With the banning of Cruise and Dig Through Time I thought I might take a bit of a stab at Modern. The format seems SOOO intimidating because it is just so powerful and with so many truly ridiculous archetypes that even getting into the format seems very challenging. Now, I don’t have the money to jump into the format with one of the Big Boy decks, so I end up having to brew my own budget deck just so I can play. Today, I thought I would share with you guys what sort of budget Modern Brew I’ve been working on.
Budget means different things in different formats. To most of us a budget deck at Standard means that the deck costs less than $100. At Modern that threshold changes significantly and puts you well into the hundreds of dollars, but considering that some of the Modern decks floating around can cost THOUSANDS of dollars, this still seems like a bargain. The deck I have for you today costs a couple of hundred dollars and thus falls into this realm and could be a lot of fun to play.
Sometimes there are decks that you brew for one format that you like so much that you keep them together as they roll over into the next format. That is the case for this deck that I ostensibly built for Standard during Return to Ravnica and Theros Block. It wasn’t a mainstream deck by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a deck that I liked to play and it could do some awfully powerful things and steal a win out of nowhere. Let’s take a look at the deck list.
Ok, a number of people are going to look at this list and just scoff because I have things like Plasm Capture…and I agree…but part of the idea behind this build was to do something a little off beat…and I think I’ve got it. This deck is trying to do a number of things, and that might be its downfall. It wants to be 1 part control deck, 1 part Hexproof, 1 part Enchantress and looks and feels a bit clunky, but with some streamlining could be really fun. Let’s have a peak at some of the cards.
The Hexproof package is the Aqueous Forms, Ethereal Armor, and Unflinching Courage and the game plan is pretty easy. Suit up a Witchstalker and go nuts. The Lone Revenant was something I found in a janky binder and tossed in just in case I needed another target because I wrathed away the board…and the additional card draw is kind of a sleeper addition to the deck. Ajani is in here for his 2nd ability, to give a Witchstalker flying and double strike and it can well and truly end a game in a hurry.
The control package is the trio if Plasm Capture and Render Silent along with the Supreme Verdicts. This is pretty straight forward in terms of concept but the choices I made are pretty unusual. Counterspell and Plasm Capture are both likely too slow for Modern, but if there is going to be a 3 mana counter spell to run, Render Silent feels like a good option because it is Counterspell and a Silence stapled together. Plasm Capture is just a greedy spell that gets passed over, but even nabbing one spell with one is a huge tempo swing. This package could no doubt be streamlined, but they provide for some interesting options and are spells your opponents would NEVER expect to contend with. Sphinx’s Revelation is just a powerful card draw spell that can’t be overlooked and some number larger than 0 felt like the right call.
The Enchantress package is powered by the ever popular Eidolon of Blossoms. I took one look at the large number of enchantments, particularly Auras, and decided that nothing makes an Aura based deck run better, and ruin more opponents, than cantripping into your other spells. So, in went the Eidolon to abuse all those enchantments and off I went.
A few other pieces that are useful in here don’t fit with any real theme, but are versatile utility creatures. Qasali Pridemage is great example as he wrecks other enchantments and can provide a meaningful boost to a solo attacker. The original interaction of this deck had Fleecemane Lions but with those still being played heavily in Standard I made a suitable substitution. Courser of Kruphix is another useful card that jives well with the Enchantress theme, but would likely get run anyway because it just provides so much value. Thassa, the Charioteers, and the Bow of Nylea all offer similar utility for differing reasons, but all could be replaced without much trouble.
At Modern the Shocklands paired with Fetchlands are indeed the way to go so the mana base is most of the way there. The Scry lands aren’t ideal and the “buddy” lands would be preferable…particularly the Hinterland Harbour and Glacial Fortress. However, those are fairly modest adjustments to the mana base.
Render Silent and Plasm Capture are both targets for an upgrade provided you have a suitable option. Mana Leak, Spell Pierce, Remand all come to mind, but some of those are more expensive. The permission shell has room for improvement and there are a number of possible ways to go.
I could run Slippery Boggle and Gladecover Scout as Hexproof one drops instead of the bulkier Witchstalker, but I like how the stalker could be used to punish Black and Blue decks who want to play on your turn. Those +1/+1 counters accelerate the clock in a suitable way for sure. It might mean that the deck is too slow, but I’ll need to test it out and see.
Obviously the Aura package could stand to be improved with Hyena and Spider Umbra’s to help my Hexproof dudes have a little resilience as I wash away my opponent’s threats with Supreme Verdict.
The Lone Revenant is likely FAR too expensive…but I think he’s a funny card and something that could be an interesting solo threat.
Well, that’s my deck…it may not be much good and could most certainly be streamlined with a bunch of other options, but it is a fun and interesting deck.
Thanks for reading and until next time, keep it fun, keep it safe…keep it Casual.
Regards.
By Bruce Gray – Casual Encounters @bgray8791 on Twitter
Well, we’re back to school and back to the grind. For some this is the worst time of the year because it signals the start of the boring and mundane for yet another year. For others it is a time of excitement as things start all over again with fresh beginnings and fresh options. For those of us who play Magic, the specter of rotation and the imminent arrival of Khans means there is lots of buzz in the air. The end of September can’t come fast enough!
This isn’t an spoiler article because we are hard at work here at Three Kings Loot prepping our review, but we’ve got good stuff on the burner. However, with Khans being on the horizon and Constructed being in a bit of holding pattern until the rotation, I thought this would be a perfect chance to highlight some casual decks I’ve been rocking, some relatively inexpensive and fun decks to liven up your Casual games. These are all 60 card decks that are perfectly viable in a duel situation, but are better suited to playing a multiplayer setting. Let’s see what I’ve been brewing.
The first deck is my take on what can only be called a Modern Mono-Green Devotion deck. A number of months ago I posted a decklist for a budget Mono-Green Devotion deck here on Three Kings Loot. It has done reasonably well for me since then, but decks are like living organisms that change and evolve and this deck is no different. With cards like Chord of Calling, Genesis Hydra, Hydra Broodmaster there are yet more powerful options to sink a ton of mana, there is no reason not to change a few cards to do a few more powerful things. However, the addition of a card from an older set is REALLY what I wanted to add to the deck…and that was Craterhoof Behemoth. This just smacks of being the best thing you can do to dump a ton of mana either by hard casting it, Chord of Calling for it, or Genesis Hydra for about a billion and grabbing it too. Here’s the list.
I was rocking this is in a 4 person free-for all game and was in the driver seat. My opponents had allowed me to resolve a number of creatures, a Voyaging Satyr and a Nykthos. I had all the tools needed to start going off and just needed some huge mana sinks. Sure enough, up comes a Polukranos and we’re off to the races. I cast “Big Polly” and get set to Monstrosity him…but sadly have to target the stupid Biovisionary in the stupid combo deck my pal was playing, a Fleetfeather Cockatrice because I had no flying defence, and some other random creature. Stupid Cockatrice and the Deathough ability. Oh well. I get my turn back and top deck… Hydra Broodmaster! OK! So, cast it, and then set up the Monstrosity…and make 10 10/10 Hydra Tokens! OH YEAH! Let the beat down plan begin. I start smashing stuff around and just making a wreck of the board. Then, out of nowhere, my buddy slams a second a Biovisionary, casts Polymorphist Jest, and turns his mana dorks into Biovisionaries…and we all lose. Damn it! Lesson learned…kill the stupid combo deck…no matter how durdly the combo is.
Next, I shuffled up my Mono-Red Goblins deck. I have no real expectation that Mono-Red Goblins will fare well in a multi-player game. They are far too fragile and just not suited to trying to fight a number of opponents. However, things are going my way. I land a Foundry Street Denizen, Legion Loyalist, and then…KRENKO! Oh yeah. A couple of Krenko activations later and I have a ton of goblins, had just smacked one opponent for 20 points of damage and was in good shape to start taking the game over. Everything changed with one card…Scouring Sands…and wipes out all the Goblin Token…and I get thumped. Ok…I know Goblins are fragile, but it is a terrible feeling to have your board wiped out by Scouring Sands because NOBODY plays Scouring Sands. However, I lost to Scouring Sands and I wanted to cry (well, not really).
The last deck today is one that is clearly a Casual build because it is such a silly concept and packs such a ridiculous mana base there is no way to describe it. Here’s the list and I’ll talk about it afterwards.
This deck plays on the interaction between Kor Skyfisher and Spark Trooper. Most opponents won’t bother to block what amounts to a Ball Lightning because they know that it will be sacrificed at the end of the turn. Sure, they eat 6 but they are banking on the creature no longer being a threat. However, during your second main phase if you can cast the Kor Skyfisher you can return the Spark Trooper and re-use it. Once I established that interaction it became a matter of digging up a host of creatures who a) return stuff to my hand to be re-used or b) have good enter the battlefield triggers. Now, this is a very mana hungry deck so playing it in a duel is suspect, but in a slower multiplayer game it is just perfect.
Well, I shuffled it up and suggested a couple of minor adjustments to our game. I suggested that we all play at the same time and play with a Howling Mine effect. The Howling Mine is hardly earth shattering, but the “everyone plays at the same time” is…interesting. It makes resolving spells really tricky, but boy was it fun! So, we had 1 player eliminated leaving 3 of us still playing. It was a tricky situation but I decided to throw caution to the wind and swing to take out the opponent to my right. The whole team went and was delivering somewhere up to 35 points of damage…but in the process the opponent to my left hit me. All the while, the opponent to my right wound up and lashed out with Nefarox with some ridiculous amount of Exalted triggers caving in the guy to my left. So, all in one turn all three of us just straight up die ending the game in a weird finale. It was a fun variant and something we will do again, but most definitely not the way to play every single time.
All three of these decks would fall into a pretty budget friendly category and highlight how you can make some fun decks with just a pile of funny cards and do some damage at your next Casual Night. The Mono-Green deck is probably the most pricey of the decks on this list, but the cards on it can totally be substituted for and can revert back to the Budget deck list I had previously. However, the new twists on it could make for a fun deck because of the powerful things you can do with the crazy amount of mana that can be generated. The UWR Skyfisher deck is pretty unreliable because of the wonky mana base and the fact that half the plays in the deck set you back, but when it works…dear LORD…does it work. And Goblins…well…they’re Goblins and will always be funny. When they work, they work awesome. When they fall flat on their face, they fall flat on their face hard.
There we have it, three fun builds, three fun games, and some random feel bad stories about how to lose a game despite being in a dominant position. I’m not sure what lesson to draw from the last two apart from perhaps playing the politics game a little more, but regardless of the lessons learned it was fun. It was refreshing to sit down and just sling some card board and relax with some friends with nothing on the line. I’ll have to make a point of playing this way more often just to keep things fresh.
Thanks for reading again this week…and until next time keep it fun, keep it safe…keep it casual.
by Bruce Gray – Casual Encounters @bgray8791 on Twitter
Welcome back to Knight’s Booty. I’m sorry but I don’t have a short story for you this week. Instead I have a deck that I’ve been testing out in Modern that fills a gap that is missing in the current metagame. Now the reason for designing this deck is taken from Chapin’s “Next Level Deck building” eBook, which I highly recommend to anybody who wants to take that next step.
See, if we take a look at the current metagame (using mtggoldfish.com as our baseline) we are sitting in a very combo heavy environment. Splinter Twin is sitting at 13.26%, with Melira Pod at 12.14%. That’s only two decks and already we are covering a quarter of the metagame. After that we look at UR Storm at 5.43%, Scapeshift at 4.15%, Ad Nauseum at 2.24% and after that it peters off. So add all those percentages together and we are sitting pretty at 37.22%. Up from a quarter to a third of our current metagame is made up of combo decks. Which when you think about it is pretty amazing really.
So how do we go about punishing this combo dominant metagame? We could try going to go aggro and beat them to the punch. But most of the above decks are ready to “go off” by turn 3, and can aggro decks really beat that clock? I don’t know, but even with the power of Zoo and Affinity I can’t be comfortable in saying that they have faster clocks. And do we really want to try and compete with other aggro decks? I personally don’t.
So the next level up is control. In which we have UWR and Hatebears as your big bad guys. Combined however they only take up 7.98% of the metagame. Something is seriously lacking there, don’t you think? Even if you add in UW Midrange you are only looking at 10.86% of the metagame being control decks. This just doesn’t seem possible. Especially when you have Esper control eating the standard environment alive.
So what does this mean for us? It means that we can open up a whole new can of worms by moving into an area that is seeing very little love (control) and a colour that is notorious for it (black). That’s right, I’m talking about Mono-Black Control, with a focus on discard. But why discard you ask?
Because, just because. Seriously though, if over a third of the decks you are going to be facing are combo decks, you can easily pick them apart by removing their combo pieces from their hand. And aggro? Back up your discard with removal, another thing that Mono-Black Control is famous for, and you can take control of the board as well as their hand. Not to mention that the deck gets monumentally better whenever your opponent mulligan’s. If their deck punishes them before the game even begins, then we are going to be in an even better position to win.
Now, that is not to say that the deck doesn’t have it’s weaknesses because it does. It suffers in the fact that despite all of it’s abilities to disrupt the field and the hand, it can’t stop a topdeck. It also stalls out late game with a lot of dead cards in hand. But compared to the benefits, I am willing to overlook that little matter.
First off, the deck list as it currently stands:
The one card that it is missing is Thoughtseize, which can easily be put in place of Duress. But only if you have that kind of money. Now the one thing you might immediately note is that I am running a splash of Red in there. This is because Black has no inherent artifact hate, or nothing that is cheap enough to warrant being included in the build. But red does in the form of Smash to Smithereens, which in my past experience playing burn in Modern is a fantastic sideboard card. And having immediate access to Red does give some interesting options if we ever wanted to include a devastating card like Blightning, or Rakdos Charm. But I am focusing more on the Mono-Black version.
I want to talk about each card individually, but it will probably be easier if I break it down into each suite of cards, with the obvious Discard being the first.
First up is Inquisition of Kozilek. This card is a very powerful discard spell as the name of the game in any deck that isn’t control based is speed. Which means that cards are going to be cheap. Tarmagoyf only costs two, Kitchen Finks costs three, Pyromancer’s Ascension costs two, and so forth. So Inquisition of Kozilek has the ability to hit a lot of the cards out there that can cause problems.
After that I will address Duress. It’s not Thoughtseize, that’s for certain, but it can come in handy where Inquisition can’t. It can hit the higher costing cards, such as Splinter Twin, Birthing Pod, and Scapeshift. But because it can’t hit creatures it loses playability. That is the reason why I am only running a single copy in the mainboard, with more in the sideboard for when you do come up against decks like Twin, Pod, and Scapeshift. It can be an easy swap out of Inquisition for Duress and you don’t set off your card balance.
Next is Raven’s Crime, which I am honestly thinking of upping to three copies. The card is incredibly good in the late game when you’ve setup your win condition or are waiting to do so and you need to empty out your opponents hand. It turns every late game land draw into another discard spell, and it works in conjunction with Smallpox when you will have to discard something. I can’t tell you how many times I have been happy to have a Raven’s Crime in my graveyard and how many times I’ve been sorry to not have one.
Last, but not least in our spell slots for discard is Wrench Mind. This is about as close to Hymn to Tourach as we will ever see again. Sure, it doesn’t discard at random, but it is a straight up two cards for two mana. And when you can play this on turn two after your opponent has already played a land or two, plus an early drop from their hand, it seriously wrecks your opponents game. The earlier you can see this card the better your chances of victory will be.
The next section I am going to address is the removal suite, but first I need to talk about a card that fits between the two, and that is Smallpox. I don’t quite know how I feel about the card itself. It is very punishing to both players, but usually more so to our opponent. I mean I love the card. It has performed amazingly well in the early game against decks like Storm and Pod. As an aside, it is a fantastic turn two play against Pod as it removes two sources of mana available to them, and slows them down significantly. Storm is another matter, in that they need three mana to “go off”, unless they get a two mana “god hand”, and using Smallpox to slow them down to a crawl can hurt them more than it will us. Like I said earlier, we can discard a Raven’s Crime to it or any excess discard spells that aren’t doing us any good. And we are running a minimum of creatures so there is very little chance that we will be hurting our board state. Again, I love this card, but when I read it in a bubble it makes me cringe.
Now onto the removal suite.
Victim of Night is the first one up, and it can kill just about anything. In the current metagame there aren’t many Zombie creatures, nor are there Vampires or Werewolves. So there isn’t much that it can’t take care of, plain and simple, and because we aren’t worried about colour restrictions we can carry the two black in it’s mana cost with ease making it a superior choice to Doom Blade. There is only one other kind of creature that this can’t hit and that is one who has protection from Black, but we have a spell to deal with that.
Geth’s Verdict is the answer to “protection from black” and furthermore Hexproof. Now I’ve talked about Hexproof in a previous article and it is probably one of my favourite all-time decks to play. So I know how much of a pain in the butt it can be. Now, when I was regularly playing pauper and running Hexproof the worst thing in the world I could run into was Mono-Black Control because they had the one answer that could get around that restriction and that was Geth’s Verdict, because they were targeting me and not the creature. So unless your opponent is going to side in Leyline of Sanctity, you can be pretty sure that Geth’s Verdict will take care of what Victim of Night can’t. Oh, and it also hits your opponent for one life to boot. And yes you can kill your opponent with it, even if there are no creatures on the board, so it is never a dead card.
The last card in our removal suite replaced Doom Blade and has tested out fairly well so far. Sudden Death. It is more expensive, but it can do some things that a lot of removal cards can’t. It can take out creatures that are indestructible to start, as long as you can get their toughness down to four or less, which means that a few of the newly printed “gods” are even threatened by this card. And there is no fear about not being able to kill most creatures, because outside of Tarmogoyf and a pumped up Hexproof dude, there aren’t any creatures currently being run with more than four toughness. Four is the magical number in Modern because it can beat Lightning Bolt, and Sudden Death can go above that number. Now the last thing about the card, and by far it’s the most important aspect of it, is that it has an ability called Split Second.
This mechanic deserves it’s own little section. Split Second is a fantastic ability and a powerful one that isn’t utilized often enough in my opinion. First off I want to ask you a question. Have you ever been playing against a blue player and tried to kill their Delver of Secrets only to have them Counterspell or Mana Leak your spell? It sucks doesn’t it? Well because of the way Split Second works the spell can’t be countered. You see as long as the spell with Split Second is on the ‘stack’ no other spells or abilities, that are not mana abilities, can be played. Meaning no counterspell. And furthermore it can disrupt a combo like Deceiver Exarch and Splinter Twin. if by some chance they managed to land Twin you can kill the creature in response and they don’t have the opportunity to make their infinite army, nor can they cast a counterspell to prevent it from happening. The same goes with Pod and the infinite combo of damage and life gain through a sacrifice outlet. You can kill the outlet before the chain has a chance to go off and by doing so at least buy yourself some time. It can also affect Affinity, a deck I haven’t mentioned yet. Normally if you were to kill their powerhouse Arcbound Ravager they could sacrifice a bunch of artifacts to it to make it’s Modular ability huge and then when it died they could just redistribute them anywhere they wanted. Well, with Split Second they don’t have that option and Ravager just straight up dies.
After our removal suite we throw in a splash of utility with Sign in Blood. A good little pay two life draw two card spell. Or at least that is how it is read most of the time. And it is a good payoff. Late game it can let you dig for the answers you want or need and early game it can simply refill your hand after annihilating your opponents. Not to mention that because it reads “target player”, you can use it to finish off your opponent as well. And a lot of players out there will agree that there isn’t much out there that is more disgusting that being killed with a Sign in Blood.
Now a deck wouldn’t be complete if it didn’t have creatures. Well, that’s not entirely true as there are creatureless decks out there, but this isn’t one of them because if we ran only discard and removal we would easily lose any ground race. Now we aren’t running a lot of creatures, but the ones we are running have an immediate impact on the game.
Ravenous Rats is the first one that I’m going to address, and it is the weakest one by far. We are paying two mana for a 1/1 body that isn’t good for a whole lot other than chump blocking. But it can chump block like a champ! What’s special about him is that when he enters the battlefield he makes your opponent discard a card. It’s not random, but it’s still something. So early or late game this creature can disrupt the hand, clog up the board for a turn, or maybe even eek out a few points of damage on the attack.
After the rat we have Liliana’s Specter, a flying rat one could say? She does the same thing as the Ravenous Rats, in that she forces your opponent to discard a card, and sadly she also shares the same toughness quality seeing as she is only a 2/1 body. But she does have flying which can help gum up the air if you need a easy blocker there, or she can fly over anything on the ground that is waiting to eat your face.
The last creature to enter into the fray is a personal favourite of mine, and he is none other than the Chittering Rats. Yes, another rat. But he is a good rat. Well, for a common he is a good rat. Correction, he is a great rat! I mean, he is below the power curve of being only a 2/2 bear for three mana but when he enters the battlefield you Time Walk. Not familiar with that card? It’s an old card that was printed only up to Unlimited and it is banned in everything, except in Vintage in which it is restricted. Because it gives you an extra turn for two mana. That’s powerful, no matter what stage of the game you are in. An extra turn? Hell yes, I would love to take two turns in a row! It can be a huge tempo shift! But now you are asking how does the rat give us an extra turn? Well when he enters the battlefield he forces your opponent to take a card from their hand and place it on top of their library. Effectively making them ‘re-play’ their previous turn. This is even more effective when you have already chewed apart their hand with your suite of discard spells. And it’s even more effective when you work it into our “win con”.
Shrieking Affliction. A single black mana for an enchantment that will punish our opponent for playing their hand out too fast, as Aggro decks are known to do, and reward us for emptying out our opponents hand. The best part about this enchantment is that if you can empty their hand entirely, and this is if they do not have card draw in their suite of spells (but nobody runs Divination), then there is an almost guaranteed six damage over two turns, in which they either allow the clock to continue or they buff up their hand in hopes that they can outlast the effects of the Shrieking Affliction. This of course only works if you don’t draw up into one of our many spells that force our opponent to discard.
Now, you might be asking yourself why we aren’t using something like Liliana’s Caress (a strictly better Megrim). Well because with the way that our deck is designed we don’t want our opponent to have any cards in hand, and in order for Caress to affect our opponent they have to have those threats. Once we get our opponent into “topdeck” mode, he is simply going to play out whatever cards he draws into without fear of taking the two damage from the Caress. Making it a dead card on board once we are done destroying their hand.
And the last card to make it into the deck is one that I’ve been experimenting with as a real late game kill card, and that is Haunting Echoes. See, the deck will regularly go into the late stages of the game with ten and twelve turn games, as we either wait or dig for our win con or beat our down slowly with creatures. What this means however is that we will usually be filling their graveyard with a ton of cards, either from hand removal or board removal. Now imagine if their graveyard is full and you are now both playing the top deck game and you pull Haunting Echoes. You cast it targetting their graveyard and suddenly their deck has shrivelled down to almost nothing but basic lands. I’m pretty confident that at that point your opponent won’t have enough answers in their library to deal with you.
Sounds fair enough, doesn’t it? Well, I’m not done yet. I’m going to do something that I don’t normally do and go into the sideboard.
If you go back and look at the list there is red splashed in there, and I think I said something about Black not having any inherent artifact hate. A simple splash of Smash to Smithereens works to alleviate that problem, and this card is good against several decks. Obviously you want to side it in against Affinity and Pod, but you can also use it in the fringe match ups where Aether Vial shows up, as in Merfolk and G/W Hatebears. The other card that isn’t in the main board is Leyline of the Void. An enchantment that gets around Abrupt Decay and can destroy several different decks at the same time. Storm is one of the key matchups as both Pyromancer’s Ascension and Past in Flames require the graveyard in order to function. That’s not to say that a storm deck can’t “go off” without them, but you would be smart to mulligan into seeing this in your opening hand. Another big deck that it can come in against is Pod. It shuts down the infinite damage and infinite life combos, and forces them to move into a mid-range beatdown deck. Not the best of solutions, but it makes the matchup very playable. The last one I’ve added in is a personal preference in Echoing Decay, which is fantastic against tokens, but it really should be traded in favour of Infest or another “sweeper” type effect.
And so there you have it. A deck that is reasonably affordable compared to other decks that are in the metagame right now (I mean, come on… Pod is almost $2100?) and is suited to fight a lot of the popular decks.
Until next time,
~ Gerald Knight
Extra Booty: Now this is purely speculation, but there is another reason why I am investing in building this deck and that is because of a card that is being released in M15 which I think can put this deck over the top. Waste Not. The community designed card. For those of you who haven’t heard about it or don’t remember what it does, it is a two cost black enchantment that has three different effects when an opponent discards a card, depending upon the card type. A creature card will net you a 2/2 zombie token, a land card will net you two black mana, and if they discard anything else you get to draw a card. All said and told I don’t know how this card wouldn’t be a beast in the deck and I am planning on pre-ordering at least four of them.
Well, we’ve seen the Pro Tour, and a massive GP down in Richmond with one major thing in common. Both of these premier events were Modern in their format, and that’s super cool. We all spend so much time and energy focused on playing Standard that we often forget how interesting Modern can be…until it’s Modern season and then it gets really fun. So many cool decks, so many divergent lines of play, and talk about cards long thought forgotten…it’s a fun time of year.
However, what becomes abundantly clear to many people is that playing Modern just isn’t feasible because the cards are so extremely expensive. Tarmogoyfs go for close to $150 a card! Fetch lands can run set you back $200 for a play set! Not to mention all the other ridiculous creatures, spells, and other cards you would like to play with. Playing Modern appears to be a format designed to crush your wallet and is unattainable for most.
I, however, disagree with the premise that playing Modern is unattainable. It doesn’t have to be super expensive. What? You ask…surely you’re nuts. No, I’m not. You can very reasonably play Modern and at a modest price investment, but it will take a little creativity in order to make it happen. Let me highlight how you too can play Modern on a very modest budget. Now, let’s make this clear, you will not be duplicating winning Tier 1 decks, but you can, with a little ingenuity brew your own deck that can play Modern and not look out of place.
Let’s start with the Mana base. This is usually the most expensive part of any deck, but it doesn’t have to be. Many Modern decks play Fetchlands like Arid Mesa or Scalding Tarn or Mirrodin fast lands like Razorverge Thicket or Seachrome Coast as their preferred lands, but the Fetchlands in particular, are super expensive. The Mirrodin fast lands are less expensive, but picking up full playsets can be tricky. However, as I have outlined in a previous article you can play Zendikar life gain lands such as Graypelt Refuge or Kazandu Refuge and they cost you a mere $0.50 a card on Three Kings Loot, making them a viable option and really keeping the cost of the cards down. For Fetch lands, there really isn’t an equivalent land, but Evolving Wilds, at $0.50 a card on Three Kings Loot, is a super inexpensive way to fetch the lands you need without having to go for much pricier Fetch lands. There are other options but these are the least expensive options I’ve found, but there are lots of choices to make. So, now you have access to most of the mana you will need to cast your spells, but what to cast? Let’s take a look.
There are a whole range of creatures that have just been overlooked to the point that they have been forgotten. One of these is Sphinx of Magosi from Rise of the Eldrazi. So often people think of just playing the three Eldrazi that they often forget all the other interesting creatures available and the Sphinx is no exception. Sure, he’s 6 mana and hard to cast, but at the top of a curve in a deck you get a massive 6/6 flier. However, what really sells me is that for 2 colourless and a blue the Sphinx gets a +1/+1 counter and draws you a card. That is a pretty terrific ability that nets you card advantage and a huge body. The best part is the Sphinx is a mere $0.50 a card at Three Kings Loot (although availability may be an issue). If you can pick a couple of these guys up you have the top end of your curve and a devastating finisher to pound your opponents with. In the right control deck premised on seeing the Long Game, it could be that finisher you are looking for to finish the game off.
Another option is Seht’s Tiger from Future Sight. Future Sight is known as the set that gave us Tarmogoyf, but what about the tiger? For 4 mana (3 colourless and a white) you get a 3/3 with Flash. That alone is pretty terrific because it can be splashed with just the 1 white mana in order to cast it, it makes a mess of combat math as a last minute blocker, and gives you a sizeable body to use afterwards. However, even better is the extra ability that gives the player (you in other words) protection from target colour of your choice. So, let your opponent crash through, cast Seht’s Tiger and take out one of his better creatures, give yourself protection from all or some of the rest of the damage, and then counter attack The quasi fog effect can be hugely back breaking and seriously swing the game in your direction as it puts you in the driver’s seat. Largely an overlooked card, Seht’s Tiger could easily slide into a modestly priced Modern deck seeing as they too are only $0.50 a card on Three Kings Loot.
Going on down the line, if you like to play Mono green ramping strategies why not try out Kazandu Tuskcaller. This little 2 mana creature (1 colourless and 1 green) is one of the several “level up” creatures and requires an investment of mana in order to make this guy work. However, once you have him up and going he can spew out 3/3 elephant tokens like they are going out of style. Have him reach his ultimate level and he will spit out 2 3/3 elephants a turn. You could very easily imagine a board state where this guy has gone unchecked because he appears to be non threatening, but he can quickly flood the board with hefty 3/3 tokens that open the door for you to stampede on through on your way to a win. His real appeal is that he too is mere $0.50 a card on Three Kings Loot, so in the right deck he could be an inexpensive addition that may take your opponents by surprise.
In the spirit of finding something for all the colours, for Red there are a number of good options. One option is Conquering Manticore that gives you a 5/5 flier for 6. This alone is very powerful and could be a terrific creature at the top of a curve. However, the real treat is the Threaten ability that comes with the Manticore as it enters play. So, you steal their best creature for the turn, attack with it, and still have a 5/5 flier! That’s pretty terrific. This little gem from Rise of the Eldrazi is overlooked and a deal at $0.50 a card. If the Manticore isn’t your style, try Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs. This 3/3 Legendary Ogre from Worldwake is almost instant value. The moment your opponent attacks you get 3/3 Ogre tokens for each attacking creature unless they are prepared to spend 3 colourless mana for each token . So, this guy can stay home, play a little defence while you go straight to the dome, and have him produce an army of defenders to plug up the ground. Again, low financial investment and potential big reward in the right deck make both of these cards things that players looking to keep their cost down should be prepared to entertain.
For Black I often go the route of pairing it with another colour instead of running a true mono black deck. One of my favorite combinations is B/W because of some of the cool synergies. One card that has always made me laugh is Ravenous Demon//Archdemon of Greed from Dark Ascension. This is perfect in a B/W humans deck that could be inexpensively put together and provide hours of entertainment. Ravenous demon is a very serviceable 4/4 for 5 mana, but sacrifice a human to it and POOF! Voila…you have a 9/9 flying, trampling demon. Sure, you need to pay upkeep to the silly monster or it caves YOUR face in, but with this on the battlefield you can bet THEY are on a real short clock as well. As is the theme today, the cost to pick up a couple of these guys for a spicy little Modern deck is quite low and it gives you some real punch to close out a game.
Now, I get grief from my friends for finding some of these obscure creatures and trying to craft decks around them. They say “They are too expensive to cast! You’ll never get there!”. My response is often this: Every deck needs a lynchpin. Every deck needs some key component to allow you to finish of your game. For some people combos are the way to get there. For others it is a bomb that people never saw coming. You can design a deck, in most cases, that will give you a chance to cast these bombs. You don’t want to exclusively be running these guys because you will be in trouble, but having some of these guys as options in a deck could give you an unexpected edge and the relative financial investment is quite low. This mean that even I can get in to Modern and enjoy the opportunity to play and interact with some of the most powerful cards and decks in the format and really and truly not be out of place.
Thanks very much guys, and as always, if you have other hidden gems or treats that you like to use when you play, I’m always keen to hear about what other people are playing.
Until next time, keep it fun, keep it safe…keep it casual.
Bruce Gray
Panic sets in as you are told by the pretty lady at the airport terminal that your luggage has been lost. It’s unthinkable. How could your luggage be lost? You need that for this weekend. Your clothes were in there. Your hygiene products were in there. Your Magic cards were in there!
How are you to compete at the Grand Prix without them? You plead with the lady to find out if she can do anything to help you, but all she can do is shake her head and say that they should be able to recover it tomorrow. But tomorrow will be too late. You need to register your deck in a couple of hours. How can you play without a deck? You hang your head dejectedly and pace for a few minutes as you try and think of something. Some sort of solution. Hey! Maybe someone at the venue will lend you a deck? That’s feasible, right? Might as well give it a shot.
So you call a cab as you take a look in your wallet. Not much there, but enough for entry into the Grand Prix, the cab ride, maybe a meal or two. Might even be able to pick up a chase rare that you had been intending to find.
The cab pulls up to the venue and you hand him the toll. That’s some of your hope gone. You start walking around among the masses of people, noticing a few Pro players signing autographs and a few MTG Personalities talking with other players. Vendors have setup and are already hawking their wares. Everything from cardboard crack, to sleeves and playmats, dice, and tokens. You open your wallet again to see what measly amount you have. But of all the things you see, your friends are not amongst them. You pull out your cell phone and try calling them. Long distance charges be damned. One of them picks up, but it’s so loud where you are that you can’t hear anything.
An announcement comes over the speaker that Deck Registration for the Grand Prix will be ending in an hour. Last chance to get in. That panic starts creeping from your heart to your stomach. You flew all this way to compete. This was your vacation. You spent months planning this, tuning your deck, and all for what? To not be able to enter? You couldn’t let that happen.
You make your way over to the vendors and start looking in their showcases. Everything is through the roof! You check your wallet again. Definitely not enough for a single fetch land, let alone a playset of Past in Flames, or Birthing Pod, or even a Scapeshift. How could you imagine to compete with anything in the field without the heavy hitters? But you are desperate and keep looking, until your eye falls on something shiny. A vendor has a FNM Promo of Armadillo Cloak in their showcase, four dollars. Not that it would help you much, because the card isn’t Modern, which is what you came here to play.
But wait? Wasn’t there a card that was recently printed that acted like Armadillo Cloak? Sure was! It’s Unflinching Courage! Your mind starts racing as cards run through your head. Rancor, Ethereal Armor, Daybreaker Coronet, Kor Spiritdancer. Reid Duke’s deck from last year! But we can’t afford Daybreaker’s, Kor Spiritdancer’s, nor the Leylines of Sanctity that have to be in the sideboard to even make the deck possible, let alone the fetch lands that make white available to play the important pieces. So how could you even manage to make the deck? Pauper. That’s how. You ask the vendor if he has bulk commons and begin rifling through long boxxes.
The announcement comes over the P.A. system again letting you know there’s only fourty-five minutes left to register. Panic has begun to subside as you’ve figured out your plan. Now to just get the pieces in place. You got this!
So, I never intended to write a series about transitioning diffrerent format’s to and from Pauper, but it looks like that’s what I’ve done. I started writing an article about Standard and how new players can get into the scene with a collection of commons, and then I wrote about Legacy. Well, this time I am here to write about Modern showcasing one of My favourite decks. Hexproof. AKA Bogles.
The deck is pretty straight forward as far as decks go. You play down one of your hexproof creatures, play a bunch of auras on it, and smash your opponents face in. Sounds easy enough, right?
Well if you don’t have the money to run Reid Duke’s version, which includes the aforementioned Kor Spiritdancer (which will usually run you about $10 a piece) or the Daybreak Coronet’s (again another expensive card at a high of $25), not to mention the fetch lands, then you can turn to Pauper.
The first thing we need to do is establish our Mana Base. Now we can’t afford fetch lands, obviously, so how do we make our lands tap for white? Because we can’t run this without Ethereal Armor or Arma… sorry, Unflinching Courage. Well, this deck is based off of enchantments, so why not start looking there?
The best aura’s that will fix mana for a deck like this, at the common level, are Abundant Growth which will let us tap for any colour and it also cantrips. The other one is Utopia Sprawl, which will ramp you up a colour on top of the mana generated by the land itself. And if you feel adventurous enough you could spring for the recently printed Selesnya Guildgate. They are almost like Temple Gardens or Sunpetal Groves, but not nearly as expensive. And since we aren’t running the Coronets, these auras can fill that slot. Not to mention they both synergize well with the Ethereal Armor.
Now to replace the Kor Spiritdancer we have to do a little bit of looking. I mean nothing can really compare to the card drawing that this creature is capable of, nor the Ancestral Mask like ability built into it. But what if I told you there was another option? One that in some cases might even be a little bit better? What could be better than having a playset of Gladecover Scout and Slippery Bogle’s to annoy your opponent? What could be better than eight hexproof creatures? Why twelve of course! That’s right, Silhana Ledgewalker can easily replace the Kor Spiritdancer. And sure, it isn’t as pumpable and it doesn’t have the card draw bonus, but it’s another creature your opponent can’t touch. Plus it has the upside of conditional unblockability. If our opponents can’t stop it in the air then they are really in trouble. Even if they can they still have to deal with Trample and First Strike!
Sounds pretty simple eh? Let’s go one step further. If you have a little bit of cash, but not a lot, you can find a replacement for the Leyline of Sanctity (A $15 dollar rare!). Ever heard of the True Believer? And no, I’m not talking about the kid Henry from Once Upon a Time (Good series by the way!). True Believer (a $1 rare if you are lucky, $2 if you are not) was a creature printed in Onslaught that gave you Shroud. But it was printed again in Tenth Edition which makes it Modern legal. Now, yes it will die to Doom Blade and Lightning Bolt. But it’s a step in the right direction. Especially if you want to modify your deck a bit and run Alpha Authority, but I’m getting off topic.
Let’s see what this might look like, shall we?
Enchantments (28)
Creatures (12)
Lands (20)
And so there you have it. Without getting into Sideboard cards you have a functional (if a little underpowered) Modern deck made out of mostly commons. And if nothing else? It’s a great place to start!
~ Gerald Knight
Extra Booty: Now there are a few things I want to address in Extra Booty today. The first is if you are going to upgrade the deck, do so with the lands first. An easy way to modify the deck when you can acquire lands (such as Sunpetal Grove and Temple Garden) is to remove one mana fixing aura per land added. From here you can add in other auras that you think might work well. If you can get the Spiritdancers then you can let the Ledgewalkers go and replace them with this bomb of a creature. And if you can find the Coronet’s then I tip my hat to you and you can replace them with whatever makes you feel most comfortable.
Now, the xtra special thing I want to talk about, which I don’t normally do, is a sideboard (or mainboard) “tech” card that is good against pretty much every deck out there.
Suppression Field. It has been seen as a singleton, or in pairs, in a couple of sideboards. But I think that it deserves some special attention from a sideboard standpoint, if not from a mainboard. The card makes activated abilities cost more to play. So this means that your opponents Birthing Pod is going to cost more. Your opponents Arcbound Ravager won’t be the sacrifice engine it’s supposed to be. And Ad Nauseum will generally fold as Lightning Storm counts as an activated ability, even while it is on the stack. Now you’re going to argue back that there are plenty of decks that it doesn’t hit. Such as Storm or Zoo. And you are right on that, except that if you read everybody’s favourite fetch lands properly, they are not mana activated abilities. I’ll let you think on that until next time.
