People like lists. I really hope they like lists of lists, because that’s what I have today.

Five Modern Decks You Should Be Playing

The forums asked for Modern content, and I shall deliver just in time for it not to be extremely relevant for another month.

5. W/B Tokens

W/B Tokens

Melissa DeTora

9th Place at Grand Prix on 12-09-2012

Modern

Creatures (10)

Lands (23)

Spells (27)

Sideboard

Lingering Souls and Zealous Persecution are awesome cards against the popular Affinity and Birthing Pod decks. The tokens plan is an awesome one against all of the fair decks. You are also one of the very few decks that can actually maindeck Relic of Progenitus if the metagame calls for it (no Tarmogoyfs, Snapcaster Mages, or Deathrite Shaman). Melissa DeTora keeps having strong finishes at events with this deck for a reason. Since Twin first dropped out of the top tier over a year ago, Tokens has always been just below the surface of the format. It has one Grand Prix win, and I’m almost certain it will claim another soon.

4. Tron

G/R Tron

Cedric Phillips

3rd Place at Pro Tour Qualifier on 03-10-2013

Modern

Creatures (4)

Planeswalkers (4)

4 Karn Liberated

Lands (20)

Spells (32)

Sideboard

Not all the turn 3 combo decks are banned. There isn’t much to say about this deck that hasn’t already been said, but most of the decks people are still playing in this format are fundamentally fair. This deck just bashes anything along those lines, especially Melira Pod.

3. Kiki Pod

Kiki Pod

Ari Lax

Test deck on 06-02-2013

Modern

Creatures (33)

Lands (23)

Spells (4)

4 Birthing Pod

Sideboard

With Voice of Resurgence solving some of the “bad two-drop” issues the deck previously had, the four-color Birthing Pod lists are one of the few remaining broken decks in the format. Melira Pod still takes a few turns to combo out, and in metagames where people try to go just one step more unfair to beat the more common list, you can go a level ahead of them and still maintain the one-card win power of Birthing Pod.

Note: A maindeck Sigarda, Host of Herons is a very reasonable call, but not right now with the metagame from Grand Prix Portland basically showing far fewer purely fair decks than usual.

2. Melira Pod

Melira Pod

Sam Pardee

1st Place at Grand Prix on 05-12-2013

Modern

Creatures (28)

Lands (23)

Spells (9)

Sideboard

With Voice of Resurgence, this deck now has an actual draw over Kiki Pod. While previously you could just port the old four Kitchen Finks benefits of Melira Pod to Kiki lists and play equivalent interactive spells, it’s far more difficult to add relevant sacrifice outlets to Kiki Pod to turn Voice into an always-huge threat. Your fair game plan is much stronger, and it’s definitely now enough to overcome your relative weakness in the combo department. Melira Pod is now a true midrange combo deck, and Modern is definitely a format where multiple angles of attack is a powerful game plan.

1. Goryo’s Vengeance

Again, Wizards keeps trying to stop all the fast combo decks that pop up in Modern. Jacob Kory, Eternal enthusiast (aka California Legacy combo degenerate), tried really hard to laugh in their face at Grand Prix San Diego. This deck is way better than you think it is. There is video of his round 12 feature match against Shahar Shenhar if you care to disagree. I unfortunately can’t find his exact list, but here is an approximation based on his description of it being (if I remember correctly) “all fours and a pair of twos”:

Reanimator

Jacob Kory

Test deck on 06-02-2013

Modern

Creatures (12)

Lands (20)

Spells (28)

Yes, Deathrite Shaman is interaction. Some of the time. Sometimes you just jam a Through the Breach.

Yes, Path to Exile is interaction. Some of the time. Other times it’s just an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn coming across the table. You have Boseiju, Who Shelters All and Thoughtseize in the board for the interaction that might matter.

This deck isn’t unbeatable, but you should be afraid.

Five Modern Decks You Should Not Be Playing

I will most likely be attending Grand Prix Kansas City. I will most likely not be playing any of these decks.

5. Scapeshift

This is still an eight-card combo deck that disguises itself as a one-card combo. What this means is that you need eight actual cards to win a game. Your deck is terrible at mulliganing, and it’s terrible against attrition. Really, it’s almost at the point I would call it a terrible deck, but it has just enough of a niche carved out being good against Melira Pod and Tron that I can’t really do so.

Yes, two of my teammates for the last PT played this deck to Grand Prix Top 8 finishes. I blame approximately twenty of their opponents at those events for this. [Editor’s Note: Boom. Roasted.]

4. Infect

I’ve won some of my matches against Melira Pod. I’ve also lost an embarrassing number of them to turn 2 Melira, Sylvok Outcast. If they are doing this to you game 1, which they will be, I would just accept that it’s not the right day to be casting Giant Growths.

And I haven’t even mentioned Lingering Souls.

3. Traditional or Ajani B/G/W

While Lingering Souls is a fairly powerful card, this deck is not powerful enough to back it up. It was awesome for the small span of time when the metagame was not prepared for Liliana of the Veil and Deathrite Shaman. It’s just an awkward midrange deck against a metagame full of decks that are good against those cards (Tron, Scapeshift, Melira Pod).

Exceptions: If you play Thundermaw Hellkite, you might have a good deck. In case you haven’t really paid attention to Standard or Modern in the last year, that card actually ends games very quickly. You are no longer a clunky midrange deck if that card makes an appearance in your list.

2. White Weenie

This might seem like an attractive anti Birthing Pod option. You naturally play multiple maindeck hate bears for search effects (Leonin Arbiter and Aven Mindcensor); how can they possibly be good against that?

Then you play some games. It turns out their cards are actually just better than yours. You can’t beat a Murderous Redcap. You are pretty bad against Kitchen Finks. Most embarrassingly, you really can’t beat a Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or Restoration Angel. There is a limited number of Path to Exiles in your deck. They probably have just as many or more for your Hero of the Bladeholds.

I am something like 5-1 or 6-1 in this matchup playing Pod decks on Magic Online, and the loss was 100% my fault. Seriously, don’t waste your time trying this. Unless this is your thing, in which case I guess I can’t stop you.

1. Eggs

Yes, Faith’s Reward is a card. Yes, so is Open the Vaults. Yes, Mox Opal is now super cool.

No, you can no longer keep looping your Eggs off a single Lotus Bloom for mana. No, you cannot cast Open the Vaults pretty much ever. No, Noxious Revival does not make your deck close to as good as it previously was.

It was worth a shot, guys, but it’s time to move on. Storm, on the other hand, might still be real, so try that for a change.

Five Awesome Block Cards to Watch for (Assuming Thragtusk Didn’t Exist)

Block testing this year didn’t yield as many interesting brews as past formats have, but we still found a few cool things. Unfortunately, Thragtusk ruins a lot of otherwise awesome parties.

5. Toil // Trouble

Late in our testing, Craig Wescoe had a U/W/R control deck that tried to play out as a burn deck against Esper. Toil // Trouble was fairly instrumental here. Early on it’s a cheap Lava Axe (or better), and it does a lot to turn off Sphinx’s Revelation. When they lose the inevitable stability given to them by that card, suddenly all bets are off on whether you can kill them with Boros Charms.

Of course, if they have a way to empty their hand while gaining life, things can get dicey. In Block, that was Blood Baron of Vizkopa. Still, you had a turn to deal with that card before it did anything relevant. If you Turn // Burn a Thragtusk, they still gain life. Dealing 25-30 is a whole lot more difficult than dealing the 18-20 you needed in Block.

That all said, I would not be shocked to see this card show up somewhere in Standard. On turn 3 the Sudden Impact side is a pretty good rate, Sign in Blood isn’t a bad effect, and it’s always worth a solid four damage when fused.

4. Ready // Willing

One of the things we touched on in Block testing but never really found a shell for was Boros Reckoner plus Ready // Willing. Instead of the three-card combo usually required to assemble an indestructible, lifelinking Boros Reckoner for infinite life, Ready // Willing provides both halves in one card. The final list of our double strike deck had a couple Reckoners and a single Ready // Willing in the sideboard, but it’s definitely possible to go deeper on this.

Unlike the others, Thragtusk kills this one indirectly. Without tutors, just playing a combo like this is fairly loose. The key is that if both parts of the combo happen to just be good cards, you can get away with it. In Block, there were a ton of Supreme Verdicts for Ready // Willing to counter. Thragtusk and the resulting shift in creatures surrounding it make Supreme Verdict pretty bad, making it difficult to justify playing Ready // Willing outside of the combo.

Note: The Reckoner combo is also still a two-and-a-half card combo since you need to deal damage to it, and you are also trying to play a card that costs B and G in a Boros Reckoner deck. I’m not trying to say this combo is absurd in a different world, but it’s a step further from being reasonable in a world with Thragtusk.

3. Jace, Architect of Thought

Jace was a giant brick wall in block. It was very easy for Esper to make a board state where a +1 meant it remained on board for another turn, which chained into more removal and another activation, which chained into an easy win.

Thragtusk changes the paradigm. While Jace is fairly effective against the more moderately paced Temple Garden decks in block, Thragtusk makes everyone play bigger creatures. Getting your Jace attacked by a Thragtusk is not an optimal exchange here, especially as it’s hard to ensure it won’t happen again. Thragtusk also makes the -2 ability much less relevant because a couple extra cards just doesn’t mean the same thing as it did in Block. In Standard, their cards will be worth two spot removal spells most of the time, and you need bigger swings (Sphinx’s Revelation) to come out ahead.

2. Far // Away

This was your second Supreme Verdict in Block, and the two made quite the pair. One punishes your opponent for overextending; the other punishes them for playing around a sweeper by destroying their board state. You could easily win games against the G/W decks by two-for-oneing them with this card.

In Standard, the G/W decks all have Thragtusk, and this card is terrible against it. Bounce it like you did with Voice of Resurgence in Block? Nope, not going to work. Make them sacrifice it? Still not going to work. People also play far fewer single token-producing cards in the format because of how poorly 3/3 Centaurs and even 5/5 Wurms pair up against the 5/3 Beast.

I’m not saying this won’t see play, but I actively felt bad about not maindecking the fourth in Block. Not so much in Standard.

1. Blood Baron of Vizkopa

In order to beat this guy, our block G/W decks were splashing Far // Away. We found out he was nearly as good as Obzedat, Ghost Council in the mirror, as them being able to Azorius Charm an Obzedat was an issue while them tapping out for a Supreme Verdict on a Blood Baron often just meant you had an opening. Against Mono-Red Aggro, he was basically a Baneslayer Angel.

And he still loses a heads-up fight to a 5/3 green creature.

Whatever, I would probably still play him anyway. He’s just that good. Kill the 5/3, accept that they have a 3/3 chump blocker, and swing away.

Five New Rules Brews

While the new rules changes regarding legends and planeswalkers won’t go into effect for almost two months, that doesn’t stop you from building with them in mind now. Really, I’m most excited about not having to figure out the last sideboarding cut some of the time, but here are a few cool ideas based off the other rules changes.

5. Yosei Plus Clones (Commander)

Previously, cloning your own Yosei, the Morning Star was just a double Time Walk. Now, it’s quite possible to just chain a ton of clones on an in-play Yosei as Time Walks alongside your 5/5 Dragon.

This one likely won’t see play in any competitive format, especially since it is probably easier to keep reanimating Yosei and sacrificing it. In fact, that was very reasonable when the card was in Standard with Goryo’s Vengeance and Greater Good, so I can’t imagine it’s any more difficult now. For you Commander fans out there, this is fair game.

4. Koth Storm (Modern)

Adam Barnello recently mentioned Koth of the Hammer now being a Seething Song variant. If you generate mana on the -2 ability then play a second, you can replace the original and immediately -2 again. I don’t think this scenario will be very realistic. You need five Mountains for Koth to even generate one mana the turn it is cast, which is a lot for a combo deck.

That said, I think there may be room for a fairer combo deck in Modern where Koth plays a big role. The shell I’m imagining is something similar to Patrick Chapin classic Spinerock Knoll Dragonstorm deck. If Koth survives a turn, getting to the required nine mana or seven damage to Dragonstorm should be a breeze. While you no longer have Rite of Flame, there are eight rituals to take its place. The deck also played actual Shock, and we now have Lightning Bolt and Lava Spike.

I’m not sure if this shell is actually better than Burn or Storm or if Koth is actually a better mana source than charge lands, but it is worth considering for some of the stranger metagames that can develop in Modern. It is definitely not a format where linearity is always rewarded, and this deck has interaction and multiple angles of attack.

3. Control Depths (Legacy)

Intuition had a pseudo lethal pile of Gigapede, Unburial Rites, and a fatty. Now it has another in Life from the Loam, Thespian’s Stage, and Dark Depths. This one works if you draw one of the pieces, but it’s still vulnerable to Karakas. Wasteland isn’t a real issue here since you can use your own Wastelands and Loam to grind down theirs.

As a definitive non-expert on Legacy control, I’m not going to even try to touch on a list. Just be aware that this is a thing. The old Intuition / Accumulated Knowledge is also apparently a thing again according to AJ Sacher. While I’m used to thinking of the cards as 2U instant Demonic Tutor, Intuition might soon be a staple outside of blue enchantment-based combo decks.

2. All-In Depths (Legacy)

Mono-black two-card combo is one of those classic pet Legacy decks. The addition of the Thespian’s Stage / Dark Depths combo is a major gain for this deck. While at first glance there is the obvious addition of another four Vampire Hexmage esque pieces, Thespian’s Stage has a few perks over the classic Extended combo. First of all, Stage lets you get both combo pieces with one tutor: Expedition Map. Living Wish could technically get both, but cutting natural copies of your combo pieces to be able to tutor for them has a real cost in terms of opening up on turn 2 kills. The second is that Stage can help fight Wasteland. Any extra Stages you draw can copy Wastelands and destroy them before you expose the combo. It’s clunky, but it can get the job done.

Beyond the base combo, the deck can feature a large amount of disruption and potentially even splash card draw. If you want to go pure mono-black, consider a backup combo that attacks from a different angle. My personal favorite is Buried Alive plus Demigod of Revenge because Demigod is a perfectly serviceable backup win condition and the combo dodges Swords to Plowshares unlike Painter’s Servant. If you want to dedicate slots for reanimation spells, Buried Alive for Necrotic Ooze / Triskelion / Phyrexian Devourer also works.

The Dark Depths package could also serve as a reasonable transformational Dredge sideboard. The full Map-Stage-Hexmage-Depths package is sixteen cards, and trimming one Stage to go to 15 is probably quite reasonable. I’m not sure this is actually good, but don’t be surprised when this happens to you.

1. Mono-Black Belcher (Legacy)

People have talked about Gaea’s Cradle as a big winner in this change. Who cares, Elves never really ran out of mana anyway. Sure, you can now justify pushing the deck a little faster, but you still need a bare minimum number of Forests to cast the first Elf.

Playing eight Lotus Petals? That’s a real upgrade.

I don’t want to mess around with anything remotely fair here. Sure, Affinity gets a slight upgrade, but turn 3 Cranial Plating kills are old news to me. I want to go bigger. If they get a second turn, I did something wrong.

What’s the minimum number of artifacts needed for this? Let’s take the easy route today and not figure out any sort of real hypergeometric stats. Assuming one of your seven cards in hand is a Mox Opal, you need two of your other six cards to be non-Opal artifacts for turn 1 metalcraft. Doing easy math, you want at least twenty non-Opal artifacts in your deck. Lion’s Eye Diamond, Lotus Petal, and Chrome Mox are an easy twelve, but what about the other eight or more? The Tall Man (Shield Sphere, Phyrexian Walker, Ornithopter) package with Culling the Weak immediately comes to mind, as does this deck.

Mono-Black Belcher

Jon Johnson

193rd Place at Star City Games Legacy Open on 06-17-2012

Legacy

Creatures (10)

Lands (1)

1 Bayou

Spells (49)

Sideboard

This deck suffered a lot from double Opal hands being mulligans when you are trying to add to seven, but now those hands are fine to awesome. I make no promises this deck is optimal or better than normal Belcher.

Random note: Legacy Eggs gets to play eight Reshapes due to Transmute Artifact. I’m pretty sure the fact that it leans heavily on two zones makes it unplayable (the stack and the graveyard), but don’t be shocked if someone shows up playing it. Mox Opal was one of the keys to pushing the deck towards turn 2 or 3 kills in my previous testing.

Top 5 Hall of Fame Questions This Year

Assuming I understand everything correctly, I should have a Pro Tour Hall of Fame vote this year. I’ve spent a little bit of time thinking about my choices, and here are a few of the interesting “voting metagame” questions that have come up.

5. Are PT Top 8-light resumes with extraordinary other accomplishments a thing?

Both Martin Juza and Shouta Yasooka are eligible this year. Shouta has been eligible for a while, but his recent Players Championship finals appearance is sure to bring him into the limelight again. He has only one Pro Tour Top 8, but he has a Player of the Year title and a ton of PT Top 16 finishes. Martin Juza has two Pro Tour Top 8s and has been a Platinum/Level 8 fixture for years. Both of these players have 15 Grand Prix Top 8s, and Martin has four wins, two of which occurred in the same city.

On the other hand, only one player has ever been inducted to the Hall of Fame with less than three Top 8s, and I’ve heard a lot of retrospective confusion on that one.

While I don’t think this is the year for either of them, one more Top 8 puts either of them into the real discussion. Keep an eye out for this more in future years.

4. Will Saito be viewed as redeemed?

Tomoharu Saito got there once, and then he lost that. No one really denies the facts behind the events that led to his suspension, but in a lot of minds he isn’t on the same level as many others who have been suspended. He also didn’t let his suspension affect his relationship with the game. He was still at American Grand Prix trading instead of playing, cracked open the Pro Tour Montreal metagame on Twitter, and now he is back as a Silver level pro off a Grand Prix Top 8 and a Pro Tour cash.

Again, this is probably a not this year kind of thing, but if this doesn’t move way up the issues charts next year, I would be shocked.

3. What region wins the four Top 8s fight?

North America, Latin America, Japan, and Europe each have a player sitting at the four PT mark looking to get in based off of recent results or eligibility. Historically, four PTs is the point where a player is considered but needs a push, and all four of these players potentially have that extra intangible aspect.

Ben Stark has been a USA Pro Tour mainstay the last few years and is probably the best Limited player in the world. Even if he isn’t, few people would fault you for calling him that. His semifinals appearance at Pro Tour Gatecrash puts him at the four Top 8s mark, and he was already getting votes with just three. He also has one thing some of the others here don’t: a Pro Tour win.

Willy Edel has been on a tear this year. From my understanding, he also was a huge influence in starting up competitive Magic in Brazil. There were some allegations against him early in his career, but they have never been repeated while his results have.

In my mind, Makihito Mihara was one game away from having a second Pro Tour win in San Diego. My team was testing the potential finals matchups to help Craig, and while reality matched our expectations against Dusty’s list, there was no way he could win four games against Woodlot Crawlers. The Repeal into the third Rite of Flame moment against Paulo in his Worlds Top 8 is also one of the best PT topdecks of all time that few people seem to remember. Tsuyoshi Ikeda is another option on the same level and definitely has the charisma factor on his side, but he will likely need another finish or big public push to be remembered by enough people to get in.

Finally, we have Marijn Lybaert. While he has the weakest resume of the players here (he is 1-4 in Top 8 matches), he has some odd bonuses. First of all, he has been doing commentary and getting his name out there in a way some of the others haven’t. Second, the European voting crowd tends to be much more organized than the American one and more populous than the Japanese or Latin American groups.

Maybe two of these people will get in. I’ve got my money (and will probably vote) on one, but it will be interesting to see how the other three pan out.

2. Did Huey’s year hurt or help him?

William Jensen came one vote short of making the Hall of Fame last year and decided to make a comeback. His results show a rocky start, but his participation shows a continuing passion for the game. Which wins out? Will his recent success at the StarCityGames.com Team Sealed Open in Somerset be the start of a series of great finishes?

My guess is that he gets in, but it’s definitely not a given.

1. Who won’t vote for Luis Scott-Vargas?

Seriously. I ask this, and I only expect him to get around 80% of the vote. Gamers will obviously game the system, but come on.

Any other cool topics I missed? Let me know in the comments and I’ll try to get you a quick response.

– Ari Lax

@armlx on Twitter