Tom Koson: Modernizing After the Bans
Two weeks ago Wizards released the new Banned and Restricted Announcement. While Standard was heavily affected by these changes, Modern will also experience a shake-up.
With SCG Regionals (and the first Nerd Rage Gaming Championship Trial of the year) fast approaching, here’s what you need to know about how the banning of Golgari Grave-Troll and Gitaxian Probe will affect the format.
Golgari Grave-Troll has had a rocky history in Modern. Wizards has made it clear they don’t want Dredge to have a strong foothold in the format due to the non-interactive axis that graveyard-based decks play on. It isn’t surprising that when Dredge became a big player in the format again, Golgari Grave-Troll was the first card to get axed.
Gitaxian Probe was a much more interesting and unforeseen banning. It isn’t doing anything inherently broken on its own. However, the types of decks that tend to play it generally are doing broken things. Anyone could throw a playset of Gitaxian Probe into their Jund deck, but I certainly haven’t heard of anyone trying it.
Gitaxian Probe helps decks cycle through themselves faster, essentially making their deck 56 cards and increasing their chances of hitting a payoff spell. On top of that, Gitaxian Probe gives these decks information about their opponent’s hand, letting players know if they are safe to do whatever shenanigans they want to do.
I’d like to take a look at the decks that played these cards and see what ways they are hurt by the bannings, and whether or not they are still viable, as well as some changes I might make.
Golgari Grave-Troll Decks:
Dredge, by Caleb Scherer
1st Place, SCG Classic, 12/4/2016
There has been a lot of talk about replacing the set of Golgari Grave-Troll with a set of Golgari Thug in this deck. Not only is Golgari Thug a weaker standalone creature, but the jump from Dredge 6 to Dredge 4 is very detrimental to this deck. However, that is the best starting point I could see for anyone who wants to continue to play dredge; I would just be worried that other fast decks will have the edge now.
One point to make when considering this deck is if nobody is expecting to face it anymore, the amount of graveyard hate in sideboards is likely to decrease, allowing this deck to fly under the radar. I would still consider Dredge to be a serious contender in Modern. (Editor’s note: Dredge placed in the top 16 of last weekend’s SCG Classic.)
Gitaxian Probe Decks:
Death’s Shadow Aggro, by Brad Nelson
5th Place SCG Player’s Championship, 12/17/16
Death’s Shadow Aggro took advantage of Gitaxian Probe in a way not a lot of people might have expected when the card was first printed: the life loss. Gitaxian Probe was perfect in a deck such as this. It cycled through the deck, it lost life, and gave information about your opponent’s hand. It was everything Street Wraith wanted to be.
Losing Gitaxian Probe will take a lot of wind out of the sails of this deck. Some possible replacements may be Thoughtseize or Gut Shot, but no one can argue that the banning didn’t severely take this strategy a step in the wrong direction.
Storm, by Wesley See
5th Place, SCG Classic, 10/20/2016
Storm hasn’t been a Tier 1 strategy for quite some time now, but at the very least it deserves a nod as a deck that can occasionally make a splash. Losing Gitaxian Probe really hurts this deck. It makes cycling though your deck more difficult, it is harder to get a high enough storm count, and it loses the synergies it once had with Gitaxian Probe plus Pyromancer’s Ascension or Past in Flames. The most similar effect is Peek, but it costs a mana and is clumsy. This may be the nail in the coffin for Storm unless something new gets printed.
Infect, by Andrew Jessup
8th place, SCG Player’s Championship, 12/17/16
Infect losing Gitaxian Probe certainly isn’t ideal, but it seems to have taken the smallest hit of any deck in Modern that lost a card to the bannings. Infect wasn’t using Gitaxian Probe to make its Death’s Shadow bigger or to increase its storm count. Infect was using Gitaxian Probe to cycle through the deck, gain useful information about when to go for the kill, and, most importantly, add to delve for Become Immense. Losing this card is not great, but I have been working on a list that adjusts for this.
I would highly encourage giving my Infect primer that I wrote a few months ago a read. In that primer I talked about how I wasn’t a fan of Mutagenic Growth in Infect, but now it slots in ever so perfectly. Losing Gitaxian Probe means I can essentially take my old lists and swap the cards four for four, and then tweak some of the numbers. Here is what I have come up with:
The biggest decision I had to make was regarding my mix between Groundswell and Blossoming Defense. Both are great, but with four Mutagenic Growth, four Might of Old Krosa, four Vines of Vastwood and four Become Immense, I wanted a mix that gave me the most versatility. I decided on two Groundswell and two Blossoming Defense. Sometimes you want the hexproof but other times you want to push lethal damage across. Hopefully the Serum Visions can smooth out draws.
Also, I don’t see Rancor having a home in any Infect lists anymore with all of the quality pump spells that have come out recently. This style of Infect is very much an all-in strategy, but the deck is still versatile enough to be able to nickle and dime opponents, squeaking a win out over the course of three or four turns.
This is the list I will be taking to SCG Regionals in a couple weeks, except for any last-minute changes I decide on. Infect is still a strong choice in Modern, but only time will tell if Midrange and Control decks will reign supreme once more. I have a feeling the changes will probably just mean Burn and Affinity will be better. Bant Eldrazi may be the deck to be playing right now.
Overall I’m a fan of the changes that have been made to Modern. The format seems to be a bit more balanced again. It is still early on and not many results have come in yet, but the weakening of Dredge, Death’s Shadow Aggro, and Infect will give slower strategies a chance to shine.
Tom Koson is an up-and-coming grinder from Missouri who has been playing Magic since Return to Ravnica. He has made a name for himself with notable finishes such as making Top 8 of WMCQs and RPTQs, and he won SCG Standard and Modern States on back-to-back days in the spring of 2016. He prefers tempo and combo decks, but enjoys playing many different archetypes.
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