This will probably be the last update before the MC. I leave on Thursday and need to have the cards I want to play picked out by then. I'll be enjoying a hopefully relaxing time vacationing in Ireland the week before the event.
Since the Hunter Burton Tournament, I've been playing a huge variety of decks trying to figure out what I want to play. Two additional factors I've had to consider are the London Mulligan and the late change to having all decklists public (you will share your list with your opponent before playing from round 5 onward). While these factors certainly matter, I still think playtesting results should have the most weight.
Some decks I've tried:
Mono-white Death and Taxes with Tithe Taker - Tithe Taker is not a Modern playable card and actually hurt me in some games by preventing my opponent from making mistakes.
Black-white Eldrazi and Taxes with Kaya - This deck felt nice but I didn't think the black sideboard cards were anything to rave about. Kaya was solid and deserving of her spot in this archetype.
Red-green Eldrazi Aggro with Gruul Spellbreaker - I really enjoyed playing this deck. I hedged greatly vs Phoenix by playing Mizzium Mortars over Lightning Bolt, the full set of Scavenging Ooze, and several Domri Rade. Cavern of Souls is really bad but you can easily avoid playing it. This deck also benefits from London Mulligan (most TKS based decks will). In the end, Ancient Stirrings was just not quite strong enough at finding threats that matter in the late game (only 12 eldrazi creatures to find, and both Obligator and Reality Smasher are very situational) for me to want to commit.
Tron and Phoenix - I believe these will be the two most played decks. I played some leagues with each to get a feel. Tron has been my backup deck since day 1 and nothing changed from playing it. It benefits the most from the London Mulligan and doesn't lose a lot from known decklist. Phoenix was also very powerful but I'm a bit averse to needing to cast spells to hit land drops. Also the matches I lost my opponenter were very prepared and also knew exactly what I was doing and how to counter it. I could see this still being the deck to beat (especially the 4x Pyromancer Ascension version) but it isn't exactly my style so I'm staying away. This might be a mistake.
Infect - I spent quite a while trying to see if I could get Infect to a place where it could beat the expected field. Amulet and Tron were great matchups. Dredge felt solid. Phoenix was beatable with Wild Defiance. Unfortunately the Death's Shadow and Human matchup were very difficult. Added with a really awful matchup against Jund or BG Midrange I couldn't get myself to pull the trigger.
The deck I'll play
I'm going to just play the GW Hatebear deck again. I really liked its sideboard and its matchup against Tron and Phoenix. It might not gain much from the London Mulligan, but it does have some tilt equity when your opponent sees the list. The only matchups I'm concerned about are UW Control and Humans, but I think both are winable. I'm also not certain how much UW will be at the MC.
Now its time to shift focus to limited prepartion, which is going to invole a lot of studying the spoiler and some intense theory-crafting. Hopefully I'll be able to get a few games in next week on Arena before the event.
