I'll analyze Blood Moon's maindeck usage in Modern tournament data to see what matchups it's being played against and understand the strategic reasoning.
I don't see Blood Moon in the top 30 maindeck cards for Modern. Let me check for its presence more specifically:
Now let me look at which archetypes are playing Blood Moon in the maindeck:
Now let me analyze the matchup performance of these maindeck Blood Moon decks:
Let me check the match data with a simpler query:
I notice the match results are all showing 0 for wins and losses. Let me check the match result data format:
Let me fix the query with the correct result values:
Based on the tournament data analysis, here's what I found about maindeck Blood Moon usage:
Key Findings:
• 89.4% of maindeck Blood Moon is played by Boros Energy, with an average of 1.5 copies
• Only 179 out of 893 total Blood Moon decks run it maindeck (20% maindeck vs 80% sideboard)
• Other maindeck users: Lantern (4 copies), Affinity, Izzet Wizards, and fringe decks
Matchup Performance for Maindeck Blood Moon (Boros Energy):
Strong against greedy manabases:
• Affinity: 62.7% winrate (32-19 record)
• Ramp Eldrazi: 65.0% (13-7)
• Esper Blink: 58.7% (27-19)
• Neobrand: 60.9% (14-9)
Struggles against aggressive decks:
• Blue Belcher: 38.4% (28-45) - speed matters more than mana disruption
• Goryo Reanimator: 42.5% (31-42) - doesn't stop graveyard combos
• Domain Zoo: 41.9% (18-25) - surprisingly poor despite multicolor mana
Strategic Reasoning:
Boros Energy plays maindeck Blood Moon to punish:
The card is less effective against fast combo (Blue Belcher, Goryo) where speed trumps mana disruption, explaining why it's primarily a sideboard card in most other archetypes.
Sources:
Data from 111 tournaments (16% Melee, 84% MTGO). Recent examples: 2nd Chance PTQ, Modern Challenge