So Pro Tour weekend, it’s the time of dreams, the time where avid brewers get to see if they were one step ahead of the Pros, Wizards R&D get to see if their grand ideas play out the way they predicted. The Pro Tour is where novices go to sweat it out, the regulars rejoice in seeing familiar faces and where legends of the game go to strut their stuff.

Pro Tours are traditionally where we see the greatest innovation from a new set, where the format gets designed and decks put targets on their head. The field is usually diverse, especially in the modern format, and we get to see which cards we will all be playing with for the next 3 months.

Sounds exciting, right? Well it would seem that the message didn’t quite make it through to the Pro Players. The Top 8 of the format had 2 archetypes, Eldrazi and Robots, quite the diverse metagame.

Sure there were memorable moments such as Frank LePore asking William ‘Huey’ Jenson if he came here often. Owen Turtenwald hooked up the Mid-Season Master ticket to the World Championship, narrowly edging out buddy Reid Duke and Fabrizio Anteri. We saw a rare moment in the final round of Swiss where the two highest ranked players both decided to play the attempted role of dream crusher and winning their matches. There was the match of the tournament between LSV and Frank LePore, which culminated in a ‘Bonfire-esque’ moment where a Gutshot rolled off the top of the deck for LSV to win a closely fought match. Finally there was the winner of the Pro Tour himself, in only his third ever PT!

So let’s take a look at the metagame for the Pro Tour.

Three hundred and ninety one players made the journey to Atlanta to battle in the PT and here’s how it looked on Day 1:

Archetype         No. Players               Metagame %

Affinity                   51                                13.04

Burn                       51                                13.04

Infect                     32                                 8.18%

Eldrazi                   32                                 8.18%

These were the big four of the Day 1 metagame, and they all share the same desire to win quickly and decisively. The banning of Splinter Twin and Summer Bloom was designed to shake the format up in such a way that you could comfortably tap out on your turn 4 and not have to actively worry about being combo’d out of the game. What has happened is that you are now fighting a different fight, whereby any slip up in the first 4 turns of the game will now cost you. If possible, WOTC have made the format a whole lot quicker.

Let’s now see if the metagame looked any different on Day 2, after all a perfect constructed deck needs to be matched with the skills to navigate a challenging limited format.

Archetype          No. Players           Metagame %

Affinity                            33                    13.64

Burn                                30                    12.40

Eldrazi                             26                   10.74

Infect                              25                    10.33

Jund                                13                     5.37

Death Shadow Aggro    11                     4.55

Abzan                              10                     4.13

Zoo                                  10                     4.13

Other                               84                    34.71

Affinity and Burn retained their shares of the metagame, whilst Eldrazi and Infect made gains heading in to Day Two.

Surprisingly Jund was the next biggest archetype, given that G/R Tron was one of the best positioned decks heading in to the PT, the decision to play Jund may have been a metagaming, metagame call.

In reality the decision to play Liliana of the Veil, Abrupt Decay and Lightning Bolt would not have matched-up well against the Eldrazi menace but, with the proper deck selection, Jund would have been slightly favoured against the rest of the biggest archetypes. Interestingly Reid Duke wrote about his decision to play Jund and highlighted Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet as a big factor in his decision.

So we know which decks held the biggest shares of the metagame, but were they the best performing decks? Two players finished with a constructed record of 9-0-1 and they were:

Affinity – Patrick Dickman

Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch

Creatures:

4 Arcbound Ravager

4 Master of Etherium

3 Memnite

4 Ornithopter

4 Signal Pest

2 Spellskite

4 Steel Overseer

4 Vault Skirge

Spells:

2 Thoughtcast

4 Cranial Plating

4 Mox Opal

4 Springleaf Drum

4 Darksteel Citadel

Lands:

4 Blinkmoth Nexus

4 Glimmervoid

4 Inkmoth Nexus

1 Island

Sideboard:

2 Etched Champion

3 Ancient Grudge

1 Chalice of the Void

1 Dismember

2 Ghirapur Æther Grid

1 Grafdigger’s Cage

1 Gut Shot

1 Stubborn Denial

2 Thoughtseize

1 Whipflare

Affinity, or Robots, is a deck that has been around in modern forever. It’s a deck that, very much, goes through peaks and troughs in its’ playability and often spiking a tournament after a series of quiet performances relaxes the amount of hate in players’ sideboards. In an unknown format Affinity is a pretty safe deck, often being able to ‘solitaire’ the first couple of turns and then attacking for massive amounts of damage, or poison/infect , over a couple of turns.

The other 9-0-1 deck? Yep, Eldrazi.

Colourless Eldrazi – Ivan Floch

Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch

Creatures:

4 Eldrazi Mimic

4 Endless One

4 Matter Reshaper

4 Reality Smasher

4 Simian Spirit Guide

2 Spellskite

4 Thought-Knot Seer

Spells:

4 Dismember

4 Chalice of the Void

2 Ratchet Bomb

Lands:

4 Blinkmoth Nexus

4 Eldrazi Temple

4 Eye of Ugin

4 Ghost Quarter

3 Mutavault

3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

2 Wastes

Sideboard:

1 Spellskite

1 Ratchet Bomb

3 Oblivion Sower

3 Gut Shot

2 Pithing Needle

4 Relic of Progenitus

1 Warping Wail

So this is what happens when R&D push the boat out toward Unknown Shores and allows powerful colourless creatures to be paired with lands that can make ‘2’ mana on Turn 1! Sometimes even allowing 8 or 10 powers worth of creatures to be played out. Cards like Eldrazi Mimic, Thought-Knot Seer and Reality Smasher are all powerful in their own ways, but jam them together and play them ahead of the turn curve and you are cooking with gas. There is something uniquely primal about jamming a, potentially, turn 2, haste 5/5 trampler into your opponents stunned face! Not since the days of Cawblade in Paris and Elves in Berlin has an archetype seen such a dominating performance at a Pro Tour.

Much speculation was had amongst players and on social media about whether R&D will need to make an emergency ban on a piece of this deck, in fact players were split whether it should be Eye of Ugin or Eldrazi Temple. Traditionally the metagame has reacted to dominating decks at the following GP, but currently I’m stumped as to what decks could answer Eldrazi sufficiently and  consistently. This will be one to keep an eye on, but if you have the pieces I would definitely pick this deck for your next modern tournament.

The next best performing deck, that was not Eldrazi, is to be found at a record of 9-1-0 and is:

Chord Combo – Matthew Rogers

Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch

Creatures:

4 Archangel of Thune

4 Birds of Paradise

2 Courser of Kruphix

4 Noble Hierarch

1 Orzhov Pontiff

1 Qasali Pridemage

1 Scavenging Ooze

2 Spellskite

3 Spike Feeder

4 Wall of Roots

Spells:

4 Lingering Souls

4 Chord of Calling

3 Path to Exile

Land:

2 Forest

4 Gavony Township

1 Godless Shrine

1 Horizon Canopy

1 Marsh Flats

1 Overgrown Tomb

1 Plains

2 Razorverge Thicket

1 Swamp

1 Temple Garden

4 Verdant Catacombs

4 Windswept Heath

Sideboard:

1 Burrenton Forge-Tender

1 Ethersworn Canonist

1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast

1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

3 Painful Truths

3 Stony Silence

3 Thoughtseize

2 Worship

Much like some of the Pod decks of yesteryear, the Chord Combo decks aims to gain an arbitrarily large, or ‘infinite’, amount of life and then win with a massive flying angel. Lingering Souls,  Courser of Kruphix and Spellskite all hold the early turns and allow you to develop a sufficiently large amount of mana to complete your combo.

In a world of Eldrazi, Infect and Affinity I know which deck I’ll be looking to sleeve up at my next modern event.

Who am I kidding? We all know I’ll be sleeving up this:

Jund – Reid Duke

Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch

Creatures:

4 Dark Confidant

2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet

2 Kitchen Finks

2 Scavenging Ooze

4 Tarmogoyf

Spells:

4 Liliana of the Veil

4 Inquisition of Kozilek

1 Maelstrom Pulse

2 Thoughtseize

2 Abrupt Decay

1 Kolaghan’s Command

4 Lightning Bolt

1 Slaughter Pact

2 Terminate

1 Seal of Fire

Lands:

4 Blackcleave Cliffs

1 Blood Crypt

4 Bloodstained Mire

1 Forest

2 Overgrown Tomb

3 Raging Ravine

1 Stomping Ground

2 Swamp

1 Twilight Mire

4 Verdant Catacombs

1 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:

2 Kitchen Finks

1 Thoughtseize

1 Courser of Kruphix

2 Fulminator Mage

2 Grim Lavamancer

2 Ancient Grudge

1 Crumble to Dust

1 Disfigure

1 Duress

2 Shatterstorm

The Duke posted an impressive 8-2 record in constructed with this list and it backs up the old adage that Jund is 50% against the field in modern. A toolbox approach to the sideboard and some flex slots in the main deck still make Jund a viable candidate to be played in any metagame.

The Pro Tour is over for another 3 months and rising from the settling dust are our new Eldrazi Overlords. Whilst the Banned and Restricted announcement had the desired effect of shaking up the format, it has led to an unhealthy amount of aggressive decks in the format. A look through the decks with 24 points, or greater, in constructed will demonstrate that not all is lost. It will be interesting to see where the format goes from here. Following the Cawblade dominance in Paris the metagame reacted aggressively the following week and Cawblade had a poor showing, who knows whether modern can do the same. I do not expect the results of the Pro Tour will affect many local tournaments, not many players can afford to switch decks at the drop of a hat, but it is worth being prepared for the deck, especially at larger events.

The question in the meantime will be whether the anti-hero’s of R&D will save us with an emergency ban? I guess only time will tell.

That’s all from me and my Pro Tour review, comments are always welcomed and appreciated. I’ll be back next week with my Weekend Review.