Modern season is here, and I’ve been working on some nice decks, but I’m afraid I don’t have anything to show you without more testing. While my Decked Builder app was filled with Pod variants (Bant Angel Pod anyone?) and [card]Prophetic Flamespeaker[/card] decks, the first big event on my horizon was GP Chicago. This meant that I had to focus on Standard first.

I had some issues testing a lot in real life because getting to stores involved driving, and I didn’t have a driver’s license yet. (No, I’m not 15; I just never needed one in the Netherlands. It’s fixed now.) So, despite my reservations, I fired up the old V3 version of Magic Online to do some testing. It quickly became apparent that playing two-man cues were a waste of money, as even winning 100% of your matches would put you down money. So I tried the tournament practice room. Some [card]Blistercoil Weird[/card]s and other Traumatize-ing experiences later, I was wondering how anybody was getting testing done.

Because I didn’t get in enough useful MTGO time to test new things, I stuck to what I knew for the GP. This is what I registered for the main event:

[deck title= Bg Devotion by Jay Lansdaal]
[Creatures]
4 Pack Rat
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Lifebane Zombie
4 Desecration Demon
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Thoughtseize
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Devour Flesh
3 Hero’s Downfall
4 Underworld Connections
1 Vraska the Unseen
[/Spells]
[Lands]
1 Forest
1 Golgari Guildgate
4 Mutavault
4 Overgrown Tomb
11 Swamp
4 Temple of Malady
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
3 Duress
2 Doom Blade
1 Bile Blight
2 Golgari Charm
1 Pharika’s Cure
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Hero’s Downfall
2 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Whip of Erebos
1 Gaze of Granite
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

It’s basically Yuuya Watanabe’s list from a tournament in Japan couple weeks ago, adjusted slightly because I didn’t want to have four [card]Lifebane Zombie[/card]s main (I expected a lot of Black Devotion strategies at the GP) so I replaced one with a Vraska, which is still good against Jund Monsters and other decks with big green creatures but is also good in the (semi-)mirrors I expected to face. The sideboard is a couple of cards different too because I am a big fan of [card]Whip of Erebos[/card] and I like having access to a [card]Gaze of Granite[/card] in large tournaments like a GP, despite it being clunky (and it may just be worse than a [card]Drown in Sorrow[/card]).

Because I had been judging more events than playing them last season, I actually missed out on having byes. I normally have at least one just through FNMs and other local tournaments and am easily able to hit two if I try. I played in one grinder, but lost to my friend Charles who then went on to win it, and we had no more time to play another one. I was going to have to do this the hard way.

Round one, I faced Burn.

Round two, I faced Burn.

I managed to steal the first round thanks to some bad draws on my opponent’s side and a little bit of help from the [card]Scavenging Ooze[/card]s in my deck, but I was soundly defeated in the second round.

I lost again in round four to Jund Monsters after some mediocre draws and was now in the single-elimination bracket. I defeated some black decks, a Jund deck, a Boros deck, but I lost another round before the day was over to Mono Black, where I just couldn’t draw a fifth land to cast my three Gray Merchants in game three, despite having an [card]Underworld Connections[/card] out for multiple turns. After nine rounds, my tournament was over, and Charles and I (who also took a third loss) headed out for some dinner. This was, by the way, after 10 p.m. Apparently there were issues with the printer or something, but there seemed to be a 30-minute delay every round before we could start the next one.

These delays seemed to not be limited to the main event either. The Super Sunday Series that I joined was going to run so late because of delays that a ton of people just dropped halfway through the tournament. Even while I was sitting at 6-1, two people next to me had their opponents no-show, while X-2 was very likely to make top four. I dropped at 6-2 with two more rounds to go, because I was just dead tired and sick of waiting so long between rounds. It also didn’t help that no more side events were firing (while the SSS still had about 5 more hours to go!?), so Charles was just sort of sitting there waiting for me to finish so we could eat.

If Super Sunday Series stay this big, I probably won’t play in them anymore. Ten rounds plus top eight on one day, and if you do great but miss the top four, you go home with a booster box. I think you’re better off just playing win-a-box events.

Anyway, this is what I took to a 6-2 finish, losing to Mono Green Devotion (not a great matchup I think, and my draws made it seem even worse) and a black deck with [card]Drown in Sorrow[/card] and some fantastic draws. I still nearly pulled it out, even almost winning game one on a mull to five, but it was not to be.

[deck title= White Weenie by Jay Lansdaal]
[Creatures]
4 Boros Elite
3 Judge’s Familiar
3 Loyal Pegasus
4 Soldier of the Pantheon
3 Aegis of the Gods
3 Cavalry Pegasus
4 Daring Skyjek
3 Imposing Sovereign
2 Banisher Priest
3 Frontline Medic
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
2 Ajani’s Presence
4 Brave the Elements
1 Ajani, Caller of the Pride
1 Spear of Heliod
[/Spells]
[Lands]
17 Plains
3 Mutavault
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Ajani’s Presence
1 Pithing Needle
1 Glare of Heresy
3 Keening Apparition
4 Nyx-Fleece Ram
1 Banisher Priest
3 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
1 Spear of Heliod
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Very similar to what I listed as “for fun” in my last article, this deck was a blast to play, and it felt very well positioned. After seeing a Mono-White deck do well in Japan, I cut some one-drops from my previous list to add [card]Ajani’s Presence[/card] (which was fantastic), added [card]Frontline Medic[/card]s and [card]Cavalry Pegasus[/card] to get my dudes through (and a 20th land to support the somewhat higher curve), and added [card]Aegis of the Gods[/card] over Azorious Arrester, which was great in a field filled with Mono Black (“Nice [card]Devour Flesh[/card], bro”) and Burn (“Try killing this first. Also, all my protection spells are now straight-up Negates”).

What I realized in this event is that, with the way the games go, I really want to be the guy jamming threats. They don’t necessarily have to be little white dudes, but even in black I like having more creatures than most people. I will basically never board out [card]Desecration Demon[/card]. Heck, because I board out some number of [card]Underworld Connections[/card] in any non-mirror or control matchup, I might move one to the sideboard to make room for more threats. Something like this looks really good to me at the moment:

[deck title= Mono Black Devotion by Jay Lansdaal]
[Creatures]
4 Pack Rat
3 Nightveil Specter
3 Lifebane Zombie
4 Desecration Demon
3 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Thoughtseize
2 Bile Blight
3 Devour Flesh
2 Ultimate Price
3 Hero’s Downfall
3 Underworld Connections
1 Whip of Erebos
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Mutavault
17 Swamp
2 Temple of Malady
2 Temple of Silence
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Dark Betrayal
4 Duress
1 Doom Blade
1 Bile Blight
2 Pharika’s Cure
1 Hero’s Downfall
1 Lifebane Zombie
1 Underworld Connections
2 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Whip of Erebos
1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

The reason this seems good is because it lets you play more like a Jund Monsters deck. It does not accelerate, but like Jund it has a ton of cards that just take over games while pressuring your opponent. You don’t use your removal to protect yourself, you use it to get your creatures through or to turn a race in your favor.

Because all your creatures either A) are a quick clock or B) take over the game by themselves, having more of them than most lists, combined with cheap removal and less slower cards like [card]Underworld Connections[/card] and [card]Gray Merchant of Asphodel[/card], should work out well. Cutting one of those might seem sacrilegious, but Gray Merchants are cards I’d rather topdeck than have a bunch of in my hand. And because I plan to deal more damage with my other creatures, I don’t need the reach as much. [card]Whip of Erebos[/card] picks up some of the slack in the lifegain department, so we have that covered too. Whip also provides a non-creature source of card advantage and devotion to compensate for missing a Connections, and we have [card]Nightveil Specter[/card]s that draw us cards as well.

If you try this deck, make sure you don’t play too conservatively. Getting on the board is very important. Start clocking your opponent with a creature and use a removal spell later to turn a race in your favor rather than play “kill this, kill that” all game. (This does depend on the matchup; against very fast decks you want to do anything you can to stabilize first.)

Despite GP Chicago ending as a rather poor event for me, I was happy with (most of) my play over the weekend, and I look forward to doing better at the next GP I go to, which should be Boston. Since it’s somewhat close to Canada, perhaps I’ll see you there?

Jay Lansdaal
iLansdaal on Twitter and MTGO