Urza, Urza, Urza. The extraordinarily powerful creature from Modern Horizons sure has taken his claw and planted it firmly around the Modern format, forcing the rest of the major archetypes to adapt or perish.
Oliver Tomajko, the hottest player on the SCG Tour, Top 8’ed another Open this weekend with Urza Ascendancy, grafting on the incredibly powerful enchantment from Khans of Tarkir for maximum combo potential. The whole deck is absolutely beautiful, and a number of the more experienced regulars on the Tour used this build:
Creatures (9)
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (18)
Spells (31)
Let’s try to break down exactly what this deck is capable of with Jeskai Ascendancy in on the battlefield:
- Emry, Lurker of the Loch can just recast all your zero-mana artifacts, and if you have two Mox Opals or two Mox Ambers, you suddenly have infinite mana. It’s easy to do that when your spells all loot with Jeskai Ascendancy!
- Emry can also recast your Mishra’s Bauble ad infinitum, which will loot you through the rest of your deck and invariably find a pair of Mox Opals for infinite mana. Winning is academic from there.
- Urza, Lord High Artificer combines with any of your token-generating permanents (Saheeli, Sublime Artificer; Mirrodin Besieged; or Sai, Master Thopterist) to suddenly start generating obscene amounts of mana, as each spell you cast untaps the team, adds another token, and loots you towards more spells.
- A Paradoxical Outcome immediately refuels you and generally wins the game, bouncing plenty of zero-mana artifacts to recast, tons more cards to loot through, and all the pieces to assemble the other combos in the deck.
Turn 3 goldfishes are common and Turn 2 isn’t out of the question. Imagine the following sequence:
- Turn 1: Snow-Covered Island; Mox Opal; Mishra’s Bauble; Arcum’s Astrolabe; Emry, Lurker of the Loch.
Note: It doesn’t matter what you mill, but if you didn’t have a Mishra’s Bauble (let’s say you had an Engineered Explosives instead), you would need to hit either another Mox Opal or a Mishra’s Bauble to fully combo on Turn 2.
- Turn 2: Snow-Covered Plains, Jeskai Ascendancy. Assuming the opponent doesn’t have a blocker, Emry combines with Ascendancy and Bauble to generate an arbitrarily large Emry to attack with. If they do have a blocker, it still doesn’t really matter. The Bauble enables infinite looting with Ascendancy and Emry. Eventually you will loot into a second Mox Opal to generate infinite mana with Emry, and from there a Paradoxical Outcome, an Urza, and a token-generating permanent. You can win with a Mirrodin Besieged on your end step, or by removing the offending blocker with Engineered Explosives and attacking with Emry!
And if you don’t have a Mishra’s Bauble? A pair of either Mox Opal or Mox Amber will work just as well. Absolutely wild! So what do we do? Urza strategies are an ever-increasing portion of the metagame in Modern. The way I see it, there are three main options:
1. Play the one good maindeckable hate card, moderate interaction, and a decent clock.
What does that mean? Play Burn. It was good enough for a Top 4 at the Indianapolis Open this past weekend and Eidolon of the Great Revel stomps these loopy combo decks.
Creatures (12)
Lands (20)
Spells (28)
- 4 Lightning Bolt
- 4 Lava Spike
- 4 Lightning Helix
- 4 Rift Bolt
- 4 Searing Blaze
- 4 Boros Charm
- 4 Skewer the Critics
Sideboard
Keep it simple. Eidolon, Lava Spikes, and a few Smash to Smithereens in the sideboard.
You have a favorable matchup against Urza strategies by nature of the fact that they spend a lot of time not interacting in the hopes of making a big turn with an unanswered creature. Burn preys on decks that spin their wheels for the first two or three turns, and it definitely preys on decks that rely on sticking a creature to “turn on” their deck.
Remember Gifts Storm? Or Infect? Burn has a favorable matchup against them for similar reasons. Speaking of which…
2. Non-interactive combo, but faster or more consistent, and with a modicum of disruption.
Gifts Storm won the Open. That’s no coincidence. Drake Sasser was absolutely right when he picked it as the best deck for the weekend. I particularly like his choice to go all-in on Aria of Flame as a sideboard countermeasure to any graveyard hate. It sure must be embarrassing to cast a Grafdigger’s Cage, only to be met with an Aria of Flame and a grin.
The one Leyline of Sanctity as a concession to Burn, though? That makes me scratch my head. I suppose I understand the rationale, and for one sideboard slot, you’re not getting much more value, but I have to imagine that three Dispels over those and the two Mystical Disputes are going to get the job done enough. Maybe Spell Snare?
Creatures (8)
Lands (18)
Spells (34)
- 2 Sleight of Hand
- 4 Serum Visions
- 4 Gifts Ungiven
- 4 Desperate Ritual
- 3 Merchant Scroll
- 1 Echoing Truth
- 2 Opt
- 2 Remand
- 2 Grapeshot
- 4 Manamorphose
- 4 Pyretic Ritual
- 2 Past in Flames
Sideboard
Overall, Drake made the right archetype call and hit the metagame right on the nose, as it featured lots of non-interactive decks but not that much graveyard hate.
Incidentally, this is why Dredge has picked back up after the tragic loss of Faithless Looting. Well, that and Merchant of the Vale’s Haggle, but the metagame was also much more tolerant of graveyard shenanigans than it has been in the past.
Creatures (22)
Lands (20)
Spells (18)
Sideboard
Other options for this niche include Infect, which is like Gifts Storm but relies on creature removal being a little short rather than graveyard disruption. Boaryo’s Vengeance is another super-rogue option for this niche, though I suspect it’s a less consistent deck that occupies the same vague metagame sector as Gifts Storm.
Creatures (23)
- 4 Simian Spirit Guide
- 4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
- 4 Griselbrand
- 3 Generator Servant
- 4 Ilharg, the Raze-Boar
- 4 Merchant of the Vale
Lands (17)
Spells (20)
Frankly, I’m a bit surprised that Infect has been missing from the metagame recently. Clearly, Wrenn and Six and Plague Engineer both put massive dents in Infect’s stride, but if everyone is playing Amulet Titan, Mono-Green Tron, and an Urza-based strategy, Infect can’t be too bad of a choice. Also, Veil of Summer is the answer to Fatal Push that makes me giddy. It’s exactly the type of card that puts fear in opponents’ hearts and lets you walk them into horrendous exchanges.
Where’s Tom Ross to be the metagame savior when you need him?
You didn’t think we were going to talk about ways to combat Urza strategies without mentioning Death’s Shadow, did you?
Of course, there are four Engineered Explosives in this deck, just as there were in Ironworks back in the day. But there are two key differences between Urza strategies and Ironworks. First, there’s no Grove of the Burnwillows in Urza strategies. Second, there are a lot of slower three- and four-drop cards in the deck. A Fatal Push here, a Lightning Bolt there, a Stubborn Denial on top of everything, and a Snapcaster Mage to tie the room together. Suddenly, the matchup doesn’t look that bad.
The change from Ironworks’s Scrap Trawlers to Emry, Lurker of the Loch also means that removal spells are actually good against the creature that makes the engine work, rather than being embarrassing card disadvantage. Dismember actually becomes an absurd card here, especially since it kills Urza, no questions asked.
And yes, I like The Royal Scions as a one- or two-of. Russell Lee’s list intrigues me, though I want to have two Temur Battle Rages for sure.
Creatures (15)
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (17)
Spells (27)
I’d cut the Serum Visions from the maindeck for a second Temur Battle Rage and a fourth Snapcaster Mage, but that’s just me. The removal split is adequate, though it’s hard to balance killing Tarmogoyf every time with wanting to kill Emry without always having revolt.
It’s also entirely defensible to play a couple of Drown in the Loch, which is a tremendous split card. You know how much I love split cards in Death’s Shadow!
I also, generally speaking, like what Jonathan Hobbs did with his Jund Death’s Shadow list, and the inclusion of Once Upon a Time is certainly a novel idea.
Creatures (13)
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (18)
Spells (28)
Unlike Grixis Death’s Shadow, without Stubborn Denial, Jund Death’s Shadow doesn’t quite have the ability to shut the door on a deck like Urza Ascendancy. It’s strong because it gets Nurturing Peatland to fuel Shadows and keep mana flood at bay, but Engineered Explosives looping with Emry is absolutely backbreaking.
Of course, the one sideboard Collector Ouphe is a nice piece of hate to add to the equation when it comes to smothering Urza strategies. The issue is that any combo that involves the High Artificer himself actually relies comparatively little on activating artifacts’ abilities, as the mana and the card churn components all get right by any Null Rod-type effect.
I also have to be honest. I’m completely baffled by the exclusion of Wrenn and Six. I thought we wanted to play the broken two-mana planeswalker, no? Hobbs must have his reason for being rid of the card, but for the life of me I can’t see why it doesn’t have a spot in the sideboard. I understand that the format is rife with big mana and loopy combo, but the power level of that card, especially with Nurturing Peatland, is through the roof.
If you want to leverage Silent Clearing instead, Esper and Mardu Death’s Shadow are both reasonable options right now as well. Ranger-Captain of Eos is actually reasonably impressive at the moment, as it’s a full Time Walk against Jeskai Ascendancy and Emry turns. Be careful, though – Paradoxical Outcome can wreck your day at any time.
What about the rest of the format? The other fair decks? Or the big mana decks like Valakut? Didn’t Amulet Titan do well in Indianapolis, too?
Traditional Jund, of course, is likely too slow to capitalize on any disruption against Urza strategies. You’re not going to outgrind this deck, not with Emry to recur artifacts, Urza to churn through the deck for more free spells, Sai and Saheeli to generate free battlefields full of critters, and Paradoxical Outcome to come off the top of the deck and render every Thoughtseize completely moot.
Similarly with Azorius or Jeskai Stoneblade, as you’re not going to hit every angle on curve often enough to make the matchup favorable. And even if you do, there are sideboard games where Oko runs you over, as well as sideboard games where a well-timed Veil of Summer blows the game away.
Mono-Green Tron, as discussed, doesn’t kill quickly or consistently enough. Turn 3 Karn (of either variety) on the play is usually good enough, but Urza Ascendancy can just combo through any and all of that, and if Urza Ascendancy wins the die roll, it’s usually going to win before Mono-Green Tron does anything.
Amulet Titan, though it did put up some great finishes this weekend, is hard-pressed to call Urza Ascendancy a good matchup; at best it’s even. The nice thing about Amulet Titan compared to Mono-Green Tron is that it can often pick up a Pact of Negation on its Titan turn to protect itself for the one additional turn cycle it needs to actually win. That, and sideboard cards like Force of Vigor.
The next step in the cycle is for combo decks with the right mix of speed and interactive pieces to come out of the woodwork, as well as leaner, faster disruptive fair decks. Four-Color Death’s Shadow is still an option; we’ve seen that one before and it’s done great work policing unfair formats!
Of course, the smart money is still on Mox Opal leaving Modern in the next twelve months, but the format will technically be able to cope.
If only we had Splinter Twin to control this nonsense, am I right?