I played the wrong Modern deck at Worlds.
I’m not even talking, “I should have played Nacatls, but played Gifts Ungiven.” I played the wrong Grixis Gifts Ungiven deck.
Testing for three-format events is always tricky, especially when testing with people spread out all over the country. I have always been a get-together-and-break-it kind of guy. I knew I would be able to at least get together with people in California the week before Grand Prix San Diego, so I mainly focused on Modern over a month before the event. The StarCityGames.com Open Series ensured that Standard would be changing quite a bit, so we might as well wait and work on that one closer to the event.
By the time live testing in SoCal came around I had absolutely no deck for Standard, but at least I had a Modern deck I liked based on testing online. Weeks of online testing still did not compare to a couple days in person, as testing online doesn’t include the same back-and-forth rapid exchange of ideas, the ability to make better use of one’s time instead of continually waiting for someone with no real-time indicator of how long they are going to take before their next action, the kind of idea brainstorming that comes from people being in the same room and all riffing off each other.
With no deck in Standard, we all set about figuring out where we wanted to be there. Alex West and I ended up being very happy with our Grixis list revolving around Olivia, discussed here . Gerry Thompson and Michael Jacob U/W/r Control deck turned out well, as discussed here . Finally, Andrew Cuneo’s U/W Control list also looked good, as discussed here .
During a break in Standard testing, Sam Black asked me to play a few games against Conrad Kolos’ Braid of Fire deck with my Grixis Control deck. He had been interested in the Grixis deck, but was struggling to figure out the correct line against such a strategy. Conrad’s Braid deck was very dedicated, with Gifts Ungivens, Mystical Teachings, Desperate Ravings, Life from the Loam, Raven’s Crime, a million non-basics, and not a lot of creature removal. We split the set, but the card Braid of Fire did look impressive. We decided to experiment with hybridizing the decks, which led to a pretty big mistake on our part—mine, more than anyone else’s.
The Grixis Control list had been well tested and tuned after weeks of work. Experimenting with Braid of Fire led us to making all sorts of fundamental changes that we did not have time to understand the implications of. We also reached a very dangerous fork in the road where we just agreed to be in real bad shape against Blood Moon—we would just hope Godo was enough, because we’d be manascrewed for the rest of the game. Given that the most popular Blood Moon deck was Twin, a deck that is not well-known for losing to Godo-Batterskull, this was not our finest move.
It is not that the Grixis Braid of Fire deck was bad, because it wasn’t. Records of 4-2, 3-3, 3-3, and 2-4 are just not stellar. What it was, was a poor gamble. Maybe Braid of Fire is a better engine to use in a Gifts Control deck, maybe it isn’t. What we didn’t have was time to find out, nor realistic evidence to suggest that the Braid of Fire deck would perform better than the tested and tuned regular version. There was definitely a little too much fancy in our pantsy. First, the list I ended up playing:
Creatures (4)
Lands (26)
Spells (30)
Braid of Fire does a lot of cool things, most of which we aren’t actually using, meaning it is not at its best here. It was designed back during in the mana burn days, so not surprisingly, its power level has gone up quite a bit now that it has no drawback. It’s not busted insane or anything, but it is a powerful tool that is sort of like a Bitterblossom that gives you a really bad Mountain every turn instead of a 1/1 flier. This mana can be used to fuel instant speed card draw (such as Ravings and Gifts), Punishing Fire (Braid makes it very easy to cast it as many times as you have Groves), flash creatures (which we don’t use all that many of, though Teferi makes Godo better), paying for Pacts (which really does work exceptionally well with Pact of Negation or Slaughter Pact) and more than anything, Lavaclaw Reaches. Lavaclaw Reaches really is pretty awesome with Braid of Fire, though it should have set off alarms that the primary thing we were doing with Braid of Fire was Firebreathing.
Obviously, Braid is great against control and combo, as it just sits in play building an advantage every turn, putting massive pressure on them to do something. Where it struggles is against aggro and Blood Moon, since we cut artifact mana to support it. Braid of Fire’s day is going to come, I am pretty sure, however this was certainly not the place. It is much better suited to a deck that means it, rather than just dabbling a toe in the shallow end. It would be amusing to make a Hive Mind deck that can just play a Pact of the Titan/Protect game using Braid of Fire as an engine, but that is a puzzle for another day.
Godo, Bandit Warlord combines with Batterskull like Voltron, forming a Grave Titan/Wurmcoil Engine hybrid that is pretty incredible. Unfortunately, it takes up a lot of slots and you generally don’t actually want that many fatties. Additionally, it just doesn’t play that well with the Braid of Fire plan. Where it does shine, however, is against Path to Exile. If they Path the Germ, Godo swings for 14 lifelink next turn. If they Path Godo, you still have Batterskull. If they do nothing, it is a great time as it slowly dawns on your opponent that Godo may only untap himself and your Samurai, but he does give an extra attack to everyone, including your Vigilance creatures. Overall, I think this “package” is going to find a few homes, but this isn’t the best one for it.
This is the list I had spent most of my time working with, and what I should have played:
Creatures (4)
Lands (26)
Spells (30)
This started as a Mystical Teachings deck, but Michael Jacob suggestion of Gifts Ungiven immediately proved far superior, thanks to Snapcaster Mage. MJ also suggested Rise/Fall instead of Grim Harvest, as I had not been using the recover ability much. I had asked if he thought Grim Discovery might be better, to randomly get back a Scalding Tarn for the 2-for-1, or to allow me to Gifts for Grove of the Burnwillows or Tectonic Edge. His suggestion of Rise/Fall reminded me of just how impressive of Hymn to Tourach really is. After a couple days of playing with it, I went to two, since I really wanted to just Hymn people on turn 3 and still be able to access it later from a Gifts pile.
There is some play to the Fall side, since you get whammied if you hit land, but more than anything this leads you to want to hold it until the turn before they “go off.” As for Rise, the primary plan is to Gifts for a pile of Snapcaster Mage, Rise/Fall, and whatever you want. Snapcaster is like a cheaper Eternal Witness if they give it to you, and Rise/Fall lets you rebuy the Snapcaster while also bouncing one of your opponent’s creatures. It is true that you need two targets, so you can’t Rise into an empty board, however usually the only people putting enough pressure on you to make you need to do this line of play are aggressive decks with creatures. If you are against a combo or control deck, you can either bounce one of your own guys going real long—bouncing Snapcaster or Clique is excellent, of course. More likely, however, you can just use the Fall side as a Hymn to Tourach, which is better than Regrowth anyway.
Having access to Rise/Fall and Snapcaster Mage means that we only needed one Cruel Ultimatum, but that we find it more often (3 Gifts and a Cruel) and can still cast it twice, thanks to the Snapcaster Mage we always get back that serves as the greatest Nucklavee ever! Cryptic my Snapcaster into Gifts into Cruel Ultimatum? How in the world did I not play this deck…? We are talking one Mind Sculptor away from sheer bliss!
Wurmcoil would have gotten the nod over Grave Titan, but only barely and this could be wrong. The 2/2’s from Grave Titan aren’t that amazing, so it isn’t even like he really beats Path, whereas the lifelink does just win some matchups on its own. Wurmcoil is certainly much better against someone that has a Bolt and a Snapcaster Mage (or whatever), plus it is not the worst hedge against Blood Moon. That said, it is not unreasonable at all to want another fatty in the sideboard. Another Wurmcoil would be defensible, since drawing it is sweet; however, another name would make our Gifts better. It is tempting to fantasize about Godo/Batterskull, but that is a lot of room and our sideboard is so good that it comes with a heavy opportunity cost.
Punishing Fire has long been a great combo with Gifts, and when combined with Grove of the Burnwillows it obsoletes basically every non-Zoo aggro strategy. Project Melira was the best performing major archetype at Worlds and Punishing Fires single-handedly beats their deck. It is a great tool against Twin if you can keep Blood Moon off the table and breaks open blue mirrors. It almost seems like Wild Nacatl is the only thing holding this card back, a card that I question the lifespan of.
By now, you have surely heard my *ehem* ravings about Desperate Ravings. It takes planning and precision to use correctly, it does have a chance of backfiring sometimes, but it is way, way more powerful than Think Twice and is going to see far more play in every format in the future, as people come to better understand it. People used to be afraid of Demonic Consultation too—after all, it can make you lose the game if you get unlucky!
Ravings gives you more of what you need and lets you give yourself percentage over time by upgrading your existing hand’s card quality. If you need land, it gives you far better chances of finding it. If you are flooded, it helps upgrade your hand to more spells. If you need a key card to get you out of a mess, it helps you find it much faster. If you already have everything you need, you already have everything you need—don’t cast it!
Yes, there are going to be spots where you have most of what you need, but you still need a second black and then you Ravings and discard your Damnation or some other such. This is the risk you take, but the power it gives you is so great that it is worth it. Besides, in general, the quality of your hand is not as good as the quality of the top of your library when you cast Ravings, since you can cast all of your best spells first. Additionally, putting random cards from your deck into your graveyard is great with cards like Snapcaster Mage, Rise/Fall, other flashback spells, or in the case of this build, Punishing Fires. I don’t make use of it here, but Life from the Loam is another excellent combo with Ravings.
Where does Ravings not fit? If you don’t have any other graveyard recursion, you are definitely losing out on one of Ravings upsides. Additionally, if you are playing a deck that spends its turns and mana sculpting its hand full of key cards, such as Splinter Twin, then Ravings can actually decrease the average quality of your hand. Remember, it makes your hand’s card quality more like that of the top of your deck. If you are spending your turns and mana digging to exactly one Twin, one Deceiver, and one Dispel, then you don’t want your hand to be more like the top of your deck.
While Ravings may not be right for Twin (and who knows, it is so powerful, maybe it is still worth it in some future metagame where discard runs rampant), it is perfect for Storm. Storm was not played by that many people at Worlds and didn’t do remarkably well as a whole, however it is a far more ominous threat than Twin if you ask me. Additionally, most people did not have Desperate Ravings in their Storm decks. Storm decks just want a critical mass of cards and the discard “drawback” means very little, due to the existence of Past in Flames. For reference, here is a starting point:
Lands (16)
Spells (44)
- 4 Sleight of Hand
- 4 Serum Visions
- 4 Desperate Ritual
- 4 Seething Song
- 2 Empty the Warrens
- 4 Grapeshot
- 4 Manamorphose
- 3 Pyromancer Ascension
- 4 Pyretic Ritual
- 4 Gitaxian Probe
- 3 Past in Flames
- 4 Desperate Ravings
Sideboard
Anyway…back to the Grixis deck! Coalition Relic isn’t just a great mana source, solving all color, quantity, and acceleration problems, but it also single-handedly counteracts Blood Moon. Sideboarding artifact mana isn’t even clearly needed, but in testing Blood Moon was one of my main problems, so having another answer or two felt like a good use of resources.
One strategy is to try to get the Blood Moon back off the table, with Repeals, Echoing Truth, Engineered Explosives, Ratchet Bomb, or whatever. I found I generally preferred to just work around it, and even a Signet or a Talisman gets me most of the way there. By having different names for artifact mana, we can Gifts (assuming we were wise enough to Tarn for our Island) for Snow-Covered Island, Coalition Relic, Talisman of Dominance, and Dimir Signet. This ensures that we will have access to triple blue and at least one black, turning on almost our entire deck, including the possibility of Cryptic Commanding the Blood Moon at some point. Besides, playing four Relics leaves us a little more vulnerable to getting glutted at the three spot, which is a dangerous turn to tap out against Twin anyway.
Dreadship Reef may seem innocuous, but it actually plays a key role against combo and control. It is our Braid of Fire, albeit much weaker. It lets us build some advantage every turn without having to let our guard down, eventually setting up a big turn where we can convert that massive supply of mana into a powerful sequence of card draw or forcing through Cruel Ultimatum.
Surgical Extraction main is not a definite thing, but it is probably worth it in order to snag other Punishing Fires. It may not be great against a lot of people, but it isn’t hard to sneak some kind of value out of it, whether shrinking a Knight of the Reliquary or Goyf, working as a piece of disruption against a combo deck, or countering someone’s Snapcaster Mage. The added dimension it gives us opens up a lot of possibilities and is generally worth the occasional dead draw. Just Ravings it away, baby!
Moving forward, this is the list I plan to start from if the format remains unchanged. That said, it seems doubtful that this will be the case. Wild Nacatl is the best card in the format by a mile and is obnoxiously oppressive. Obviously the most recent changes have been designed with “Make Wild Nacatl the best” in mind, but a lot of people forget how that expression goes. You pick the card that you think should be the line, then you ban everything until it’s the best, then you ban it, and stop. Zoo made up over 28% of the field at Worlds, and Wild Nacatl showed up in even more strategies, including Bant. Being nearly a third of the metagame is very alarming for a format like Modern, that has so many decks and is so wide open. Yes, Wild Nacatl (usually) doesn’t kill before turn 4 and yes he is just a creature, but he does absolutely drive a stake the heart of the format’s possible diversity. Other than Affinity, why play any aggressive strategy besides Nacatls?
It seems crazy to think of banning Wild Nacatl, but Modern is a format with a different philosophy than Extended. Part of what contributed to Extended’s lack of popularity was how perpetually stale it was. Ever since Wild Nacatl was printed, it has just about always been over 25% of every Extended metagame in which Stomping Ground has also been legal. Modern doesn’t rotate except through bannings. That is never going to go away without a banning. I am generally a pretty staunch anti-ban guy, but the philosophy for banning cards in Modern is more akin to Legacy or Vintage, where it is a tool to sculpt the format. Standard and other formats that rotate very rarely need to actually have cards “rotate early.” In Eternal formats, bannings are the only way cards rotate at all!
Besides, it is not like a banning in Modern is permanent (Entomb and Gush ring any bells?) and Wild Nacatl is still a force in Legacy, so the card would not be without a home. Let’s keep it real, Wild Nacatl has not exactly been short of days in the spotlight. What about Lord of Atlantis? Ezuri, Renegade Warlord? Wizened Cenn? Doran the Siege Tower? Rhox War Monk? Student of Warfare? Goblin Guide? Serra’s Ascendant? Figure of Destiny? There are a lot of sweet aggressive cards that are all totally outclassed by Wild Nacatl to such a degree that the format misses out on so much potential fun and enjoyment. Besides, it isn’t like Kird Ape, Loam Lion, Tarmogoyf, and Knight of the Reliquary would actually be out of a job. Less people would play Zoo and Zoo wouldn’t have as much raw power (with say Steppe Lynx or Goblin Guide or whatever), but less people would spend less resources to fight it, as well.
It is not that Wild Nacatl is “too good” (though he is), it is that Wild Nacatl being legal effectively bans hundreds of cards, fun cards we’d love to play with. Who knows if they actually would ban it, since they obviously never have up to this point, but Extended was a different creature, and obviously Jace, Bitterblossom, Stoneforge, Valakut, Golgari Grave-Troll, Chrome Mox, Sensei’s Divining Top, Glimpse of Nature and so many more were all legal. Wild Nacatl is better than half the banned list, we all know it, and now that it is crippling diversity and interest in the format, I suspect its days may finally be numbered. It may take a PTQ season to prove what we already know, but if Modern is going to be this grand experiment where the format’s goals are to give players at least four turns and to promote diversity so that no deck is always far more popular than the rest (whether you draw the line at 12.5% or 15% or 20% or whatever), then Wild Nacatl is only being kept around by a special pass.
Force of Will and Brainstorm are both examples of Legacy cards that are protected by such a special pass, so this isn’t a totally unheard-of concept. What we have to ask ourselves, however, is whether Wild Nacatl really deserves a special pass or not? Is the format more fun because of Wild Nacatl being legal, or less fun? Legacy may see abusive levels of Brainstorm and Force of Will, but Wild Nacatl is not exactly a general utility card that fits in tons of decks.
Legacy is a format that rarely sees one archetype occupy more than 15% of the field, since it has reached that comfortable point where only one or two bannings a year are needed, plus unbannings happen. It did not get to that point overnight. Hermit Druid, Oath of Druids, Mana Drain, Mana Crypt, Goblin Recruiter, Gush—all these cards took time to get banned and the format went through some pretty violent changes years back. It was all worth it, however, as we now have the beautiful format we know and love today. Modern has the potential to be a pretty awesome omelet, but we are going to have to break some eggs first.
If and when Wild Nacatl is someday banned, I do think the implications may have other consequences (which aren’t necessarily “bad”). For instance, Wild Nacatl being three toughness helps keep Punishing Fire in check. Punishing Fire is already one of the absolute best things you can do in the format, in the same league as Hexmage/Depths, Thopter/Sword, or Scapeshift / Valakut. Somehow, it dodged the banhammer before, but if Nacatl was banned, what aggro deck could stand up to the Punishing Fire? Sure, you can ask aggro players to warp their decks in order to fight it, which isn’t unreasonable, but we do have to keep in mind the goals of what we are trying to accomplish. Modern only rotates by bannings and already embraces a different ban philosophy than Standard, a format where bannings are detested. Punishing Fire being banned would open up so much more room for aggressive strategies—strategies that are fun, interesting, and not realistically going to beat Punishing Fire/Grove completely locking them out of the game at such a low opportunity cost.
Modern is not going to be the format where every time a deck is good, it gets banned. That said, it doesn’t look like the format is quite ready yet. How will we know that we have reached a semi-stable place? How about when decks are not usually killing before turn 4 and every archetype is less than 15% of the field? This isn’t to say a deck seeing that much play is cause for bannings, but rather given Modern’s current philosophy, any deck that repeatedly puts up those kind of numbers season after season should be viewed under a microscope.
This of course raises the question of Splinter Twin. Twin is another two-card combo deck that was spared the banhammer, mostly as a result of being so new. It is far better than a number of combos that have been banned and it does put a huge amount of pressure on the format. It isn’t particularly fun, but it isn’t particularly good either, underperforming at Worlds. It can be interacted with through a huge swath of cards that people want to play anyway, so maybe it’s fine. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if the day eventually comes that Splinter Twin gets banned. Taking 15% of the field is a red flag—if Punishing Fire and Nacatl were banned it would be even greater, and it isn’t the kind of Magic that Wizards wants to define the format year after year after year… I mean, is it really going to still be interesting 7 years from now? Because it is not that unbeatable, it may get a pass for a while, but I think there is a good chance it is only a matter of time on this one.
What else could possibly be banned? Well, Project Melira performed well and would benefit tremendously from Punishing Fire (or even Twin) being banned. That said, it is seeing that much play and has not worn out its welcome like Twin has. It is vulnerable to graveyard hate on top of creature kill, so it is even easier to interact with. It also plays much more of a “real game” than Twin does. Maybe something gets hit someday, but I think that day is quite a ways off.
Seething Song is another option. Storm has not yet reached its full potential (this time anyway…) so it is still somewhat under the radar. You can definitely beat it, if you want to, and it has already lost so many cards. The argument, however, is that Wizards wants Storm to be good in Modern the same way they want Dredge to be good, which is to say, not at all. The truth is, Golgari Grave-Troll is probably totally fine to unban, but why would you want to? Golgari Grave-Troll has not been short on days in the sun and leads to a lot less Magic actually getting played. Maybe it isn’t good yet, but someday it will be and then it would just be banned again. Maybe we can play with fire after the format has gotten to a point of stability, but we aren’t there yet.
Why Seething Song? It leads to the most turn 3 kills, for starters. Pyromancer Ascension and Past in Flames are interesting “build around me” cards, albeit somewhat dangerous. Even if you banned them or Grapeshot or Empty the Warrens, Storm would just kill with something else. Really, the problem comes from the rituals and the cantrips. Manamorphose is a little alarming, but it doesn’t actually lead to turn 3 kills the same way Seething Song does. Seething Song is the type of card that could and eventually will lead to a variety of turn 3 kill decks and won’t be easily replaced by some future printing, as Wizards is now even more cautious about making rituals that produce more than one net mana.
Storm may not be “too good” yet, but it will be eventually—it is only a matter of time. At least if you ban Seething Song, it will be replaced by a ritual that only nets one. The hate already exists and the only thing holding it back is how many of the more efficient versions of its spells have been banned. Eventually it will get a new ritual, a new cantrip, a new kill card. It is just going to slowly get better and better. It already kills on turn 3 an uncomfortable amount of the time and greatly discourages “real Magic.” Maybe it isn’t that good, but I would not be afraid to get a little trigger happy on this one, just to be sure. The PTQ season is going to be a lot more fun for most people if Storm isn’t one of the dominant decks. Maybe it will take people actually breaking it in the real world again, but this is another concept that has already had plenty of spotlight and is still good in other formats.
What would I do? I would ban Wild Nacatl and Punishing Fire immediately, and take a good hard look at Splinter Twin and Seething Song. I know the banned list has been a bloodbath, but this won’t be the case forever. We are literally trying to do ten years of evolution in a matter of months. If all four of these cards were banned, I wouldn’t be surprised if the next change to the Modern list was to pull a card off, or perhaps do nothing for three months, then pull a card off.
Given the goals of Modern—not consistently killing before turn 4 and promoting diversity as discussed—what would you do? What are the pros and cons of banning each of these cards? What other cards could be banned? Is it time to instead unban cards? Does Wild Nacatl really deserve a free pass? What will make this PTQ season as fun and interesting as possible?
What would you do?
Patrick Chapin
“The Innovator”