Last week I mentioned a Modern deck I’d built to try to exploit Dark Prophecy. In the comments of that article, Jeremy Kearbey suggested Aether Vial, and I realized that it makes perfect sense in my deck since most of my creatures cost two mana but the mana is very constrained because of Dark Prophecy and Kalastria Highborn. So I decided to add it to the deck and record the results, playing the following list:
Creatures (24)
- 4 Bloodghast
- 2 Gatekeeper of Malakir
- 4 Kalastria Highborn
- 2 Bloodthrone Vampire
- 4 Viscera Seer
- 1 Scavenging Ooze
- 4 Blood Artist
- 3 Deathrite Shaman
Lands (20)
Spells (16)
Not getting an untapped land to drain for two almost certainly cost me that first game and was a pretty embarrassing mistake. But the upside is that we got to see more post-sideboard games, and I was very happy with how the deck performed there.
While that matchup is almost certainly atrocious, I was set up to beat basically anything but Mindslaver in game 2. Unfortunately, that’s what he had.
I really didn’t expect to win this matchup. Also, somehow I just failed to notice that I actually had him dead on my last turn, but passing didn’t punish me at all.
Game 1 felt pretty bad for me, but I think that’s mostly because he had Delver of Secrets. I think it’s extremely hard for me to lose if he doesn’t, and Aether Vial and the enchantments feel extremely hard for them to beat unless they can keep an unanswered Delver. Overall, I was very happy with how this played out.
I kind of liked the look of the deck as I’d first built it, but after playing a few games, I was pretty discouraged. Aether Vial really kicks the deck up a level, and while I doubt it’s the best Modern deck, it definitely feels like it can compete and will have some really good matchups now.
Thanks for watching,
Sam
@samuelhblack on Twitter
twitch.tv/samuelhblack