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Main » Articles » Five Decks You'll Play This Weekend

Five Decks You'll Play This Weekend

Brandon Isleib
Posted on December 16, 2015
 Reddit

Welcome to Gathering Magic's weekly quintet of decks you should be aware of this weekend, whether you're playing a major online event, going to a Grand Prix, or hitting Friday Night Magic. This week, Modern had plenty of variety, so we'll look at it in depth.

Mo-Dern Protector

Here's what went 3–1 or better in a Modern Daily at least twice this week (Bold = won a Daily):

  • Amulet Bloom: 5

  • Blue-Red Twin: 4

  • Storm: 4

  • Living End: 3

  • Jund: 3

  • Abzan: 2

  • Affinity: 2

  • Grixis Control: 2

  • Martyr of Sands: 2

  • Grishoalbrand: 2

  • Naya Burn: 2

  • White-Black Hatebears: 2

  • Zoo: 2

  • Red-Green Tron won a Daily in its only 3-1 or better appearance.

A few weeks ago, noninteractive combo decks were all over the Dailies; these results aren't quite the same, but they come from the same basic place: a world without Thoughtseize. Thoughtseize is the best tool to interact with unfair decks, but it also is a liability against Burn, which has a lot of interchangeable pieces to mute Thoughtseize's efficacy and which was going to use the discarded card to cause life-loss anyway. With more burn comes less Thoughtseize, and with less Thoughtseize comes more opportunity for combo.

Saturday's Daily was won by one of the foremost Modern combo decks:

Amulet Bloom ? Modern | TesTang

This is pretty normal Amulet Bloom except for the copies of Courser of Kruphix. Occasionally, the deck draws the wrong mix of items, and Courser of Kruphix helps dig through the library to ameliorate the problem. Plus, Courser of Kruphix combined with Azusa, Lost but Seeking or Summer Bloom lets you shred through land clumps on top of the library. It's a fresh angle for a deck not known to have many of those—particularly in the main deck—so if you've been playing this deck and want to try something different, Courser of Kruphix is a good idea.

This combo deck's also different by a card:

U/R Twin ? Modern | blastoids

If players are using their graveyards as mana all over the place thanks to delve, why not use your graveyard as mana to counter those spells? Logic Knot has been on the fringes of Modern playability since the format's creation; with Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Gurmag Angler giving decks with fetch lands and cantrips a hefty and sometimes quick win condition, Logic Knot is the counterspell that can fight them on their own turns—especially as it's been fairly safe for months to jam delve creatures as early as they can be cast. It takes a lot of cards to cheat out a delve creature, and having a chance to stop it at every stage of the game—even with only 2 mana available—is a big deal.

Thursday's winner went 3–1 the day before with the same deck, and this particular version has been showing up intermittently in Daily lists the last few weeks:

Martyr of Sands ? Modern | Lear_the_cat

Martyr of Sands
Although Serra Ascendant can go on the attack effectively, this is more a control deck than anything else. Whether casting Ghostly Prison or Wrath of God or using Proclamation of Rebirth and Emeria, the Sky Ruin to loop Martyr of Sands or Kami of False Hope, there are multiple ways to stay alive for a long time. Martyr decks always have been good at this, but they've traditionally had trouble with win conditions. Ugin, the Spirit Dragon takes care of that, with a load of creatures to protect it as its +2 takes care of the game. There's no ramp to reach Ugin, but Weathered Wayfarer—a criminally underexplored card in Modern—keeps the lands flowing while also being able to fetch specialty lands as needed.

The sideboard involves a few underexplored cards as well. Austere Command is associated primarily with Commander; this deck lives long enough to leverage it. And if Ghostly Prison isn't enough to stop a deck like Splinter Twin, Lightmine Field keeps Pestermites from attacking and caps the maximum number of Deceiver Exarchs and Bounding Krasises (Krases?) to three and two, respectively. It also kicks Affinity in its metal teeth and prevents Infect, Martyr of Sands's natural enemy, from attacking unless the Infect player has the combo and/or Pendelhaven.

There's something strangely elegant about a deck of 1-drop creatures running interference for an 8-drop Planeswalker. Being main-decked against Burn is a reasonable place to start in the Modern metagame, and being able to draw out the game even longer than U/R control shells is impressive.

Two Spicy Metaballs

Running back consecutive 5–0 League performances, it looks like a post-hype Battle for Zendikar rare might be worth building around:

Abzan Company ? Modern | plamfinator

Several of these pieces have been in Collected Company and Zoo lists. But the key to understanding the spicy angles is Wasteland Strangler's inclusion, offering a crushing two-for-one as long as an opponent has an exiled card. To give Wasteland Strangler something to process, plamfinator is using Tidehollow Sculler and Fiend Hunter, similar to how Standard decks use Silkwrap and Stasis Snare. Cartel Aristocrat lets Tidehollow Sculler's and Fiend Hunter's exile be permanent, as does Cloudshift; Cloudshift works with a host of abilities in the deck, most notably Eternal Witness. As with most Flickerwisp decks, Aether Vial is here to flummox control decks while increasing the deck's velocity; casting Flickerwisp on Liliana of the Veil and then bringing in Wasteland Strangler off Aether Vial, processing Liliana and killing a creature, is a value-lover's dream.

Going for a much more straightforward style of value is a 3–1 deck from December 8's Daily:

B/R Aggro ? Modern | AKMiD

Dark Confidant, Abbot of Keral Keep, and B/R's normal reputation make this look aggro, but it isn't Zoo's speed. If anything, it's the rare aggro–control hybrid. Unlike most of Modern this week, hand disruption is abundant with Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek, and the normal black and red creature removal spells combine with Liliana of the Veil to make it difficult to keep any threats on the board. And if there's one creature land that loves an empty board, it's Lavaclaw Reaches, an important two-of in mitigating the stall that discard-heavy decks tend to run into (or at least the ones I've built for Modern run into at least). And don't miss Pia and Kiran Nalaar being a pure value play—there's no synergy with the deck, but as a souped-up Lingering Souls, it's good enough for Modern.

Conclusion

The surgical scissors of Thoughtseize have been subdued in favor of the paper combos and the rock of burn. How long that lasts remains to be seen, but it's nice to see the format moving its frames of reference periodically without an influx of new cards. (It would be nice if Standard would do this at all right now . . . ah well.)

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TAGS articles, metagame, constructed, magic online, analysis, mtgo, modern, decklist, brandon isleib, 5 decks, five decks, five decks you'll play this weekend

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