It wasn’t long into Day 1 of the Pro Tour when the feeling hit me – I’m a complete noob. I have no idea what I’m doing. I reported to the wrong draft pod because I looked at my seat assignment instead of my table number. My first round opponent was Raphaël Lévy. I asked him which number Pro Tour this was for him; he said 89. I told him that we have 90 total between us.

As far as Magic goes, I haven’t had the feeling of inexperience in a long time. I’ve been playing in competitive tournaments for the past four years without any major breaks. I’ve played in PTQs, PPTQs, RPTQs, IQs, SCG Opens and Invitationals, GPs, and even the Super Sunday Series Championship. Playing at those levels, I can say that I’ve been there before. But playing at the Pro Tour made me feel like I was in freshman year all over again – and I was.

Every time I glanced around the room, I spotted another Pro Tour Champion. Players whom I had watched on Magic coverage as they each won their respective trophies. Kazuyuki Takimura, Antonio Del Moral León, Martin Dang, Ivan Floch, Joel Larsson, Ari Lax. This was routine for them. I felt outclassed, but I also had the faint feeling that if I was ever lucky enough to continue playing Pro Tours, maybe one day I could get used to being here.

Oath of the Gatewatch Draft

I went 6-0 overall in draft at the Pro Tour, which I definitely didn’t expect to do. I did put in a lot of draft preparation along with my teammates to make sure that we didn’t fall into the classic “first-time PT player” mistake of not learning how to draft the new format. We started drafting even earlier than usual, thanks to our team member Ryan putting together proxy Oath of the Gathewatch booster packs as soon as the full set spoiler was released. I did well in our in-house drafts, having a 23-7 record overall and never finishing worse than 2-1. I also played in three local Oath of the Gatewatch Sealed PPTQ’s and managed to Top 8 two of those.

Midway through testing, I hypothesized that red is the best color, based on how frequently red decks were 3-0’ing our draft pods. [card]Zada’s Commando[/card] became a very high pick in Oath because it is the only common red two-drop, but also an excellent card at all stages of the game. [card]Boulder Salvo[/card] is premium removal, and I found [card]Sparkmage’s Gambit[/card] to be an underrated spell that won me a lot of games.

Green obviously improved a lot from BFZ to OGW. [card]Nissa’s Judgment[/card] is a slam first-pick. We were greatly impressed and amused by the card [card]Saddleback Lagac[/card] and quickly made it the mascot of our team, Team [card]Saddleback Lagac[/card] Crack-Back Attack.

White decks usually don’t have a need or use for colorless mana apart from [card]Eldrazi Displacer[/card], which is awkward despite Displacer being one of the best rares in the set. This sets white apart from the other colors if you happen to open a great bomb such as [card]Endbringer[/card], [card]Thought-Knot Seer[/card], or [card]Reality Smasher[/card].

Black, however, makes great use of colorless mana and Devoid synergies. While I think Black-Red and Black-Blue Devoid continue to be excellent archetypes like they were in triple BFZ, Blue-Red has somewhat shifted away from Devoid – you can see this with its gold uncommon, [card]Stormchaser Mage[/card]. I figure that the ceiling for Blue-Red is high, seeing as the archetype has won two different Grand Prixs and feels powerful when it comes together properly.

My decks that I drafted at the Pro Tour were Blue-Black and Red-Green with a ton of powerful cards, as seen here:

Draft #1 – Alex Bianchi

[deck]
[Lands]
1 Crumbling Vestige
1 Holdout Settlement
7 Island
1 Ruins of Oran-Rief
1 Sunken Hollow
7 Swamp
[/Lands]
[Spells]
1 Complete Disregard
1 Demon’s Grasp
1 Horribly Awry
1 Oblivion Strike
1 Transgress the Mind
1 Ugin’s Insight
1 Visions of Brutality
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
1 Deepfathom Skulker
1 Eldrazi Mimic
2 Essence Depleter
1 Guardian of Tazeem
1 Kozilek’s Pathfinder
3 Kozilek’s Shrieker
1 Oracle of Dust
1 Ruination Guide
1 Silent Skimmer
1 Slaughter Drone
1 Thought-Knot Seer
1 Tide Drifter
[/Creatures]
[Sideboard]
1 Flaying Tendrils
1 Rising Miasma
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Draft #2 – Alex Bianchi

[deck]
[Lands]
1 Canopy Vista
6 Forest
6 Mountain
1 Timber Gorge
1 Unknown Shores
3 Wastes
[/Lands]
[Spells]
1 Boulder Salvo
2 Natural Connection
1 Nissa’s Judgment
1 Press into Service
1 Reality Hemorrhage
1 Sparkmage’s Gambit
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
1 Eyeless Watcher
1 Firemantle Mage
1 Immobilizer Eldrazi
1 Kozilek’s Pathfinder
1 Oran-Rief Invoker
1 Reality Smasher
2 Reckless Cohort
1 Relentless Hunter
1 Resolute Blademaster
1 Stalking Drone
1 Sylvan Advocate
1 Tajuru Warcaller
1 Valakut Predator
1 Walker of the Wastes
[/Creatures]
[Sideboard]
1 Vines of the Recluse
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

I forgot to register a basic [card]Plains[/card] in my second deck to be able to search up with [card]Natural Connection[/card]s. It never came back to bite me, but I shamefully sided it in every match in place of the third [card]Wastes[/card].

I passed a third-pick [card]Horizon Canopy[/card] Expedition in my second draft, which I probably would have taken if it could produce colorless mana. I also had to pick an [card]Oran-Rief Invoker[/card] over [card]Rolling Thunder[/card] because my deck only had seven creatures after pack two.

Modern

As far as Modern deck selection went, I tried some Delver decks and even a bit of [card]Possibility Storm[/card] combo in testing for the Pro Tour, but ultimately settled on the comforting familiarity of Jeskai Control with a combo finish.

Jeskai Kiki Control – Alex Bianchi

[deck]
[Lands]
2 Arid Mesa
1 Cascade Bluffs
2 Celestial Colonnade
3 Flooded Strand
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
2 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
1 Sulfur Falls
2 Wandering Fumarole
[/Lands]
[Spells]
1 Anticipate
2 Cryptic Command
1 Dispel
1 Electrolyze
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
3 Remand
2 Spell Snare
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
2 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
2 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
3 Restoration Angel
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Wall of Omens
[/Creatures]
[Sideboard]
1 Celestial Purge
3 Crumble to Dust
2 Dispel
1 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Keranos, God of Storms
1 Negate
1 Stony Silence
2 Timely Reinforcements
1 Wear // Tear
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

My read on the Modern metagame was in line with everything that Pascal Maynard wrote in his article before the Pro Tour. I expected Tron, Affinity, and Burn to be the most popular decks, with perhaps an uptick of Infect, in anticipation of Tron. Following that would be the normal GBx Midrange strategies and Kiki Chord. I liked the positioning of Jeskai Control against that expected field, with the exception of the Tron matchup. Hence, the three [card]Crumble to Dust[/card] in my sideboard. And Eldrazi decks? Nobody will play those! And if anyone actually does, they surely won’t have a tuned list, right?

This Jeskai list was not too far off from my GP Pittsburgh-winning list, minus [card]Deceiver Exarch[/card] and a few copies of a certain now-banned enchantment. It was a natural progression to go up on copies of [card]Restoration Angel[/card] and [card]Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker[/card]. While the Angel combo is a turn slower than Twin-Exarch, it comes with the added benefit of getting around [card]Abrupt Decay[/card] and [card]Spellskite[/card]. Once I had more [card]Restoration Angel[/card]s in my deck and was less reliant on combo’ing, it made sense to add [card]Wall of Omens[/card] in place of [card]Serum Visions[/card]. I never pulled the trigger on going up to three [card]Vendilion Clique[/card]s, but it ended up being an important creature to fill in the vacant three-drop spot on the mana curve and to set up a turn four [card]Restoration Angel[/card]. [card]Pia and Kiran Nalaar[/card] also worked well with the increased number of Angels, and continued to overperform as an army-in-a-can.

[card]Wandering Fumarole[/card] is clearly a worse creature than the 4/4 flying [card]Celestial Colonnade[/card], except in situations when you only have five lands in play. The main reason why I chose to play two copies of the inferior manland was so that I could fit in additional sources of red mana, in addition to those situations when the cheaper activation cost would be relevant.

The best performing Jeskai deck at Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch ended up being Jelger Wiegersma’s, whom I actually faced on Day Two. He had a 7-3 record in Modern with the following:

Jeskai Kiki Control – Jelger Wiegersma

[deck]
[Lands]
4 Arid Mesa
2 Cascade Bluffs
4 Celestial Colonnade
2 Flooded Strand
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Steam Vents
[/Lands]
[Spells]
2 Cryptic Command
3 Electrolyze
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Lightning Helix
3 Mana Leak
4 Path to Exile
2 Spell Snare
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
2 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
4 Restoration Angel
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
4 Wall of Omens
[/Creatures]
[Sideboard]
2 Crumble to Dust
2 Izzet Staticaster
1 Keranos, God of Storms
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Shadow of Doubt
3 Stony Silence
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Wear // Tear
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

My list was not too far off from Jelger’s, with a few key differences. He had the full four [card]Celestial Colonnade[/card]s, along with a second [card]Cascade Bluffs[/card] to help cast [card]Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker[/card]. He chose to play [card]Mana Leak[/card] over [card]Remand[/card]. There are also a few more removal spells ([card]Lightning Helix[/card], [card]Electrolyze[/card]), where I had [card]Pia and Kiran Nalaar[/card] and a few more one-of’s ([card]Dispel[/card], [card]Anticipate[/card]). I’m on board with most of these deckbuilding choices, though I still prefer the sideboard that I had.

Looking ahead at the now Eldrazi-infested landscape of Modern, I would probably recommend against playing Jeskai. The Eldrazi decks have fast mana and resilient creatures, which is a nightmare for a control deck. I was happy to have [card]Ghost Quarter[/card]s in my list, which are more important than ever to destroy [card]Eldrazi Temple[/card], [card]Eye of Ugin[/card], and [card]Cavern of Souls[/card], in addition to [card]Inkmoth Nexus[/card], Tron lands, and [card]Boseiju, Who Shelters All[/card]. [card]Supreme Verdict[/card] seems like the best card that a Jeskai deck can hope to cast in order to have a chance against Eldrazi Aggro. [card]Mana Leak[/card] is another clean answer to the new Eldrazi, as long as there’s no [card]Cavern of Souls[/card] to go with them. It’s much less of a headache to deal with [card]Matter Reshaper[/card], [card]Thought-Knot Seer[/card], and [card]Reality Smasher[/card] on the stack rather than with targeted removal spells. I also like [card]Engineered Explosives[/card] as a reasonable maindeck card that can answer [card]Chalice of the Void[/card] and [card]Endless One[/card].

As stupid as I felt for not playing an Eldrazi deck at the Pro Tour, I certainly could have done better than 4-6 in Modern with what I had registered. I made plenty of mistakes, including putting myself dead on board in my matches against Paul Cheon and Jelger Wiegersma. My 6-0 record in draft was the only thing that salvaged the tournament for me, landing me a 52nd-place finish at 10-6 when all was said and done. It’s crazy and disappointing to think that one more match win would have earned me three Pro Tour invites, but I didn’t feel remotely deserving of an 11-5 finish with how I played. I’m happy to have picked up the extra Pro Points, and I’m still in a decent position to hit Silver before the end of the year, with four points needed and five empty GP point slots. Expect to see me at every nearby Grand Prix, and maybe some not-so-nearby ones!