To set the scene a little bit, this was the first Grand Prix I had played in since August of the previous year and between then and now I had played 5 Magic events. In total.
So to get ready for this event I played somewhere between 15-20 leagues on magic online. Initially my testing was going tits up rather quickly. In the first half of my testing my best results were a pair of 3-2s with 6 or so 2-3s and a couple of 1-4s. Before this I’m not sure if I ever got results this bad with a deck before. Even with Death Shadow, which I went 2-2 with at local events.
And in histories past this might have sent me spiraling, but with the help of time apart from Magic and just enjoying games and being mesmerized by the variance/my play and now years of therapy (get into it) I found myself laughing at my own stupidity and my opponents top decks rather than needing to buy a new mouse at 3 am.
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!
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.
This article is a recap of what happened to modern in the last 3 months, along with some specific predictions about what will happen in the modern meta-game in the next 3 months.
A few months ago I spent some time writing about how Magic: The Gathering meta-games tend to evolve over time in a predictable way. At the time I included this delightful (and graphically questionable) image to put at the top.
While I don’t think this image perfectly captures the mtg circle of life, I do think it’s an amusing indicator of what things magic players expect to beat what things. I think it also represents the circle we all tend to move around when deciding on decks. Magic’s older formats have had some huge shakeups in the last few months with the advent of the London mulligan, War of the Spark, Modern Horizons, the faithless looting ban, and the stoneforge mystic unban. These changes have in many ways reset the modern and legacy formats. I think this provides an excellent opportunity to evaluate the modern meta-game, try a guess at where they’re heading, and generally check in and see if my previous article has any merit.
The funniest part about a modern meta-gaming article is that it is a largely pointless endeavor. Everyone will show up with whatever they feel like, no matter how bad it is (*cough* uw control *cough*). Even better, no matter what actually happens in the future, my predictions will look correct( but not overwhelmingly so) because every reasonable deck remains at less than 5, but more than 1 percent of the meta. I do, however, plan to point out which decks I think are well positioned and which are not. By “well positioned,” I of course mean, “is the most efficient way to do a very linear thing.” Mostly I’ll just make fun of bad decks, because it’s much easier to punch down.
Disclaimer: Just because I say a deck is poorly positioned, or even bad, this does not mean you shouldn’t play it. Any deck can top 8 a modern event, especially if they win the match up lottery. Modern, more than any format, is a place where you can play whatever deck you want and still have a reasonable chance at winning some games. The margins are smaller because the match ups could be anything, even a boat.
First, let’s start with the customary greeting in mtg articles, a picture of the mtggoldfish metagame (9/16).
Friends don’t let friends bring Niv to anywhere
Most of these decks seem like reasonable piles of cards. Minus of course, bring-to-niv.
Let’s talk historically. How did we get here? and how did pillar of the paruns become a $35 card? First, the London mulligan unleashed a wave of tron and dredge onto an unsuspecting populace. This filled the format with oodles of combo and big mana decks. Then, Modern Horizons added so many highly playable cards to the format that it made some linear decks overly linear and needed to be banned (Hogaak). The initial wave of busted graveyard decks took a strong strike to its consistency, which unlocked some of the slower linear decks (Valakut, tron, burn). Stoneforge came out of exile, which led to the false belief that finally the promised time had come, making modern a fair and linear format again. This led to people jamming stoneforges into their control decks and just about any other deck that will tolerate it. This leads us to now, where I believe the format is re-learning how to linear without it’s good buddy faithless looting.
From here, we being to look at what is actually happening. I put the graphic back up with numbers added so that I can show contrast between that image and this one:
Stoneforge is the new face of midrange and niv I just wanted to have an explosion on top of (additionally, it is a card in a control deck). Also of note, stoneforge doesn’t actually beat burn, one of many reasons why burn is a popular deck at the moment. We also see urza and death’s shadow standing over the smoking ruins of midrange and control, which seems appropriate. Urza and shadow are also weirdly midrange adjacent, like many “fair” decks that happen to have a combo win in modern.
From here, I would define the 1 tier decks of modern to be whirza, burn, and Valakut. Shadow, tron and humans are mighty close, I’ll call them tier 1.5 for simplicity. Jund is probably on top of the heap for tier 2, followed by just about everything else down there in garbage tier territory. If your goal is to maximize your win percentage playing modern, I recommend not playing modern. If you insist, I would recommend a deck in tier 1.
As the format settles I expect modern to follow the trajectory it always follows and linearize quickly as busted decks find the most efficient way to murder each other. My specific predictions from here I shall bulletize for review later, much in the manner of a financial article. My specific predictions I will give percentages based on mtggoldfish meta percentages; these percentages are largely useless, but provide a metric by which you can prove to me how wrong I am.
I suspect that the number of whirza players will increase over time as it holds a splinter twin-like hold over the meta. I expect over 6% in the next 3 months.
Burn may slowly dry up as a tier one deck as it receives more attention and more sideboard slots. I expect less than 4% in the next 3 months .
I expect other linear options such as affinity and mono red prowess to increase in play as the number of fair decks decreases. I expect hardened scales affinity to be in the top 10 by next year.
I expect stoneforge mystic will slowly dwindle into irrelevancy unless buoyed by play in unfair decks such as whirza or creature combos. It will be played way more than it’s win-rate should allow. I expect no more than 4 stoneforges in any GP top 8, but I do expect it to represent more than 2% of the meta at any given time.
Valakut will remain a solid choice that is criminally underrepresented in the meta (check out the Valakut website, it’s great and it got me on the pro tour one time). I expect no more than 3% of the meta.
I will revisit these points next year to see how things did. In traditional modern fashion, I expect some kind of massive shakeup will happen early next year and render everything said in this article useless beyond repair.
In the meantime, may you never draw more than 3 lands playing burn. Unless they’re horizon lands, those are probably fine.
This is part two of a multiple article series. The first article covered gameplay improvements and suggestions. This part covers some meta decisions about how to do well at tournaments. Part three will cover logistical suggestions.
Plan to beat the winner’s metagame
Sometimes is feels really bad when you sit down at a legacy tournament and lose to burn repeatedly (your fault for not having win conditions). However, being soft to a deck that is unlikely to perform well is better than being an all-rounder against bad decks. Tobi Henke covered this very well in a recent article, but I think it bears repeating.
The winner’s metagame are the decks that you think are most likely to compose the top tables. These are the decks you want to beat, not the junk that sometimes populates the early rounds of a tournament. This is one of the benefits of having byes at a GP (byes just barely still exist as of this writing). Getting to skip lesser known or lower likelihood of success decks can inform deck decisions and allow you to skip worrying about bad decks. If all the good decks are on 3-4c Energy midrange in Kaladesh standard, you better have a good plan for beating them. Play to win the tournament, don’t put narrow cards in your board to beat the 1% of the field deck that dumpsters you. When you build a sideboard, keep in mind what you are expecting to face in the winners meta and make sure you have a focused plan against them. Don’t devote 10 cards to beating the standard burn matchup, no matter how much you hate losing to it, when burn is 2% of the meta.
This is critically important for a format like modern, especially for those who are new to the format. The tendency is to put very specific answers into their sideboard to deal with their local meta. If you are playing burn and hate infect, play Searing Blood, not Burn the Impure. Searing blood is just as effective against infect in most situations, but is also useful against creature combo decks and other random nonsense you might encounter.
Option a is better than option b, no matter how much you hate infect.
Sometimes one deck is likely to be the most represented deck (*cough* Hogaak *cough*) in the format and it is necessary to devote specific sideboard cards (Leyline of the Void) to beating this strategy. Most of the time in modern it pays to have answers that can be used more widely like Relic of Progenitus, but there are always exceptions. Damping Sphere covers more bases than Molten Rain, etc. There are many articles discussing sideboarding, especially in modern, but I think it is always worth rehashing.
In older formats part of playing to the winner’s meta is also ignoring that some players just “want it more.” Sometimes you’re playing rb reanimator and your round 2 opponent has 10 pieces of yard hate. You should still play reanimator if you think it is the best deck. Some people hate losing to a specific deck and will over-prepare for it. These people will likely feel the burn later in the tournament when they don’t have cards to bring in against other decks. Sometimes you run into them, they have it all, and there’s not much to be done.
If you can, perform focused testing
Jamming modern modo games might be ok for getting the hang of your deck, but at a certain point you need to sit down and focus on the winner’s metagame. I am fortunate enough to have a network of friends who between us can proxy up and test important matchups. Fun fact: you will never get enough reps in with a deck to know for sure the matchup percentages. I would go so far as to say you will never get enough reps with a deck.
Period.
Ever.
Welcome to magic.
Maybe I’m just neurotic. I have certainly never gone into a tournament feeling like I couldn’t have prepared more. There might be people that feel like they have spent enough time on their deck and testing. These people are either very wrong, or have a great deal more time than I do. Point being, we’re going to have to be efficient.
10 game sets with alternating first players can give you a very good feel for what is going on and what is important. The streamer Jeff Hoogland is very good at talking about this. At the end of videos he often loudly proclaims that we ignore the record and focus on how things felt. Mixed feelings around the net regarding Mr. Hoogland notwithstanding, I think that this self- analysis is very important while testing and tuning decks. There is a reason that computers are very bad at magic. I perform my serious testing with individuals (preferably ones who know the deck they are piloting well) and in longer sets. I prefer this be done in paper magic, but an online tool might be faster or easier for some depending on format and individual taste.
Test matchups! Leagues are ok testing but not the best.
Play good decks
I love bad combo decks (Narset cannon and meandeck tendrils are particular favorites). I play them often at weekly tournaments so that I get it out of my system and don’t play bad decks at big events. The fact that neo-griselbrand straddles this line in modern could lead to significant shenanigans down the road and is amusing to me.
There are many reasons people play bad decks. Comfort, the lolz, the burning need to show how cool you are (Antony Benedetti is particularly cool). The fact is that there is a hive mind of magic online players that are actively trying their darndest to break the game and get all the moneys. The result is that the creme of the crop tend to rise up after they’ve been discovered.
Tangent: The “after they’ve been discovered” bit is important here. I’m of the opinion that the modo hive mind acts similarly to machine learning. As Hari Seldon might say, humans in groups are easy to predict. Everyone tries everything over enough time (infinite monkeys, infinite typewriters, etc.) and as a result the best decks tend to be the most played decks over time. I recommend looking into basic machine learning/neural net stuff (cool mario link here). I’ll probably devote an entire article to this some time in the future. The thing about taking a lot of inputs (players and decks) and jamming them into a few metrics for success (published lists), is that they will tend to wander off into local maxima. That is, the meta-magician is very good at tuning decks, and not so good at discovering them. This goes along with Patrick Chapin’s information cascades article. We humans tend to follow, not invent.
Anyway, modo is a very good deck-tuning machine and a so-so deck-finding machine. I am willing to bet that there are a very large number of very good decks out there that haven’t been discovered yet. Recall how the best versions of death’s shadow weren’t even discovered until gitaxian probe was banned. The problem is that you are incredibly unlikely to find and tune one of these mythical hidden best decks. If Matt Nass were given an infinite amount of time to test older formats I’m sure he could develop an entirely different ecosystem of insane combo decks that would be stronger than our current meta (I like to call this the infinite Nasty theorem).
Most of us aren’t Matt Nass or Patrick Chapin and we don’t have infinite time. We also largely don’t have massive pro teams bolstering our every whim. The result is that we need a good deck to play and we probably don’t have much time. Don’t play bad decks. Play meta decks and try to learn them and tune them in the time you have. You don’t always have to play the Gaak, but play something that already exists and has a reasonable plan against it. Play brainstorm in Legacy, play linear in modern, and play midrange (probably) in standard.
Your brew is bad. Keep tuning it, play it at weeklies and have fun. Maybe at some point it will be less bad. If your goal is to maximize win percentages, play a meta deck.
Always have a sideboard guide
It is important to know how you plan to sideboard, this ensures that your sideboard makes sense and that your outs and ins map correctly. For me, the hardest part is deciding which things need to come out of my deck. Especially for dedicated combo decks, it is very hard to determine how much of the deck you can remove before it ceases to function correctly. My first step is usually to find someone else’s guide, because developing my own takes many hours of additional time that I often do not have. If you are lucky enough to know an experienced pilot, talking through their plans is always better than a stale guide that can be found online. A sideboard guide as a tool helps determine how many cards are needed for a matchup while still understanding what the plan is against certain decks.
The hardest decks for me are midrange decks (especially in standard). Plans for midrange decks usually are not obvious because you are altering your deck to perform a specific role. Midrange mirrors especially can be particularly nuanced. During the reign of mardu vehicles, for example, each mardu deck was trying to go over the top of the others, but some of the threats were so hard to deal with (scrapheap scrounger) that going under one another was a completely viable option, especially on the play. No two players agreed on sideboarding choices and trying to anticipate what role the other person was taking could be critical for victory.
In limited, while you may not have a specific plan, you should have a general idea what the weakest cards in your deck are as well as your strongest sideboard options. In extreme cases, especially in sealed, it is correct to have a whole other deck sleeved up and ready to swap out. The tendency for many players is to not bother with boarding too much in limited, but this leaves a lot of percentage points on the table. In limited, every deck is a midrange deck and you should be adjusting your role according to how it matches up to other midrange decks. Know your role and have a plan. You don’t even have to write down the plan in limited, just try not to forget that you have disenchants in your pool. I find that having it written down helps me know what I think I should be doing and makes it easier for me to improvise in the actual tournament itself.
There are many articles that are against sideboard guides. These all make excellent points. Someone else’s guide implemented without any thought is probably out of date and does not account for changes. Using guides as rote also keeps you from making important changes on the fly that are often needed for slight variations in decks. The important part is to start with a guide for structure and to aide in understanding. From there it is important to move forward from the guide as you make changes and updates, and be willing to mix things up on the fly depending on how your opponents might differ from the norm.
For me, guides are a very important jumping off point for understanding a deck quickly and a great tool for not having to always remember my own sideboard plan. They give structure to help aide in understanding.
Don’t hand out free information
A magic player’s second main hobby is complaining about magic. Have you ever had an opponent come to the round complaining about their last match and basically tell you what they’re playing? I don’t recommend doing that. Having a conversation with your opponent is part of the fun of the magic tournament experience. Loudly proclaiming bad beat stories to strangers is not the best way to make friends and can lead to accidentally giving away information. It is also obnoxious. Also, be mindful of how you hold your cards. As a taller player I can sometimes see some of my opponents’ cards. When I can see my opponents’ cards I try to inform them immediately, but it is still up to them to hold cards in a way that I can’t see them. Sloppy shuffling also tends to reveal cards unnecessarily. Watch how you shuffle, maybe have a friend give you an outside opinion. In team tournaments it can be very easy for the other team to see cards in your deck while you shuffle; make sure to shuffle away from opponents.
Try to use a card case that doesn’t flash the world every time you take your cards out. The clear cases, or the ones that open from the top are the worst offenders. I like having flaps and other things that I can hide cards behind as I take things out. This also is helpful for sideboarding behind your case to keep the number of cards going in and out secret.
Not recommended
Try to keep composed while drawing cards. If you can, know
what cards you could draw and what you would do with them if you do. Basically,
don’t just slump in the chair every time you draw a land, and jump out of the
chair every time you draw a bomb. You don’t have to perfectly control your
tells, but being mindful of what you’re doing is useful, especially if you can
turn some of your body language into a bluff.
Have a plan to win
LSV is very good about this and talks about it in depth, so I won’t go over it too much. This is especially relevant when way behind in a game. As you are being cut out of outs and things are looking very grim, take a minute to think of what needs to happen in order to win. If you need the top of your deck to be precisely lightning bolt, play in a way such that it is true. If you need your opponent to brick, and you need runner-runner pump spells to kill with your infect creature before they kill you, make sure that you are set up so that those pump spells are most likely to kill. If you are way ahead and can only lose to a haste creature in limited, keep a blocker back to not lose if it doesn’t affect your clock. In short, don’t play cards at random, especially when way ahead or way behind, visualize what it takes to win and play towards that end.
Thus ends additional ramblings. The Isaac Asimov reference was my favorite one probably.
On a fun note. I just won the MCQ for Richmond for the bay area (northern CA) playing the Gaak. Turns out that deck is busted, who knew? I hope those that were in Vegas had fun and maybe played the gaak for the last time.
Am I a dumb jerkface who doesn’t know anything? Comment below, I welcome your hate. I welcome your love and questions even more, also please put those below. See you next time.
Gaak / Gaak’d [Verb][i] Informal : To Abuse graveyard synergies in conjunction with Vengevine and/or Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis to create an Obscene amount of power in a single turn; usually between 12 and 20, spread across 3 – 7 creatures. In Conjunction: Got Gaak’d; Gaak’d em, getting Gaak’d.
I cast a Nihil Spellbomb on my first turn and still got Gaak’d.
Force of Vigor allowed me to Gaak on my turn 2 while removing their leyline on turn 1
Magic Fest Las Vegas is the largest tournament in North America every year. Featuring 2 main events, a handful of unique and Vegas-exclusive events, dozens of artists, cosplayers, and more, Magic in Sin City is always one for the books. This year’s Modern main event will almost certainly be the last chance you have to cast Hogaak, the Arisen Necropolis , which you should if your intentions are to take it down.
I don’t feel that I need to convince anyone on Hogaak’s power…but just in case you don’t fully understand all the reasons why this deck should not exist:
Hogaak is the first modern deck we have seen in a long time that is both doing the most powerful, consistent thing and can shove through most sideboard cards. The shell of 14+ spells that bin multiple cards at a time mean that “soft hate” cards like Nihil Spellbomb , Ravenous Trap , and Surgical Extraction are low impact. Similar to flashback spells, cards like Gravecrawler and Hogaak really take advantage of how priority works by not granting the opponent a window to take action between entering and leaving the graveyard. Half the time I see a Ravenous Trap in a Phoenix player’s hand, it either does not come online until it is too late or punishes a loose Hogaak player that could have given up 1-2 power or sequenced better to play around it.
When Nihil Spellbomb and Scavenging Ooze end up not being enough to check the graveyard, most decks have no choice but to play a “hard hate” graveyard card like Leyline of the Void, Rest in Peace , or Yixlid Jailer . Normally this is needed as at least a 4-of if not more through a split between hard and soft hate because of how you basically need you board card in your opening hand. The resilience of Hogaak to soft hate allows the deck to only worry about hard hate. As a result the deck can play the best possible answers to these cards and simply ignore basically everything else.
Force of Vigor is one of the most powerful cards for green, proactive strategies that Modern has ever seen. This 0 mana play not only answers a Turn 1 leyline, but multiple Leylines. Picking off an additional board card or trinket such as an Aether Vial or Expedition Map can be quite impactful since most decks are required to keep anemic hands that contain lands and a sideboard card. Everything about this card is insane; costing 0 mana rather than 1 is more of a difference than you might think. Forcing a Leyline in response to a Turn 1 Thoughtseize is one of the many spots where this card outperforms previous options like Nature’s Claim . This is not a factor on the play of course, but the 1 mana can quite often be the difference from Gaaking on turn 2 and turn 3. Finally this card functions as multiple removal spells in board games against prison and chalice strategies. Converting this and an extra Satyr Wayfinder into an answer to multiple bridges on turn 4 onward is something unique that most playable board cards cannot do. Force of vigor has not existed long enough to prove its merit outside of this deck, but it has great applications in big mana decks like Amulet, Titanshift, and Tron as an answer to blood moon that does not require a basic.
Some people really do not want to lose to Hogaak and play either an excessive amount of hate or just jam 4 Leyline where you would not expect to see it. Although you could board in Force of Vigor against Humans and Storm as a hedge, the deck’s engine is close to a mediocre zoo deck on stats alone. Most hands with multiple Gravecrawlers and a Lightning Axe can normally cross the finish line by themselves when against a mountain of grave hate or see all your payoff creatures stripped by a few Surgical Extractions. In some matchups like UW control and Red Prowess, zoo beats becomes your primary game plan. Celestial Colonnade decks have a very hard time dealing with recurring threats; Hogaak and Vengevine basically serve as a Spellskite to protect your Gravecrawlers and Bloodghasts from Path to Exile . Similarly Mono-Red Phoenix and Prowess can have up to 4 Surgical Extractions and can be raced when either they run out of creatures or draw too many cards that do not affect the board.
I had the pleasure to cast Hogaak at Mythic Championship Barcelona this summer and played against Leyline of the Void decks in 7 of my 10 matches. Out of those 7 I went 4-3 and won a total of 4 games having never attacked with a Hogaak or Vengevine. One of these losses were a result of my opponent missing their second land drop until turn 4 but a normal graveyard deck like Dredge really has no way to capitalize on something like that if they open with an unanswered board card. Carrion Feeder can get big. Wayfinder helps you cast Vengevine which on an open board hits hard. Gravecrawler is a Savannah lion with upside. This is an Aggro-Combo deck at its core and can execute either plan very well.
The List:
Here’s What I would play at Vegas this weeekend
Disclaimer: At least 30 of the spell slots are consensus in most lists, leaving 10 up in the air. I would advise you not to put too much weight on a particular list doing well since the 10 flex slots are most likely not what won the pilot most of their games. You could probably 3-2 or 4-1 a league if you put 10 cards from your last Modern Horizons draft in these slots. That being said, after playing a few hundred matches with a dozen or so configurations and consulting with a few friends I trust, I feel very confident in my choices.
The Core:
Almost every list begins with these 32 cards and I would not try to cut any of these. Some of these get worse post board but in a world where everyone and their mother is playing Leyline of the Void you are almost always boarding in 6+ cards. It is important to remember that you are playing the strongest and most consistent deck legal (somehow) in Modern. This means that if both you and your opponent execute their gameplan, gaaking will likely go over the top.
The Flex Slots:
2 Golgari Thug – Yes this card is Terrible most matchups after game 1. That’s ok. As mentioned before this deck boards a lot of cards in a lot of matchups. I dismissed this card forever in my testing and did not end up playing it in Barcelona. I initially thought this card was a velocity card until I played with it. Thug actually functions as a consistency slot and is comparable to a 5th and 6th wayfinder that you can actually find from a wayfinder. I thought Thug would only be good in the mirror because it allows you to consistently recast Hogaak after they trade off. As mentioned before, if you can successfully Gaak there’s almost nothing playable in modern that will stop you game 1. After turn 3, most spots you would draw a Satyr Wayfinder given the option; this is exactly that, a 2 mana 1/1 that mills 4 cards. Most hands or flips containing a Thug have a near-guarantee that you can Gaak by the third turn.
3 Insolent Neonate – Anyone that tells you this card is bad or does nothing has likely not tested it for themselves. Neonate functions as a pseudo Mishra’s Bauble , having mana small effects and synergies that add up to a well deserved slot. Most game 1s Neonate serves as a cycling Show and Tell , putting a Bloodghast, Vengevine, or Hogaak into play from your hand. Neonate also bins a convenient 5 cards in conjunction with Golgari Thug and helps you reach a critical mass of discard outlets.
Burn and Mono-Red Phoenix are extremely popular choices right now because of how well they can punish Hogaak when they miss on their flips and lootings and can burn you out before you untap with your 16 power of Hogaak, Vengevines, and x/1s . Neonate absorbing a chump block on a prowess creature, similar to Sakura Tribe-Elder , can often be the difference between untapping and not. Postboard elsewhere, Neonate is a proactive play to make on turn 1 when you expect to cast either a Trophy or Force of Vigor on turn 2.
20 Lands / Dryad Arbor – I think of this more as a 19 Land deck, counting Dryad Arbor as a spell. It’s nice to have a third fetchable green source but the “land count” in this deck really refers to your black source count. Dryad Arbor Really does it all. At surface value this card lets your fetches convoke Hogaak and surprises a counter on carrion feeder. I played Dryad Arbor in my list in Barcelona, which was an open decklist event, and the card still proved worthy without the surprise element. Most matches postboard are about sticking a hogaak through whatever hate the opponent may have; Dryad arbor allows your fetches to count for 2 mana towards Hogaak as opposed to 1 which is very relevant when functioning on low resources.
Because of how priority works in magic Arbor’s presence alone puts the opponent into awkward spots anytime you fetch with a creature in play. This leads to great exchanges for you such as bolting/pushing gravecrawlers and stitcher’s suppliers just to avoid getting Gaak’d. Anyone who has played Bogles or Infect probably understands all the additional value the card such as converting useless fetches (hello Satyr Wayfinder) and a timely chump block or ambush attacker on a planeswalker. Arbor’s presence also allows you to set up specific plays or traps or scenarios. One example of this is where you fetch against a Spellbomb or Crypt; If they do not respond you Gaak them and if they do you get a normal land and play a Supplier or Wayfinder to gaak them anyways.
Dryad Arbor does have a cost of playing less black fetches. If this is something you are worried about, you can play a 2/2 split of Wooded Foothills and Bloodstained Mire.
3 Lightning Axe, No Assassin’s Trophy – Similar to Neonate, Axe helps reach a critical mass of discard outlets while being both a proactive and reactive play. Humans will definitely be a top 3 deck at Vegas and Axe can win you a race, save your looting from a Kitesail Freebooter , or kill a Phantasmal Image on Hogaak. When Lightning Axe is a dead card it has a floor of either popping your suppliers or saving a creature from Path to Exile , none of which Assassin’s Trophy can do. When Trophy is bad it is quite Anemic. The drawback of ramping your opponent in game 1 is much more real than in a postboard game and can often allow a deck like Tron to go over the top of you. Having outs to Ensnaring Bridge game 1 in theory sounds nice but is such a rarity when it wins you the game. Casting Trophy on a bridge cast by a Karn often buys you a single attack since you are ramping the ramp deck as well as bringing them much closer to Karn-Lattice lock, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon , All is Dust , etc. Lightning Axe can also be cast on turn 2 in conjunction with a hogaak in some hands.
Also, have you seen this guy’s face?
He doesn’t look afraid to me. Remember you are the boogeyman of the format, not some deck playing basic Wastes or Arcum’s Astrolabe .
The scope of cards this deck cares about in game 1 is just not enough to justify a clunky card you actively do not want to draw in the majority of spots.
What I Would Not Play:
MD:
Hedron Crab – Playing with this card feels great. Most times you cast it with a fetch you flip a bunch of cards and feel like your deck is working perfectly. But then you look down at your board. You see a Steam Vents you fetched out on turn 1, you see a Gravecrawler it cannot cast. You see a satyr wayfinder and your other land is a Blood Crypt. You have a Hogaak and 2 Vengevines that crabby boy found you…but you just can’t bring them into play. Crab is very good in the mirror game 1 like thug but has a much larger cost. Warping your manabase for a 1 drop that you actively want to board out makes your red match up significantly worse. Unlike supplier and Wayfinder, Hedron Crab only performs at a playable level on turn 1 or 2 and is a pretty abysmal topdeck. Many of the games where crab looks like a great card are games you would likely win because you registered Hogaak in modern.
Altar of Dementia – This fits somewhere between Hedron Crab and Assassin’s Trophy where the games you win via mill are either games you were going to win without it and the games you are not are so slim that it is hard to justify a slot. Without bridge it’s hard to call the self mill value enough to want over simply a Golgari Thug or Wayfinder.
Cryptbreaker/ Lotleth Troll – Both of these cards are more or less sideboard cards that cannot really justify a board slot and end up in the main. Having the effect of a near indestructible slammer against jund is very nice or a howling mine when under ensnaring bridge or a mirror. The issue with playing these 2 is that they are cards you not only want to board out most of the time but just don’t want to draw in most game 1s. If I mulligan to 6 and see one of these, I’m almost always shipping it to the bottom or wishing I put a different card in my deck. Cryptbreaker also requires a boardstate where drawing a card is worth more than 5 damage and Lotleth Troll is just not a Modern power level card on its own.
Leyline of the Void – Leyline main is TERRIBLE outside of open decklists: half the time you find this on a mulligan you have to bottom this or save it to bin to looting. This made much more sense when it also protected your Bridge from Below.
Darkblast – I did not include this in my list but I think this is a very reasonable card to play. Wrenn and Six has pushed many creatures this answers out of the meta but the card is very strong in the mirror. Before Turn 2 Darkblast can prevent a Hogaak from going on the stack and afterwards allows yours to eat theirs in combat.
SB:
Shenanigans – This card would be a consideration if Force of Vigor did not come out in the same set. I’ve already made my point about Force so I won’t repeat myself.
Fatal Push – This is in theory a good sideboard card, however most creatures we can simply ignore or save a Lightning Axe / Trophy for. It’s hard to justify a slot for creature removal when the most impactful board cards from creature decks are non-creatures.
The Sideboard:
Similar to the Maindeck, I feel you really only need 10 of the 15 slots for the deck to function, those being the middle and right-hand column above of
4 Leyline of the Void – All that really matters in postboard games is resolving Hogaak First. Play 4 of this.
3 Force of Vigor – See above, this card is the best card in the sideboard.
3 Assassin’s Trophy – Trophy being a catch-all is nice for many reasons. Matchups like UW, Jund, and Humans you never really know what you will need to answer. Against UW you often need an answer to not only Rest in Peace, but also haymakers like Baneslayer Angel and Monastery Mentor . Jund attacks your graveyard from almost every angle via Nihil Spellbomb, Scavenging Ooze, Leyline, Surgical Extraction, and sometimes extreme cards like Ashiok, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet , or some other nonsense.
These 5 Slots are not really necessary but I think this is the best way to hedge for the meta:
2 Collective Brutality – As said before Basic Mountain decks have the highest potential to punish you for stumbling and this is a great hedge for that matchup.
2 Thoughtseize – Weather or not it’s good people like to play UW and Allosaurus Combo. Thoughtseize is a great anti-nonsense valve and also has lots of equity against Green Tron which can be needed sometimes.
1 Plague Engineer– Just a good card in modern as well as the Mirror. Postboard mirrors are all about landing a Hogaak first. Engineer does a wonderful job of delaying this and in the worst case trading for Hogaak himself in combat.
Conclusion
Never forget that you are the boogeyman of modern and you are the one asking the questions. Goldfish a ton, get used to the sequencing, and enjoy the last tournament of the Hogaak era. You are making history!
Every time something new happens in magic, the community goes through a predictable cycle finding out what the best decks are, and content creators spend a great deal of time shouting from the rooftops what the best decks, how you should build them, and how you should sideboard with them. I intend to similarly yell advice at you in future articles. First, however, let’s break down what the cycle is, and find some ways to take advantage of this cycle.
I am reminded of one of the best magic articles of all time, which still gives an excellent description of how magic players act in groups. If you haven’t given “information cascades in magic” a read, I highly recommend doing so. If you don’t know what “ghost dad” is, don’t worry about it, just insert the name of a bad deck that people love to play and will defend to the death (think of the rock or merfolk in modern). We have significantly more information about deck percentages, meta percentages, and conversion rates, but much of the information regarding how players tend to follow blindly is still very evident in tournament magic.
Ok, so we’ve got this cool new format due to cards either entering or leaving a format. Usually it’s because a new set just came into standard (War most recently), but maybe it’s because a set just came into modern (horizons), or maybe they just implemented the London mulligan rule AND IT’S RAINING GRISELBRANDS! BAN THE DREDGE MECHANIC!
Take a deep breath. Things are probably going to be fine. Here’s a simple timeline of any given first month of standard:
Week 1: Many show up with THE DECK that everyone is afraid of (nexus of fate, rw angels, bant flash, esper control), it generally does not go well for them. The good aggro decks (mono red/white) probably win the first tournament of the cycle or are heavily represented. Something like 10 different decks are represented in the top 16; 8/10 will never be spoken of again. Week 2: Now that we know aggro is good and brews are bad, fewer people show up with aggro and the true midrange deck of the format emerges (gb/bug midrange). Aggro dies to a wave of life gain and sweepers. Week 3: The midrange arms race begins. Decks become tuned and start cutting obviously bad cards. Opponents are now set to grind mode (esper midrange, gw tokens). By the end of the week an unexpected hero emerges to dumpster midrange (mono blue); this hero probably has a bad time against aggro. Week 4: The midrange arms race has reached its peak. Ramp decks come out of the woodwork (gates, ug ramp) to tron themselves all over midrange decks. Control might be part of this arms race, depending on how they match up against hate cards. Week 5-bored: If the format is healthy, the balance of aggro->midrange->midranger->combo->control->aggro will cycle indefinitely, probably with no more than 3-4 decks in tier 1. If the format is bad, everyone is playing rb vehicles because the midrange decks are killing too fast to be taken advantage of by bigger decks. The best deck is probably a midrange deck with either a transformative/strong sideboard, a combo finish, or is more aggressive than it has any right to be while still grinding.
If your format of choice is modern, double the amount of time and replace the word “midrange” with “combo.” If your format of choice is Legacy, quadruple the amount of time and remember that “midrange” in this context means “fair blue deck.” If your format of choice is Vintage, octuple the time, replace your 4 non-restricted list flex slots with the cool new planeswalker(s)/draw engine, rename your deck if your draw engine changed or was restricted, and call it a day.
Based on the assumptions from our week by week breakdown, we can draw a few conclusions. This all assumes that the goal is to maximize win rate; an obvious assumption, but not always a true one. This also assumes one can switch decks with some regularity; this is true even less often, but we can address that a little later.
Aggro is almost always best in week one when people are trying to brew; this is repeated ad nauseum and hardly worth going into. Basically just be wary of the dangers of doing cool things during week one when everyone knows to burn you out. There’s also an argument for bringing the thing that beats aggro week one, especially if there is a midrange deck well-tuned for doing this from last season (g/b midrange); this assumes that something actually beats aggro, which is not always the case (mono blue of pre-war).
Week two is when you’re likely to play against the remnants of aggro and the up and coming midrange deck; now is probably the time to be going over the top. Week two is also when the rules of engagement start to become defined; this season it’s the hunt for the best planeswalker deck, last season it was a race to see who could draw the most cards, preferably with hydroid krasis, before that it basically a matter of finding the best deck that could contain aggro (golgari, thanks to find // finality).
Week three is deep into arms race territory; now is probably the time to zag and try to do something that abuses midrange decks: combos, ramping, mono blue, etc. Previously this was around the time when the pro tour took place. This is no longer necessarily the case, so it is harder to find a single event to answer the simple question: what am best deck?
By the time week 4 hits there’s usually a pretty good idea of what the “best deck” is, if it exists. The best deck often checks more than one of the archetype boxes. If it’s the best aggro deck and the best midrange deck, it’s probably busted (rb vehicles); if it’s the best midrange deck and the best combo deck (4c command the dreadhorde?), probably not a bad choice. This standard season there are an unreasonable number of decks that have an excellent fair plan backed up by a combo finish. Command the Dreadhorde, bolas’s citadel, and bontu all allow a player to win in a position where they are significantly behind on board. This is somewhat unique to just-before-rotation cycles and older formats, usually the deck that best interacts while still enacting its own consistent game-plan is the best deck (think phoenix decks in modern).
I’ve pretty much laid out how level 0 and 1 work out for the first month of a cycle. The level 0 solution to metagames is: play aggro, then play midrange, then tune midrange to be midrange-ier (in many ways control is the midrange-iest midrange of all), then keep tuning midrange to actually win once we’ve found the midrange-iest deck. Level 0 is the safest bet and will probably give you the most consistent good-but-not-winning-the-tournament results. The level 1 solution is one step faster than level 0; play midrange, then make it durdlier, then find a combo or trump, then probably go to aggro or combo to finish out the season and punish durdlers; in short, try to be one step ahead of the level 0 players. Level 1 is mostly likely to win or very quickly lose you the tournament; i.e. playing to the winner’s meta. Level 1, if you can manage it, is where you’re supposed to be if the goal is to spike a tournament; I usually end up somewhere in level 0 and as a result I have a ton of top 16s. Just don’t be on level 2; don’t play ramp/durdly midrange versus a sea of aggro, and don’t play aggro into slightly more interactive aggro decks.
If you don’t have the ability or desire to repeatedly swap decks, that’s fine, we can use these results to select 1 or 2 decks in a cycle that let you keep playing magic without continuously changing things. In general, if you can only get one deck, and the goal is to minimize win-rate, you should probably pick up an aggro deck. Aggro decks are cheaper, good week 1 and week 4+ and usually aren’t too awful in the bad weeks, as you can always catch a stumbling opponent.
If you have access to multiple decks, but not all the decks, I would still recommend having an aggro deck for the start of any given season, followed by the most obvious midrange deck with a good endgame and tools to break up combo (duress, spell pierce) and aggro (shock, cry of the carnarium). For the last 6+ months or so this would mean carrying around mono white or red, coupled with gb/bug midrange or drakes. No matter the meta, one of these two decks will be close to correct, and they persist across different metagames with minimal changes; naturally the gb midrange deck will run you up a pretty penny, especially if you had to buy Hydroid Krasis at the wrong time, but it is a reasonable long term investment given how long it has been a player in the format.
Anyway, after all that rambling there should probably be a conclusion. Metagame cycles are predictable and magic players follow information cascades in a repeatable fashion. Doing what everyone else is doing will give good but not great results but takes significantly less effort; being one step ahead of the cycle is ideal, but only comes with a great deal of testing work and is very punishing if misjudged. This applies to all magic formats (including limited), but that will take further discussion in the future.
Good luck out there!
