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Daily Digest: How To Cope When Storm Is The Norm

If Storm decks are getting you down in Modern, here’s a solution Ross Merriam has come up with: revel in this deck! SCG Dallas will have its share of Baral, but you don’t have to comply!

G/R Aggro decks are typically straightforward. You want the most aggressive
creatures with a good curve and you back them up with a smattering of
removal spells (preferably burn for some reach) and pump spells.

That’s essentially what today’s deck is…but the list is anything but
straightforward. Starting on Noble Hierarch makes sense, especially when
you have a three-drop like Goblin Rabblemaster that benefits from entering
the battlefield as soon as possible.

The other one drop, Aether Vial, isn’t usually found in this kind of deck,
but the curve is condensed enough that it works. It’s especially good with
Huntmaster of the Fells, which you can vial onto the battlefield and
transform on the following upkeep. It also helps you break the symmetry of
Eidolon of the Great Revel, one of the deck’s best two-drops.

Eidolon of the Great Revel is a bit of a weird choice for a deck that’s
trying to cast a green one-drop, but the mana in Modern is good enough to
make it work. Eidolon’s stock has risen a lot recently with the emergence
of U/R Gifts Storm, a deck which this list is clearly targeting with not
only Eidolon but several ways to interact with graveyards in game 1 and
Scab-Clan Berserker.

The numbers here look strange, but every card (with the potential exception
of some of the singletons) is a solid rate for an aggressive creature and
the curve is good, so while the parts may look weird in a vacuum, their sum
is cohesive. There’s a lot of ways to deal incidental damage as well as a
few ways to go over the top in combat.

Combat Celebrant is the main way to accomplish the latter, but don’t
overlook the synergy between Smuggler’s Copter and Goblin Rabblemaster. The
vehicle lets you use your Goblins to crew when your opponent has blockers
back ready to eat them, allowing you to amass a large battlefield while
your opponent is always forced to play defense. I’d like to see more
Smuggler’s Copters, but the card is admittedly weak with Aether Vial.

My first impression of this deck was that someone built it out of their
trade binder, but even if that’s the case, there was some good work that
went into it. You could clean up the numbers a bit and come out with an
aggro deck ready to compete with the best of them.