After my first-place finish at Grand Prix Seattle-Tacoma, and going into my seventh Pro Tour, while having a good chance of making Silver (and maybe Gold), I knew I didn’t want to squander the golden opportunity I had been given. I chose to team up with Team East-West Bowl (courtesy of the hilarious skit).

Draft and Limited

Early on, in order to prepare, Alex Majlaton asked everyone to evaluate cards, colors, and rares without having played a single game with the cards. This led to some interesting conclusions for me.

After a few Drafts and Sealed events, it was very apparent that, given the propensity and large number of creatures with more toughness than power, a large number of games degenerated into board stalls.

With this in mind, I found myself wanting to draft decks that had some sort of inevitability or great top end, which gave me a preference to drafting the following archetypes:

• U/B devoid ramp with Essence Depleter or large Eldrazi (Ruin Processor or Eldrazi Devastator)
• W/B Allies (which I believe is the best deck if it is not overdrafted)
• B/G attrition (Baloth Null and Pulse of Murasa are some of the best cards for this archetype.)

I also didn’t mind drafting white aggressive strategies, but I placed an extremely high priority on most cards that said support (especially after the Limited seminar that Alex Majlaton hosted, which can be found here). Seeing how other people thought about Draft and Limited, it was an excellent way to make sure my ideas weren’t too inbred.

The Limited seminar adjoined to my own personal thoughts; here’s how I’d rank the colors for Draft:

There’s a large drop in quality from green to red and then from red to blue, whereas the Abzan wedge is strong overall.

So, going into the first Draft pod at the Pro Tour, I was certainly not unhappy to see Nissa, Voice of Zendikar staring at me pack one, pick one. I did second-pick an Ondu War Cleric, but white dried up quickly, so I was forced to look for a second color elsewhere, and I ended up with the following deck:

I’m frankly not a huge fan of R/G aggro, but this is certainly a reasonable deck. Here’s quick summary of how my rounds went:

• Round 1 versus Zen Takahashi (R/W aggro) 2–0 win
• Round 2 versus Justin Cohen (G/W midrange) 2–0 win
• Round 3 versus Jason Chung (W/B midrange) 1–2 loss

Interesting Notes

In Game 3 versus Jason Chung, I knew from scouting he had Planar Outburst and a lot of good Allies in his deck, but I still decided to commit two reasonably good creatures to the board because my hand was not very good otherwise, and it was ill-suited to win any sort of long game. I was Planar Outbursted, but I still believe my decision was correct.

In the second Draft, I first-picked a Baloth Null out of a weak pack (with Ondrej Strasky to my right). I wasn’t really sure what his color preferences were, but I knew a reasonable number of people didn’t like green in Battle for Zendikar, and I was hoping that would still be the case carrying over to Oath of the Gatewatch. In the second pack, my cutting green hard paid off in spades: I received a Nissa's Judgment pack two, pick four or five. Our team had it as the best uncommon in the set and better than quite a few rares.

Pack three went terribly for me, and I only managed to get two or three green cards. I ended up with the following deck:

Of note, I believe I could have had a better deck if I had drafted more colorless creatures in pack one or two given that I ended up with a second Gruesome Slaughter in my sideboard.

Here’s a quick summary of the second Draft pod results:

• Round 1 versus Logan Mize R/W aggro with three or four copies of Shoulder to Shoulder, 1–2 loss)
• Round 2 versus Brandon Pascal R/G aggro 2–1 win
• Round 3 versus Clinton Whitehurst W/U/g 2–0 win

I don’t have any interesting recollections from those games except me being extremely lucky to win Round 3 in lightning-quick fashion by Stone Raining my opponent twice (once with Reclaiming Vines and again with Demon's Grasp on an awakened land).

On Modern Constructed

I did have access to the U/R Eldrazi Stompy deck that won the tournament, but I chose to play a different deck from the four of them who played it. Modern is such a diverse format (albeit less so now) that I don’t think you can profitably try to metagame it completely. A lot of their wins came from the surprise factor of cards in their deck (such as Drowner of Hope and Eldrazi Obligator).

Here’s the deck I chose to play:

Melira Company ? Modern | Jarvis Yu

• Creatures (29)
• 1 Archangel of Thune
• 1 Fiend Hunter
• 1 Murderous Redcap
• 1 Orzhov Pontiff
• 1 Qasali Pridemage
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 1 Spike Feeder
• 2 Noble Hierarch
• 2 Wall of Roots
• 3 Kitchen Finks
• 3 Viscera Seer
• 4 Birds of Paradise
• 4 Eternal Witness
• 2 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
• 2 Melira, Sylvok Outcast

• Spells (8)
• 4 Chord of Calling
• 4 Collected Company

• Lands (23)
• 1 Plains
• 1 Swamp
• 2 Forest
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 1 Temple Garden
• 2 Gavony Township
• 2 Overgrown Tomb
• 2 Razorverge Thicket
• 3 Marsh Flats
• 4 Verdant Catacombs
• 4 Windswept Heath

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Aven Mindcensor
• 3 Abrupt Decay
• 1 Murderous Cut
• 1 Spellskite
• 1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
• 1 Kataki, War's Wage
• 2 Thoughtseize
• 1 Stony Silence
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Scavenging Ooze

Buy This Deck

Here are the major reasons I picked the deck:

• Melira Company’s worst matchups mostly disappeared: Splinter Twin and Amulet Bloom.
• The last “worst” matchup was Tron, but I expected not many people to show up with that deck since it was the default level-zero deck.
• I expected a lot of random beatdown decks, and I had tested the matchup against our team’s U/R Stompy deck and concluded that Melira was favored (albeit not by a massive amount, and it became a lot more annoying post-’board when the opponent had access to Relic of Progenitus and Grafdigger's Cage).

Here’s a quick summary of my matchups:

• Round 4: U/R Storm, Jake Mondello, Win 2–0
• Round 5: Colorless Eldrazi, Alex Hayne, Win 2–0
• Round 6: Infect, Marcio Carvahalo, Win 2–1
• Round 7: Colorless Eldrazi, Paulo Vitor Damo Da Rosa, Loss 1–2
• Round 8: Anton Castellnelli, Naya Zoo Burn, Loss 1–2

• Round 12: U/R Through the Breach Control, Greg Orange, Loss 0–2
• Round 13: Infect, Bart Van Etten, Win 2–1
• Round 14: Affinity, Dominic Harvey, Win 2–1
• Round 15: Infect, Stephen Achorn, Win 2–0
• Round 16: Mardu Midrange, Ben Stark, Loss 1–2

Interesting Notes

Round 4, Game 1: Jake very clearly has a turn-four kill. I peel a Collected Company on turn three to go to nine billion life. Given one Thought Scour is already in his graveyard, Jake comes close to Thought Scouring me out, but he ends up decking himself.

Round 7, Game 3: This is one of those games in which I know I messed up but I’m not quite sure where. The board state ends up looking like this: Ratchet Bomb on 3, Relic of Progenitus, and a few big creatures for PV. I have two Kitchen Finks, Eternal Witness, and a Wall of Roots in play with Chord of Calling and Collected Company in hand. I’m pretty certain there was a way to get through all of this and win, but instead, the dust settles, and I’m left with just a Murderous Redcap versus one big guy. Eventually, he wins the top-deck war from there—even though my deck is probably a massive favorite in that scenario.

Round 12: This is one of the few matchups that felt hopeless. Greg was never in any danger in Game 1, and in Game 2, I had a tough Thoughtseize decision of whether to take Keranos, God of Storms. I ended up not taking it and trying to kill him before he did anything, but this plan fell through, and Keranos took over the game.

Round 16, Game 2: This is one of those games that you know got away from you for basically no reason, and it cost me a second invite. Basically, the game degenerates to the following board state:

Me at 9 life and Ben at a fairly high life total. Ajani Vengeant is on his side with 2 loyalty and two cards in Ben’s hand. He has six lands in play, which let him cast any spell in his deck.

I have Chord of Calling and Collected Company in my hand with eight lands. Ben activates Ajani’s ability, which puts me down to 6. I end-of-turn Chord of Calling with X equal to 3. In response, I’m hit by two Lightning Helixes and lose.

The mistake was not analyzing the game carefully enough to conclude his likely holdings. He had been sitting there for a while with one to two cards in hand, and his deck has about seven to nine deal-3-damage spells (four Lightning Bolts, three or four Lightning Helixes, and one or two Ajani Vengeants). Given all of that, I definitely should have responded with Chord of Calling to go to 2 life after the dust settled. Collected Company would probably find me a way to lock the game up from there. After that, I lose another protracted Game 3 (which it probably should not have gone to) after whiffing on a Collected Company.

Melira Company Tips and Tricks

• Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit, Melira, Sylvok Outcast, Viscera Seer, and Kitchen Finks create infinite bolsters and infinite life-gain.
• In the same vein, Anafenza with Melira and Murderous Redcap create infinite bolsters (put bolster on the stack, have Murderous Redcap shoot itself before the bolster resolves, and repeat and rinse as many times as you want.)
• Archangel of Thune with Kitchen Finks and Viscera Seer also create infinite life and infinite counters on all of your guys except Kitchen Finks. Anafenza with Viscera Seer and Kitchen Finks “only” generate infinite life.
• An infinite number of scry 1s means you essentially are able to cut your deck at some point after having looked at it if your opponent allows you to do this shortcut.
• Don’t be afraid to avoid overcommitting by attacking with your guys that have been bolstered a bunch. I’ve won a fair number of games this way (especially with a reasonably sized Birds of Paradise).
• Wall of Roots produces a lot of mana if your plan is to play a mana guy on your turn and Chord of Calling on the opponent’s.
• In the Infect matchup, it’s generally correct to take a few infect damage before bringing your Melira out so you don’t die to Blighted Agent beatdown.

I’m probably going to Grand Prix Detroit (Modern), and I plan on playing an updated list that looks close to the following:

Melira Company ? Modern | Jarvis Yu

• Creatures (29)
• 1 Archangel of Thune
• 1 Fiend Hunter
• 1 Murderous Redcap
• 1 Orzhov Pontiff
• 1 Qasali Pridemage
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 1 Spike Feeder
• 2 Noble Hierarch
• 2 Wall of Roots
• 3 Kitchen Finks
• 3 Viscera Seer
• 4 Birds of Paradise
• 4 Eternal Witness
• 2 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
• 2 Melira, Sylvok Outcast

• Spells (8)
• 4 Chord of Calling
• 4 Collected Company

• Lands (23)
• 1 Plains
• 1 Swamp
• 2 Forest
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 1 Temple Garden
• 2 Gavony Township
• 2 Overgrown Tomb
• 2 Razorverge Thicket
• 3 Marsh Flats
• 4 Verdant Catacombs
• 4 Windswept Heath

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Aven Mindcensor
• 2 Abrupt Decay
• 1 Murderous Cut
• 1 Spellskite
• 1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
• 1 Kataki, War's Wage
• 2 Thoughtseize
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 2 Big Game Hunter
• 2 Sin Collector

Buy This Deck

The changes are mostly in the sideboard to address the uptick in fast combo and in Eldrazi Stompy. Even though I consider it a favorable matchup, I’d rather hammer it home with a pair of Big Game Hunters (essentially Shriekmaw against those decks).

I still believe Modern is diverse, even with the dominance of Eldrazi Stompy. There’s a lot of room to explore decks that exploit the holes it has (Ensnaring Bridge points to Lantern Control; a lack of interaction points to fast combo that isn’t reliant on all 1-drops).

I wish you all the best of luck in your upcoming tournaments, and I’m looking forward to playing Pro Tour Madrid (as of my current Silver Pro status) and upcoming Grand Prix.

Please leave any comments here or on Twitter (@jkyu06).

Thanks for reading.

Jarvis