Welcome to Gathering Magic's weekly quintet of decks you should be aware of this weekend, whether you're playing a major online event, going to a Grand Prix, or hitting Friday Night Magic. This week, with a Modern Grand Prix in Pittsburgh and a Standard Grand Prix in Kobe, we'll look at both formats equally: two and a half decks per format.

Oh, I’ve just received a message in my earpiece. I'm being told that's not helpful, so we'll look at three Modern decks and two Standard decks.

Spelling Success in Pittsburgh

Of course everyone wants to be successful at a Grand Prix. That might be why you're reading this article. But some have trouble spelling success—or Pittsburgh. And if differentiating a megameat from its anagram, the metagame, is tricky, well . . . let this table and article sort you out.

Here's what went 3–1 or better in Magic Online Dailies at least twice this week (Bold = won a Daily):

• Naya Burn: 6
• Jund: 4
• Affinity: 3 (won 2)
• Infect: 3
• Amulet Bloom: 3
• Naya Company: 3
• Four-Color Scapeshift: 2
• Red-Green Tron: 2
• Abzan, Black-Green Midrange, Living End, and White-Black Death and Taxes each won a Daily in their only 3-1 or better appearances.

Naya Burn has more of its Zoo side and more of its burn side; the high finishers this week were hard to tell apart on that front. This one was the most interesting of the lot:

Naya Burn ? Modern | hog_pog98

• Creatures (17)
• 1 Grim Lavamancer
• 4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
• 4 Goblin Guide
• 4 Monastery Swiftspear
• 4 Wild Nacatl

• Spells (23)
• 2 Boros Charm
• 2 Shard Volley
• 3 Searing Blaze
• 4 Atarka's Command
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Lava Spike
• 4 Rift Bolt

• Lands (20)
• 3 Mountain
• 2 Arid Mesa
• 3 Stomping Ground
• 4 Bloodstained Mire
• 4 Sacred Foundry
• 4 Wooded Foothills

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Searing Blaze
• 2 Back to Nature
• 3 Destructive Revelry
• 1 Molten Rain
• 3 Path to Exile
• 2 Rest in Peace
• 2 Skullcrack
• 1 Stony Silence

Buy This Deck

Having Shard Volley in the main deck and having Back to Nature, Path to Exile, Rest in Peace, and Stony Silence in the sideboard aren't the usual choices, but they're perfectly defensible. Hexproof decks pack loads of life-gain, and if Burn doesn't have answers ready immediately, it will be nearly impossible to recover from. Rest in Peace has pretty broad application right now—Kitchen Finks, Voice of Resurgence, Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Snapcaster Mage, and Kolaghan's Command to name a few—and making decks that run them slow down is worth a card. As popular as Burn is, fast stabilization is the name of the opponents' game, so aiming the sideboard at the most frequent forms of stabilization makes sense.

Infect won Friday's Daily with a dark twist:

Infect ? Modern | joaoclaudioms

• Creatures (14)
• 4 Blighted Agent
• 4 Glistener Elf
• 4 Noble Hierarch
• 2 Spellskite

• Spells (26)
• 2 Apostle's Blessing
• 2 Mutagenic Growth
• 3 Become Immense
• 3 Might of Old Krosa
• 4 Groundswell
• 4 Vines of Vastwood
• 4 Gitaxian Probe
• 2 Abundant Growth
• 2 Rancor

• Lands (20)
• 2 Forest
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Misty Rainforest
• 2 Overgrown Tomb
• 4 Inkmoth Nexus
• 4 Windswept Heath
• 4 Wooded Foothills
• 2 Pendelhaven

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Dismember
• 3 Kitchen Finks
• 3 Nature's Claim
• 1 Necropede
• 4 Phyrexian Crusader
• 2 Twisted Image
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Buy This Deck

Yeah, yeah, it’s a G/U Infect deck with its normal plan; I've seen it all bef—

 . . . Phyrexian Crusader? Kitchen Finks!? Kitchen Finks is always glorious against Burn, and it's already in the deck colors, but who knew Infect decks had the mana base for Phyrexian Crusader? Having Abundant Growth and Overgrown Tomb in the main deck and having Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in the sideboard allow the deck to pull a fast one on decks confident in their Lightning Bolts, Kolaghan's Commands, and copies of Path to Exile. It's a gutsy move, one good enough to win a Daily, and if your local metagame has a load of opponents thinking Infect is easy to sideboard against, maybe try this variation out.

One Spicy Megameat Metaball

So you're telling me that black and green cards are already pretty good without needing red or white? Winning Wednesday's Daily:

B/G Midrange ? Modern | 6argamel

• Creatures (15)
• 2 Courser of Kruphix
• 3 Scavenging Ooze
• 4 Dark Confidant
• 4 Tarmogoyf
• 1 Polukranos, World Eater
• 1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 3 Liliana of the Veil

• Spells (18)
• 1 Darkblast
• 1 Far // Away
• 2 Dismember
• 2 Go for the Throat
• 4 Abrupt Decay
• 2 Maelstrom Pulse
• 2 Thoughtseize
• 4 Inquisition of Kozilek

• Lands (24)
• 2 Forest
• 2 Swamp
• 1 Twilight Mire
• 1 Watery Grave
• 1 Woodland Cemetery
• 2 Polluted Delta
• 2 Tectonic Edge
• 3 Overgrown Tomb
• 4 Treetop Village
• 4 Verdant Catacombs
• 1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Thoughtseize
• 1 Chalice of the Void
• 2 Drown in Sorrow
• 3 Fulminator Mage
• 1 Golgari Charm
• 3 Kitchen Finks
• 1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
• 1 Obstinate Baloth
• 2 Surgical Extraction

Buy This Deck

I realize this doesn't seem drastically spicy, but it's more about what's not there than what is there. The big debate most people have surrounding the Modern B/G core of Thoughtseize, Tarmogoyf, and Liliana of the Veil is whether adding red or white is better for a particular metagame. But it's not as though black and green don't already have plenty of good removal and finishers, and streamlining to two colors (well, almost two—there's a Watery Grave to fuse Far // Away) helps the mana base significantly, which is Jund's perennial weak spot. Treetop Village is a four-of here, and Tectonic Edge is a two-of that is much less likely to hurt a two-colored deck than a three-colored one. In place of Lingering Souls or Lightning Bolt, there's Courser of Kruphix, a godsend (see what I did there?) against the Naya Burn/Zoo hybrids running amok, Polukranos, World Eater, which can, along with Far // Away, wreck Splinter Twin's day, and several efficient removal spells. Dark Confidant and Scavenging Ooze are a package deal for this deck's intentions, using the former to hit removal at the cost of life and the latter to eat the dead creatures and gain life. And Shizo, Death's Storehouse giving fear to Polukranos or Tasigur, the Golden Fang is an inspired choice.

Everything looks good here, particularly Courser of Kruphix right now. When tweaking a shell for a metagame, don't forget that adding a color to B/G isn't always the winning line.

Next Level: Kobe

Grand Prix Brussels decided to beat the Abzan menace rather than join it, with several Rally the Ancestors and Esper Dragons decks asserting themselves loudly. Did Magic Online anticipate this?

• Abzan: 19 (won 2)
• Dark Jeskai: 8 (won 2)
• Red-Green Landfall: 3
• White-Black Planeswalkers: 3
• Black-Red Aggro: 2
• Atarka Red: 2
• Eldrazi Ramp: 2
• Green-White Hardened Scales: 2
• Bant Megamorph won a Daily in its only 3-1 or better appearance.

Short answer: No. Before the second day of the Grand Prix at least, there were no Rally the Ancestors or Esper Dragons decks that even 3–1'd. Neither Abzan nor Dark Jeskai changed much—the metagame basically carried on as it had done in the previous week. But there were some interesting adaptations lurking beneath the stable surface.

Esper Control ? Standard | RRozanski

• Creatures (11)
• 3 Halimar Tidecaller
• 4 Monastery Mentor
• 4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy

• Planeswalkers (5)
• 1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
• 4 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

• Spells (19)
• 1 Murderous Cut
• 3 Duress
• 3 Treasure Cruise
• 4 Clutch of Currents
• 4 Despise
• 4 Ruinous Path

• Lands (25)
• 1 Plains
• 2 Island
• 2 Swamp
• 1 Bloodstained Mire
• 1 Windswept Heath
• 2 Blighted Fen
• 2 Prairie Stream
• 2 Sunken Hollow
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 4 Polluted Delta
• 4 Shambling Vent

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Duress
• 1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
• 2 Complete Disregard
• 2 Dispel
• 1 Narset Transcendent
• 3 Planar Outburst
• 2 Self-Inflicted Wound
• 2 Surge of Righteousness
• 1 Utter End

Buy This Deck

The keys to understanding the deck are Clutch of Currents and Monastery Mentor. We haven't seen much of the Mentor in Standard—it normally hangs out in older formats where noncreature spells are more robust——but here with all the repeat casting of spells, it can make an army quickly. Clutch of Currents is as cheap as decent spells come for Monastery Mentor, it can be returned with Halimar Tidecaller, and it's also excellent against Hangarback Walker since, for all of the Walker's virtues, it guzzles mana, usually cast for an entire mana pool.

This deck as configured might have difficulty in a post-Brussels universe, but if it can retool, there are some great ideas here. Assuming Oath of the Gatewatch has more awaken spells, remember Halimar Tidecaller and this deck's innovations.

On the other side of the color wheel, there's a new spin on Atarka Red:

Atarka Red ? Standard | HoboBread

• Creatures (15)
• 2 Abbot of Keral Keep
• 4 Goblin Piledriver
• 4 Monastery Swiftspear
• 1 Zurgo Bellstriker
• 4 Zada, Hedron Grinder

• Spells (25)
• 1 Fiery Impulse
• 2 Atarka's Command
• 2 Become Immense
• 2 Temur Battle Rage
• 2 Wild Slash
• 4 Titan's Strength
• 4 Dragon Fodder
• 4 Exquisite Firecraft
• 4 Hordeling Outburst

• Lands (20)
• 13 Mountain
• 3 Wooded Foothills
• 4 Cinder Glade

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Fiery Impulse
• 2 Act of Treason
• 2 Arc Lightning
• 2 Goblin Heelcutter
• 2 Hooting Mandrills
• 2 Rending Volley
• 3 Roast

Buy This Deck

A cross between the combo version of Atarka Red and Zada Tokens, this deck plays the full slate of Zada, Hedron Grinder. Not only is she a Goblin for Goblin Piledriver, but she's also a great target for Titan's Strength, Temur Battle Rage, and the frightening Become Immense. (Act of Treason in the sideboard isn't normally for Zada, but depending on how many tokens are made in a given turn, it might be the right play.) The rest is pretty straightforward, but the Goblin package gives an explosive edge that's hard to defend against. Monastery Swiftspear is important to kill as soon as possible; Goblin Piledriver is important to kill as soon as possible; will there be enough removal left to survive Zada giving +6/+6 to the team?

Conclusion

Modern is safe to have a load of red spells this weekend; Kor Firewalker was in several Naya Burn sideboards for good reason. Past that, the field is wide open; a lack of surprise would be the only surprise out of Pittsburgh. As for Kobe, the online and Grand Prix metagames are saying different things. It's hard to tell whether we're in an Abzan/Dark Jeskai or Esper Dragons/Rally the Ancestors universe; maybe we're in both. Whatever the case, there will be a load of metagame decisions to sort out and a lot of great Magic available, so get out (stay in?) and enjoy it.