Being one of the most popular formats in Magic, Modern is frequently a hot topic in the community – no matter what the competitive level. One draw to this format is that you can essentially play anything you want. Yes, even Jund in 2020!
If you know me or have read some of my articles, you know that Modern Jund is one of my favourite archetypes in Magic, even though it hasn’t been Tier 1 in years. And I’m not alone here. Jund players love to continue to jam their Lilianas and [Card]Tarmogoyf[/Card]s no matter what is going on in the format.
But what has caused the recent resurgence in Jund support among other players? Let me get into it:
The Jund Strategy
If you are new to the Jund archetype, the first thing you need to know is that this strategy relies on a steady stream of “one-for-one” answers – meaning, you play one card to get rid of one of your opponent’s cards. This is most often done by using a discard spell ([Card]Thoughtseize[/Card] or [Card]Inquisition of Kozilek[/Card]) or by using a removal spell ([Card]Fatal Push[/Card], [Card]Lightning Bolt[/Card], etc.).
The idea here is that you do everything you can to make the text boxes on your opponents cards blank. With so many blanket answers, you want to trade cardboard for cardboard as much as possible.
Some of your more potent spells pull double-duty like [Card]Liliana of the Veil[/Card] of [Card]Kolaghan’s Command[/Card]. These cards can be increasingly powerful depending on the matchup.
That leaves the creatures. [Card]Tarmogoyf[/Card] synergizes really well with the rest of the deck because you are constantly putting different card types in both graveyards with your discard , removal, Liliana and your suite of cheap interaction. [Card]Scavenging Ooze[/Card] works well to combat any graveyard shenanigans your opponent might try against you and can easily take over the game in creatures matchups in conjunction with a couple Bolts. [Card]Bloodbraid Elf[/Card] is a semi-recent re-addition to Jund after her unbanning. Getting to cast a random spell plus a 3/2 creature with haste is pretty broken when the quality of cards in your deck is this high.
With all these moving parts, you can get the picture of what a true midrange deck looks like — the ability to switch up plans based on what you’re playing against. Moving from an aggressive deck one round when you’re paired against big mana and the shifting to a deck that values temp or control against creature strategies. Jund tailors the game plan based around what the opponent is playing.
Another key aspect of the Jund is that it’s one of the best decks at tailoring it’s sideboard for the metagame. I wrote an article a couple of months ago depicting different strategies in sideboard building through the lens of a Jund deck, which might be another good article to read if you haven’t already.
Such malleable post-board plans make Jund good at attacking a known metagame, so when you’re confident about your matchups you can really hone in on your post-board plans.
The New Cards
[Card]Assassin’s Trophy[/Card], [Card]Wrenn and Six[/Card] and most recently, [Card]Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger[/Card], have all contributed to Jund’s recent uprising in the Modern metagame.
[Card]Assassin’s Trophy[/Card] gave Jund a way to combat decks, cards and strategies that the archetype has traditionally struggled against. Cards like [Card]Urza’s Tower[/Card], [Card]Primeval Titan[/Card] and [Card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/Card] are no longer considered “Game Over” for Jund like they were when you were packing a ton of [Card]Abrupt Decay[/Card]s. While [Card]Assassin’s Trophy[/Card] may not have swung unfavorable matchups into the “favourable” category, we are well on our way to having a fighting chance.
[Card]Wrenn and Six[/Card] was a card printed in Modern Horizons that originally propelled Jund into the forefront of people’s minds again. Modern Horizons brought forth many powerful strategies, and unfortunately Jund was overlooked while decks like Hogaak and Whirza overtook Modern for many months.
Now that we have escaped Hogaak and (kinda) Whirza, we can take a look at what [Card]Wrenn and Six[/Card] really added to Jund, which is a lot. First, the deck fundamentally took a turn by completely removing [Card]Dark Confidant[/Card] from most lists, which was a Jund staple for years. [Card]Wrenn and Six[/Card] helped both grindy games and against small creature decks. This was a shift in the right direction for the Humans matchup, as well as just another way to shut out Infect (that is, until they got [Card]Veil of Summer[/Card]). Fundamentally, Wrenn also added a sticky threat to the deck that was less susceptible to spot-removal. While Confidant can snowball a game, Wrenn is much better at provided guaranteed incremental advantage, which is something Jund is always in the market for.
Finally, our newest addition to the Jund family is [Card]Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger[/Card]. Kroxa puts additional pressure on Jund’s manabase to pay for the double red in her escape cost. However, I personally have not had an issue after adapting my manabase. Kroxa serves as an additional discard spell, as well as an aggressive threat after she is escaped. Everything you want out of a Jund card, a two-for-one that can get them dead.
A lot of the time Jund matches come down to both you and your opponent top-decking, and Kroxa is especially good here. You opponent will often lose three life to Kroxa by being unable to discard. Additionally, after you have dealt with all of your opponent’s cards in hand and creatures on the battlefield, Kroxa is ready to be escaped uncontested by your opponent. A 6/6 body isn’t negligible either.
At SCG Regionals I went 5-3 with Jund, losing to Infect twice and Golgari Titan. Based on this, I would likely find room in the sideboard for [Card]Anger of the Gods[/Card] to generally help the small creature matchups, as well as to deal with the zombies from [Card]Field of the Dead[/Card] out of Titan decks.
Overall, I felt favored in a lot of the matchups I played. Titan decks felt close, and even favoured when they didn’t have [Card]Field of the Dead[/Card]. W
If you love the deck, now is an acceptable time to play it. Jund has strong play and sideboarding options against the best decks in Modern, which is exactly where Jund wants to be to thrive.
Even in a format with turn-two [Card]Primeval Titan[/Card]s, lightning fast [Card]Ad Nauseum[/Card] kills and powerful finishers like [Card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/Card], every now and then the little green creatures get the job done.
And that’s what happened this past weekend when the F2F Tour stopped in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island for a Modern event. Sebastian Steffe and his [Card]Devoted Druid[/Card] combo deck conquered the entire event.
Your F2F Tour Charlottetown champ, Sebastian Steffe.
Steffe was able to take down Adam Joyce and his Ponza deck in the finals.
Druid is in an interesting spot in Modern these days. It feels like each and every set provides new toys to battle with and Theros Beyond Death was no exception. The addition of [Card]Heliod, Sun-Crowned[/Card] gave the deck even more explosive combo potential with [Card]Walking Ballista[/Card] and [Card]Spike Feeder[/Card] offering you infinite damage and infinite life as early as turn three. It’s as easy as casting one [Card]Collected Company[/Card] finding a Heliod and a Feeder and boom, infinite life.
And this strange collection of combo enablers and value engines was everything Steffe needed to come out on top last weekend.
Your Charlottetown Top 8.
Joining them in the Top 8 was Chris Brennan playing the Snowblade deck that’s been picking up in popularity lately after the printing of [Card]Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath[/Card], Jean-Francois Lamothe playing an old classic in Skred Red, Greg Mahen and Cole Clarke on Jund, Gavin Grant on Mono-Green Tron and Matthew McGee-Herritt combo-killing with [Card]Ad Nauseum[/Card].
Now, with thebanning of [Card]Once Upon a Time[/Card] on Monday, Steffe’s deck certainly took a big hit right after he brought home the trophy. Granted, Heliod Company remains an extremely explosive deck that can really exploit a metagame that isn’t filled with [Card]Lightning Bolt[/Card]s and [Card]Fatal Push[/Card]s. It’s not like this banning is going to completely remove the big mana decks that are making it hard to play spot-removal, so Druid might be here to stay at the top of the metagame.
With that said, the clear next step to me is the exploration of these Uro midrange decks like the one that Chris Brennan piloted all the way to the Top 4 on Saturday. These Stoneforge decks, the [Card]Urza, Lord High Artificer[/Card] versions and the [Card]Cryptic Command[/Card] control decks all featuring the three mana titan as their finisher are all primed to blow up in Modern from where I’m sitting. So, if you’ve got a Modern event coming up I’d give Brennan’s deck a shot.
Adam Joyce
Chris Brennan
Cole Clarke
Gavin Grant
Greg Mahen
Jean-Francois Lamothe
Matthew Mcgee
Sebastian Steffe
Congratulations to Sebastian Steffe and to the rest of the Top 8 on their outstanding performances this past weekend. Before I leave you for the week, I’d like to also extend a special thank you to both our judge staff and our sponsor Ultimate Guard for helping us put on a great event.
Now, normally before I give you the decklists you came here for, I’d let you know what’s next on the docket for the F2F Tour in the coming weeks. But in an effort to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus, Face to Face Games has decided to cancel a number of events in accordance with the recommendations made by Health Canada. If you’d like further information on how the Tour has been impacted, please see our article on the subject here.
In the coming weeks we’ll be closely monitoring the situation and if anything changes, you’ll be the first to know. We hope to see you on the F2F Tour soon!
[Deck Title= First Place, Devoted Druid Combo – Sebastian Steffe]
[Creatures]
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Birds of Paradise
1 Viscera Seer
1 Walking Ballista
4 Devoted Druid
2 Vizier of Remedies
3 Kitchen Finks
4 Spike Feeder
4 Heliod, Sun-Crowned
4 Ranger-Captain of Eos
1 Eternal Witness
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Collected Company
2 Finale of Devastation
4 Once Upon a Time
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Forest
1 Plains
3 Horizon Canopy
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
2 Temple Garden
2 Razorverge Thicket
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
3 Thoughtseize
3 Veil of Summer
3 Path to Exile
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Caustic Caterpillar
1 Hexdrinker
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Collector Ouphe
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
[Deck Title= Second Place, Ponza – Adam Joyce]
[Creatures]
4 Arbor Elf
3 Klothys, God of Destiny
4 Magus of the Moon
4 Seasoned Pyromancer
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Glorybringer
2 Inferno Titan
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Once Upon a Time
4 Utopia Sprawl
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1 Chandra, Awakened Inferno
[/Spells]
[Lands]
7 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
4 Stomping Ground
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Boil
1 Weather the Storm
2 Abrade
3 Pillage
2 Obstinate Baloth
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Cindervines
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
[Deck Title= Third Place, Snowblade – Chris Brennan]
[Creatures]
3 Ice-Fang Coatl
1 Snapcaster Mage
3 Spell Queller
4 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Arcum’s Astrolabe
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
3 Force of Negation
2 Cryptic Command
2 Mana Leak
4 Path to Exile
1 Shadow of Doubt
1 Spell Snare
3 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
[/Spells]
[Lands]
1 Steam Vents
1 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Temple Garden
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Field of Ruin
2 Mystic Sanctuary
1 Snow-Covered Forest
5 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Plains
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Blood Moon
2 Veil of Summer
2 Rest in Peace
2 On Thin Ice
1 Mystical Dispute
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Aether Gust
1 Celestial Purge
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Ashiok, Dream Render
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
[Deck Title= Fourth Place, Skred Red – Jean-Francois Lamothe]
[Creatures]
3 Seasoned Pyromancer
2 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Glorybringer
2 Stormbreath Dragon
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Chandra Torch of Defiance
1 Karn, Scion of Urza
1 Karn, the Great Creator
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Skred
4 Arcum’s Astrolabe
4 Mind Stone
2 Anger of the Gods
3 Blood Moon
[/Spells]
[Lands]
3 Frostwalk Bastion
2 Scrying Sheets
17 Snow-Covered Mountain
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Damping Sphere
3 Dragon’s Claw
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
2 Wear // Tear
1 Dead of Winter
2 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Chandra, Awakened inferno
1 Wurmcoil Engine
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
90 teams, almost 300 players and even more battling in side events descended on the Montecassino Hotel in Toronto this past weekend. The biggest event in the history of the F2F Tour!
And lucky for me, my team and I got to take down the whole thing.
Your F2F Tour Toronto champs, Capstick, Fournier and Tzaneteas.
This was the first Team Trios stop on the F2F Tour in 2020 and we heard Toronto loud and clear — y’all really like playing some team Magic.
Fournier, Elliot and I were able to take down the event with the lineup of Dimir Inverter in Pioneer, Amulet Titan in Modern and Golgari Depths in Legacy. A week prior to the event, Fournier and I didn’t even have a third and got extremely lucky to tag Elliot in. He’s kind of a silent master in the Toronto area and plays linear decks like Burn in Modern and Depths in Legacy extremely well.
In the finals we triumphed over the team of Brian Ching, Zach Ryl and Geng Yu Xu. These three have been battling together for a while now on the Face to Face Games Toronto Showdown series and Ching in particular has been on quite the heater with his [Card]Stoneforge Mystic[/Card] decks in Modern as of late.
Your F2F Tour Toronto Top 4.
Joining us in the Top 4 were the teams of Dhaliwal – Harvey – Van Vaals as well as Duong – Luciow – Ablack. The former were another team of Toronto ringers who have been putting up big results over the past year and the ladder were a combination of St.Catharines and Toronto players.
As for the metagame in the room, it can sometimes be hard to pin down what is most successful in these big team events. With that said, both Amulet Titan in Modern and Dimir Inverter were clearly the two front-runners in their respective formats. In my — admittedly biased — experience Amulet was incredible on Saturday and was able to simply run over all of the [Card]Blood Moon[/Card]s and [Card]Ashiok, Dream Render[/Card]s people had ready for me.
That said, I was specifically impressed with Ching’s deck from the Top 4 and would be interested in exploring various [Card]Stoneforge Mystic[/Card] decks in Modern. The combination of [Card]Sword of Feast and Famine[/Card] to induce fear in Amulet players and [Card]Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath[/Card] for fair mirrors is an extremely powerful one-two-punch.
The biggest event in F2F wasn’t the only event we hosted this past weekend. The Tour also stopped in Quebec City on the very same day. With that said, we’re still preparing the lists from Quebec City, so stop back later this weekend and check out all the details from that event.
Now, without further ado, here are the Top 4 lists from Toronto:
F2F Tour Toronto Top 4 Trios Decklists
First Place: Fournier, Capstick and Elliot
Pioneer
[Deck Title= Dimir Inverter – Daniel Fournier]
[Creatures]
4 Inverter of Truth
3 Thassa’s Oracle
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
2 Censor
4 Dig Through Time
4 Fatal Push
2 Hero’s Downfall
4 Jace, Wielder of Mysteries
1 Narset, Parter of Veils
4 Opt
3 Thought Erasure
4 Thoughtseize
[/Spells]
[Lands]
2 Choked Estuary
4 Drowned Catacomb
3 Fabled Passage
3 Fetid Pools
6 Island
3 Swamp
4 Watery Grave
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Cry of the Carnarium
2 Legion’s End
4 Mystical Dispute
2 Narset, Parter of Veils
4 Pack Rat
1 The Scarab God
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
Modern
[Deck Title= Amulet Titan – Keith Capstick]
[Creatures]
4 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
4 Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
4 Primeval Titan
4 Sakura-Tribe Scout
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Amulet of Vigor
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Once Upon a Time
1 Pact of Negation
4 Summoner’s Pact
[/Spells]
[Lands]
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Breeding Pool
4 Castle Garenbrig
2 Cavern of Souls
1 Field of the Dead
2 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Golgari Rot Farm
2 Gruul Turf
1 Hanweir Battlements
1 Radiant Fountain
1 Selesnya Sanctuary
4 Simic Growth Chamber
2 Snow-Covered Forest
2 Tolaria West
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Vesuva
1 Wooded Foothills
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Aether Gust
3 Beast Within
3 Dismember
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Field of the Dead
3 Mystical Dispute
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Tireless Tracker
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
[Deck Title= Mono-Green Devotion – Zach Ryl]
[Creatures]
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Jadelight Ranger
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Voracious Hydra
2 Voyaging Satyr
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Karn, the Great Creator
4 Nissa, Who Shakes the World
4 Vivien, Arkbow Ranger
4 Wolfwillow Haven
[/Spells]
[Lands]
2 Castle Garenbrig
16 Forest
4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Damping Sphere
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Emrakul, the Promised End
1 God-Pharaoh’s Statue
1 Nylea’s Disciple
1 Pithing Needle
1 Questing Beast
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Shadowspear
1 Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
1 The Great Henge
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Verdurous Gearhulk
1 Walking Ballista
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
Modern
[Deck Title= Bant Snowblade – Brian Ching]
[Creatures]
4 Ice-Fang Coatl
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Arcum’s Astrolabe
1 Batterskull
2 Cryptic Command
3 Force of Negation
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Mana Leak
4 Path to Exile
1 Spell Snare
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
3 Teferi, Time Raveler
[/Spells]
[Lands]
1 Breeding Pool
3 Field of Ruin
4 Flooded Strand
1 Hallowed Fountain
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Mystic Sanctuary
1 Snow-Covered Forest
6 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Temple Garden
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Aether Gust
2 Ashiok, Dream Render
1 Disdainful Stroke
2 Kor Firewalker
2 Mystical Dispute
1 Return to Nature
2 Timely Reinforcements
3 Veil of Summer
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
Legacy
[Deck Title= Temur Painter – Geng Yu Xu]
[Creatures]
4 Emry, Lurker of the Loch
4 Goblin Engineer
3 Goblin Welder
4 Painter’s Servant
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Arcum’s Astrolabe
1 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Grindstone
1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
3 Lotus Petal
1 Mishra’s Bauble
3 Mox Opal
3 Oko, Thief of Crowns
3 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Soul-Guide Lantern
2 Veil of Summer
[/Spells]
[Lands]
3 Ancient Tomb
1 Great Furnace
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Taiga
1 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
2 Wooded Foothills
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Echoing Truth
2 Karn, Scion of Urza
3 Lightning Bolt
1 Pithing Needle
2 Return to Nature
1 Sai, Master Thopterist
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Trinisphere
1 Veil of Summer
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
Third Place: Dhaliwal, Harvey and Van Vaals
Pioneer
[Deck Title= Dimir Inverter – Shawn Dhaliwal]
[Creatures]
4 Inverter of Truth
3 Thassa’s Oracle
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Dig Through Time
4 Fatal Push
1 Hero’s Downfall
4 Jace, Wielder of Mysteries
2 Mystical Dispute
2 Narset, Parter of Veils
4 Opt
3 Thought Erasure
4 Thoughtseize
[/Spells]
[Lands]
3 Choked Estuary
4 Drowned Catacomb
4 Fabled Passage
1 Fetid Pools
6 Island
3 Swamp
4 Watery Grave
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Cast Down
2 Damping Sphere
1 Doom Blade
2 Hero’s Downfall
3 Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Legion’s End
1 Mystical Dispute
1 Narset, Parter of Veils
1 Thassa’s Oracle
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
Modern
[Deck Title= Amulet Titan – Dominic Harvey]
[Creatures]
3 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
4 Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
4 Primeval Titan
4 Sakura-Tribe Scout
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Amulet of Vigor
1 Ancient Stirrings
4 Once Upon a Time
1 Pact of Negation
1 Primal Command
4 Summoner’s Pact
[/Spells]
[Lands]
2 Breeding Pool
4 Castle Garenbrig
2 Cavern of Souls
1 Field of the Dead
2 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Golgari Rot Farm
2 Gruul Turf
1 Hanweir Battlements
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Radiant Fountain
4 Simic Growth Chamber
1 Snow-Covered Forest
2 Tolaria West
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Vesuva
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Aether Gust
2 Beast Within
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Dismember
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Flashfreeze
1 Force of Vigor
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Mystical Dispute
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
Legacy
[Deck Title= Sultai Zenith – Michael Van Vaals]
[Creatures]
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Dryad Militant
2 Gilded Goose
4 Ice-Fang Coatl
3 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
2 Noble Hierarch
1 Plague Engineer
1 Questing Beast
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Arcum’s Astrolabe
4 Brainstorm
1 Force of Negation
4 Force of Will
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
3 Oko, Thief of Crowns
1 Sylvan Library
[/Spells]
[Lands]
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Karakas
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
3 Snow-Covered Forest
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
3 Verdant Catacombs
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Collector Ouphe
1 Fatal Push
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Mindbreak Trap
2 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Pithing Needle
2 Plague Engineer
1 Veil of Summer
1 Vendilion Clique
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
Fourth Place: Duong, Luciow and Ablack
Pioneer
[Deck Title= Sram Auras – Dap Duong]
[Creatures]
4 Alseid of Life’s Bounty
3 Aphemia, the Cacophony
2 Dryad Militant
4 Hateful Eidolon
4 Sram, Senior Edificer
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 All That Glitters
4 Cartouche of Solidarity
4 Ethereal Armor
3 Gryff’s Boon
4 Karametra’s Blessing
4 Sentinel’s Eyes
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Godless Shrine
1 Mana Confluence
6 Plains
1 Swamp
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
3 Apostle of Purifying Light
2 Damping Sphere
2 Dead Weight
1 Deafening Silence
2 Gideon of the Trials
2 Hushbringer
2 Tomik, Distinguished Advokist
1 Trial of Ambition
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
Modern
[Deck Title= Burn – Andrew Luciow]
[Creatures]
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
4 Goblin Guide
4 Monastery Swiftspear
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Boros Charm
4 Lava Spike
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Rift Bolt
4 Searing Blaze
4 Skewer the Critics
[/Spells]
[Lands]
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Inspiring Vantage
5 Mountain
2 Sacred Foundry
4 Sunbaked Canyon
4 Wooded Foothills
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Deflecting Palm
2 Kor Firewalker
2 Path to Exile
2 Rest in Peace
3 Skullcrack
3 Smash to Smithereens
1 Wear // Tear
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
Legacy
[Deck Title= Eldrazi Stompy – Muk Ablack]
[Creatures]
4 Eldrazi Mimic
3 Elvish Spirit Guide
3 Endbringer
4 Endless One
4 Matter Reshaper
1 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Walking Ballista
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Once Upon a Time
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Blast Zone
4 Cavern of Souls
2 City of Traitors
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Eye of Ugin
1 Forest
1 Karakas
3 Wasteland
1 Wastes
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 All Is Dust
1 Karakas
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Sorcerous Spyglass
3 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Warping Wail
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
Congratulations once again to Daniel Fournier, Elliot Tzaneteas and I guess myself from everyone at Face to Face Games on their outstanding performances this past weekend! Before I leave you for the week, I’d like to also extend a special thank you to both our judge staff and our sponsor Ultimate Guard for helping us put on a great event.
The next stop on the F2F Tour is coming up this Saturday, March 7 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island where we’ll be hosting Modern! Make sure topre-register and we’ll see you on the battlefield!
[Card]Dryad of the Ilysian Grove[/Card] was printed, and [Card]Primeval Titan[/Card] decks are running over Modern with little-to-no opposition.
So, the Spike in me thought, “Let’s just see if I can borrow a Titan deck” and that was my plan – until a few weeks before this event when I noticed a good friend of mine, Tom, was back to his usual nonsense, getting 4-1 after 4-1 with… Candy Control?! Alright, this man better be ready to write a thesis paper on why/how he’s getting results with this jank.
Tom is always flooding my phone with notifications about whatever deck he’s currently obsessed with. It was Jund for years. Then WOTC decided to print [Card]Arcum’s Astrolabe[/Card]. It probably goes without saying at this point, but for those of you who still aren’t aware, this card is ridiculous. Playing Astrolabe allows you to completely ignore one of the core restrictions in deckbuilding – the colour wheel – instead letting you simply play the best cards in every colour. When everybody else plays by the rules, getting to break one of them is a huge advantage.
This, my dear readers, is where sleep became a myth and Tom and I basically became a two-man team trying to brew some kind of “perfect 75.”
[Deck Title= First Place F2F Tour Lethbridge, Four-Colour Snow – Jozef Telecki]
[Creatures]
1 Abominable Treefolk
4 Ice-Fang Coatl
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Arcum’s Astrolabe
4 Assassin’s Trophy
1 Cryptic Command
4 Dead of Winter
4 Drown in the Loch
3 Force of Negation
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Kolaghan’s Command
1 The Royal Scions
4 Wrenn and Six
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Fabled Passage
4 Field of Ruin
1 Lonely Sandbar
4 Prismatic Vista
3 Snow-Covered Forest
4 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
2 Snow-Covered Swamp
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Ashiok, Dream Render
3 Fatal Push
1 Force of Negation
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Weather the Storm
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
The Day of the Tournament
Alright, sweet, I slept MAYBE four hours thanks to my wonderful roommates deciding to start a horror movie incredibly loudly at midnight in the living room, right next to my room. Not only that, but I have to drive, which is fine, but that adds another responsibility to my morning. I brought three good friends from Calgary – Estephan, Charbel and Robbie – none of whom are smart enough to listen to me about Snow, but whatever, I’m not salty (I am). I get dressed (putting on the same t-shirt I won in last time, of course) and out the door I go.
Telecki after his first Lethbridge win.
So, I go pick the guys up and we head to McDs for a good ol’ wholesome breakfast. Robbie is opposed, but I’m driving so basically, he’s out of luck. We hit up McDs and, two of the boys get the two breakfast wrap combo. This is important to note because as we are leaving Calgary, Robbie realizes that there are only two breakfast burritos in total. So, we head on back to get more burritos. Not the greatest morning ever.
I got into the venue, Tom hands me the deck and now I gotta sleeve it. Last month, for the F2F Tour Pioneer event in Edmonton, I had Estephan help me sleeve up because, Charbel, who is his brother, once sleeved a different friend’s deck at a previous Face to Face event and said friend made it to the finals. Estephan obviously did NOT have the magic touch as I 1-3 scrubbed out of that Pioneer event, so, for this event I asked him to text Charbel to come sleeve ‘em up with me. I mean… I did put the same shirt on as the last time I won, so you know I’m down to do whatever to win. Also, Charbel is now offering a service: he will help you sleeve your deck in exchange for 15 percent of your winnings. Hit him up.
Round 1 – Whirza
Alright lads, round one, let’s get this. I had the best deck in the format, I’m ready to go back to back.
Yeah, no. I got utterly stomped in this match. I was unfocused and got completely punished by a very crisp playing Whirza player.
I lost the die roll, he kept and I went down to six. The game didn’t last long; in the end he got [Card]Sword of the Meek[/Card], [Card]Thopter Foundry[/Card] and Urza online and I didn’t have any way of interacting with it. On to game two.
Game two did not go much better, with the same start as last game except I was on the play. This one went much longer than the last game, but he eventually got the combo online and removed my blocker to kill me with a giant Construct.
After going 1-3 drop at the last F2F event and starting 0-1 here (an aggregate 1-4 in my last ‘league’ of Comp REL) I was pretty upset with myself and with my play. My Garage Magic bros from back home in Medicine Hat were thankfully there to lift my spirits. Big ups to them.
Refocused, I was ready to get back to it: outside disheartened now but I’ve won X games of Magic in a row before, right?! That’s what I kept telling myself at least.
0-1
Round 2 – Grixis Death’s Shadow
I sat down and waited for my opponent, but on the other side of the table (compared to last round): Because you know I have to make sure I’m not on the side I lost on.
My opponent showed up, we did the dice rolling, I won and took the play. I mulled again (for those keeping track, that’s three of three) and he kept seven. He led on untapped [Card]Watery Grave[/Card] into [Card]Thoughtseize[/Card], which got my juices flowing as I like this matchup very much. I have lots of removal and they have eight threats. He ended up playing [Card]Gurmag Angler[/Card], which I answered with an [Card]Assassin’s Trophy[/Card]. Then he hurt himself to eight and played the deck’s namesake. I cast a [Card]Drown in the Loch[/Card] on it, but he had the [Card]Stubborn Denial[/Card]. I untapped and played a [Card]Dead of Winter[/Card] with many more than enough snow permanents to take out the [Card]Death’s Shadow[/Card]. He eventually played another fish, which I answered with [Card]Snapcaster Mage[/Card], DoW. All this left him at four life with very little he could do and a [Card]Wrenn and Six[/Card] ready to ult on my side. We were off to game two.
My opponent opted to be on the draw again, which was interesting to me, but I have seen GDS take the draw in matchups they deem grindy. Again, I went to six, my opponent kept seven. This game went on quite a long time and actually had me worried about time in the round by the end. It started off the same way that game one did, with a shock and a Seize. This game had a very similar back and forth to game one, except I did not draw as much removal and he drew many Stubs along with a [Card]Temur Battle Rage[/Card]. Game three it is.
I took the play and I mulled to six, what can I say? I like to mulligan. He kept and very unlike the start of our other games went fetch, shock, Seize. This game was never close; the only damage I took was one point off a [Card]Prismatic Vista[/Card], and Uro in play turn four meant he couldn’t do much. Sweet victory, how I’ve missed thee.
Alright, that side of the table is working for me.
1-1
Round 3 – Amulet Titan
This was an extremely fun match to play (for me). Apologies to my opponent for the savage beating. I went turn one Astrolabe pass, he went turn one [Card]Sakura-Tribe Scout[/Card] pass. Oh my. I went turn two Wrenn, minus one targeting Scout. My opponent played a [Card]Dryad of the Ilysian Grove[/Card]. I untapped and played [Card]Field of Ruin[/Card], used it on a bounce land and returned it with W6. My opponent never got to have more than five lands in play. I eventually escaped an Uro and they conceded after one swing.
Game two I was on the draw, and for once I kept. He played an early [Card]Once Upon a Time[/Card] (great card) finding a [Card]Bojuka Bog[/Card]. Turn three I played Uro, he replied by Bogging me on his turn. I followed with [Card]Field of Ruin[/Card] into W6. Again, he was stunted on mana until ultimately, I played a 10/10 [Card]Abominable Treefolk[/Card] and swung twice. Brief aside on the Treefolk, he is an odd inclusion, but he is also a massive threat that does not die to our board sweeper.
Alright, I’m getting into a rhythm. I’m telling my friends I’d love to play against Humans or GDS. My friends tell me they had seen lots of Humans on the top tables, great!
2-1
P.S. Yes, I was once again on the winning side of the table.
Round 4 – Humans
Game one I lost the die roll but kept a semi-loose hand that was slow but had good mana, while my opponent mulliganed to six. I got punished by a good Humans draw with Thalia into [Card]Meddling Mage[/Card] naming [Card]Dead of Winter[/Card], conveniently the only removal spell I kept. Let’s go to game two, I’m still hyped about this pairing at the moment since the matchup is generally great.
Game two I was on the play, and it played out more closely to what you’d expect. I had lots of answers for my opponent’s creatures, including built-in two-for-ones thanks to [Card]Ice-Fang Coatl[/Card]. My opponent attacked me down to nine, but I eventually stabilized, fetching down to seven before casting an Uro, escaping it the next turn and attacking until my opponent died.
Game three I got back on the mull-to-six train, he kept and we’re off. My opponent got to play and Image an entire play-set of [Card]Militia Bugler[/Card]s, but [Card]Dead of Winter[/Card] meant that nothing he could do stuck. Eventually, my opponent played a Freebooter with me at nine with four cards in hand, saw four different removal spells and decides to call the match.
I got the matchup I wanted and the winning side of the table! Starting to feel like I’m in a good position.
3-1
Round 5 – Dredge
He won the die roll and kept, I kept as well. He played a fetchland turn one and passed to me. I played an Astrolabe and passed back. He cracked his fetch and found a Stomping Ground, indicating likely Dredge, which made me glad I kept a Force of Negation hand. Turn two he played a fastland and cast [Card]Cathartic Reunion[/Card], without revealing what he was discarding, so I asked, and it was TWO [Card]Stinkweed Imp[/Card]s. I would have been so excited to pitch ‘em too (miss you Dredge). I crushed his hopes and dreams with a swift Force of Negation discarding a [Card]Snapcaster Mage[/Card]. This gave me plenty of time to establish myself. He got me down to 15 with a [Card]Creeping Chill[/Card] and a [Card]Bloodghast[/Card] attack, then Uro started to gain me life. I escaped Uro onto a board of two Stinkweed Imps, which is normally a hard board to get through, but next turn I played [Card]The Royal Scions[/Card], went +1 targeting Uro and ended the game.
Game two I was on the draw again, we both kept seven. Pre-game effects, [Card]Leyline of the Void[/Card]. His face, ☹. Yeah man, I’ve played my fair share of Dredge and I know “hate” is much more difficult to beat these days. This game lasted a long time, but was never close, I escaped and won with Uro.
Winning side of the table is killing it for me today! One more win and I might be able to draw into the top eight?! Incredible position after losing round one.
Pray with me for some poor Humans player.
4-1
Round 6 – Humans
Luck is on my side today. I sat on the winning side of the table AND I’m paired against someone I’m fairly certain is playing Humans. I’ve played against him at past events where I was on KCI. On top of all that, I won the die roll AND kept seven while my opponent goes to six. Running hot. Sorry M, you’re always great to play against.
I put myself to 19 and then back up to 22 thanks to Uro. My opponent then hit me for five before I cast a [Card]Dead of Winter[/Card] and won the game.
Game two I was on the draw and mulled to six. My opponent goes to five, oof that’s disappointing for him but is great for me. NAH. He had a great draw and completely ran me over before I could set my footing and catch up.
Game three I was back on the play and kept a hand with great removal options while my opponent mulled to six. I never ended up taking damage over the course of the game, with my opponent conceding to a Wrenn ult.
UNREAL. From round one loss to potential draw in?! My breakers aren’t great here so I need my round four opponent to take down my round one opponent (who had a draw and could potentially mess up the clean cut to top 8 at 5-1-1+).
I actually left for a couple slices of pizza and fresh air, during which time the round ends leaving me unsure of who did end up taking that match. Oh well, I’ll show up fully ready to play it out.
5-1
Round 7 – Draw (Intentional)
Turned out my round four opponent did end up taking down my round one opponent, meaning I was safe to draw into seventh, good for top eight.
Now, this was a very special moment for both Tom and I. Not only did I top eight, but so did he, WITHOUT LOSING A MATCH. Candy Control BABY. Give respect where respect is due. There IS room for innovation and Tom Cairns (TBagTom on MTGO) has proven that with Candy Control.
The F2F Tour Lethbridge Top 8.
Tom and I went for a drive around town just to talk and get some fresh air. This was Tom’s first ever top eight at a Comp REL event. We didn’t know exactly how the standings would shake out, but we just hoped to be in opposite brackets. But it was just pure elation for both of us to top eight after both going 6-2 at the last event we played Candy Control at. So many hours of testing and theory crafting went into this deck, most of it by Tom. It’s hard to explain the feeling we had in this moment.
5-1-1
Top 8
Quarter-finals – Eldrazi Tron
I was up against the second seed, a well-known local from Lethbridge who I knew was on Eldrazi Tron.
Being the seventh seed there was slim to no chance I was going to ever have game one on the play, not to mention I was placed on the LOSING side of the table… but it changes for the top eight, right? Yeah. That’s how it works.
And so it began. I mulled to six for what felt like the billionth time while my opponent kept. He led with [Card]Eldrazi Temple[/Card] pass. I led with [Card]Fabled Passage[/Card] pass. He went E-Temple into a [Card]Thought-Knot Seer[/Card], man that’s a hot start but alright. I can’t remember what he took but I flashed in an Ice-Fang to block the TKS. I untapped and played a [Card]Field of Ruin[/Card] to hit one of his Temples and passed back. My opponent played a land into ANOTHER TKS, this time taking a [Card]Dead of Winter[/Card]. I untapped, played a land and passed back. My opponent played a land and then a [Card]Reality Smasher[/Card] and swung at me with everything. I flashed in a second Coatl and blocked both TKS’s taking five and drawing three (Coatl, TKS, TKS). I untapped and Trophied the Smasher (discarding a land) and played a big snowy tree. That was game one, Coatl is one heck of a card.
Game two we both kept. He did not have as insane of a start, and this game felt much less stressful for me. Unfortunately, I never found a way to answer his ever-growing mana base and he slammed an Ulamog WITH Cavern of Souls. GG. Game three it is.
I was on the play, and I use my secret weapon, mull to six. My opponent kept (of course everyone is lucky but me). My life total did not change over the course of this game. I killed all his lands and that was that.
On to the semis! And my opponent is likely to be… Tom?!
6-1-1
Semifinals – Candy Control
OH BABY THE 75 CARD FOR CARD POUND FOR POUND MIRROR MATCH LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.
Alrighty, well I was on the draw and we both mulled to six. According to my life pad, not a whole lot happened and then I went from 20 to 39 thanks to Uro. But actually, there was a lot more to this game. This game was the second-best game I’ve ever had the opportunity to be a part of, the best being the insanity that was game three of my QF match at last year’s FTF Lethbridge.
So, there were a million trades throughout the game, attempts to sneak in a walker only to get Forced. Eventually, we were both able to tell that our threats were thinning. But this guy has been Brainstorming turn after turn after casting a [Card]Force of Negation[/Card] on MY Jace. Incredibly selfish. Luckily, I was drawing well enough to somehow keep up with him, eventually killing the Jace.
Then the greatest play of all time happened when I had a W6 in play. Tom played a big scary snowman, trigger on nothing. I got to have the pleasure of un-tapping and slamming my own snowman, tapping his and making him use a Trophy on that instead of my W6. I took the opportunity of him being tapped out/low to kill his snowman. He untapped and immediately killed my W6 and slammed a second Jace, never didn’t have it, I guess.
I untapped and escaped my Uro, which he ended up bouncing and I ended up replaying. We played a weird sub-game for a while where it’s Jace vs Uro jostling for position. Eventually Tom gets it all and he’s fate sealing me. He had Royal Scions with enough loyalty to ult and stay alive, Wrenn was climbing, and Jace was about to ult kill me. I got lucky hitting Jace with an Ice-Fang as well as pinging him with a W6 before each was dealt with. This bought me the time to draw into an [Card]Assassin’s Trophy[/Card] in order to kill the Jace just in time. With nothing left to do but draw the rest of his deck, we were off to game two. This was an extremely entertaining game where I had to tell our friends to quiet down in a rude way, sorry gents.
Tom and I sideboarded face up and everyone was like what in the world is going on, not that it would have mattered as we both would have done the same thing regardless. But it was still fun to theory craft in the moment with you my man. At this point we knew what we’d be playing in the finals, we just had to decide who would get that opportunity.
Unfortunately, I don’t remember much about our sideboarded game. At some point during game two somebody mentioned that we played the same way old people made love, “slow and safe.” Which prompted me to ask the table if we were playing slow only to get a resounding NO from the crowd. Top eight matches are so fun. Tom ended up winning game two of course (lucky). Our third game went similarly to any control matchup: small trades until one side sticks something and rides it to victory. Well, similarly to any control matchup other than Tom totally falling for the snowman into snowman play AGAIN after I got him with it game one, “hahahaha gottem”.
Holy cow, I’m going to the finals ladies and gentlemen. After joking about the back to back possibility, it’s within reach. Tom and I take a walk where he confesses that I thoroughly outplayed him and he’s 100 percent correct, I am not lucky ever.
7-1-1
Finals – Eldrazi and Taxes
I was once again on the draw, we both kept and just like that the finals were off to a start. He played land, Vial and passed. I played land, Astrolabe and passed back. Eventually he had an amalgamation of different creatures on the battlefield, but his land destruction plan with [Card]Leonin Arbiter[/Card] was off the table thanks to W6. I got to cast a [Card]Dead of Winter[/Card] into a full board after some back and forth and jockeying for board control with Coatl and removal spells. This promptly brought an end to the game, and we were off to game two just like that.
It was getting late and the crowd was getting rowdy by this point. We were chatting a bit amongst one another and with the crowd as we sideboarded, making jokes about the wedding in the next room over from this MTG tournament, joking about asking them to play “We Are the Champions” by Queen. I was feeling GREAT at this point, I felt like I was up a game on a good matchup with a real opportunity to take down the event.
Finally, we were ready to get going with game two. He was on the play and we both kept our sevens. He started his first turn off by drawing a card so, I jokingly asked if he plays lots of EDH. He was a great sport about the situation. Ultimately, I got to see his eight-card hand and choose one to be shuffled into his library. I saw a hand with [Card]Caves of Koilos[/Card], [Card]Eldrazi Temple[/Card], three copies of [Card]Giver of Runes[/Card], a [Card]Tidehollow Sculler[/Card], a [Card]Charming Prince[/Card] and an [Card]Eldrazi Displacer[/Card]. I took the only coloured land, which felt bad, but it is what it is. At this point I was feeling great about my position, he drew a coloured source in about two turns but it never ended up mattering and he conceded while I was making my way up to a W6 ult.
I ACTUALLY DID IT. I RAN THE TABLES TO RUN IT BACK BABY LETS GOOOOO! What a feeling.
F2F Tour Lethbridge champ, Jozef Telecki,
Thoughts on the Deck
Candy Control is the kind of deck you look at and go “oh that looks like a super sweet brew that would be a blast to play” and that’s about it. But, as the saying goes, don’t judge a book by its cover. This deck is more than just an amalgamation of sweet cards, each and every slot has been carefully considered, tested, and tinkered by Tom and myself. I like to make the joke of this deck being much like Jenga, if you move one piece of the puzzle (lol) the entire thing might collapse on itself.
This list is hands down the best control deck the format has to offer right now. It has access to the best removal spells, the best planeswalkers, and even the best board sweeper. People love their [Card]Supreme Verdict[/Card]s but how can you scoff at a three mana one-sided [Card]Wrath of God[/Card] that gets under indestructible and regeneration.
We tried to fit in as many cards that could do or deal with multiple different things and if the card did not have flexibility it had to be powerful on its own. Cards that hit anything, [Card]Assassin’s Trophy[/Card] for example. Cards that affect the stack OR the board, [Card]Drown in the Loch[/Card] and [Card]Cryptic Command[/Card] come to mind. Powerful cards like [Card]Dead of Winter[/Card], Jace, and Wrenn. One of these walkers was once banned in our format and the other is currently banned in Legacy. Then, the rest of the deck are “velocity plus” cards as I like to call them. Cards that draw you more cards but also contribute to the overall game plan, these would include Astrolabe, Uro and Coatl.
Our removal buys us time to reach our powerful cards which can catch us up even if we are behind. Our “velocity plus” cards do a great job of finding us our removal and most powerful cards as well as contributing to our game plan in meaningful ways (gaining life, blocking, mana fixing).
F2F Tour Lethbridge.
You might be thinking, “well what about white?” and my answer is, well what about it? Adding white stretches the mana base just the tiny bit too far it takes to make it too inconsistent to be worth the power available from playing all five colours. But that right there is the beauty of Candy Control, try it, you might be able to figure it out in a way we could not.
If you enjoy playing control, and limited, this is the deck for you. This deck plays like the best limited control deck you’ve ever opened or drafted in your life. Limited is my favourite format and control is my favourite archetype so I truly love this deck and I hope you do too!
If I could go back and change anything about my deck for this event I would have cut one, or maybe even both (I did not bring them in all day) Weather the Storm for a [Card]Kolaghan’s Command[/Card] and some other flexible artifact hate card (would have to think on it).
Thank You
All in all, playing this deck has been an incredible trip, topped off with an incredibly sweet back to back win which I cannot even begin to describe my elation over. I owe all my success with this deck to Tom. Thank you so much for being a great friend and Magic partner. Please, people, force him to finish his report. He thinks a top four finish doesn’t warrant it. But I think we would all enjoy reading from the person who conceived this deck over half a year ago.
Apparently, my powers as a planeswalker grow dramatically when I am in Lethbridge. This is just one man’s opinion but I’m thinking the tour finals should be moved… Better lucky than good! I hope you all enjoyed this write up. I am amazed if you actually managed to read all 4600+ words of this lengthy beast. It’s not as long as my last tournament report – you’re welcome. I hope to see many of you out at the F2F Tour Weekend March 14th and 15th, wish me luck!
The format’s tier one contains only a handful of decks at any given time, each of which has a favourable matchup against the rest of the field overall but still has clear weaknesses. There’s plenty of other decks to choose from though, and you can often find one that exploits enough of those weaknesses to be favored against the decks to beat. The catch is that “the field” has a higher metagame share than tier one does at most tournaments, so beating them is more important than beating tier one is. Even if you succeed and find an edge against the most popular decks in the room, that’s less valuable than having an edge against everyone else and you can get that easily by playing any deck from tier one.
The secret here is not to hunt for weaknesses in the top decks themselves, because trying to lean in on those with just the right mediocre deck isn’t a recipe for success in a wide metagame. The trick is not every low tier deck is weak because it lacks power; rather some of them are as powerful if not more than the strongest decks but have a clearly defined weakness. Historically, this has come from showing up with whichever linear deck people neglected to bring hate cards for — Dredge when they skimp on graveyard hate, Affinity when artifact hate is light, and so forth. In the case of Shadow Zoo, that key weakness is to spot midrange and control decks with spot removal (namely [Card]Fatal Push[/Card] and [Card]Path to Exile[/Card]. [Card]Lightning Bolt[/Card] is pretty easy to circumvent).
Two things have changed recently that have primed Shadow to take the spotlight. First, the printing of [Card]Veil of Summer[/Card] has eliminated half of the deck’s weakness. [Card]Fatal Push[/Card] decks are now mostly favourable matchups solely off the strength of Veil at shutting down black interaction. The second is the latest wave of additions to the format via Theros Beyond Death, [Card]Dryad of the Ilysian Grove[/Card] and [Card]Ox of Agonas[/Card]. While neither of these cards do anything for Shadow Zoo directly, they do wonders for [Card]Primeval Titan[/Card] plus [Card]Field of the Dead[/Card] decks and Dredge — two matchups that are food for [Card]Temur Battle Rage[/Card] kills but embarrass decks loaded up on spot removal by continuously producing free zombies.
Of course, identifying a good archetype is only step one. The next step is figuring out how to actually build it, especially since we’re building off a base that has largely been left ignored for the past few years. I’ll get into my thoughts on this in a moment, but first here’s the list I like right now:
[Deck Title= Shadow Zoo – Baker Neenan]
[Creatures]
4 Street Wraith
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Death’s Shadow
4 Monastery Swiftspear
2 Gnarlwood Dryad
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Mishra’s Bauble
2 Tarfire
1 Crash Through
1 Traverse the Ulvenwald
3 Become Immense
3 Temur Battle Rage
3 Mutagenic Growth
4 Thoughtseize
1 Once Upon a Time
2 Dismember
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Blood Crypt
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Stomping Ground
1 Swamp
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Fatal Push
4 Veil of Summer
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
1 Collective Brutality
2 Collector Ouphe
2 Assassin’s Trophy
1 Painful Truths
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
Let’s start with the core of the deck. [Card]Death’s Shadow[/Card], [Card]Tarmogoyf[/Card] and [Card]Monastery Swiftspear[/Card] are the “good” threats. Shadow and Goyf are both inherently huge on their own while Swiftspear makes up for not being as independently threatening by setting up one-turn-kills with haste. [Card]Temur Battle Rage[/Card] and [Card]Become Immense[/Card] (and to a lesser extent [Card]Mutagenic Growth[/Card]) are what gives this deck its speed, converting turn three and four kills anytime one of our threats makes its way into the combat step. [Card]Street Wraith[/Card] and Bauble filter our draws while enabling our threats via life loss, prowess and card types while turning on [Card]Become Immense[/Card]. [Card]Thoughtseize[/Card] ties it all together as split card protection spell, pump spell and disruption. Pretty much everything else is negotiable.
Historically, one of the main issues the deck has had is threat density. Twelve threats is light to ensure you have one, but the next best options are fairly lacking. Typically the next in line was [Card]Wild Nacatl[/Card] (and in the days of [Card]Gitaxian Probe[/Card], people even played [Card]Steppe Lynx[/Card] as well over Tarmogoyf to avoid two-drops), but the cost to the manabase is fairly high since there aren’t really any desirable white cards.
Why only one [Card]Once Upon a Time[/Card]?
I actually started with three and worked my way down. The first problem here is that two mana for a cantrip is terrible enough that drawing a OuaT after the opener can often tend towards a brick, and we have multiple other cantrips that make that more likely. The second is that the selection it provides is high but not off the charts. OuaT will hit any land about 85% of the time, a threat 75% and a [Card]Street Wraith[/Card] to rebuy about a third of the time it missed in the first place. While that card is still strong when it’s free, there’s still a real fail rate involved so we can only justify so much risk in pursuit of that payoff. The honest answer is that the correct number could be zero or two, but one maximizes the relative likelihood of having one in your opening hand but not drawing one later and the difference there is high enough that I value that more than anything.
[Card]Traverse the Ulvenwald[/Card] has the opposite issue where it’s more likely to be dead in your opening hand but usually an excellent draw on later turns, but it still has issues with diminishing returns and increases your exposure to graveyard hate. As a result we need to run another couple actual creatures to draw an appropriate number of threats. [Card]Gnarlwood Dryad[/Card] serves the role well enough, essentially being a [Card]Wild Nacatl[/Card] that doesn’t require us to trash our manabase to work. It also avoids some of the pitfalls that Traverse can fall into with Delirium since you can cast a pump spell at it to get an instant in the graveyard at will.
One of the key distinctions between Shadow Zoo and a deck like say, Infect is the raw size of the threats. This matters for avoiding toughness-based removal to some extent, but the other primary feature is that you don’t always have to go through pump spells to present a kill in a timely fashion. A 5/6 [Card]Tarmogoyf[/Card] or 6/6 Shadow can close the game quickly on it’s own even we don’t have pump spells. The net result of that higher impact is that we can afford to spend cards on removal and interaction, even in game one, without running out of cards to fuel our primary game plan.
The question remains though: what removal do we play? [Card]Fatal Push[/Card] is the strongest removal spell we have access to, but other options offer additional utility that can be valuable. [Card]Dismember[/Card] offers an extra lever to drop our life total to speed up Shadow kills, [Card]Lightning Bolt[/Card] can do the same in a pinch or push extra damage and [Card]Tarfire[/Card] offers a significant boost to Delirium count and [Card]Tarmogoyf[/Card] sizing. There aren’t any particularly popular three toughness creatures right now so I believe [Card]Tarfire[/Card]’s upside is more valuable than Bolt’s. The upside of each of the remaining cards is comparatively low enough that it’s not worth the diminishing returns to not run a split, and we want to maindeck the [Card]Tarfire[/Card]s and [Card]Dismember[/Card]s and sideboard the Pushes since those more directly contribute to our own gameplan.
[Card]Temur Battle Rage[/Card] easily ranges between the best and worst possible card to draw at a given time. A second copy is typically a dead draw, but the evasion it offers is often make or break in creature matchups. Running one [Card]Crash Through[/Card] over the fourth copy offers some of that utility while hedging for scenarios where a Battle Rage is useless.
The manabase is pretty straightforward now that we don’t have to jam a bunch of useless Plains in it. You typically want to play a black land on turn one to allow you to play [Card]Thoughtseize[/Card] and Shadow on turn two whenever possible, then almost always proceed to assembling one of each shockland by turn three (provided you don’t want to fetch the basic to manage your life total). Leave your fetches un-cracked when you aren’t using the mana, as it allows you to more precisely control your life total later and potentially get a free scry should you draw a [Card]Mishra’s Bauble[/Card]. [Card]Nurturing Peatland[/Card] is appealing for some extra utility, but it’s too important to be able to drop your life total immediately so you can play Shadow sooner or set up a kill immediately, so just play fetches and accept that occasionally you’ll flood a little.
[Card]Veil of Summer[/Card] is a backbreaking card for opposing interactive decks provided you can force them to fight on that axis. Against decks like Jund that mostly comes down to having some removal of your own for their threats so they have to present interaction to keep up. Against Urza things are a bit more complicated since the Thopter Sword combo can invalidate attackers and then kill you while avoiding direct interaction, especially when buying time by chaining [Card]Cryptic Command[/Card]s with Emry plus [Card]Mishra’s Bauble[/Card] plus [Card]Mystic Sanctuary[/Card] loops.
[Card]Collector Ouphe[/Card] gives us something they always have to deal with directly to ensure our Veils are live. Veil is more narrow against [Card]Path to Exile[/Card] decks, which at this point pretty much means exclusively Azorius or Bant Stoneblade. [Card]Painful Truths[/Card] is the best way we have to fight back against Path, maintaining enough resources to keep presenting threats once they’ve used a spot removal or two to bridge to the point where their counterspells are live.
We’re free to skimp on direct hate for Dredge since we just win the race against them, but having some just to make sure doesn’t hurt. [Card]Grafdigger’s Cage[/Card] is our graveyard hate of choice over [Card]Nihil Spellbomb[/Card] or [Card]Surgical Extraction[/Card] since it also serves as effective splash damage against Neobrand and is much more effective against Yawgmoth. [Card]Ashiok, Dream Render[/Card] is fine enough against Amulet along similar lines, but don’t fool yourself into thinking it counts as relevant graveyard hate. Three mana cards are just too slow to stop them from building a relevant battlefield via [Card]Cathartic Reunion[/Card], and doesn’t even come down before Ox on the draw.
We don’t really have enough good cards against burn to board out all the stinkers. It’s not a huge deal since the games tend to end quickly enough that a dead card in hand doesn’t always matter, but it’s still worthwhile to have a haymaker to draw to since [Card]Collective Brutality[/Card] is at least a passable card against decks like [Card]Devoted Druid[/Card] or [Card]Ad Nauseam[/Card].
A fairly common situation that comes up is you have multiple creatures, good attacks, and also enough pump spell damage to force through immediate lethal, but your opponent has mana up and might have a removal spell to blow you out. You could go for it right away, or just let them take chip damage, force them to blink first, then grow whatever creature you have left. You run out of life at some point and play a fair amount of air, so almost everyone has better draw steps than you as the game goes long, which means there’s real pressure to end the game at every opportunity. As a general rule,. ask yourself if they can stabilize the board or swing the game before you finish them off if you save your pump spells and they save their removal spell. If the answer is no, hold off. If it’s yes, shove all-in and cross your fingers.
Sequencing can be tricky with this deck so here’s some heuristics to get you started:
Play out fetchlands over shocklands for the first two turns as the additional damage can help you to get Shadow in play a turn earlier. If you can put yourself below thirteen regardless, try to save a fetch for [Card]Mishra’s Bauble[/Card], Shadow, push, etc.
When your opening hand has [Card]Monastery Swiftspear[/Card] and [Card]Thoughtseize[/Card], you should play the [Card]Thoughtseize[/Card] turn one if you’re going to play a Goyf turn two. If they have a specific important card to play before your second turn ([Card]Chalice of the Void[/Card], Thalia, etc), or if you’re threat light and need to protect the Swiftspear from a spot removal spell.
Exiling instants to [Card]Become Immense[/Card] is free for delirium count since it replaces itself on that front. To that end you can [Card]Temur Battle Rage[/Card] first if you don’t need the power boost for trample but do need to leave a [Card]Mishra’s Bauble[/Card] in the graveyard.
Against Push decks if you have a [Card]Veil of Summer[/Card] you should typically just never tap-out of it when they could have a piece of interaction because your cards are cheap enough to get away with it. Against Azorius start holding it up when your opponent has the ability to [Card]Archmage’s Charm[/Card] you.
Consider using [Card]Thoughtseize[/Card] to induce your opponent to play a turn-two creature when it lets you [Card]Dismember[/Card] into a turn two Shadow.
Try to save Shadows against Bolt decks until you can play one with instant speed life loss available (fetchland, [Card]Street Wraith[/Card], [Card]Mutagenic Growth[/Card]) to grow it out of range.
When you have the choice, almost always use your [Card]Mishra’s Bauble[/Card]s to get a scry rather than to get an extra point of damage from prowess. We typically win the game with a fair amount of overkill so assembling the right cards is more important than missing a damage.
Feel free to fire [Card]Mutagenic Growth[/Card] off early or even a [Card]Tarfire[/Card] at yourself if the extra life loss lets you play a Shadow turn two or you need an instant to cast Traverse. Similarly, if you don’t need to keep your life total higher just fire them off anytime a Shadow is going to connect for damage, as you get just as much damage as you would by waiting for a Battle Rage.
Toronto sure does love [Card]Celestial Colonnade[/Card].
It’s prominence comes and goes with it’s positioning in the metagame, but every now and then we have an event where it seems like everyone is casting [Card]Cryptic Command[/Card].
Hell, this weekend even know [Card]Devoted Druid[/Card] sympathizer Ryan “BantCharm” Sandrin was uttering “counter/draw” while putting the over-costed instant on the stack. And he was able to ride his Bant Snow deck all the way to becoming our Modern Showdown champion!
Your Showdown champ, Ryan Sandrin.
Ryan defeated Boston Schatteman and his Izzet [Card]Through the Breach[/Card] deck in the finals.
These snow decks have been looming on the outskirts of the Modern metagame for quite a while now. They were mostly cannibalized by Urza and Oko while they were legal. Now, with the addition of Uro as a powerful late-game engine, it might be time to get back to playing a bit of midrange in Modern. Ryan was actually one of two Bant-based snow decks in our Top 8, and Brian Ching also put up a Top 8 finish with his Azorius Stoneblade deck. The fact is [Card]Arcum’s Astrolabe[/Card] it a pretty fundamentally broken card and it pairs nicely with the similarly busted [Card]Teferi, Time Raveler[/Card], so I imagine this won’t be the last strong performance from this kind of deck we’ll see in Modern.
Your Modern Showdown Top 8.
Joining them in the Top 8 was Mathew Loong playing Jund as usual but this time with two copies of Kroxa from Theros Beyond Death, Seungho Heo and Wilson Wong both playing Burn and Derek Berry playing his Eldrazi Tron deck.
Maybe the most staggering result from the weekend is the complete lack of [Card]Primeval Titan[/Card] decks in the Top 8. It seems like these players have found the way to beat one of Modern’s most feared archetypes at the moment. Fournier event went as far as splashing for three copies of [Card]Blood Moon[/Card] which is a healthy amount of respect.
Congratulations to Ryan Sandrin on his finish this weekend that qualifies him for our upcoming Ultimate Showdown! The rest of our Top 8 also picked up some valuable points towards their qualification. If you’re interested in your Showdown point total, check out our tracker here.
This upcoming weekend is jam packed for Face to Face Games Toronto! Firs we’ve got out Team Trios F2F Tour event at the Montecassino Hotel on Saturday and then we’re following that up with our first Pioneer WPNQ Qualifier on Sunday. It is going to be an awesome weekend to battle in the city, so make sure you sign up for the Trios event HERE and the Pioneer event HERE!
[Deck Title= First Place, Bant Snow – Ryan Sandrin]
[Creatures]
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Ice-fang Coatl
3 Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
2 Supreme Verdict
3 Force of Negation
2 Mana Leak
4 Thoughtseize
4 Path to Exile
4 Arcum’s Astrolabe
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
2 Cryptic Command
1 Archmage’s Charm
[/Spells]
[Lands]
2 Field of Ruin
2 Mystic Sanctuary
1 Temple Garden
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Breeding Pool
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Snow-covered Plains
1 Snow-covered Forest
6 Snow-covered Island
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Return to Nature
1 Aether Gust
3 Ashiok, Dream Render
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Celestial Purge
2 Mystical Dispute
3 Veil of Summer
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
[Deck Title= Second Place, Izzet Breach – Boston Schatteman]
[Creatures]
4 Snapcaster MAge
1 Brazen Borrower
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Through the Breach
4 Opt
3 Omen of the Seas
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Spell Snare
4 Remand
3 Archmage’s Charm
2 Force of Negation
3 Cryptic Command
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Steam Vents
1 Breeding Pool
3 Mystic Sanctuary
7 Island
1 Mountain
1 Desolate Lighthouse
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Abrade
2 Aether Gust
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Blood Moon
1 Brazen Borrower
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Flusterstorm
3 Relic of the Progenitus
2 Veil of Summer
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]
