Welcome back faithful reader to another installment of MADMAN, GENIUS, OR BOTH? This month’s deck comes to us from MTGO username PETYRBAELISH’ 5-0 list posted October 4, 2019. Littlefinger posted at least four other 5-0 results prior to October 4, 2019 with this exact 75 starting around the middle of July, possibly earlier.
“Know your strengths, use them wisely, and one man can be worth ten thousand” – Lord Baelish
This is one of those decks that keeps me com(b)ing back to the daily decklists to sift for gold. After scrolling through list after list of the usual suspects, I found this gem a while back and knew I had to write about it. As usual, I’ve played exactly zero games with the deck so all my thoughts should be taken with extreme caution. That said, I think this deck is absolute fire.
So what does the deck do?
Let’s take a stroll down upside lane, shall we? Imagine you’re on the play in game one and have to mulligan to five. You keep the following five cards:
Electrodominance, Spirebluff Canal, Restore Balance, Ancestral Vision, and Simian Spirit Guide.Now let’s assume your opponent is on anything other than turn one Thoughtseize/Duress and doesn’t have an active Force of Negation in hand.
Your Turn One: Play Spirebluff Canal, suspend Ancestral Vision (Cards in hand = 3)
Opponent’s Turn One: They draw, play fetch land, and pass. (Cards in hand = 7)
Your Turn Two: Draw and play Scalding Tarn. Exile Spirit Guide to float red mana. Tap Canal for second red mana. Crack the Tarn and with the trigger on the stack, cast Electrodominance for zero, casting Restore Balance, causing your opponent to discard all seven of those precious cards while you fetch up a Steam Vents.
That is effectively a turn two kill. This is a Modern deck casting Mind Twist for 7 on turn two on the play after a mulligan to five. The fact that such things are possible in Modern makes me excited to talk about it. Is this best case scenario? Probably. But, it doesn’t seem all that difficult to pull off something close to this even if you don’t have the stone nuts. And while Force of Negation and hand disruption are a problem, (as is Chalice), so what? Every Modern deck has weaknesses. This deck doesn’t have to go off on turn two to win the game. In fact, depending on the opponent’s deck and your hand, there are going to be games where you will want to wait until later in the game to get maximum punishment. Imagine a similar scenario where your third and fourth lands are Fiery Islet and a fetch land. Now you get to put both the fetch trigger AND the Islet draw trigger on the stack while your Electrodominance / Restore Balance combo resolves, decimating both your opponent’s hand, manabase, and any creatures they have in play. Meanwhile, your triggers resolve and you draw an extra card and put an additional land into play.
This deck also has the option of going aggressive early by playing two 4/4 tramplers on turn one on the play, backed up with the late game plan of sacrificing all of your permanents to Greater Gargadon before Balance resolves to effectively Wrath of God and Armageddon the board all at the same time to clear the way for your 9/7 haste after you untap.
In looking for the most recent version of the deck I found two additional lists. The first is from October 8, 2019 and it is exactly two sideboard cards different from the original version.
Next I found this list from October 11, 2019 posted by MTGO user SILENCE9428 (SPOILER: It’s identical to Littlefinger’s original build).
Without having played the deck I won’t speculate as to the minor sideboard changes because the truth is I have no idea whether the second (usually) one-mana counter is better than the second Anger of the Gods. However, my general experience with the MTGO modern metagame is that it is rarely lacking in aggressive creature based strategies, so if I were playing the deck tomorrow I’d probably start with the original version of the deck.
DECK GRADE: GENIUS
Look, it’s no secret that Littlefinger is a sneaky miscreant, so who better to figure out how to cast a miserly turn two Mind Twist for seven after a mulligan to five on the play than Robert Baratheon’s former Master of Coin? GOT references aside, I do really like this deck.
While I don’t love how reliant the deck is on drawing either Electrodominance or As Foretold early in order to do anything powerful, the ceiling here is exceptionally high when you get there and the deck can afford to mulligan aggressively to look for one of those two cards in your opener. This feels like a deck that definitely got better with the London mulligan rule. With four Opt and three Serum Visions you should be able to set up powerful turns even where you don’t draw the nuts early. This deck has 16 proactive single mana plays on turn one (not including lightning bolt), so the deck should rarely be inefficient in the early turns, which is important in games of Modern. Against decks with counterspells you have Force of Negation to back up your instant speed end-of-turn Balance, which is especially insane if your opponent is on control and has a stacked hand such that pitching your extra As Foretolds to Force of Negation means they discard two additional cards.
That’s all of I’ve got to say about this deck. If you like my articles, please let me know in the comments and give me a follow on Twitter @madmangeniusorboth so you’ll get notified every time a new article comes out. Thanks for reading!