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Landscaping in Antwerp

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Hey there! Unfortunately, I have been quite busy with schoolwork lately, so this Grand Prix Antwerp report is not coming out quite as soon as I would have liked, but I do hope you gain some valuable insights about the Modern format.

Birthing Pod
I started thinking about what I wanted to play at the Grand Prix several weeks before the Pro Tour in Dublin, but as my time was limited and I needed to test for the more important tournament, I didn’t have time to play any actual matches of Modern. In Dublin, I talked a bit about the format with Sam Pardee, a Melira Pod master, as that was one of the decks on the top of my list. I also started discussing various Pod versions with Kenny Oeberg, as he was also going to Antwerp. The discussion continued online, and while I was for the Melira version, Kenny wanted to play Kikipod, as it had more combo potential.

I started testing Melira Pod online, and I put up some quite solid results. I was surprised by how often I just beat my opponents down instead of assembling any type of combo, and often, the deck felt like an underpowered Junk deck. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing, as the beatdowns are often a result of the opponent playing a lot of disruption to stop your combo attempts. I also found myself stuck on two or three lands very often, and using Chord of Calling and Birthing Pod efficiently does require a fair bit of resources. Around this time, I also started testing Scapeshift as another option. We had been talking with Kenny about how playing a deck without any actual creatures was very nice, as so many of the decks in Modern were just packed with removal.

Why Scapeshift?

Scapeshift
At first, I tried out what I consider to be the classic Modern Scapeshift version with Cryptic Command. I had planned on playing this deck a year ago at Pro Tour Return to Ravnica in Seattle, but the Jund matchup was just too bad back then. While Bloodbraid Elf has gotten the boot, the problematic cards in Jund are still there, as threatening as ever. The card that causes you the biggest problems is Liliana of the Veil, as it attacks your resources so incredibly efficiently. You need to make it to seven lands to be able to deal 18 damage with Scapeshift, and making it there through a Liliana of the Veil can be tough. As you are only playing four of your main win conditions, along with a few Snapcaster Mages, it can be difficult to find one before Liliana hits enough loyalty to just ultimate you out of the game.

I realized I didn’t really want to play this version, and I decided to try out a version with the Prismatic Omen and Primeval Titan package, as it was very similar to a deck I had played in the old Extended format. On paper, this version looked a bit janky, but when I played some games, I quickly found myself liking this version a lot more than the traditional version. I liked the fact that you had more action spells and several different ways to win the game, not just resolving Scapeshift. Having a Prismatic Omen in play also means that six lands is enough to kill the opponent, so you can actually win a turn faster than the other version. The biggest thing you are giving up is Cryptic Command, but I think having a more versatile game plan overall is worth it. Another good thing with this version is that you are playing more Mountains, and I have actually never lost to drawing too many of them, something that can happen with the other version.

Going Rogue

Young Pyromancer
I was not totally pleased, however, so I still decided to try out some other decks before deciding on what to play. During the course of this process, I first tried a Merfolk brew and then a R/U/G tempo deck with Young Pyromancer and Life from the Loam in addition to some other decks. The Merfolk deck had some major problems, the biggest one being that if you ever were flooded, you just lost. The R/U/G tempo deck had quite a decent win percentage, but all the games felt very strange, and the deck was not very stable. I felt that I spent a lot of time just durdling around, not actually accomplishing anything relevant. What I realized after playing these decks was that I wanted to play a deck that was very solid and had a good proactive game plan, one that I could try to put into action no matter what my opponent was playing.

Decisions, Decisions

When I left for Antwerp, I brought with my all the cards for both Melira Pod and Scapeshift, as I was still not settled on what I should do. Melira Pod is much harder to play, and I was worried that, with a very long tournament like a Grand Prix, I would become quite exhausted playing the deck for seven rounds after the two byes. Even though I had played with the deck a fair amount, I knew I wasn’t playing with the same type of intuition that you can see if you look at some of Sam Pardee’s Pod videos. If I would have been very confident in my skills, and thought I would make next to no misplays, I would definitely have played Melira Pod, but this was not the case. I think both Melira Pod and Scapeshift are of equal power level, with the main difference being that Melira Pod has a slightly better Jund matchup. On the other hand, Scapeshift has a much better matchup against Tron, something that is relevant at least on Magic Online. Both I and Sami Tuomi, whom I was traveling with, registered the same seventy-five.

I liked the sideboard a lot, but perhaps you should find room for the fourth Obstinate Baloth, as the Jund matchup is not the best ever. The Engineered Explosives’ were a late addition to the deck and I sideboarded them in most of my matchups during the two days. The original reasoning was that I wanted something against Affinity that deals with both Blood Moon and the actual threats. Overloading on Shatterstorms and the like are sometimes not enough if you can’t get out from under a Blood Moon. You play enough basics that between them and Prismatic Omen it should be fairly easy to get three colors of mana for the Engineered Explosives.

Day 1

Warren Instigator
As I mentioned, I had two byes, so I needed to win five of my seven matches. I played against U/B Tezzeret, Grixis control, Merfolk, R/U/G Delver, Goblins, and Affinity twice during the first day, losing to Affinity and Goblins. These games were not all that special, except the Goblins match, where I felt I was favored until he practically killed me on turn three in the third game.

He was on the play and had an Aether Vial on the first turn. On the second turn, he played a Warren Instigator and ticked up the Vial. I thought I was in okay shape since I had a Sakura-Tribe Elder to block the Warren Instigator. He then proceeded to put Spike Jester into play from the Vial and play Goblin King to give the two guys mountainwalk, making them unblockable due to my Stomping Ground. The first Warren Instigator trigger put a Goblin Chieftain into play, and the second trigger put a Krenko, Mob Boss. This dealt me a total of 10 damage, and next turn, he could deal me a totally absurd amount of damage thanks to Krenko. After the game, he agreed that this was probably the best possible draw he could have with his deck, and I was nowhere near beating it.

The U/B Tezzeret matchup was partially covered on the stream, and it seemed to be a super-good matchup for me. He did show me Ghost Quarter with Extirpate after the match—as well as some other disruption such as Witchbane Orb—but I still think the matchup was favorable overall. I was surprised that I faced no Jund or R/W/U decks during the whole day, as I would have assumed they would be popular decks. My 7–2 was not the best record, but as I had picked up the second loss quite early on, I was still very happy to make the second day.

Day 2

Plague Stinger
I started out very well, beating Junk and Naya, which meant I was ”just” four wins from the Top 8 and an invite to the Pro Tour in Valencia. The crucial moment in this tournament came when I was playing against B/U/G Infect in Round 12. I was up a game and then made a misplay that caused me to lose the game and eventually the match, starting my four-round losing streak to put me totally out of the money. Let me try to illustrate the situation to you.

My opponent had been stuck on land but had brought me to 6 poison with a Glistener Elf that I eventually dealt with using Engineered Explosives. He then played a Noble Hierarch, still with only one land. On the following turn, he still didn’t play a land, but he played a Plague Stinger with five other cards still left in hand. At this point, my hand was two Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and one Sakura-Tribe Elder, and in play, I had one Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle along with four Mountains (basics and duals). This meant that if I drew a ramp spell or a Mountain, I could probably kill his Plague Stinger with the help of my Sakura-Tribe Elder. I drew an Izzet Charm, and without thinking the whole thing through, I just aimed it at the Plague Stinger, and he, of course, had the Mutagenic Growth and then killed me on the next turn.

What I should have definitely done was just loot with the Izzet Charm. For some reason, I thought that when I looted I would only be left with two cards in hand and would need to use them both to kill the Plague Stinger and then would be playing off the top. I thought he had at least one infect creature in hand since he had been missing land drops, so my logic at that point was that I didn’t want to spend all my resources just to be in the same situation again next turn. This whole logic was, of course, wrong, as after looting, I would still have had three cards in hand. My odds of hitting an out were super-good, as the only dead cards were basically Primeval Titan and six lands—Pyroclasm and additional Izzet Charms just put me in the same situation again. Considering I would be able to see two cards, I would most likely have survived had I looted. Additionally, if I drew Scapeshift, I could just win that turn. After the match, he even said he didn’t have another infect creature, so killing that one would have given me a lot of time to look for something to kill him with.

Nature's Claim
This mistake was a sum of two main factors. The first factor was that I played too fast and should have just taken a minute to analyze the situation one more time. I often play with intuition, which, most of the time, is a good thing, as it allows you to play much faster. Sometimes, it can backfire, as it causes situations like this one. The second factor was that I somehow had the faulty logic about how many cards I would have left after looting, which was just wrong. I had even thought about Mutagenic Growth earlier, as it is among the most relevant cards in the matchup, so it was not as though it surprised me.

As I mentioned, this started a four-round losing streak. After losing to Infect, I then lost to Junk, Jund, and Affinity. All these games were quite close and ones in which it felt that if I ever drew a business card, I would have just won. Against Affinity, I even was able to wreck him with Nature's Claim on his first-turn Springleaf Drum off a Glimmervoid. Unfortunately, he drew two straight mana sources off the top and got into the game. I might have been quite tilted if the match had mattered, but as we were just playing for fun at that point, I just laughed at how things played out. Turns out Darksteel Citadel is my number-one enemy in Modern, having lost to it in the Top 8 of Pro Tour Philadelphia in a similar situation.

Going Forward

Mindslicer
I think Modern is a very good format at the moment, as there are a lot of good decks you can play. I would still play either Melira Pod or Scapeshift if I had to play in a Modern tournament tomorrow. I will probably try to get in some practice with Melira Pod on Magic Online so that I can play it at the next Modern Grand Prix in Prague. Olli, another Finn, played his version of Melira Pod (featuring Mindslicer!) to a very respectable twelfth-place finish at Grand Prix Antwerp, and he is a good example of the fact that if you play a lot with the deck, you will probably also put up some solid finishes, as he has basically been playing the deck nonstop for a long time.

Just a week after the Grand Prix, I won a Pro Tour Qualifier for Pro Tour Born of the Gods in Valencia, so it seems I am back on the Pro Tour for the time being. Staying on the train is very difficult these days, but I will try my very best to make this happen. I had originally planned to go to Grand Prix Vienna, as I really wanted the invite, but as I have it now, I will probably skip the Grand Prix since I have quite a lot of deadlines coming up.

As always, if you have any questions, comments, ideas, or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to contact me either via the comments section below or directly via Twitter. I would love to hear from you what kind of topics you would like me to write about.

Thanks for reading,

Max

@thebloom_ on Twitter

Maxx on Magic Online

You can find my music on: http://soundcloud.com/bloomlive


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