Modern Prepartion Part 1

It's been a while since I've focused on Modern. I played in the Modern SCG Classic in DFW, but that was largely a meme deck with no real preparation. I've had my ManaTraders account in vacation mode since the RPTQ in December, playing exclusively on Arena in the meantime.

Recently they announced that the Mythic Championship in London will be Modern. Since it won't use the new cards, and I'd be stunned at any additional bannigs after the KCI banning, the format today is what will be played. One interesting wrinkle is the experimental mulligan being used. I'm still doing some thinking about what that means, and I have yet to reach any conclusion. Not being able to use it on MTGO will probably make it take longer to get a consensus.

I have about eight weeks before I leave for London. I'm leaving a week early, but won't be bringing many cards since it is a huge hassle so I hope to have my deck locked in by the time I leave. I'm not sure how many parts this blog will have for prep but I'll write them as I go.

I'm going to use the first week mostly for decks I don't believe to be very good but that I would like to try out just to get it out of my system. Last night I played two leagues. This first league I played a UB Spirits list to a 2-3 record. I beat Humans and Eldrazi Tron. I lost to Bant Spirits, Zoo, and Mardu Humans. Here is the list I played:

4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Plagued Rusalka
4 Supreme Phantom
4 Bloodghast
4 Nether Traitor
4 Metallic Mimic

3 Smuggler's Copter
4 Lingering Souls
3 Collective Brutality
1 Fatal Push
1 Liliana of the Veil

4 Aether vial

4 Darkslick Shores
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
4 Polluted Delta
4 Marsh Flats
1 Godless Shrine
2 Swamp
1 island
1 Watery Grave
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Sunken Ruins

Sideboard
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Thoughtseize
2 Disdainful Stroke
2 Damping Sphere
2 Bitterblossom
2 Fatal Push


There is a lot of interesting synergies I discovered when looking at Spirits in other colors besides Blue and White. A lot of this overlaps nicely with the Black Zombies lists I've seen pop up and always wanted to try but never had a chance to. My big takeaway is that most of the creatures in this deck are bad. The spells were niceish. The Mardu Humans opponent seemed to be doing a lot of what I was doing except cheaper and better.


The next league I played UBg Mill:

1 Breeding Pool
2 Darkslick Shores
3 Field of Ruin
1 Forest
3 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 Polluted Delta
2 Shelldock Isle
2 Swamp
1 Watery Grave

4 Archive Trap
3 Assassin's Trophy
2 Crypt Incursion
2 Fatal Push
3 Mission Briefing
1 Murderous Cut
3 Surgical Extraction
4 Visions of Beyond
2 Collective Brutality
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
2 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Mesmeric Orb

4 Hedron Crab

Sideboard
1 Bontu's Last Reckoning
2 Collective Brutality
1 Crypt Incursion
1 Damnation
1 Dismember
2 Extirpate
1 Fatal Push
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Nature's Claim
1 Surgical Extraction


I went 0-3 with this deck, losing to Red Phoenix, Harden Scales, and BW Eldrazi and Taxes. Some of those are likely awful matchups (lol at Crab vs Phoenix, or Archive Trap vs Leonin Arbiter). That said, I was not impressed at all with this deck. The one stregnth I think Mill has in any format is being a functional Burn deck where you just need to draw enough Mill spells before they can kill you. This decks didn't seem to run nearly enough, instead clogged up my hands with mediocre removal spells and actual do nothings like Surgical Extraction. When I first started playing I thought Assassin's Trophy was a must on the search that would enable Archive Trap like Feild of Ruin, but once I discovered this was not the case I declared the green splash to be unplayable (I'd already had some issues with drawing the Forest). I'd stay away from this deck, or at least if you want to play Mill keep it two colors and have more actual Mill cards.


That's all for now. Unsure what's next.
-Ty