After the popular ‘Modern Introductions‘ article, I figured people might like to see some of the less well-known, almost artsy Modern decks. In today’s article, we will look at four decks that at the very least 4-0’d a daily, and I’ll discuss some of the reasons why these decks ‘work’. At the very least, knowing they exist might help you in an upcoming PTQ.

Let’s start with one of my favorite fringe decks in Modern:

[Deck title=”Gifts-Rock by Butakov”]
[Creatures]
*4 Birds of Paradise
*3 Noble Hierarch
*1 Snapcaster Mage
*4 Tarmogoyf
*1 Eternal Witness
*4 Knight of the Reliquary
*1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
*1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*1 Inquisition of Kozilek
*3 Path to Exile
*1 Raven’s Crime
*3 Abrupt Decay
*1 Life from the Loam
*3 Lingering Souls
*4 Gifts Ungiven
*1 Unburial Rites
[/Spells]
[Land]
*1 Breeding Pool
*2 Forest
*1 Gavony Township
*1 Ghost Quarter
*1 Godless Shrine
*1 Hallowed Fountain
*1 Island
*1 Marsh Flats
*4 Misty Rainforest
*1 Overgrown Tomb
*1 Swamp
*2 Temple Garden
*1 Treetop Village
*1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
*4 Verdant Catacombs
*1 Watery Grave
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
*1 Abrupt Decay
*1 Bojuka Bog
*2 Creeping Corrosion
*1 Darkblast
*1 Ghost Quarter
*1 Nature’s Claim
*1 Obstinate Baloth
*1 Path to Exile
*1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
*2 Sword of Feast and Famine
*1 Terastodon
*2 Timely Reinforcements
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

This deck has been around in Modern for a long time now, but has never been very popular. I believe Daniel Unwin was one of the first people to write about the deck over on StarCityGames, and I’ve played versions of this deck in my first two Modern PTQs (a while back…). One of the main attractions to this deck is that it looks like a Rock deck – some mana dorks, some beefier creatures, some discard and efficient removal… and then you [card]Gifts Ungiven[/card] them at the end of their turn and lock them out with an Iona*, because they tapped out to deal with your [card]Knight of the Reliquary[/card].

*For those who are not familiar with the “Gifts Ungiven-trick”: You can search your deck but “fail to find” any targets (to deal with situations like playing a [card]Rampant Growth[/card] without having a basic land in your deck, without having to show your entire deck to your opponent for proof). Thus, in the case of Gifts, you can “find” only two targets: Iona (or Elesh Norn), and [card]Unburial Rites[/card]. Your opponent is forced to put both in your graveyard, and you can conveniently untap and reanimate your giant creature.

Another common Gifts package is the duo of [card]Life from the Loam[/card] and [card]Raven’s Crime[/card], which together do quite some work against the combo decks, shredding their hand. Thanks to [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] and [card]Eternal Witness[/card], this deck can almost always set up a Gifts pile where it is guaranteed to get whatever particular effect it needs.

Gifts ends up adding an almost combo feel to your Rock-like deck, giving you an advantage in midrange mirrors. With Jund being the top deck for now, that might be what you’re looking for. I do have one suggestion if you end up playing this deck: try a [card]Disfigure[/card] or two over some of the maindeck [card]Path to Exile[/card]s: you’ll be happy when you don’t have to ramp your opponent to remove a [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card] or [card]Birds of Paradise[/card].

Speaking of ramp, look at this version of Scapeshift:

[Deck title=”Scapeshift by littledarwin”]
[Creatures]
*4 Primeval Titan
*4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*4 Farseek
*4 Izzet Charm
*4 Khalni Heart Expedition
*2 Prismatic Omen
*4 Remand
*4 Scapeshift
*4 Search for Tomorrow
[/Spells]
[Land]
*1 Breeding Pool
*3 Forest
*1 Island
*4 Misty Rainforest
*6 Mountain
*2 Scalding Tarn
*1 Steam Vents
*4 Stomping Ground
*4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
*4 Ancient Grudge
*2 Negate
*4 Obstinate Baloth
*3 Pyroclasm
*2 Vexing Shusher
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

Enough counters to mess with combo decks, a nigh unstoppable combo finish, and a gazillion anti-aggro hate cards out of the board: this deck really has it all. In a world where Jund is king, this deck must be the emperor.

There are a number of innovations to this list, but the main difference compared to earlier [card]Scapeshift[/card] lists is the move away from [card]Cryptic Command[/card], and thus a needlessly complicated manabase. The trick with Valakut decks has always been to make sure you had enough [card]Mountain[/card]s in your deck to kill with [card]Scapeshift[/card] when needed. If we look at the two [card]Scapeshift[/card] lists from GP Toronto, we see that they had a total number of ten and nine [card]Mountain[/card]s in their deck, where littledarwin ([card]Steppe Lynx[/card]-master Paul Rietzl in real life) has eleven, out of which six are basics. His total number of basics is higher too: ten versus eight and six. On top of that, Rietzl can play the full play set of Valakut, where a lot of list only play two. These changes make it much easier to kill “naturally” (without [card]Scapeshift[/card]), and thus make [card]Primeval Titan[/card] a much better fit.

[card]Primeval Titan[/card] works well because you can be less conservative when fetching out your lands thanks to the increased basics count. That will often open scenarios where you can just kill people with the green giant. This is a lot harder to do when you need at least three blue for [card]Cryptic Command[/card], on top of some green for your ramp spells.

Other innovations include playing 8 main deck counterspells, and 16 ramp spells to get [card]Primeval Titan[/card] and [card]Scapeshift[/card] online as soon as possible. How did Rietzl find room for all these spells? He mainly cut all the [card]Serum Visions[/card], [card]Telling Time[/card]s, and [card]Peer Through Depths[/card], and only has [card]Pyroclasm[/card] out of the board. He can do this in a large part thanks to [card]Izzet Charm[/card]. This counterspell can look for one of the eight “I win” spells (versus the normal four) while functioning like a burn spell in a pinch. On top of that, [card]Primeval Titan[/card] does a pretty good job at stopping most smaller creatures in their tracks.

One thing I would like to try is a [card]Primal Command[/card] in the sideboard over an [card]Obstinate Baloth[/card]. It can still gain you life, but it finds a win condition too. Shuffling an opponent’s graveyard away while finding a [card]Primeval Titan[/card] might come in handy at some point as well. If only it was an instant…

Regardless, get your [card]Primeval Titan[/card]s now people!

The next deck is also very focused on manabases, but in a bit of a different way:

[Deck title=”Boom/Bust Naya by Wuggalix”]
[Creatures]
*2 Birds of Paradise
*4 Bloodbraid Elf
*4 Deathrite Shaman
*3 Knight of the Reliquary
*3 Noble Hierarch
*4 Tarmogoyf
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*3 Blood Moon
*4 Boom Bust
*2 Dismember
*4 Lightning Bolt
*2 Lightning Helix
*3 Lingering Souls
[/Spells]
[Land]
*4 Arid Mesa
*1 Blood Crypt
*2 Forest
*1 Gavony Township
*1 Ghost Quarter
*1 Horizon Canopy
*1 Marsh Flats
*2 Misty Rainforest
*1 Plains
*1 Raging Ravine
*1 Sacred Foundry
*1 Stomping Ground
*1 Temple Garden
*4 Verdant Catacombs
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
*1 Ancient Grudge
*1 Aven Mindcensor
*2 Baneslayer Angel
*2 Huntmaster of the Fells
*2 Nihil Spellbomb
*2 Path to Exile
*3 Slaughter Games
*2 Stony Silence
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

This deck is reminiscent of Zoo, which is a well known archetype that has been popping up a bit more lately (even our own KYT played it to a good finish at GP Toronto!). This version of the deck eschews the “other” two colors and plays only green, white and red. The main reason is that while it took the [card]Bloodbraid Elf[/card] technology that Reid Duke was playing around with, this deck tries to cascade into Boom//Bust or [card]Blood Moon[/card], rather than [card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card].

If you cascade into a split card, you get to pick which side you want to cast, even if you wouldn’t have been able to cascade into that half if it was a normal card. This way, you can destroy all lands by cascading into Boom//Bust, while you advance your board with a 3/2. Combined with the fact that you play mana dorks, this generally doesn’t end well for your opponent.

If you are destroying your own lands though, having a lot of one-of shocklands to turn on a fully powered [card]Tribal Flames[/card] isn’t that great. By playing “just” three colors (it almost hurts me to say that, but with all the four and five color decks in Modern…), this deck can take full advantage of all the fragile manabases out there – whether it be Spirit-Jund’s 4 colors, or Tron’s mostly colorless lands.

This deck does choose to omit [card]Path to Exile[/card] from the maindeck entirely, as providing your opponent with lands after you’ve destroyed all of them is not exactly a “combo”.

Your opponent might hate playing against this deck because they will often be losing without being able to cast any spells, but at least he or she isn’t playing against this package full of grief:

[Deck title=”Hate-Bears by Medvedev”]
[Creatures]
*4 Avacyn’s Pilgrim
*4 Aven Mindcensor
*4 Baneslayer Angel
*4 Leonin Arbiter
*3 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
*3 Mirran Crusader
*4 Noble Hierarch
*4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*4 Path to Exile
*1 Thorn of Amethyst
[/Spells]
[Land]
*1 Eiganjo Castle
*4 Ghost Quarter
*4 Horizon Canopy
*1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
*1 Pendelhaven
*1 Plains
*4 Razorverge Thicket
*1 Stirring Wildwood
*4 Tectonic Edge
*4 Temple Garden
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
*4 Creeping Corrosion
*1 Rest in Peace
*4 Spellskite
*3 Stony Silence
*3 Thorn of Amethyst
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

A [card]Thorn of Amethyst[/card] maindeck, on top of four Thalia, Guardian of Thraben? And don’t think your Birds and Elves will help you out casting your spells either, as three maindeck Linvala’s shut off that path too. And with everybody playing approximately ten fetchlands to enable [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card], I’m guessing the full set of maindeck [card]Leonin Arbiter[/card]s and [card]Aven Mindcensor[/card]s come in handy, on top of being good against decks that rely a bit too much on their [card]Birthing Pod[/card], [card]Chord of Calling[/card], etc.

Unlike the more Kibler or Blohon style GW decks, with [card]Wilt-Leaf Liege[/card] and [card]Loxodon Smiter[/card], this deck is a lot less powerful when it doesn’t draw the appropriate hate cards in the matchup. For example, good luck beating Jund without drawing [card]Baneslayer Angel[/card]s, or having them not draw a [card]Lightning Bolt[/card] for your [card]Mirran Crusader[/card]. Your deck is full of unimpressive creatures (aside from the [card]Baneslayer Angel[/card], obviously), so it’s not great at racing Combo when you don’t have the right disruption either. However, when you do draw the right tools, it’s very hard to lose, and very easy to tilt your opponent (if that’s your kind of thing).

I would like to see some [card]Fauna Shaman[/card]s in this list, to smooth out your draws a bit, and the list could definitely use some [card]Gavony Township[/card]s to make your mediocre beaters a little more respectable. I’d also try other options in the place of [card]Path to Exile[/card], as once again, ramping them comes at a real cost when you’re trying to disrupt their progress in the mana department with Mindcensors and Linvala’s. Maybe [card]Oust[/card] or [card]Dismember[/card] works.

—

The Modern format is far from completely figured out, even though Jund took down most tournaments. I’ve seen some control lists doing well in Daily Events, I’ve seen Goblins and Infect winning people packs left and right, and more wacky brews pop up almost every day. If you want to keep up with some of the more interesting lists, follow me on Twitter @iLansdaal, where I do a #dailydeck tweet with a cool Modern or Standard list every day.

Keep brewing and tuning, as there are plenty of undiscovered strategies that can be used to surprise people at a PTQ. Good luck!

Jay Lansdaal
iLansdaal on Twitter and MTGO