MTG Salvation

I wish I could get into Standard. For whatever reason, the format just never clicks with me. I think the format is really interesting; I enjoy watching streams of Standard events and of course pros running the gauntlet in Daily Events. But when it comes to playing it just doesn’t click with me. I honestly wish it would. Modern, while a good format, can be really annoying sometimes. Especially if your opponent is playing anything including Geist of Saint Traft. Or anything else with Hexproof, for that matter. I’ll be up front: Hexproof sucks. It’s a pain in the ass, it’s a crutch, and it’s completely unfun and uninteractive. There’s nothing more aggravating than a hexproof creature. The latest abuser of the hexproof menace, UWR “Kirby Geist”, has been particularly exasperating as of late. I’ve never beat a UWR Geist deck in a full two-out-of-three match. Not once. Not the Kirby version, not the Delver version, none of them. It appears I’ve something of a nemesis in blue, red, and white.

So I took a break. I didn’t play any magic for a few days. Maybe a week. Today is Sunday; I haven’t even begun this week’s article until today because of this. So if it’s a day or two late, now you know why. In the week I’ve been abstaining from my format there have been a few developments which, unsurprisingly, are what finally got me to sit down and get back to what I really enjoy: writing! I don’t even have to play the game to enjoy writing about it. Maybe that’s something I can do until I can mitigate how much stress I’m under. Just stick to theorizing, philosophizing, and sharing my ideas. So that’s what we’ll be doing today. Let’s share some ideas, muse on some new players in the format, cover some old ideas, one new idea, and a quick aside on the secret to building the best four color manabases.

So what’s new? Well, this.

shoktroopa Mono-Blue TronMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
1 Academy Ruins 8 Island 1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds 1 Tectonic Edge 4 Urza's Mine 4 Urza's Power Plant 4 Urza's Tower 1 Platinum Angel 3 Solemn Simulacrum 1 Sundering Titan 4 Treasure Mage 2 Wurmcoil Engine	4 Condescend 4 Expedition Map 2 Mindslaver 1 Oblivion Stone 4 Remand 3 Repeal 1 Spell Burst 3 Talisman of Progress 4 Thirst for Knowledge	Sideboard 3 Dismember 3 Pithing Needle 2 Relic of Progenitus 3 Spell Pierce 2 Spellskite 2 Trickbind

Brought to you by the apparently brilliant mind of one “shoktroopa” on Magic Online. I’m not sure how he got it all together, but he’s been crushing with the thing. As have the other MTGS players that have picked it up. I have no idea why dropping white and adding Solemn Simulacrum made the deck so insanely good all of a sudden (better mana is the easy guess) but obviously it worked like a charm. I’m fairly sure that Solemn had more to do with it than losing the second color, however, because Jens has always been a very, very good card. It’s just nobody wanted to play it anywhere (understandably, because there wasn’t anywhere to put the thing). Eagerly, I jumped onto the shoktroopa bandwagon and stole his list. But the first day or two of roaming the Cockatrice dregs didn’t go so well for me. The deck was good, but it wasn’t enough for me. I wanted more. It had reminded me of a deck that I’d played years ago; my very first Modern deck, in fact:

UG 12Post 6/17/2011Magic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Lands: 3 Island 1 Forest 4 Breeding Pool 4 Misty Rainforest 4 Glimmerpost 4 Cloudpost 4 Vesuva 1 Eye of Ugin 1 Academy Ruins Creatures: 4 Trinket Mage 1 Steel Hellkite 1 Platinum Angel 1 Wurmcoil Engine 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn	Instants: 4 Rune Snag 4 Spell Pierce 2 Gifts Ungiven Sorceries: 4 Preordain 4 All Is Dust 3 Sylvan Scrying 1 Life from the Loam Artifacts: 1 Expedition Map 1 Chalice of the Void 1 Staff of Domination 1 Engineered Explosives	Sideboard: 4 Mental Misstep 2 Oblivion Stone 2 Mindbreak Trap 1 Aether Spellbomb 1 Relic of Progenitus 1 Orochi Hatchery 1 Pithing Needle 1 Brittle Effigy 1 Sundering Titan 1 Duplicant

You can tell how old it is by how many banned cards are in it.

(Also, yes, you’re right: I did play 12Post before it was cool.)

Yes, this was my very first Modern project. It was originally a terrible Everflowing Chalice Proliferate deck with Wurmcoil Engine and Steel Hellkite. Once I posted the list to the “Modern forum” (there was no such place in 2011, all the Modern players were hiding in some Casual forum alongside Elder Dragon Highlander and Overextended) I was quickly turned on to the possibility of Cloudpost and friend. The deck grew from there into the UG thing of beauty you see up there. It was this list that I wanted to return to with shoktroopa’s theory firmly in place. I had a lot of fun with that old thing. Staff of Domination was probably my favorite card in the entire thing. Staff single-handedly won me almost every game that I cast it in. With it, I’d lock down entire squads, draw my entire deck, and gain every bit of life I could ever want. Chalice of the Void was excellent as well, and Spell Burst lock was great, too. Basically, when that thing won, it won in the most rude, unfun way it could. I’ve never had a deck this obnoxious since, I don’t think. But not for lack of trying.

I set out to put my own spin on the classic mono-blue list. I started off with my general idea already firmly in place: Life from the Loam. With Life from the Loam not only could I retrieve destroyed Tron lands, but, alongside Academy Ruins, I could find my Tron lands and artifacts very quickly. I also wanted Sylvan Scrying, an old standby from the UG Post list. I decided early that Primeval Titan would not be making an appearance. I didn’t need him at all, mostly because I didn’t have Glimmerposts to tutor for to pull me out of a jam. What would have been Primeval Titan became Thragtusk instead. Thragtusk fits the curve of the deck quite easily, as it comes down right after Solemn Simulacrum finds my basic forest and that very forest is really the only land it needs, as its color requirement is unobtrusive. The life gain and several billion bodies it provide would gum up the board alongside the Simulacrum. Even without the Tron, I’m playing a handful of value creatures that will keep the good times rolling.

Because of the incidental interaction with Loam and Ruins, I decided to split my blue instants between Thirst for Knowledge and Gifts Ungiven. I greatly enjoyed casting Gifts in the old 12Post deck (and in every other Gifts deck I’ve ever built). With respect to that, I decided to turn one of the Oblivion Stones to All is Dust and because I didn’t need Treasure Mage’s body because of Thragtusk, I changed the Mages into Fabricate.

To get the finish, I was going to opt for Slaver lock. Less mana than Emrakul, and more of a hard kill as well. It’s also more vulnerable; Emrakul cannot be countered, but Mindslaver can (although it very rarely is), plus Slaver is weak to graveyard hate (although Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void are the only ways to do it, with Relic of Progenitus or Tormod’s Crypt, I simply Slaver you, then put it back on top before in response if you crack it, because you have no other chance to crack it because I’ll control your turn and I won’t activate Ruins during my own if I don’t have to) and Stony Silence. I still prefer Mindslaver though. I don’t want to wait to fifteen mana, or have to attack. Winning the game by decking my opponent with Slaver lock is a much more secure way to go about winning the game. But I will be running colorless fatties: Sundering Titan and Platinum Angel, to punish greedy manabases and decks light on Terminate and Path to Exile. The mono-Island version of the deck also has Wurmcoil Engine, but I’m not sure if I really need it when I have Thragtusk (although Engine is a very good threat).

UG TronMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Land: 1 Forest 8 Island 2 Yavimaya Coast 4 Urza's Power Plant 4 Urza's Tower 4 Urza's Mine 1 Academy Ruins Creatures: 4 Thragtusk 4 Solemn Simulacrum 1 Sundering Titan 1 Platinum Angel	Instants: 4 Condescend 2 Gifts Ungiven 2 Thirst for Knowledge Sorceries: 3 Sylvan Scrying 2 Life from the Loam 2 Fabricate 1 All Is Dust Artifacts: 4 Simic Signet 3 Expedition Map 2 Oblivion Stone 1 Mindslaver	Sideboard: 3 Repeal 1 Krosan Grip 2 Trickbind 2 Spellskite 2 Trinket Mage 1 Chalice of the Void 1 Relic of Progenitus 1 Pithing Needle 1 Grafdigger's Cage 1 Engineered Explosives

It’s a work in progress, of course. Four Signets might be too many; the third can either be a Syncopate for sake of a fifth Condescend (exiling the spell is worse than scrying, but having a fifth counter is not a bad idea) or possibly a second Mindslaver. I think I really want that second Mindslaver. With it, Gifts for Loam, Ruins, Slaver, and Fabricate guarantees an eventual lock. As it stands, the Fabricate in that pile is pretty awkward. Perhaps I’ll make that change soon and see if there are any appreciable changes in results. The sideboard is also fairly messy. I think I should instead be running a split of Repeal and Nature’s Claim instead of the 3/1 split on Repeal and Krosan Grip. The four life doesn’t matter, Slaver lock wins regardless of life total. I think I’ll always have the Trinket Mage package, though. I love me a Trinket Mage, and he fits rather nicely in here, as he gives me two extra bodies with value in the match-ups where that’s just the sort of thing that I’d like to have. The flexibility of my tutees really make him worth the room that he takes up. I’m most likely boarding out Platinum Angel in those match-ups as well, so replacing the body is also nice.

Next, a question: Am I the only person who likes Gatecrash? Seems like I am. But then again MTG Salvation can never be pleased so I can’t say I’m surprised.

So I really do like Gatecrash. Not as much as I like Innistrad, but more than Dark Ascension. My only real complaint is Extort. I just don’t like it. It doesn’t seem like it really does much of anything at all. But I’m still not unhappy with Orzhov. White and black multicolored cards are still the most beautiful thing on a gold background. I even like the unplayables. Most notably Executioner’s Swing and Purge the Profane, on flavor and aesthetics alone (plus I like saying “Purge the Profane”; it sounds like the name of a much better card). The political and religious flavor of Orzhov was really captured beautifully. My favorite examples are Cartel Aristocrat and High Priest of Penance. The former protects herself by convincing other Syndicate members to take the fall for her whenever the Azorius come knocking and anything that crosses the High Priest is in turn annihilated by a hoard of fanatical Syndicate members. High Priest of Penance illustrates a figure abusing the power of cult of personality and religious guilt. I almost want to get one altered in the likeness of Jim Jones. Needless to say, Gatecrash is a very pretty, flavorful, and pleasing expansion.

With Gatecrash came the likewise Pro Tour, and champion Tom Martell, piloting this beauty:

The Aristocrats, 1st at Pro Tour GatecrashMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Land: 3 Plains 4 Blood Crypt 4 Godless Shrine 4 Sacred Foundry 4 Isolated Chapel 1 Clifftop Retreat 3 Cavern of Souls 1 Vault of the Archangel Creatures: 4 Cartel Aristocrat 4 Falkenrath Aristocrat 4 Champion of the Parish 4 Boros Reckoner 4 Doomed Traveler 3 Knight of Infamy 1 Restoration Angel 2 Silverblade Paladin 2 Skirsdag High Priest 2 Zealous Conscripts	Instants: 4 Orzhov Charm Sorceries: 2 Lingering Souls	Sideboard: 2 Blasphemous Act 2 Lingering Souls 1 Mentor of the Meek 2 Obzedat, Ghost Council 2 Rest in Peace 1 Skirsdag High Priest 2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad 3 Tragic Slip

(Congradulations, by the way, Tom.)

Of course I’m playing a Modern version of this, it has Cartel Aristocrat! In fact, I’d already built it, long before this event. And it was pretty close to this list. Just wish I still had it. The idea I had was pretty simple, and probably pretty close to his: the Aristocrats are hard to play against. With the sacrificing, protection, indestructibility, and what have you, you’re creating a very complicated board state. You have a lot of tricks to one-up your opponent and eke out little advantages over a long period of time, eventually grinding your opponent out. It’s very comparable to Death and Taxes in how you’re abusing a lot of little interactions to gradually win the game. Interactions such as sacrificing declared blockers so that your opponent cannot gain life from lifelink (or, rather, damage you with Boros Reckoner). Your deck is also very good against removal. Cartel Aristocrat and Falkenrath Aristocrat aren’t easily removed. They’re weaknesses also do not overlap, so no one card currently in service is going to quickly and cleanly “beat” you. Falkenrath is going to survive every wrath currently on the menu, and Cartel Aristocrat is not easily killed with spot removal if she has compatriots to martyr.

The AristocratsMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Land: 3 Plains 4 Marsh Flats 3 Arid Mesa 3 Blood Crypt 2 Sacred Foundry 1 Godless Shrine 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 3 Lavaclaw Reaches 1 Vault of the Archangel Creatures: 4 Cartel Aristocrat 4 Falkenrath Aristocrat 4 Champion of the Parish 4 Keldon Marauders 4 Dark Confidant	Planeswalkers: 2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad Instants: 4 Lightning Helix 2 Lightning Bolt 2 Terminate 1 Orzhov Charm Sorceries: 3 Thoughtseize 2 Lingering Souls	Sideboard: 1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad 2 Obzedat, Ghost Council 1 Thoughtseize 3 Liliana of the Veil 3 Stony Silence 3 Leonin Arbiter 2 Slaughter Games

(Thanks to Badd Business for telling me to add Keldon Marauders. They're Human, you know!)

I’m much better off, now that I’ve rebuilt the deck after having witnessed better players than I do the leg work. Again, I’ve found that it’s more like Death and Taxes. It’s an aggressive White Weenie strategy with a lot of disruptive elements and interactions. You’re playing a lot of little aggressive durdles that eke out little advantages. I daresay you could even play this exact list with four Aether Vial. I don’t feel that they’re necessary, however, and I wouldn’t suggest trying it. I’m not fond of Vial decks at all. Every Vial deck I’ve ever played has felt absolutely awful without a Vial in my opening seven, as not only am I durdling, but I have to worry about dead Vial draws later on. Maybe this doesn’t matter so much in Legacy because your Vial also has things like Brainstorm, Wasteland, and whatnot but in Modern your Aether Vials are pretty much all you have. And when that’s not enough it’s REALLY not enough. Your Vial-less draws are going to be absolutely atrocious and you’re going to mulligan to oblivion a lot more often than you’d really like to.

Plus: You’re not Tom88. Leave the Vialing to the professionals.

The Aristocrats could very easily be successful in Modern. It’s already proven itself to excel against attrition in Standard, and in Modern attrition is the name of the game. I feel good about my list the way it is, but there are still options to be explored. White Weenie decks have historically been a place where equipment is very good; indeed, a Jitte would be absolutely insane in this deck, as equipping either Aristocrat safely will be a piece of cake. Especially on a Cartel Aristocrat, sweet Jesus. The most optimal legal choice is most likely going to be Sword of Light and Shadow. The protections, while relevant, aren’t important. The Aristocrats has no problem with evasion or protection on its own. Light and Shadow is the pick because you’re going to greatly enjoy returning your fallen Bobs, Marauders, and Aristocrats to your hand. The triggers on the other swords aren’t really meaningful in this context. You might also want to consider Runechanter’s Pike, as you have quite a few instants and sorceries as well as quite a few evasive bodies that would love to carry a Pike. I’m an advocate for Pike in Modern. I feel like it has a lot of unexplored potential in a format such as Modern, where every deck has to pack about six billion removal and disruption spells and it's cast and equip turn is four rather than five (absolutely relevant).

Blood Artist is also a saucy option. With eight maindeck sac outlets and the propensity to gum up a board rather quickly, Blood Artist could be a very good option for the sideboard. Perhaps in the slot currently occupied by Obzedat. There will most likely match-ups where there will be a lot of grinding, and in these match-ups draining for one each time you make one of these trades is going to start adding up -- and fast. Furthermore, if you happen to find room for Bloodghast, then more power to you. You never want to run out of things to sacrifice and Bloodghast would hopefully help mitigate that, and when your opponent drops under ten life those little Vampire Spirits can really turn up the heat. Finding room for Boros Reckoner would also be lovely, as, in theory, having yet another body with which to muck up combat for your opponent should only make your deck even stronger. Notice how this deck wants to be on the offensive even when it’s on the defensive? Well, you’re starting to understand why the theory behind it is so enticing. It looks pretty sexy on paper.

The Key to 4C

So you want to know how to make the perfect four-color manabase. Well, I have a treat for you. If you haven’t already noticed it by now.

I noticed it when I was thinking about Spirit Jund. Spirit Jund’s mana is extremely good. Almost uncannily good. But then I discovered that there was a reason for this: because of the dual lands that Modern has, adding a fourth color to a Shard deck is extremely easy. The trick is to form the core of your manabase around a fastland and a manland. For Jund, this is, of course, Blackcleave Cliffs and Raging Ravine. From there all you need is one of the off-color fetchlands and, voila, your mana is perfect. All of the Shards have this. Bant can be built around Razorverge Thicket and Celestial Colonnade, splashing red with Arid Mesa or Scalding Tarn, or black with Verdant Catacomb or Marsh Flats. Esper can be be built around Darkslick Shores and Celestial Colonnade, splashing green with Verdant Catacomb or Misty Rainforest, or red with Arid Mesa or Scalding Tarn. Every Shard passes the test. But not Wedges, unfortunately. However, fortunately, you can play the four-color Wedges, only in reverse (as your core is a Shard, not the Wedge).

Is this a little obvious? Yeah, but it’s a very easy trick for having very good mana that every Modern player should be aware of. Don’t leave home without your manlands and fastlands. Even if your manland sucks (Lavaclaw Reaches) you’re going to be much better with it than without it.

Every. Single. Time.

Article over.

Okay, guys, I've had enough. It's time to put this arbitrary dichotomy between tempo and control to rest. It's time to put calling every deck with creatures and removal in it "tempo" to rest. This nonsense has gone on far, far too long. I'm tired of this supposed mutual exclusivity, I'm tired of hearing "there's not control in Modern" and then having to fight over some stupid arbitrary definition of the term when I point out why that statement is wrong. I'm tired of all of it. So I'm going to use this article to set the record straight.

Because the record needs to be straightened. Far too much time is wasted and far too many people have been misled. Read on, dear forum-member, and, together, you and I will put this nonsense down for good.


Control on a Sliding Scale

First, we need to get something out of the way. Tempo exists. Although, in my opinion, the tempo fad and the decks that people want to build so they can call it “X Tempo” are mostly stupid and bad, tempo is such a thing. Patrick Chapin defines tempo as, in short, using your mana more efficiently than your opponent: "In general if you are consistently Remanding spells that cost three or more you are gaining Tempo. If you are Remanding spells that cost two or less you are losing it. Why is two a loss? Because your card is reactive and requires you to leave the two lands untapped before your opponent ever tries to cast a spell." (quotation taken from here, a great article by Richard Feldman on why tempo is a flawed concept). By Remanding a spell that costs three or more, your reactive spell gained you tempo because you spent less mana than your opponent to answer theirs. This is why “Tempo decks” are called “Tempo decks”, the entire point is to use your mana as efficiently as possible every turn by using the cheapest answers and aggression playable.

So this does exist. However, only at a certain extreme. Tempo as a strategy is very strict; there isn’t much room for interpretation. Tempo represents the far end of the sliding scale of what control is. Each archetype now, now that the classical “rock-paper-scissors” paradigm has fragmented into the various subarchetypes, has something of a sliding scale that it operates on, that defines the subarchetype. Tempo represents the aggressive end of control decks. That does not mean, however, that any control deck that wants to attack often (or, indeed, any control deck with creatures in it) is a tempo deck. The more appropriate classification of a tempo deck is, rather, how one would compare Zoo and Jund. When you want to build a Zoo deck you always want to keep your curve as low as possible. You want to win as quickly as possible, with as much quick force as possible. Your curve very rarely goes about three, because what you’re doing is trying to force your opponent’s life to zero as quickly and efficiently as possible. Indeed, tempo is the Zoo of control. Therefore it is improper to classify anything that doesn’t operate in this was under the umbrella of control as tempo. The only real tempo deck in Modern (and almost everywhere, now that the Innistrad common has consumed what was once known as Canadian Thresh) is Delver. Delver is more or less the only deck where “tempo” is the proper title, because Delver is the only control deck trying to keep it’s curve as low as possible specifically for the sake of playing to tempo.

Everything else that is classified as such is aggro-control, which lays anywhere from closer to tempo to closer to true control, depending on how you play it. But is still aggro-control, or “Tap Out” if you will. The term “tap out”, as a classification for aggressive control decks that want to tap out because what they’re doing is pretty much better than whatever crappy cards you’re playing, comes from Mike Flores. The Flores Blue deck can be considered what began the chain of events that would eventually lead to aggro-control becoming the new standard for control in Magic today. The other contributing factor is, of course, the upswing in the power of creatures that has occurred over the past half-decade. Now the concept of tap out decks is the norm for control. Regardless of what your opponent is playing, tapping out for Geist of Saint Traft, Blade Splicer, or what have you is usually going to be better than whatever your opponent plays that turn. The reason why this concept is incorrectly connected to the tempo paradigm is that this sequencing in a control deck was once unheard of. When Andrew Cuneo first decided that Island was the best card in Magic, there weren’t many creatures in the deck that followed. I’d say it was, I don’t know, 85% instants, 10% land, and maybe %5 creatures. That 5% being represented with the Rainbow Efreet he’d decided to win the game with. Proactivity in control was generally verboten from then until Worldwake. An entire twelve years.

The printing of Stoneforge Mystic changed control forever. But it wasn’t until Worlds in Chiba, Japan later that year that this would be discovered. There is a certain irony that Brian Kibler - a man known more for midrange than anything - would be the man who brought the revolutionary CawGo into the Magic universe. From there, the deck evolved into CawBlade, and from then on “tap out” was the way to go for control. This change would even happen in Legacy sometime later when the Mystic broke through there as well, and Stoneblade was born. Here is where 85% instant, uninteractive “Draw-Go” decks died permanently and Flores Blue became what defined control. Creatures had simply become too good to ignore completely. With respect to that fact, natural selection set in and the superior breed ultimately won out. This is why striking a line between control and tap out is ridiculous: control didn’t go anywhere, it merely changed with respect for how Magic has changed. Control was the way it was in years past because not only were creatures simply much weaker back then than they are now, but countermagic and card advantage was better as well. Any format where this is true is going to tend toward lower creature counts and less tapping out in control decks. In formats where interacting with creatures is essential - such as Modern - the Flores theory tends to do much better.

So that’s the sliding scale of control. Note that it’s very similar to the difference between aggro and midrange. The more Zoo-y tempo/thresh decks want to win with pure damage to cost and result to cost ratio, such as Delver of Secrets, Steppe Lynx, and Lightning Bolt. Whereas aggro-control wants to win more by tapping out with cards that are extremely valuable, just like a Jund and Junk. It’s easy to confuse the two, because there is a lot of overlap (Lightning Bolt, Geist, et al) but the Flores deck will often have a few more things to tap out for and the tempo deck will usually not have anything more than three mana to tap out for. Also remember that, like I said before, Delver is really the only tempo deck, because Delver is the only creature legal that does the job. Just like you wouldn’t really call anything without Wild Nacatl in it “Zoo” (anywhere it’s legal), anything without Delver probably isn’t a true tempo deck.

Granted, that’s kind of a feeble definition, but, presently, it’s very true.

We’ve seen the same evolution in aggro. Whereas control has gotten sleeker and faster, aggro has become bigger and more impactful. We call this phenomenon midrange. So not only has control learned how to be an aggro deck, but aggro has learned how to be a control deck. Because Wizards has gotten so much better at printing creatures over the years the range of playable creatures is much, much higher. So we’re seeing an unprecedented level of line-blurring in the world of archetypes, making categorization somewhat difficult. But not impossible. Which leads me to the “grand idea” that this article is named after.


Cutting to the Chase

It began with an MTGS user by the name of ‘UnstableMutant’. UnstableMutant attempted to mitigate the complex Modern archetype metagame by presenting it in an easily read fashion, with visual examples (his thread can be found here, if you’d like to read it for yourself). Ultimately, his vision of the format boiled down to this graphic:

Simple, right? Basically everything I’ve started herein boils down to and fits comfortably within this theory. When I first saw it, I was very impressed. It’s really a stroke of genius and the thread should have been stickied (if it hasn’t been by the time you’re reading this). The more I thought about the format, though, the more I started to think that maybe there was something more to it. Notably because it affirmed the absurd notion that control and tempo had notion in common, and that there was still a supposed “lack of control” in Modern. Obviously, “tempo” and control aren’t the same thing. Well, they are and they aren’t. As we’ve covered already, tempo has roots in control, and is merely an evolutionary off-shoot with respect to the increased power of creatures in our game. So my point is that it’s not important what tempo is, but, rather, what tempo does.

Why, you ask? Because classifying tempo’s role in the grand scheme of things explains why there is no lack of control in Modern. This can be explained with one (completely authorized and crudely done) edit of UnstableMutant’s theory. I give you, the Three Spectra of Modern Archetype Dynamics:

So that’s the idea. Tempo may not be the same as “control” but it falls under the Control spectrum. By taking a look at the “wheel” presented by UnstableMutant, we can see that, because of tempo’s place, by proxy, tempo beats what control beats. Because of this, we can discern that tempo must play a similar (if not exactly the same) role in the grand scheme of things as perceived “control” and the Three Spectra graphic explains this quite neatly. Long story short, tempo isn't the same as control, but it serves the exact same purpose in the grand scheme of things.

The graphic also answers another question: if tempo beats, let’s say, combo, then how far does an archetype stretch before the next rung is a bad match-up? The way Mutant’s wheel is set up, one would assume that tempo doesn’t have a good match-up against combo decks. But it does, and it always has. But if you apply this to the normal wheel then it raises the question of how many arrows can an archetype hop in this way? Well, the updated graphic solves this in the most simple, elegant way possible: control spectrum beats combo spectrum. We’ve basically taken today’s splintered metagame and mitigated it back down to the classic rock-paper-scissors that we’ve all grown up with

Another question you most likely have is why ramp is in the control spectrum. Well, what two archetypes do you know of that ignore their opponents roughly 99% of the time? What ramp and combo have in common is a certain “Solitaire”-y quality. Both archetypes play out in such a way that a lot of times what your opponent is doing is irrelevant because what you’re doing or going to do is going to make whatever they’ve done irrelevant. Whether you’re making a billion Pestermites or casting a 15 mana Time Walk, it doesn’t matter. You’ve both done the same thing: you played your cards without respect to your opponent and you ended up winning regardless of what they did. There’s a second connection, and that’s mana. Both archetypes typically require a lot of it, regardless of whether it’s made with rituals or playing more than one land for the turn. Both archetypes typically use heavily excesses in mana to make their plays. So both fit comfortably in the aggro spectrum-beating combo spectrum.


Practical Application

The Three Spectra theory can quite easily be applied to current and future events; namely, the banning of Bloodbraid Elf and the format to come. It’s really quite easy.

During Jund’s brutal domination of top-level pro play, what other decks were also doing quite well? Scapeshift, Eggs, Tron, Birthing Pod. Other archetypes had success but it’s fair to say that there were quite a bit of those listed, is it not? I’m sure you’ve noticed that all of those archetypes, being primarily combo and ramp, fall into the combo spectrum. This is why Bloodbraid Elf had to go. What happened was a very subtle imbalance in the metagame due to Jund’s ubiquity; because the aggro spectrum became dominant, the combo spectrum was able to over-expose itself because it could beat the equally over-exposed aggro spectrum. The rock-paper-scissors of the format was demonstrably broken. By making Jund weaker (and, by proxy, Jund’s good match-ups stronger) the format can rebalance itself by making Jund less ubiquitous and therefore the combo spectrum can no longer over-expose itself because now there’s more room for the control spectrum.

But, there's one caveat. The problem is that although, in theory, this should make blue-based control spectrum much better because now Jund doesn't have Bloodbraid Elf around to just have more card advantage than any blue-based deck you could ever make. But the control spectrum has one more predator out there.

By that, I mean one can theorize a second format imbalance to be caused by the presence of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. Although it was stated above that, with the aggro spectrum weakened, the control spectrum will have room to flourish in greater numbers, because of Tron’s ability to arbitrarily end games simply by casting Emrakul, a second imbalance could possibly occur because Tron has a method of outright defying the rock-paper-scissors dynamic. This is in no way definite but it does seem possible. There isn’t a reliable way of defeating Emrakul when it’s found. Granted, it does take time getting to enough mana to cast the thing, but not a terribly long time. What’s more, Tron has plenty of other threats and methods of trouncing anything that stands in its way. Again, this is just a theory, and it can be averted with a simple tweak of deck design (it’s one reason to stop forcing the four Leaks every single time; seriously, vary your countermagic), but it’s entirely possible.

Emrakul presents a much too absolute means to an end, that no deck can really handle. This becomes an even bigger problem when you're playing a deck that gives the Tron deck all the time in the world to find itself enough mana to cast the thing, after tutoring for it with a goddamn land. If you're playing a control deck - say, classic Azorius - it can be very difficult to interact with this. Especially when Karn Liberated is exiling your lands and Wurmcoil Engine is giving it all the life it could ever need. Tron isn't terribly difficult to beat, but, when you're playing a fat control deck, Tron probably isn't one of your better match-ups. The big problem is that there isn't a really good sideboard card for it. There are fairly good options, but they're really kind of loose and mostly useless in other match-ups.

The big problem with sideboarding for Tron is that the best way to approach the problem is to cut Tron off from tutoring up its lands. The best way to do this is either a) Aven Mindcensor, which is a three drop and therefore comes down a million years after Map and Sylvan Scrying, and b) Leonin Arbiter, which can come down early enough for either but also cuts you off. Unfortunately, by running four of each land and about a billion cantripping eggs, Tron usually has no problem with finding its land regardless. Another option is Stony Silence, which is effective, but, again, sometimes Tron just finds its lands anyway and wins regardless. The final option is Sowing Salt, which will most likely force the concession. Too bad it costs four mana, meaning good luck dealing with the Karn or Wurmcoil Engine that Tron already had time to cast.

I don't know what the solution is, or if this will really even be a problem, but it seems like it might be.


Wrapping Up

I believe in my theory 100%. You might not, but I think you would be wrong to not consider it. Hopefully you give this article a little more thought than most of my material because it really deserves that extra mile. I don't propose my thoughts lightly; I gave it a lot of thought, and jumped back and forth on a lot of the minutia. I even thought for a short time that I'd have to create a 3D version of the graphic because I thought that decks like Infect and All-In Auras might exist on an imaginary Z axis because they combine aggro and combo in such a bizarre way. But of course I'm a man of rationality so I managed to figure out why that was silly.

Check back next week for more fresh brews and the secret to being successful with four colors in Modern.

Applications for the February IQ are open and I’ve no idea what to play.

The format is in kind of an awkward state. Seething Song and Bloodbraid Elf - gone. And to think it was days after I’d been knocked out of the previous IQ, piloting Jund, the very deck that got the Elf escorted out of our precious format. Don’t expect any sour grapes from me, though. Though I love Jund as a deck I was just as sick as anyone else of Jund vs The World at every top level Modern event since.. September or something. Frankly I was tired of it and though I miss my previous, foxy Elf I think this isn’t at all a bad idea. On the contrary; losing Bloodbraid Elf makes Jund just another Shard pile and allows other Shard/Wedge/What have you piles to have a little more breathing room. I suspect to see more of these strategies at top tables instead of every other player being forced on to Tron or Scapeshift because whatever they wanted to play couldn’t hang in the Compton of Magic.

I suppose the worst part of it all is that it’s seeming like we won’t be seeing Bitterblossom, Visions, or even Jace in our lifetimes. Wizards is very clearly tending toward a lower powered format; which is fine. I, for one, like playing do-nothing durdles like Hero of Bladehold. With Legacy as popular as it is, it’s not like there isn’t a place to play powerful Magic. Consider Modern to be MMW to Legacy’s Boxing. Legacy players trade hail mary’s, has gone long periods of time being dominated by one or two entities, and has a pretty heavy grounding in history. Mixed Martial Arts, on the other hand, is a less about the Sweet Science and more about subtlety, dynamics, and the like (not to say boxing isn't subtle). Just like MMA adds grappling, submissions, ground control, and many other concepts foreign to professional boxing, Modern adds true midrange (on a sliding scale of control and aggro, no less), ramp, aggro combo (“Sligh”, I like to call it, though I’m aware that there is no real connection there), aggro combo ramp midcontrol (just what the hell is Pod anyway), and many, many other crazy decks that are absolutely unplayable in a higher powered format such as Legacy.

Stop looking at what’s been taken from you and start looking at the brilliantly dynamic format we have here. Wizards is actively trying to mold Modern into its own animal, and they absolutely succeeded. In the relatively brief span of time that Modern has existed, this format has carved its very own niche, created its very own theories. Where else but Modern could an idiotic deck like Nivmagus exist? If Wizards wants to tend toward a lower powered format, that’s fine with me. This does nothing to damage what truly makes Modern lovely. A lot of players will endlessly defend Legacy as the best format in the history of Magic, but Modern will be in the running soon. Once it sheds the stigma that carries with stodgy, simple-minded players carelessly throw at it, finds a stage that affords it some rigidity in week-to-week format trends (it’s own SCG, you know), and Wizards finally gets all the lumps smoothed out (to their satisfaction), Modern will blossom into a thing of beauty. Right now its great but admittedly imperfect.

Like every day, I decided to run the gamut on Cockatrice for a time to see if any of my decks stood out this time. If you were to twist my arm I’d probably submit Jund at the moment.

Spirit JundMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Land: 1 Swamp 1 Forest 4 Verdant Catacombs 4 Marsh Flats 1 Misty Rainforest 1 Blood Crypt 1 Temple Garden 1 Godless Shrine 1 Overgrown Tomb 1 Stomping Ground 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 4 Raging Ravine	Creatures: 4 Tarmogoyf 4 Dark Confidant 4 Deathrite Shaman 4 Huntmaster of the Fells Planeswalkers: 3 Liliana of the Veil Instants: 4 Lightning Bolt 2 Abrupt Decay 2 Terminate Sorceries: 3 Inquisition of Kozilek 3 Lingering Souls 3 Thoughtseize	Sideboard: 2 Stony Silence 3 Nihil Spellbomb 2 Rakdos Charm 1 Golgari Charm 1 Terminate 1 Abrupt Decay 1 Sword of War and Peace 1 Liliana of the Veil 2 Aven Mindcensor 1 Thrun, the Last Troll

The loss of my Elven babe was unfortunate but the deck still works. Huntmaster isn’t perfect but he still does work. I feel decidedly more vulnerable now; I don’t have Bloodbraid to make up for my mistakes and blow outs, or arbitrarily win games all on her own, so I have to play much more carefully. Match-ups are much, much closer now. I feel like slipping closer to the control side of the sliding scale of midrange. With Lingering Souls, Huntmaster, Bob, and Liliana I feel secure in grinding out games and slowly overwhelming my opponent with flips and trades then turning on the juice and getting in there with Raging Ravine. Before you could play a much more aggressive game - Bloodbraid Elf curved quite nicely into Ravine. But Huntmaster doesn’t really. He can if you want him to. Getting in there with Ravine and the Wolf token is fine. But when the body on the other side of the board is so often something like Loxodon Smiter and I didn’t cascade into something that gives me the board advantage that lets me play recklessly, being the beatdown doesn’t feel right at the moment.

Plus holding back and flipping Huntmaster back and forth is a good plan right now. When on Ravager, you get to take out one of their small guys, deal two, then maybe trample in for a little more. Don’t trade him away - the longer the game goes the more of an asset he becomes. If you have something like Lingering Souls, then flipping him right back is always an option. An option that, mind you, gives you two life and six power spread over five bodies. You’ll overwhelm your opponent eventually, you just have to be patient now. You’re not running on Bloodbraid Octane anymore. Now that your money maker is a lot more conservative you have to invest in to the future and wait for the payoff. But make no mistake: Jund is still the best midrange deck in the format. BUG, Junk, and other contenders are worthy of their place in the tier, don’t get me wrong, but they don’t have what Jund does: it’s ability to really seal the deal when it needs to. This is partly because if its burn and partly because of its manland, Raging Ravine.

Stirring Wildwood and Creeping Tar Pit are very good cards. Wildwood’s body is superb and Reach makes it relevant against Delver, Clique, and Restoration Angel. Tar Pit’s unblockability makes it a dangerous attacker because you need to have removal to stop it. Problem is, neither of them can run away with the game like Raging Ravine does. They don’t provide the same level of pressure, the same amount of damage, or anything of the sort. Stirring Wildwood and Creeping Tar Pit just can’t seal the deal in the same way that Raging Ravine does. And when you pile a bunch of burn spells on top of it you have a deck that has no problem getting your opponent’s life to zero - and quickly, to boot. Granted it’s not as fast now as it was when Bloodbraid was legal but this is still true nonetheless. It’s really my one big draw toward Jund. However, that isn't to say I feel like Junk or BUG is unplayable. Actually, I'm looking at the former myself.

JunkMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Land: 2 Swamp 1 Plains 4 Marsh Flats 4 Verdant Catacombs 3 Godless Shrine 2 Overgrown Tomb 2 Temple Garden 2 Stirring Wildwood 2 Orzhov Basilica 1 Fetid Heath 1 Gavony Township	Creatures: 4 Tarmogoyf 4 Loxodon Smiter 4 Dark Confidant 4 Deathrite Shaman 2 Hero of Bladehold Planeswalkers: 3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant 3 Liliana of the Veil Instants: 3 Path to Exile 3 Abrupt Decay Sorceries: 3 Thoughtseize 3 Inquisition of Kozilek	Sideboard: 2 Stony Silence 1 Golgari Charm 1 Sword of War and Peace 1 Duress 2 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Liliana of the Veil 1 Disenchant 1 Hero of Bladehold 2 Extirpate 2 Fulminator Mage 1 Path to Exile

Junk has a lot of game right now. Loxodon Smiter is a major threat against the new breed of Patriotic decks because of it’s uncounterability and four toughness. It forces your opponent to lean heavily on their Path to Exiles, of which they only have four. Your general match-ups are good, as Hero, Elspeth, and Liliana can handle just about anything that puts creatures on the board (unless it happens to put a billion copies of one of those creatures into play). Junk has always been a solid deck in Modern, it just had a few match-ups where it just couldn’t get the job done. Plus it tends to be horrible against every combo deck ever (except maybe Pod). With the banned list weakening both Jund and Storm, Junk has increased in power by quite a lot. Of course, as I mentioned above, it does sometimes have a problem with sealing the deal because it has no burn or a particularly powerful manland, but a lot of times this isn’t even a problem because Junk is a deck with some pretty nasty haymaker draws and a brutal curve.

Orzhov Basilica is probably the card that sticks out the most. Well, it may (occasionally) save a land from Spreading Seas, can give me a land to discard to Liliana if I want to keep everything else, and gives me four mana with three land against opposing Tectonic Edges, which is important when you're playing a deck with so many four drops. Sequencing my plays with respect to the Basilica isn't really difficult at all because I have so many spells that cost one or two mana. In general, my land is set up to be mostly white and black with a splash of green, because I only really need it for the single green mana symbols in Decay, Goyf, Smiter, Shaman, and Township, Wildwood, and that Golgari Charm in the sideboard. Everything else is mostly double black or double white. The deck is pretty much where everyone is on Junk right now. Some are playing Knight of the Reliquary or Aven Mindcensor, which are also good. I've tried those but they didn't work out for me.

My one concern is that while I have quite a few nasty creatures to draw and plenty of planeswalkers I’m not liking my deck against Supreme Verdict. I don’t even like Jund against Verdict now. Unlike Bloodbraid (as is always the case, it seems) Huntmaster isn’t really any pressure at all post-Wrath. But of course the obvious solution is to simply play around Wrath and remember that Golgari Charm can regenerate my guys.

The less obvious solution is to simply play the Supreme Verdict deck.

Azorius ControlMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Land: 3 Island 2 Plains 3 Misty Rainforest 1 Arid Mesa 2 Glacial Fortress 3 Hallowed Fountain 4 Seachrome Coast 4 Celestial Colonnade 3 Tectonic Edge Creatures: 3 Wall of Omens 2 Restoration Angel 2 Snapcaster Mage 1 Baneslayer Angel 1 Sun Titan	Planeswalkers: 2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant Instants: 4 Path to Exile 4 Spell Snare 4 Cryptic Command 2 Negate 2 Repeal 2 Sphinx's Revelation Sorceries: 2 Supreme Verdict Enchantments: 2 Detention Sphere Artifacts: 2 Azorius Signet	Sideboard: 2 Rest in Peace 2 Stony Silence 1 Ghostly Prison 2 Vendilion Clique 1 Wall of Denial 1 Disenchant 1 Leave No Trace 2 Negate 1 Supreme Verdict 2 Timely Reinforcements

Before Bloodbraid Elf, the best creatures that were being cast that I needed to worry about either cascaded into something else I needed to worry about or couldn’t be countered at all. So I decided that I wouldn’t even try to counter them. My countermagic is more focused on control mirrors and combo decks because Verdict, Wall, and Elspeth can handle virtually any creature deck in the field right now. With Storm gone until the Seething Song players figure out where they’re going from here, Negate and Tectonic Edge are really the only combo hate you need (Edge is for Boseiju, if you’re wondering). Instead of leaning on Mana Leak for my countering needs and leaving myself dead to Scapeshift and Tron I’ve decided to use a counterspell that actually does something in the match-ups where I really need my countermagic to do something. For finishing the game, my selection of two Angel is just so I always have two instant-speed threats at my disposal (blinking Wall is also always nice). Sun Titan doesn’t have a whole lot to get back. Usually it’s a Tectonic Edge so I can hate on my opponent’s manlands, one of my own manlands that was Edged previously, or a fetch to thin my deck and ramp up to a huge Revelation. Baneslayer Angel is.. just Baneslayer Angel. Against anything that leans on Lightning Bolt and Lightning Helix to do work, she’ll get the job done. Especially if you play her on turn seven with Negate up. It’s always a blow-out.

Sphinx’s Revelation is by far my favorite card in the deck. I’m a control player in my heart of hearts, so I really like drawing cards, gaining life, and that subtle spell that won the game three turns ago despite the fact that my opponent hasn’t realized it yet. I been able to play with a card like this since Esper Teachings way back in the early days of Modern, when you could still play that deck. I enjoy casting Revelation every bit as much as I enjoy casting Teachings, and when I do I’m always certain that the game is over. Even off the first one, which is usually only for three or four. It only ever takes one because that one will invariably find just the card you need to take control and lead toward the endgame. By now you’ve Verdicted their guys, Commanded whatever they had next, or even slammed Elspeth and started pooping out blockers. That one Revelation in invariably put yet another Verdict, another Command, my Sun Titan, or something else backbreaking in hand. When I began I was only running one - I still wasn’t sure if it was the real deal, and most other lists I saw were only running one. But as soon as I was sure that running two was doable I tossed in the second. Make no mistake, Sphinx’s Revelation IS the real deal in Modern. It beats midrange and tempo like nothing else you’ve ever seen and is never, ever dead. It’s just the control spell that Modern needed and probably single-handedly made UW Big Tapout as good as it is now.

The only deck I’m worried about is the new UWR deck that everybody and their mother is playing. What’s people’s fascination with Lightning Helix? Whatever the case, I’m not quite sure how to side for it. It’s built specifically to bend big control over a barrel and give it the old Deliverance. Untargetable Geists, hastey, flying Hellkites (that taps Wall of Denial, no less!), and flashy, flying Cliques. This deck is built entirely wrong to handle that match-up but I don’t want to give up any of my other good match-ups just for this one. I think I can out-play it at any rate; I have Snare, Negate, Ghostly Prison, Verdict, and Cliques of my own. It may not be a good match-up but I feel that in practice it will be far from unwinnable. I don’t think there is any one deck that will beat this one every single time; I think I’m well prepared for just about anything, although I’m aware that some decks (UWR, Infect, All-In Auras) will probably be a major uphill climb. I’m pretty confident in where my list is at right now, although I think I might try Azorius Charm over Repeal. Although Repeal always cantrips, Azorius Charm can jam up my opponent much worse and can target manlands. Plus, not only is targeting manlands important, but putting a manland on top of the deck is pretty feel bad for your opponent. Because not only do they have to replay it, but it’s going to enter play tapped.

On the other hand, Repeal is relevant against Splinter Twin. Whereas Azorius Charm is not. However, against most combo decks, Charm can simply be cycled, as it doesn’t need something to target to do so like Repeal does. I’m not entirely sure which card is better here but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be one of those two. Nothing else really jumps out at me presently. I’m not going to rush into choosing, on Azorius Charm or the deck I want to play this month. I want to keep the gravy train rolling and do just as good this month as the last - if not better. I’ll give myself another day or two maybe, depending on how fast this month’s tournament fills up.

I’m going to try to get one of these posted every Monday now. If I can’t keep a deadline, then I’m really wasting my own time, because I’ll never make it as a proper writer.

See you guys next week.

I feel like I have my mojo back.

The last month or two of 2012 was not kind to me. I was powering through bad builds and racking up losses left and right. I felt burnt out; like I just couldn’t win anymore. I thought maybe I wasn’t actually any good. Maybe I’d just had a little luck and I wasn’t even remotely as good as I thought I was. I’d taken round one losses two Lantern IQs in a row. I felt real bad about Magic and even wished more than once that I could take out the part of my brain that enjoyed it so much and just quit forever. What was this game doing for me? What was I getting out of this relationship? Well, at the time, I wasn’t getting anything. I think, mostly, because I wasn’t putting anything in. I wasn’t playing, building, brewing, or thinking optimally at all. I was getting crap because I was giving crap. I’m better than that, though. I am good at this game. I’m no Tom (just the other day, in fact, I noted to Lantern that he could do well with a lunch bag of dog **** - he’s just a naturally good player) but I can play this game on an acceptable level.

So I gave up hardcore brewing for a time. I decided that I just needed to concentrate on playing rather than impressing everyone with a genius brew. I took up the best deck in Modern: 4-color Spirit Jund. I sat down with a pro list (Paulo Vitor, if you must know) and made it my own. His list was geared toward the mirror match; he was going to a big event, so there was going to be a ton of Jund there. This isn’t true on Trice. There are Jund players, but most of the guys over there are playing brews, decks with suboptimal innovation, and low-tier archetypes. Anyone who’s spent any amount of time on that Modern circuit can corroborate this with unfailing certainty. Thusly, I didn’t need to play a deck geared toward the mirror match. Rather I needed to play a deck that is basic optimized Jund. So that’s exactly what I did, and I felt the game started to make sense again.

Playing an already optimal brew is an empowering feeling. Your deck runs smoothly and you’re not constantly worrying about running into a tier deck that’s going to stomp whatever piece of crap you built ten minutes ago. I maybe felt a little dirty. I’ve always felt a little dirty about playing the best deck when everyone else is just trying to play their fun little pile. But I also felt confident, and I started having fun again. This wasn’t my first time playing Jund. I’d been playing it off and on for pretty much the entire time it’s been even the second best deck. Before the inclusion of Lingering Souls allowed it to unseat King Delver, son of Nimble Mongoose. As an aside, I actually played Delver as well for a short time. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right? I may be a rogue amateur deck theorist but I’m no Patrick Chapin. I’m more a Conley Woods; I’ll play the best deck when it suits me to do so

I also happen to like Acidic Slime.

(End aside)

So my Jund list started to come together. Then the sideboard really came together. The flexible power of the Return to Ravnica block Charms has really impressed me and Golgari Charm and Rakdos Charm have both proven extremely vital to my success. It was here that I really started to get sideboarding. I wasn’t jamming 4-ofs anymore. I was thinking about how what I had main deck and how I could supplement it. I also began to put together how I could diversify my sideboard cards and how to think about what cards are good in what match-ups. Of course, this wasn’t hard; those Charms are good in about twenty thousand different situations. But the way I think about my sideboarding has changed all the way down to the fundamental level. I’ve now begun to plan out my sideboard packages in such a way that every single card finds at least two different match-ups to be sided in for. I’m really rather happy not only with my Jund sideboard but myself. I feel like after that rough patch at the tail end of last year that I’ve grown as a player. If only a little bit.

So things were coming together. I began to feel good about the deck and my playing. I’d previously sworn off IQing because of my embarrassments in the past but I felt so good about my deck that I just had to go for it just one more time. I can do well this time, I just know it. SPC had a hand in this as well, of course. He seemed fairly confident in my ability to crush as well. When he’d put forth that I enter I shot him down pretty hard. “I’m not a tournament player” I’d said, and of that I was convinced. Two crushing round one losses in a row had made it unquestionable. I could not be told otherwise. I just wasn’t destined for anything much greater than what I’d already accomplished. But then I started really digging into that Jund deck and my opinion started to change. Maybe I could crush it. Maybe, if I gave it one more try, this would be the one that worked out for me. If I could win just a couple of games then I’d be pretty happy.

So I went to him, and I let him know that he’d have his way. I was entering with Spirit Jund. I knew I could do it this time. Even pro scrub out sometimes. Granted, I’d scrubbed out twice before even getting my feet off the ground. But maybe I was just getting my scrubbing out of the way early so I could enjoy a successful run this time. I tried not to think about what would happen if I didn’t. Pros don’t worry about what happens after they lose. You gotta stay in the now. Stay in the game. I was sure that I’d be fine, at any rate. I was playing Jund, so I had the edge against just about everything. Except RakDos Wins, Tron, and Scapeshift.

My first opponent was playing Tron. I kept my composure, but inside I was greatly unhappy. For the third event in a row I’d started off against my worst match-up. Why does this happen to me so often? It’s probably coincidental; Tron is a good deck to play if you’re worried about Jund, and it makes sense to be at any Modern constructed event. Game one my opponent mulliganed to five and I got there with Raging Ravine (as always). In between I realized that I didn’t have Stony Silence. I had nothing to bring in against him. Surely I was stone dead. The second game began and I played to the best of my ability. Turn two Bob, and every discard spell I could cast thereafter. I’d already won the first game, maybe I could pull out the second. Maybe, just maybe, I could muster up just enough tenacity to beat the man across from me. And that’s just what I did. Not without a little luck. Though he’d cast two Karn Liberated, my opponent wouldn’t find anything to lock me out of the game. I had to power my way through two Karns but ultimately I got there. Finally, I’d done it: I’d won my first round.

This match taught me two important things: 1) I’m a complete idiot for submitting with Ancient Grudge instead of Stony Silence (I had Rakdos Charm, what kind of bonehead move is that?), and 2) Just because the match-up is crappy doesn’t mean all hope is lost. Jund can close games quickly and has plenty of disruption to keep Tron down for just long enough for you to get there. Furthermore, the more I thought about it, I came to the conclusion that play ability, luck, psychology, and mental strength are all factors. I’d always known this, I guess, but here I was finally able to convince myself that it’s absolutely, demonstrably, unfailingly true. This game was my proof: Twinner was ready for the match, he was rested and prepared, he knows how to play his deck, and he plays it well, but I still won. I’d had that little bit luck I’d needed to squeeze my way to a victory.

My next match was against Rakdos Infect midrange brew with Phyrexian Crusader and Phyrexian Vatmother. I’m not sure how much I agree with the deck, but Crusader’s protections are extremely relevant. Modern is defined by red and white right now and having protection from those removal spells is going to make a creature extremely good. It also has protection from Lingering Souls, Elspeth, Wall of Omens, and many other creatures. Though his best guys were immune to my spirits and Terminate, I still had Maelstorm Pulse and Abrupt Decay. Plus my deck was better than his.

What? It’s true. I’m playing Jund. My deck is always better.

Okay, okay, sorry. But really: I wasn’t sweating this match-up. Jund preys on durdle decks and this was no difference. I swept up game one, sided in all my removal, and swept up game two as well. Incidentally, I don’t think he ever managed to cast Crusader. He may have had one but if he did I took it from him. We talked for a while afterward and I admitted that I wasn’t concerned with his deck at all and he agreed that it wasn’t a good matchup for him, even though he had protection from most of my library. I still think Crusader is a really good card, but the infect midrange decks needs something more. Crusader is really the only creature the deck has that is that good, and to be a deck it needs a lot more than just the one. Phyrexian Vatmother just isn’t going to get you there. At least, not as often as a better creature would. At any rate, he’s not terribly positioned in this format. I’m sure he’d probably destroy that damn Smiter deck.

Speaking of that damn Smiter deck, next up I was up against that damn Smiter deck. I really hate this Smiter deck. I hate Mindcensor, I hate Smiter, I hate Liege. ... I like Lingering Souls. Anyway, Raalic was the pilot and I wasn’t entirely sure how well positioned I was. On the one hand, his deck was meant to beat mine. It originated as a metagame call by Brian Kibler, aiming to crush the Jund menace by countering its hand disruption. On the other hand, 1) I knew how the deck worked ahead of time, so I wasn’t going to fall for it, and 2) his deck is more or less just like the previous opponent’s: just another durdle deck. He was just playing creatures. Again, I’m Jund. I eat durdles for breakfast. I didn’t know how I felt going in to the match but I’d made a conscious decision to have a positive attitude. With a combination of removal and Lingering Souls I managed to eke out game one. Game two went exactly like the Smiter deck wants it to: he played his guys, they got huge, and I couldn’t stop them. I wasn’t exactly in love with the match-up on the draw anyway. I felt much better about being on the play.

Game three, I mulled to five, conceded, and left.

Yes you read that correctly. I really did that. Yes it was foolish and immature. What do you want from me? I was tilting. And when I tilt, I tilt hard. I tilt like the Titanic when it sank. I wasn’t thinking even remotely clearly. I may be back in the saddle but I still have some problems that I need to take care of. I eventually came to my senses though I logged back into Cockatrice. I was immediately assailed by Gaka who demanded that I come back and finish the match. Raalic wanted it that way. I couldn’t say no. I wanted to finish it; I felt like I could still win. But I’d left the last game long after hands had been drawn. So I planned on doing to the right thing, regardless of the result of this final game. After many terse, grindy turns I’d managed to knock my opponent down to two life. It took three Bloodbraid Elves and Lingering Souls but I managed to survive that long. I topdecked Lightning Bolt the turn before my final attack. All I needed to do was cast it and my opponent was dead. But I didn’t. I conceded. Because I’d made an ass of myself after drawing hands for the third game I conceded and rightfully knocked myself out of the tournament, even though Raalic had requested a proper game three and I’d basically won that game. I didn’t deserve to continue after what I’d done.

I feel better about the match-up now than I did before. Like with any other durdle deck, I could control the board pretty easily. Smiter has a pretty hard time fighting through Lingering Souls and the like. Going forward, I should be able to grind out games against Smiter from now on. I’ll be including an extra Souls in my sideboard from now on because it’s an absolute all-star. I also have a couple more things in store for it. Next month’s IQ is coming up fast and I’m already preparing. The banning of Bloodbraid Elf certainly threw a wrench into things but I’m still fairly confident in my deck. I’m not sure how much I like still calling it Jund, though. It feels like a different deck now that I’m not playing Bloodbraid Elf anymore. I feel like I’m playing a four-color goodstuff midcontrol deck. I’m not entirely sure why it feels quite so different (maybe it’s because Bloodbraid Elf tied everything together in a way) but I’m fine with however it feels. Hopefully Huntmaster pans out. I’m not a fan of Olivia, Aristocrat, Garruk, or pretty much anything else. Thrun might be all right, or maybe even Thragtusk. Regardless of what my four drop is, though, I think the deck will operate fine. It’s still the best of the best from 4/5ths of the color pie.

I have high hopes for the Huntmaster of the Fells, though. Two life and two bodies will absolutely improve the Smiter match-up, and Smiter is hot right now. Plus I have plenty of instant-speed spells I can hold up to flip it one way and Lingering Souls to flip it the other. Huntmaster may not be a Bloodbraid Elf but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have advantages and synergies of its own.

We’ll see what the future holds.

The Modern format is a mess. But it’s broken in a kind of subtle, almost tolerable way. The format remains at least functional despite what is wrong. It’s easy (and, in some respects, appropriate, as we will touch on later) to blame Jund for what is going on here but there is no need to lay blame at this point. What needs to be done is most certainly unban something that can create a bigger impact than Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. Valakut was certainly a good start and it presents a solid precedent for not every card currently being on the banned list being a format apocalypse waiting to happen but it wasn’t exactly what it needed.

There perhaps might need to be one more ban as well. You’d be right to think that it’s a card in Jund, but if you believe my answer is Bloodbraid Elf you are sadly mistaken. Bloodbraid Elf, while powerful, is not what has caused the recent overwhelming domination of the Jund archetype. I’m sure you can guess where I’m going with this but I won’t spoil the answer until the final part of this series. The real reason that, I think, Bloodbraid Elf is fine is that the real reason why he or she is creating an imbalance is that the cards that do what she does well enough to rebalance her are currently banned. If you can give back one of these cards the likelihood of the Elf becoming less of an issue is high.

Before I hop to it I want to make it clear that I’m not trying to make any empirical statements about whether or not card X will be safe or unsafe in the format. I’m merely laying down some facts about the format that I have played since before it was even a true format. It’s all for the sake of making my side of the argument for the possible eventual unbanning of these cards. Because that’s all opinion journalism should be: the opening statement of a larger intelligent debate.

So I’m going to do things in alphabetical order, which not only appropriate aesthetically but allows me a direct segue into the best candidate, in my opinion, for unbanning in the first quarter of 2013: Ancestral Vision. The reason for the banning of Vision is pretty straightforward: Wizards of the Coast does not like the fact that players are able to suspend a Vision on their first turn, answer everything one-for-one until turn five, then refill during their upkeep as Vision casts itself from exile. The problem with this reason for banning is that there is already a legal card in Modern that not only does exactly that but also does it better than Vision ever could imagine.

Yep. That’s exactly why Bloodbraid Elf is causing an imbalance in the format; it’s an Ancestral Vision that is better than Ancestral Vision in a format without another Ancestral Vision to allow other decks to do the same. With Bloodbraid Elf, Jund is able to trade one-for-one with various removal and discard spells and then bounce right back with a turn four Bloodbraid Elf. It’s exactly the same concept except instead of drawing three cards on turn five you get some random spell and a hasty 3/2 on turn four. Ancestral Vision is a superb candidate for unbanning because it gives Jund an opponent that can fight it on the exactly same level.

With the unbanning of Vision, I think what would happen is you would create blue archetypes that can contend with Jund without having to commit half of a sideboard to it. In doing so you create an archetype that has room to contend with other less fair archetypes, such as Storm. Ultimately, what you have now is essentially the format that Modern should be. Jund is aggro, Vision is control, and the combo decks are the combo decks. In theory at least. This could of course go horribly, horribly wrong when Bloodbraid Elf and Ancestral Vision show up together in some horrible RUG monstrosity but that’s just the risk that needs to be taken at this point. Besides, creating brand, spanking new archetypes is usually a really good thing. It makes players pretty happy.

Next on our alphabetical, hypothetical list is Bitterblossom. Likely removed from the format solely because it is just the worst beating alongside Spellstutter Sprite, Scion of Oona, and Mistbind Clique. Bitterblossom really is terribly powerful and it was not the best decision to make it Tribal – Faerie. Admittedly, Bitterblossom is a much bigger risk than Vision. It can cause very, very degenerate, non interactive, and just plain miserable games. On the other hand, what you stand to gain is a card that can actually be used in more archetypes than Vision because what it does isn’t automatically solely the best for control archetypes.

While Faeries is likely the first place it will show up, Bitterblossom has also historically been a strong contender in Tokens, Blade decks, and other various other Midrange decks that need a bit of late-game redundancy. Introducing a card that multiple types of player can use is ideal for creating the maximum amount of good feels among your player base. But the real question is why? Bitterblossom is, yes, absurd, so why is unbanning it even an option? Well, if you look back to Faeries in Standard you can see that Faeries didn’t always just roll over everything. It surely dunked every 5-Color opponent but it could be beaten.

And it was. If you wanted to beat it, then all you had to sleeve up the White Weenie deck of the time, Kithkin. Kithkin has high-profile wins over UB Faeries and it’s not hard to see why: a turn two Bitterblossom is actually kind of slow. You don’t receive your first token until turn three, while your opponent has various flavors of one-mana 2/2s and Wizened Cenn to turn them into Wild Nacatl or larger. Against a strong aggro archetype, Bitterblossom struggles to keep up and it is not hard to overwhelm it if you try. In Modern, it’s possible to do just that with, for example, Robots, a deck that can play many dudes on the first two turns of the game and get in for damage long before your blue and black tokens can do anything about it. And if they have a metalcrafted Etched Champion, well, no amount of Faeries can possibly save you.

Unless you’re on Twin and you just made a billion Pestermites, I guess.

What’s more, life totals are much more important in Modern than they are in the other format where Bitterblossom is still making waves, Legacy. With BW Stoneblade, I was rarely concerned with my life total, unless it was less than, say, three. You’ll seal up a win with your board state before Bitterblossom (or even Dark Confidant) ever become an issue. In Modern this probably wouldn’t be the case. Modern is a hostile environment that will win with actual creatures more often than not, and you have to pay quite a lot more life for your mana. Life is at a much higher premium in this neck of the woods so Bitterblossom’s intended drawback has the chance to be just that.

There’s also a pretty big elephant in the room: Abrupt Decay. Yes, “it dies to removal” is not a proper argument for anything ever. However, I will propose that it is not entirely irrelevant. The presence of Abrupt Decay will always make non-land permanents that cost three or less that don’t come with some sort of built-in protection less good than they once were. Ask anyone who used to play Vedalken Shackles. It’s just not as safe as it once was because Abrupt Decay is very popular. Is this a good reason to unban anything? No. But is it something to consider if WotC ever decides to discuss it? Absolutely. The presence of this extremely powerful answer is demonstrably relevant.

Of course, because Bitterblossom is indeed a Faerie, the presence of Scion of Oona actually gives the Fae deck a way to counter the uncounterable spell. Again, the fact that Bitterblossom is a Faerie in its own right was what broke the camels back. Not only can Scion of Oona protect it, but Mistbind Clique can turn it off anytime the Fae deck needs it to, which means that the loss of life isn’t even relevant either. It’s for this reason that I will concede that we may never see Bitterblossom return to Modern.

I was initially planning on this being all one article, but as you may have noticed this is getting a little long. I’m already just shy of 1500 words. But rest assured that there is much more to come. I still have much to say!

As of this writing, Legacy is experiencing a touch of.. controversy. The situation surrounds the 'Sneak and Show' archetype (a deck that uses Sneak Attack and Show and Tell to put massive, evil things into play), which received a major upgrade in the form of Griselbrand. Make no bones about it, ol' RaisinBrand is better than Progenitus. Full stop, end of story. The improvement lay in the fact that Griselbrand is a Yawgmoth's Bargain on a stick. Which allows one to, oh I don't know, immediately draw into one of your anywhere from one to twelve free counterspells. I'm counting Misdirection here, though I don't know how many lists carry it. Or even more copies of your combination so you can go ahead and bring out the real deal: Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. Yeah, Mr. 'Genitus has protection from everything, but does it ensure a victory by drawing you into an unbeatable hard? Nope.

As an aside, have you ever wondered why there isn't always a space inbetween Progenitus and the rest of your deck? Imagine there being an open space inbetween it and the card before and the card after. Why doesn't this happen? It has protection from Magic: The Gathering cards, doesn't it? For that matter, why can I touch him? He has protection from me, right? Why doesn't he hover over the table when I put him onto the battlefield? He has protection from tables! My answer? Progenitus doesn't have protection from everything; rather, he has protection from whatever he feels like having protection from at any given moment. It just so happens that he likes having protection from whatever your opponent is doing most of the time.

I digress.

What does this have to do with Modern? Well, you can play Sneak and Show in Modern. I know! Wild, right? Oh, you're saying both Show and Tell and Sneak Attack aren't Modern legal? Sure they are. They're just called Goryo's Vengeance and Through the Breach in our neck of the woods. The idea is essentially the same, however. You have two methods of cheating fatties into play, one fatty ends the game, and the other one helps you find the first one. Or other things to win with. Same idea, right? Granted, Griselbrand isn't quite as good without Force of Will (makes him so much more Pathable) but most of the time you're only putting him in play to draw seven cards and hopefully deal seven damage. If he does that much then you're most certainly in good shape.

The idea of porting this concept to Modern surely isn't new. Other ideas have been put forth, such as a certainly nifty idea by Dukksoup. The idea he had was to reanimate Griselly Bear, draw seven cards, then win by attacking and doming with Soul Spike. The cleverness behind this is not only the free spell, but the fact that the free spell gains life as well. This means you can dome with a Spike, draw more cards, dome with Spike, draw more cards, and et cetera. The deck also has Fury of the Horde for extra attack steps, for even more lifegain and card drawing. It's in its infancy right now, but it could certainly turn into something very serious somewhere down the line. All it needs is more time and some dedicated players. The latter seems to be covered, but whether or not they're willing to commit to the former remains to be seen. Check those cool guys out here.

It's not isolated to just Modern forum keyboard warriors. It's even in the pros' heads. Well, one pro: Gerry Thompson. But, hey, Gerry's a cool guy. He wins SCG events just because he woke up one day and decided he felt like it. I couldn't ask for much more in a supporter of Russelbrand in Modern. Gerry even wrote an entire article about our good friend, which included the deck that provided for the impetus for the deck this article is ultimately about.




There's some pretty wild stuff about this deck. Namely the fact that, unless I'm missing something, green seems to be only there for Time of Need and flashing back Ancient Grudge. I don't exactly agree with it, but, who the hell am I?

All right. So we've seen Dukksoup's.. yeah, and Gerrybrand, the Aeons Thompson, but what is feathers doing with these cards?

Well, these ideas are all well and good, but I wanted to streamline the entire concept down to as few colors and as few cards as possible. I didn't agree with Time of Need at all and didn't feel like filling my deck up with cards that I wouldn't be caught dead casting otherwise (Who the heck wants to give up two cards for four damage?). I wanted to make sure that the deck would operate smoothly and consistently. Don't get me wrong, I like Dukk and Gerry's decks. But I had to build it myself. I was sure that I'd be rewarded for just going for the most streamlined, effective Griselkul deck.

A few hours later, I had this:


(Wild Guess is Thoughtseize until M13 is live.)

Yeah, that's what I'm playing right now. In my opinion, there is no reason for any color other than red and black. The combination of Faithless Looting, Wild Guess, and Magma Jet will probably find you whatever you want pretty quickly. A big reason to play this is the above M13 sorcery. With Looting, you can now do nothing but draw infinite cards for the first three turns of the game. Wild Guess is also very good because discarding as a cost means you have a discard outlet that bypasses countermagic. The reason why I do not want to run four is because the discarding can start to take a toll on your hand after a while and sometimes you just don't want to have to discard something; especially if every card you have already is relevant to the boardstate at hand.

Night's Whisper is a good drawing spell at any rate. As is it's sister, Sign in Blood. Obviously by itself it's awful. At sorcery speed and costing two mana, it's counter bait of the worst kind. And the life loss can be relevant if you have to cast too many of them. I feel using two of them isn't a bad idea, though, because I feel like a spell like either is very good supplementary card advantage. Especially late in the game when there is less chance of Spell Snare and Mana Leak becomes less relevant. Though, Leak won't be relevant at any rate because your opponent would probably rather use it on Through the Breach or something.

Anyway.

I enjoy playing this deck a lot. It feels powerful and consistent. Against anything you'll probably see on Cockatrice your match-up is very good. Chances are they won't be equipped to handle what you're doing. Gaddock Teeg is useless not only because the deck's ability to skirt him with reanimation but also to murder him to death with a burn spell. Through the Breach also invalidates graveyard hate most of the time, even if you don't already simply by finding a second Goryo's Vengeance to play after the first baits the the hate into action. There isn't a very good way of combating the deck aside from generic discard and countermagic. Both of which can be worked around by anyone with a brain in their skull.

It's not always that easy, though. There was one match. One horrible, horrible match. I lost two straight games (0-2) against this chap, the only match loss for this deck as of this writing. I Breached Emrakul in both matches. Yeah, that's right. I lost a match even after attacking with Emrakul in both games. He was the bravest of souls. He knew his GW deck could bounce back after an Annihilator board wipe with just a land and some mana dorks. In both games he did just that. After dropping Emrakul, I proceeded to draw land and Goryo's Vengeance. In both games. It wasn't bad beats, it was the worst beats. I accept it as Trice telling me that I wasn't invincible, because I certainly felt that way after the destruction this deck had wreaked.

That's why the burn spells are important. Not only does Magma Jet dig two cards and clear an attacker, but it also helps finish the deal against a particularly defiant opponent. Lightning Bolt is much the same. With just a couple of cracked fetches and an attacking Emmarukul Stone your opponent will be just one Jet or Bolt away from death. This can also be important if your opponent's board position is such that it can afford to take the hit to swing back for game. Just make sure you're not like me and tap all of your red sources to cast your Seething Song.

I suppose I will work this for a little while later. Maybe take it to a certain Invitation Qualifier I know is happening next month. Depends on how well Wild Guess works out.

Wonder what I should do for the next Other Peoples' Crap?

Oh, it's OPC now. Would have been changed earlier but nobody bothered to tell me about Sheldon Menery.

Jerks.

Rakdos is the combination of Red and Black introduced in Ravnica block, used as the color scheme of the guild of the same name. The Cult of Rakdos is a sadistic congregation. It's members follow a single-minded goal of inflicting as much pain and misery as physically possible. It's leader, the mighty demon Rakdos the Defiler, spends most of his time slumbering in lava for some reason so most day-to-day functions are supervised by the treacherous sorceratrix, Izolda. The Cult of Rakdos concerns itself mostly with manual labor, contract killing, and BDSM causing chaos so that the other guilds confide in the Guildpact.

Today we're taking a good, long look at Rakdos in the form of a modified burn deck by the name of Rakdos Deck Wins. It's basically Burn + Black but there's a bit more to it than that. Firstly, the inclusion of Bump in the Night allows the deck to have twelve (!!!) Lightning Bolts. Bump is Modern Burn's stand-in for Chain Lightning, and it does it's job well. Secondly, the inclusion of Dark Confidant allows for a better late-game. Once you've whittled your opponent's life total down and you've run out of burn spells, drop your Bob and then take a moment to enjoy the expression on your opponent's face as you show him the two burn spells you topdeck a moment later. You've never seen a Bob this dangerous.

Rakdos Deck Wins is not a new thing. RB Aggro/Burn was previously competitive during Lorwyn Standard, when cards like Ashenmoor Gouger and Demigod of Revenge ate life totals like Reese's Pieces. Not long after that, in the time of Zendikar, RB Vampires was a marginally successful aggro deck. It sought to mix the burn of Red with aggressively costed Black vampires like Vampire Lacerator. Red and Black is a solid combination. The two even compliment each other thematically: both are single-minded, ambitious, and have been known to cause copious amounts of property damage and loss of life.

The list we will be using tonight was created by a close friend of mine, Zelderex. I don't see him much these days. I wish I did, because he's one of those people that I always want to brew with. We're birds of a feather, you could say, in the way we both want to stand out. We played RG Shamans, we played BU Rogues, and so on. I noticed when we saw less of each other (although I knew what I did to cause it, and am not proud of having done it). Our final match together was his Rakdos Deck Wins against my Zombie Loam. Zelderex would win that match two-to-one. The final game was decided one a fatal error on my part, if I remember correctly. But such is life.

I may have been unhappy with losing, and I probably had a few choice words to say about it, but I respected it. Twelve Lightning Bolts is absolutely nothing to scoff at, and Bob was a very effective way to keep gas in the tank. It was an excellent brew on his part and he deserved every win he got with it.

Onto the list:




It is indeed very rough around the edges. It's not tuned or even completely thought out. I'm fairly sure this is a rough draft. I know for a fact that it's outdated because the post I retrieved this list from is more than a month old. A lot has happened since December 15th. But tuning and precision aren't what Red and Black are about. It's time we put our balls to the wall and gave this wild animal a whirl.

So we load up Trice.

Our first opponent is a player by the username of rukulu. His deck is some silly Bant thing with an infinite combo consisting of Puresight Merrow and Paradise Mantle. He equips it with the Mantle, taps it for a mana, then uses that mana to pay for the Merrow's untap ability. Considering this is a Merfolk we're talking about here it's pretty obvious where he's going with this. My opener has two Keldon and some tapped lands. I decide that it's slow but good enough.

I win the roll and lead with Lavaclaw Reaches. Rukulu plays a Hallowed Fountain untapped (if memory serves) and casts Steelshaper's Gift for his Paradise Mantle. On my turn I cast Keldon Marauders and pass. He plays a land, his Mantle, and a Pithing Needle naming Grim Lavamancer. Good thing I don't have any of those (although I should). On my turn, I attack with Keldon, play another, and then Bolt him. He's at nine life now.

He follows that with Puresight Merrow and passes. One Marauders dies, I attack with the other, and Blightning him. He untaps.

Okay, what happens next is very controversial. Puresight Merrow allows him to look at the top of his library and then exile that card if he so chose. He does this once, twice, three times, and then plays the Merfolk that gains him a life each time he untaps a Merfolk. Problem is, when activates the Merrow, he draws a card, then exiles a card from his hand. So it went like this: draw, exile, draw, exile, draw, slam wincon. He proceeds to gain infinite life or whatever. I just kind of sit there for a moment. I wasn't sure what had just transpired. Did he just blatantly cheat? Does he not know how to Scry 1 in Trice? How can I possibly be sure of what just happened?

I could not withhold my suspicion. I told him, "You know how suspicious that looks, right?" I did not accuse him of cheating. I didn't know if he did or not. I didn't want to just condemn the guy without thinking. I told him I had no opinion one way or the other and that I just felt that what he did was suspicious. Regardless, I conceded. Infinite life against a Burn deck? I'll pass, thanks. Rukulu promptly leaves the game. I don't feel mad this time, because I feel there's a possibility that I accused an innocent man of unsportsmanlike conduct.

I still don't know what to think. Did he cheat or is he just unfamiliar with the game? Did I comdemn an innocent player? I'll be perfectly honest with you: I think he was cheating. I think we was trying to pull one over on ol' feathers. You had to have been there. He drew and really slammed that Merrow down with conviction. What was the point of even using the Merrow those few times if he already had the life-gainer in hand? The sequence of events can only lead me to one conclusion: he dug for the wincon.

But it's best not to dwell. Let's find another opponent.

I only played one more game with the deck: against UW Tron, piloted by a fella named Karbs. The first game begins with Urza's Power Plant and an Expedition Map. I drop a Blood Crypt and suspend Rift Bolt. Karbs plays a Ghost Quarter followed by casting Azorius Signet. Bolt somes down. I play another land, Bump him, drop a Guide, and attack. My opponent cracks his map on his turn for an Urza's Tower and plays it, then passes. I attack, but my Guide is Repealed. I suspend another Rift Bolt and cast Lava Spike. Karbs just has a Seachrome Coast this time. I'm glad he has all the land he wants, because I'm stuck on two. I attack with Goblin Guide but it's blocked by a flashed in Snapcaster Mage.

Karbs drops Engineered Explosives with two charge counters. I finally draw another land (Lavaclaw) and try to Magma Jet him, but it's Remanded. On my opponent's turn, he plays a Map, cracks it for Urza's Mine, and plays it. He follows this up with Thirst for Knowledge, discarding something probably useless. I finally resolve a Magma Jet and scry a pair of lands; I ship both to the bottom. He Gifts for Slaver, Timely, Condesend, and Remand. I give him the counterspells. When I try to follow this up with Keldon Marauders, it's Remanded.

Karbs Gifts again, this time for two Eldrazi and two counterspells. I give him the Eldrazi and concede.

Going into game two, I side in Bob, Blightning, and Smash. Out go three Keldon Marauders and Flamebreaks. My opening seven are god awful and I ship 'em for a new six. They look better. I start a seventeen with a fetchland and Goblin Guide. Not so bad, because my opponent starts with only one more than that. He plays a Seachrome Coast and Explosives for one. Lovely. I play a Mountain, attack, and slam a Bob. Power Plant, Signet, pass. Fearless. Bob gives me a Blood Crypt and I draw Bump in the night. I play it and attack. A flashed in Tiago takes care of Dark Confidant. Karbs plays Urza's Tower and a Signet. I play Magma Jet at the end of his turn, keeping Smash and Keldon Marauders on the top.

I Smash the signet and Karbs cracks his Explosives. I Bump him and pass. He activates the Urzatron, plays a Map, cracks it for Tower, and pass. I draw and ship the turn right back. He plays Eye of Ugin, ships it back, but not before taking Flames of the Bloodhand to the face. On my turn I Spike his last few points of life for a victory.

I keep my deck as is going into the third game. My opener is good; Blood Crypt, Mountain, Goblin Guide, Rift Bolt, Smash to Smithereens, Lava Spike, and Bump in the Night. Karbs begins with Hallowed Fountain. I play Crypt untapped and take him to eighteen with Goblin Guide. He plays Urza's Tower and Expedition Map. I Smash the Map and attack into Path to Exile. He plays Urza's Power Plant and ships the turn back. I play Bump, Lava Spike; the Spike is Condescended, so I suspend Rift Bolt and pass the turn back.

He plays a Mine to activate the Urzatron and passes the turn back. On my turn, he Gifts for Timely Reinforcements, Wurmcoil Engine, Academy Ruins, and fourth card that I never saw because Trice promptly crapped the bed. It didn't really matter what the fourth card was anyway; I was stone dead to Wurmcoil and Ruins.

So Rakdos Deck Wins is good. The addition of black is a move in the right direction, but it may not make Red Deck Wins what it once was. Especially now that Vexing Devil has made Boros finally playable and brought Zoo back from the dead. However, R(x)DW is still placing respectably in Daily Events (just ask ol' Blippy). Would I play it in a Daily myself? No. I despise Burn.

Tune in next week for competitive Pokemon (featuring Han Slowbro).

Guillaume Wafo-Tapa is a pretty cool guy.

Back in 2007, he designed a deck and called it Sonic Boom. The name seems to be a reference to a Street Fighter character by the name of Guile, who used a special move called Sonic Boom, because he happened to share a name with a certain 6/6 that cannot be blocked by two creatures or less. It was a sweet mono-Blue control deck piloted by Amiel Tenenbaum at Grand Prix: Krakow that year. Tenenbaum would take the deck all the way to the top 8 before losing to a UW control deck.




You know who else is cool? MTGO user k_f_chicken, a man boldly playing mono-blue in a format dominated by two-and three-color decks.

And he kicked some ass, I might add. All the way to a 3-1 finish.




When I saw this deck, I was enamored. It's completely at odds with Modern convention. Guile, while a phenomenal fatty, is not even borderline playable. It's a six-drop with a triple blue color requirement that doesn't actually do anything when you play it. Your opponent has to cast something, and then you have to be able to counter it, which isn't exactly easy. Especially when you consider the fact that Mana Leak and Spell Pierce will be nigh-useless by this point in the game and Spell Snare is situational at best. When you cast Guile, your best counterpells are Remand and Cryptic Command. Both of which require mana to be left open, which means Guile actually costs somewhere between eight and ten.

Except it doesn't because of Pact of Negation.

The combination of these two cards is pretty nuts. Especially when playing against a someone who is obviously waiting for you to spend mana because of those oh so pretty islands staring them in the face. Tapping out for Guile and watching your opponent gleefully slam their spell right into a Pact is a pretty sweet feeling. It's already happened more than once (including against Splinter Twin on one occasion, which was AWESOME) and I hope I see it again. It's the kind of gambit that never gets old. Because it ALWAYS works. Like I said, it defies Modern convention. Who in their right mind plays islands for six turns then "Guile, go."?

Who else but scrubs?

By scrubs, I mean the kind of person that competitive online players immediately identify by their deck choice. By that, I mean the kind of person who learns how card advantage works and applies that knowledge to disparage any card that isn't an immediate +1. Yeah, we know you lost a card, but, hey, it does other things.

I digress.

Wafo-Tapa's Sonic Boom was on my mind that day, and I set about to shake things up yet again with my insatiable desire to play on the fringe. It didn't take me long to identify the other aspect of the Boom that made it so successful: Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. Ol' Tef was in the Wafo-Tapa original but was missing in KFC's reboot. This was unfortunate, because it's secretly Pacts five through eight. Playing Teferi allows you to flash in your Guile, which makes the big bastard infinitely less clunky. It also provides a method of protection as his static ability disallows your opponent from using the stack to his or her advantage, which makes your counterspells better. Additionally, there are little perks, like his ability to munch any x/3 with little room for error because your opponent isn't able to cast removal spells in the combat step. Tef is a superstar and this deck needs him.

The final card I'd like to talk about is Vedalken Shackles. This card is the literal nuts in Modern. It's so good that I will always tap out for it on turn three. If I have Shackles, nothing my opponent will play matters, bar Seething Song. Modern has gotten utterly creature-centric and Shackles shines in this environment. There are precious few instances where my opponent's next turn will matter to me because chances are it's a creature and will just be stolen and used against them.

So where does this end up? Glad you asked:




This is my main deck as of this writing. My go-to guy. It's the first time this slot has changed in quite some time, actually.

Yes, I was still playing Mystical Teachings.

Anyway. Oh, man. So many cantrips and not a single bit of pure card advantage. This is may seem like an odd way of constructing a control deck, but when so many of your spells replace themselves in a deck that has so many excellent other spells, you have no trouble finding something to stop your opponent with. For at least long enough to play something good. They're all temporary bumps in the road; cards that prevent your opponent from advancing their board state (or "tempo plays" if you prefer that vernacular). The entire point is to play jam 'em up, play Teferi, and win.

I have five Guile in this deck: three actual Guile plus two Frost Titan. This helps consistency because I have five ways to stick something big (Pact, Teferi) and five big somethings to stick. Chances are, nine times out of ten, I'll find something to kill you with and something else to prevent you from killing that something by the time I want it. If not, then I'll make you wait. I especially like flashing in Frost Titan; playing him on your opponent's turn allows you to tap two things (it comes in, taps something, then on your turn it attacks, tapping something else) which can really slow an aggro deck down something fierce. Not to mention the fact that after tapping something, it blocks something else! Played during your opponent's combat step, Frost Titan can effectively take out three threats. How's that for value?

Oh, and he can make Mana Leak relevant again. Unless your opponent wants to pay seven mana for a Doom Blade.

So that's basically how you play Sonic Boom. But what about the super secret tech?

Yes, there is a single Watery Grave in this deck. Obviously you'll want to flash back Mystical Teachings to find a fatty once you've tutored for Teferi. What's more, hiding that Watery Grave allows you to Next Level your opponent game two with Slaughter Pact then casually tutor it up off a Misty Rainforest at their end step. With a big ol' grin on your face. It also lets you play your Surgical Extraction without paying life, which may be relevant at some point.

Speaking of land, there's a Tolaria West in there, too. It tutors not only for Slaughter Pact, but also your Watery Grave if you don't see a fetchland. Or your Ghost Quarter if you need to get rid of a manland. Or even your Pact of Negation.

The rest of the deck is pretty self-explanatory. I'm sure you wondered about All is Dust. Well, Evacuation and Devastation Tide aren't really permanent solutions. Evacuation doesn't even hit noncreature permanents. Tide does, but it includes Vedalken Shackles. Dust does his noncreatures but misses Shackles. This deck is built to hit six to seven mana anyway so it's the best choice, I feel.

So that's my latest project. Hope you think it's pretty cool. Stay tuned for more Magic for Hipsters. Should be some more Other People's Decks one of these days, too.

Bant. The mystical combination of green, white, and blue introduced in Shards of Alara.

Bant has pretty much always been an extremely solid combination of colors. They compliment each other well. White performs much of the same functions as red in RUG, except instead of Lightning Bolt you have Path to Exile, which is a much better removal spell. In addition, you are afforded two of the best combat creatures ever printed Knight of the Reliquary and Geist of Saint Traft. The Knight, a personal favorite of mine, was first printed in Conflux, the second set of the Shards block. Geist appeared a few years later in Innistrad, the introductory set of the block named after it. Geist is essentially the card that made Bant the extremely powerful deck it is today. Don't get me wrong, it was good before, but with the introduction of Geist it was afforded a massive threat density. With full compliments of both, Birds, and Hierarch, throwing a massively dangerous threat at your opponent on turn two is almost a sure thing.

So why not begin my Other People's Decks series (which is just an excuse to not play my own stupid decks anymore) with Bant?

First, we choose a list. I decided to happily steal the crap out of the list currently employed by Raalic, a regular of the Modern forum and of the Geist of Saint Bant thread in which this deck is currently being discussed. Here it is:





I like the way it looks, personally. You'll notice Tarmogoyf is missing, which is just fine. It may seem like it would be good here (it looks good almost anywhere, to be perfectly honest) but the card types in this deck aren't as diverse as it may seem at first glance. This is first and foremost a creature deck and as such it's mostly creatures. 21 creatures compared to 16 non-creature, you'll notice. Among those non-creatures is instant, artifact, and Planeswalker. With few Elspeth and Swords, you'll mostly likely see one or the other over the course of the game, and you'll of course try to keep the one you do find in play. Moreover, Bant wants to skip it's two-drop, pass Go, and collect two hundred dollars. A hand with Hierarch, Knight, and Tarmogoyf seems so very awkward to me. What do I do with the Goyf? It might be a 2/3 at most at this point. Play it after the Knight? I should be playing Elspeth, a Sword, or Rafiq then. After those guys? I should be protecting my board and trying to win then. Goyf doesn't really do much for me.

Obviously, Tarmogoyf doesn't hurt the deck, but don't think you can't play Bant just because you don't have any.

I don't see anything else particularly notable about the deck from here. It looks great so I don't feel the need to even consider changes. The absence of Snapcaster is troubling, but it's not like this deck can really capitalize on it. Although I would like at least a couple, perhaps with a single Rewind as well. But that's just me. I plan on playing the list as is, regardless.

So time to load up Cockatrice. Who will be out first victim?

It will be a man by the username of Rocko510, and his deck is a four-color Delver build that just makes me groan and lay my cheek in my hand. It's not bad, but it's also ridiculous. I'll never understand why he felt the need to add green and white to UB Delver for Knight of the Reliquary and Maelstrom Pulse. At any rate, game one is off to the races.

My opener is Boidz, Misty, Path, Clique, Island, Pridemage, and Geist. I play Misty and completely forget to crack it for a Forest to play my Birds. We're off to a great start.

Rocko leads with Verdant into Watery Grave into Delver of Secrets. I play my Birds, feeling like a complete and utter dumbass, and pass.

He reveals KOTR off the top (Not only am I confused as to why I just saw Knight of the Reliquary, but I'm also confused as to why he revealed it to me. Last I checked, you didn't have to reveal the card if it wouldn't transform your Delver. Oh well. Free info.) He pops an Inquisition to take my Geist.

I play a Forest and drop Qasali Pridemage. With Geist gone, I can't use one to bait response to clear the way for the other. Moreover, him taking Geist gave me the inkling that he had removal in hand. Better play it safe.

He flips Maelstrom Pulse and it's Brundlefly time. I try to Path the thing (Not actually believing it would succeed). and it is Leaked. This leaves him almost tapped out.

I topdeck another Knight. Hit for three with Qasali and then drop my Knight. Because I have a second in hand I feel okay with dropping the first. Any responses from him would be wasted because I have the second to drop right behind it.

He simply attacks with Delver and lays a Creeping Tar Pit. I draw a Fountain, play it tapped, and attack with the Knight. It's presently a 3/3, hitting for four with Exalted. The race is close.

I try to Clique him, but it's Leaked. He attacks for three again and lays his own Knight. It's a 4/4, matching my Knight when Exalted. I plan on simply trading Knights and then laying my second but all of that changes when I topdeck a Horizon Canopy.

This of course allows me to simply ram my Knight into his and then sacrifice the Canopy, allowing my now 5/5 Knight to survive. But I lost a turn and Delver is going to pull ahead. I drew a Noble off of the Canopy. I play it and pass.

He attacks, Pulses my Knight. I draw Sword of Light and Shadow. I cast it, equip it to Qasali Pridemage, and attack. He flashes in Snapcaster Mage to block. He attacks me down to three with his Tar Pit (as I blocked the Delver with Birds). I try to attack again, but he Snapblocks me again. I concede and he.. leaves.

I can't begin to describe how much it bugs me when people do this. I head into the next match a very unhappy camper.

Next guy is by the username of Malcolm and he is playing Mono-Black Vampires.

I open with Birds, Canopy, Island, Geist, Rafiq, Knight, and Spell Pierce. Malcolm wins the roll and leads with a Swamp. Canopy, Birds. Marsh Flats, Swamp, Hexmage. I play Geist of Saint Traft and pass. Malcolm takes out my Birds with Go for the Throat (although I'm not sure why, the damage was done) and attacks.

I draw a land, play it, attack, and lay Qasali Pridemage. He lays Gatekeeper of Malakir, forcing me to sacrifice the Pridemage. I draw another land, play it, and drop Rafiq. I attack for approximately one million damage and pass, which affords me another effing Gatekeeper. I lose Rafiq. I topdeck a Noble Hierarch and play it. Attacking with Geist leads to a double block, which kills one of the Gatekeepers. On his turn he attacks with the other and passes. I drop Knight of the Reliquary which leads to a concession. I side out Qasali Pridemage for Great Sable Stag. Because why not.

My opener is Geist, Knight, Plains, Catacombs, Rafiq, Colonnade, Canopy. It's a slow hand, but also a solid one. I'll have to slow roll it but I'll get there, I'm sure of it. Of course, his opening play is Vampire Lacerator, and I feel like I may not have the time I need. Thankfully, he's stuck on one land for the first few turns, allowing me to lay Colonnade, Verdant, and Plains while he plays two Guul Draz Assassin. I play my Geist while he finds a second land. He attacks with just the Lacerator before laying Vampire Hexmage.

I reply with Rafiq of the Many and attack for approximately one million damage. On his turn, he promptly kills Rafiq with Go For the Throat and attacks. I, prompt as well, lay the second Rafiq I'd topdecked not too long ago and attack him down to just one life. I pass the turn, and wait.

Malcolm is silent for a while. He plays Vampire Nighthawk and passes. I see my play here very quickly. He's at one. He has no choice but to chump block the token with Nighthawk and Geist with something else. I'll effectively two-for-one him and be in a very safe boardstate. I attack and events transpire just as I predicted they would. I pass, and then drop Vendilion Clique[/CARD] on his draw step for the concession. GGs all around.

Next I play Rudo, whom is piloting Affinity. I do not like Affinity.

Our games go like this: I mulligan to six, he plays Blinkmoth, Mox Opal, Ornithopter, Signal Pest, and Skirge. I play Birds. Rudo burns my Birds with Galvanic Blast and attacks for approximately infinite damage. Wonderful. I side out three Birds for Kataki. Game two, I pick up Pool, Forest, Geist, Kataki, Kataki, Knight, Knight. I idly wonder if Raalic posted a bogus list to screw with people who like to netdeck other MTGS users.

Three turns pass, I find white mana, and play Kataki. Rudo concedes. Game three is exactly the same as game one. Have I mentioned that I hate Affinity? Oh well. Green and white aggro decks always struggle against Affinity. They're just too damn slow.

At any rate, Bant is not my thing, I think. I don't think it's the deck. It feels perfectly functional, and acceptably consistent. I probably just can't play the damn thing right. Although, personally, if I were to play Bant, I would play a very similar list, except with no Swords, Snapcaster Mage, one more Elspeth, and one more Rafiq. I don't think I'd maindeck Thrun either, but I'm sure he has very good reason for that. I also think I would find room in the sideboard for Celestial Purge and Kitchen Finks or Timely Reinforcements. Perhaps Condemn as well, as cheap spot removal is the key to beating Delver. Spell Snare also has some use against top tier strategies, although I dislike the card personally.

So there's a few games with Bant. Stay tuned for more Other People's Decks. Also look out for some info on GW Jumanji!

If I had to choose a three-color combination with which to define myself by, it'd be RUG. Red, Blue, and Green. These three colors are my absolute favorite, not close. I like RUG even more than Junk. Which might be a surprise, considering how much success I've had with that combination. More so than RUG, you might argue.

RUG simply has everything I want in a combination. I enjoy doing what the three colors are best at. I like looking at these colors. When I look at the bottom of the screen where my hand is laid out, I greatly enjoy seeing Tarmogoyf, Cryptic Command, and Lightning Bolt. I like the way RUG decks look. There's just something that clicks, something that speaks to me. Take the above trio for example. Each has a role they play in the deck, and each performs that role to the utmost of its ability. You attack with Goyf, you defend with Command, and you Bolt does a little of both. There's a certain balance here that I see in the RUG combination. Each color compensates for a weaknesses inherent in the others.

Blue is a great color for controlling the game, but when comes to actually winning it is sorely lacking. Although Delver of Secrets can morph into a 3/2 flier (though less consistently, what with the lack of Brainstorm and all) this pales in comparison to what green has to offer: Tarmogoyf. 'Goyf will consistently be a 3/4 to 4/5 beater for two that is very easily cast with mana open for countermagic. Tarmogoyf is the measuring stick for efficiency. If there is ever a creature moreso than it, then that creature should have never been printed.

But green needs blue just as much as blue needs green. The green mage can cast Tarmogoyfs all day but if they are simply picked off with efficient removal then you aren't actually getting anywhere. The green mage will simply run out of creatures to play and then promptly lose the game. Green needs blue to provide much-needed back-up. Green needs cover fire in the form of countermagic and plenty of library manipulation to keep its weapons locked and loaded.

Red is very much the same. Although it suffers less from removal due to using less creatures and less from countermagic because if the density and efficiency of its spells, it does lack efficient, reliable library manipulation much the same as green. Blue provides a handful of goodies to both colors.

In return, red provides a service that neither green nor blue do with any real finesse: removal. Repeal is a fine card but Lightning Bolt is perhaps the third best removal spell in the format, unfortunately falling short of the ridiculous efficiency of Path to Exile and the almost inexorable reliability of Smother. Bolt is a little of both. Costing one red mana makes it extremely efficient while three damage is just enough to hit a suitably wide breadth of targets, including, but not limited to, Wild Nacatl, Mirran Crusader, Vendilion Clique, Snapcaster Mage, Dark Confidant, and many more. What's more, these Bolts can also be turned directly toward your opponent. A deck with Lightning Bolt in it only need reduce it's opponent's life total to three, rather than zero.

On the other hand, while red is great at firing Bolts at Tiago, it suffers from lacking a board presence. Tarmogoyf isn't only a beater, but it's also a presence. It blocks all day. It discourages attacking. A purely red and blue deck has little to no method of securing presence and is forced to spend all of it's resources on protecting the board. Whereas, if you had Tarmogoyf, you simply play it and protect it. It's large body allows you some sense of security in that you have something to block with, to attack with, to apply pressure so that erstwhile empty hands may fill up instead of being forced to waste every last card in your grasp to protect your precious life total.

So there's a three-way balance. Green compensates for red's lack of board presence, red compensates for blue and green's's lack of removal options, and blue compensates for green and red's lack of protection and library manipulation, and green and red compensate for blue's inability to survive the harsh conditions of the Modern format.

This is why I love RUG. It's nearly perfect. Perhaps the best combination of colors available in the Modern format.

Which brings us to my latest creation.

As I've said before, I get a lot of my ideas from Standard. Right now, there is a card in Standard that I've kind of had my eye on. It's been lurking in the back of my head. Lightly gnawing at the fringes of my consciousness, never quite venturing so far that I figured out just what it was. Until this afternoon, when I realized what I wanted.

Are you ready? It's a doozie.




Yes, that thing.

This card struck me as grossly underestimated and underappreciated in the format. It provided so much reach, so much inevitability. You could so very easily just sit back and stay alive while it slowly ticked up to lethal. You never had to do anything else after you resolved it. I would even compare it to Bitterblossom in this respect. All I had to do was resolve the thing and it would eventually win the game for me. It's also very good against Planeswalkers, which is quite nice. Otherwise, Elspeth and Gideon would be nearly impossible to get rid of.

It all started coming together when I got it into my head that I wanted to build a deck I could call RUG Burn (as in, the hot abrasions you get from sliding bare skin over carpet). I wanted a RUG deck that leaned a little more toward red, with more options to burn the opponent out in spectacular fashion. The Shrine came very quickly to the forefront of my attention as this deck came together. I knew then what had been nagging at me and that I wanted to use it here. But then another thought came to mind. Patrick Chapin's nearly unbeaten Grixis list he'd sleeved up for Worlds this year. I was reminded of his words on Desperate Ravings. He spoke highly of the card, and felt it would see use even in formats outside of Standard. Always open to try new things, I threw a few in and had at it. I wasn't much afraid of the random discard because not only could I flashback quite a few of the cards I could possibly discard, but also because I was running multiples of all of my cards. If I lost one, I could very easily find another as I sifted through my deck with Ravings.

It didn't take long for me to realize that I'd stumbled across something pretty nifty. The use and reuse of red spells ticked up my Shrines are a fevered pace. Although some play mistakes would cost me games I felt extremely confident in the build. It performed admirably, and many hiccups were because of human error rather than lax construction. Even Ravings performed at or above expectations. Though I may fall victim to an untimely discard here and there, stringing the spells together always found me a very playable set of cards. What's more, later in the game, I found myself discarding lands more often than spells because I could play more than one of them a turn. Land buffered my playables against the random discard. This deck didn't need too much land anyway. I found six to be the most optimal number.

The final piece was, of course, Punishing Fire. A card that not only ticked up my Shrine with each repeated use but also did not mind being discarded to a Ravings.

Much thanks, again, to my good friend Pinhead/The Labyrinth who would assist me in fine-tuning the list to the sleek, sexy machine it is now.




My next entry will focus on the evolution of my Trinisphere deck. We'll go through the various methods of disruptive burn it utilized all the way up to the four-color monstrosity that it is now.

Until then.

I get most of my ideas from Standard.

Wolf Run RUG one of two original ideas I've brought to Modern that actually had any success. Neither are truly original, because both are ports of Standard decks. Maybe someday I'll reveal what the other one is, although some of you may already know what it is.

Wolf Run RUG began as a love affair with an idea. This idea was that Standard Wolf Run was good for the same reasons that Valakut was good. Control has a tough time interacting with lands and when facing a ramp deck it's sometimes difficult to know which spells you should and should not counter. This is because they all do the same thing and you can't feasibly counter them all for value. But if you don't counter any, suddenly your counterspells (namely your Mana Leaks and Spell Pierces) become useless because of the sheer amount of mana at the disposal of your opponent. This actually turns one of the best counterspells in the format into a liability.

I was convinced that the same could ring true in Modern. The Modern control deck has not changed in some time and there was a very small difference between Standard control decks and Modern control decks. Sometimes people were even playing straight ports, such as Solar Flare and Stoneforge-less UW Blade variants. I set out to exploit these decks in the same way that Valakut and Wolf Run exploited them. But I needed some help.

I first floated the idea to a man you might know by the name of cbus. He was skeptical, and didn't really get in on the idea, but he did let me bounce ideas off him and provide a few of his own. This lead to the first incarnation of the deck, which was bad. Bad, bad, bad, bad. It was bad. So bad. It was horribly slow, clunky, and just plain didn't work. I almost gave up.

As an aside, I want to point out one card offered to me by cbus that would be cut for the final deck but I still think is really quite good: Viridian Emissary. At first, it seems like nothing more than a bad Sakura Tribe-Elder that can attack. But then you realize that it's a bad Sakura Tribe-Elder that can attack! And block! Rather than blocking or being blocked only to be sacrificed to net a land, the Emissary sticks around to dig his dirty, Oil-stained claws into whatever it may have blocked or been blocked by. This isn't always relevant, but the few times it is it feels excellent. Whether you are double-blocking, blocking a Snapcaster Mage, or what have you. Attacking with it feels excellent as well because either your opponent blocks it and you get a land or they don't block it so you can't get the land, which means you're getting damage in that may become relevant later. It's not a bad topdeck, either, because that 2/1 body can be a decent clock when the game grinds to a halt, and certainly your opponent will not feel good about wasting a spell on it. There is so much deceptive value in this card and I absolutely love it.

But I digress.

The next person I brought the deck to was a good friend of mine by the name of The Labyrinth. Trice players will certainly know who he is and perhaps have some opinions on him. Love him or hate him, the guy is no idiot and he wasted no time in making this deck the absurdity it is now. It took him mere moments to suggest the one card that put my pipe dream on the fast track to success: Lotus Cobra. From then on, this deck was real. It was good. It was absurd. Shortly after Lotus Cobra, Oracle of Mul Daya entered the mix. Lab was not crazy about her at first but I pushed hard. She was an auto-include in my version of the new Lotus Cobra version of out deck and I'd already done some crazy things. The Cobra powered her out on turn three, which invariably lead to turn four Primeval Titan. I was also enamored with the synergy between her and Jace Beleren. She picked lands off the top of my library so that I had a better chance at drawing business with my loyalty counters. On the flip side, if I needed a land but there was not one on top, Jace was always happy to pick up that top card to see if there was a land underneath. It was a match made in heavy and just gravy.

So we had our core. Lotus Cobra, Jace Beleren, Oracle of Mul Daya, and Primeval Titan. The deck changed a lot from then on, but these four cards pretty much stayed the same. When I play the deck, I'm always amazed at how much raw power there is here, even though it's somewhat sluggish. When this deck wins, it wins big. I've seen Titans with power well over twenty. Once, it went over thirty. I've pulled every last land out of my deck more than once. It's really hard to not be proud of myself when I look at this deck, even though it's not my place to feel as such. Even though I'm currently embroiled in the world of red, green, and black if I were to receive comped transportation and entry to a Modern tournament and were given a full set of every Modern-legal card I would build this deck immediately. I love this deck. It's my baby. It's one of the very things I'm truly proud of.

So here it is:



If you're reading this, I encourage you to give this deck a try. If only to help me smooth out any wrinkles in the design. Feel free to comment and offer suggestions, even if you chose not to play with it.

Well, well, well. My very first blog post. It's going to be a short one. Later entries may be longer if I remember to keep this thing up-to-date. Right now, though, it's all about what's going in the Modern world.

Which just happens to be Jund:



After many, many failed attempts at new and original ideas I've decided to focus on an old mainstay. This is what I'm playing right now and it likely won't change much until something in it is banned. The only change I'm even remotely considering is removing the Nighthawks in favor of Liliana of the Veil. But, as much as I'm in love with her, I'd much rather have Nighthawk right now. I would much rather have the flying, lifelinked body than an Edict or a Raven's Crime. That said, I may find a spot for her in the sideboard. I think I'm pretty well set-up against aggro and I'm not so sure I need much more aggro tech in the board.

So that's it. I said it was short, and I was right! Also, I lied. I know I said 'Current Events + Jund' but as it turns out Jund is my Current Events. I don't have time for Occupy Candyland.