Grand Prix Detroit Preparation: Modern with Melira Pod

Grand Prix Detroit takes place on September 14^th and 15^th.  There are only a few weeks left to find a deck, learn how to play it effectively, and acquire the cards.  Let the journey begin!

In my last post, I decided that Melira Pod was the best deck for me to play because of my prior experience with the deck, its ability to beat a wide swath of decks in whatever metagame shows up to the GP, and how it attacks from more than one angle.

The internet has been a bit short on articles about Modern lately, which I expect to ramp up as we get closer to the event. Adam Yurchick just wrote a nice little article about Melira Pod: “Modern Mastery – Melira Pod.” There are a few other articles posted in the last few days that are probably worth checking out: “Modern at a Glance” by Nassim Ketita and “Analysis of Modern in the MOCS” by Jarvis Yu.

The best articles prior to this week have almost exclusively come from Ari Lax. Start with the awesome “Modern Cheat Sheet,” then check out “Kiki Pod in BBQ Town,” and finally “Modern Metagame Levels.” I have really enjoyed Ari’s work on the Modern format and expect that he will put out at least one more relevant article before the Grand Prix.

Having done a fair amount of research on both Modern and Melira Pod, I feel like I have come to a decent decklist as a starting point. This list takes into account various recent lists and good finishes with the deck:

Sadly, most of the testing that I’ll do with the deck will be an inferior version that I built online with what I had available. It is without fetchlands and without Thoughtseize. Not having the fetches makes Deathrite Shaman strictly worse, but I haven’t felt like I’ve lost a lot by replacing Thoughtseize with Duress. Perhaps someone could enlighten me as to why you need to spend $120 for four cards when Duress seems to do what you need it to? There must be some crazy creature out there that you can’t nab with Duress, right?

So the next phase of my process will be learning how to play the deck. I’ll do this over the next few weeks (mostly on MTGO) while I try to acquire some key paper cards. If I can’t find fetches by the Grand Prix, I’ll likely be rocking a deck with fewer Deathrite Shamans and… GASP!! … basic lands.

What to Play in Modern?

Grand Prix Detroit is coming up in a few weeks.  I live in Metro Detroit.  It’s time to get serious.  I need a deck and there are a ton to choose from.

Here’s a checklist of things I’m looking for:

1. Something that can beat a wide variety of decks
2. Something that has more than one angle
3. Something that I’m sorta familiar with

The decks that meet these criteria aren’t exactly coming out of the woodwork.  But, I do have a few favorites:

Melira Pod, Jund, and Gruul Aggro.

Melira Pod seems to meet all three criteria and I have very fond memories of it. It would probably not take a ton of work for me to re-learn the matchups. It can combo or beat down, so I really like this option.

Jund is just a straight value deck. It really only attacks from one angle, but the cards are so dang powerful. Unfortunately for me, they are also so dang expensive. This is probably the most expensive deck there is (except for maybe Black/Green, which is basically the same deck).  I think I’ll pass on this one.’

Gruul Aggro has only one plan of attack: Attack.  I just can’t abide by this. It seems like all of the good decks are either combo, value, or control. Without a card like Wild Nacatl, I can’t see aggro beating out any combo decks or control decks.  And especially not something like Pod.

So, of the three decks that I could potentially play well with only two weeks prep time, Melira Pod seems like the best fit.

It’s time to go to work!!!