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By: BlippyTheSlug, Volker Kirstein
Oct 15 2013 12:48am
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I'm ba-ack! You know you can't get rid of me. You know I can't stay away. While I may not be running Modern events at the moment, I am by no means fading quietly into that good night, no! I intend to keep on doing just what I've been doing. Ha! So, yeah, I'm still keeping my finger on the pulse of Modern, and Magic in general.

While looking through the decklists to keep the MTGO Modern meta updated, I ran across this interesting build!

 

This deck is what happens to the Soul Sisters after they put on their tightest, whitest pants, then go to the mall on the night of the full moon. And it just happens to be that time of month. And they forgot their napkins. You really don’t wanna stand in their way. Really.

We already know all about the sister’s life gain trick, and how that pumps Ajani's Pridemate to insane proportions.

It’s that bloody red splash, and Champion of the Parish, that makes this deck explode. Champion of the Parish isn’t normally found in a Soul Sisters deck, but this isn’t really a Soul Sisters deck. While the sisters are there, this deck is all about smashing face, not gaining life. The life gain is pretty much there just to pump the Pridemate.

Norin the Wary is a surprise all-star here, with his jumping up to run to hide at every opportunity. Each time he pops in and out, a couple things can happen. First, obviously, is the Soul Sisters life gain trigger. This in turn pumps the Pridemate. If Champion is out, since Norin is a Human, it pumps the Champion, too! No sisters needed!

As mentioned earlier, Champion isn’t something you see in a life gain style deck, And I have to state again, this isn’t a life gain deck, per se. Sure, it has life gain. But that life gain is there to trigger pumps primarily, and the life gained is only secondary. You’ll notice there are no Serra Ascendants, but there are Students of Warfare, with Elspeth, Knight-Errant to seal the deal. This is a beatdown deck. Anyway, back to the red.

Red definitely adds some bang for your buck! There is no card more iconic than Lightning Bolt, and this deck runs the full four. Pillar of Flame becomes almost-bolt number 5, and is very nice for dealing with creatures with persist (such as Kitchen Finks) or undying (like Strangleroot Geist). Grim Lavamancer also provides for some interesting shenanigans.

Further on down in the same event, I came across this one: 

Obliterator (or, Domri's Evil Twin)
Zwischenzug (3-1) Modern Daily #6044543

Creatures
4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Falkenrath Aristocrat
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Phyrexian Obliterator
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
23 Creatures

Planeswalkers
4 Domri Rade
4 Planeswalkers

Other Spells
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Thoughtseize
9 Other Spells

Lands
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
4 Lavaclaw Reaches
4 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
4 Swamp
1 Twilight Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
24 Lands

Phyrexian Obliterator

 

White it's Jund in color, it's not really a Jund deck. Here's Domri Rade showing his dark side in a Midrange disruptive beatdown number. Note the four Lavaclaw Reaches in the manabase. Domri, along with Dark Confidant, is going to keep you in gas all game long. However, with four Obliterators at , and a Falkenrath Aristocrat at ,  I can see Dark Confidant getting risky in the late game. Death's Shadow might make a better one drop that Falkenrath Aristocrat. Or maybe a third Ooze. Then I noticed the Shriekmaws in the sideboard. Yeah. This deck can be suicidal.

It's also nice seeing Gatekeeper of Malakir getting play. Gatekeeper always does yeoman duty when he's played, acting as a chump/beater and (non-targeted) creature removal. 

If you're looking for something a little more rock flavored, from the same event:

GB/u/w Rock
PTPaul (3-1) Modern Daily #6044543 ~ Changes before your very eyes!
Creatures
4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Kitchen Finks
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
17 Creatures

Planeswalkers
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Planeswalkers

Other Spells
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Dismember
2 Go for the Throat
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Thoughtseize
15 Other Spells
Lands
1 Breeding Pool
1 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Forest
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Godless Shrine
3 Marsh Flats
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Overgrown Tomb
2 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Watery Grave
24 Lands

Liliana of the Veil

 

When you first sit across from this deck, you have to wonder what all the in the manabase is for; there is not a single blue card in the main. It's the cool "transformational" sideboard that sets this one apart. While not a true transform, per se, it does have a full playset of Spreading Seas in the sideboard.

This is a cool little piece of sideboard tech that will definitely hose Tron, as well as a lot of the other greedy manabases found in Modern today, at least long enough for this deck's beaters to get in and pound some face. Spellskite is another piece of (semi-) blue sideboard tech against RDW, and other decks that want to throw fire at your head.

Then we get to the part of the sideboard.

 

Stony Silence is there mainly for Pod, I believe. Shutting down Birthing Pod, Blasting Station, and their ilk is what this card does. And it does it well. As long as they don't have Harmonic Sliver in hand.

Zealous Persecution is something I use often in paper, and I know how good it can be in those weenie clogged matchups. I can't begin to count the number of times ZP wiped the board at Thursday Nights!  But I know my playgroup, which is why I run four main. Two in the side for online Modern seems just about right. I'd even consider dropping a Batterskull and adding a third. 

Since we're talking about Rock splashing 2 colors, that segues nicely into this: 

 

Here we have an almost-rock type deck going the Tribal Flames route. Interesting! With all the fetches and shocks, getting Tribal Flames to hit for four on Turn Two, and/or for five on Turn Three,  is well within the realms of possibility. The Flames are usually found in more of a Domain Zoo type build, but they certainly seem to get the job done in this Doran, the Siege Tower inspired monstrosity.

Doran's main trick is that he lets your creatures deal damage based on their toughness, rather than their power. Since a lot of the creatures in here have a higher toughness (Deathrite Shaman, Noble Hierarch, and Tarmogoyf in addition to Doran) than power, this works out quite well!

A pair of Snapcaster Mages help you reuse Tribal Flames, or other Instant or Sorcery, you happen to have laying in your graveyard.

Geist of Saint Traft is nothing to be sneezed at, either. His hexproof and Angel making make him a yeoman in most on color decks. I'm glad he's made another appearance at the top of the lists before fading into obscurity again.

I mean, you'd think that Geist would at least find a home in a UW Midgrange deck like this one:

 

One would think that Geist of Saint Traft would be a fit in here. But he's been seeing less and less play as of late, and I'm pretty sure I know the reason why. In this day of 3/3 chumps for two (Watchwolf, Call of the Conclave, Kalonian Tusker, Serra Avenger, etc), a hexproof bear for three just doesn't cut it anymore. Even if he does make a 4/4 flyer when he attacks.

 

 

 

Meta Madness

Since the last time you saw me here, there has been a revolution in the Modern meta. Over the past year, I have been stating over and over again that Jund, Junk, and Ajundi are all, in fact, Rock decks. I have been stating this for a long time. The lines between these decks have been getting hazier and hazier. This all culminated with the beginning of Q4 2013, and Overdriven! 71, where I unified all four as Rock (GB/x). Jund, Junk, and Ajundi as separate archetypes are no more, except as players in the Rock sub-meta.

Another thing that's happened is UWR Midrange and UWR Control have been unified into a single group called UWR. The dividing line between Midrange & Control in a UWR deck has also been getting fuzzier and fuzzier, but as a rules of thumb: 1) if there's only three to six creatures, it's Control, and 2) if there's more than two (Restoration Angels), it's Midrange.

These two seemingly little things make the the Modern meta look a little scarier, because it shows how Rock and UWR are the monsters they truly are. Read it and weep!

 

Rock & Roll

UWR

 

 

 

Friday Night Standard

Friday Night Standard is a limited seating, free-to-enter tournament that runs twice every Friday. Once at 1800 UTC, and again at 830PM Eastern time. It's structured just like the Dailies on MTGO: 4 Rounds of Swiss Pairing, with prizes going to all 4-0 & 3-1 players. Registration is done via Gatherling. You can find more information at the main event thread here.

 

New! Friday Night Standard is now being broadcast at twitch.tv/blippytheslug, every Friday at 8:30PM Eastern. Everything from the player meeting to the final math, experience a tournament from the TOs point of view! There are "feature matches" every round.

 

 

FNS EU #31
Players: 11
4-0: rock2011
3-1: Gordani, sadisteck, erymrog
Decklists and results from all Friday Night Standard EU events can be found here.

 

 

 

 

 

FNS #42
Players: 18
4-0: call1me1dragon
3-1: Liquid_elf, ChineseNotebook, zemanjaski, Joseph Young
Decklists and results from all Friday Night Standard events can be found here.

 

 

 

 


BlippyTheSlug on MTGO

twitch.tv/blippytheslug
Blog: Read At Your Peril

4 Comments

Welcome back, Blippy. We by romellos at Tue, 10/15/2013 - 11:51
romellos's picture
5

Welcome back, Blippy.

We have missed your Modern articles here.

I'm glad you didn't totally by Procrastination at Tue, 10/15/2013 - 14:11
Procrastination's picture
5

I'm glad you didn't totally disappear as well!

With you back, my articles, Dan's new "Modern Noob" series and if Olaw finds time to write again as well, does this site become the most concentrated source of Modern writing on the web? ;)

Yeppers. by BlippyTheSlug at Tue, 10/15/2013 - 14:31
BlippyTheSlug's picture

Yeppers. I do believe it does. We should form a club. :)

If we get cool elemental by Procrastination at Tue, 10/15/2013 - 18:54
Procrastination's picture

If we get cool elemental charms that when combined form Captain Planet or some equally absurd avatar - I'm in!

If not...meh. ;)