I sat there staring at my computer screen. There were no screams of joy or happy dances. I was in the sort of zone you need to be in to win a tournament and nothing, not even the final victory, could break me out of it. All that mattered were the 5 words on the screen, “oRS has won the match.” All of my hard work, testing, streaming, and deck designing had led to this singular moment. Not only had I managed to win a PTQ and qualify for the Pro Tour, but I had done it with a deck of my own creation. I had exploited a hole in the metagame and managed to qualify for the big one.

UW Control – Robert Stan

[deck]
[Lands]
4 Flooded Strand
6 Island
5 Plains
4 Radiant Fountain
4 Temple of Enlightenment
4 Tranquil Cove
[/Lands]
[Spells]
2 Clash of Wills
4 Dig Through Time
4 Dissolve
3 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
4 End Hostilities
4 Last Breath
4 Ojutai’s Command
2 Swift Reckoning
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1 Valorous Stance
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
4 Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy
[/Creatures]
[Sideboard]
4 Arashin Cleric
2 Disdainful Stroke
1 Fated Retribution
3 Glare of Heresy
2 Negate
1 Pearl Lake Ancient
2 Revoke Existence
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

I wasn’t the only person playing UW Control at this time, but I do believe I had a unique take on it. I practiced a lot with this deck and tweaked the decklist without outside help and arrived at something that would eventually lead to my success. When I started the building process the deck looked nothing like its final evolution. I played Esper Dragons, UB Control, and even Abzan Control all to fine results. However, recognizing the weaknesses of each of those decks pushed me to tune my control deck into a beast that could take advantage of them. Sometimes a complete overhaul is what is necessary to be successful. Gaining an understanding of the meta is integral in the tuning process and by playing the other top tier decks in the format you can gain a deeper understanding of what it takes to defeat them.

After the Win

For better or worse this is when I took a break from my usual grinding. I was no longer allowed to play in PTQs and Magic Online had few other premier events happening. It felt as though I had accomplished all that I needed to and everything else seemed mundane by comparison. I began to worry that this feeling would last so long that I wouldn’t be adequately prepared for the Pro Tour. Slowly though, I got myself back into the swing of it. I began playing more and more, until it was time to start grinding PTQs again for the next season.

Being primarily an online player that kept to himself meant that I didn’t have a team for the upcoming Pro Tour. Normally this would be the death of my chances to do anything, but I had lucked out and qualified for the one Modern Pro Tour. This meant I had numerous hours and days to test. It was so far away that even if the banned and restricted list update shook things I would have a good grasp on the interactions of the format.

So where to start? Being the person who doesn’t like to just play the same deck as everyone else in the room I began brewing. There is a soft spot in my heart for [card]Gifts Ungiven[/card] in Modern. So I started there. I knew it wasn’t the best deck but I needed to get the ball rolling. Having top 8ed a Modern PTQ with UR Twin before I knew I always had a fail safe deck that I could fall back on. I felt that I could mess around with other things. If nothing panned out I could just play Twin. Right?

Game Changers

Then came the realization. It was big. Really, really big. No, bigger than that. Even bigger. Keep going. [card]Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy[/card] was a great Modern card. I knew it was insane in Standard, it won me the PTQ after all. But Modern? Snapcaster-Looter turned out to be so good in my Gifts deck that I wondered how far it was possible to push the card. When people started playing [card]Goryo’s Vengeance[/card] to bring back Jace it all came together. What if instead of the Gifts package I just made a [card]Goryo’s Vengeance[/card] deck? I could run the powerful legendary creatures like Jace and [card]Griselbrand[/card], while developing a sweet control deck that could win out of nowhere just like Twin with the [card]Nourishing Shoal[/card] + [card]Worldspine Wurm[/card] + [card]Borborygmos[/card] package. That was the dream. Then came the testing and I found the deck to be too inconsistent. Sure when it worked the deck was amazing and felt unbeatable but most of the time it would be hard to assemble the combo in time.

Another light bulb went off and I wanted to run more blue cards. [card]Serum Visions[/card] and [card]Izzet Charm[/card] just seemed like great inclusions to increase consistency. On the other hand I was sick of only having 1 win condition to sneak into play with [card]Goryo’s Vengeance[/card]. Sure, you can [card]Through the Breach[/card] a [card]Worldspine Wurm[/card] but it is still vulnerable to interaction from the opponent. I wanted to just win more. I needed more room for the blue cards so out went all of the [card]Nourishing Shoal[/card] garbage and in came big momma Emrakul. As it turned out drawing 7-14 cards off [card]Griselbrand[/card] ended games more consistently than [card]Worldspine Wurm[/card]. Emrakul was winning me just as many games as the old Griselbrand+Shoal package and it was far less vulnerable.

Suddenly I felt favored against almost all of the tier 1 decks, including Amulet. Having access to 12 pieces of disruption maindeck backed by the threat of a turn 3 Emrakul beats a lot of decks. The only matches I was having trouble with were Twin and Zoo/Burn/Burning Zoo/whatever you want to call it. [card]Lava Spike[/card]s and [card]Lightning Bolt[/card]s dot deck. So I tweaked my sideboard and suddenly Twin became a manageable matchup. I still missed the ability to win at instant speed with the Shoal package but I felt like with all of the deck manipulation + 8 discard spells I was running I could hit my key cards while managing my opponent’s ability to interact. I couldn’t make the Burn matchup seem favorable so I just left it alone and accepted my bad matchup. It’s okay to have one based on luck of the draw. All that was left was waiting for the banned and restricted list update.

Then, out of nowhere, came this Eldrazi deck running maindeck [card]Relic of Progenitus[/card] and [card]Scrabbling Claws[/card]. The rest of the deck was largely irrelevant and then they started also playing [card]Blight Herder[/card]s and sometimes [card]Lingering Souls[/card]. Suddenly a new matchup arose where I couldn’t reliably [card]Goryo’s Vengeance[/card]. If they ever landed a [card]Blight Herder[/card] or a full [card]Lingering Souls[/card] my main win condition of Annihilator 6 and 15 damage off Emrakul wasn’t good enough. Suddenly my new pet deck had 3 bad matchups on top of sometimes losing to itself. This seemed unacceptable to me so every day I started leaning more and more towards going back to trusty old UR Twin. It’s good to have a fallback plan.

Then the bombshell hit. [card]Splinter Twin[/card] was banned. Everyone was expecting Amulet Bloom to get a piece of it banned so the deck wasn’t even on my radar, but suddenly my plan B was whisked away from me. That should have made me feel sick inside right? Wrong, suddenly one of my harder matchups was just banned which is nice as it was likely to be the most popular deck at the PT. As for the Eldrazi deck? I don’t think the Eldrazi deck is good enough for the Pro Tour so that just leaves dodging Zoo/Burn or getting Turn 3 Emrakul a lot. I now no longer need to run as much maindeck discard to combat Twin or Amulet so that gave me room for the 4 [card]Lightning Bolt[/card]s I desperately needed to not only close out games, but also combat fair creature decks. So where does that leave my maindeck?

[deck]
[Lands]
1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Island
1 Mountain
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
1 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
[/Lands]
[Spells]
4 Faithless Looting
4 Goryo’s Vengeance
4 Izzet Charm
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Serum Visions
4 Thoughtseize
4 Through the Breach
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand
4 Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy
[/Creatures]
[/deck]

My sideboard will be in a state of flux likely until a few days before I leave for the Pro Tour, but I know it will contain at least 4 [card]Leyline of Sanctity[/card] to help battle Burn. For those of you wondering how the deck works I hope to write a primer on it before I leave and then a winning tournament report when I return.