What’s faster than Jeskai Flash in Modern? Combo! (Partial credit to anybody who said “Split Second”).
The January 19th B&R announcement looms in the near future, but there are still events to be played before the banhammer comes down and possibly
changes everything in a few weeks.
I know that many people have been waiting until after the announcement to become deeply invested in learning the ins and outs of the metagame, but there
are some great Modern events coming up around the country next week including a GP in Omaha and a 5K that may lure some players to dive in.
Last week I spent some time practicing playing Modern in preparation for a local PPTQ that I was unfortunately unable to attend because of a family
conflict that arose at the last second. While I was pretty disappointed that I missed the chance to play Modern, the situation wasn’t a total bust because
I learned some important insights into the format to share with you all today.
The biggest thing that I learned about the format was that the printing of Treasure Cruise has really helped the format settle into a Rock-Scissors-Paper
type format with three archetypes occupying prime real estate in the metagame.
Rock.
Scissors.
Paper.
Midrange. Tempo. Combo.
It seems strange to say that Siege Rhino is a pillar of Modern because it isn’t the type of card that I would typically think of as a big-time Modern
player, but at the moment that seems to be what has happened in the metagame. Siege Rhino decks are specifically designed to match up well against Delver
of Secrets decks.
Friends of the Rhino.
U/R Delver is such a powerful and widely played deck that it has spawned its very own hate deck in various Abzan Midrange and Birthing Pod decks. It is
very hard for a tempo deck full of small creatures and Lightning Bolts to grind out a deck full of removal, two-for-ones, and lifegain.
The downside of the midrange decks is obviously that they cannot play permission, which makes them susceptible to fast combo decks like Jeskai Ascendancy
or Storm.
On the other side of the coin, a deck full of cheap threats, library manipulation, and permission is going to have the edge against combo decks.
One trend that I began to notice while doing format analysis and theory for Vintage last year was that while archetypes have positive and negative
matchups, the high power level of the cards and strategies makes it very possible for decks to commonly overcome their good or bad matchups. In a sense,
the tier one decks in a format with really powerful cards only tend to be slightly favored or disadvantaged in various matchups.
Various cards in a matchup and whether they are drawn at the right times goes a long, long way in influencing actual match outcomes. If a player is playing
a “tier 1”-type deck, most bad matchups (especially against other commonly played decks) don’t typically dip below about 40%.
With that being said, when picking a deck in a format like Vintage (or more relevant to this conversation, Modern), I almost certainly want to be playing a
deck that is intrinsically powerful. Obviously, powerful is a non-specific term as whether decks perform well or poorly is always dictated by context;
however, there are some criteria that I use to think about the relative “powerfulness” of one deck compared to another.
Am I proactive or reactive?
How fast can my deck win the game?
How easy is it for my opponents to interact with my strategy?
In my opinion, the most powerful deck one could play would be one that is proactive, wins the game very quickly, and is very difficult for an opponent to
interact with.
Duh!
Linear combo decks tend to fill this niche nicely because they are fast and force opponents to interact with them in a very specific way or else lose the
game.
One big flaw that I am looking to exploit within the current Modern metagame is that slow, plodding, midrange decks (which make up a large chunk of the
metagame and are the second most played deck after U/R Delver) are really a metagame reaction deck that functions as a foil to Delver.
These midrange decks are really vulnerable to being attacked and killed quickly by decks that can execute a quick combo kill.
The other thing that I’ve noticed is that while Jeskai Ascendancy has a great matchup against Birthing Pod decks, the deck doesn’t seem to struggle
mightily against Delver decks. Sure, Delver has an edge, but it only feels like a small one.
In this elaborate game of Rock, Scissors, Paper it appears to me that being Merchant Scroll (combo/paper) has an observable edge.
Here is the list of Jeskai Ascendancy that I’ve been tuning up:
Creatures (12)
Lands (16)
Spells (32)
I prefer the mana accelerants list of Jeskai Ascendancy than the more combo/control version from the World Championships. The biggest reason that I prefer
this version is:
Best card in the format.
I didn’t love the more controlling version because I thought that Dig Through Time was just much worse than Treasure Cruise was in the deck. I’m sure this
is a debatable point, but in a deck with so much redundancy, I’d rather just have the extra card, especially against decks with a lot of discard. Both
cards are obviously fantastic, but I’d rather be proactively assembling my combo than interacting with my opponent’s creatures with Bolts and Paths.
Tutor Time.
I love that this deck gets to play with Glittering Wish as a flexible utility card that also finds the key combo card, Jeskai Ascendancy! It’s pretty
awesome to not have to play any removal, counterspells, or utility spells in the maindeck and still essentially be playing four copies of each in the
maindeck because of Glittering Wish.
In the same vein of beat ’em before they can even get anything going:
Creatures (23)
- 4 Arcbound Ravager
- 4 Ornithopter
- 1 Master of Etherium
- 2 Memnite
- 4 Etched Champion
- 4 Signal Pest
- 4 Vault Skirge
Lands (16)
Spells (21)
Sideboard
Affinity is still a blazing fast deck in Modern.
With all of the other major decks getting big-time new printings:
Pros of Khans.
It may seem like Affinity got left behind with all of the spicy Modern worthy printings from Khans, but let’s not forget about…
Something for the battle bots.
While not as spicy as Treasure Cruise, Ghostfire Blade is still a really good card in Affinity. It is amazing at enabling metalcraft for Mox Opal, as well
as quickly providing affinity for Thoughtcast.
I also like it because it’s good with your best cards like Etched Champion but also really helps to make weaker cards like Signal Pest and Ornithopter
better. It’s also quite good with the Blinkmoth and Inkmoth Nexus as a way to grind out wins against removal-heavy decks.
The fact that Ghostfire Blade is in the deck is sort of incidental, because the real reason that I believe Affinity is good right now is that it has solid
matchups against all of the popular decks and because people are playing less hate than before.
It is also nice that cards like Arcbound Ravager and Cranial Plating allow an Affinity mage to attack for huge amounts of damage which makes the incidental
lifegain from cards like Siege Rhino and Kitchen Finks much less likely to be able to stabilize the board.
Affinity is also blazingly quick, and its creatures are evasive so it can mount both a fast and difficult to beat fleet of fliers before an opponent can
even mount a defense. Most players can only answer one creature per turn, but Affinity can play multiple threats starting on the first turn of the game!
Affinity gets to play the original Treasure Cruise!
With so much Rock, Scissors, Paper going on and those matchups being so tight, people are expending more and more of their sideboard slots toward hedging
against those types of matchups, which leaves less room for Stony Silences and Ancient Grudges: the things that traditionally put Affinity into check.
It’s also kind of sweet that U/R Delver doesn’t get to play Stony Silence, and Birthing Pod has Pod, so it also doesn’t get to play Stony Silence. This
might just be the moment where there is less sideboard hate than ever for Affinity.
It’s also worth noting that it’s unlikely that Affinity cards will get banned in a couple of weeks, so it’s a worthwhile place to put your money in if you
are planning on buying a deck, as opposed to a deck like Jeskai Ascendancy that has a higher chance of having a card or two banned.
My take on Modern (at least up until we see if anything changes with the banned list in a couple of weeks) is to be fast and try and go underneath
everybody who is Siege Rhino’ing or Treasure Cruising by playing really fast and aggressive combo-style decks.
In Modern, it is a great time to be a combo mage! It’s fun to go fast.