How To Attack SCG Baltimore

This past weekend, I flew to Vancouver to play in the Modern Grand Prix. It wasn’t an easy decision. Not only was there a Standard Grand Prix going on in
Memphis, but the StarCityGames Open Series was making one of its few local stops to me in Los Angeles at the same time. Ultimately, I chose to go to
Vancouver for a few reasons.

First of all, I had just done a great deal of testing for Pro Tour Fate Reforged and felt like I had a good understanding of the format, while I had yet to
play any high level events in the current Standard environment. Secondly, my Top 75 finish at the Pro Tour actually gave me a reasonable number of pro
points on the year, so picking up a few more stood to potentially have some value. Last but not least, I really like events in Vancouver, due in no small
part to the proximity of the convention center to one of my favorite sushi places around – Miku. Their salmon oshi is killer.

It certainly didn’t hurt that I really liked my Modern deck either. While I’m not a huge fan of the Modern format for high level competitive play, I do
like getting opportunities to play with some of my favorite cards – in this case the likes of Noble Hierarch, Loxodon Smiter, and Wilt-Leaf Liege.

I expected the metagame at the Grand Prix to be similar to that of the Pro Tour, with an uptick in Amulet Bloom, Infect, and Splinter Twin due to their
success, and a decline in the representation of Abzan Midrange, if only because it was so popular at the PT that it would be hard to match it. That said,
it’s Modern, which means that you have to be prepared for pretty much anything.

I also expected Burn to be heavily represented. Not only was it both popular and successful at the Pro Tour, but it’s a deck that’s relatively inexpensive
to build compared to most things in Modern. At the Grand Prix level, card availability is a real issue for many players, and Lava Spikes and Lightning
Bolts are cheap.

I felt like the Abzan Aggro deck I played at the Pro Tour was very strong against both Burn and Abzan Midrange, which I still expected to be the top decks.
I think you’re a pretty strong favorite against Burn, especially on the play, though it can be difficult to beat Goblin Guide into Searing Blaze on the
draw. Abzan Midrange is a breeze, since their discard and Lilianas are downright embarrassing against half of your creature base, and you can out-value
them with Lingering Souls plus Gavony Township very easily.

Despite popular opinion, the deck is also totally competitive with Splinter Twin. Most Splinter Twin decks have a lot of trouble beating mana creature into
Loxodon Smiter draws unless they have a fast combo hand, and even then you have Path to Exile, Thoughtseize, and Qasali Pridemage to interact with them. I
don’t think you’re a favorite, but you’re not a big underdog, especially once you sideboard in more disruption and removal spells. Yes, sometimes you’ll
tap out for a creature and your opponent will just combo-kill you on turn 4, but more often they won’t have it immediately, and they’ll have to dig–you
don’t give them a lot of time. Modern doesn’t have Ponder and Preordain, and cards like Serum Visions and Peek don’t work nearly as well when it comes to
assembling combos.

Here’s what I played at the Grand Prix:

Abzan Aggro

Brian Kibler

Test deck on 02-27-2015

Modern

Creatures (27)

Lands (23)

Spells (10)

Sideboard

I played the exact same maindeck as I used at Pro Tour Fate Reforged but a very different sideboard, informed by the testing that I did in my recent video. My sideboard for the Pro Tour was skewed toward
cards that had overlap value against Jeskai Control, since we overestimated how popular that deck would be at the event. With Jeskai not really having much
of a presence at the Pro Tour, I felt comfortable cutting most of the cards aimed at that matchup – like Sword of War and Peace – for cards that had higher
value elsewhere.

The cards that probably need the most explanation here are Sorin, Solemn Visitor and Ethersworn Canonist. The idea behind Sorin was that he offered value
against both control and midrange strategies like Abzan Midrange and Jeskai Control while also potentially sealing games against Burn. A single hit from a
Sorin-boosted team can be an absolutely huge life swing, which can put the game out of reach for Burn, or even for a deck like Scapeshift that has a hard
time assembling extra damage fast enough to race your creatures.

Ethersworn Canonist was based on a similar principle – time. I actually had never cast an Ethersworn Canonist in this deck going into the Grand Prix. It
was a suggestion from StarCity’s own Gerry Thompson as a tool primarily against Infect and Burn that could also happen to put a serious wrench in the plans
of any Living End or Storm opponent I might run into. The idea was that both Infect and Burn need to cast multiple spells per turn to play effectively.
Infect generally needs to be able to play both a pump spell and a way to protect their creature, while Burn needs to be able to fire off a flurry of damage
spells in a single turn in order to actually race your creature damage. I also imagined that Canonist could possibly come in handy against Amulet Bloom, as
strange as that may seem, because it could prevent them from actually using a Summoner’s Pact to search for and cast a Primeval Titan in the same turn.

Unfortunately, I never really got a chance to test out the effectiveness of Canonist in any of these matchups at the Grand Prix. I never played against
Infect or Amulet Bloom, and while I played against Burn three times and sideboarded Canonist in, I never actually drew it. I did have one game in which my
opponent revealed multiple copies of Destructive Revelry to me that were stuck in his hand at the end though, since he was afraid of something like Leyline
of Sanctity, Chalice of the Void, Sword of War and Peace, or Batterskull. Given the likelihood of other Burn opponents doing exactly the same thing, I’m a
bit reluctant to rely on any artifact or enchantment against them.

I did have a chance to draw and play Feed the Clan, and it was as good as you might imagine. Burn decks are built to deal twenty damage and not much more
than that. That makes gaining ten life pretty difficult for them to beat, especially when you’re pressuring their life total at the same time. Feed the
Clan was actually much better than Sorin, since the latter not only requires you to have a sizeable board presence to use it effectively, but it also costs
four mana at sorcery speed. Given that Burn decks are all playing Skullcracks to prevent lifegain from cards like Siege Rhino, a two cost instant speed
lifegain effect is much easier to sneak in when your opponent can’t stop it.

Choke did not perform very well for me in Vancouver. I think this was something of an anomaly based on the specifics of my matchups though. The idea behind
Choke is that it is a powerful tool against any blue-based deck, including Splinter Twin. One of the difficulties in playing against Splinter Twin is that
they can alter their deck heavily in sideboarding to become a U/R control deck, and the cards that you want against their combo shell – like Path to Exile
and Slaughter Pact – are not very good against the control strategy. Choke is powerful against either one, since they need blue mana whether they’re using
it to play combo pieces or Snapcaster removal spells.

The two Splinter Twin decks I played against in Vancouver, however, were both splashing white for Restoration Angel and Path to Exile. This made the
matchup worse for me in multiple ways. First of all, my sideboard plan with Choke was worse against them, since they had more non-Island sources of blue
mana like Celestial Colonnade. Secondly, and more importantly, is that Path to Exile gave them more efficient and reliable tools to deal with my larger
creatures with which the more traditional U/R versions can struggle. Against one of them, I had him under Choke fairly early on, but he kept using his
single Sacred Foundry to play Path to Exile on every creature I drew, and even had Valorous Stance for one of them. I eventually died in embarrassing
fashion to Snapcaster Mage and Deceiver Exarch attacks.

That wasn’t even my craziest loss of the tournament though. In the second round of day two, I got paired against Scapeshift. Normally Scapeshift can be a
pretty bad matchup, but in this case my opponent mulliganed down to four in game 1. I had an opening of Noble Hierarch into Lingering Souls, followed up by
a Thoughtseize taking his Scapeshift, just in case he managed to rattle off enough land and ramp in a row to kill me. Then he drew and played Repeal on my
Hierarch, leaving me with just Overgrown Tomb and Gavony Township in play. I flashed back my Souls and kept attacking him, then replayed my Hierarch the
next turn when I still failed to draw land. He drew and played an Electrolyze, killing my Hierarch and a token, and then Snapcaster on another for two more
tokens, until eventually I discarded to hand size twice around turn twelve without ever finding another land.

Game 2 was similarly outrageous. I had a very strong start of Hierarch into Smiter into Siege Rhino into Sorin, attacking him down to two and going up to
twenty life on my fourth turn. He tapped my team with Cryptic Command the next turn, and I played Thoughtseize, taking his second Cryptic Command and
leaving him with Scapeshift, Prismatic Omen, and lands in hand with three potentially lethal creatures in play, meaning he had to draw a way to stop all of
them or he would die on my next turn. He drew and played Gigadrowse, of all cards, tapping down all of my creatures, and then combo’d off with Prismatic
Omen plus Scapeshift and six lands to kill me on his next turn.

If you told me I was going to lose to Scapeshift at the Grand Prix, I would’ve believed you. If you told me I was going to lose either of those games, I
would’ve thought you were crazy.

In any case, my final record at the Grand Prix was 10-5, with my losses coming to the two Jeskai Twin decks, Scapeshift, one of the three Burn decks I
played, and one of the two Affinity decks I faced. Of those, I think all but Burn are legitimately bad matchups, so it’s hard for me to be too upset with
my result. I still like the deck, and I would likely play exactly the same maindeck once again if I were to play in another Modern event soon. I’d
certainly change the sideboard once again though.

Here’s what I’d likely play if I were going to the Modern Open in Baltimore this weekend:

Abzan Aggro

Brian Kibler

Test deck on 02-27-2015

Modern