modern deck on premium 350gsm blue-core cards runs about $60-$80 total, and the format staples are the same cards the pros played. Building the SCG CON Baltimore winning list — Devoted Druid Combo — costs about $35 in cards, and that includes the Kozilek’s Command and Chord of Calling sideboard. The deck has no $100+ cards and only one chase piece over $20.
You can be playing the same Devoted Druid Combo deck that won the SCG CON Baltimore Modern Regional — with the exact 75 — by the time the next tournament weekend rolls around, and never touch the secondary market.
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