Control, Ephara, & The Modern Banned List

If it were easy, everyone would do it . . .

Born of the Gods has been fully revealed a little early in no small part due to Wizards of the Coast accidentally publishing the complete card notes on the mothership. Now the full 165-card set is known, and the brewing can move into high gear.

The new set has some real tough acts to follow. Innistrad, Dark Ascension, Dragon’s Maze, and Theros have given Magic a lot of really hot sets lately. Born of the Gods isn’t at that level—at least not for Constructed—but it does offer a bunch of tournament-worthy cards that will make immediate appearances.

It also might be totally sweet for Limited, but that’s something we won’t know until we get a chance to play it ourselves. Theros Limited is a tier 1 Limited format in my opinion, so I just hope Born of the Gods spices things up and makes it fresh again without losing what’s awesome about it.

With the Pro Tour less than a month away, there is more focus on Modern than there normally would be with a new set. While there are a few Modern possibilities in Born of the Gods, thinking about Modern at all is pretty tough without knowing the fallout of the next banned and restricted list announcement, which isn’t set to be posted until Sunday night.

If Modern isn’t your thing, feel free to CTRL+F for brewskies to get to the new brews with Born of the Gods. You’ll miss the rainbow pyramids though!

Every Modern Pro Tour in the history of the format has involved a change to the banned list immediately before it. I sure hope that continues, as Modern may be moving in a good direction but without changes to the banned list we will very likely see all the same decks that have been good continue to be good. The Pro Tour is so much more exciting when it is a new format with some quantity of new decks or new tech.

There has been a lot of speculation lately about what banned list changes might take place. Could Wild Nacatl be unbanned? Jace, the Mind Sculptor? Will Deathrite Shaman be banned? Birthing Pod?

Basically, there are two ways to go—keep banning cards until you “get there” or unban as many cards as you can until you “get there.”

Why are there so many bans in Modern? The idea is all the cards in the format form a pyramid, with the most powerful cards at the top.

The Modern Pyramid (in the style of my unmatched MS Paint skillz):

This is the pyramid that would be present if nothing were banned. Something like half the format would be about the top layer. A quarter of the format would be about the next layer. All the rest of the pyramid put together would make up the rest of the format. In an effort to make the format more diverse, deeper, and more interesting, an initial banned list was created, cutting off the top level of the pyramid.

Banning just a couple dozen cards tremendously broadens what’s likely to be playable in the format from a raw card-power standpoint. This is not the end of the line however. Modern already has a lot of playable cards and decks, but Wizards of the Coast wants to expand the pool of playable cards even more, opening up more decks, more technology, more combinations, and more space to explore. In short, WotC wants more of the cards in Modern to be playable.

As a result, Wizards is trying to trim off that top gray layer, and not all of the cards in that layer are “broken.” Sometimes, like Bloodbraid Elf, they are just instances of some strategies, some combinations of cards having just too much power over the rest of the pyramid.

Modern is a format without many great one-drops. Wild Nacatl is so much better than any of them that it would be a huge step back into the gray slice of the pyramid. This is not necessarily bad; it just requires you to unban enough cards to fill out the gray slice. Basically, what it comes down to is that you can keep banning until you get all of the gray slice or you gotta unban cards until you get all of the gray slice in.

Would I like a format with Wild Nacatl; Preordain; Green Sun’s Zenith; and Jace, the Mind Sculptor? Yes! However, I, like many tournament players, prefer formats with as little cut off the top as possible. This is because in my heart of hearts I prefer broken formats to healthy ones.

That’s right.

I prefer broken formats to healthy ones.

When it comes to competition, breaking formats is a sweet, sweet sensation. That is the Holy Grail. That is the greatest triumph. When a format is healthy, you do some metagaming, you play some good games of Magic, you prepare, and may the best man win.

That is way too fair for my tastes.

When a format has a pyramid that goes all the way to the top, those that discover the top of the pyramid can absolutely dominate the rest of the field. Of course, there are consequences.

Have you noticed how many people play Mono-Blue Devotion and Thoughtseize black decks in Standard? It was glorious at Pro Tour Theros for everyone that had the format pegged, that figured out the true nature of the top slice of the pyramid. Unfortunately, a few months later the format is supersaturated with top slicers. This makes it a lot less interesting to keep playing the format.

Standard has the benefit of a new set every three months, with half the cards leaving every year. That keeps it fresh, keeps that top slice of the pyramid changing on its own. Eternal formats, like Vintage, Legacy, and Modern, do not have a natural ban list that happens every year. Also, new sets are such a small percentage of the card pool that there are usually only a few cards each set that are even worth considering.

The solution?

Cut not only the top (black) slice off that is needed to make the format playable (restricting artifact mana and blue power in Vintage, banning Mana Drain and Necropotence in Legacy), but also cut off the second (gray) slice (restricting Brainstorm in Vintage, banning Mental Misstep in Legacy).

By broadening the base of playable cards, there is more depth, more variety, and more possible decks for people to play. This is better for the format as a whole, making it more replayable. It’s just worse for those of us that like breaking formats.

The good news is even when you trim that gray layer off new cards get printed and occasionally push something up there. Formats can still be broken, just not every time. If the format is ever balanced for too long, that is when WotC shakes it up by unbanning a card.

One of the side effects of trying to trim the top layer is that when you get a lot of it off but there is still some left cards from it that were at the bottom of that layer can start to look louder than they normally would be. Is Deathrite Shaman a problem? Not inherently, but there is a lot more B/G/x Midrange in the format than other strategies. It’s not any one card, it’s all of them adding up being just a little too much. What do all of those decks have in common?

If you want to cut B/G/x Midrange down a little, one of these cards has to go. My guess is that Tarmogoyf and Liliana are too easily replaced and not even really the problem. Dark Confidant would be the most effective ban since it really is the biggest problem, but given that it is so iconic and was just reprinted, my guess is that WotC will look for any other option.

Deathrite Shaman isn’t as beloved a card as Dark Confidant, it’s not as expensive, and it would probably would be easier to ban. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Deathrite Shaman isn’t the best card in the format, but it’s not about banning the best cards. B/G/x has so many top-notch cards that it pushes some of them up into that gray slice.

So I would say that it is not that Dark Confidant or Deathrite Shaman needs to be banned but rather that the format would be more diverse if one of them were (and after the gray slice is successfully culled).

What else might get the axe?

Birthing Pod is a common suggestion, but I would rather see Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Melira, Sylvok Outcast banned. The combo is the more obnoxious part of the deck, not the engine. Ban those two and Birthing Pod can continue to exist; it would just not be a combo deck (or at least not anywhere near as fast a combo deck). Besides, banning Kiki-Jiki would take a notch out of Twin, which could stand a slight nerf if enough of the other top decks all get hurt by some ban.

Ban Birthing Pod and now you just have one fewer deck.

What about blue decks? What do they even have in common?

The blue aggro decks and the blue control decks have surprisingly few cards in common, and most of them have plenty of replacements available. The common link without a good replacement? Snapcaster Mage. I don’t know that Snapcaster Mage needs to be banned or ever will, but if you wanted to take a slice out of blue decks, that would probably be your target.

My hope?

WotC does anything.

As long as WotC does stone anything, at least we are playing a new format and not just tuning existing decks. They could ban every single land that makes blue mana or unban all the artifact lands and Skullclamp—at least we’d have a new format.

As long as they ban Deathrite Shaman or Dark Confidant, game on. Banning Kiki-Jiki, Melira, Birthing Pod, Snapcaster, or anything else? Sure, I’m into it, whatever, just please ban something from B/G/x. B/G/x hasn’t enslaved the format, but if you want to cut out more out of the gray, it is the top at the moment.

Ok, on to the brewskies!

I was kind of hoping for more new dimensions to emerge from Born of the Gods, but there are still a number of powerful cards to explore. One of my favorites is Ephara, God of the Polis.

Polis means “city” in Greek. It can also mean citizenship and body of citizens, the City-State.

Getting to devotion of seven is no joke and even though you get the benefit of counting both colors is generally going to be harder to hit than devotion of five for the Theros Gods. That doesn’t mean they are bad, just that a higher percentage of their power is wrapped up in their abilities. Ephara’s ability? She is effectively an unkillable planeswalker that draws an extra card more turns than not. That is definitely something I am interested in!

An extra card more turns than not?

Yeah, think about it for a minute. Let’s say you play one of 30 creatures in your deck. By the time your next turn comes around, you have seen two more cards. You only need to average one creature out of two to keep going. You start ahead from an opening hand of seven, not to mention drawing extra cards from things like Jace and Sphinx’s Revelation.

While 30 creatures means Ephara is basically a personal Howling Mine, you could play just 20. Do nothing else and you are drawing an extra card every other turn, starting from next to nothing. For the purposes of keeping your creature count high, Jace draws you more creatures than just playing another creature would. Sphinx for three or more and it does the same. Now we are starting to get back into the space of virtually playing half creatures!

Of course, the real catch is that if left to its own devices U/W would not play many creatures at all. Maybe a few Elspeths (which do count for Ephara), maybe an Aetherling, but nowhere near the kind of numbers we were talking about.

So if we want to take full advantage of Ephara, what does our deck even look like? One possibility is to try just jamming her into a Mono-Blue Devotion deck.

U/W Devotion

Patrick Chapin

Test deck on 01-27-2014

Standard

Creatures (29)

Planeswalkers (1)

1 Jace, Architect of Thought

Lands (25)

Spells (5)

Sideboard

The printing of Temple of Enlightenment means that we are going to see more Mono-Blue Devotion decks splashing white, most commonly for Detention Sphere (a pretty great source of devotion to be sure).

Thassa’s Rebuff is just a fine role player that gives devotion decks a realistic two-mana counter option. While it is likely to be a popular card in Mono-Blue Devotion, U/W is less likely to have many since Detention Sphere takes up a lot of your “non-proactive” slots.

As for Ephara herself? We should get triggers pretty reliably, and we are actually in pretty decent shape for waking her up. The only real problem is that Mono-Blue Devotion is a very tempo-oriented strategy. We’ll draw some cards if convenient, but slowing the game down enough to draw three extra cards off Ephara (maybe turn 7 if things break well for us?) is not exactly the kind of game we are looking for.

The advantage to Ephara though is two-fold. First, she really does beat down. We already have the maximum Thassa, God of the Seas. Ephara may be a bad Thassa, but even a bad Thassa could be good.

Besides, the format has adjusted to the existence of Mono-Blue Devotion. There are a lot of black removal spells, a lot of Supreme Verdicts, and so on. Ephara gives us an incredible advantage in any attrition battle. Every time they Devour Flesh one of our guys, we draw a card and come out ahead.

Part of the challenge is that Ephara is competing with some strong cards. Want room for Ephara? Are you cutting Jaces? Bidents? Master of Waves? There is a real limit to how many four-drops you can play in a deck like this.

I am generally a little unsure of splashing white anyway. Detention Sphere is super sweet, but eight lands that come into play tapped is pretty harsh for a deck that wants to curve out this badly.

Of course, blue isn’t the only devotion deck we could fight Ephara into. While Mono-Blue Devotion is a very tempo-oriented beatdown deck, white devotion decks generally have a little more board control-y of a feel. It never really caught on as a mainstream deck, but Ephara gives us more reason than ever to marry white devotion with U/W Control.

W/U Devotion

Patrick Chapin

Test deck on 01-27-2014

Standard

Creatures (19)

Planeswalkers (5)

Lands (27)

Spells (9)

This is sort of a U/W Control deck but with a lot of respectable creatures trying to fill the role of Last Breath, Syncopate, Dissolve, and Azorius Charm. Then we supplement the usual Jace/Sphinx late card draw with Ephara, which might just be a nightmare for black decks. They have Hero’s Downfall for Jace and a lot of chances to make you discard Sphinx’s Revelation, but if you can get an Ephara on the table, you should easily keep up with an Underworld Connections (which you can eventually Detention Sphere).

One option I did not include in here but that might be missing is Brimaz, King of Oreskos. He is a fantastic rate, a big threat for little mana, and a great source of devotion. He even ensures we have a creature every turn for Ephara!

However, he also costs three mana, and we are more than a little glutted. Some number might be better than Banisher Priest, Boros Reckoner, or Detention Sphere; it really just depends on what you expect to face. Banisher Priest is important against Mono-Blue Devotion. Boros Reckoner is important against aggro. Detention Sphere just seems like an awesome way to have interaction while still supporting our devotion.

Boros Reckoner’s mana cost can be a little daunting for a deck that wants to support Jace, Architect of Thought; however, replacing an Island with a Steam Vents reduces the odds of drawing two that don’t cast Reckoner by turn 3 from 10.3% to 5.6%. We will often draw more lands than we need so our chances of a turn 3 Reckoner are even better, and occasionally Nykthos will actually get us there. But it is still worth considering minimizing the fail states.

Outside of getting to Ephara so effectively, the other exciting feature of this deck is getting to use Nykthos to fuel fast Elspeths, Angel of Serenitys, and big Sphinx’s Revelations.

Turn 2: Precinct Captain
Turn 3: Boros Reckoner
Turn 4: Elspeth, Sun’s Champion

Angel of Serenity comes online next turn (unless you add a Soldier of the Pantheon in there and then game on!), and Sphinx’s Revelation starts getting real big real fast.

Of course, we don’t need to be all in on the devotion plan to still get a lot of value out of Ephara. I wonder what the minimum amount of support we’d need to make Ephara worth it is.

W/U Ephara

Patrick Chapin

Test deck on 01-27-2014

Standard

Creatures (12)

Planeswalkers (7)

Lands (27)

Spells (14)

This build has just ten non-Ephara creatures, but Elspeth can trigger Ephara every turn. Besides, Jace and Revelation draw more creatures, and if the game goes long, we can actually draw two extra cards a turn from a single Aetherling.

Of course, the problem with this is that we ask ourselves many questions, but rarely is the question “how do we make a resolved Aetherling better?”

That Aetherling can let us get a new creature on our opponent’s turn brings up a very good point. If we have flash creatures or instants that make tokens, we can draw two extra cards per turn. In such a world, we’d need 40 creatures (or creature makers) to fuel the machine forever (and ideally at least half of them instant speed), but realistically the game isn’t going to go on that much longer. Besides, it is very easy for something like Aetherling, Elspeth, or Sphinx’s Revelation to give us all the fuel we could ever need.

What are we looking at for instant-speed creatures here?

Of course, we could also just use Prophet of Kruphix and turn all of our creatures into flash creatures. He’d even give us mana to spend on them! Even if we don’t have devotion of seven, we can still play Ephara at instant speed.

Here is one possible Ephara list inspired by Reid Duke’s Prophet Bant list last week.

Prophet Bant

Patrick Chapin

Test deck on 01-27-2014

Standard

Creatures (24)

Planeswalkers (4)

4 Jace, Architect of Thought

Lands (25)

Spells (7)

Sideboard

The idea is to just play a lot of mana, draw a lot of cards, and cast a lot of big threats. Twenty-four creatures from eight card-draw spells makes for a pretty reliable Ephara, particularly when Prophet of Kruphix makes us start drawing three creatures a turn.

Prime Speaker Zegana sure would be nice with all these Scavenging Oozes and Polukranos, but I wonder if more card draw is really what we need. The various Angels have such a big impact on the board, and we might even just want Elspeth.

Bant Flash

Patrick Chapin

Test deck on 01-27-2014

Standard

Creatures (20)

Lands (25)

Spells (15)

This build abandons any realistic hopes of waking Ephara up, instead attempting to maximize her ability to draw two extra cards per turn.

Why am I not using Karametra God of the Harvests in either of these decks?

To begin with, she doesn’t work with token making spells or walkers (or Aetherling) the same way Ephara does. Even beyond that, though, costing five instead of four is a huge deal, but it is also much slower to turn a profit than Ephara. Ephara starts drawing usable cards on turn 5 and turns a Prophet into a game-winning play. Karametra starts drawing lands (albeit into play) on turn 6, but being tapped doesn’t even let us use them until turn 7. Even then we need something expensive to spend the mana on to get anywhere.

This doesn’t mean Karametra is bad—it’s worth trying her here to be sure—it’s just that we’re not short on expensive plays. The bar is real high for a five-drop that doesn’t affect the board.

I could also imagine a true G/W Devotion deck keeping Karametra awake basically at all times due to the very high count of tier 1 Selesnya gold cards. The challenge though is building a deck that does this and actually wants all of the mana Karametra gives us. Besides, even when she is awake, she is just a six-power indestructible creature for five. That is good but not necessarily “broken.”

G/W Devotion

Patrick Chapin

Test deck on 01-27-2014

Standard

Creatures (32)

Lands (25)

Spells (3)

3 Selesnya Charm

This list is obviously quite high on devotion enablers, with almost any three cards combining to wake Karametra up. While we don’t have a ton to do with all of the extra lands she brings to the table, at least the triple white Angel of Serenity is easier to cast and Polukranos can get real big.

Anyway, jumping back to the Bant deck above, you might have noticed that is has a lot of scry lands. I gotta be honest with you—I wanted to play even more. Having enough untapped Forests for turn 1 Elvish Mystic is also a priority, but for serious the scry lands are generally more powerful than shock lands in Standard decks that don’t feature one-drops.

Three new Temples means a lot of decks will have access to so many that they will have to answer the question of “how many is too many?”

Here is a possible build of control modeled after Tomoharu Saito’s U/W splash black sideboard build:

U/W Control

Patrick Chapin

Test deck on 01-27-2014

Standard

Creatures (1)

1 Aetherling

Planeswalkers (7)

Lands (27)

Spells (25)

Sideboard

As you can see, the only maindeck change from Saito’s list is the addition of a Fated Retribution and minor tweaks as a result of Harry Corvese’s insights here. Syncopate is underrated, but playing twelve Temples does diminish its value somewhat.

Is it really so wrong to play twelve Temples? I remember people thought it was crazy to play twelve Vivid lands. After all, isn’t that just too many tapped lands? However, the important thing is how many untapped lands you have. Here, we still have fifteen, which means we are usually going to have access to three on turn 3 and four on turn 4 (if we want it).

One of the big obstacles for U/W/R Control was just how much worse its mana base was than Esper’s. It’s not even having just four Temples. The real problem is that we have too many W/R lands and not enough blue duals. Temple of Enlightenment is a massive upgrade for these decks, though admittedly the U/R Temple in the next set is the one we want most.

U/W/R Control

Patrick Chapin

Test deck on 01-27-2014

Standard

Creatures (1)

1 Aetherling

Planeswalkers (6)

Lands (27)

Spells (26)

Sideboard

Temple of Enlightenment goes a long way, though we would rather have the U/R Temple since Temple of Enlightenment + Mountain doesn’t cast U/W gold cards whereas U/R Temple + Plains does.

This build has a very board control kind of setup, playing the game of just drawing cards and clearing the board. Counterflux is an underrated trump card that can outright win some control mirrors.

Revoke Existence is a sweet new sideboard card that along with Unravel the Aether means there are plenty of two-mana answers to Gods now if you want them.

How good is Revoke Existence against Mono-Blue Devotion? I’m really not sure. Obviously the more Bidents they play, the better, but it also has value against Claustrophobia, Detention Sphere, and Ephara. What if they just have Thassa though? Is it still worth it to have one? My guess is yes if you’re more controlling and no if you’re aggressive. Thassa is so key that I could actually see two Revokes even if Thassa were the only target.

Without question three of the best cards from Born of the Gods are the Temples, and the question of how many to use is a fascinating one. As a general rule, I like erring on the side of power in a new format, particularly when pushing the extremes since pushing the limits will teach us the most.

If people play more Temples in general, it suggests they will be more reliant on sweepers than before. It also suggests that one-drops will be even better than they already were.

As for Ephara?

Verdict: Role Player

I think she’s got what it takes. She has some seriously tough competition, but I think she will make some appearances as a minor role player and occasionally as the flagship for a new archetype. She is no Thassa, but an indestructible planeswalker that draws a card or more a turn is a very different dimension, one that seems reasonably well positioned.

Now that Born of the Gods is fully unveiled, which cards are you most excited to experiment with? What card besides Xenagos should we tackle next on Wednesday? I’m not skipping him; he’s just first on the list . . .

Patrick Chapin
“The Innovator”