Greetings all! Stephen here, wishing everyone another great day of Magic with another decklist and some thoughts about GP Charlotte. I know that most of the folks who tune into this blog, our originator Travis included, likely expect me to write something about Cheerios, which is fair. I did sort of cause the price of foil Retracts to go from 1.20 to 33.00 USD. This is rather entertaining to me, because I personally never thought I would ever push the price of a card to the extreme. Now, it may just be coincidence, but I don't believe so.
Moving forward, Cheerios seems like the list that I would be gunning to play in Charlotte this coming weekend. It's a sweet deck, it's very fast, and it's so far under the radar that no one in their right mind would even think that they would be potentially dead on turn two following a tapped Hallowed Fountain. Even with all of this in mind, I must admit that I do not believe I will be playing Cheerios this weekend. After a good deal of testing leading up to Charlotte, the introduction of Myth Realized, the departure from Muddle the Mixture, and the fated return of a format menace, I cannot see myself packing this list to battle. Recent games have shown that, while Myth Realized can do some serious damage, it is a volatile basket to put ones eggs in. The redeeming qualities are that it rolls over Twin and Tron as if they had no idea the card exists as they have very little to answer such a monster in the first few turns of the game, but what about the rest of the format? Fringe decks can block the monster while we draw essential blanks. Any creature based deck can wall this puppy off long enough to stabilize. And not to mention the modern heavy weights of Grixis, who have Terminate, Abzan and UWR with Path to Exile, and the return of Jund, with Terminate and shared weapon of Abzan Abrupt Decay. This is a lot of hate that is present for our new monster. I've been trying to make it work, and I personally do not feel that I have come up with a list that is optimal enough to take with me for battling purposes. This metagame is shaping up to be very mid-rangy, and it is those types of decks that punish decks like mine; infinite removal and enough card-advantage to keep up and even stay ahead long enough to win. Even if we go to a ton of threats, we are just diluting the deck and losing the extreme speed that drew me to this deck in the beginning.
Now, does this mean I am going to be giving up on Cheerios for good? Not at all. This deck is like a child to me. I still want to take care of it, decide what is best for it, and do my best to raise it into a format monster that people are going to take into account at every event. However, with the format in flux and a new predator that beats Cheerios into the ground, I'm going to set it aside for now and instead do battle with a deck that I feel to have better match ups all around. Ladies and gentlemen, I am bringing back Blink.
Modern Blink: Stephen D.
3 Wall of Omens
3 Runed Halo
3 Aven Riftwatcher
4 Restoration Angel
2 Reveillark
2 Body Double
2 Mirror Entity
1 Gel Elendra Archmage
1 Inquisitor Exarch
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 Mystic Snake
2 Path to Exile
3 Gifts Ungiven
1 Day of Judgement
1 Wrath of God
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Noxious Revival
1 Unburial Rites
1 Swamp
3 Island
3 Plains
2 Mystic Gate
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Steam Vents
1 Godless Shrine
1 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
3 Polluted Delta
3 Hallowed Fountain
2 Celestial Colonnade
3 Flooded Strand
SB:
2 Stony Silence
3 Kor Firewalker
1 Runed Halo
3 Rending Volley
I have presented this deck to you all at one point in the past, and today I will be showcasing it again. I feel that this deck is very well positioned for the GP Charlotte. With the meta shifting into midrange, this deck simply puts the breaks on those strategies, grinding harder than any of these decks know how. The only issue is Tron, which is a bad matchup for it. I'm willing to concede that match as most other decks in the format are going to have that decks head on a pike, and I can beat those other decks. Even still, 4 Spreading Seas and Stony Silence should help slow down the menace that is Tron.
As I'm certain you all are aware of how the combo works (I did explain it before), I won't drone you with that again. Moving into Mystic Snake land gives up all types of game against random decks since no one plays around it. Let's just hope that this deck has what it takes to bring down the event, as Cheerios simply isn't going to do it.
Best of luck to those of you going to GP Charlotte, and please, wish me luck as I go too.
-Stephen D.
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