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By: Flippers_Giraffe, Simon Smith
May 21 2015 12:00pm
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Today I bring you the low down on what's going to be hot in Modern Masters 2015. On the 5th of May I noted down all the prices from www.mtgotraders.com for every card that was over the $5 mark for every set in the Modern format. Today I bring you those which made it into the Modern Masters 2015 set. Before the set was spoiled it looked like it did threaten the hoarders a bit as the card prices generally fell by a few dollars on every card, which has got to be a good thing. Although there are cards that defied logic and actually rose in price like Counterbalance and Lord of Atlantis, I'm guessing they must have been in relevant decks since the 5th of May.

Now let's have a look at those cards which you will be seeing in Modern Masters 2015 when you are drafting. All the cards below were above the $5 mark on the 5th and most of them have fallen in price. Hurkyl's Recall fell the most by $10 which is quite considerable when most of the cards fell by a few dollars each. There are of course the cards that are super popular at the moment in tournament decks which are actually still rising even though they are going to be reprinted in a few weeks. I've not listed the prices for the cards that were already printed in the last Modern Masters as they are the same.

Tarmogoyf and Vendilion Clique will be re-printed at mythic level so their prices may actually not drop if they stay in demand. While Noble Hierarch, Splinter Twin and Spellskite will remain at rare so I'm expecting them to drop, but they won't drop out of rare drafting pickings apart from Splinter Twin, I can't see that card keeping its value when the drafting starts.

Here's the list as of cards as of 17th of May 2015, I hope you find it useful.

After looking at some of the other prices for cards in the Modern format I think they could have included a lot more cards to help drop the prices of other Modern Staples, I'm expecting another Modern Masters set next year to help with those.

Now we have the first deck of the article this week which is based in the Standard around a card that Winter.Wolf pointed out to me a few articles ago. The card was Torrent Elemental, as soon as I saw the card it gave me an idea for a new deck.

Let's have a look and see why I got so excited, for five mana we have ourselves a 3/5 flyer with a rather nice ability when he attacks he taps out all of the creatures your opponent controls. He also has an ability that lets you re-cast him from the exile zone for five mana, two of which can be a combination of green or black mana to cast. This ties us into either black or green or both for our deck.

He may not seem overly mean but I already had a card in mind that I wanted to play with him to make a great creature even greater, prepare to be assaulted! And that's the card I choose to go with him, not guessed it yet? The card in question is Assault Formation. Our 3/5 now acts as a 5/5 that's boostable via Assault Formation. A lot of people use the card with defender decks but I'm not going there. I'm going straight for the throat.

Our top hitter in the deck is an unusual hero which would be over looked in any other deck Dragon's Eye Savants for 2 mana that’s going to give us a 0/6 blocker or with Assault Formation it suddenly counts as a 6/6 beast for only two mana. Our next creature is already a well-played card due to its life gaining/deck manipulation ability Courser of Kruphix. I knew this card was going to be good but I didn't realise how good until I started using it. The ability to play lands off the top of your deck is an amazing resource. That and she counts as a 4/4 makes her even more special. Then we have our standard mana creature Sylvan Caryatid and Sigiled Starfish to help manipulate our library.

Then we move up to the bigger creatures. Sultai Flayer who helps us gain life back when any of our creatures with toughness four or more die, he doesn't benefit greatly from Assault Formation but is a nice asset in the deck. Lastly on the creature front we have a god, Kruphix, God of Horizons who benefits greatly and effectively becomes a 7/7 invincible stomping machine. I've never had the use for his other ability's I'm just after his god like body.

Next is our removal cards the first fits in perfectly with Torrent Elemental which is Murderous Cut, the delve mechanic fits in perfectly if Torrent Elemental is in your grave yard as delve exiles him so he can be re-cast next turn. I'm really starting to feel how good Murderous Cut actually is, there's so many times it's come in handy, when casting it from one mana via delve is a great way to catch people off guard. Our next removal card is our main Planeswalker killer Hero's Downfall. Lastly I included a few copies of Naturalize due to all the enchantment cards and creatures from Theros that are still played in Standard. I was looking for a way to try and draw my removal more quickly and stumbled on the mistress of dark arts who just so happens to have a search ability and she can also make our opponent discard a card as well, move over as Liliana is coming to the party and taking no prisoners.

I think this deck is the most fun I've had in Standard for a while. It performs really well, it has enough drops in the right places to be consistent and enough removal to take care of most threats. The Torrent Elemental and Assault Formation combination is very powerful.   

  Creatures    Planeswalkers
Courser of Kruphix Liliana Vess
3 Dragon's Eye Savants    
2 Kruphix, God of Horizons   Lands
Sigiled Starfish 4 Evolving Wilds
Sultai Flayer 5 Forest
Sylvan Caryatid  1 Island
Torrent Elemental  4 Opulent Palace
    4 Polluted Delta
  Spells 5 Swamp
Assault Formation    
3 Hero's Downfall    
3 Murderous Cut    
2 Naturalize    
       
       

 

Moving on to the second deck of the article I decided to build a deck around a card I found quite useful in my Commander deck I ran months ago, I really must revisit Commander soon. The card is Blade Splicer a nice young lady with huge claws that would make Wolverine jealous. For three mana she brings along a 3/3 golem and gives all golems first strike. So there is our theme for this deck the grand old golem.

As our theme is Golem's let's have a look and see what over golems we can bring to life for this deck. I went into blue for the next card Wing Splicer which is in the same family as Blade Splicer as you may have guessed from the name, when she comes into play all golems gain flying which is very useful in all situations. Then we have our star player of the deck Lodestone Golem, he's a 5/4 for only four mana but he has an interesting side effect, while he's in play all non-artifact spells cost one more mana to cast which can hamper your opponents style if you bring him out in the early game. Our final golem is Precursor Golem our best and worst card both at the same time. When he comes into play he brings two 3/3 golems with him but and it's a big but if you or your opponent cast a spell on Precursor Golem it also targets all the other Golems in play, spells like Lightning Bolt and Path to Exile will remove your entire attacking offensive. So we need to plan ahead.

Taking into account Precursor Golems unique ability we are going to include a few cards that act as a double edged sword to help our golems survive and deal a heavy blow when required. I decided on protection spells at instant level. The first is Gods Willing that gives a target creature protection from a colour of your choice, with a built in scry 1. The other protection card is Feat of Resistance which also gives the target a +1/+1 counter. If you play either of these spells on Precursor Golem all of our golems will benefit from the spell, which is really nice for protection or just wondering past your opponents defenders and clunking them on the head.

I also included a few counter spells as well to help out against mass removal spells Negate for early creature denial. Dissolve because it's just a great all round card in Modern with its scry inbuilt. We also have our leather clad lady Syncopate which I find very useful once a Lodestone Golem is in play.

Hmm I just noticed that all the cards in the deck so far have pictures of young ladies, how strange is that. It's hard to tell with golems before anyone mentions it. It really depends on the sculptor and I don't think Jace counts for once, unless he's going to come back in Magic Origins as Jace the Golem Sculptor! So let’s break that spell and look at the other cards in the deck. We have some mana ramp in the form of Talisman of Progress, a nice early blocker which really is important in this deck with a bit of card draw Wall of Omens. Lastly our mini removal artifact Ratchet Bomb, it's always handy to have one in your pocket as long as you don't sit on it as those spikes look painful. I'm also going to give a nod to Academy Ruins here as well to bring back our golems.

And that brings us to the deck itself, It's more of a fun deck than anything but it can hold itself up really well in the casual room. The key cards are Gods Willing and Feat of Resistance, only play them when you really need to as these two cards are your game winners.

  Creatures    Artifacts 
Blade Splicer  2 Ratchet Bomb
4 Lodestone Golem Talisman of Progress
4 Precursor Golem    
Wall of Omens   Lands
Wing Splicer 1 Academy Ruins
    3 Flooded Strand
  Spells  7 Island
Dissolve 6 Plains
Feat of Resistance Tranquil Cove 
Gods Willing    
2 Negate    
2 Syncopate    
       
       
       

That brings us to the end of the article. I've got an interesting article brewing for next time where I will be re-visiting my roots, you may have to wait a bit longer though as I'm going to be quite busy over the next two months with my main hobby. I'll hopefully have something for you about mid-July unless my digital crack addiction takes over.

See you online Flip

 

2 Comments

In the Torrent Elemental by Rerepete at Thu, 05/21/2015 - 20:29
Rerepete's picture

In the Torrent Elemental deck, there is no card draw. Maybe a couple of Abzan Beastmaster might fit in well.

Thanks for the replies, I by Flippers_Giraffe at Fri, 05/22/2015 - 14:51
Flippers_Giraffe's picture

Thanks for the replies, I haven't noticed an issue in regards to extra card draw with both the Courser, Starfish and Liliana so far.

Sidisi is quite cool, never noticed here before.