The beginning of the New Year saw the Modern PTQ season truly get underway, and it appears as though Wizards of the Coast has achieved its goal of promoting a diverse, interesting format that doesn’t have an incredibly high-cost barrier to entry (Tarmogoyf and a few other offenders notwithstanding). In fact, a PTQ held on Magic Online (MODO) on January 14 highlighted twelve distinct archetypes in the top 16. While that may make it difficult for players hoping to ‘solve’ the format to begin to develop an angle of attack, it does illustrate that many of the more oppressive decks have been held in check by recent bannings. The one unique facet of this format, as it currently stands, is that there are few “pure” control decks putting up any sort of meaningful numbers. Granted, there are various Esper and Grixis decks that appear to be control, and there are several U/x Tron lists, but these decks all rely on a gimmick of some sort (i.e., Gifts Ungiven for Unburial Rites and the appropriate game-winning card, such as Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite). There are also Faeries and Merfolk decks putting up reasonable numbers, but these decks (as our special Magic Etymology suggests) are more appropriately labeled Fish-style decks rather than control.
In such a format, the best course of action often is to play a proactive strategy that forces other decks to modify what they are doing to combat what you are doing. In addition, the pivotal turn in this format is still roughly turn four. Even decks that can’t flat-out kill you on the fourth turn (i.e., Jund) can still lock the game away fairly convincingly by that point (Thoughtseize into Dark Confidant into Liliana into Bloodbraid Elf cascading into Blightning). This means that our proactive strategy can’t be a slow one. Combo decks like Through the Breach and Tooth and Nail, while undoubtedly effective, still seem to be a turn too slow in this format, and their primary plan is linear enough that it’s easy to disrupt. Similarly, while Pyromancer Ascension/Storm decks can win incredibly quickly, with a reasonable chance of “comboing off” on turn three, they still suffer from the problem of linearity—a single, well-placed counterspell or other piece of disruption can simply end the game.
Of the two Magic Online PTQs held last weekend, each of which reported results to the top 32 places, only two U/R Storm decks appeared, at 26th and 29th place in one of the tournaments.
Lands (16)
Spells (44)
- 4 Sleight of Hand
- 4 Serum Visions
- 4 Desperate Ritual
- 4 Seething Song
- 2 Empty the Warrens
- 4 Grapeshot
- 4 Manamorphose
- 3 Pyromancer Ascension
- 4 Pyretic Ritual
- 4 Gitaxian Probe
- 3 Past in Flames
- 4 Desperate Ravings
Sideboard
With 44 “combo pieces” and only a few cards that might be considered extraneous in certain matchups (such as Empty the Warrens), it is very difficult to sideboard this deck without disrupting the main plan. One lesson that has been tried and true of U/R style combo decks, in particular, is that the ability to alter the plan for games two and three can be incredibly powerful. This deck’s relative inability to do that is a second, potentially significant weakness.
In the Indianapolis PTQ last weekend, I watched a friend who I consider to be highly skilled at Magic play this deck to a very disappointing 1-4 finish, and in each of his games that I watched, it didn’t seem like he was able to make very many decisions. Cards like Negate, Chalice of the Void, and Thoughtseize simply stripped him of the opportunity to apply his linear strategy to the match.
It is for these reasons, among others, that Splinter Twin has begun a resurgence in Modern tournaments. It is half-a-turn to a full turn slower than Pyromancer Ascension in the abstract, but it is much more difficult to disrupt and has a significant amount of redundancy, rather than relying on a chain of spells to win. It’s also a very fun deck to play, and its raw power level, combined with the potential enjoyment of playing the deck, lured me out to play in a PTQ for the first time since Lorwyn was legal in Standard. Because I (mistakenly) expected that the PTQ would be full of players attempting to use the relatively new ‘Gifts’ engine to win, or still stuck on the idea of playing Storm, I was willing to forgo the newly minted, gold-standard inclusion of Flame Slash in my maindeck to play a list shamelessly poached from DoctorPenick’s Modern Daily finishes. For reference…
Creatures (13)
Lands (24)
Spells (23)
Sideboard
Before I dissect some of the deck’s inner workings, I’ll briefly summarize the tournament, which had around 120 participants:
Round 1: Versus Jund (Win, 2-1)
Round 2: Versus U/W Tron (Win, 2-0)
Round 3: Versus Ascendant/Martyr (Win, 2-1)
Round 4: Versus Jund (Win, 2-1)
Round 5: Versus Affinity (Win, 2-0)
Round 6: ID
Round 7: ID
Quarterfinals: Versus Affinity (Win, 2-0)
Semifinals: Versus Affinity (Loss, 1-2, to eventual winner Chris Andersen)
All of my matches were fairly close, though the importance of the die roll was thoroughly emphasized by the fact that my three game one losses probably would have been wins had I played first. While I liked the single maindeck Echoing Truth to answer random cards like Ghostly Prison, which occasionally make their way into opponents’ maindecks, the two copies of Pact of Negation were pretty subpar (except, of course, against U/W Tron). If the PTQ metagame continues to emphasize the importance of creatures, whether through Jund, Affinity (which won the PTQ), Fae, Merfolk, or through another angle entirely, then Flame Slash is a great candidate to replace the Pact of Negation (as a number of players already have suggested; see, for example, Todd Anderson article from last week). It may be the case that a third copy of Flame Slash is better than Echoing Truth, but I’ve always been partial to playing a single out to otherwise unwinnable game one situations (such as turn-three Ghostly Prison from Martyr). It would also be nice to be able to fit one or two Spell Pierce into the maindeck, but this is largely a metagame call, and there aren’t many other cards to cut (possibly the fourth Pestermite).
This deck’s real power, though, comes from the transformational sideboard. While we have typical considerations for decks like Tokens and Affinity (Ancient Grudge and Firespout), decks that simply want to play some hate cards and then grind us out often will find themselves to be unprepared for a more diverse strategy.
Threads of Disloyalty was once a mainstay of U/x-style control decks in Extended, but it has fallen to the wayside in recent years. Many decks are not prepared to deal with early theft of their creatures. As a thought experiment, even if we assume that Threads of Disloyalty only reads “Enchant creature named Tarmogoyf. You control enchanted creature,” it would have been an optimal card to board in for two of my seven matches at the PTQ, and it would be an excellent card to board in against a whopping ten of the top 32 decklists in the 1/15/2012 Magic Online PTQ. The fact that it has further versatility (i.e., stealing an Auriok Champion that’s preventing you from going infinite, a Dark Confidant, or even a Plated Geopede) suggests that it should be a fixture in many sideboards in some quantity.
Interestingly however, although DoctorPenick initially included two copies of the card in his deck (from which I borrowed the idea and added a third copy), he since has excluded the card for Daybreak Ranger and a little more green mana in his maindeck. I haven’t yet tested the ranger, so I’m unsure as to whether it is better than Threads of Disloyalty—in the abstract, it more fully completes the deck’s transition to a strange beatdown deck instead of a combo deck, but it seems slightly more fragile in the situations when I found Threads of Disloyalty to shine the brightest—against aggressive starts. Playing a 2/2 creature on turn three doesn’t seem quite as effective against Tarmogoyf + removal spells as simply stealing the Tarmogoyf.
Adding my own copies of Tarmogoyf from the board was fundamentally important throughout the entire tournament. In one instance, my Martyr opponent had copies of Auriok Champion, Ghostly Prison, and Suppression Field after boarding—he reasoned (perhaps correctly) that his deck is very good against many other contenders in the field, and so he might as well overload on hate for Splinter Twin. In the third game, I was able to kill him through a Ghostly Prison and double Auriok Champion with old-fashioned Tarmogoyf beatdown with a few extra points from Deceiver Exarchs. Because Path to Exile is their only real instant-speed spell of note, and because Spellskite answers that card fairly well, while acting as a blocker in a pinch, we are able to remove our copies of Dispel and Pact of Negation, in addition to a single Splinter Twin, to bring in Threads of Disloyalty and Tarmogoyf.
The same thing is true against Jund. After boarding, if we open with Tarmogoyf into Threads of Disloyalty against either a Dark Confidant or Tarmogoyf, they are incredibly far behind, and even dropping a Liliana Vess and using her -2 ability only begins the path to recovery. In addition to dealing with our pressing threats, they must always be conscious of the fact that we still have the ability to win the game out of nowhere at a moment’s notice using the deck’s primary combo.
On a final, but slightly different note, I would encourage those of you playing Affinity to look closely at Chris Andersen list from the Indianapolis PTQ. It was slightly but meaningfully different from many of the other Affinity lists that I saw during the tournament, particularly in terms of his maindeck inclusion of Welding Jar. That card makes Ancient Grudge much less of a blowout on the part of Splinter Twin—being required to spend three mana to remove a single threat instead of two mana, and, in addition, to pay the extra life often required to access green mana for immediate flashback, gives Affinity quite an edge.
While it is true that Spellskite can redirect the effect from Welding Jar, the Splinter Twin player is still in an awkward position. For example, in our third game in the semifinals, Chris (on the play) opened with Blinkmoth Nexus, Memnite, Memnite, Ornithopter, Signal Pest, and Welding Jar. While I had an Ancient Grudge in my opening hand, I was already incredibly far behind—I was guaranteed to take at least five damage before I could cast it. I had the choice of playing Spellskite on turn two and taking at least three more damage or using Ancient Grudge to force him to regenerate during the combat step so he couldn’t attack with Signal Pest and then flashing it back the following turn on the Signal Pest with Remand backup (or simply playing the Spellskite after the Ancient Grudge). While I chose the second option (Ancient Grudge—which I don’t think was the correct play, in retrospect), the fact is that almost any other card would have been significantly worse than Welding Jar in that position.
Even if you’re not a Legacy player (which I most assuredly am not), I encourage you to try out Modern during this PTQ season. To me, at least, it felt a lot like a much more fun version of Standard or Extended than Legacy, and I think Wizards of the Coast did an excellent job in creating the format.