Well, the 2011 Season is in the books, and we look forward to 2012 with more questions than answers it seems. Will the Pro Players Club be better? How will the turnout numbers look with the new Organized Play structure in place? Will losing a Pro Tour and adding a ton of Grand Prix’s be a success? One of the biggest questions: What will Worlds look like?
A lot of unknowns to be sure, but there’s a question that is absent from a lot of round-table discussions that most of us have been to I’ll wager. How will the Modern format be received for the upcoming PTQ season?
Since its announcement, people were excited about the prospect of a new format they could break – ER..AHHH…I mean…PLAY. The first REAL taste came from Worlds in San Francisco, but with all the attention focused on the Organized Play changes, it seemed that Modern’s chance to shine had been a tad overshadowed. Well, that and a “kind of crazy” list of banned cards according to one source (which may or may not have been me). With the recent banning of [card]Wild Nacatl[/card] and [card]Punishing Fire[/card], Zoo decks had a bit of a haircut, but it was definitely the right move. Both these cards were seriously oppressive, to the point where people just could not contain it enough. Sure, they can still rely on [card]Loam Lion[/card] and [card]Kird Ape[/card], but the 2 power on these cards is a lot easier to deal with than the 3 power Nacatl enjoyed. With this move, would [card]Steppe Lynx[/card] make a good addition to the list? Some decks I know are running it for testing, and the Zendikar fetchlands are still easy to obtain (relatively speaking). If I were [card]Tarmogoyf[/card], I might be a little worried that I might be next on the block though.
But now, with 2011 in the books, and according to some prophecies, the last year of existence as we know it approaching fast (thanks a LOT Mayan civilization!), we can turn our attention to this new format and see what it has to offer us. Sure, there are lists out there that are pretty stock, like Zoo, Bant, and the one guy who plays [card]Pyromancer Ascension[/card] and/or [card]Splinter Twin[/card], but if there was ever a time for some new ideas, this is it! To that end, instead of going down the route of blindfolding yourself, and pointing to a list of stock decks and playing the first decklist your finger lands on, now is the time to open up and actually try and shape the metagame a bit. Take a look at a few of these ideas, and maybe something will strike you the right way.
[deck title=R/W Prison]
[Lands]
2 Ghost Quarter
4 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Arid Mesa
4 Sacred Foundry
2 Darksteel Citadel
4 Plains
4 Mountain
2 Inkmoth Nexus
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
4 Simian Spirit Guide
2 Magus of the Tabernacle
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Boom Bust
4 Lightning Helix
2 Ajani Vengeant
1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
2 Wrath of God
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Ghostly Prison
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Trinisphere
3 Chalice of the Void
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Chalice of the Void
2 Wrath of God
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Shattering Spree
4 Pithing Needle
3 Relic of Progenitus
1 Day of Judgment
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
It’s pretty easy to see what the game plan here is. Essentially your goal is to hold your opponent at bay long enough to blow up the world, and 1) Elspeth/Ajani your opponent to death, or 2) Inkmoth them with poison, or finally 3) BURNINATE! This strategy is not a bad one, but might be a tad slow against a fast aggressive deck (which seems to be where the format is at right now). [card]Wild Nacatl[/card] and [card]Punishing Fire[/card] leaving help the “Slow burn” strategy a bit here though. I do like the synergies this deck presents, and [card]Ajani Vengeant[/card] is always a sweet victory when he is allowed to ultimate and still live. Combine that with the Crucible, and the bottom line here is that if this deck stabilizes with a [card]Wrath of God[/card] (or similar effect) past turn 4, it has the toolbox to win every single time. As pseudo-control strategies go, it’s not a bad one, but might need a little more tinkering.
This second deck is based on a concept from PyroPanda of MTG Vault fame, which some of you might recognize as a StifleNaught strategy, but ported over to Modern.
[deck title=Torpor Horror]
[Lands]
3 Halimar Depths
4 Darkslick Shores
2 Drowned Catacomb
5 Island
8 Swamp
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
4 Eater of Days
4 Hunted Horror
4 Hunted Phantasm
1 Phyrexian Dreadnought
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Aether Vial
4 Torpor Orb
2 Mimic Vat
3 Doom Blade
3 Foresee
3 Mana Leak
4 Fabricate
2 Trickbind
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Thoughtseize
2 Spell Pierce
2 Not of this World
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Condescend
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
You’d have to have some pretty specific cards in your opening hand for this deck to work properly (Torpor Orb and [card]Aether Vial[/card] are the most important ones). [card]Fabricate[/card] is there to search up the [card]Torpor Orb[/card], [card]Eater of Days[/card], or the Dreadnought if need be, and an aggressive mulligan or two could handle the rest in the hands of a player who recognizes when to keep or ditch your opening grip. An Orb in play with an active [card]Mimic Vat[/card] and any of your creatures under it is usually “GG”. Not a bad concept, but definitely not a deck for someone looking to jump right into the format without practice.
The last deck:
Finally, let’s take a look at a deck that I have a love/hate relationship with. I hated this deck so much when it was standard-legal, and counted the days until it rotated out, mostly because when someone cast [card]Bituminous Blast[/card] into [card]Bloodbraid Elf[/card] into [card]Blightning[/card], my (at the time) fledgling Magic brain went into complete meltdown and the urge to “Hulk out” and overturn the table seemed like a better idea to handle that situation over expecting a counterspell of some kind to stop the Cascade mechanic from working. (Seriously, that mechanic should read “when this spell RESOLVES…”, not “When you CAST…”)
Anyways, you guessed it. Jund. This list is actually an older list from July, but it’s definitely a good place to start again now that [card]Punishing Fire[/card] just got banned.
[deck title=Jund Deck Wins]
[Lands]
2 Blood Crypt
3 Forest
4 Mountain
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Raging Ravine
2 Stomping Ground
3 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Verdant Catacombs
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
1 Anathemancer
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Putrid Leech
2 Sygg, River Cutthroat
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Blightning
3 Duress
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Magma Jet
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
4 Great Sable Stag
2 Krosan Grip
3 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Terminate
1 Thought Hemorrhage
3 Volcanic Fallout
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
I actually really like this list. [card]Magma Jet[/card] steps in for [card]Punishing Fire[/card] now that that card has a fork stuck in it, and the Scry ability can help you set up for a pretty nice [card]Bloodbraid Elf[/card], or it’s just pretty good for some sculpting. The [card]Nihil Spellbomb[/card] in the board is relevant because you KNOW someone (and by “SOMEONE” I mean 80% of players) will definitely be playing [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card]. Everything else is pretty stock and you can see where last year’s Extended format bleeds in a bit here too with [card]Anathemancer[/card] (which I LOVE in my Pauper Cube by the way). In fact, I might put a few more of these in here. With the recent renaming guidelines of the Ravnica Shocklands as “Modern Duals”, along with the seemingly inevitable belief of them being reprinted sooner rather than later, thus increasing supply and allowing more people to play them in the format, cards that affect nonbasic lands may see a lot more play in the near future. (Dear [card]Blood Moon[/card], See you soon! KTHXBAI!)
As you can see, Wizards is working hard to make Modern a viable, working format. There are still a lot of people out there that feel the list of blue cards on the Banned list needs to shrink, but for now, this is what we have to work with, and each new set opens up the possibility that control decks might be needed to slow down some kind of crazy new technology not yet discovered.
FINAL NOTE: The first stop of the Canadian Magic Tour for 2012 is January 7th in Montreal, and the format is team constructed! I have never been a part of something like this, and it looks to be right up my alley. Have you grabbed your teammates yet? For the Modern player, one of the above lists might be just what you are looking for!
See you at the tables!