Hey, everyone!

Over the last couple of months, I have dedicated my Magic time to Standard to prepare for Pro Tour Battle for Zendikar. Now that we have a set of Regional Pro Tour Qualifiers this weekend, I am now all about Modern. I’ll be skipping Grand Prix Indianapolis, so I can dedicate my weekend to the RPTQ because I want to win the one in Pittsburgh. Here’s the deck I’ll be bringing:

Grixis Control ? Modern | Kyle Boggemes

• Creatures (11)
• 1 Gurmag Angler
• 4 Snapcaster Mage
• 2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
• 4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 3 Liliana of the Veil

• Spells (23)
• 1 Go for the Throat
• 1 Spell Snare
• 1 Rise // Fall
• 1 Terminate
• 3 Kolaghan's Command
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 4 Lingering Souls
• 4 Serum Visions

• Lands (23)
• 1 Mountain
• 2 Island
• 2 Swamp
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 1 Bloodstained Mire
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Watery Grave
• 2 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 2 Creeping Tar Pit
• 2 Darkslick Shores
• 2 Scalding Tarn
• 4 Polluted Delta

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Stony Silence
• 2 Rest for the Weary
• 2 Timely Reinforcements
• 1 Spell Snare
• 1 Negate
• 2 Dispel
• 1 Duress
• 1 Thoughtseize
• 1 Engineered Explosives
• 1 Magma Spray
• 2 Crumble to Dust

Buy This Deck

What Is This Deck?

Typically, when you look at a Grixis Control deck, the first thing you would expect to see is a handful of counters, but this is not the case here. Since Jace, Vryn's Prodigy has been outed as a Constructed powerhouse, I want to play it in Modern. Rather than think of this as a Grixis deck, it’s really just Jund–Abzan; play a powerful 2-drop backed by hand disruption and Liliana of the Veil. I want to attack the opponent’s hand as soon as possible to force through Jace because it’s hard for opponents to answer Planeswalkers in Modern. Counterspells don’t work well with Jace because they can’t be played from the graveyard at sorcery speed. My plan is to empty my hand with Liliana, so I need more proactive cards in the main deck.

Why Should I Play This Deck?

I’m glad you asked! Traditional Grixis Control decks are great against opposing creature and midrange decks, but they can fall short against glass-cannon decks such as Burn. I anticipate Burn to be a popular deck because it has a lot of great matchups, and I don’t want to be soft to it. The light white splash lets me play hate cards like Timely Reinforcements and Rest for the Weary, which will come in handy.

The reason I want to play this deck is that it’s the best Esper Control shell in the format. I first attempted to build pure Esper, but I found myself wanting Lightning Bolt and Kolaghan's Command. The best things Esper had going for it were Lingering Souls, Liliana, and Esper Charm; I get to play two out of three, which isn’t bad. It feels really bad to kill an opposing 2-drop with Path to Exile since the opponent is able to fix his or her mana; I’m often excited when my opponent does that to me.

If you look at the spells in this Grixis, deck you will quickly realize that all thirty-seven of them are just Modern Staples that work very well together. I really like to play with good cards even if they have no synergy with each other. This deck does have plenty of synergy, so that’s just icing on the cake.

Since this deck is full of synergies with Liliana of the Veil, it doesn’t mind facing an opposing Liliana either. The worst part about playing Grixis Twin is that the best players in the region tend to gravitate toward B/G/x decks, and Liliana was a thorn in my side. If you look at how most Modern events shake out, you’ll see a random assortment of combo decks do well and then a bunch of decks with good cards. I can be sure I will face Liliana Midrange at the RPTQ. I will be a victim of Liliana no more!

Rise // Fall is a new addition, and it has been welcomed so far. The ability to bounce your opponent’s best creature to his or her hand while you return Jace from the graveyard is very powerful. This isn’t a tempo deck, but the bounce means you can hit a good spell out of the opponent’s hand with Inquisition of Kozilek or Liliana. It can also create some nasty chains by bouncing your Snapcaster Mages for value. The other half of the card also plays well with this deck because you can clear the hand of a combo player quickly. I would recommend using Liliana first because your opponent will discard useless lands so you can hit more spells with Fall.

Tell Me More about the Sideboard

Engineered Explosives can be clunky, but it’s a good answer to an opposing transformed Jace since it costs 0. I also want at least one way to clear pesky enchantments or tokens made from Young Pyromancer. Since I play four colors, I can blow up Leylines.

I’m sure your initial thought is that I have too much Burn hate, but I will almost certainly lose Game 1. In order to beat Burn, you need to win a post-’board game on the play and on the draw, which is no easy feat. I bring in ten cards that fundamentally change the matchup: two Dispel, one Spell Snare, one Duress, two Rest for the Weary, two Timely Reinforcements, one Magma Spray, and one Negate. The counters are important because the opponent will leave up Skullcrack and Atarka's Command to foil your life-gain spells; don’t just run out a turn-three Timely Reinforcements into open mana or you will be sad. The life-gain train can keep chugging along because Jace and Snapcaster Mage will often flash them back.

My plan against the unfair combo decks is to have answers to big spells like Karn Liberated, Ad Nauseam, and Scapeshift. Inquisition of Kozilek is great against midrange decks, but it doesn’t solve every problem, so I need some help. Duress, Thoughtseize, and Negate are good against a variety of decks so I can upgrade my answer suite in a pinch.

Is This Deck for Me?

If you do choose to play this deck, make sure you practice fetching your lands. It’s not too difficult, but be aware of the colors you need on each turn. I have come across some situations when I play a weird spell on turn one so I can double-spell a few turns down the line. This comes up frequently with Serum Visions versus Inquisition of Kozilek since most of your duals add black mana, but you have fewer blue sources.

I would like to point out that I mulliganed about half of my games in the Grand Prix Trial I played this deck to a Top 4 finish. Most of the hands I had to mulligan just had zero or one land instead of having awkward colors, which is good. I felt the deck flowed very well despite having fewer cards, which makes me happy.

The bottom line is that if you enjoy grinding down an opponent while having the board clear except a Liliana of the Veil in play, this is a deck for you. If you like playing nothing but extremely powerful spells that don’t fall down when synergies don’t come together, this is also a deck for you.

If This Deck Isn’t for Me, What Would You Suggest?

Modern is a very diverse format, and even the “best deck” is by no means the only deck. I spent a lot of time discussing how I warped my deck to be competitive against Burn; that sounds like a powerful deck if I’ve ever heard of one. No matter how prepared your opponents may be, Burn will get you sometimes. It was, in fact, my only loss at the GPT where I played Grixis.

Burn ? Modern | Kyle Boggemes

• Creatures (14)
• 2 Grim Lavamancer
• 4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
• 4 Goblin Guide
• 4 Monastery Swiftspear

• Spells (26)
• 1 Shard Volley
• 2 Skullcrack
• 3 Searing Blaze
• 4 Atarka's Command
• 4 Boros Charm
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Lava Spike
• 4 Rift Bolt

• Lands (20)
• 2 Mountain
• 2 Copperline Gorge
• 2 Stomping Ground
• 3 Bloodstained Mire
• 3 Sacred Foundry
• 4 Arid Mesa
• 4 Wooded Foothills

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Pyrite Spellbomb
• 4 Destructive Revelry
• 2 Deflecting Palm
• 1 Searing Blaze
• 1 Skullcrack
• 2 Lightning Helix
• 3 Molten Rain

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If you can’t beat ’em, burn their face.

This deck is by no means revolutionary; it’s incredibly stock, and that’s okay. Some Modern decks are played so frequently they settle on an equilibrium list; Affinity is another example of this. A change that is being adopted lately is the inclusion of Wild Nacatl, but I think this is a mistake. When I play against Burn, I usually hope my opponent draws a creature if he or she is going to draw a spell on any given turn. I have to play cheap removal so I don’t lose to Goblin Guide, but it’s as though I mulligan when I draw Lightning Bolt and the opponent just does 20 direct damage to me.

Burn is a fantastic choice if you are less familiar with the Modern metagame, as it has the same game plan of counting to 20 each time. There are also Burn players out there who leverage their familiarity with the deck so it’s not a brainless deck as many assume. It’s true that someone who just learned how to play Magic can beat a veteran with Burn, but proper sequencing is still crucial in close games.

The last deck I would suggest playing in Modern is Zoo. Don’t underestimate the power of Wild Nacatl in creature-based strategies:

Zoo ? Modern | Kyle Boggemes

• Creatures (25)
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 2 Qasali Pridemage
• 3 Knight of the Reliquary
• 3 Loxodon Smiter
• 4 Noble Hierarch
• 4 Tarmogoyf
• 4 Voice of Resurgence
• 4 Wild Nacatl

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

• Spells (10)
• 2 Dromoka's Command
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Path to Exile

• Lands (23)
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Plains
• 2 Forest
• 1 Horizon Canopy
• 1 Kessig Wolf Run
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 1 Stirring Wildwood
• 2 Stomping Ground
• 2 Temple Garden
• 3 Arid Mesa
• 4 Windswept Heath
• 4 Wooded Foothills

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Stony Silence
• 1 Ancient Grudge
• 2 Choke
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 3 Kor Firewalker
• 2 Lightning Helix
• 2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
• 2 Gaddock Teeg

Buy This Deck

This list in particular is not stock because it doesn’t play Collected Company. I don’t like that everyone knows to ’board in Dispel for your big threat, so I chose to play Elspeth, Knight-Errant instead. I really like Elspeth because there are so many exalted creatures so you can give one creature +3/+3 and flying to attack for massive damage.

It may seem weird that Qasali Pridemage is the most exciting card for me to play, but it is. I tried a Chord of Calling deck, and the most impressive spells in the deck were G/W creatures like Qasali Pridemage and Voice of Resurgence.

I like how these G/W decks play out because they have access to deranged enchantments like Choke and Stony Silence that automatically win the game in some cases.

The theme I’m trying to hammer home here is that I would only recommend decks that have proactive game plans. Modern is such a wide-open format, so you need to expect the unexpected.

Thanks for reading, now go and qualify for a Pro Tour!

See you in Atlanta!

-Kyle