Mat Bimonte: Spicing Up Modern
“Modern is so boring. There are only two decks”
Yea, yea, yea. I get it, and actually advocate that if you want
to win a Modern tournament, you should likely be playing Dredge or Infect. But I know Modern a good deal, and you loyal readers are probably like most Modern players, and will play either:
A) What you own
Or
B) Your pet deck (which could be what you own)
I won’t fault you there; Magic is expensive, and it meant to be fun, so more power to you. I’m in a fortunate spot of owning a fair amount of cards, as well as being able to borrow things from local players for any given tournament, so the world is my oyster.
Shucking that oyster is fun sometimes, as you can see with the deck I played a few weeks ago at a Modern Open in Milwaukee.
Finishing the cycle of “fast lands” is a huge deal for Modern, and I think we are just scratching the surface here on how powerful they are.
Anyways, back to the deck. I have tons of reps with Burn in Modern, and this is a Burn deck in essence, but with much more evasion, lining up better with the format. We are able to race every deck in the format, including Burn, Dredge, and Affinity. Most of that is leveraged by our powerful 12 removal spells.
The best card in the deck by a ton is Vapor Snag. I can’t even begin to explain how big of a tempo swing this card is. Against decks playing mana creatures you are able to outpace them very quickly, and against aggressive decks removing their threats buys you a ton of time as you make it to the mid game.
In the Milwaukee tournament I actually played against nine unique archetypes, which is kind of crazy. I felt advantaged against every single deck I played against minus game 1 against Dredge (which is still winnable). My results were:
Round 1: Death Shadow Aggro 2-0
Round 2: G/R Tron 1-2 (Lost to myself in sideboarding)
Round 3: Bant Eldrazi 2-0
Round 4: Affinity 2-0
Round 5: Jeskai Control 2-1
Round 6: Mardu 2-1
Round 7: Infect (Caleb Scherer) 2-0
Round 8: Dredge 0-2
Round 9: Burn 1-2
That put me to a sad 6-3 record. I also managed to go an amazing 1-8 in die rolls which seems important while playing an aggro deck. The matchups where I went 2-0 I felt like there was zero chance to lose a single game. The tempo plays are backbreaking with a significant clock, and being able to recast them with Snapcaster Mage is just absurd.
Being a little more fortunate against Dredge and Burn, and not messing up sideboarding against Tron, I felt like I could have been 9-0 or 8-1. I would also change some things in the sideboard, but we will get to that.
Now, looking at the deck I played, I was happy to see that some of the Meta Game Guru players decided it was worth a look. They made a few changes to the deck, most notably -4 Serum Visions +4 Goblin Guide to give the deck a more aggressive slant, while changing the mana base so they could reliably cast Goblin Guide on 1. They also removed a Twisted Image for an additional land, and I think it could be correct to remove the other Twisted Image for a 20th land even. Here is their take on the deck:
I actually really enjoy going from 2 to 4 Spell Pierce in the sideboard and it is a change I would also make in playing the deck in the future. Jeskai Control felt a little difficult, so being able to counter their removal seems like a big deal. You’ll also note that I lost to Tron. Typically Blue decks are great at beating Tron decks, but this is a Red deck. Adding counterspells and the two Geist of Saint Trafts seems excellent in both of these matchups when you are able to force them through most of the time.
My loss to Dredge was a tough one. I mulliganed to 6 in game 1, which is the hardest of the games for Jeskai Aggro to win in this particular matchup. Post board we move up to 3 Surgical Extraction (the best hate card against Dredge) and the 4 Snapcasters to cast them again for “free”. It is important to note that Bloodghast and Narcomoeba are the priority targets. If you are fortunate enough to hit both of those cards, and are healthy enough, feel free to hit other things, but those are the premium targets.The few other subtle differences between our sideboards are:
Gut Shot over Blessed Alliance
Smash to Smithereens over Wear/Tear
I’m not really sure that Gut Shot is a necessity. Playing
against Affinity and Infect where this card shines felt like a bye on my side of the table. We have access to way too much removal and flying bodies for Infect to deal with, and the same can be said about Affinity. Mantis Rider playing offense/defense is incredible here also.
Having Blessed Alliance is good for matchups such as Burn and Eldrazi as a clean answer, as well as a way to gain life. It also notably gets around Vines of Vastwood and Blossoming Defense on the Infect side of the table, huge blowout. I would give the nod to Blessed Alliance in this slot.
Smash to Smithereens is an interesting one. We discussed this as it’s fairly obvious. It kills your opponent while also shattering their things. The tipping point for us was having some outs to Daybreak Coronet if we ran into Bogles. Blessed Alliance is another nod in that direction. If you don’t care about losing to Bogles, I think Smash is an easy choice.
Deflecting Palm is another crazy card in Burn mirrors, against giant creatures, and Infect but you have to cut somewhere to make room for more Spell Pierce, and Geist. I would have to see how good your matchup is against Infect while removing this card, but I imagine it is still favorable.
My sideboard would look something like this if I had an event tomorrow:
4 Spell Pierce
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Wear/Tear
2 Path to Exile
2 Geist of Saint Traft (or 1/1 split with Vendilion Clique, which might be too hard to cast reliably)
If you are looking to break the monotony of Modern from the “tiered” decks, I would highly recommend this for your next event. Make sure as always to get repetition in as some of the sequencing is odd, and holding Mutagenic Growth seems counterintuitive at times. This deck in its infancy, and has a lot of room to grow. If you have any suggestions for the deck or want to chat about it, leave me a comment here, or get in touch with me via Facebook and Twitter.
Bonus decklist: U/B Control
“Standard is so boring. There are only two decks”
Trust me, I get that, too. But maybe the answer is you’ve conceded that these decks aren’t worth trying to brew against. I played about as much Standard as anyone in the weeks leading up to the invitational. While I wasn’t able to attend, it’s always good to stay in tune with the game and help my friends build the best possible deck they can. I tested numerous decks, including the Big 3, which I went over a week ago. We also came to a bit of a brew which we thought would be good in the metagame, which I’ll share here:
While I think a deck like this could have legs, I’m not sure this is the correct configuration. Keep your eyes open. This was on my short list of decks I would’ve been tuning/testing for the Invitational alongside W/U Flash as my frontrunners for the tournament.
Thanks for stopping by,
Mat Bimonte
Mat Bimonte first picked up the game during Theros block, but already has a Modern 5K championship under his belt, as well as a number of smaller Standard tournament wins. Based out of Bloomington, Ill., Mat is a regular on the SCG Tour, with future aspirations of qualifying for the Pro Tour.
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