Updated for Vendetta

Mel

Soul's Reflection

Mind

ChaosIntermediate

Mel makes the opposing board smaller while her spells become cheaper. The hard part is spending that advantage on a battlefield before another hand of answers stops being enough.

Should you play Mel?

Pick Mel if you enjoy controlling the fight through small, well-timed exchanges. She rewards planning the whole turn, including the body that takes the point after the removal resolves.

Best for: Spell-heavy control players who like combining Might reduction, efficient answers, and a late turn that puts the score out of reach.
Think twice if: You want a simple curve of independently powerful attackers. Mel can spend several cards fixing a problem and still need to find a way onto the battlefield.

Key Cards

Applied Researchers is the resource engine: once empowered, each copy reduces your spells by one Energy and one Power. Its own discount stops at one Energy, though another discount can take the cost lower afterward. Defiant Soul turns the Might reduction into a permanent answer by banishing an enemy battlefield unit at three Might or less when she becomes empowered. Those two cards give the cheap spells a purpose beyond surviving another turn. Researchers helps you play several of them, and Defiant Soul removes the unit they have made small enough.

Mel’s Field Guide

Soul's Reflection gets empowered when you empower something else. You can then disempower and exhaust the Legend to give a battlefield unit -2 Might for the turn. That is a useful way to change a trade, bring a unit into removal range, or soften the defender before you attack. It is an open-Main-Phase activation, not a combat trick. The charge matters too: readying the Legend next turn does not empower it again. You need another actual Empower event before spending the ability a second time.

How Mel wins

Mel wants the opponent to commit a meaningful threat, then make it lose to a much smaller investment. Might reduction helps the early units contest, Rebuttal can turn a response into your own spell, and the empowered cards make subsequent exchanges easier to afford. The chosen Champion changes the emphasis. Defiant Soul banishes a weakened battlefield unit when she becomes empowered. Newly Awakened draws on play and, once empowered, stops your spells and abilities from being countered while improving their chosen-unit Might reductions. Neither version wins by leaving every unit at base. Establish the position while your answers are efficient, then make the opponent fight through those answers to stop you scoring.

Key interactions

Shrink first, then empower Defiant Soul

Soul's Reflection · Mel, Defiant Soul · Smoke Screen

A ready, empowered Legend can lower a five-Might enemy to three before Defiant Soul discards a spell to empower and banish it. Smoke Screen can bring a seven-Might target down to three instead. Do the reduction first: the banish ability needs a legal target when you put it on the chain, and the opponent can still protect that target with a Might increase before it resolves. Empowering Defiant Soul recharges the Legend, but it does not ready the Legend you just exhausted. Defiant Soul also cannot keep discarding spells once she is already empowered.

Keep a useful spell after discarding it

Dredge Up · Up from the Deep · Traveling Merchant

Flow makes these comfortable discards for Defiant Soul or Merchant. Dredge Up can still draw a card from the trash; Up from the Deep can still make two Tentacles. You pay the Flow cost and banish the spell after that play, so this is another use of the card, not an endless loop. Researchers reduces those costs too. Both spells keep their ordinary Main-Phase timing. The Tentacles can enter at base or a battlefield you already control, but you cannot hold Up from the Deep as a surprise combat reinforcement.

Make their spell contribute to your attack

Rebuttal · Ravenbloom Student · Applied Researchers

Rebuttal can choose a spell with printed Energy cost four or less. Its base Power can come from Mind or Chaos; the optional extra Power to steal the spell can come from any domain. With one empowered Researchers, the base cost is one Energy and no Power, but you still pay that optional Power if you want the spell. A resolved Rebuttal grows Student once. If the stolen spell then resolves under your control, Student grows again. Countered spells do not provide that trigger, and a cheapened expensive spell does not suddenly become a legal Rebuttal target.

Strengths

Might reduction lets small units trade up and lets Defiant Soul banish threats that were too large before the turn started.
Researchers saves Power as well as Energy. That matters when several cheap responses would otherwise consume the rune base.
The Champion choices support different fights: Defiant Soul answers the board, while Newly Awakened makes counter-based interaction much less reliable.

Weaknesses

Empowering Researchers costs three Energy after the four-Energy unit. That setup can be too slow if you have already conceded both battlefields.
The Legend and Defiant Soul have finite Empower opportunities. A strong first activation does not mean the same removal is available every turn.
Several reductions stop at one Might. Shrinking a unit does not automatically remove it, and an empty friendly board cannot collect the point afterward.

Shadow's Pick

Mel tournament list by CTG Alаnzq

19th place · Riftbound Regional Qualifier - Barcelona - Final Standings, 2026-08-23

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Deck total $378.00

Legend (1)

1x$0.08 ea.

Runes (12)

7x$0.16 ea.
5x$0.11 ea.

Battlefields (3)

1x$0.21 ea.
1x$0.17 ea.
1x$0.08 ea.

Spells (26)

3x$0.19 ea.
Power
1
Energy
3
3x$12.91 ea.
Power
1
Energy
1
3x$0.23 ea.
Energy
1
3x$12.77 ea.
Energy
1
1x$0.15 ea.
Power
1
Energy
2
1x$1.37 ea.
Power
2
Energy
2
3x$0.25 ea.
Energy
3
2x$0.89 ea.
Power
2
Energy
6
3x$0.15 ea.
Energy
2
3x$58.52 ea.
Power
4
Energy
10
1x$0.16 ea.
Power
1
Energy
3

Units (14)

1xChosen$0.17 ea.
Might
4
Energy
5
2x$20.58 ea.
Might
7
Power
1
Energy
7
3x$0.27 ea.
Might
2
Energy
2
3x$0.16 ea.
Might
4
Energy
4
3x$0.20 ea.
Might
2
Energy
2
2x$13.91 ea.
Might
4
Energy
4

Sideboard (10)

1x$0.18 ea.
Energy
2
1x$2.42 ea.
Might
4
Power
1
Energy
4
1x$0.24 ea.
Energy
1
1x$0.29 ea.
Energy
2
1x$0.16 ea.
Power
1
Energy
3
2x$0.16 ea.
Might
3
Energy
3
1x$12.42 ea.
Might
3
Power
1
Energy
3
1x$29.61 ea.
Power
2
Energy
7
1x$0.59 ea.
Energy
1

Shadow's take

This is my Mel pick because it gives the control plan an actual ending. The three Time Warps turn a protected battlefield into another Hold before the opponent gets their normal turn back. Researchers is what makes paying for that realistic, but the deck does not need to sit around waiting for Warp. Student and Merchant give it early bodies, Up from the Deep supplies more, and Defiant Soul turns the reduction package into banishment instead of asking every fight to finish through damage. I particularly like discarding a Flow spell to empower her. You get the removal trigger now and can still use the discarded card later, provided you leave the Energy for it. Vex is another important part of the position: get her onto a battlefield and newly played opposing units are stunned and cannot move that turn. She does not stop the units already there, so clear those first. The goal is to reach the expensive turn with a score worth protecting, not to have three Warps in hand while the opponent takes the last point.

The Game Plan

Early gameLook for Student or Merchant and a cheap way to keep the hand moving. Stacked Deck helps find the next body or the answer the current board actually needs. Send back excess Watchers, Singularities, and Time Warps if they leave you with no opening. Merchant can put Dredge Up or Up from the Deep into the trash without losing their Flow use. Plan Researchers as a four-Energy play followed by a three-Energy Empower; you do not have to pay all seven in the same turn. Sometimes leaving a response available is better than turning the discount on immediately.
MidgameOnce Researchers is empowered, look for the exchange that removes a threat and leaves a fighter. Apply its discount to Shock Blast first, reducing the cost to two Energy and no Power. Shock Blast's own empowered discount then removes the remaining two Energy: four damage for no resources, before any added taxes. Smoke Screen costs one Energy and no Power as a Reaction. Use the Legend or a reduction spell before empowering Defiant Soul if her target starts above three Might. A ready Student can take the field after the banish, with the Flow spell you discarded providing another card or more bodies. Keep Vex on a battlefield when her restriction will interfere with the opponent's next deployment. Do not expose Researchers simply because it is a four-Might unit; losing it can make the rest of the turn unaffordable.
Late gameCount the whole Time Warp payment and the points the extra turn would produce. One empowered Researchers makes it nine Energy and three Mind Power; two make it eight and two. The extra turn includes another ready, channel, draw, and opportunity to Hold. It is strongest when you already control a field, not when you have spent the turn answering threats without developing. Watcher is the other way to force progress: eight Energy and two Mind Power pays for Accelerate, a ready seven-Might body, and its play trigger giving all enemy units -3 Might for the turn, to a minimum of one. Singularity handles two units for six damage each, including units at base. Use the line that changes the score now, and keep enough interaction to prevent one answer from undoing the entire turn.

Battlefields

Blind

Threshold of the Gray · Applied Researchers · Rebuttal

Combat starting here gives each side one Energy. With Researchers active, that can pay the base cost of Rebuttal or Smoke Screen without exhausting another rune. It does not provide Power for Rebuttal's optional theft, and the opponent gets the same Energy. Establish the Empower setup before combat; Threshold does not let you activate the untagged Legend or Defiant Soul in the middle of a Showdown.

Going First

Ravenbloom Conservatory · Ravenbloom Student · Stupefy

Defending reveals your top card and puts it into hand if it is a spell; otherwise you recycle it. This list has plenty of spells, and an extra Stupefy or Rebuttal can change the fight, but the draw is not guaranteed. Take the field with a body you can reasonably defend. A revealed Singularity is useful later, not permission to play an untagged spell during combat.

Going Second

Forbidding Waste · Up from the Deep · Switcheroo

A lone defender here has -2 Might, making an established enemy easier to attack. Your own lone defender suffers the same penalty. A Tentacle played here while you control it can keep Vex or another unit from being alone, and Switcheroo can trade a Tentacle's Might with a large enemy during an open Showdown. Waste's penalty only exists while the unit is defending; do not count it as a permanent reduction when setting up Defiant Soul before combat.

Sideboard

Change the Champion for the counter fight

Mel, Newly Awakened · Mel, Defiant Soul · Abandon

The sideboard's Newly Awakened can replace Defiant Soul as the chosen Champion between games. She costs four Energy and one Mind Power, draws on play, and needs another three Energy to empower. Make that switch when protecting the spell plan matters more than Defiant Soul's banish. Her protection stops counters, not Rebuttal stealing an eligible spell. The sideboard Abandon can answer a spell of any printed cost, but normally returns it to hand, so bring it for the turn you need to win the exchange. I would trim a Singularity when the battle is over the chain rather than multiple enemy units.

Choose the gear answer that actually reaches the target

Pickpocket · Turn to Dust · Acceptable Losses

The two Pickpockets immediately kill a gear costing at most one Energy and give you an exhausted Gold if they do. Turn to Dust can mark a larger gear for death at the start of its controller's next Beginning Phase; it does not remove the gear now. Acceptable Losses is better against a single important gear, since the opponent chooses what to lose and can offer a Gold instead. I would cut a Shock Blast or Singularity against a gear engine with few relevant units. Keep enough answers for the actual attacker, and remember any Gold you made can become your own required Losses sacrifice.

Spend fewer cards on the large unit

Decree of Insight · Star-Crossed · Smoke Screen

Insight gives an enemy Body unit -5 Might for one Energy as a Reaction, ignoring Deflect while paying. Bring it over Smoke Screen when Body units are the problem. The second Star-Crossed is useful when returning a legal enemy target is better than trying to deal six through its size or protection. It also brings your own Defiant Soul back to hand, letting you replay and empower her again later. That reset costs another five Energy and another discarded spell; returning Researchers instead means rebuilding its Empower discount too. Trim a Singularity when that tempo exchange is more useful than two damage targets.

Reload a useful answer or clear the whole field

Fizz, Trickster · Unchecked Power · Time Warp

Fizz gives another use of a spell from the trash with printed Energy cost three or less. Shock Blast and Star-Crossed are meaningful options; Time Warp and Singularity are not. You still pay applicable Power, and the replayed spell gets recycled afterward rather than remaining available in the trash. I would trim a duplicate Warp when an earlier answer matters more. Unchecked Power replaces a Singularity against a board too wide for two targets. It exhausts all your units, then deals twelve to every unit at battlefields, including yours. Researchers can survive the damage at base, but it will still be exhausted. Plan the recovery before using the reset.