Well my name is Ray and I’m to say,

I got the Top 100 Day 1 decks today.

Eldrazi Monsters got you down?

Don’t frown, let me break it down!

(ahem)

I apologise, that will never happen again. Or at least not until the next time they let me loose on an event unsupervised, anyway.

We knew the Eldrazi were coming, but we didn’t know in what capacity or in which manner. This is our first glance at how the Top 100 players from Day 1 and how they were divided between the Oath of the Gatewatch and the Traitorous Scum Eldrazi. Here is the breakdown in broad strokes:

Archtype # Eldrazi 43 Affinity 11 Abzan Company 8 W/U Control 7 Infect 4 Elves 5 Living End 4 Bring to Light 3 Tron 2 Other 12

So we’re looking at 57/43 in favour of the Gatewatch, which isn’t a huge majority. If you count Affinity out as robots are quite unlikely to take Oaths, then that makes it 46/43, which is frighteningly close. It’s always a good idea to better understand your enemy, so let’s break the Eldrazi down into sub-archetypes.

Archtype # W/U Eldrazi 30 G/R Eldrazi 6 U/R Eldrazi 3 Bant Eldrazi 1 G/U Eldrazi 1 Colourless Eldrazi 1 Esper Eldrazi 1

Unsurprisingly, the majority of their invasion force is White-Blue for Drowner of Hope, Eldrazi Displacer, Path to Exile, and some of the best targeted sideboard hate in the format. Common consensus is that White-Blue is the best configuration when battling other Eldrazi, which can happen from time to time in a chaotic battlefield like this.

The evolution of the Eldrazi continues, however, as some builds are now tending towards green, with Ancient Stirrings providing additional consistency, and World Breaker being great against some of the more popular anti-Eldrazi cards. Some evidence of the earlier Eldrazi formations seen in the battle for Atlanta are still present in Melbourne this weekend with Blue-Red and Colourless builds fighting on the fringes.

Finally, a shout-out to the “Other” category in the Gatewatch. While the majority of the Oathers are targeting Eldrazi with Abzan Company, W/U Control, Infect, and the Living End, there are a plucky few keeping the invaders on their toes by throwing them something unexpected, as shown below.

Archtype # Jeskai 2 Dredge 2 Classic Jund 1 Goryo’s VengeanceGriselbrandCombo 1 Lantern Control 1 Merfolk 1 Scapeshift 1 U/R Storm 1 W/G Wilf-Leaf Liege Aggro 1 W/U Extra Turns 1

So that’s how shook down coming into Day 2, we’ll soon see which side of the battle is favoured come the Top 8 this afternoon.