There are many ways to learn and grow as a Magic player—reading, spectating, conversation, and a hundred more—but there’s nothing that can substitute for the long hours of gameplay necessary to really get to know a deck and a format. I’d like to use this week’s article to walk through my recent exploration of Modern, and in particular my experiences with a variety G/B Rock strategies.
I returned home from Grand Prix Orlando and signed onto Magic Online to find that I was a complete stranger to Modern. I knew what was legal, and to some extent I knew what decks had potential, but what I didn’t know was what other people were playing. With no frame of reference, it’s impossible to know what will work and what won’t; which strategies will catch people off-guard and which they’ll be prepared for. It was impossible to know what it would take to win.
I started out by testing Affinity and Zoo, which were the strategies I knew and respected from before the recent bannings. I quickly realized that Modern was a scary place for an aggressive strategy. Melira Combo, Mono-White, Tokens, and to a lesser extent Jund are designed to crush creature mirrors. Trying to play fair, it was difficult for me to overcome a Spectral Procession supported by Honor of the Pure, an endless stream of Squadron Hawks coming from a Mistveil Plains, or, you know, ten million life. Even when I didn’t run into those nightmare matchups, the control decks were all prepared for me, and combo certainly wasn’t easy, either.
Since none of the established archetypes appealed to me, I had to ask myself: what was I looking for in a deck?
Discard Spells
The utility of Thoughtseize, Duress, and Inquisition of Kozilek can be wildly different from format to format. For example, I have no desire to play with them in Legacy, since Brainstorm, Sensei’s Divining Top, and the very nature of the format can make the top of a player’s library as game-changing as his hand. Similarly, before Wild Nacatl was banned, Thoughtseize was a liability against Zoo that not many decks could afford.
That said, spot discard is as good in current Modern as it’s ever been. The two popular combo decks, Storm and Spliter-Twin, spend the whole game developing their hand and depend on two or more particular cards to go off. A single, well-placed discard spell can usually set them back, and a second one is often insurmountable. As always, discard is also a powerful tool in forcing threats through against blue players. Liliana of the Veil and Blightning can devastate all of these decks given enough time, especially in combination with the spot discard.
The reason I really love Thoughtseize in Modern is the way it’s uncharacteristically good against the aggro decks. The old Zoo decks were so redundant that you could strip a Tarmogoyf and they’d simply cast their next best two-drop instead. The life and tempo loss was painful, to boot. However, the popular aggressive strategies aren’t like that today. Something like Tokens lacks redundancy and can’t capitalize on a small amount of life-loss. In many games, you can strip their one Spectral Procession and leave them with a bunch of Honors of the Pure and Rally the Peasants to pump up what? A Soul Warden?
Affinity is similar in the way its whole game can center on a single card like Cranial Plating or Arcbound Ravager. The only added risk is that Affinity can dump their hand very quickly, so don’t go overboard with discard spells when you’re on the draw.
Sweepers
Seeing the popularity of Affinity and Tokens on Magic Online set me on a search for a deck that could use Damnation or Wrath of God. With Jund being one of the format’s most popular decks, Modern players are forced to make their decks resilient to spot removal. Many sacrifice speed and mana efficiency in exchange for the board control and card advantage of creatures like Squadron Hawk and Ranger of Eos. A deck that can control creatures without engaging in grindy one-for-one battles is one that’s well-positioned in Modern.
Damnation and Wrath of God aren’t the only “sweepers” in the format though. Maelstrom Pulse is the type of card I just love to have in my deck, for a variety of reasons. As a “sweeper,” it’s a great answer to Squadron Hawk or Spectral Procession, which tend to be problem cards for B/G decks. In any given tournament, I’m glad to have protection from random cards like Sword of Feast and Famine, Threads of Disloyalty, and planeswalkers. Each one on their own is too obscure to actively prepare for, but having a catch-all that also serves as a solid removal spell is invaluable.
Finally, I need to give honorable mention to Grim Lavamancer. Quotations or no, it’s difficult for me to call him a “sweeper,” but he serves a similar role of keeping creature decks in check without the cost of multiple cards. He’s fragile, but the decks where you want him most—Merfolk, Caw-Blade, Tokens—are the ones that have the hardest time answering him.
Spot Removal
The last thing I was looking for in my Modern deck was spot removal. One could cite all of the reasons I listed for playing sweepers as reasons for not playing spot removal, and they’d be partially right. The fact, however, is that a good mix of both is best. Splinter Twin is out there in force, and that’s one matchup where I’d take Doom Blade over Damnation any day of the week. Even against ordinary decks, you can run into problems if you’re too low on spot removal.
Manlands and equipment make Wrath effects look silly, but they’re easily kept in check by even a small amount of instant-speed removal. Sometimes a turn 4 Damnation is too slow, as Affinity has the potential to end the game before that point, and something like a Dark Confidant can provide irreversible advantage if it’s not answered immediately. Perhaps the simplest reason of all, though, is that you don’t want to be too predictable. If all you have are sorcery sweepers, it’s easy for Fish players to leave up permission—or anyone else who knows what you’re up to—and play around your Wrath.
Also, the spot removal in Modern is just so good! Lightning Bolt and Path to Exile are timeless, reliable choices, and nobody ever complains about something as efficient as a Terminate. Good for the metagame or no, Liliana of the Veil is one of the most powerful cards in Modern, and becomes better and better as she’s supported by the proper mix of spot removal and sweepers.
Death Cloud
Creatures (10)
Planeswalkers (5)
Lands (21)
Spells (24)
I decided that I wanted plenty of discard spells, backed up by a mix of sweepers and spot removal. I turned to Death Cloud Rock. Death Cloud is my idea of the perfect Magic deck both in terms of quality and how fun it is to play. It has plenty of removal and disruption to interact with the opponent, but also has an immensely powerful late game and the ability to go over the top of whatever the other player is doing.
Against an ordinary creature deck like Jund, you need only survive until you can begin casting your Primal Commands and Grave Titans, and Damnation plus spot removal is the perfect way to do so. Tokens and tribal decks will be unable to overcome the sheer number of sweepers. Against combo decks, you can tear apart their hand with spot discard and let a single Liliana or Death Cloud lock them out of the game.
The hardest matchup for Death Cloud is dedicated blue control, but that’s hardly unwinnable either. All you want is discard, discard, discard because your late threats are so powerful that a single one can often decide the game.
Death Cloud is an amazing card in its own right; don’t make the mistake of thinking that it’s only good in combination with Garruk Wildspeaker. It’s also a great place to be in today’s Modern metagame. With the wide variety of creature strategies out there, it feels great to know you have a giant trump card that can end the game regardless of what the opponent is up to.
I had some good results with Death Cloud, and the deck showed potential, but when Friday night rolled around, I still wasn’t confident enough to run it in the next morning’s PTQ.
Doran
Creatures (24)
- 4 Dark Confidant
- 4 Tarmogoyf
- 3 Doran, the Siege Tower
- 4 Treefolk Harbinger
- 2 Kitchen Finks
- 3 Knight of the Reliquary
- 2 Qasali Pridemage
- 2 Spellskite
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (19)
Spells (15)
Sideboard
Playing a slow deck like Death Cloud in a wide open field is always scary. I could run up against something I’d overlooked and I might have almost no chance to win the match. However, something that maintained the aspects I liked about the deck while sporting a bit more aggressive potential could be great.
Doran Rock, or Junk, is yet another archetype that deserves to be revived now that Wild Nacatl no longer forces beatdown players into red. It still supports discard, Maelstrom Pulse, and spot removal, while also being able to clock well. It seems like the worst nightmare of Splinter Twin and control players.
The greatest thing about this color combination is how customizable it is. You can be as aggressive or controlling as you like. You can focus on ramping into three drops or curving out into them. You can build around Doran, the Siege Tower or Knight of the Reliquary, or you can simply choose the cards you like best for the deck.
Smi77y’s deck looks tight and well-tuned, and I certainly can’t argue with his strong finish. However, his build is not exactly the way I’d take things if I was the pilot. For lack of having a tested decklist, I’ll discuss the individual cards that draw me to this archetype.
Birds of Paradise / Noble Hierarch / Avacyn’s Pilgrim: These may be the best cards that aren’t seeing extensive play in Modern. Getting out to a quick start in a format like this is invaluable, and unlike Standard, these creatures are likely to live long enough to do their jobs. The most common removal spells in the format are cards like Path to Exile, Doom Blade, and Terminate, which are great for taking out Deceiver Exarchs at instant speed but not efficient enough to be good answers to mana dorks. Most importantly, including these lets you ramp straight to the three-drops, which are unbelievably powerful in these colors.
Knight of the Reliquary: Wild Nacatl and Knight of the Reliquary went hand-in-hand as the best creatures in old Modern—but only one of them got banned! Like Dark Confidant, Knight only needs to survive one turn before it’s sometimes too late. The difference is that she has great combat stats on her own and doesn’t die to Lightning Bolt (if you’re careful). Note the Arena in Smi77y’s sideboard, which lets Knight take out a Deceiver Exarch and generally dominates anyone who needs creatures to win the game.
Liliana of the Veil, Maelstrom Pulse, Kitchen Finks: Hopefully it’s already clear how much I love and respect these cards. It’s worth noting that Liliana achieves a whole new level of insanity when she comes down on turn 2. That’s fast enough to put extreme pressure on a combo player’s resources and too fast for traditional answers like Mana Leak and manlands to be reliable.
Baneslayer Angel: Another card that needs to find a home in Modern, and fast. No matter how well Tokens, Affinity, or tribal decks get going, a single Baneslayer can usually outclass their whole army. I feel that Baneslayer can be at her best in the W/G/B color combination because discard can strip removal spells, and Knight and Noble Hierarch can accelerate into her. Having a critical mass of must-answer fatties—Knight, Doran, Baneslayer—is a very reasonable way to beat Jund.
Reveillark, Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Angelic Overseer: For those who don’t like to gamble on a Baneslayer sticking, these are other ways to have excellent game against Jund. Note that Reveillark can return both Knight of the Reliquary and Doran, the Siege Tower from the graveyard, burying any opponent who wants to play a fair game with you.
Building and perfecting a W/G/B Aggro-Rock deck is the next project on my list. However, last Friday night, it wasn’t a new idea I needed—it was a tested and reliable deck. So I did what I always do when I’m stumped on a format and asked my cousin, Jaberwocki, what to do.
Jund
He told me that Jund was the best deck. All he did—all he needed to do—to support his claim was to start listing the cards in the deck: Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, Thoughtseize, Bloodbraid Elf, Liliana of the Veil, Lightning Bolt. In short, it plays five of the top ten cards in the format, or more depending on who you ask. Personally, I feel like the worst card in Jund is better than the best card in many of the decks seeing play in Modern! Jund plays at least five of the top ten cards in the format, and it does so without straining its mana or its game plan.
I scrambled to get all the advice I could from MTGO’s most accomplished Jund players, and came up with this list for the PTQ.
Creatures (15)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (24)
Spells (18)
Sideboard
Boy, was Jaberwocki right! All week I’d been fighting tooth and nail with other Modern decks for each and every win, but with Jund it felt easy. I rattled off wins against two Splinter Twin decks, Urzatron, U/B Delver, and three Jund mirrors to make the Top 8 of the PTQ.
I was pleased with my decklist and would only recommend a few minor changes. The Raging Ravine can be changed for an untapped land, and the Wurmcoil Engine in the sideboard, though it did win me one mirror match, probably isn’t worth the slot. The three-drops in Jund are all so good that I have trouble cutting any of them, but Maelstrom Pulse and Liliana of the Veil could be trimmed to fit more Kitchen Finks in the maindeck.
At the risk of losing my edge, I have to say that the secret to my success in the Jund mirror is that I always sideboard out the spot discard spells. As I previously noted, the value of Thoughtseize can change from format to format and matchup to matchup, and this is one where it’s a liability. First and foremost, the Jund mirror nearly always comes down to playing off the top of the deck, and in such a grindy attrition battle, drawing a dead Thoughtseize can easily mean the difference between winning and losing. They’re bad to cascade into, the life loss on Thoughtseize is painful, and they sometimes force you to play untapped shock lands or play your creatures off-tempo. While Terminate is a fine answer and directly impacts the board, Thoughtseize can only ever be a one-for-one with a card that the opponent hasn’t yet invested mana in.
I was thrilled with my Top 8 finish, but I feel that the tournament could have been winnable for me. My two losses, one in the Swiss and one in the Top 8, were both against U/W Caw-Blade decks. While certainly not easy, I feel that U/W is a fine matchup for Jund, and if I had known on Saturday what I now know about sideboarding for the matchup, maybe I could have won them both.
To the faithful readers who’ve made it this far, I’ll leave you with two things. The first is an endorsement for any of the three decks above, but for Jund most strongly of all. The second is for a sideboard idea to give Jund a leg up over the blue and white decks that seem to be picking up steam in Modern. Ignite Disorder is simply devastating against Faeries, Merfolk, and anything that plays Squadron Hawk or Spectral Procession. It can basically one-for-one with Procession or Hawk, which are two of the best cards against Jund, and it can do so while gaining significant tempo. It’s an instant, so it’s a perfect answer to pesky flash creatures like Vendilion Clique, Spellstutter Sprite, and Snapcaster Mage, as well as Faerie Conclave and Creeping Tar Pit. I’ll leave it to you to daydream about all of the scenarios where this card can be a blowout, but believe me when I say that an instant so powerful in terms of both card and tempo advantage can break open a close matchup like Jund vs. U/W. Use it well!