#3 The saga continues

Herro again, another modern list for today.

1 Auntie's Snitch
4 Morsel Theft
3 Sygg, River Cutthroat
4 Bump in the Night
4 Noggin Whack
4 Nightshade Stinger
4 Prickly Boggart
4 Frogtosser Banneret
3 Thoughtseize
4 Earwig Squad
3 Oona's Prowler
21 Swamp

The first thing you might notice here is no removal.  I considered 3x Ulcerate or 3x Smother, but I'm not entirely sure if that's what the deck wants to be doing.  Modern is very much a combo-dominated format right now (with the exception of UR delver of course) - there's Ascendancy, Birthing Pod, Splinter Twin, Scapeshift, all of which are Tier 1 decks.  There's also Living End and a couple of fringe decks, but Noggin Whack is one of the most devastating discard spells for (essentially) 2 mana - there's no restriction on what you can pick.  I doubt Thoughtseize needs mentioning.  Against a combo-heavy format, Earwig Squad could be a veritable champion.  Some lists only play 3 copies of a certain card that they need to win and removing 3 of 4 could make it very difficult for them to win, especially for scapeshift, living end of Ascendancy.  Without those key cards, those decks mostly do nothing but cantrip and/or search out lands.

You might wonder about the maindeck inclusion of Morsel Theft.  While it's cute with Sygg, the main reason is the abundance of UR delver and burn in the format.  1B for a 6 life swing (+3, -3) and drawing a card can be very strong.

I'm not terrible sure on Oona's Prowler.  Monoblack rogue doesn't have many options at 2: Oona's Blackguard and (sort of) Stinkerdrinker Bandit, both of which seem much too slow for modern.  I worry that the prowler could be a liability against graveyard decks.  Perhaps it just becomes removal.

One might speculate at the lack of blue.  I don't really think blue brings enough to the table to be relevant.  There's a couple of unblockable creatures at 1 and 2 mana (triton shorestalker and invisible stalker...hey!  so many stalkers), but the blue rogue spells are mostly pretty bad/expensive.

Bonus list!

I went 4-0 at FNM last night here in Rostock so I thought I would include my mono red list.


18 Mountain
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Titan's Strength
4 Akroan Crusader
4 Dragon's Mantle
1 Coordinated Assault
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Stoke the Flames
1 Hall of Triumph
4 Frenzied Goblin
2 Hammerhand
4 Foundry Street Denizen
2 Monastery Swiftspear
2 War-Name Aspirant
2 Lightning Strike

Sideboard
3 Borderland Marauder
1 Hordeling Outburst
4 Searing Blood
3 Magma Spray
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel

Weird card choices?  Couldn't find 4 Monastery Swiftspear so I just jammed 2 War-Name Aspirants instead.  Why is Borderland Marauder in the board?  I had less than five minutes to get my cards together before leaving for FNM so I hurriedly threw together a board.  I never boarded it in once.  4x Frenzied Goblin?  That choice looks odd, but I've been very impressed with them.  Some people like going 2x Frenzied Goblin 1x Arena Athlete (and then maybe 3x Hammerhand), but I've never lied Arena Athlete that much,

-Travis