This past week I started testing for Grand Prix Kansas City. I believe I mentioned this before, but the new Grand Prix Pro Point system affords me the luxury of putting in as much work as I want to into events instead of just putting a little into each as they come up.
Here are my early returns. Taking it as insight into the format is fine, taking it as insight into how I test is fine, and both is more than ok.
The Use of Magic Online
All of these results are from Magic Online matches.
I understand what I’m losing and gaining from this. For a defined format like Modern, I can expect to be playing against the decks I will play against at the Grand Prix. The metagame is definitely a bit distorted from the expected Grand Prix metagame, but based on past events I feel like I can account for this. There will be more Jund and U/W/R in real life since people don’t like investing a ton of resources for the chase rares into Magic Online, but I can test those matchups on my own and adjust accordingly. It can also be difficult to obtain every card I want for the format, namely Liliana of the Veil and Tarmogoyf this time around. I know enough people that I can borrow them from, but they won’t always be on when I am.
While I have to work around these losses, there are gains. I get to play against various decks I think are bad that I wouldn’t spend time playing against unless I was forced to. This can be good if I was wrong about how good decks are, and I have been wrong many times in the past.
My physical Magic time is also currently being spent testing for Grand Prix Providence, which is not something that can occur online. Of course, I could just find someone and use my Magic Online time testing with them. I want to use the excuse that digital matches are faster than real ones, but that doesn’t really apply to Magic Online (I think Patrick Chapin and Michael Jacob actually timed this testing for a Block Pro Tour once).
Really, the reason I used Magic Online is that I wanted to test for the Grand Prix while watching TV shows and eating ice cream with no pants on. Your mileage may vary. [Editor’s Note: Our mileage is very much the same my friend.]
In all seriousness, it’s not strictly worse or better to go either route in testing for a defined format. A mix is probably correct, and I’ll likely test specific things with real opponents once I get a better idea of what gaps in my experience I need to fill.
In terms of how I plan on approaching this, I expect to play each deck for a fairly small sample size (about ten matches) before moving on. After a while, I’ll move back to the ones I like and spend more time fine-tuning the details. The value here is just trying out a bunch of decks and narrowing down the list of things I can expect to win the event. If you have a deck in mind that you want to move all-in on, you can battle for weeks on end with it, but I think the value gained there is much less than the value lost by settling in early and being wrong.
Starting Point: Melira Pod
Creatures (28)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Eternal Witness
- 1 Wall of Roots
- 1 Orzhov Pontiff
- 1 Reveillark
- 4 Kitchen Finks
- 2 Murderous Redcap
- 1 Ranger of Eos
- 1 Qasali Pridemage
- 2 Viscera Seer
- 1 Spellskite
- 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
- 2 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
- 3 Deathrite Shaman
- 1 Cartel Aristocrat
- 2 Voice of Resurgence
Lands (23)
Spells (9)
This should be the obvious starting point for anyone testing the format. It won the last Grand Prix and has had a string of successes dating back through the last two bannings. I don’t expect it to be a huge percentage of the metagame, but the goal is to find a deck that wins the event.
Goal
Learn how much Voice of Resurgence changes the power level of this deck and the format in general.
Results of the First Series of Matches
-At this deck’s core, it is a midrange deck that incidentally combos. Compare to Kiki Pod, which is more of a Stax/combo deck that can incidentally midrange people. If it gets down to right before the event and you want to play one of these decks with minimal testing, keep this in mind and choose whichever style you are more familiar with.
-People online are very bad at playing against Voice of Resurgence. I’ve gotten so many bonus tokens because of opponents casting spells on my end step instead of in response to it. I have no idea if this will hold, but people just aren’t used to playing the Modern cards against it. Don’t make easy mistakes like this.
-I will absolutely not be playing this deck at Grand Prix Kansas City. Making decisions with the deck is definitely out of my comfort range, but that alone isn’t a reason to discard the deck. If I felt like the deck was powerful enough to warrant me getting better with it, I would put the effort in. Obviously, there is a bit of negative feedback here in that if I play poorly with the deck it performs worse, but in this case I think the deck as it exists now is flawed. I just don’t like the cards you’re playing in the format.
Kitchen Finks is shockingly bad outside of a few specific matchups where it is just a fine option, and the current selection of hate cards just isn’t powerful enough to back up the mediocre beats. Kiki Pod offers me flying trumps to midrange board stalls and hate cards like Glen-Elendra Archmage and Avalanche Riders that actually win the matchups I want them for. There is also the significantly worse combo. Your Pod activations gain such marginal value, while Kiki Pod offers you a lot more power in a format that I feel demands it. In an Eternal format, I like to lean on raw power to fight a lot of the random garbage that floats around.
I think it could be possible to rebuild this deck in a way that solves these issues, but for now I don’t plan on doing so. If I have time later and don’t like my other options, I’ll try to do so.
-Voice plus sacrifice outlet is about as good as expected. Elemental token was the one creature in the deck I actually respect in terms of creating a board presence. If possible I would like to port this interaction over to Kiki Pod, hopefully with a better sacrifice outlet to fuel it. I feel like Viscera Seer and Cartel Aristocrat are really close to Eager Cadet and Grizzly Bears.
-The sideboard Thoughtseizes were nice, but a lot of the time it felt like they were a less powerful generic answer to the combo deck I was trying to attack. I did like them against a few of the more fair decks and definitely wouldn’t cut them, but I would try to commit more specific sideboard slots to various combo decks.
-Often I felt like I had too many cards to board in for each matchup. I think this had a lot to do with the previous point: the cards are just a bit too generic.
-The three slot felt awkwardly strained while sideboarding. I often wanted to board down on Finks against combo decks, but the remaining three-drops (Eternal Witness and Orzhov Pontiff) aren’t good there either. Aven Mindcensor or Harmonic Sliver might be good, but if both were bad I found myself debating whether to go down to three guys at that slot (risky) or playing the third or fourth Finks (mediocre). Two examples of this coming up are Splinter Twin and Tron. In the latter case, Eternal Witness is also quite bad due to Relic of Progenitus. Finding a card or two to fill in the blanks in those specific matchups would be really helpful here.
-The fact that this deck had to work to combo through a Deathrite Shaman was easy to work around most of the time but constricted my ability to mise out games with the combo. Of course, you also have to dodge removal when trying to mise, so it’s just a marginal loss.
Opponent’s Decks
-The Jund deck with Ajani Vengeant seemed really awesome, especially with Thundermaw Hellkites. It’s just a pile of cards that play really well together, and having two planeswalker is just as good as it has always been.
-Despite my claims about the deck’s post-board configuration being awkward, playing against Splinter Twin felt like a total joke. The Snapcaster Mage builds were really terrible as the only way I felt like I could lose was a random early kill.
Deck #2: Affinity
Creatures (26)
- 4 Arcbound Ravager
- 4 Ornithopter
- 1 Master of Etherium
- 4 Steel Overseer
- 2 Memnite
- 3 Etched Champion
- 4 Signal Pest
- 4 Vault Skirge
Lands (15)
Spells (19)
Sideboard
Goal
Determine if the old linear decks are suddenly good again.
Aside: Jamming a deck to just see if it’s good ranges from being fine to a terrible idea in testing. Testing should shift from a focused gauntlet to new brews and back in a fairly structured and regular manner. Spend too much time testing gauntlet matchups and you can miss a big newcomer and just lose. Spend all your time coming up with new brews and you can waste time battling brews versus other brews or not prepare yourself to play an obvious best deck. Worse, you can be building decks that don’t actually have a real target. New decks should be trying to do something, even if that is just being a bunch of good cards that form a possibly more powerful and coherent strategy than exists right now.
Results
-Inconclusive. The deck seems fine, but I’m not sure fine is quite enough for this event. Not much has changed here; it’s the same Affinity deck as before.
-It may be time to kick it back up a notch with a more burn-heavy Affinity deck. I want to overpower people who are playing less powerful, midrangey decks right now. This could be one way to do so that is a little less fragile.
Opponent’s Decks
I was shockingly impressed by the Storm deck. It has less turn 3 kills, but it is still a fairly solid turn 4 combo deck that bashes through a decent amount of interaction. Don’t count it out moving forward.
Deck #3: Infect
Creatures (16)
Lands (20)
Spells (24)
- 4 Rancor
- 1 Giant Growth
- 4 Might of Old Krosa
- 4 Vines of Vastwood
- 4 Groundswell
- 1 Distortion Strike
- 4 Mutagenic Growth
- 2 Apostle's Blessing
Sideboard
Goal
Determine if the old linear decks are suddenly good again.
Results
Nope. Lingering Souls and U/W/R are still too big of an issue. Also Melira.
No matter what I said last week, I wanted it to work. It would be so easy. Siiiiigh.
Deck #4: Reanimator
Creatures (12)
Lands (20)
Spells (28)
- 4 Goryo's Vengeance
- 2 Sleight of Hand
- 4 Through the Breach
- 4 Pentad Prism
- 2 Spoils of the Vault
- 4 Fury of the Horde
- 4 Faithless Looting
- 4 Izzet Charm
Sideboard
Goal
Determine if the old new linear decks are suddenly good again.
Results
-This deck is close to awesome but not quite there. It is definitely very powerful and can sometimes jam straight through decks it should lose to, but at the same time it sometimes just falls flat. The second sometimes is a little too often for me right now, but I wouldn’t fault anyone who plays it. Just be aware that I wouldn’t put you at a favorite to win the tournament with it but wouldn’t be shocked if you win a lot of matches.
-This deck is shockingly technically difficult. There are a lot of decisions to make with taking damage on lands, playing versus holding lands, what you discard, when you play your Faithless Lootings or Izzet Charms, etc. I’m sure I was making a ton of mistakes, and it would take a lot more work to get to a point where I was making each decision correctly.
–Deathrite Shaman has not really been an issue so far due to Through the Breach or just killing them on 2. The issue has been Geist of Saint Traft or the full set of black interaction (Thoughtseize, Dark Confidant, Deathrite Shaman) plus counters. You can beat any one thing fairly easily but not all of them.
-I was beating Splinter Twin. With an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn deck. I’m fairly sure that’s impossible, but it was happening. Sometimes they died before they got to cast Deceiver Exarch. Sometimes Spellskite or Thoughtseize was enough. Sometimes I just made two guys (i.e., EOT Through the Breach, untap, and Goryo’s Vengeance), and they couldn’t stop both.
-I lost a match to Burn, which seemed awkward but not unreasonable. Emrakul doesn’t cold them or one shot them, and Griselbrand taking life to activate is an issue.
-The bounce spells might not even be necessary in the sideboard. Again, graveyard hate is beatable by just playing a normal game.
Things to Try
Aristocrat Pod
I went through all of the sacrifice outlets in the format to port the Voice of Resurgence plan into a Kiki Jiki list, but basically none of the reasonable ones are castable without black mana. Of the black ones, only a few of them are debatably good cards. Of those, Falkenrath Aristocrat is the only one I would actively want to play. In terms of a backup plan to Podding them, this one is quite good. The issue is Lingering Souls, but blue Pod lists are quite good against that card due to Izzet Staticaster. You probably have to cut some number of Restoration Angels to play this card and your mana gets worse, but I’m willing to make those sacrifices to try new and exciting things.
Other alternate sacrifice outlets I came across include:
Brion Stoutarm: Generic ground monster, but there aren’t a lot of good Fling targets in these decks. Also loses to Tarmogoyfs.
Dimir House Guard: Also tutors for Birthing Pod, but isn’t a good card on its own.
Varolz, the Scar-Striped: Not really a combo with the rest of the deck (Birds of Paradise, persist), but probably quite fine as a generic value creature that is hard to kill.
Smallpox
Somewhere in this testing someone got me good with this card, and I was really impressed by how brutal it was. It cripples Pod, everyone has Deathrite Shaman, it kills Geist of Saint Traft, it does work against the attrition weak Scapeshift, and Storm is partly creature-based. I’m not sure what the best shell for this card is, but one has to exist.
Pentad Prism
If you want to move from Eggs to a more Krark-Clan Ironworks based list, especially post Mox Opal boost, this is a card you should play. It was awesome the first time around when you played a ton of Myr Incubators in Standard, and I have no reason to believe it’s different now.
Domri Rade
Both Brian Kibler and Sean McKeown have shown this card is awesome in different shells (Jund and Pod, respectively). I’m unsure if the fair or unfair approach to this card is better, but I want to play some with it before I’m done.
This is where I leave you. The rest of my testing won’t be public, but I will likely save it and share it after the event. Hopefully, this has been at the least interesting.