Welcome back dear reader, oh how I’ve missed you! After a long holiday season, followed by three more weeks of stuff that wasn’t me writing another article, I’m back with the fifth installment of Madman, Genius or Both? This time I’ll be taking a look at a fresh take on two classic strategies that have been smashed together with a twist.
Before we get down to business, I have to briefly mention that the Modern metagame has been impacted dramatically by the recent bannings of Oko, Thief of Crowns, Mox Opal, and Mycosynth Lattice. And although I haven’t personally been playing tons of Modern since the bannings (or before then, to be fair), from perusing the 5-0 lists, the format looks much healthier to me. One of the things I like to check when I look at the 5-0 lists is whether or not multiple copies of Jund are 5-0ing. This is not necessarily scientific, BUT – I believe Modern Jund represents the middle of the archetype spectrum of a pure customizable mid-range value deck. If Jund can win in Modern, it usually means that lots of different decks can also win, which seems to be the case right now. The recent 5-0 Modern lists also reveal a wide variety of winning decks, which is fantastic. Sorry to all those #affinityforlife players whose hearts are broken, but you had a good run. The good news for now is that there are so many different decks and strategies in Modern that it makes constructing a good sideboard extremely challenging. Speaking of sideboards, the deck we’ll be looking at today offers an awesome plan post-board against decks that side out all of their creature removal. Without further ado, let’s get to the list!
This 5-0 list comes from MTGO user THEPENSWORD, posted January 24, 2020 from a Modern League. Yes, this is technically an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn/Through the Breach deck. But it is so much more. This is a classic U/R draw-go control deck that uses the Breach/Eldrazi combo as its win condition. Traditionally, U/R decks with this suite of counterspells and tempo tend to run Thing in the Ice or planeswalkers in order to close out games. This deck takes a different approach to the whole “win condition” thing, and I like it.
The first thing I like about this deck is that you get to pretend you’re a classic UR control deck and essentially never cast spells on your turn. With four Opt and four Omen of the Sea, it shouldn’t be all that difficult to set up a turn five kill in most games. In the meantime, you get to sit back and counter the spells that matter until you’re ready to win the game.
Unlike other control decks, this deck doesn’t have to take a turn off to play a sorcery speed planeswalker like Jace or Teferi, or a creature like Thing in the Ice. Being able to hold up mana on every turn of the game has value. Plus, because this deck isn’t all that popular, you should still be able to get some surprise value in game one where your opponent likely won’t be expecting the Eldrazi over something like a Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or Jace, the Mind Sculptor. End-of-turn Through the Breach into Emrakul, untap, attack for 15 with Annihilator 6 effectively ends the game.
In the sideboard we find an alternate win condition in Platinum Imperion, (yeah, click the link to look it up) plus Madcap Experiment. The way this plays out post-board is that you now have four spells in your deck that create an instant speed 8/8 for four mana that make it so your life total can’t change. This is very powerful in certain matchups where your opponent doesn’t expect it. Notably, this is an instant speed way to counter both Valukut triggers and Grapeshot.
I started writing this article on Saturday but didn’t quite finish it. In checking the MTGO lists again today I see that on Sunday, January 26, 2020 a similar deck piloted by MTGO user COLY2 was posted after going 4-2 in the Modern Showcase Challenge.
As usual, I’ve played zero games with the deck so commenting too much on the minor changes isn’t going to be all that productive. That said, I want to point them out for anyone interested in playing something similar. First, we see a 1/1 split of Vendilion Clique/Brazen Borrower rather than two Borrowers. I’m not sure how many nonland permanents need bouncing in this format, but given that this deck’s plan is simply to survive to turn five and then attack with Emrakul, it feels like bounce is more on theme with the game plan than Clique. That said, Clique is an excellent card that can dig one card deeper when needed and it isn’t difficult to imagine matchups where Clique is going to be better than Borrower.
Next, we see that two Izzet Charm have been swapped out for two Archmage’s Charm. The effects are similar enough here that I think I would prefer the two mana spell over the three mana spell. The deck only runs 23 lands, so stalling at four lands is going to happen with some regularity. When it does, having live targets in the graveyard for Snapcaster Mage will be critical. That said, the nonbo of Emrakul/Izzet Charm/Snapcaster Mage is not great. Decks like this often desperately want to discard excess combo pieces, and here that comes with the cost of turning off your Snapcaster Mage, which feels bad.
Last, the manabase has been changed in a significant way. Instead of three Temple of Epiphany, an Island, and a Cascade Bluffs, we see an extra fetch land, two Mystic Sanctuary, a Fiery Islet, and a third Steam Vents. I don’t love any of these changes. Temple seems great in this kind of draw go deck where you don’t have anything else to do on turn one besides Opt. I also like Cascade Bluffs here because of the color intensive nature of your spells, and the fact that in some games it means you can cast two cheap red spells the same turn.
I don’t love Sanctuary in this deck either. I think you actively want to be digging to set up your combo rather than putting spells back on top of your library. Although Fiery Islet does let you dig deeper, you’re going to have games where this is one of only two or three lands and it will deal 4-5 damage to you, especially in a deck running two Archmage’s Charm. I prefer these draw lands in more aggressive decks that need to dig for action after they spew out their hand. It feels like too much of a liability here.
DECK GRADE: BOTH
To be clear, I’m going off the original version of the deck for purposes of grading it. This deck is genius in its own way. You get to run all the best control spells in an awesome U/R shell with the most efficient burn spell in the game and a disguised over the top end game that causes your opponent to sacrifice their board and take 15 damage to the face. Awesome! Moreover, you’ve got sick technology in the sideboard to surprise decks that can’t interact with an 8/8 body at instant speed that is unbeatable for certain matchups. Kudos.
The problem is that you are diluting your amazing control deck with eight cards that do nothing until they win you the game. And by the way, you need exactly one of each of them In order to win and you don’t have any ways to tutor up either card. The deck has some card draw, but it also has awkward draws where you get three of one combo piece and none of the other, and once you’re out of counter spells you just lose the game with a bunch of useless combo pieces in your hand. It is even worse when those pieces are Emrakul’s and you can’t discard them to Izzet Charm without turning off Snapcaster Mage.
Overall, I like the deck for its innovation and ability to flip post-board in a way that many opponents won’t see coming. I mean, its genius, but you’re probably a madman if you take this to a Grand Prix with the hopes of going 13-2 and making top eight.
Thanks for reading! As always, feel free to leave any comments or questions below, particularly from anyone who has played with or against the deck. Follow me on Twitter @madmangeniusorboth to get updated when my next article comes out!