Never in my life have I had such a mediocre record in a tournament and walked away with such a high opinion of my deck.
Widening My Range
Last weekend, I went to Grand Prix Vancouver. The people who know me were surprised to see that I played Splinter Twin, while those who don’t know me very
well thought it was an obvious choice for me. Despite what Jelger might say, I don’t think Twin is a particularly easy deck to play.
I’ve gone on record several times about how Splinter Twin is probably not the deck for me. I have issues identifying when the coast is clear, and I
typically don’t enjoy playing decks whose win condition is disrupted so easily. Often, you’ll be behind on board and don’t have the capability of getting
back into the game, so you have to go it. Chances are, they kept a hand that has something that can interact with your combo because they tend to be very
scared of it.
My Successful (?) Preparation
The week before the Grand Prix, I had some Standard PPTQs to play in, so I really only had a week to prepare for Modern. I didn’t think it would be a big
deal because I’ve been playing Abzan a lot, but the Pro Tour didn’t make things easy for me. Before the PT, I felt like I was ahead of the format, but
after the Pro Tour, everyone was on the same page as me.
Additionally, Burn was a very good deck and a difficult matchup. If people picked up Amulet Bloom, that wouldn’t be a picnic either. Abzan is naturally
good against a lot of the decks that used to exist in Modern, but since the format shifted, there weren’t many good matchups left. In a format like Modern,
I want something that is naturally good against the random decks because that would give me some breathing room in the tournament. I didn’t want every
round to be difficult, so I decided to move off Abzan.
I messed around with Kibler’s Abzan Aggro deck, but I didn’t like that a lot of things felt out of my control. I could pressure the combo decks, and if
they stumbled, I’d win, but if they had the turn 4 kill with protection, there was nothing I could do. Eventually I started looking at Twin and devoted the
last three days of testing to tuning my list.
This is what I settled on:
Creatures (14)
Lands (22)
Spells (24)
- 4 Lightning Bolt
- 4 Serum Visions
- 2 Peek
- 4 Remand
- 1 Electrolyze
- 2 Spell Snare
- 1 Cryptic Command
- 2 Dispel
- 4 Splinter Twin
Sideboard
I only had one bye from Planeswalker Points and won Round 2 against Burn pretty easily. In Round 3, I was paired against Merfolk. In the first game, I
killed all of his creatures and killed him with some lowly Snapcaster Mages. Game 2, he played Mutavault into Aether Vial on turn 1, and then Island into
Silvergill Adept plus Vial in Cursecatcher on turn 2. On turn 3, he Spell Pierced my Lightning Bolt on his Master of the Pearl Trident, but it wasn’t
enough. I killed him on my turn 4.
Those rounds reminded me of a previous Pro Tour. At Pro Tour Valencia, I played Enduring Ideal, a deck that was outside of my range before that tournament.
However, I figured out that the deck would be great for that tournament and decided to give it a shot. In the first round, I defeated Goblins easily, which
was typically a deck that beat me because of the decks I was playing.
After being used to losing to the same decks over and over, it’s a pretty unreal feeling to suddenly be wishing to face those decks. I felt the exact same
way with Splinter Twin. For the near future, it’s probably the deck I’ll be piloting in Modern, at least until the format shifts again. Twin has a
significant advantage against the random decks in the field, and while the Abzan matchup isn’t great, maxing on Sower of Temptation and playing some
(nearly) indestructible Stormbreath Dragons certainly helps.
I knew a version that was more focused on the combo was the right way to go. My list ended up more focused on the combo than the other lists I’ve seen, and
I wouldn’t have it any other way. If you see that their hand has a removal spell (from a Gitaxian Probe, Peek, or Vendilion Clique) and you have the combo
but no way to protect it, what’s the point? Additionally, Spellskite and Dispel are just good cards in the format, as decks like Burn, Infect, and Splinter
Twin don’t appreciate seeing either of them.
Above all else, I wanted to keep them honest. Some people board out the combo every single time, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that. The lack of a good
finisher or way to put the game away (read: card drawing) was clearly an issue. I kept searching for a good Divination or Brainstorm, but I came up short.
Humble Defector seemed like it could be great and provided a last minute distraction, but I stayed the course.
When in doubt, sticking to the most powerful thing your deck is capable of doing isn’t the worst thing you could be doing.
We All Make Mistakes
So, why did the tournament go so poorly for me? I blame three big mistakes.
1) In Round 5, I let an opponent have an Eidolon of the Great Revel trigger. At the end of the game, I had a fetchland that needed to fetch a dual, a
Splinter Twin in hand, and a Deceiver Exarch in play, but I was at three life.
For whatever reason, I tell my opponents that I’ll give them one trigger, but they need to catch them in the future or I won’t be as lenient. I wouldn’t
expect the same from my opponent, and I never ask for a trigger that I’ve clearly missed, but I typically give more than I take in all aspects of life. I
know some people give more and some less, but that was ultimately the policy I settled on. Lately, it’s been punishing me a lot though. By never asking for
my missed triggers but allowing theirs, I’m giving up a lot of equity.
I could have also tried to show him the fetchland and Splinter Twin, hoping he would concede, not realizing I needed to fetch an untapped shockland but
ultimately decided not to do that either. Those combination of things cost me the match.
2) In Round 8, I cast a Serum Visions turn 1, which allowed my opponent to play a Tarmogoyf uncontested. If I hold back on the Visions, he has to respect
both Lightning Bolt and Spell Snare. Late into the game, I drew a string of lands and died to the Tarmogoyf.
In my preparation, I didn’t expect many decks to have Tarmogoyf plus Lightning Bolt for my Sower of Temptations, so I was fine with that being my only
answer to Tarmogoyf. That did not work out very well in that round, so perhaps that was a mistake as well.
3) In Round 9, I lost a pair of Sower of Temptations to a pair of Zealous Persecutions. I’m not sure there’s anything I could have done there, but I knew
something fishy was going on. I don’t expect people to board in Zealous Persecution against me at all, so it completely caught me off guard. Even if I
played around the second Persecution, a topdecked removal spell for my Sower would have dealt me a bunch of damage, and I likely wouldn’t have been able to
come back from it, so running the second Sower out there even I suspected double Persecution was likely correct.
At one point, I was 6-1 but lost twice in a row playing for Day 2. Overall, I felt like the matches I lost were within my control. Twin performed well in
the tournament, and I’m rather disappointed that I wasn’t one of them. I look forward to playing Modern again, even if I don’t particularly enjoy the
format.
Why is Your Creature Still Chained to That Rock?
Grand Prix Vancouver wasn’t the only tournament happening last weekend. There was another Grand Prix in Memphis and the StarCityGames Open in Los Angeles
as well. In both tournaments, R/W Aggro continued to do well.
R/W relies on Chained to the Rocks to create a tempo advantage by being one of the few decks in the format capable of playing one casting-cost removal. The
obvious downside is that Chained to the Rocks can be destroyed, thereby regaining that tempo advantage, especially if it releases something like a Siege
Rhino.
I don’t think people are doing their job. Not only is Chained to the Rocks a huge part of why R/W wins, but Outpost Siege is also responsible for many
victories. Conveniently, both cards are enchantments and easily destroyed.
When Whip of Erebos was the big deck in Standard, the influx in Back to Natures was overnight. It seemed that people overestimated how important Whip of
Erebos was to that deck winning, whereas the opposite effect seems to be happening in regards to R/W. Whip of Erebos was great but could easily be sided
out in the face of hate, but the same can’t be said of Chained to the Rocks or Outpost Siege.
You might think Goblin Rabblemaster is the best card in the R/W deck because it kills you so quickly, but I assure you that Chained to the Rocks and
Outpost Siege are likely doing most of the work. If you’re a control deck, get ready to face some Mastery of the Unseens after sideboarding.
Bust out the Disenchants. You won’t regret it.
The Perilous Nature of U/B Control
Shaheen Soorani, largely heralded as one of the modern day control experts, has been telling people to cut their Perilous Vaults. That’s a narrow viewpoint
from someone who I assume has not been playing much Magic. Outpost Siege and planeswalkers are two of the things that are incredibly common right now, so
cutting Perilous Vault is likely going to lead to disaster.
There are some matchups where Perilous Vault is worse than something like Crux of Fate, and it’s not like Perilous Vault is mana efficient, even in the
matchups you want it. However, if you’re choosing to play U/B Control, you need an answer to weird permanents because something will slip through the
cracks. Perilous Vault isn’t a card you should actively want to play with, but it’s something you need.
Similarly, decks that rely on those permanents are posting bad matchups against U/B Control because they can’t answer their opponent’s Perilous Vaults.
Reclamation Sage was always my go-to out of Whip of Erebos decks because of how well it synergized with the deck’s namesake, but other options like Utter
End and Sultai Charm are fine as well.
R/W Aggro doesn’t have many good answers to Perilous Vault unless you want to go so far as to play Shatter, which some people actually have. One of the
reasons I like Jeskai is that you have a better R/W matchup, plus you get to load up on counterspells for matchups like U/B Control.
It seems like most players are ignoring this battle altogether, but I feel like it’s one of the most important ones in Standard.
How Much Impact Does One Card Have?
I saw various claims on social media this weekend in regards to the Abzan decks in Top 8 of Grand Prix Memphis, from “Brad Nelson’s sideboard Fleecemane
Lions broke it” to “Why do people think sideboarding some creatures is suddenly some big revelation?”
It’s not a big revelation in that it’s something that has been done before, but it is a big deal. Assuming you are familiar with Steve Rubin’s Abzan list
(and at this point, you should be), you should know exactly how much removal you want post-board. You should know how early you need to start interacting
with them and what threats or roadblocks to expect.
By playing Fleecemane Lion, you’re throwing everyone’s gameplan out of whack. They might have a good sideboard plan in their minds for normal Abzan, but
once you show them Lions, they have to adapt to that. Suddenly they can’t have access to as many lategame cards as they used to because they need to fit
Bile Blight back into their decks.
Fleecemane Lion is something they have to kill early, otherwise they risk you running away with the game. In a mirror match, life points actually matter
because of Siege Rhino and the fact that their card advantage spells, Read the Bones and Abzan Charm, require them to pay life. Thoughtseize is another tax
on their life total.
If you kill it with Abzan Charm, that’s two less cards you’ll draw. If you kill it with a Hero’s Downfall, that’s one less removal spell you have for a
Siege Rhino or Elspeth, Sun’s Champion. In many ways, it’s like a Spellskite, except this one attacks them.
By sideboarding in Fleecemane Lions, you are effectively free rolling. They are great early and fine late, plus they are something that your opponent might
not be prepared for in the second game. If a third game happens, their deck is diluted because of the presence of Fleecemane Lion. Overall, you’re ahead,
and there’s nothing they can really do about it.
Brad has used this sideboarding technique several times already, and it still continues to work. There is virtually no downside to doing it yourself
because you can’t get exploited by doing it. To say that sideboarding Fleecemane Lion isn’t innovation is ignorant. To challenge the idea that a single
sideboard card doesn’t matter is an insult to all the deck tuners out there that keep formats moving.
The cards do, in fact, matter.
Epilogue
Since I didn’t make it to Day 2 of the Grand Prix, I registered for the Super Sunday Series. I decided that it would be best to put the tournament on easy
mode, and getting passed Wingmate Roc, End Hostilities, Kolaghan, the Storm’s Fury, and Crackling Doom was the best way to do that. My Draft deck in the
Top 8 wasn’t great, but I played tight and was eventually dispatched in the finals.
With SCG Baltimore this weekend, it will be interesting to see if Amulet Bloom continues to put up performances, how many people choose to play Splinter
Twin, and if the format will keep evolving. I’m sitting that one out, but that just means I’ll have more time to prepare for Grand Prix Miami.
I hope to see you there!