Modern Musings

This article is going to be a bit of a mishmash of ideas and thoughts. Magic is kind of in a weird place right now. That’s not to say that it’s in a bad
place. On the contrary, I actually think Magic right now is better than it has ever been. It’s just in a weird place, because it’s so rare to see a new set
shake up every existing format as hard as Khans of Tarkir.

It’s also weird to write an article about Khans of Tarkir cards right before Fate Reforged comes out, but Modern is fresh on everyone’s mind. We just had a
Modern GP last weekend, and coming up soon is a banned and restricted announcement, which could change the face of Modern. Shortly after all that is also
the Modern Pro Tour in DC, which will almost assuredly feature new cards and new decks.

Modern is also starting to feature more prominently on the Open Series this upcoming year. People tend to have a very polarized opinion of the format. Some
people absolutely abhor it, and others love it. More so than any other format, I find it rare to talk to people who are indifferent about Modern. People
either are clamoring for more Modern content and events, or they never want to play or hear about it ever again.

Personally, I fall somewhere in the middle. I actually really enjoy Modern a lot. Testing for the GP in Omaha was a lot of fun for me. During that stretch
of time, it was my favorite format to play. Overall, I prefer Legacy a bit more generally speaking, but that’s not to say that Modern is a bad format by
any stretch. I don’t think it’s the best format, but I also don’t think being worse than the best thing means you have a bad thing. Any format where you
can succeed by casting a good old fashioned Siege Rhinoceros is quite okay with me.

Call me crazy, but I think Khans of Tarkir will go down as the best set of all time or second to only Innistrad. Both sets have a lot of the same features.
They both had very interesting, fun, and replayable Limited environments. Both feature a number of powerful cards that really shook up older formats. In
the case of Innistrad, it was Snapcaster Mage, Delver of Secrets, Unburial Rites, Geist of Saint Traft, and Past in Flames. For Khans of Tarkir, it’s
Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, Jeskai Ascendancy, and Siege Rhino. Both sets immediately became the dominant set in Standard, completely changing the
landscape of that format.

Very few people look back on Innistrad negatively. Many players, myself included, consider it to be the best set of all time. I think the legacy of Khans
of Tarkir will be the same. But much like Innistrad, not everything was roses at first. When Innistrad first came out, there were a lot of people who
really hated the power level of Delver of Secrets and Snapcaster Mage. There was a lot of negative backlash to two cards of that power level and the impact
they had on older formats. Nowadays, the Delver and Snapcaster haters are far less. We’ve adapted to those cards, and they aren’t as oppressive as we
believed them to be.

I think the same will end up being true of Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time. These cards are powerful. These cards have shaken up older formats. But is
that a bad thing? Should Modern and Legacy continue to be the exact same formats every year as they were the previous year? Or is Magic and the player base
better off by being given an opportunity to change things up and innovate from time to time?

I argue the latter is better. I personally have found Magic in every single format to be more fun since Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time were printed
than ever before. Grand Prix New Jersey was the most anticipated event for me that I can ever recall. I was giddy about being able to play in that
tournament with new Legacy cards and a fresh Legacy format. I was hyped about New Jersey months in advance, and for someone who plays in a tournament
nearly every weekend, that doesn’t happen very often.

Likewise, I can tell you that I was far more excited about the prospect of playing Modern at GP Omaha than I ever was about playing Modern at the GP in
Boston last year. Modern is fresh. Modern isn’t stale. The Modern format at GP Boston was the same Modern format we saw at GP Richmond months and months
before it. Not much had changed. The same was not true for Omaha. Things were different. Change isn’t always bad, and different can sometimes be really
good.

With that being said, I want to dedicate an article to talking about Modern. I want to talk about the deck I played, why I made that choice and the card
choices within, the lessons I learned from the GP, and what I think about Modern moving forward. I have been playing the format for the past two weeks
nonstop, and I feel like I’ve gotten a solid handle on what makes Modern tick right now and where I’d like to see it go.

Playing the Drain Game

The deck I played at GP Omaha was, unsurprisingly, Rhino Pod. I lovingly referred to the deck as “Cards I play in Standard Pod.” When you take roughly
twenty cards out of your Standard deck to sleeve up in your Modern deck, well, you get it. Much like previous versions of Pod, such as Kiki Pod, Melira
Pod, or Angel Pod, I call this version Rhino Pod after the most powerful combo in the deck.

“There’s a combo with Siege Rhino?” Of course there is. The combo is Siege Rhino and wiping the silly grin off your opponent’s face. Siege Rhino is a
one-card combo of damage, lifegain, and an obese, trampling frame that finishes quickly. You don’t need anything else. It’s just like the Beatles said: all
we need is Rhino.

Previously, I considered Birthing Pod decks to be these unique midrange/combo decks where the entire deck was centered around the card Birthing Pod and the
powerful synergies it offered. Birthing Pod was the centerpiece, and everything else was the dressing.

While Birthing Pod is still likely the most powerful card in the deck, I no longer consider it the centerpiece. Instead of using Pod to slowly grind your
opponent out or slowly assemble fragile combos, I’m now using Pod to search up more copies of this new Rhinocerous card that just end the game in a hurry.
I refer to Birthing Pod lovingly as “Siege Rhino 5-8.” More often than not, when I have a Pod in play, I’m just grabbing a bunch of Rhinos and my opponent
is not surviving very long.

To go along with this beatdown/drain em out plan, I have included a few interesting choices in my pod list. One is Anafenza, the Foremost. While Anafenza
is in no means the typical value creature we find in Pod decks, like Voice of Resurgence or Kitchen Finks, Anafenza represents a lot of damage and some
incidental hate. Anafenza hits hard and often, and makes your Rhinos better because they close the game so much faster with her around. Attack for five
with a Noble Hierarch and put a counter on my Hierarch? Ohhhh yeah.

The last is the Obzedat. Obzedeezy. My old boo (and I say that mostly because it’s a ghost). This bad boy was frightening the pants off of Standard players
in years past. I have often threatened to include him in Legacy Sneak and Show so you can slowly drain them out through a Karakas. Keep your Liquid Plumber
at home, ladies and gents. We’re fully operational on the slow drain plan here. Up till now, I hadn’t ever made good on any of my threats to play Obzedat
in older formats. Yet. Times change. People change.

Turns out, Obzedat, Ghost Council is kind of a beating in this shell. Obzedat does what nobody else could do. He lets you Pod your Siege Rhinoceros into a
larger, angrier Siege Rhinoceros. Just thinking about it excites me. Siege Rhino is an escaped animal with years of rage found trampling over anyone who
gets between its past life and freedom. While that is certainly a rough life for Doc Rhino, Obzedat is five ghosts chained together who have to live out
the rest of eternity without their corporal forms. What happens when one of them has to pee? You tell me who got the short of end of the stick. The Obzedat
has an eternity of suffering to dole back to everyone, and the phrase “slow drain” is exactly the kind of vengeance they revel in. Drain. And. Brain.

Obzedat means you can turn your Rhino into a bigger Rhino. Not just any Rhino either. This newer, ghostlier Rhino is a gift that keeps on giving. I
personally regifted an HP Obzedat to my mother last Christmas. If I don’t see it under the tree with my Dad’s name on it next year, then not all is right
with the world. This gift does not stop giving. Turn after turn, Obzedat effectively Rhinos your opponent until they are dead. Drain 2. Drain 2. Drain you.
That doesn’t even take into account those beautiful scenarios where they’re at 2 life and feeling safe, and you Pod your Rhino into the deezy and then
they’re dropping and playing Parcheesi.

For the record, nobody hates Parcheesi.

Here’s the list:

Birthing Pod

Brian Braun-Duin

Test deck on 01-16-2015

Standard

Creatures (30)

Lands (23)

Spells (7)

4 Birthing Pod
3 Abrupt Decay

Sideboard

If I had to go back and do it over again, I would cut a Sin Collector and a Kitchen Finks for a Spike Feeder and an Archangel of Thune. I got talked into
playing Sin Collector by pretty much everyone, and it ended up being as bad as I expected. This is the part of the article where I’m probably supposed to
anti-shout out all the people who pushed Sin Collector on me, but I wouldn’t want to do that. That’s uncool, so I’m not going to call out any of those
people, like SCG Philadelphia Champion Daryl Ayers, who was all for the Sin Collector. That kind of thing isn’t how I operate.

Sin Collector is maybe a good card for a Chord of Calling-based value Pod list, but I’m trying to wreck people with Rhinos, not diddle around with their
hand a bit. That’s not the kind of game I want to play here.

I wanted to just play Archangel without Spike Feeder, something I’ve done many times in the past to good effect, but it just seems loose. If you’re going
to play Archangel, it’s probably wrong to not just “waste” one slot on a two-card infinite combo. Anafenza outperformed Kitchen Finks, so I’d rather cut
the Finks than trim on my friend Ana. It wouldn’t be Cards I Play in Standard Pod without her.

I also feel like Anafenza is a card that you’re either fully committed to or you’re not playing at all. Anafenza is not the kind of card you’re Podding for
up the chain, as it represents no value, unlike Kitchen Finks. However, it is exactly the kind of card you want on turn 2, where it threatens to just end
the game really fast, or at worst, disrupt your opponent’s gameplan early. As a result, I’m either playing enough copies to where I’ll have it more often
on turn 2, or I’m not playing the card at all. It’s all or nothing, and I opted for all. Nothing is not an option for me.

The sideboard Chord of Calling plan was pretty sweet. The idea is that you bring in these “Hate Ogres” in various matchups. I would call them hate bears,
but they are mostly 2/1s for three, not 2/2s for two. When you bring in these hateful cards, it is presumably because they dismantle your opponent’s
gameplan singlehandedly. That’s where Chord of Calling comes in. You can Chord for whichever Hate Ogre is the flavor of the matchup and leave your opponent
scratching their head and wondering where it all went wrong.

One of my favorite moments from the event was being able to Chord for an end of turn Sin Collector when my opponent’s hand was a Gifts Ungiven and a Path
to Exile with five mana. My opponent is locked into casting both spells or losing them, and my opponent also can’t just Gifts Ungiven for spells or else
the Sin Collector trigger will still steal them. As it turned out, my opponent searched up a Courser of Kruphix, Liliana of the Veil, Grave Titan, and
Elesh Norn. I binned the two fatties, and was able to beat Courser and Liliana by Podding into Rhino followed by Podding Rhino into Obzedat. Just how we
drew it up. Full disclosure: I could have Podded Anafenza into a second Rhino for lethal, but that play just lacked style points and is the shameful way
out. Obzedat is where it’s at.

Probably my favorite moment of the tournament involved my opponent and I both savagely flooding out. He had multiple Siege Rhinos, a Tarmogoyf, an 8/8
Scavenging Ooze, and a Stirring Wildwood. I had a Noble Hierarch, Birds of Paradise, Sin Collector, Siege Rhino, and one other creature that I can’t
recall. By the time things ended, I had thirteen lands in play with two Gavony Townships, and my opponent succumbed to an attack from an 18/17 Sin
Collector. That game was gross but oddly satisfying at the same time. Gavony Township is the truth.

I ended up squeaking into day 2 at 7-2, but finished the tournament at 10-5, just out of the cash.

Making Mistakes

This was certainly not the crispest tournament I have played. One part of it is that Birthing Pod is a very hard deck to pilot optimally, and it’s simply
harder to play tighter with that deck than with other, simpler decks. Another part is that I was making mistakes that I would like to believe are
uncharacteristic of me but go to show that there is always room for improvement.

To provide an example, in the match with the 18/17 Sin Collector, I attacked a Birds of Paradise into a bigger and very much untapped Stirring Wildwood. It
was just extremely sloppy. I ended up winning that game anyway, but the game dragged on about five turns longer than it needed to. My other Birds of
Paradise ended up being over ten power by the time the game ended and with two ten power fliers, I would have finished things much faster, and not given my
opponent a chance to crawl back.

In the second game, I ate a creature with Scavenging Ooze and simply forgot to tick my dice up. My Ooze should have been a 4/4, but I left it as a 3/3.
Thankfully, a spectator noticed it and alerted a judge, and I was able to get it fixed in time. That ended up being extremely relevant, as I had a Gavony
Township, and thanks to the Ooze being a 4/4, I was able to make a profitable attack into a Siege Rhino that almost definitely helped me win that game.

In round 10, my opponent cast Thought Scour milling over a Spellskite and then used it to Treasure Cruise. I had Anafenza in play, so the Cruise should
have cost one more, since the Skite should have never been in the graveyard. Thankfully this didn’t matter, but I also made a play mistake towards the end
of the game that also didn’t matter, but could have very easily done so.

Despite winning that sloppy game, I ended up losing that match, and in the very next round I lost a match to my opponent going all in with Arcbound Ravager
when I had Anafenza in play. Yep, right after missing Anafenza the previous round, I missed it again. He made a giant Blinkmoth Nexus and I died. The issue
is that with Anafenza in play, Arbound Ravager doesn’t do anything, since it never technically dies, meaning modular should never trigger. In essence, what
should have happened is my opponent sacrificed his entire board to do absolutely nothing. Instead, I wrongfully died.

I want to point out that I strongly believe that neither of my opponents were trying to cheat in this situation. If I can’t even remember my own Anafenza,
a card that has seen almost no Modern play, then it’s pretty hypocritical for me to also expect my opponents to remember line 13 on a relatively unplayed
card.

I have to imagine there were plenty of other mistakes I made that contributed to some losses along the way. To be fair, I also played very well in some
matches and correctly played around a lot of cards that my opponent’s did end up having. I’m not pointing out these mistakes to beat myself up, because
there is really no value in doing that.

I simply bring light to them to show that we all still have so much further to go in Magic, no matter how well we’re doing. The last two months have
probably been the most successful months of Magic I have ever had, and I’m still forgetting to tick up my Scavenging Ooze when I eat a creature.

Magic is an insanely difficult game, and we should never stop learning and never stop trying to learn. My goal this year is to reach gold, but my lifetime
goals are so much higher than that. The only way I can see to achieve those goals is to just keep working at it, accepting that mistakes will be made, and
make an effort to not repeat those same mistakes.

My mistake in this instance was not taking the time to learn the new cards I was playing in my deck. The simple moral of the story is that if you’re
playing with a card you’re not used to playing with, consider some of the common situations that could come up against popular decks and get those
interactions ingrained in your mind. If I had thought about Anafenza and how her ability would work against decks like Splinter Twin and Affinity, two
popular decks, then I could have certainly avoided those two situations and maybe even come out of one of those rounds with a win.

While the tournament was ultimately a bust for me, I still feel like it was a great learning experience, and I’m still pretty sold on Birthing Pod being
the best deck in the format, especially considering it won its second Grand Prix in a row. Omaha was also my favorite GP ever in terms of the player
interactions. I had so many people come up to me and talk to me about Modern, about their tournament, and about my content. It was honestly very uplifting.
I remember, in particular, one gentleman stopping to talk to me after a particularly devastating loss I picked up on day 1, and the awesome conversation we
had completely turned my mood around. I won the next three rounds to make day 2.

This may come as a surprise to people, but I am an extremely shy, introverted guy. Large social settings honestly frighten me. It was really meaningful to
me how many people went out of their way to talk to me and make the Grand Prix a great experience. I just want to say that despite all the negative press
it sometimes gets, the Magic Community is really one of the greatest groups of people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, and I am proud to be a part
of it.

I also got to stay with Todd Anderson, Jon Stern, Nathan Holiday, and Josh McClain. Although none of us ended up spiking the tournament, it was still a
great time. I consider being able to become friends with all of the members of Team Face to Face games one of my great successes of 2014. Magic is as much
about people as it is about games, and these are some of the best people in the game.

The State and Future of Modern

Much like I said above, I strongly believe Birthing Pod is the best strategy in the format. This may seem a bit convoluted and like some hastily
hobbled-together reasoning, but the more and more I play the format, the more and more I believe this to be true. The power and success of U/R Delver is
actually what makes Birthing Pod the best deck.

Previously, Birthing Pod was a dog to a variety of decks like R/G Tron and Scapeshift. There were a number of combo decks that simply went over the top of
Birthing Pod and punished you for playing a mostly fair deck without countermagic. Even decks like Jund were reasonable choices against Pod because of
cards like Anger of the Gods and how effective it was against all of Pod’s value creatures.

None of those decks exist in anywhere the same capacity as they once did. Scapeshift is kind of a thing still, and R/G Tron is maybe hanging on, but mostly
nonexistent. I haven’t seen Jund around, but Siege Rhino changes the dynamic of that matchup significantly. The reason these decks are on the downswing is
that U/R Delver is this powerful, efficient machine. It kills quickly, and it has the ability to morph into this deck with tons of powerful, cheap, taxing
counters that prey on these slower decks while Monastery Swiftspear punches them in the face. U/R Delver pushes those decks out.

There is just one problem for U/R Delver. It really has a hard time beating this little card called Siege Rhino. Modern feels like some poorly executed
Brian Kibler sketch where this giant green creature is somehow more powerful than Ancestral Recall, but honestly, it really is. They can draw three cards
and then still just die to Siege Rhino. It’s lovely. Force opponent to draw three? I’d rather force opponent to take three.

Pod has a great matchup against the two most popular Treasure Cruise decks, Burn and U/R Delver. Pod gets to maindeck four copies of Obstinate Baloth that
also happens to kill those decks twice as fast as a real Obstinate Baloth would. Young Pyromancer can keep a Baloth at bay, but not a Rhino due to trample.
While those decks prey on Pod’s bad matchups to knock them out of the format, Pod preys on the predator. In the jungle of Modern, that means Pod comes out
on top.

I don’t think Pod is the most powerful deck in the format, but it’s definitely the best deck because it’s just at the right place at the right time in the
changing landscape of Modern. When I first started testing the format, I figured it had to suck. When there is a deck in Modern that operates like a Legacy
deck, you should probably just play that. It only took a few days before I realized how wrong I was and how silly that notion was. U/R Delver actually
isn’t even very good right now when you assess the metagame, even though its mere presence completely defines the format. Pod is back in a big way, and
it’s not going anywhere.

Unless they ban it, that is. I hope they don’t, but I would understand if they did. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to see Green Sun’s Zenith gone, but have
Birthing Pod legal. The two cards are very similar in function and power level.

What I hope happens and what I expect to happen are two separate things. Based on their history with Modern, they are willing to ban cards based on nothing
more than those cards ruining format diversity. Green Sun’s Zenith wasn’t deemed too powerful, just too oppressive to creatures that weren’t Zenith
targets. It homogenized green decks and that alone was enough to ban it.

Treasure Cruise is not too powerful of a card, but it does stifle format diversity. I’ve heard people say that Treasure Cruise has turned Modern into a
“two-deck” format. The insinuation is that U/R Delver and Pod are the only two viable decks in the new format. I don’t actually believe that to be
literally true. For example, Affinity is consistently putting up good results on Magic Online, and seems to be just fine thriving in a U/R Delver and Pod
landscape. However, I do believe that Treasure Cruise certainly has stifled the format by pushing out a variety of decks. Power level aside, that’s
certainly against what they want for the format, and Treasure Cruise should be banned if they want to remain consistent.

I hope they don’t remain consistent. I don’t want them to just turn Modern into the same boring format it was a year ago. I think Modern has the potential
to be this seriously awesome format with a lot of powerful strategies, and I think the way to facilitate that is to unban cards rather than ban cards.
While Treasure Cruise is extremely powerful and format warping, it certainly isn’t dominating. I think that if you also unban other cards that are of a
closer power level to Treasure Cruise, you find yourself with a format where there are a variety of powerful options to choose from. Rather than ban Modern
into a diverse but unpowered format, I think we can unban Modern into a powerful and still diverse format.

I want to see Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Ancestral Visions, Green Sun’s Zenith, Bloodbraid Elf, and Golgari Grave-Troll unbanned. I don’t think those cards
are more powerful than anything that is currently happening in Modern. I am fairly certain that Bloodbraid Elf is actually just worse than Siege Rhino, and
I can’t ever imagine Wizards banning a four mana fair creature from a recent set that just attacks and blocks. It would be preposterous for them to ban
Siege Rhino, but it is likewise simply wrong for Bloodbraid to be banned while Rhino is unbanned.

I also wouldn’t have any problem with them banning Dryad Arbor, but unbanning Green Sun’s Zenith. Zenith is the fun card with a lot of play to it, and
Dryad Arbor is the unfun card that breaks Green Sun’s Zenith by turning it into a split card with Llanowar Elves.

I’d just love to see them unban a bunch of cards like this and see how it sorts out. Green Sun’s Zenith is pretty powerful, but can it actually compete
with Jace? Bloodbraid Elf and Lightning Bolt kept Jace in check in Standard, and decks like U/R Delver in Legacy have almost completely pushed Jace out of
Legacy. I really don’t think Jace would be too good by any stretch. Golgari-Grave Troll being banned feels like a joke. With Dread Return banned and
without a card like Cabal Therapy in Modern, I’m not sure how Golgari-Grave Troll could even really be abused in any way that’s more powerful that what is
currently going on.

Does Deathrite Shaman fight Treasure Cruise or fight alongside it?

There is one other thing they could do. It’s a bit extreme, but I think it’s a fantastic solution. I’ve wanted them to do this for the past two years, but
it seems unlikely it will ever happen. This single change would fix almost all of the complaints people have about Modern.

Ban fetchlands. I know there is almost no chance it happens, especially since bringing Onslaught fetchlands back was their big surprise from Khans of
Tarkir and people who care about MTG Finance would revolt, but these cards just really stifle the format. Nearly every manabase becomes Fetch + Shock,
which hurts the value of so many other lands that would otherwise see play, and reduces diversity. Even without fetchlands, shocklands would still see
play, so it’s not like you’re cutting out one set of lands for another.

No fetchlands would allow for Deathrite Shaman and Treasure Cruise to both peacefully coexist in this format without being too powerful or oppressive in
any way. It would improve format diversity, cut down on the ban list, and reduce the power level of the overpowered cards. Just as importantly, it would
cut down on the time matches take, as well as the ability for people to cheat by reducing the constant shuffling that takes place every round.

It’s pretty unlikely that this will ever happen, but I can dream, at the very least.

To sum it up, this is what I expect:

Ban: