Merfolk at Modern RCQ *1st Place*

I haven't played any RCQs at all before this past weekend. I don't have high hopes for the future of competitive Magic, and most of my gaming time been spent playing Old School or Premodern / Middle School. I've always loved Merfolk though, and with the new Voldalian Hexcatcher I thought I'd take it for a spin at the local event at The Bearded Dragon. I didn't have any expectations, but I ended up winning.

Decklist

Deck photo is off by two cards, text list is the correct version

1 Cursecatcher

1 Rishadan Dockhand

1 Mistcaller

4 Tide Shaper

4 Silvergil Adept

4 Lord of Atlantis

4 Master of the Pearl Trident

4 Merfolk Trickster

4 Vodalian Hexcatcher

4 Svyelun of Sea and Sky

1 Sublety

4 Aether Vial

4 Force of Negation

4 Mutavault

2 Cavern of Souls

1 Waterlogged Grove

2 Otawara, Soaring City

1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge

9 Island

1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds

Sideboard

1 Counterspell

1 Chalice of the Void

1 Grafdigger's Cage

3 Dismember

2 Relic of Progenitus

2 Subtlety

2 Kira, Great Glass Spinner

1 Unlicensed Hearse

2 Spreading Seas

The only things I knew for sure was that I wanted maximum number of lords and Force of Negation. With 12 lords, and Hexcatcher in particular, I wanted additional one-drops. I couldn't decide between the three different one drops which was strongest and ended up with the sampler platter. Way more important that they cost one than anything else. Mistcaller is strong against Living End, Creativity, and Glimpse with some utility against Yawgmoth, but is blank against everything else. Cursecatcher can help protect Svyelun but ends up being redundant with Hexcatcher. Both of those are weak to Wrenn and Six, which is the main draw to Rishadan Dockhand. 

I've always loved Force of Negation, and I've been skeptical of Subtlety but didn't have a ton of experience. After playing, I'm higher on Subtlety and lower on Force. You probably want 4 of each somewhere in the 75. The only other card I'd consider for maindeck is Dismember. I really want to maximize the clock in game one and adjust for game two.

Sideboard is fine, there are a lot of cards that can't ever be bad. I don't like Chalice at all but I figure one is probably worth playing against cascade decks. Kira was good against Fury but so would more Subtlety. The last card I cut was a Cursed Totem for the Counterspell, but I'm not sure either is necessary. Hearse never came up but I'm pretty sure Relic is almost always better. I'd like to play a third or fourth Seas in the board for Rakdos but maybe that is just "Nice to Have" and not enough impact.

Match Results

Round 1 - Mono Green Pelt Collector Aggro

This deck included Pelt Collector, Avatar of Resolute, Endurance, Dryad Militant

Game one he only has one creature and I have Svyelun and then Tideshaper plus islandwalk. Game two he hits me for 6 with Groundbreaker when I didn't leave up Trickster mana, but his follow up was two Feed the Clan that did nothing.

1-0

Round 2 - Izzet Murktide

Game one I play turn one Vial turn two Adept. He had turn one Ragavan turn two Bolt but didn't find second land. Vial let's me double creature and he never really in the game with only one land. Game two I have turn one Relic. Cavern on Merfolk let me deploy my threats around his counters while his Dragon's Rage Channeler is only doing 1 a turn. Eventually he has Explosives for two but I use Hexcatcher to keep him off two mana to activate and attack him down to 3. It takes a few turns after he pops Explosives before I can get island walker down for my Mutavault but I'm patient with Cavern and eventually kill him and he has a dead Archmage's Charm.

2-0

Round 3 - Merfolk

Merfolk mirror is the worst. Usually whoever plays first or has a one-drop ends up winning. He wins the die roll. Game one he has Dockhand Master Lord of Atlantis. I have Tideshaper Silvergil and then Trickster in upkeep when he tries to tap land. I follow up with another one drop in Dockhand and I'm winning the race. Turn four I have UUUU for two lords and kill him even through his Subtlety. Game two we both have Vial I have no island though. I turn his Mutavault into island and easily won with with double Master and double Mutavault while he can't islandwalk.

3-0

Round 4 - Grixis Death's Shadow

Game one I'm on the play with Vial. His discard doesn't disrupt me enough as I have plenty of creatures and Trickster for his only creature of Death's Shadow and he's too low from attempting to get Shadow online. Game two he has Ragavan Shredder Tideshaper and DRC and removal for all my creatures. Game three I keep hand of three Trickster, Subtlety, three blue land. He plays Thoughtsieze on turn two and takes a Trickster. I play Trickster EOT and he plays Mystical Dispute. I untap and draw Svyelun. He doesn't have the answer right away, just Ledger Shredder and Bauble to put a counter on it. I attack on my turn and he blocks but the card I drew was Hexcatcher and he's too far behind to recover. He attempts to Drown in the Lock my Master on his turn but forgot about Ward and concedes.

4-0

I'm able to draw twice to secure the top 8.

4-0-2

Standings after Swiss - 

1st - Gruul Ponza

2nd - Living End

3rd - Izzet Murktide

4th - Merfolk

5th - Goblins

6th - Izzet Murktide

7th - Temur Scapeshift

8th - Azorius Control (with domain for Leyline Binding)

Quarterfinals - Goblins

I'm on the play game one and lead with Tideshaper. He plays a tapped Blood Crypt, which my second Tideshaper turn into an Island. His only follow up is Rundvelt Hordemaster. I attack for 4 and play Svyelun. He doesn't have third land and only manages Stingscourger on my God. On my turn I have Lord of Atlantis and attack with Mutavault for 10 total. He fails to draw a land and I win. Game two I'm on the draw but have turn one Vial. He only has turn one Den of Bugbear into Mountain plus Snoop. Snoop shows Vial on top so I take a turn off to play Silvergil Adept instead of Dismember. He reveals Harbinger on turn three but doesn't have the black mana to kill me. I then get the opportunity to play but Lord of Atlantis and Dismember plus Vial in a Lord of Atlantis. All he can do is evoke Fury to kill one Lord but it's not enough

5-0-2

Semifinals - Gruul Ponza

Game one is the best and closest game I played all day. He's only got one land with Arbor Elf and Utopia Sprawl. I buy some time with Trickster and then play Svyelun. He finallys finds a fetch and plays Glorybringer but Ward and Indestructible turn it into just a clock. He finds Wrenn and Six to recur his fetch and has Seasoned Pyromancer to block my beats. However, my Svyelun is drawing me just enough to stay in it. I have Force of Negation for his Blood Moon that would stop my Mutavault. I have Tideshaper to keep is mana down. He sticks a Fury to kill my lords while he's beating down with Glorybringer. I still have enough pressure and I'm drawing cards. Eventually he tries a Chandra which I have second Force of Negation. He then doesn't attack but I've draw Trickster and despite his flash Endurance, my alpha strike with two Mutavault and three other creatures is enough to force through the final 3 points of damage after he took 4 from having to fetch four times. Game two I have turn two Tideshaper to disrupt his Utopia Sprawl but he follows up with Blood Moon. I have three Island plus Aether Vial so I'm still in business. He plays Seasoned Pyromancer and I deploy Hexcatcher and Master. My hand is two Dismember plus Otawara at this point. He decides he should play Anger of the Gods, which will kill my three creatures while also getting his Pyromancer plus tokens plus Arbor Elf. I use Otawara to save my Tideshaper so I can kill his second Utopia Sprawl and keep him off the crucial five mana. I then draw Svyelun but he has Choke to lock down three of my Islands. I still have Vial though and I'm able to deploy Adept and Hexcatcher and use my Dismember to clear the path for lethal.

6-0-2

Finals - Izzet Murktide

My opponent is a 14-year-old kid who tells me upfront that he has zero interest in going to Atlanta. I didn't really expect to make it this far, and would have been willing to skip as well, but I won't look a gift horse in the mouth. We work out a split of cash and credit that is agreeable and I get the invite.

7-0-2

Aftermath

I really don't know what being qualified for the Dreamhack thing in Atlanta even means. I'll have to do some research and get ready since it is less than a month away. I hear I'll have to play Pioneer. I wonder if Merfolk is any good there. 

This tournament reminded me that IRL Magic might be easier than I remember, or maybe I just ran really well. Not every day do you get to beat the Blood Moon / Choke combination with Merfolk.

Blood Moon and Choke aren't enough

Props:

Svyelun and Merfolk Trickster - probably the MVPs of the day

12 Lords - need to kill them fast

The Bearded Dragon - Excellent event and solid prize support

Slops:

Fury - Spent all event terrified of this card but I somehow managed.

Tribal Aggro in Historic

Today, Wizards of the Coast announced the next Arena Open will be using the Historic format:

On August 1st we're holding the next Arena Open, and the format is..... Historic! Bring your best Historic deck and compete for some sweet rewards (like $2,000). pic.twitter.com/xFyhOKURGU

— MTG Arena (@MTG_Arena) July 9, 2020

I've actually spent the last few weeks playing a bunch of Historic, so this is exciting to me. I always love a good tribal deck, and I've played many different tribes over the years, most recently Elves and Merfolk. In my past, I've played Spirits and first got my start playing Goblins back in Onslaught block. I want to give a quick overview of the various tribal aggro decks I've tried or played against.

Merfolk

This is my latest iteration, but by no means perfect. I tried an 80 card Yorion version when companions were still original power level, but 80 card aggro is not the place to be. I think the core is Speaker, Biomancer, Mistbinder, Reejerey, Trickster, and Adept. I'm not sure about the rest. Deeproot Elite has been very good, but is probably worse the better the opponents decks are. You can combo off with Kumena and Reejerey, but I'm not sure how many you actually want to play. The real issue is the mana. There are a lot of cards you would like to play like countermagic and my MVP from standard Sleep, but 4 Ziggurat and 4 Territory make casting non-creatures difficult. I've seen versions with 4 Mist-Cloaked Herald, which is probably pretty great with Deeproot Elite, but I never liked it in Standard. Watertrap Weaver has been overperforming.

Vampires

This has been my strongest Historic deck. When I first put it together, I won my first 15 matches or so. I've cooled off since then, and it's definitely not the best deck in the format. It struggles against Gruul, but was surprisingly good vs UG Nexus. Silversmote Ghoul is the real deal with Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord. The removal options are unexciting despite how many you have, I haven't found one that I want to play in the main deck. There isn't a good answer to Embercleave and a lot of the plan against Gruul was to block, so that is why it's been unfavorable. I recently added the last 4 one-drops in Skymarch Aspirant to be a bit more aggressive, but I've yet to achieve city's blessing. Legion Landing would be nice, but once again the mana issue comes up. Playing enough non-Territory white sources to support really cuts into the black and will lower consistency overall.

Humans

I haven't actually played any games with Humans, but I've seen some lists that had success and I've played against it a few times. I'm skeptical about the amount of lords, so I put the Icon in this 3 color only version. Playing Red for Judith is probably better than Icon. I think also lacking on interaction. Deputy of Detention is widely played, but it's not a human. I guess that doesn't matter for Judith. I've no idea if Whisper Squad is playable. I do think Hero of Precinct One has potential in some builds. 

Goblins

I've only played against Goblins and I've beaten it every time. Conspicuous Snoop is good and Chainwhirler still dominates some matchups, but the rest of the deck looked real bad. I'm not sure what your top end is supposed to look like. Ringleader and Matron are to costly without Vial to cheat them in. No Piledriver or cheap lord or similar card makes it hard to actually kill with a swarm. Maybe Icon of Ancestry is the answer? I don't have a list to share, just wanted to express my skepticism.

Elves

I don't think you can play this with only 4 Llanowar Elves. Pelt Collector just isn't the same, you end up being a worse version of Gruul. Imperious Perfect is a card you get that Pioneer version doesn't have, but overall you are down too many cards to keep up with the high powered tier one Historic decks.

Soldiers / Knights

I don't know if there are enough payoffs in either tribe, but there are a lot of cards with these types. Maybe someone else can come up with something good, but I think they usually are better off focusing on Humans. 

Other Tribes

Cats and Dogs get a push with M21, but I don't think there are enough cards existing yet. Maybe by this time next year. Dinosaurs can't really compete with the stronger Gruul cards from Eldraine. 

That's all I have for now. I'm excited about the Arena Open, and I'm going to keep working on Historic until then. 

-Ty

Merfolk at SCG DFW

Standard Open

This past weekend was the SCG Open in Fort Worth. I played a similar Merfolk list to the one I played last weekend. I swapped a Watertrap Weaver for a Swift Warden and made some sideboard adjustments, but nothing major. I went 3-3 in the Standard Open before dropping. My friend Will Lowry also played the same list and went 3-3-1 before dropping as well. He played it again on day two in the Standard Classic, finishing 4-4. Here are some takeaways.

Unlike last week, my opponents decks seemed much better. Almost all had a clear plan and sometimes the plans were difficult for us to beat. Thief of Sanity and Thought Erasue from both Esper and Sultai variants proved difficult to beat. Theif would be impossible to kill while using your best cards against you. Thought Erasure would let them play for the correct late game plan by preventing your countermagic from being useful or letting your midrange cards take over. Your great draws still felt very good but there seemed to be fewer and fewer of them. I think we were winless in a combined four matches against Esper Control, which I had counted on being a good matchup when preparing for the RTPQ.

My rounds were as follows:
R1 - RG Aggro W
R2 - UR Drakes L
R3 - UG Reclamation Creatures (No Nexus, Biogenic Ooze, Dream Eater, Adapt creatures) W
R4 - Temur Reclamation Niv-Mizzet L
R5 - Mono Red W
R6 - Esper Control L

I was willing to call it a loss and move on. I'll credit my RPTQ win to a few lucky matchups. Will wasn't willing to give up so he continued playing on Sunday and kept finding more and more flaws with the deck. It is still a fun deck and I think it has potential but I'm unsure what to do to fix it. I'd start with 4x Kraul Harpooner in the sideboard.

Modern Classic

I brought some of my Modern Merfolk cards just in case I didn't make day two and didn't want to play Standard again. This was exactly the situation I found myself in, so I decided to play a brew I had been thinking about. I was going to play Merfolk with 4x Lighting Bolt 4x Wizard's Lightning. I began pulling the cards out I needed and realized I forgot to bring my Mutavaults. This may have been a blessing in disguise, because it let me redo the manabase and play the following list:

3 Cursecatcher

4 Silvergil Adept

4 Benthic Biomancer

4 Harbinger of Tides

4 Merfolk Trickster

4 Lord of Atlantis

4 Master of the Pearl Trident

3 Merrow Reejery

4 Wizard's Lightning

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Aether Vial

4 Spirebluff Canal

3 Steam Vents

4 Flooded Strand

4 Polluted Delta

1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds

2 Island

Sideboard

2 Mistcaller

2 Grafdigger's Cage

4 Wizard's Retort

2 Unified Will

1 Ceremonius Rejection

2 Alpine Moon

2 Dispel

I went 6-3, losing the last round playing for prizes. The deck was a fun take but I don't think the red is entirely necessary. The bolts caught some people off guard in game one, and were very useful against other creature decks where I could never be attacked with combination of bolts, Harbinger, and Trickster. You should absolutely cut a Steam Vents for an Island if you play this again. The Alpine Moon was very impressive in the SB and something I would play again. I missed Mutavault in a couple of matchups and felt like I needed another land or two in the draws that didn't include Aether Vial. Benthic Biomancer was not as great as I thought. I would prefer 4th Cursecatcher and probably the 4th Reejery and 2 Biomancer if I were to play it again. 

My rounds were as follows:
R1 - Jeskai Control- L

R2 - UW Control - W

R3 - UW Spirits - W

R4 - MonoRed Phoenix - L

R5 - Burn - W

R6 - MonoRed Phoenix - W

R7 - Hardened Scales - W

R8 - RG Scapeshift - W

R9 - RW Prison - L

I'm probably done with Merfolk in both formats for a while, but I'm sure I'll come back to revist them at some point in the future.

RPTQ Report *TOP 8*

My previous two posts about preparation for this event are here and here.

It was the last RPTQ for the foreseeable future (who knows what the future for MTG holds at this point anyway). I figured why not play the deck I wanted to. I've loved Merfolk for so long, dating back to this event. I've played it in countless events in Modern and Legacy. When they reprinted Silvergil Adept, I even made Will Lowry play it in our Team SCG Open last January. I've been playing it occasionally on MTG Arena with a small hope that they might improve the deck when RNA came out, but I wasn't expecting much. 

Here is this list I played.

I definitely would not say that I broke it. It is a good deck, probably good enough for top tier in Standard at least as of now. The format still seems wide open so having a good proactive strategy and very flexible reactive cards is a good place to be. It has some weak spots which I'll get to later, but I don't expect it to change the metagame.

The Tournament

For the first time, the Dallas RPTQ had enough players that all eight members of top eight would qualify for the PT. 99 people showed up to play, so it looked like a record of 6-1 or 5-0-2 would get the invite. I was surpised at the turnout given that it was also Super Bowl Sunday. I think it being the last RPTQ had more qualified players than in the past.

Round 1 - Mono Blue Tempo

I win game one with four Merfolk Mistbinder to force him to chump with a Tempest Djinn. Game two I try to buy some time with a Sleep but he was able to stabilize and I ran out of gas. Game three he had his own Sleep and I maybe got too aggressive in response and lost to a Merfolk Trickster.

0-1

Round 2 - Esper Midrange

Game one I have an aggressive start with multiple Kumena's Speakers and Mistbinder. I was able to finish him off with a Trickster. Game two I use Transmogrifying Wand to turn his two Hero of Precinct One into Oxen. I then stole his Thief of Sanity with Entrancing Melody and played a second copy when I attacked him. He played a Lyra, but she also turned out to be an Ox in disuguise.

1-1

Round 3 - Mardu Aggro

Game one I do some early damage in race with his Boros Challengers, but eventually the board stalls after I Spell Pierce his Heroic Reinforcements. I can't attack because of his Judith but he doesn't have any good attacks either. Eventually I draw the fourth land I need for Sleep and win. Game two I misplay and steal the wrong Boros Challenger with Entrancing Melody so his lives through the Deafening Clarion. I trade my Kumena for it but he draws more gas off the top. Game three I'm in control the whole time drawing multiple cards off Kumena that his deck isn't really capable of killing and I easily win.

2-1

Round 4 - Esper Control

Game one is the most absurd thing I experienced on the day. I trade creatures for his removal and counterspells early, setting up a Kumena in play with Swift Warden back up vs his one card in hand. He plays Ixalan's Binding, I cast the Wardern but he topdeck Absorb. I'm now very unlike to win but we keep playing. The pace of play is fast and furious. I resolve a couple of Silvergill Adepts and they keep pressure on his Teferis. I kill the first two easily and with a little effort I'm also able to kill his third. Eventually he kills all my creatures and gets back to almost 20 life with Absorb and Vraska's Contempt. I'm still waiting for the inevitable loss but he hasn't shown me a win condition yet. Eventually he uses The Eldest Reborn to take my Swift Warden from my yard and start attacking me. I'm at 20 still and he is running low on library. I play some creatures to try to block, but he either counters or kills them. Eventually one sticks but he has Dispersal to get in some damage. I finally manage to chump for one turn, and he decks after attacking me to 2. I'm stunned since I was mainly continuing to play just to see his deck. I make short work of him game two with my twleve counterspell sideboard plan.

3-1

Round 5 - Sultai

He's playing more UG splashing black for Thought Erasure and Hostage Taker. I prefer this version of Sultai personally than one that plays a lot of double black cards. I win game one when he never draws a fourth mana source. Game two he has two Thought Erasure to take my two Entrancing Melody and I'm too far behind. Game three he uses Hostage Taker to play my Merfolk Mistbinder, pumping his Branchwalker, Jadelight Ranger, and Zeganna! I fortunately have a large board myself with the other three Mistbinders and Kumena. He can't attack and eventually I draw into Sleep for the win.

4-1

Round 6 - WU Midrange

His deck had Knight of Grace, History of Benalia, Senate Guildmage(!), Teferi, and Absorb. I really wanted to find a deck with Senate Guildmage in it, but I'm not sure this is the right spot. Game one I Spell Pierce his Ixalan's Binding on my Kumena and he runs away with the game. Game two he's stuck on three mana so I put as much pressure on him to kill him before he can Settle or Cleansing Nova me and I'm able to do it.

5-1

After six rounds, the point totals of the top 12 players looked like this:

18

16

16

15

15

15

15

15

15

15

15

12

The top four players can draw. The 15 that gets paired down has to play. The table 4 match also has to play. Table 3 can draw if the 15 that gets paired down loses, otherwise they have to play. 

I had by far the worst tiebreakers, so I end up with the pair down. In this situation it's actually not that bad since I can hopefully get a concession since the 12 point player won't get in with a win (assuming table 3 draws). I'm fairly certain table 3 knows what's up since I told Jason Cornell what would happen as we analyzed the standings together and he ended up on table 3. 

I'm paired against Hal Brady, a long time friend, and I explain the situation. He is still holding out hope that maybe he can sneak in, so he tells me we will play and if I win he won't have to worry about making the difficult decision to concede. If he were to win, he says he'd still think about it.

Round 7 - Mono Blue Tempo

Game one I mulligan to five and get stuck with an uncastable Swift Warden. I also have Sleep that might let me steal a win but I never draw the fourth land. Game two I have a very fast start and he doesn't have Curious Obsession so the race is much easier. I kill him while still having Incongruity backup to stop him if he were to get enough damage. Game three is very close but he has Curious Obsession turn two and a follow up one-drop that prevents me from using Trickster to stop it. I have multiple one drops and do my best to push through damage, but he has the Dive Down to protect is Pteremander when I try for Incongruity to prevent lethal.

5-2

At this point Hal says he's going to concede. At first I don't think I hear him correctly but we get the result down on the match slip and I'm now 6-1 and locked for top 8 and my ninth Pro Tour! Table three ended up drawing on time, so we also avoided the feel-bad of Hal giving up a spot since he would have missed top 8 even with the win. Hal is now my third favorite Magic player in Texas!

Made top 8 of the RPTQ and I'm now qualified for London! Huge thanks to @HalBrady for scooping in the last round. pic.twitter.com/mjOYwo1E0v

— Ty Thomason (@ceciliajupe) February 4, 2019

Karma Comes Back

I've conceded in spots like Hal's before. I've conceded four times in the Finals of PTQs when I was unable to attend the PT. But I never have been on the receiving end of one of these concessions until now (maybe I'm too nice). 

I fully plan on playing this at the SCG Open this weekend. I'll need to relook at the Mono Blue matchup since I lost twice to it. It seems like this is the one deck where I'd rather have Dive Down than Spell Pierce, or maybe an actual bounce spell to handle the Curious Obsession draws. I'm sure there are some other cards I can try too. 

I had planned on going to London for the Grand Prix anyway as part of a family vacation to Ireland to visit my sister-in-law, but now I get to play the Pro Tour instead! Also, getting part of the trip paid for is nice. Another PT, maybe I'll finally cash at one!

Thanks,

Ty

RPTQ Testing

Here I'm going to talk a bit about the process I used for testing for the RPTQ. I chose to do my testing almost entirely on MTG Arena for this tournament. I previously used Arena for testing for GP Denver back in October, but this would be my first foray into serious constructed testing. Given the recent announcements about the future of Arena, it seems like a good time to continue my dive in. It was much easier to obtain the cards on Arena than on MTGO, even with a Mana Traders account. I saved several hours over the month or so by avoiding the clunky MTGO trading interface, and who knows how much time by the increased game speed.

The biggest drawback was likely quality of opponent. The Twitter account MTGArena decks retweets anyone who shares lists that get five wins in a Traditional Constructed event. From my experience, these events are incredibly soft. I think I was 20-3 at some point with Merfolk, and as much as I'm hoping that means I broke the format (see last post), I'll be realistic and say it's probably not the case. Sideboarding helped tremendously against the weaker players where a strategy they might not be prepared for will not only give you an advantage, but outright win you the game.

The Deck

I've had Merfolk built as a casual Arena reward chasing deck since I first installed the software. There are lots of different ways to build it. You can focus on going wide with Deeproot Waters. You can play lots of +1+1 counters like Merfolk Branchwalker, Jadelight Ranger, Deeproot Elite, and Hadana's Climb. The version that had the most fun was a Wizard heavy version with Wizard's Retort supported by Silvergil Adept and Merfolk Trickster (both auto-includes) and Watertrap Weaver. As RNA release approached, I knew I would get Breeding Pool to improve the manabase, but I wasn't hopeful for much more. 

Unclaimed Territory is one of the very few lands in standard that draws you to play it. There are no spell lands besides Arch of Orazca that don't start out as some other permanent type. My traditional strategy of "play the best lands" really means you either play some gate concoction, a tribal deck with Territory, or some Arch control or midrange deck.

The New Cards

Then I saw the spoiler for Benthic Biomancer. This card is legit. It's actually played out better than I thought after initially reading it. I think it will be a real contender in Modern. And it's a Wizard. So my first brew took my old Wizard list and added Breeding Pool and Biomancer. The deck was solid, but unspectacular. I was running out of gas a bit more than I liked, likely due to trying 23 lands since I figured I had more looting available. I was still winning matches and events (mainly thanks to 4x Sleep in the sideboard), but it didn't feel like anything special.

I then saw a few lists pop up with Incubation / Incongruity. I had considered this breifly, but never actually tried it. I also switched Mist-Cloak Herald for Kumena's Speaker when the Herald wasn't doing enough damage on its own. The results felt incredible immediately. I was killing opponents much quicker thanks to the added damage boost of Speaker, and I had Kumena himself more often thanks to Incubation. The 1cc sorcery filled out the curve nicely, which finally lead me to cut Deeproot Elite entirely (this card is pretty bad as a turn two play on the draw, and if you aren't casting it on turn two what is the point really?)

I quickly settled on a core set of creatures supported by Incubation and then a few select spells. It almost always included two maindeck copies of Sleep with two more in the sideboard. The ability to effectively double your teams damage for four mana and go directly to the opponent's face means there is almost no race you are out of.

The Sideboard

You get 8+ counterspells along with several flash creatures to let you play a traditional "fish" game against combo and control decks. You have Sleep to handle other creature decks. Transmogrifying Wand was very impressive against Drakes. I wanted a repeatable card advantage source beyond Kumena for grindier matchups. At first I had Jace, Cunning Castaway (and his loyal companion, Jace's Sentinel for a while too! Thankfully they both near unplayable and I didn't have to track down the mythic 2cc 1/3). Jace had his moments, but was very inconsistent. Eventually someone suggested Karn he performed his role perfectly. He's also castable even with three or more Unclaimed Territory in play.

The Matchups

I was winning everything. Every event I'd get 5 wins, many times going undefeated. It was likely a multitude of factors, but eventually I realized something strange. I never faced Mono Red on MTG Arena. This is likely because the MonoRed players were stickly primarily to the Ladder with best of one matches, something I had no interest in during my preparation. Here is a basic synopsis of matchups besides monored:

Green Dudes, etc - they can't beat Sleep, they have a hard time answering Kumena

White Dudes, etc - still can't beat Sleep, still difficulty answering Kumena

Drakes - if you can counter / answer their threats, you have all the time in the world. Alternatively use counters to protect your team and swarm their lone creature

Control - Play a dude or two, counter their responses, repeat until they die.

Combo - like Control 

Red - ????

I finally played some focused testing vs Red. I started off by losing the first nine games before stealing a win in the tenth. Goblin Chainwhirler is a messed up card. So Red is bad, my main strategy is to dodge, hope for mana screw, or try to play the anti-control plan against them. 

Play What You Want

I'm hoping for the best. I'll play this at the SCG Open next weekend regardless of my finish at the RPTQ because it is that much fun.

Aether Vial

Throughout my Magic career, I have played many decks with Aether Vial. It is one of the cards I enjoy playing with the most. I played it when it was first printed in Affinity. I played it in Extended and Legacy Goblins. I played it in Merfolk and Death and Taxes. I've recently been playing it in Spirits and Humans. Fourteen years of playing this card and I thought I knew all there was to know about it.

I was wrong.

A 2004 era Goblins deck

This past week I've learned two things about the card that changed the way I think about it.

One-Drops with Aether Vial

The first piece of new information came from my favorite Magic player when I first started playing competitively, Jeff Cunningham. In his article about the top tier of Modern, he put forth a list with two copies of Thraben Inpsector in addition to the four copies each of Champion of the Parish and Noble Hierarch. In his words: "The Thraben Inspectors are included because I think standard builds of the deck are short on one-drops - this is because maximizing Aether Vial requires you to have another one-drop (besides itself) to play on Turn 2, and so it effectively doesn't count as a one-drop."

This seems fairly straight-forward and obvious, but felt like a revelation. Because Vial requires such a large portion of the deck to be creatures to be effective, the decks that play is are historically fairly aggressive. However many of these lists don't play more than four one-drops to vial in. Merfolk, Death and Taxes, Spirts, and even Legacy Goblins rarely play more than eight one-drops at most.  This is largely because the main strength of vial is in its repeated Sol Ring activations with two or three (or more) counters.

Humans plays a bit more aggressively than these other decks, and a card like Thalia's Lieutenant incentivises you to put as many creatures onto the battlefield before you deploy it. More one-drops in Humans is likely more correct than fewer. As Thraben Inspector also provides the late game card advantage you need to continue to take advantage of Aether Vial, its the perfect compliment one-drop.

Some notes here: Mutavault in Merfolk acts as a one-drop (or zero-drop) that makes the deck function with adequate aggression. Also the requirement for late game card drawing is likely why we are seeing the increased play of the card Horizon Canopy. Legacy DnT has Stoneforge Mystic and Recruiter of the Guard and therefore doesn't need as many copies.

With this knowledge, I played Humans at a PPTQ in Houston. I lost in the top 4 due to a poor mulligan decision, but overall I was very happy with the deck. It will be something I'll consider playing again in the future.

How many Aether Vial do you play?

The answer is obviously 4, right? Well, maybe not. Ondrej Strasky made the top 8 of GP Prague with a Bant Spirits deck sporting only 3 copies of Aether Vial.  It has been very interesting to look at the reasons behind the number.

Strasky's GP Prague Top 8 Decklist

The divide between UW Spirits with Aether Vial and Bant Spirits with Noble Hierarch has come down to a few key factors. Collected Company is a great card in conjunction with Spell Queller, but requires a bit more mana sources and a third color. Noble Hierarch solves those problems, but it is much more fragile than Aether Vial. You cannot keep one-land Hierarch hand with Spirits the same way you can keep one-land Vial hands. Also, the interaction between Phantasmal Image and Collected Company is not ideal, so you will have fewer instances of double Drogskol Captain in Bant despite what would seem to be more. 

I've preferred the UW version, largely because of my love of Vial. This Strasky version plays both Vial and Noble. In additon to Mausoleum Wanderer, the deck now has 11 solid turn one plays. The issue with running both is the amount of creatures required to play Collected Company.

The other Bant deck in the top 8 played 31 creatures. Frank Karsten set the minimum at about 22 creatures, though you clearly want as many as possible. What the Strasky list has decided on is that he wants 28 creatures (22 of which are non-Noble non-Image). With the requirements of 21 lands and 4 Path to Exile, that only leaves room for three Aether Vial. This also helps alleviate the problem of drawing multiple Vials when you don't need them.

One interesting thought: if the numbers you want are 21 land, 28 creatures, and 4 Company 4 Path, is the deck better at 3 Vials and 60 cards, or 4 Vials and 61 cards? Could this be a time to play more than 60 in order to get the right ratios for Collected Company? That will be something that may be worth looking into.

Old Dog, New Tricks

What this week has shown me is that you can still have success in Magic by questioning your assumptions about everything. I thought I knew it all about Vial, but I'm excited to try these new things in different decks. I had decided to focus on Humans since I felt it was a bit better than Spirits overall, but with the success of Spirits at the GP and these new innovations, I may return to Spell Queller and Co. for my upcoming PPTQs.

Thanks,

Ty

Unified Will

Today I want to talk about one of my favorite sideboard cards in the Modern format, Unified Will.

I've spent a lot of time playing Merfolk in Modern, and I am currently playing GW Value Company with a blue splash just for this card. I believe this card is much better than others think, and I want to explain why.

The main restriction of Unified Will is having creatures in play, so I will be talking about counterspells in the context of creature-based decks.

Why run a counterspell in the sideboard at all?

The right counterspell can be a huge tempo swing. With a creature based deck, it can mean winning the game on the spot when you counter the opponent's sweeper or other expensive spell. In many cases, the main deck configuration includes some kind of creature interaction which can be a dead card in other matchups. Countermagic also gives you flexibility in how you play the game. Holding up the counter on turn 2 to stop a key piece while deploying threats as you make land drops, or flooding the board with threats then untapping and holding up the countermagic. Depending on the matchup or draw or who plays first, you can shift between these plans in a way other sideboard cards don't allow. Countermagic also can be a way to outplay a weaker opponent, or protect your best draws when you need to get lucky to win.

The main reason I play Unified Will in the sideboard is because of flexibility. In general you would rather have a stronger card in the sideboard and the more flexible card in the main deck. However in Modern there are so many different decks it is impossible to have the right sideboard card for every matchup. Painting with a broad brush, you have creature-based decks, control decks, combo decks, and midrange decks. A card like Path to Exile is good against creature and midrange decks, where as a counterspell is good against control and combo decks. Swapping your removal for a counterspell after sideboarding is a very easy start to having a good sideboarding plan.

Which counterspell should be in the sideboard? 

Since flexibility is the big selling point, you want the counterspell that counters the most spells (that you care about) from your opponent. In Modern, some of the possible options for counterspells include:

Unified Will
Negate
Disdainful Stroke
Deprive
Ceremonius Rejection
Delay
Spell Queller
Remand
Mana Leak
Flashfreeze

As a creature deck, the cards you want to counter are different than if you were playing a control deck. Creature removal, especially mass removal sweepers, is something you have an interest in countering. Trading card for card and two mana for one on a Lightning Bolt or Fatal Push isn't the most efficient play, but sometimes it is enough to win the game and that is all that matters. Countering an Oblivion Stone or Anger of the Gods is much more likely to win the game. Because you are interested in countering these types of spells, Disdainful Stroke doesn't quite do what you want to do.

The other class of spells that you want to counter are combo cards that kill you before you can kill them. Ad Nauseam, Scapeshift, Gifts Ungiven, or even Ugin can fall into this category. Negate does a great job at countering all of these, perhaps better than Unified Will. However sometimes the card that kills you is a creature. That can be Primeval Titan from a Valakut player, or Wurmcoil Engine, Ulamog, or a large Walking Ballista from a Tron player. Since Tron and Valakut are two of the more popular big mana decks, it is important to not fold to the other half of these decks.

Ceremonius Rejection and Flashfreeze are only good against a few of these decks, not all of them. Remand and Mana Leak only are good in the early game, and sometimes not even enough then. Deprive requires two blue mana, which is fine if you are playing Merfolk, until you want to cast both a Lord and a Deprive with three Islands and a Mutavault (not to mention Cavern of Souls!)

Delay is interesting because in many ways its the same card as Unified Will. If you have a significant army in play, it gives you 2-3 attacks to kill them. If you don't have any creatures in play, you will probably still lose, like if you had Unified Will and couldn't cast it. However Unified Will lets you counter the important spell, and still play Magic the rest of the game. Sometimes you kill them in the next 2-3 turns, but sometimes you need the game to go much longer to win. In a deck with a lot of creature-lands like Affinity, Delay might be better since your army isn't always "on the battlefield".

Spell Queller counters Supreme Verdict, while none of the other counters can. However, it counters so few of the other spells you care about I don't think its worth comparing to Unified Will. It could be an option in addition to Unified Will though. The one mana counterspells like Swan Song, Dispel, and Spell Pierce can be a good option but do not have the reliable flexibility of Unified Will, but are good enough you can play them in addition to Unified Will.

What are the drawbacks to Unified Will?

I think the above discussion shows how Unified Will is the most flexible and probably best of the countermagic options, but what are its drawbacks compared to the others, or compared to not playing a counterspell at all?

First drawback - you need blue mana. In a deck like GW value, you already have 7-8 blue sources with Noble Hierarch and Birds of Paradise. Adding 1 or 2 shocklands into a fetchland mana base gives you more than enough. However if you are already three other colors, like Abzan or Naya decks, the cost to adding blue might be too great. Also your blue mana needs to be able to cast non-creature spells. so decks like Humans with all the Cavern of Souls variants can't take advantage. This is a big reason why I usually avoid playing Cavern when I play Merfolk. Playing a hate creature or artifact is much easier on the mana.

Second drawback - Its not a threat. Drawing multiple counters and no creatures means you aren't putting any pressure on your opponent. It's also not a creature for Collected Company. I think you can play the games you draw multiples in a way to still take advantage of them, but it sometimes means countering a spell you wouldn't normally care about. When you sideboard them in while playing a CoCo deck, keep in mind your total creature count. It is okay to sideboard out some Companies if they aren't going to be amazing!

Third drawback - you have to hold up mana. In a deck with a large amount of instants, holding up counterspells isn't an issue. That isn't the case for most creature decks, who have to use mana on the main phase to deploy the threats. Threading the needle between holding up mana and pressuring your opponent is hard to do but not impossible. Patience can be key against slower control decks, and against fast combo decks a risk/reward analysis will be helpful. The more expensive the counterspell you are trying to hold up, the harder this is, so a cheaper spell can be preferred.

Fourth drawback - you need creatures. Getting creatures onto the battlefield should be your goal anyway as a creature deck, so that isn't the issue. Having more than your opponent in these matchups is usually not a problem, but it does mean you can't use Unified Will vs other creature decks where you might want a counterspell or two (countering All is Dust or opposing Collected Companies or Searing Blaze). But the situations where you have no creatures in the matchups you want Unified Will, you were probably going to lose those games anyway.

What do I bring Unified Will in against?

Just a list of decks I would bring it in against. Think about if any of the other counters would come in as frequently or do as much.

Tron
Valakut
Ad Nauseam
Lantern
KCI Combo
Mill
UWx Control
Grixis Control
Storm
RW Prison
Living End
Grishoalbrand
Time Walk Deck
8 Rack


 The biggest benefit to running Unified Will is having so much SB coverage in just 4 slots. This lets you use the rest of the slots to focus on actual or perceived bad matchups, what you think might be popular in the metagame, or just playing cards you really like. I'll hopefully talk more about sideboard construction in the future.

Thanks,
Ty

Modern Merfolk Primer

I've started writing this article many times. For a long time, I put it off because no one was interested. Recently however, Merfolk has been putting up results, including winning a Grand Prix. What I want to accomplish in writing this is explain why the deck is good, what cards are important in certain matchups, and the basic strategy for playing it.

I've played a bunch of Merfolk in my life in just about every format. Modern is the youngest of all formats, but I've probably played more games with Fish there than any other format. The power level of Merfolk has remained about the same for the duration of the format, but the power level of the rest of the format has shifted to where now its no longer strictly a tier 2 option, and might even be tier 1.

First things first: Modern Merfolk is not a "Fish" deck. By this I mean that it is not trying to resolve one or two creatures and attack while using countermagic to stall the game until the opponent is dead. It is not an "Aggro-Control" deck, or however you want to describe the "Tempo" "Delver" archetypes that no one can agree on a name for. Merfolk in Modern is pure Aggro. In a lot of ways, it's like White Weenie, but without the hate creatures, or Zoo without the burn spells. I know this doesn't sound impressive, and it really isn't, but the deck does win.

Why is Merfolk better than other aggressive strategies? First of all, almost all of your threats are interchangeable. Three or more different anthem creatures in the deck is maximum redundancy, making the opponents removal spells less effective. Secondly, the deck has velocity / card advantage built in with Silvergil Adept (and Spreading Seas to a lesser extent). Thirdly, it uses Aether Vial which can lead to some of the best draws available to any deck in the format. It also has four mutavaults, which bring the threat density to a very high level. Finally, the manabase is pain free, which is a surprisingly relevant upside in Modern.

The core of the deck:

4 Mutavault
4 Aether Vial
4 Silvergil Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident

Mutavault is a land that also is a free 4/4 creature. Its the best card in the deck. I try to aggressively attack with it on turn two when I start with turn one Aether Vial. The mana you lose from not playing a spell on turn two will be easily made up when Vial ticks up higher, and getting free points of damage in is very important for a deck without reach.

Aether Vial is the next best card in the deck. You keep most every hand that has a land and a Vial. It counts pretty much as one land for deck construction purposes, but generates 4 to 8+ mana a game. The primary way to win with the deck is to play multiple creatures in a single turn, and it is the easiest way to achieve that.

Silvergil Adept is the best Merfolk, and thus next on the power rankings. It gives you the ability to pressure the opponent without committing all your resources to the board. It digs for the cards you need to have in the matchup. You can cast it with Mutavault mana. It's great and you should never cut it.

The eight two mana lords are what gives the deck consistency. Combined with Spreading Seas they can make your team unblockable. Also, the strength of Snapcaster Mage in the format right now means you will have incidental islandwalk fairly frequently.

The next group of cards:

4 Merrow Reejery
4 Spreading Seas
4 Cursecatcher

I think Merrow Reejery is almost good enough to be in the first tier. It allows for some crazy explosive starts, even without Aether Vial. In some matchups, it can be slightly too expensive and I might side it out, so it doesn't quite make the top tier, but I would always start four in the main deck.

Spreading Seas is very hit and miss. Sometimes its the best card in a given matchup. Other times it just cycles at sorcery speed. But when its good its great, and that is why you play four in the main deck. Green decks like Jund, Abzan, and Naya sometimes don't run enough actual shock land duals to recover from a well placed Spreading Seas. This limits them to only play one spell a turn, and buys you enough time to steal a victory. It is also very important versus Urzatron decks.

Cursecatcher is the classic Merfolk one-drop, and in my opinion still the best. The rise of Kologhan's Command as a premiere removal spell makes it better than Cosi's Trickster or Tideshaper Mystic. You need at least four one-drops in the deck since you don't have an abundance of turn one plays.

The rest of the deck includes cards from this category:

Harbinger of Tides
Master of Waves
Tidebinder Mage
Phantasmal Image
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
Vapor Snag
Dismember
Random Countermagic
Random Blue Legends
21st and 22nd lands
Maindecking SB Cards

Harbinger of Tides is great. It's awesome with Merrow Reejery. The people who say it isn't great probably don't like Reejery. I will probably always play at least three.

Master of Waves is not necessary to the deck. I know it seems like the rise in success of Merfolk has corresponded with the rise in play of this card and it's strength against the popular decks like Grixis and Jund, but it is not essential. I think it is a reasonable card to play in order to put away games faster, but a lot of times in my experience it has just been win more. Putting it in your deck has some significant drawbacks in the way you play, as you are incentivized to tick up your vials past two and three, sometimes stranding other creatures in your hand you could have otherwise played. It does work well with Spreading Seas, and can swing the tougher aggro matchups in your favor. I think because playing any number of these puts you in situations where you tick up vial at a risk, you should play more of them if you play them at all. I would avoid only playing one or two, and try to fit all four in if I were to play the card.

Tidebinder Mage is great when it works, but obviously not great when it doesn't. I always feel like I "get lucky" to have it work game 1, since I'm only playing a couple in the main deck and have to get the right matchup. Unlike Harbinger of the Tides, it allows your opponent to get the mana back by killing the Tidebinder, where Harbinger always sets them back that mana. Tidebinder is better when trying to break through, but Harbinger is better when racing. Harbinger is also better versus non-red and non-green guys (obviously). I prefer Harbinger, but sometimes you might want both.

Phantasmal Image is a lot of ways the opposite of Master of Waves. It keeps your Vials on two, but still increases your clock. It also lets you make some interesting plays by copying the opponents creatures. However it is much worse vs grindier matchups, where the best it can do is copy an adept to avoid risk of being blown out later. In some metagames its probably right to play four of these, but usually it is too much of a liability if you aren't trying to be as fast as possible.

Kira, Great Glass-Spinner is a great card vs UR and Grixis. It can really throw off the opponents game plan when they are waiting with removal for your lord and instead you play her. She also works great with Spellskite out of the sideboard. I've had great success with her in the main deck to be "pre-boarded" against grixis and other UR decks.

Vapor Snag and Dismember are really the best options for removal in the mono color build. Dismember is nice because it can be another turn one play, but a much worse top deck in the mid to late game racing situation. Vapor Snag is useful in saving your own guys, acting as a pseudo counterspell that can also clear the path for blockers, but it is much worse at answering opponents one and two mana creatures.

Various Counterspells are all pretty bad in the main deck. Remand and other two mana spells are only good in draws that involve Aether Vial. Picking the right one mana spell will just give you frustration when you have the wrong one, and none of them deal with creatures. Spell Pierce is fine, until you play against Tron. Dispel is fine, until you play against Liliana. The best strategy is to play some in the SB that are the best for the matchups you expect, then use them games two and three.

Various Blue Legends include Sygg, River Cutthroat, Thassa God of the Sea, Vendilion Clique, and Venser Shaper Savant. Sygg is cute, but no longer strong enough compared with the other main deck creatures. Thassa is reasonable, helps you to mitigate flood and can occasionally attack. You can also vial her in, but never want to draw two. Venser and Clique don't do enough vs the field to warrant the inclusion in the main deck but could be reasonable sideboard cards. Playing with any makes Minamo actually relevant sometimes, but thats not enough to require it. Minamo still good enough vs Choke to make the cut.

I like to play 21 lands. Most builds play 20 lands. If you play 22 lands, you can play a couple of colorless lands in addition to Mutavault like Tectonic Edge or Ghost Quarter. My logic for playing 21 lands: I am going to keep every one-land hand with Aether Vial, and I want to be better off in those situations at drawing the second land. Some lists run four or more lands in the sideboard to bring in when you side out Aether Vial or you just want more mana to hold up countermagic. It is a good plan but one that takes up a lot of spots that you must sacrifice some matchups (usually no Hurkyll's Recall for the Robots matchup).

Maindecking Sideboard cards like Spellskite, Relic of Progenitus, Pithing Needle, or others can be a good way to increase the total number of sideboard cards you can play. I would make sure you have all your plans covered though, you don't want to get stuck with dead cards in the deck after sideboard.

Cards in other colors:

Path to Exile
Sygg, River Guide
Stony Silence
Collected Company

White is the easiest second color to play. You get both Seachrome Coast and Wanderwine Hub which are pain-free sources of both colors. You also get Path to Exile, a real removal spell that can let you play a more traditional game of magic. Stony Silence in the board is a much stronger card vs Affinity, Tron, and Lantern than Hurkyll's Recall, but comes at the cost of having to side out Aether Vial. Sygg River Guide is good enough to always play one, especially with Aether Vial. Other white SB options like Meddling Mage, Burrenton Forge Tender or other anti-red cards, and Detention Sphere can help you versus the wide variety of decks that exist on the fringe of modern. Not having as many islands helps in the mirror. The biggest drawback is your fourth land not always being untapped when you want to activate two Mutavaults, and getting stuck with white cards in your hand and not being able to cast them. I played a UW version at GP OKC that I was very happy with despite not making day two. I punted key games in two matches that I should have easily won.

I've tried just about every color combination of Merfolk, including green for Collected Company, black for Inquisition of Kozilek and Dark Confidant, and red for Lightning Bolt and Blood Moon. The price you pay on the mana base is just never justifiable for the gains you make. Maybe if a good two color Merfolk is printed you can re-evaluate.

Sideboard Cards

Spellskite
Swan Song / Spell Pierce / Dispel
Remand / Mana Leak / Unified Will / Delay
Hurkyll's Recall
Hibernation
Pithing Needle / Phyrexian Revoker
Relic of Progenitus
More Creatures
Lands

I like Spellskite a lot as a sideboard card because it is great in the Bogles and Infect matchups, as well as being good vs Snapcaster + Lightning Bolt decks at protected your guys, especially with Aether Vial and Kira. It also protects from Splinter Twin combo.

Hurkyll's Recall should likely be a four of in your sideboard. It is good enough to beat affinity, and you really don't need too many cards for other matchups in my opinion.

Hibernation is similar to Hurkyll's Recall, but Elves is not as popular as affinity.

The countermagic and other cards really depends on what you are comfortable with. I like Swan Song a lot because it is cheap enough to come in vs URx and actually good vs Scapeshift, but Unified Will is better versus something like Tron and random combo. Dispel is only good at protecting your team, but very good at that. Spell Pierce is probably best in an unknown metagame.

You can play cards like Tidebinder Mage in the sideboard. Some matchups you would rather have it that Hibernation, so I like to run a split. Revoker and Needle are both good versus a variety of decks, but not great against anything specific.

I covered the land SB strategy above, but included it in the list for completeness. It's a good strategy, but one that makes your deck better vs the sideboard of the popular decks and ignores decks that are bad matchups. If that's a SB style you agree with, it's worth considering.



How to Play the Deck;

The deck doesn't play like a traditional Fish deck, but also not like a traditional Aggro deck either. It's not important to use all your mana every turn, or to get an early presence. Many decks are prepared for this, and running your lord out on turn two into lightning bolt, only to have your turn three play get killed by snapcaster bolt will not be a successful strategy.

When you have Aether Vial, sometimes it is best to just wait until the end of their turn to put things into play despite the fact you can do more damage on your turn. The goal is to make it difficult for your opponent to disrupt you. Spreading Seas is a great turn two play instead of getting a creature killed on curve for your opponent. Also waiting to play your guys will let you see more cards and have a better critical mass of creatures.

I keep any one land hand with Aether Vial. I like to play Vial with Mutavault mana and attack with Mutavault on turn two.

I side out Spreading Seas against any deck that already has islands. Playing Spreading Seas before you play your threats is also a good plan, Sometimes you can steal wins by mana screwing your opponent. However against decks that are more aggressive than you, you probably don't have time to play Seas. Sometimes your best plan vs Bogles is to hope they kept the one lander though.

Cursecatcher gets sided out fairly often. When people have sweepers it just gets caught up in the wash, and it's not actually good against many decks.

The biggest advice is to just be patient. Most decks don't play the cards necessary to break up a board of 3+ lords, so try to get that to happen. You don't have to attack into Deceiver Exarch mana.



The Decklist:

I would suggest starting with Paul Rietzl's list from GP OKC to start. It is very streamlined and aggressive without much cute stuff for interacting.

Anyway, that's all for now. I'll try to update this in the future, maybe elaborate on some spots or add more cards to discuss. If you have any questions post in the comments or tweet at me @ceciliajupe.

Modern PTQ Wrap-up

I've been delinquent in writing reports about the last few modern PTQs I played in. I try to write about all my tournaments, good or bad, but I haven't felt like writing. I'm going to try to catch up now.

PTQ Baton Rouge

I played RG Aggro. Something like:

4 experiment one
4 kird ape
4 goblin guide
4 burning tree emissary
4 tarmogoyf
4 flinthoof boar
1 simian spirit guide
1 grim lavamancer
3 ghor-clan rampager

4 lightning bolt
4 seal of fire
3 searing blaze

4 stomping ground
4 scalding tarn
4 arid mesa
4 verdant catacombs
3 mountain
1 forest

sb
4 blood moon
2 ancient grudge
2 deglamer
2 grim lavamancer
3 burning-tree shaman
2 tormod's crypt


deck was ok. won vs RUW, Monowhite Vial, Jund, then lost to RG Tron. Then I beat Infect played by Tom Ross, lost to the car-mate in RUW, and lost to affinity to finish 4-3. The tron matchup felt awful, but my opponent had the nuts both games. The RUW matchup was good, but I missed too many land drops game 3 and got remanded out of the game. I changed the sb from the original Shatterstorms to Ancient Grudge, and lost to Affinity as a result. I would go back to shatterstorm if i played in the future.

the next week was a PTQ in Austin. I couldn't find a deck that beat both turn 2 liliana and turn 3 karn, so i decided to play one of the two. I played bloodhall jund:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Putrid Leech
3 Bloodhall Ooze

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Liliana of the Veil
3 Thoughtsieze
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Terminate
2 Abrupt Decay

4 Raging Ravine
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
2 Blood Crypt
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Stomping Ground
1 Forest
1 Swamp

SB
2 Obstinate Baloth
1 Oliva Voldaren
2 Sowing Salt
2 Torpor Orb
1 Batterskull
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Slaughter Games
2 Go For The Throat
1 Rakdos Charm


I went 0-3, losing round 1 to Gobin swarm with Goblin Grenade, round 2 to Jund Aggro, similar to the RG deck above but with deathrite shaman, and round 3 to Runeflare Trap. It was not my day.

i managed to go 5-2 in a side event with Joel Larsson Lucky Charm deck in standard, but I wasn't super impressed with it.

for the last ptq of the season, I made the 9 hour drive to Lubbock Texas. After reconsidering what i was doing in this format, i decided i should have been playing merfolk all along. I tested the deck without any countermagic, and it didn't seem to hurt it at all, so this is what i played:

4 aether vial
4 vapor snag
4 spreading seas
1 pithing needle

4 cursecatcher
4 silvergil adept
4 lord of atlantis
4 master of the pearl trident
4 merrow reejery
4 phantasmal image
1 kira, great glass spinner
1 sygg, river cutthroat
1 spellskite

13 island
4 mutavault
2 ghost quarter
1 cavern of souls

SB
3 Spellskite
3 Torpor Orb
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Delay

ghost quarter proved to be better than tectonic edge, and pithing needle was surprisingly amazing.

I won r1 vs RUW, then lost r2 to RG tron when he had All Is Dust that i didn't see coming. I then won vs Affinity and BUG, but lost a close match to kiki-pod when i kept one-landers game 1 and 3 and didn't get there. I final round win vs URW twin, and then i'm done with modern for hopefully quite some time.

i actually don't mind modern too much, it seems better than standard at the moment, but maybe playing more standard in the coming weeks will change my mind. Next i have to get ready for the SCG invitational so I'll be playing mostly standard and legacy. if anyone has suggestions, please let me know.

-Ty