Howdy folks! After a few weeks away the Weekend Review is back! The last few weeks have seen the Eldrazi infestation continue its’ dominance in both Modern and Legacy, maintaining huge percentages of the metagame in all competitions.

Heading in to the weekend players found themselves asking whether they should join the Eldrazi or fight them? In what may be the last opportunity to play many of the Eldrazi decks in their existing form, ahead of the predicated Banned and Restricted announcement in April, it’s not surprising to see that many players chose to sleeve up their favourite colour combination of Eldrazi and do battle.

This weekend was a triple-header of modern Grand Prix across the continent, with Melbourne, Bologna and Detroit playing hosts to MTG players. So let’s take a look at each of these Grand Prix!

Melbourne 2016

You’ll be unsurprised to know that the Eldrazi dominated Day 1, with a 43% share of the metagame. The next highest archetype was Affinity with 11%, followed by Abzan CoCo at 8% and U/W Control with a 7% share. Eldrazi were not the only decks to navigate Day 1 undefeated with Kentaro Yamamoto Aidan Frish making their way to 9-0 with Living End and Jeskai Control.

Aidan Frish – Jeskai Control

Creatures:

1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar

3 Restoration Angel

1 Vendilion Clique

4 Snapcaster Mage

2 Wall of Omens

Spells:

1 Ajani Vengeant

2 Cryptic Command

2 Electrolyze

2 Lightning Helix

3 Mana Leak

2 Remand

1 Think Twice

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Path to Exile

2 Spell Snare

1 Detention Sphere

Lands:

4 Flooded Strand

4 Scalding Tarn

1 Hallowed Fountain

1 Sacred Foundry

2 Steam Vents

3 Island

1 Mountain

1 Plains

3 Celestial Colonnade

1 Clifftop Retreat

1 Desolate Lighthouse

1 Ghost Quarter

2 Sulfur Falls

Sideboard:

1 Spell Snare

1 Engineered

Explosives

1 Keranos, God of Storms

2 Stony Silence

2 Disdainful Stroke

1 Negate

1 Dispel

1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

1 Shatterstorm

2 Supreme Verdict

1 Anger of the Gods

1 Vandalblast

Frish evolved the classic U/W control deck to include some direct damage spells to add some additional removal to the deck and a way to close out the game in a relatively quick fashion, because who doesn’t enjoy dying to ‘Bolt, Snapcaster, Bolt’?

Ajani Vengeant offers a way to keep your opponents monsters tapped down whilst you build to a devastating ultimate, that combined with a sweeper, can win the game on the spot.

The sideboard is geared to beat the current best decks in the format; Eldrazi, Affinity and the various Abzan decks. With traditional Affinity hate in the shape of Shatterstorm, Stony Silence and Vandalblast; Engineered Explosives, Keranos and Supreme Verdicts for Eldrazi; and Dispel, Negate, Anger of the Gods covering the various Abzan decks.

Ultimately the tournament was won by U/W Eldrazi in the hands of David Mines.

U/W Eldrazi – David Mines

1st Place – GP Melbourne

Creatures:

4 Drowner of Hope

4 Eldrazi Displacer

4 Eldrazi Mimic

4 Eldrazi Skyspawner

4 Endless One

1 Matter Reshaper

4 Reality Smasher

4 Thought-Knot Seer

Spells:

4 Dismember

2 Path to Exile

Lands:

1 Island

1 Plains

4 Adarkar Wastes

3 Cavern of Souls

1 Caves of Koilos

4 Flooded Strand

2 Hallowed Fountain

1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

4 Eldrazi Temple

4 Eye of Ugin

Sideboard:

2 Chalice of the Void

2 Oblivion Sower

1 Oblivion Ring

2 Rest in Peace

2 Stony Silence

3 Hurkyl’s Recall

1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

1 All Is Dust

1 Vesuva

So the weekend started off with a victory for the ‘bad’ guys as Mines took a pretty stock list and piloted it to the trophy. Notable main deck choices include the 3rd Cavern of Souls over the Gemstone Cavern that over lists have run.

The sideboard contains the expected hate cards for Abzan CoCo and Affinity. The inclusion of All of Dust in the sideboard gives the deck a ‘catch-all’ answer to many matches. Oblivion Sower, Ulamog and Vésuva all allow the deck to go ‘bigger’ in the mirror match.

Bologna 2016

With news of the Eldrazi victory down under the Resistance was surely motivated and fought back to take the title in Italy? Well, no, it would seem the resistance crumbled to dust and fell to the U/W Eldrazi Menace again.

U/W Eldrazi – Kayure Patel

1st Place GP Bologna

Creatures:

4 Eldrazi Mimic

3 Endless One

4 Eldrazi Skyspawner

4 Thought-Knot Seer

4 Eldrazi Displacer

1 Phyrexian Metamorph

4 Reality Smasher

4 Drowner of Hope

Spells:

4 Path to Exile

2 Dismember

1 Cyclonic Rift

Lands:

4 Eye of Ugin

4 Eldrazi Temple

4 Adarkar Wastes

3 Flooded Strand

1 Island

1 Plains

1 Wastes

2 Cavern of Souls

1 Vésuva

1 Caves of Koilos

1 Ghost Quarter

2 Hallowed Fountain

Sideboard:

1 Dismember

2 Rest in Peace

1 Grafdigger’s Cage

2 Stony Silence

2 Hurkyl’s Recall

1 Pithing Needle

1 All Is Dust

1 Gut Shot

2 Stubborn Denial

2 Spellskite

Notable differences between the winning deck from Bologna and Italy included; a higher number of Paths over Dismember, Cyclonic Rift to provide a main deck way to ruin your opponents board development and the hot new Eldrazi tech in Phyrexian Metamorph.

Phyrexian Metamorph showed up in all 3 Grand Prix in varying numbers and showed that players were still developing the deck to beat the mirror.

Patel opted for a different selection of sideboard cards, looking to be more controlling with Stubborn Denials alongside the hate cards for Abzan CoCo and Affinity.

The Eldrazi claimed a lower percentage of the metagame in Bologna, with only 39% share on Day 1, followed by Abzan Company and Affinity.

Joining the Eldrazi in being undefeated at the end of Day 1 were Living End, Lantern Control and Storm.

U/R Storm – Jose Luis Velazques

Creatures:

4 Goblin Electormance

Spells:

2 Grapeshot

3 Faithless Looting

3 Past in Flames

4 Gitaxian Probe

4 Sleight of Hand

4 Serum Visions

4 Thought Scour

4 Pyretic Ritual

4 Desperate Ritual

4 Manamorphose

4 Pyromancer Ascension

Lands:

2 Shivan Reef

3 Island

1 Mountain

2 Steam Vents

4 Scalding Tarn

2 Flooded Strand

2 Misty Rainforest

Sideboard:

2 Blood Moon

2 Echoing Truth

1 Shattering Spree

2 Shatterstorm

4 Empty the Warrens

4 Lightning Bolt

Storm is an oddly well-positioned deck in a field of Eldrazi, Affinity and Abzan CoCo, it can often win on turns 3 or 4 and can be pretty resilient through the limited disruption that the big 3 decks offer.

The storm deck looks to play as many spells in one turn, thanks to cost reducing effect of Goblin Electromancer, and copy those spells with Pyromancer Ascension to churn through their spells and then cast them all over again with Past in Flames to generate a high enough Storm count to Grapeshot you, repeatedly, to death.

Sideboarding with the Storm deck is often best with a light hand, the main deck is built in such a way that you often want to only shave a few pieces. Empty the Warrens is often the card sided in most and gives the deck a way to attack for actual combat damage outside of a Goblin Electromancer running riot!

Detroit 2016

This was it, Eldrazi winter was settling in across the globe and the resistance was fading. Was to be any hope, could anyone finally break the Eldrazi stranglehold on the Modern landscape?

*Cues Dramatic Music*

Abzan Company – Ralph Betesh

1st Place – Grand Prix Detroit 2016

Creatures:

4 Birds of Paradise

3 Noble Hierarch

2 Viscera Seer

2 Spellskite

2 Voice of Resurgence

2 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit

2 Melira, Sylvok Outcast

2 Wall of Roots

1 Fiend Hunter

1 Orzhov Pontiff

3 Eternal Witness

4 Kitchen Finks

1 Murderous Redcap

Spells:

4 Collected Company

4 Chord of Calling

Lands:

2 Gavony Township

2 Forest

1 Plains

1 Swamp

2 Overgrown Tomb

1 Godless Shrine

2 Temple Garden

4 Windswept Heath

4 Verdant Catacombs

2 Razorverge Thicket

2 Horizon Canopy

Sideboard:

1 Reveillark

1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence

1 Intrepid Hero

1 Kataki, War’s Wage

1 Scavenging Ooze

1 Qasali Pridemage

1 Phyrexian Revoker

1 Sin Collector

2 Thoughtseize

2 Abrupt Decay

3 Path to Exile

Like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, Betesh had shown us the way! And that way was with infinite life and infinite damage, sounds quite straight forward.

Betesh’s list was a relatively clean list, with a lot of the ‘silver bullet’ creatures moved to the sideboard and only Fiend Hunter and Orzhov Pontiff earning a spot on the main roster. The decks aims to build a combination of Viscera Seer, Kitchen Finks and either Melira or Anafenza, that allows you to sack your Kitchen Finks repeatedly and Scry through your whole deck! Then it is simply a case of leaving either a Chord of Calling or a Murderous Redcap on top of your library to repeatedly sacrifice the Redcap to kill your opponent.

The sideboard contains a range of creature-based answer to decks, including Linvala, Keepr of Silence, Interpid Hero or Kataki, War’s Wage. Oddly there was no Big Game Hunter in the 75, the card had received a lot of hype as a way to kill Eldrazi.

So with our last hope, the allied forces rallied and rose to strike down the Eldrazi on the final stage of the weekend. If you’re planning on attending a modern event this weekend then I urge you to join the allies and sleeve up Betesh’s decklist!

That’s all from me this week, as always comments are welcomed and appreciated. I’ll be back next week with a look back on my venture in to modern at the 5isthenew7 series event.

Bonus Deck!

Jund – Jonathan Delano

9-0 Day 1 – GP Detroit 2016

Creatures:

3 Dark Confidant

1 Goblin Dark-Dwellers

1 Grim Lavamancer

3 Scavenging Ooze

4 Tarmogoyf

1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet

Spells:

1 Damnation

3 Inquisition of Kozilek

1 Maelstrom Pulse

3 Thoughtseize

2 Abrupt Decay

2 Kolaghan’s Command

4 Lightning Bolt

3 Terminate

4 Liliana of the Veil

Lands:

2 Forest

1 Swamp

4 Blackcleave Cliffs

2 Blood Crypt

1 Bloodstained Mire

2 Overgrown Tomb

4 Raging Ravine

1 Stomping Ground

1 Twilight Mire

4 Verdant Catacombs

2 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:

1 Nihil Spellbomb

3 Fulminator Mage

1 Kitchen Finks

2 Obstinate Baloth

1 Thragtusk

1 Ancient Grudge

1 Devour Flesh

1 Golgari Charm

1 Unravel the Æther

1 Night of Souls’ Betrayal

2 Anger of the Gods