Modern

Food for Thought – Modern

Originally published at 60cards.com

As we inch towards May, we get closer to the two year anniversary of Mana Deprived. Has it really been that long? The Eh Team is also nearing its 80th episode. Damn! I guess it also means that it has been a long time since I lost that bet to Jesse. To summarize, Jay and I were pit against Jesse and Scott in a GP battle with the winning team being the one that accumulated the most points at GP Portland and GP Toronto. Suffice it to say, Jay and I got our asses kicked and as punishment, we both owe Jesse an article for his MTG website, 60cards.com. Remember folks, that site is for entertainment purposes only.

It has taken me a while to really decide to sit down and write him this article that I owe him. Other tasks just kept jumping at me. Another issue was the fact that I did not want to simply phone-in an article. There are articles out there that merely display a few recent winning decklists with very little thought attached to them. I scour for decklists all the time. I don’t need someone else to show me something that I can easily find by myself. What I provide here is everything I have learned about Modern up to this point. Hopefully, there’s something here for you to take away.

I’ll start by talking about my favorite deck to play in the format: Zoo. A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for a deck to play in a local PTQ. I had lost faith in my good friend Caw-Blade and found myself persuaded by Owen to play his latest Zoo list. He was touting it as insane and just this week published an article regarding his latest build. For easy reference, here is his list:

[deck title=Zoo by Owen Turtenwald]
[Lands]
4 Marsh Flats
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Arid Mesa
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Stomping Ground
2 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple Garden
1 Mountain
1 Plains
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Kird Ape
4 Loam Lion
4 Steppe Lynx
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
3 Seal of Fire
4 Lightning Helix
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Thrun, the Last Troll
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Sulfur Elemental
1 Torpor Orb
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Now don’t worry, I’m not going to regurgitate anything he said in his article. I went 5-1 with the list at the PTQ with one round to go. Sadly, I did not have the tie-breakers to draw in and needed to play as a result. I ended up losing to my good friend Jake Meszaros’ Jund deck which cut my run short. My other loss was to another friend (Nick LeBlanc) who was piloting Affinity.

Owen included [card]Leyline of the Void[/card]s to deal with the increasing popularity of graveyard decks. In the one daily he played on MTGO, he straight up wrecked a Loam deck games 2 and 3 because of Leyline alone. I have had similar experiences. It helped me win games vs. Storm when Thalia wasn’t in my hand, but over time, it just did not seem right to play a card that you couldn’t cast when you drew it.

Owen mentioned alternatives to Leyline, but he left [card]Wheel of Sun and Moon[/card] (suggested to me by Alex Hayne) out, which might actually be the best alternative. I played against a UR Storm player last night that was not happy that I drew a Wheel off the top after he had Probed the previous turn and saw nothing that would disrupt his next turn. I will certainly continue to play 3-4 Wheels in my sideboard.

Over the last 2 days, I have gone 12-8 with the deck in 2-man queues. A good bulk of those wins come against Tron as I am 8-1 against those decks while being 6-1 against the new GR Tron deck. One of the wins actually came against the creator of the GR Tron deck himself, so I was not just facing nobodies. The majority of my losses were to Melira Pod where I happen to be 0-3.

The major problem with Melira is that it is an extremely hard deck to hate out. You play all these graveyard hate spells and [card]Torpor Orb[/card]s while they beat your face down with a [card]Reveillark[/card] and a [card]Sun Titan[/card]. They have a strong beatdown plan especially with [card]Gavony Township[/card] and they got amazing blockers like [card]Wall of Roots[/card] and [card]Kitchen Finks[/card] that allow them to transition into beatdown mode. [card]Wall of Roots[/card] just laughs at my 4/5 [card]Steppe Lynx[/card]es.

So how do you deal with these guys? Caleb Durward played [card]Aven Mindcensor[/card]s in his version that took him to the finals of a PTQ and the reason I like Mindcensors is that not only does it reduce the effectiveness of [card]Birthing Pod[/card] and [card]Chord of Calling[/card], it flies over god damn [card]Wall of Roots[/card]. Another option is Inside Out. I was joking to Alex and Bryce Menard that I wanted to play [card]Twisted Image[/card] and the guys helped me find [card]Inside Out[/card]. Of course, both of these cards are very match-up specific, but since it’s been the only troublesome matchup, I don’t mind sacrificing versatility.

Moving forward, I am going to give both options a try and let you guys know how I like them. The slots that you can really play with in Owen’s list are the [card]Sulfur Elemental[/card]s. [card]Sulfur Elemental[/card] is basically good against the decks that don’t want to be facing down a Thalia either. The problem? [card]Sulfur Elemental[/card] will kill your Thalia and since I am not cutting Thalia anytime soon, the Elementals can definitely hit the hay.

Post-Submission Update: After playing against Melira again, I think I was wrong as to how the matchup generally plays out. I was siding in [card]Wheel of Sun and Moon[/card] thinking it would be useful, but I feel the matches usually end up where they are in range of burn spells, but an [card]Obstinate Baloth[/card] just changes the math. The opponent I played also had access to [card]Ranger of Eos[/card] to go get a [card]Burrenton Forge-Tender[/card]. What’s the best solution to these problems? More [card]Torpor Orb[/card]s.

Another card I want to try out in the sideboard is [card]Elspeth, Knight-Errant[/card] I think it can take the place of a Thrun because Elspeth is likely to be good in the matchups Thrun is good in but while Thrun is way too slow against Melira, Elspeth allows you to jump over [card]Wall of Roots[/card] and Persist creatures. That flying [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] might be all you need to win the game!

With all of that in mind, here’s what I would be sleeving up if I was playing Zoo at a PTQ tomorrow:

[deck title=Zoo by Kar Yung Tom]
[Lands]
4 Marsh Flats
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Arid Mesa
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Stomping Ground
2 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple Garden
1 Mountain
1 Plains
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Kird Ape
4 Loam Lion
4 Steppe Lynx
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
3 Seal of Fire
4 Lightning Helix
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
4 Wheel of Sun and Moon
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Torpor Orb
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Another deck that I have been playing with a lot is UW Tron. Here is the list I played this past weekend at a PTQ in Milford.

[deck title=UW Tron by Luis Scott-Vargas]
[Lands]
4 Celestial Colonnade
1 Eye of Ugin
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
1 Plains
3 Seachrome Coast
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Urza’s Mine
4 Urza’s Power Plant
4 Urza’s Tower
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Azorius Signet
1 Day of Judgment
3 Expedition Map
4 Gifts Ungiven
1 Oblivion Ring
4 Path to Exile
4 Remand
2 Repeal
1 Talisman of Progress
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Unburial Rites
1 Wrath of God
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
2 Celestial Purge
2 Grafdigger’s Cage
2 Kataki, War’s Wage
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Disenchant
1 Dispel
1 Rule of Law
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Ghostly Prison
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

I went 3-1 and then lost round 5 to good friend Rob Anderson with Loam who went on to lose in the top 8 of the event. During both games, he had me under Loam/Ghost Quarter lock. During the match, I really did not know what type of plan I was supposed to be on. If they are going to [card]Ghost Quarter[/card] me out, I guess I have to try to win with Gifts/Iona calling Black? That plan was very awkward in Game 2 when Rob was able to land an early Liliana.

UW Tron seems like a poor choice moving forward especially if the following deck picks up any sort of speed. Charles Gindy took down one of the recent online PTQs with this beauty:

[deck title=GR Tron by Charles Gindy]
[Lands]
4 Urza’s Mine
4 Urza’s Power Plant
4 Urza’s Tower
1 Academy Ruins
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Eye of Ugin
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Wurmcoil Engine
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Karn Liberated
1 All Is Dust
4 Mindslaver
4 Talisman of Impulse
4 Chromatic Star
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Expedition Map
4 Sylvan Scrying
4 Prophetic Prism
3 Explore
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
3 Pyroclasm
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Combust
2 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Spellskite
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Seal of Primordium
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

This deck actually goes over the top of the UW Tron decks. Because of their [card]Sylvan Scrying[/card]s they are generally going to find their Tron pieces faster than you and once they cast either [card]Mindslaver[/card] or Karn it is over. [card]Remand[/card] can only buy you so much time. I mentioned this in my Zoo discussion, there is a LOT of GR Tron in the 2-man queues right now because not only is this deck sweet, it is a blast to play.

Of course, I know if GerryT were to listen to me complain about the shortcomings of a deck, he would tell me to shut up and figure out a way to adjust. Against the Loam deck, having [card]Surgical Extraction[/card]s over the [card]Grafdigger’s Cage[/card]s is an option to consider. Extraction is not as strong against Melira but it at least can do something against the Loam engine, which I personally feel you are kold to if you are the UW Tron player.

My friend Rob Anderson, who has been playing UW Tron longer than me, said that his sideboard for the deck includes 4 [card]Leyline of Sanctity[/card] as he believes they help him deal with a lot of the troublesome cards in the format, namely discard. Against Loam, it does shutdown [card]Raven’s Crime[/card] and prevents us from being killed by [card]Seismic Assault[/card], but I’m not sure how effective it really is. They are potentially bringing in some amount of [card]Nature’s Claim[/card] and of course, they can still kill us with [card]Worm Harvest[/card]. It just seems like a tough matchup overall.

Against GR Tron, a Twitter follower talked about [card]Ghost Quarter[/card] and [card]Crucible of Worlds[/card] being a solution to the matchup and this plan is certainly bonkers, but there’s just no real way to reliably get yourself a Crucible during a game. You need more answers. GerryT’s idea of [card]Terastodon[/card] as a Gifts target certainly becomes very appealing. On top of that, maybe you will see the UW deck include hard counters again in [card]Condescend[/card]. If I were to be playing Tron in the near future though, I would most certainly be running Gindy’s build with some tweaks against aggro.

That’s it from me for now as there are roughly 4 PTQs left for me to play and there are still a few decks that I would love to experiment with, including maybe, just maybe, the latest version of Caw-Blade.

Take care,

KYT

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