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Dipping My Toe Into Modern Waters

Bennie Smith takes his first look at Modern to get ready for an upcoming PTQ. He provides a couple of Greater Good brews and calls for readers to help him make them even better. Could this be the next deck to shake up Modern?

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But first, some words from a dear friend of mine…

Hello my lovelies, my name is Glissa. I know that wench Liliana gets a lot of play as the bad girl of Magic, but I think she’s highly overrated. I mean, if you want a selfish woman that just takes, takes, and takes before even thinking about giving something back, you’ve got some issues and a girl won’t solve them. But if you want a real woman, I’m the one you want.

Yes I’m hard on your mana, and I’ll put demands on your deck that might make you squirm…just a bit.

But in the end I’m what you want. I’m the total package; I can take on nearly anyone and come back for more. I can stay home and protect you or go out to take on your enemies. And every time something dies over on that side of the battlefield, I laugh…and give you a present. I’ve got a great laugh. You should hear it.

But before we play together, I have a favor to ask: enough with the half-assed flirting with me. I’m good enough for the main event, so stop being a wuss with the teasing.

I’m looking at you, Brian DeMars. One copy of me? Am I not good enough for your opening hand? And four little Birds of Paradise in your Pod deck? Getting aggressive with Birthing Pod in this metagame is the right direction to go, but the Birds…such a mistake. "The black splash was a last minute addition and basically paid for itself because both of my match wins were on the back of black cards." Your words. More me and more black probably would’ve meant more match wins. You were onto something with the aggro approach, you just need to come out of your shell and live a little.

I’m looking at you, Todd Anderson. One copy of me…in your sideboard? Guess who laughs at silly Bellowing Tanglewurm? Or who wins in a fight between Dungrove Elder and Glissa, no matter how many Forest you control? Guess who stomps all over your Mono-Green deck? I do. Me and my friends Birthing Pod, Sylvok Replica, Ratchet Bomb, and Massacre Wurm. And guess what? We stomp all over your Delver decks too. Sword of War and Peace? Please.

I’m looking at you, Brian "the Huntmaster" Kibler (I’m partial to Kibler Elves). "While Daybreak Ranger is a very powerful card in the right context, it’s not exactly a brawler or a card that can help stabilize a board when you’re behind. I decided to take a bit of my own advice that I’d given Conley a few weeks before and try adding Glissa, the Traitor." Your words—yes, I’m a badass who’s much better than that silly girl Ranger. "She could brick wall Geist of Saint Traft and Hero of Bladehold alike if she wasn’t removed, and could even hold off Titans in a pinch." Yes, damn right! So why just play one copy of me and hope you draw and resolve Green Sun’s Zenith to find me?

"The combination of first strike and deathtouch is extremely powerful—I came to wonder why Glissa didn’t see more play before. Sure, her color requirements are a bit harsh, and any deck she fits in has to go out of its way not to lose to Mirran Crusader, but her immediate board impact as well as her ability to provide long-term value are both huge." YES! But then you got scared, worried unnecessarily about Anderson’s green deck and having Phyrexian Metamorphs legend-rule me, completely missing the obvious solution to that problem—play more copies of me! Sure, you went on to win the Pro Tour, but you did it on the back of a boring, old team-tweak on a boring, old Wolf Run deck.

You and me, babe—we coulda had something there together. Something real. Something special. Something more than just that big, fat check.

I just wanted to say… I love having Bennie here in my corner, he’s a pleasant fellow and we’re having a good time…but it’s not enough. I need some of you boys to man up and give me your time.

You will not regret it.

MODERN MORNING

So, Modern…

I have to admit at not being overly enthused about Modern for most of its short life. The recent bans helped some, seemingly opening up the format quite a bit. Still, there wasn’t a lot of appeal to me for a format where I was going to have to face Faeries and Bloodbraid Elf all over again…

… Until it occurred to me that I could play some of my favorite cards of all time in Modern!

Eternal Witness.

Saffi Eriksdotter.

Greater Good.

Knight of the Reliquary.

Fauna Shaman.

Noble Hierarch.

Qasali Pridemage.

GREATER GOOD!

Yes, I could easily splash black for Glissa, the Traitor too…but I didn’t really think these cards lent themselves to abusing artifact recursion, so right now I’m saving all my Glissa loving for Standard.

These cards jumped out at me as I was contemplating Greater Good with Vorapede, which is just about the best five-drop you can play after Greater Good the turn before. Drop it, sac to dig five cards deep (discarding three), and then it comes back into play even bigger, letting you sac to dig six cards deep (discarding three). That’s a pretty deep dig into your library!

Of course, a lot of what you’re going to be discarding is land, which will make Knight of the Reliquary (the card you played the turn before you played Greater Good) gigantic.

My mind briefly turned to a nifty combo I ran across in Commander centered around Deathrender, Greater Good, and Deadwood Treefolk—equip a creature with Deathrender, sac it to Greater Good to draw some cards, put Deadwood Treefolk into play from the Deathrender trigger, get back the original creature you sacrificed (or something bigger/better), sac the Treefolk to Greater Good to draw some cards and get back another creature, put another creature into play with Deathrender’s trigger… With all that drawing and churning through your deck, no telling what kind of shenanigans you can set up.

Unfortunately for my schemes, Batterskull was printed, which means that Stoneforge Mystic is banned in Modern. Without Mystic I don’t think Deathrender would cut it in Modern.

However, thinking about Deadwood Treefolk brought to mind his partner in crime, one of my all-time favorite legends: Saffi Eriksdotter. I’ve had nice times combining Saffi with Eternal Witness (Modern legal, woo-hoo!), but I thought about how crazy it would be to drop Vorapede after Greater Good with Saffi in play. Sac him once, then sac Saffi targeting Vorapede before the second sac to squeeze two more sacrifices to Greater Good.

That sounded extremely powerful to me. Maybe powerful enough for Modern…if I could just figure out what my end game would be!

Luckily, it didn’t take long thinking about Greater Good before I came up with the answer. About seven years ago, while I was powering my way to Top 8 at Virginia States in 2005 with the very first Dredge deck, our Icy Grip columnist Shaheen Soorani was making his own Top 8 appearance with a deck that might surprise you. It wasn’t a control deck and had zero counterspells, even though it ran blue. Shocked? Don’t be—while Shaheen loves control, he also loves doing weird and powerful things, and that sometimes leads him in different directions. Some of you may remember this deck, which made a splash on the Standard scene:

Greater Good Combo
Shaheen Soorani
2nd Place at States on 10-23-2005
Standard
Magic Arena

Creatures (10)

Lands (22)

Spells (28)

Sideboard

Magic Card Back


A strong end game for a Greater Good deck looked to be sacrificing large Kamigawa dragons for fun and profit. Since I was already dipping into white with Knight of the Reliquary and Saffi, Yosei, the Morning Star seemed like a natural include. Tapping down my opponent and denying his untap step a few times, and it seems like it would be pretty easy to finish him off with a huge Knight and Vorapede.

As I started fleshing out the deck list, since I was going to run Fauna Shaman, seems like a gimme to add Vengevine to a deck with Greater Good. With the digging deep and pitching cards, it seems pretty easy to set things up for all your Vengevines to come powering back out attacking for free. Here’s my first pass at the deck:

Good Morning
Bennie Smith
Test deck on 02-19-2012
Modern
Magic Arena

Creatures (29)

Lands (25)

Spells (6)

Magic Card Back


I could probably get away with one or two less than the 25 lands I’m running, but with Lotus Cobra and a top-end of six mana I want to make sure I don’t stumble on land as I ramp up to my end game.

While I suspect a large Knight of the Reliquary is what will get the Greater Good engine started, I’m also not forgetting the decent amount of exalted triggers I can pile on here, making even a Lotus Cobra into something you can sacrifice to Greater Good for profit.

Of course, Shaheen’s Greater Good deck suggests an approach that is possibly stronger that I could build into this deck:  reanimation. Here’s another take:

Good Evening Rites
Bennie Smith
Test deck on 02-19-2012
Modern
Magic Arena

Creatures (25)

Lands (25)

Spells (10)

Magic Card Back


With Greater Good, it seems like a pretty good bet that you could set up a pretty potent pitch of some huge monster that you can reanimate (twice) with Unburial Rites while you dig for another Unburial Rites. Phyrexian Metamorph can even let you double up on either of the Kamigawa dragons for double the fun (or just a game ending ten-point life drain). Of course, this build loses out on the Vengevine shenanigans, but something’s got to give.

The first version is more my speed, but the second one feels like it might be more unfair. As a novice to the format, I’m a babe in the woods here, but I feel really excited about playing every card in this deck and it seems like it could be a contender with the right tweaks. So I’m calling out to my readers who might be more Modern-savvy than me—what do you think? I think there’s no doubt that it runs enough powerful cards. Does the game plan have a shot? How would you tweak the deck? What about the sideboard?

I imagine the results from Grand Prix Hoth last weekend will shape a lot of what I can expect to face at the PTQ next weekend. In the Top 8 we had:

Aggro Loam (winning it all)
Melira Pod
U/W Tron
Affinity (x2)
Faeries
Jund (x2)

One of my favorite sideboard cards of all time is Mark of Asylum, which seems like a reasonable card to run against Aggro Loam to make sure your creatures don’t get Assaulted out of the way long enough for you to set things up. I figure Aven Mindcensor might be a pretty decent sideboard card against Melira Pod.

We’ve got a Modern PTQ here in Richmond on March 3rd, and I’m hoping to have one of these two decks sleeved up and ready to battle for my first foray into Modern. With your help maybe I can pimp the deck to have a fighting chance!

That’s it for this week!

Take care,

Bennie

starcitygeezer AT gmail DOT com

I’m still looking for a roommate, so if you know anyone looking for a place to live in the Richmond, Virginia area please get in touch!

Make sure to follow my Twitter feed (@blairwitchgreen). I check it often so feel free to send me feedback, ideas, and random thoughts. I’ve also created a Facebook page where I’ll be posting up deck ideas and will happily discuss Magic, life, or anything else you want to talk about!

New to Commander?
If you’re just curious about the format, building your first deck, or trying to take your Commander deck up a notch, here are some handy links:

My current Commander decks (and links to decklists):

Previous Commander decks currently on hiatus: