Modern Blink

Greetings again! Stephen here with another deck full of random cards that would probably never see play in conventional decklists, and a fun number of one-ofs. However, today's deck is actually one that I would very quickly take to modern events of all sizes, be it for fun or going for money finishes.

Originally, this deck started out as a modern port of Blink Riders, but I swiftly realized that such a list was no longer optimal. Decks like Affinity exist, and trying to blink Avalanche Riders over and over doesn't quite work against indestructible lands.  I also began to realize that the only games I was winning with my original take on this list were the times I never drew Avalanche Riders....sooooo... something had to change.  It then evolved into what I wanted to be a fair list, but even still, the wins weren't coming.  Once I decided to go ahead and make this deck a monster at grinding and have a few infinite loops, the wins came in against a variety of known archetypes.

4 Wall of Omens
3 Runed Halo
3 Aven Riftwatcher
4 Restoration Angel
2 Riftwing Cloudskate
2 Reveillark
2 Body Double
2 Mirror Entity
1 Gel Elendra Archmage
1 Inquisitor Exarch
1 Venser, Shaper Savant

2 Path to Exile
3 Gifts Ungiven
1 Day of Judgement
1 Wrath of God
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Noxious Revival
1 Unburial Rites

2 Swamp
3 Island
3 Plains
2 Mystic Gate
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Steam Vents
1 Godless Shrine
3 Polluted Delta
3 Hallowed Fountain
3 Celestial Colonnade
3 Flooded Strand

SB:
2 Stony Silence
2 Notion Thief
3 Counterflux
3 Kor Firewalker
1 Runed Halo
4 Wear//Tear

Enter 'Lark, Body Double, Mirror Entity combo loops.  Use Mirror Entity to make your team 0/0s 50 times, resolve all the 'Lark triggers thanks to Body Double being a boss.  And with as many different 2 power creatures to loop, we have things to do for days.

Regarding card choices, some may seem a little bit off.  Main question I hear is, 'Where is Mulldrifter?' In truth, I tried it.  Drawing 2 cards seems legit, yes?  But, does anyone play Divination in modern? Didn't think so.  Wall of Omens allows us a draw loop and also blocks very very well.

Riftwatcher? Gaining life and blocking Delver is awesome.
Venser and Cloudskate? Boomerang all their permanents.
Exarch? This is how they die.
Rites and Noxious Revival make Gifts Ungiven very safe and very strong, with Revival having sideline utility of blanking an opponents draw by putting nonsense on top of their deck. :)

The matchups for this deck are very good in game one, with the exception of possibly Scapeshift, and even then they have to work for it.  Runed Halo is probably the best Doom Blade I have ever had the pleasure of casting.  Name Valakut, creatures from Zoo or anything really, name Hexproof creatures and they no longer can do anything to do.  Gifts Tron? Name Gifts, because it needs to target. Smell Storm? Name Grapeshot.  Free game ones all day baby.

Sideboard is geared to beat decks that are either much faster or much slower.  Red decks, be it Burn or UWR don't like Firewalkers.  Stony Silence helps against Affinity and Tron (nice random artifacts bro), and Wear//Tear answers almost everything that gives us fits.  Nearly everything that stops ETB triggers gets gunned down by Wear//Tear, which helps. And lastly, the slower decks don't want to face down Notion Thief or Counterflux.

All in all, this deck is very powerful.  I've been Death and Taxes down to 2 lands and still couldn't be stopped.  Walked over burn decks.  Blocked aggro decks for days and days.  Attacked Scapeshift decks to death.  Halo'd out Boggles. Halo'd out Gift Tron.  10 out of 10, will play again.

However, with the change to the banned list, Notion Thief may no longer be necessary.  It was a sideboard hedge against cruise, but now that these control decks my be jamming Rev again, I may keep it.  Time will tell, but with this new banned list and Thoughtseize likely to make a comeback, I will gladly continue to sleeve this deck up.

Thanks for reading.
-Stephen

In world full of wedges - and even 4 color strategies - you really only need one color...

MB

4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Satyr Hoplite
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Akroan Crusader

4 Dragon Mantle
4 Titan's Strength
4 Coordinated Assault
4 Hammerhand
4 Stoke the Flames
2 Magma Spray
1 Arc Lightning
1 Lightning Strike

16 Mountain
2 Bloodstained Mire

SB

4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
3 Harness by Force
3 Searing Blood
2 Peak Eruption
2 Magma Spray
1 Arc Lightning

I've played this at a whopping two FNMs, going 3-1 and 4-0.  Sequencing is fairly simple, though I'm not sure I'm doing it optimally.  Generally, the progression of creatures you want to resolve in order are first Foundry Street Denizen -> Firedrinker Satyr -> Akroan Crusader ->Satyr Hoplite -> finally, Monastery Swiftspear.  Of course, this progression is not strictly true as the mana and heroic/prowess enablers available to you may alter your line.  In general, squeeze as much value out of each card as you can (i.e. if you have a dragon mantle and a bunch of mana, use it all on firebreathing).  Several decks these days play Drown in Sorrow and Anger of the Gods in the sideboard, meaning games 2 and 3 can be rough.  Barring mulligans, however, game 1 is often a freeroll regardless of being on the play or draw.  Otherwise, it's about as straightforward as you think - just play good magic and turn em sideways.

As far as the sideboard is concerned, I'm not too impressed by Eidolon - I suppose I just haven't run into the matchups where it's relevant.  Act of Treason has been dynamite.  Searing Blood, Arc Lightning, and Magma spray are all solid in any creature matchup - firedrinker satyr normally comes out for those games.  Peak Eruption, while a blowout in the mirror, is perhaps a bit too narrow; I could easily switch them for another two Arc Lightning(s) if you sense a heavy aggro field (especially if tokens decks are out and about!)

Drop $50 and build it, won't you?  If you're feeling lavish, add a playset of Rabblemasters and a 19th land.

Incredibly All-in-Red (IAIR)

I was a big fan of the deck All-in-Red from old extended which lasted about three seasons (2008-2010).  The idea was to throw out "jump card", mana accelerants for one turn and either have a giant fatty or an Empty the Warrens for 10+ goblins.  The deck was a lot of fun to play as winning with big creatures is always GR8.  The deck also featured disruption in the form of Blood Moon, Chalice of the Void and Trinisphere.  The extended deck was a simple port from the legacy deck "Dragon Stompy" which featured Rakdos Pit Dragon as its namesake.

Anyway, I've been playing magic for a long time and in 2010, I took AIR to six PTQs in my region (in two other PTQs I played Hypergenesis).  It was pretty much the best season of magic I've ever had.  I had two top 8s (losing in semis and quarters, respectively), and each other tournament I finished X-2.  Sadly, three of those finishes were losing the last bubble round for top 8, but still.

AIR has been very dear to my heart and attacking with Demigod of Revenge or slamming down Deus of Calamity on turn 1 has created some of the better memories I've had associated with the game.

I doubt that modern will ever have a deck like this.  Rites of Flames and Chrome Mox were banned right away, and it wasn't long before Seething Song followed suit.  I honestly wouldn't be incredibly surprised if Simian Spirit Guide was eventually banned.  We'll see.

I've messed around lists over the past two (!) years on trying to make a modern-viable AIR deck, even trying such things as Chandra Ablaze or Rally the Horde (pro tip: they're bad).

I've even messed around with versions running Priest of Urabrask, Burning-Tree Emissary and Infernal Plunge,..

Anyway, so here's your 2015 attempt at making AIR in modern:

All-in-Godo

4 Godo, Warrior Bandit
4 Pentad Prism
4 Street Wraith
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
4 Batterskull
1 Argentum Armor
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Manamorphose
4 Serum Powder
4 Geosurge
1 Gemstone Caverns
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
4 Mana Confluence

So, the deck is obviously missing Empty the Warrens, but I don't know where to squeeze it in.  Maybe over Serum Powder but the deck is so unreliable as it is.  Satyr Hedonist was originally in the deck over Pentad Prism, but I realized that it's essentially the same thing, but the Satyr is going to be more fragile (both increase your mana by two, for a mana investment of two).

So the point is to power out a Godo on turn 1, to which you can equip either a Batterskull or an Argentum Armor and with two attack steps, your opponent is on an incredibly quick clock.  The problem with this is that you need so many jump cards to get to Godo.  Six is a lot.  Even to get to Geosurge (which is the only jump card that actually is +2 mana instead of +1), you need a land and three other jump cards.

I think wizards has been purposely very careful in wording jump cards over the past few years.  Geosurge is incredibly bad, Battle Hymn and Infernal Plunge saw some brief standard play in a combo deck, but are too creature-dependent.  Satyr Hedonist is a poor man's jump card, it basically reads 1GR - add RRR to your mana pool.  Sweet/

So, yeah.  The deck is pretty bad.  I've goldfished with it and it's unusual to have the turn 1 Godo (or even Batterskull).  I'm not saying seldom or rare, but it's unusual.  Also, in a deck like this, if your opponent has a thoughtseize, path to exile, or even, god forbid, spell snare, you're just dead in the water.

So, I think modern will have to expand a bit for this deck to ever come back.  That might mean waiting another 4-5 years, and even then wizards will have to get sloppy with printing some card.that pushes the deck.  But by then, I feel that Demigod/Deus/Arc Slogger/etc. would be rather underwhelming.

Oh, the Possibilties!

Hey guys, I know it's been a little awhile, but I needed to take a break as I was getting pretty burnt out.  I'm going to do my best to maintain this as a daily blog, but until I get a couple other contributors the path might be bumpy.

I did play in one preprelease flight this weekend and went a mediocre 3-3.  I started off 3-1, but I mulligained every game in rounds 5 and 6.  I wasn't especially salty because my pool was very mediocre, I was just bummed that most of my rares were bad.

So, I had actually come up with this one a couple weeks ago and now for your viewing pleasure:

"Through the Storm" (modern)

4 Possibility Storm
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Manamorphose
4 Desparate Ritual
4 Pyretic Ritual
1 Norin the Wary
4 Tormenting Voice
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Faithless Looting
4 Through the Breach
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Time of Need

10 Mountain

4 Wooded Foothills
1 Stomping Grounds

I would play less lands if I could, but I doubt I can get away with it.  I originally wasn't going to play Simian Spirit Guide and was running Wild Guess (redundant Tormenting Voice), which is nice for seeing the right cards consistently.

So, you have two modes of victory: the most obvious is to play Through the Breach and crash through with Emrakul.  15 damage is usually almost lethal in modern and your opponent having to sacrifice 6 permanents will give you enough time to redo the effect.  

The actual cool way to win is with Possibility Storm.  If you play Norwin the Wary with Possibility Storm out, Norwin will exile and you will flip over an Emrakul (as the only other creature in your deck) and actually get to cast it!  The extra turn almost assures your victory.  Also, Possibility Storm will make it difficult for your opponent to respond, should it resolve.  

The rest of the deck is mostly air.  SSG, Pyretic Ritual and Desperate Ritual are just mana acceleration to get to 5.  Faithless Looting and Tormenting Voice are just ways to see more cards / get Emrakul out of your hand.  Gitaxian Probe and Manamorphose just cycle to get you a card deeper, but are potentially useful (probe lets you know if the coast if clear, manamorphose can give you the green for time of need)

What I think was a particularly neat card was Time of Need.  This can let you get a Norwin if you're going the Possibility Storm route or you can dig up an Emrakul for through the breach.  

I'm not entirely sure if this version is better than the R/B version with Griselbrand and Vengeance of the Goryo, but at least this one isn't susceptible to graveyard hate.  That would be interesting to splash a little green in that version for Time of Need.  I think that it's a great card that the deck has really be needing.  I'll show myself out.

Legacy Infect

There's a list that I've been messing around for the better part of two years now for a legacy version of Infect.  This is somewhat before Tom Ross made Infect playable with his UG version.

Anyway:

Mono(ish)green Infect

4 Mutagenic Growth
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Vines of Vastwood
4 Bounty of the Hunt
4 Street Wraith
4 Might of Old Krosa
4 Glistener Elf
4 Vector Asp
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Invigorate
4 Berserk
4 Land Grant
4 Inxmoth Nexus
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bayou

So, there's probably only two cards in the deck you haven't seen: Bounty of the Hunt and Vector Asp.  Blue got Force of Will in Alliances and green got a Giant Growth.  Seems fair.

Vector Asp is a trash common that didn't even see play in Scars limited.  It is pretty god-awful, but the deck needed another 1-mana infect creature and playing black to turn it on is virtually the same as turning on an Inkmoth Nexus...

Except worse in every way.  Hopefully, at some point, Wizards will return to the plane of Mirrodin (New Phyrexia?) and there can be a new one-mana infect creature.  Maybe there will be something along the lines of:

Something something B
creature - horror
Infect
0/1

That would honestly be fine.  But until then, we're stuck with this guy.  The Bayous in the deck are solely to turn on Vector Asp.  I suppose you don't need Verdant Catacombs, any land that fetches for B or G is fine.

Now the mana in this deck is very tight.  Only 12 real lands and your Bayous are the only source of colored mana.  But you pretty much never want to draw more than 2 lands.  Land Grant and Elvish Spirit Guide let you cheat on mana and also are nice to remove to Bounty of the Hunt.

Gitaxian Probe and Street Wraith are there for deck thinning, while Gitaxian Probe lets you know if the coast is clear.  

The main reason is to play this deck is its explosiveness.  The sheer amount of turn-two kills are unbelievable, given the number of free spells in the deck.  

Vines of Vastwood is a concession to removal spells.  You sometimes need to have a plan against lightning bolt or Swords to Plowshares.  There aren't many other cards that you could put in its place, Groundswell isn't good enough, given how few lands are in the deck and become Immense might be a good 1-2 of.  

The sideboard would probably have a number of a) Autumn's Veil b) Apostle's Blessing c) Sylvan Library d) Krosan Grip and so on.

I've done a ton of presideboarded games with this deck and it's a blast to play, although probably not very fun for opponents.

What I've been Playing and more

Todd Anderson took a UW list to Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir that featured Ensoul Artifact.  Unfortunately, he didn't do that well, but his list was very neat and inspired me to build something similar.

My list (standard):
4 Ornithopter
4 Pilgrim of Heliod
4 Ghostfire Blade
4 Illusory Angel
4 Springleaf Drum
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Stratus Walk
4 Singing Bell Strike
4 Ensoul Artifact
4 God's Willing
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Tranquil Cove
2 Flooded Strand
3 Plains
7 Island

So the differences in lists?  Well, the dumbing down of the mana base was a necessity (i.e. no Temples of Enlightenment or a set of Flooded Strand).  I'm playing a full playset of bell strikes.  Todd noted that he had wanted more the whole tournament and had a difficult time with larger creatures.  I'm also running Illusory Angel over Hero of Iroas.  I feel that needs some explaining.  Other than Ensoul Artifact and/or something suited up with (multiple) Ghostfire Blades, this deck is very threat-light.  The Angel presents a very reasonable clock and can be pumped out as early as turn two.  The Angel is always a threat, but often the Hero is just a (sad) bear.  Granted, the Angel can sometimes be a dead card and is often a very bad topdeck.  Just remember to be conservative with the Ornithopters!

You might wonder why the full playset of Stratus Walk if Hero is no longer in the deck.  There's currently a lot of token decks in Standard and unfortunately, your Ensoul Artifact (even on a Darksteel Citadel), can just get brickwalled by any number of things - Akroan Crusader, Hordeling Outburst, Elspeth, etc.  Therefore, it's very important to be able to give them wings if need be.

Sometimes, you're attacking with Darksteel Citadel for 5 on turn 2 and sometimes you sit with a bunch of junk cards in your hand until turn 3-4.  There's a lot of variance in the deck, but it's very fun to play.  I honestly wish there were some better artifacts in standard.  Playing phyrexian revoker is kind of painful.  I haven't seen any cards spoiled (so far) that makes this deck that much more playable, so it kind of remains something to toy with.

Bonus deck:

Modern Shamans

I have a certain fondness for this deck, from Lorwyn Block Constructed to Extended, I've enjoyed playing a variation of this deck.

So here we go:

4 Bosk Banneret
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Burning Tree Shaman
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Flame-kin harbinger
4 Rageforger
4 Wolf-skull shaman
4 Firedrinker Satyr
3 Leaf-Crowned Elder

4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Stomping Grounds
2 Rootbound Crag
2 Fire-Lit Thicket
4 Forest
3 Mountain

Sideboard:

1 Hexhunter
4 Fulminator Mage
3 Viridian Shaman
3 Cunning Sparkmage
1 Masked Admirers
2 Vexing Shusher
1 Pyrewild Shaman

There isn't much to explain in the maindeck.  All of the creatures are shamans and so Bosk Banneret makes everything cost 1 less / Leaf-Crowned Elder and Wolf-Skull Shaman will always trigger on a non-land card, and Rage Forger will put a +1/+1 counter on all your (other) creatures.  

For card explanations:  it's a shame that Deathrite Shaman was banned, so it's up to Firedrinker Satyr (who is oddly a shaman) to fill in.  While modern is running rampant with burn and UR delver, sometimes the card will just be a free burn spell for your opponent.  That's just the way it has to be if the deck is going to be aggressive enough.  The other 1 drop shamans aren't very impressive.  Goblin Arsonist is only relevant if it dies and while Intimidator Initiate could potentially be useful, the deck is too mana hungry to be able to use it effectively.  (there are also some other 1 drop shamans that filter mana and do other things that are largely irrelevant, but they don't need mentioning)  An aggressive deck cannot afford to only have 4 one-drops.  I've seen versions that run lightning bolt instead, but it badly messes up your synergy.

You might notice that there's only three Leaf-Crowned Elders.  It's a great card in this deck because casting free spells is always GR8, but four is a lot of mana.  Ideally, you're winning on turn 4-5, so if you're expecting multiple triggers from this guy, it probably isn't it.  This card is probably fine against burn as a giant wall that absorbs 2 burn spells, but mostly white or black decks will just trade a removal spell with it.

Burning-Tree Shaman has a reasonably-sized body and can punish certain types of decks.  

So why so many fetchlands?  6 is an awful lot.  There's 7 creatures in the deck with Kinship so you'll often get to look at the top card of your library before you draw it so the fetchlands give you a chance to refresh the top card of your library if it's a nonland card.  This is especially relevant when you have multiple instances of kinship.

As for the sideboard:  what is Fulminator Mage doing here???  The format is a bit fast for 1RR - destroy target nonbasic land (granted, you can fetch it up with Flame-Kin Harbinger).  There are really only three decks you would want this card: Scapeshift, Urzatron, and Amulet of Vigor Combo.  Most other decks will shrug off losing a land.  Maybe I'm wrong on this and this should be mainboard instead of Burning-Tree Shaman, but this requires testing and is also somewhat dependent on your local meta.  

There's Viridian Shaman for Affinity and Cunning Sparkmage can also be effective, as it is against other aggressive strategies.  I'm starting to think that the 2 Vexing Shushers aren't needed in the board as the majority of counterspells in the modern meta consist of Remand or Mana Leak.  But there are a reasonable number of Crpytic Commands and Spell Snares out there.

Now for the singletons.  The Fauna Shaman in the deck makes it a lot easier to find this cards and there's a certain synergy with Pyrewild Shaman.  This is for playing against decks like Zoo, or at least anything packing Tarmogoyf, as your creatures are going to be smaller than theirs the majority of the time and you can at least trade this way.  The Hexhunter was an interesting idea, but I can't think of that many problematic enchantments other than Jeskai Ascendancy and random enchantments from Bogles.  It stays a singleton for now, but could potentially prove useful.

There was an interesting 4-drop shaman spoiled from the new set that could merit inclusion.

The upsides:  haste is nice and the ability has good synergy with Rage Forger.
Downsides:  4 is a lot of mana for this guy and unfortunately, 2 toughness is pretty low.

This guy might be a singleton finisher at best.  Sometimes the deck can vomit out creatures and you feel silly with 4 two-power creatures staring down a Tarmogoyf.  

Well, that's all for now, but until next time...