In Contention #52 – Top 10 Modern Cards

This week, Sam, Kranny and Reuben discuss the top 10 most influential cards for the current Modern format.

Follow us on twitter at @inconention

Sam at @samstod
Kranny at @kstube
Reuben at @badcorehardass

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In Contention #51

Kranny and Sam discuss the update to the Modern format, and what it will look like.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In Contention ‘Bonus’ Gencon episode

We recorded an episode about Gen Con, FTV: Legends, and Modern mere hours before the PT: Philly and the banned/restricted announcement game out, making most of the modern talk obsolete. Still, there was some good discussion, so we posted it as is.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Cube Draft Walkthrough with Kyle Engleson

Hello! My name is Kyle Engleson, a compulsive cube drafter and enthusiast, and earlier this week on Twitter I asked if there would be any interest in a cube draft walkthrough. Thankfully, the interest was there and Kranny offered to host the article.

The cube used in this draft is 540 cards, built to support 12 players, but regularly hosting 6-8. I like the additional flexibility the larger cube size has over a 360 card cube. Today we did a team draft, with teams chosen at random after the draft. For this draft we tried something new. We implemented the “1 Planeswalker per drafter” rule, meaning we separated all of the Planeswalkers, made 44 card stacks, and then shuffled one Planeswalker into each. That way, players won’t automatically know where their Planeswalker is, and everyone is guaranteed to open at least one. I’m not sure if we’ll keep the method, but we wanted to try it out. My cube list can be found here.

Pack 1 – Pick 1

Aeon Chronicler Student of Warfare Soltari Priest Chandra Nalaar Decree of Pain Orzhov Basilica Contested War Zone Tectonic Edge Lotus Cobra Profane Command Hypnotic Specter Grave Titan Daze Kagemaro, First to Suffer Mystifying Maze

In Contention Deck Tech: Post and Nail for Modern

In Contention Deck Tech: Post and Nail for Modern

By: Kranny

The Magic community is abuzz with discussion on the up-and-coming Modern format. Without so much as a single tournament to draw results on and a vastly different card pool than Legacy and Extended, the format is just about as wide open as it could possibly be. In our last couple blog posts, Sam and Reuben explored Gifts Control and Exarch Combo, but I’m more interested in resolving 7 mana spells. The two decks I have my eye on are Ideal and Tooth and Nail. In this post I’m going to go over a few different builds of Tooth and Nail that I’ll be throwing against the gauntlet and my thoughts on how it might fare in the new format.

When building around a card that has already seen tournament play, it’s a good idea to benchmark against previous decks. In this case, however, I don’t believe previous tournament results are going to be very useful. The tournament data is nearly 8 years old – from a time when Affinity was the deck to beat – our card pool is about five times as large, and our kill conditions and acceleration will look completely different. The only real similarity is the fact we’re looking to resolve a big spell as early as we possibly can. On the other hand, I think it’s important to look at the lists to understand the number of Tooth targets, accelerants, and Wrath/removal effects. That being said, let’s look at the core components of our Ideal Tooth list.

Post and Nail Deck Components

4 Tooth and Nail

Seems reasonable enough. We don’t have access to any good tutor effects, so running any less than four of our deck’s namesake is just cutting corners.

The Creatures

When Tooth was still in Standard and Extended, it ran a number of kill conditions:

Triskelion + Mephidross Vampire

Sundering Titan + Darksteel Colossus

Yosei, the Morning Star + Yosei, the Morning Star

Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Anything

There were a few other configurations, but this should give you a good idea of what the deck has had access to in the past. In most cases, 5-6 good Tooth targets were ideal. So what has changed?

The first thing we need to remember is that we want to win as soon as we resolve our Tooth and Nail. This means cute stuff like Trike + Vampire or double Yoseis probably isn’t going to be good enough. I believe Sundering Titan and Kiki-Jiki still have a place in the deck, but I think we’re looking at an entirely new school of win conditions this time around.

Iona, Shield of Emeria + Painter’s Servant

Blightsteel Colossus + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

Pestermite/Sky Hussar + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn + Mountain Goat (does it really matter?)

Our new plan is to either completely lock our opponent out of casting spells the rest of the game, poison them with a giant Colossus, or attack for a billion damage with Hussar/Pestermite tokens. It’s pretty safe to say that if we resolve our Tooth, our opponent isn’t going to have much of a shot of winning the game. The number and type of kill conditions we play should not be affected by the colors our decks play, but it’s always nice to be able to hard cast them should we get our Tooths Extirpated or Thoughtseized away.

The Mana Engine

There used to be two schools of thought on the best way to power out Tooth. You were either on Team Urzatron or Team Cloudpost. Lucky for us, we have 4 more Loci in the format which makes our decision pretty easy. I believe the 12-post shell is the best way to go for this deck. Not only do we have a way to consistently power out early Tooths, but we can randomly cast our Blightsteels and Emrakuls with relative ease. The ideal manabase should start with:

4 Cloudpost

4 Glimmerpost

4 Vesuva

Depending on the build, we can fill in the blanks with the necessary number of fixing to power out the rest of our spells. Many lists used to run Kodama’s Reach, Sakura Tribe Elder, Reap and Sow, and Sylvan Scrying. Nowadays we have a few more tools added to our arsenal like Tolaria West, Expedition Map and the ever powerful Primeval Titan which make finding our posts much easier. I believe we should use some number of fixers and land tutors to ensure we hit the necessary post pieces and fixing for our utility spells.

Stayin’ Alive

The modern format has a TON of Wrath effects and other various ways to stay alive. Here’s a short list of some possibilities:

All is Dust

Wrath of God / Day of Judgement / Damnation

Engineered Explosives

Oblivion Stone

Firespout / Pyroclasm

Gideon Jura

Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Pollen Lullaby / Fog Effects

Here’s where not having a format to build for is going to hurt us. If the format is packed full of aggro decks, then we might want to build to be able to run Firespout, Explosives, or a 4cc Wrath. If the format is a Planeswalker-fest, then All is Dust / O-Stone might be better. At this point we can really only theorize on what decks will be good, so I don’t believe there is a right configuration just yet, but it’s good to know we have options.

Protecting the Combo / Forcing the Combo

Traditionally Tooth has done a pretty poor job of forcing the combo through. Occasionally you might see list sporting an off Counterspell or discard, but Tooth is a pretty big tapout deck and doesn’t usually have mana available when it’s going for the kill. Here are some options:

Boseiju, Who Shelters All

Thoughtseize / Inquisition / Duress

Silence

Remand / Spell Snare / Condescend

Land Destruction

The list is pretty weak, isn’t it? Boseiju is pretty good, but when you’re trying to resolve a 9-mana spell, there just isn’t room for spells on the turn you’re going off. With this deck you should only have to resolve 1-2 of your big spells in order for you to win. With so few hard counters in the format, true control decks will have a tought time doing this. That being said, I think we’ll have some good SB options for decks which might give us trouble in resolving our spells.

Other Interesting Cards

This deck has access to a LOT of mana very early one which means we can play cards which we wouldn’t dream of trying to hard cast in other decks.

Duplicant

Karn, Liberated

Mindslaver

Platinum Angel

Phyrexian Metamorph

Platinum Emperion

Terastodon

We will definitely want some number of these between the maindeck and sideboard, but we can tweak the numbers based on what kind of meta we can expect.

The Decks

Almost Mono Green Post and Nail

Creatures 4 Primeval Titan 1 Terastodon 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria 1 Painters Servant 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn 4 Wall of Roots 4 Overgrown Battlement Spells 4 Tooth and Nail 1 Karn, Liberated 2 Garruk Wildspeaker 4 Reap and Sow 2 Expedition Map 3 Harmonize 3 All is Dust Land 4 Glimmerpost 4 Cloudpost 4 Vesuva 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All 6 Forest 1 Eye of Ugin 4 Horizon Canopy Sideboard 1 Platinum Emperion 1 Duplicant 1 Sundering Titan 1 All is Dust 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All 3 Dismember 3 Krosan Grip 4 Chalice of the Void

This is a pretty straightforward mono green list. It’s built to power out Titans early and then follow it up with the Iona + Painter lock or simply just hardcasting Emrakul. This list should be able to beat most aggro and mid-range decks, but combo is going to be an uphill battle. Until we see which decks are at the top of the heap, we can only theorize on sideboard slots.

U/G Post and Nail

Creatures 3 Trinket Mage 2 Primeval Titan 1 Kiki-Jiki Mirror Breaker 1 Blightsteel Colossus 2 Pestermite Spells 4 Tooth and Nail 4 Preordain 2 Ponder 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 3 Expedition Map 2 Engineered Explosives 4 Simic Signet 1 Chalice of the Void 2 Oblivion Stone 1 All is Dust Land 4 Cloudpost 4 Glimmerpost 4 Vesuva 4 Breeding Pool 3 Misty Rainforest 3 Forest 2 Island 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All Sideboard 3 Echoing Truth 4 Mental Misstep 3 Chalice of the Void 1 Duplicant 2 Krosan Grip 1 Academy Ruins 1 Platinum Emperion

This list is a little slower but with a few more tricks if it can’t stick the combo. The sideboard is much better suited to fight combo decks, though it loses some of the tools to stave off aggro beatings, namely the Walls.

I will be testing this list with the rest of the In Contention team over the next few weeks as we gear up for some more video features and other articles on the modern format. After it’s been tuned, I will provide more commentary on how the list performs, sideboarding strategies, and other various builds. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the comments section, and thanks for reading!

-Kranny

@kstube on Twitter

Modern Times #1 – Twin and Win

Modern Times #1 – Twin and Win

By Reuben Bresler

In my early attempts to discover what the future of Modern will look like, I first wanted to look at the possibilities of combo. There hasn’t been a combo deck in Standard since Alan Comer’s Distant Melody Elves, and combo in Legacy is a completely different animal with free counterspells like Force of Will and Daze lurking around every Island. The only free counterspells in Modern (that I can think of) are Disrupting Shoal, Mental Misstep and Mindbreak Trap. I believe this will make combo a much more attractive option.

Of all of the combo decks I have played in large events, I have had the most success with two-card combo such as Painter’s Grindstone. Luckily, there are more than a few options in that category.

There’s no shortage of two-card combos in Modern. First there’s Vampire Hexmage and… oh, Dark Depths is banned? No matter, there’s still Thopter Foundry and… oh, Sword of the Meek is banned too? Huh. That’s a problem.

In addition, there are no really good tutors in Modern. The only serviceable ones are Infernal Tutor, cards with Transmute and… that’s about it. The fact that the only good tutors in Modern are really clunky 2- and 3-mana sorceries makes them very unattractive to me. Cards like Ponder and Preordain are a lot better cards in a vacuum, but just because you have them doesn’t mean they’re going to get you there every time. This means that a lot of redundancy is going to be needed to reliably get to any combo.

Which brings us to our deck, which doesn’t just have redundancy.

It has redundant redundancy.

Double Twin

SPELLS 4 Deceiver Exarch 4 Pestermite 4 Spellskite 3 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker 2 Reveillark 4 Splinter Twin 4 Ponder 4 Preordain 4 Condescend 3 Mental Misstep 3 Thirst for Knowledge LAND 4 Cascade Bluffs 4 Scalding Tarn 3 Misty Rainforest 3 Island 3 Mountain 3 Steam Vents 1 Hallowed Fountain 1 Sacred Foundry

Look at all that delicious redundancy!

What we have here is Deceiver Exarch/Splinter Twin, a combo from the current Zendikar and Scars of Mirrodin block Standard environment, and Pestermite/Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, an Extended combo from a deck affectionately know as ‘Pestermite Get There.’ The beautiful thing is that both pieces are interchangeable, doubling the odds of drawing either half of the combo.

Obviously, this deck runs Ponder and Preordain. Not as obvious is Thirst for Knowledge and Remand, which perform different tasks as well as dig into the combo pieces. Remand gives us an early Counterspell that replaces itself (it’s possibly that Condescend would work here as well, digging deeper into our deck but not replacing itself). Thirst for Knowledge is not only to draw deep into our deck at instant speed, it allows us to put and of the creatures into the graveyard… for our 2-of, Reveillark. If the game goes long and our opponents have a lot of answers, Reveillark is a great late game parity breaker that can also win the game right then and there.

Sideboard options are varied. It is likely that Spell Snares go in to fight scary 2-drops like Stoneforge Mystic,  Bitterblossom, Gaddock Teeg and Dark Confidant (and opposing Spellskites). Gigadrowse or Reality Ripple are good ways to tap down mana that could stop the combo as well as holding off aggressive creatures. Depeding on the type of aggro decks, Pyroclasm, Slagstorm, Firespout or Volcanic Fallout are all options, as well as targeted elimination like Lightning Bolt and Path to Exile. Mindbreak Trap will be very good for dealing with Storm decks and Elves, which are likely to pop up.

Chalice of the Void is a very interesting option as well, since it would shut off many troublesome spells like Thoughtseize, Surgical Extraction, Path to Exile, Inquisition of Kozilek, Despise, Pithing Needle and most importantly the Split Second spell Extirpate. In fact, many of the worst cards for us cost 1 mana. Even things like Nature’s Claim or Lightning Bolt would throw us off course. This, of course, makes our Ponders and Preordains really bad, but it’s worth thinking about.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this first foray into Modern. Tune in for the next ‘Modern Times,’ when I discuss another combo possibility: Dragonstorm.

Until then, stay in contention.

Reubs

@BadcoreHardass on Twitter

Gifts Rock in Modern – First Draft

Gifts Ungiven is a card that has fallen out of favor in recent years. When Champions of Kamigawa came out, it was thought of as one of the best cards in the set, and had a large impact on standard, extended, and vintage. Nowadays, though, it’s a $3 rare most often seen in EDH cube. I hope Modern can change that, because this card deserves to its rightful place as one of the best engine-enablers ever printed.

The first deck I decided to experiment with was Gifts Rock. This is a deck that was quite popular about five-years ago in extended, and it used Gifts Ungiven to fill the graveyard up with powerful cards, and then use them to gain incremental card advantage turn after turn. Getting Genesis seems kind of quaint now, as the engine cards we have are even better than before. Imagine, against an aggro deck, getting this package:

Punishing Fire
Grove of the Burnwillows
Worm Harvest
Life from the Loam

It isn’t the fastest in the world, but you will be able to grind out most creatures-based strategies.

Against control decks, you can get this package:

Life from the Loam
Raven’s Crime
Worm Harvest
Tectonic Edge

Assuming you can hit your 5th land drop, you get to Raven’s Crime and Tectonic Edge them each turn, until they are out of cards or lands.

The biggest problem for the deck is combo. Assuming you are still alive, you have to go for the same package as above, and just start Raven’s Criming them until you run them out of cards.

I also knew that I wanted to play a deck with Engineered Explosives. After working on my mana base, it was also quickly clear that I would be able to support a few Shackles, which is one of the most underrated cards in the format right now. The card is amazing, and you can expect to see a lot of it when the format is finally being played en-mass.

I call this a draft version, because I know it isn’t close to finished, but I wanted to get a general idea of what the deck would look like, play it a few times and figure out what had to change. Here is what I tested on MTGO:

Gifts Rock Draft -1

Engine Spells:11

3 Gifts Ungiven
1 Raven’s Crime
4 Punishing Fire

1 Worm Harvest
2 Life from the Loam

Awesome Spells:11

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Thoughtseize
2 Vedalken Shackles

Creatures: 11

4 Sakura-Tribe Elders
3 Eternal Witness
4 Tarmogoyf

Lands:27

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Overgrown Tombs
1 Watery Graves
1 Mouth of Ronom
1 Stomping Ground
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Breeding Pool
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Academy Ruins
3 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Forest

Sideboard

2 Engineered Explosives
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Worm Harvest
2 Raven’s Crime
2 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Damnation
3 Kitchen Finks

After board, you get Grudge to deal with Stoneforge Mystic decks, extra Crimes to help out against combo (when you NEED to be able to empty their hand very quickly) and your deck is just chalk-full of ways to deal with aggro. Probably too many ways.

This is definitely a work in progress, but I like the general idea of it, and I was happy with it’s performance, though it became obvious in my games that I am going to need more black mana. Boarding into Damnation is powerful, but in many games I ended up struggling to get BB, and I also had problems Raven’s Criming more than twice a turn. It pretty much wiped the floor with aggro strategies, though Goyf and Knight of the Reliquary are hard to deal with. You can kill them, but it isn’t easy, and a lot of the Knight decks are running one Bog which can ruin your day.

I also think I am running too many colorless lands. I like the Edge, and I like the Ruins, but the Mouth is probably too much. By the time it comes online, it’s just not able to kill the creatures you need it to kill. There are plenty of ways that I feel that this deck can evolve, and I’m going to be banging them around over the next week to see which one proves to be the strongest.

Goals for the next draft of the deck:

1 – Figure out a way to better smooth out the mana base to allow for Damnation and Raven’s Crime to have a bigger impact earlier in the game
2- Improve the combo matchup
3-Figure out a way to incorporate Malestrom Pulse
4- Work to improve the creature suite.

In Contention Videocast #5 – 1v1 Winchester Cube Draft

In this videocast Reubs and Kranny explore a format that has become increasingly popular over the last few months: Winchester!