The Vascular Awareness: 8 Rack

So one of the rogue player's darling's in the format has started coming into it's own, this being the heavy-discard based "8 Rack" deck.  I'm here to both inform you of the goals of the deck and to give my updated take on the deck overall.  First some history:

I played 8 Rack for a bit back before the recent banning/unbannings to reasonable success, but the deck was wildly different then.  The entire format centered around the little one-drop that could: Deathrite Shaman.



Better than all

The entire deck was subverted by this one card.  It wasn't running a ton of bad cards to beat it but the deck did run a good amount of Disfigures and 4 Smallpoxes to handle this scourge.  It also shoved all but one of the Ensnaring Bridges to the sideboard to handle this menace. It also only ran 6 racks as "aggro rack" was not an oft needed strategy.  The deck was a solid machine, crushing combo (except pod), holding it's own vs the "fair" decks, but giving affinity a bye.  This was acceptable at the time as affinity was good but not everywhere and could be "dodged",  then the ban occurred.  I initially assumed the deck should stay mostly the same and cursed the deck tech at the Pro Tour. (found here: http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=63825 )

How wrong I was.  With a format of decks trying to kill you quickly instead of a grind like Jund you need to be able to steal wins.  Immediately this means the count of Ensnaring Bridges can no longer be one, you need to use these as a lock piece and the risk of getting blown out by Abrupt Decay in this format is MUCH lower.  The number of Racks must be 8 up from 6 because you simply have to steal those wins.  However, my initial gut reaction that something was amiss in that deck was still correct.

This brings me to my favorite card in the archetype and one that seemed to be missing from most lists: Funeral Charm.  This card can swing many affinity matches your way, it can sneak some extra Mutavault damage in, but most importantly, it can Time Walk the opponent.  Calling a card a Time Walk is usually an overblown claim, but with the opponent at zero cards in hand and a threat light board if they rip a sorcery speed card you get to make them quite sad.  You slam this old school beauty during their draw step and they simply do nothing that turn, in a world where you are up to 8 racks this should be an auto-include.  We need to cut something to fit in these extra cards and the first place to look is Smallpox, a complete removal may be an overreaction but the card puts such a strain on the mana base and currently, without DRS, the card just isn't what it used to be.  I treat this card as a 3 drop due to what it does to the mana base so cutting down to 2 seems ideal.  Without further ado here is the list:

4 The Rack 4 Shrieking Affliction 3 Thoughtsieze 3 Funeral Charm 3 Inquisition of Kozilek 4 Raven's Crime 4 Dark Confidant 4 Wrench Mind 2 Smallpox 3 Ensnaring Bridge 3 Liliana of the Veil 3 Mutavault 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 19 Swamp SB: 2 Blackmail SB: 1 Ensnaring Bridge SB: 3 Nihil Spellbomb SB: 2 Dismember SB: 4 Torpor Orb SB: 1 Smallpox SB: 2 Leyline of the Void
The sideboard is built to improve the deck for many match-ups with cards like Blackmail that can replace conditional discard spells for either land heavy decks or to replace Thoughtseize in nightmare scenarios like the burn match-up.  It can even be swapped  for the fourth Bridge and the third and fourth Smallpoxes for the creature match-ups.  The deck also has real "door-closers" like Nihil Spellbomb, Leyline, and Torpor Orb that go in for the obvious match-ups.

As for match-ups it hold a respectable position in the current field.  With the changes made to the deck since the banning of DRS Affinity has been testing quite well.  Twin is also a rather strong match-up BEFORE the Torpor Orbs are added, which speaks volumes.  Pod can be quite rough, but is far from unbeatable, and honestly every deck holds some poor match-ups.  I will be continuing to test the deck going forward and will try to have a tournament report from either myself or a friend posted within the next few weeks.  I do truly believe this deck is a strong choice for the current meta game and if it fits your style then you should absolutely be playing it.  Compared to the other current competitive decks this one is rather cheap.  Good luck and happy racking!

The Upkeep: Announcing Darksteel Chef, our first contest!

Hey guys, it's Mike here.  I'd like to introduce you to the Sunday Upkeep, where we take a moment to reflect on things, as well as give you a look at what's coming up in the near future.

For this week though, I would just like to start by saying thank you.

This blog was started between a couple of friends who just loved Modern, and we really had no idea if we'd get any viewership outside our local circle.  We're only a few days in, and already you guys have proved us wrong.  Everyone on the team is super excited for the future of Modern Brew of the Day. While we will be jumping back into the brewing tomorrow, it's time now to announce our first contest/giveaway!  I'll let Mason take it from here.

Darksteel Chef!
Mason:
An idea I've had for the longest time is to hold a competition where each participant has an "ingredient" list for a magic deck, in the same vein as Iron Chef.  I figured there is no reason this would not work as an article series so, here it is:

The idea is to get people to submit lists or cards and rules for a deck to be constructed.  An example ingredient list might be:

4x Birthing Pod

0x Melira

0x Kikijiki

0x Archangel of Thune

Or it also might look something like this:

at least 2x Ephara, God of the Polis

A good ingredient list should be not be cumbersome to the deck designer while still forcing them to look at the format in a way that no one has done so so far.  The first list does this by making the deck designer look at an already known quantity (Birthing Pod being absurdly strong) but in a completely different light.  The second list requires the deck designer to use a card that is making real waves in standard and forces them to consider the card in the context of modern.  Shout off the ingredient lists you'd like to see someone brew, we will make it happen!  As an added bonus, the author of the list we choose in our next Sunday article will be sent two free packs of Born of the Gods as a thank for you participating and giving us your support!

Please post your lists in the comments below, and include a way for us to get a hold of you (an e-mail or even twitter works fine).  Saturday at midnight is the deadline for lists, and we will announce the winner next Sunday.

Thanks again for playing, see you next week with more brews!

Zombie Pox Pod

Hello everyone, Marshall here! For my first post I'll be sharing one of my favorite styles of deck with you, my take on Dredgevine. For those that don't know, Dredgevine is a deck that is built around the card Vengevine:

       

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The concept for the stock version of that deck is to discard Vengevine, Demigod of Revenge and Bloodghast for value, recur them quickly and put some serious pressure on the opponent. The inherent flaw with Dredgevine is that it has too many "fair" draws. There are plenty of hands that just don't play out quickly enough, or get slowed down early and can't pack enough punch to close out the game.

The list I'm sharing today was built to address this by adding more "engine" cards so that there are strong backup plans which are synergistic with our main goal, in case plan A doesn't work out.


4 Vengevine 4 Bloodghast 4 Gravecrawler 4 Birds of Paradise 3 Geralf's Messenger 1 Elves of Deep Shadow 1 Lotleth Troll 1 Falkenrath Aristocrat 1 Blood Artist 4 Faithless Looting 4 Smallpox 3 Birthing Pod 3 Abrupt Decay 4 Marsh Flats 4 Overgrown Tomb 2 Woodland Cemetery 2 Blood Crypt 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 3 Swamp 4 Verdant Catacombs SB: 4 Pillar of Flame SB: 4 Inquisition of Kozilek SB: 1 Obstinate Baloth SB: 1 Skinrender SB: 3 Ancient Grudge SB: 1 Abrupt Decay SB: 1 Spellskite
This deck does a lot more than discard Vengevine. I would say that plan A still involves recurring dudes as quickly as possible, but there are a lot of other routes to victory. Smallpox has really become plan A and B, because of how incredibly synergistic and disruptive it is. You have not lived until you've cast turn two smallpox discarding Vengevine (while your opponent squirms) into turn three birds of paradise + Gravecrawler.

Of course, we can't always live in Magical Christmas Land, which is why Birthing Pod has been added to the deck (hint; birthing pod is MCL all on it's own). Birthing Pod has two roles, the first is to enable plan B. This looks something like turn one Birds of Paradise, turn two Pod, turn three Bloodghast or Geralf's messenger, which is immediately podded away for some serious value. From there killing your opponent with pod is pretty straightforward.  Tutor up messengers, then get a Falkrath Aristocrat and go nuts. If your opponent can put together a good defense on the ground, simply tutor for Blood Artist and watch as the hope leaves their eyes.

The second role that Pod plays is the finisher. As I mentioned before, the original version of this deck was prone to running out of real gas spells if the opponent could slow you down early. Birthing Pod is all the gas you could ever need in the mid to late game. Even if your board presence has been reduced to one or two creatures, Pod can carry you to the win on its own given a couple of turns to close the game out. Especially in tandem with Smallpox. I've won games with this deck by Smallpoxing twice after casting Birthing Pod so that my opponent and I were on one land, and then activating pod every turn.

All of this is well and good, but we should also be examining this strategy by looking at its matchups against some of the most popular decks to see if there is a reason to play it.

Vs. UWR Control
This match up is one of the reasons to play the deck. Smallpox, Birthing Pod and recursive creatures are all things that give control players fits. Path to Exile plus Snapcaster Mage is annoying, but this deck stretches their paths very thin while rendering their burn spells almost useless. The card this deck actually has trouble with is Anger of the Gods, which is partly why four copies of Inquisition of Kozilek have been included in the sideboard.

Vs. Tribal Zoo
I have not thoroughly tested this match up, but I do know that Smallpox is extremely effective against this deck, and post board things get much easier when you gain access to more removal and Obstinate Baloth. I would think the big zoo match up is even easier as long as you save an abrupt decay for scavenging ooze.

Vs. Affinity
Game one is rough due to the fact that they are faster than you, and don't take damage from their lands, while you do. Games two and three you get to side in nine cards and just kill everything. Blood artist is your friend.

Vs. Splinter Twin
This is a pretty solid match up. Smallpox and Abrupt Decay really shine here. Be on the lookout for Anger of the Gods post board, but between Smallpox and Inquisition you should be Ok.

Vs. Storm
Another match up where Smallpox really shines. Yes, they have flashback spells they can discard, but mana denial plus pressure is a good way to attack storm. Especially if you take out their Pyromaster's Ascension with Abrupt Decay. Post board Inquisition is an all star.

Vs. Melira Pod
This is not a match up I've had an opportunity to test yet. That being said, I think it's close as long as you prevent them from comboing. Unfortunately, Smallpox is quite weak here, but Pillar of Flame is fantastic in games two and three, as is Podding into Skinrender because Kitchen Finks is enemy number 1.

Over the next week I will be testing this deck a lot, working on perfecting the numbers and tweaking the sideboard. My next post will be about the changes its gone through and a more detailed look at more of its matchups. Thanks for reading, and please comment with any ideas you may have for this deck.

Ranger Danger

Hey guys, Mike (@Bonkarooni) here, bringing you another fun little brew.  The idea here might be a little simple, compared to some of my Troll Tuesday posts, but I think the little number I've come up with here is quite a powerful deck.

I present to you...Ranger Danger!

4 Lightning Bolt 4 Boros Charm 4 Vexing Devil 4 Goblin Guide 3 Grim Lavamancer 2 Lightning Helix 2 Rift Bolt 2 Skullcrack 4 Searing Blaze 4 Ranger of Eos 1 Goblin Bushwhacker 2 Figure of Destiny 1 Legion Loyalist 1 Soul Warden 4 Arid Mesa 3 Marsh Flats 3 Scalding Tarn 4 Sacred Foundry 1 Clifftop Retreat 4 Mountain 4 Plains SB: 2 Skullcrack SB: 2 Flames of the Blood Hand SB: 3 Stony Silence SB: 2 Rest in Peace SB: 3 Wear // Tear SB: 3 Pillar of Flame
When I started playing Modern, I was on an extremely tight budget.  Because of this, the first two decks I put together were a really cheap mono red gobos build, and Soul Sisters.  When playing goblins, I quickly learned that it's biggest problem was simply that it could run out of juice.  If you were top decking with a red deck, and your opponent was at over five life, things usually weren't looking very good for you.

Soul Sisters was a different type of deck, but one of the things I quickly learned from it was that cards like Ranger of Eos and Squadron Hawk were very, very good.

It's like a white Birthing Pod..sort of.  Not really :(

Nothing felt better then top decking Ranger, and being able to refill your hand with cards.  After doing this a couple of times, I quickly came to the conclusion that this what exactly the kind of thing a red deck needed to put it over the top.

So I figured, screw it, let's put them together.

In my head, this deck is sort of broken down into two 'packages'.  The Ranger package, and the Burn package.  The Burn package is pretty obvious.  Things like Lightning Bolt, Boros Charm, and Searing Blaze are all very good at...well...hurting people.  After you've done that for a few turns, and put the fear of God into your opponent, we get to have a little more fun..

A match made in heaven.

This is the most straight forward combo to bring out of the deck with Ranger, and I also think it's the funniest.  Vexing Devil had a short visit in an earlier version of Dave's goblin build, and while it didn't seem strong enough on it's own, watching the pain on your opponents face when they let a Vexing Devil stick, then take 5 from it because of a follow up bushwhacker, was priceless.  The fact that they get to see you put them both into your hand is slightly worse for you, but if your opponent is at <10 Life when you cast Ranger, I don't think that really matters.

Of course, this isn't the only thing you can dig out of your deck with Ranger.  Legion loyalist is there, in case you need to swing through some pesky tokens.  Figure of Destiny could also be a decent choice, if the board looks like it is being stalled out.  I am even running a one of Soul Warden, for a little bit of life gain. Whatever your choice is, hopefully it will be enough to put you in the drivers seat for the rest of the game.

The biggest problem I see with the deck is that it is a little slower then your average burn deck.  You could end up doing no damage on turn 4, and that might be enough to let your opponents squeak out a win. There could also be some cases where you draw too many Rangers, and you just get yourself stuck.  For this reason, I am still debating whether or not to cut down to three in the deck.  Only time and testing will tell what the right answer is here.

For the lands, I feel like you could cut back on the fetches somewhat if you needed to drop the price of the deck, but Grim Lavamancer will always work better with more stuff in your graveyard, so be careful.

For sideboard, you really have a lot of good choices.  I feel like Skull Crack is a must, as well as Flames of the Bloodhand.  You really can't have people gaining life vs you, and the extra land in this deck supports Flames of the Bloodhand nicely.  Other then that, your options are pretty much endless.  Depending on your meta game, things like Molten Rain, Tempest of Light, Combust...it all depends on what you think you're going to run into at the store you play at.

As a final note...I tried to play this deck once at an FNM, and it failed miserably.  At the time though, I had a completely different build.  It ran 4x bushwhacker, which I quickly learned was not as good if you drew him by himself, and it also had another super secret tech in it which cannot be named (It will be the subject of a future Troll Tuesday :) ).  I think this deck is much more streamlined now, and I am excited to see where I can take it.

If you get a chance to play with it before I do, please let me know!
-Mike

Archetype of Imagination: Assault Loam

Hi guys, Eddie here!  Archetype of Imagination is going to be my weekly column on Modern Brew of the Day. The plan is to explore the different archetypes of Modern and explore them to develop a deeper knowledge of what makes decks tick. Hopefully while we go over the different archetypes, we'll figure out now only how to play them, but also how to beat them. In my opinion, Modern is a format where knowing your potential foes is probably your most valuable weapon.

This isn't legacy where necessarily knowing your deck more than playing the best deck will lead you to victory, or Standard where the meta-game often is clear Rock-Paper-Scissors. Instead, this is a very finesse format where it's important to know what's best positioned in the meta-game, and where being able to anticipate the meta-game at any event will benefit you more than playing an objectively good deck. Today, we're going to begin a series on Loam decks, and the whole time we're going to ignore what Travis Woo has to say about the archetype! To begin with, let's look at two of the most important cards, the ones that make this deck work, the ones you'll probably want to bring the sideboard hate for.

First, Life from the Loam...

This card alone does the majority of the work in the deck, but it's only part of the puzzle. To see why this card is so good, we need to understand that it's nearly like playing Crucible of Worlds, except we often don't need or want to play the lands in our graveyard. We'd rather do other things with them. That's where Seismic Assault comes in.

Getting three lands back every turn effectively means that you can throw 6 damage wherever you want for 1G, though it's typically limited to once per turn that you get to do this. These two cards make this beast of a deck work. Once you land Seismic Assault your graveyard becomes an extension of your hand, even more than it was with just Life from the Loam. It only get's better when you start adding in more and more pieces of support for the Life from the Loam plan. Retrace and flashback work pretty spectacularly here, and it becomes very easy to break the symmetry of cards like Liliana of the Veil and Smallpox because you're able to recur the things you lose quite often. Let's look at the cogs in the machine here. We'll start with Retrace effects.

• Raven's Crime is pretty much the quintessential retrace card featured in Assault Loam. After a few turns it can become Mind Twist every turn, especially in the late game. While it's not necessarily as strong as Duress-style effects that reveal the hand, when you're able to simply strip their hand it becomes a bit unnecessary to go after specific cards in hand.
• Flame Jab serves a roles as an early piece of removal with a pretty limited scope, though it can turn into quite a variety of other removal spells if you're holding enough lands.
• Syphon Life is a relatively narrow card that doesn't see too much play, but can serve as an alternate win condition if for some reason you would stray pretty far from the archetype and drop red entirely.
• Worm Harvest is the last reasonable inclusion, but even so the worms only ever seem to feel like win-more tokens to me. Typically the aggro match up is lopsidedly in your favor, so having to generate a lot of blockers seems irrelevant.

Cards with flashback definitely take up a smaller portion of the deck, since having flashback really only means we don't care when they get milled by dredging Life from the Loam. The most important flashback card is pretty obvious: Faithless Looting. The ability to draw multiple cards per turn or, more importantly, dredge multiple times per turn is invaluable in decks that aren't running blue. To be honest, very few cards are typically considered that have flashback. Looking over a quick search, only a small number seem to be even remotely relevant to any match up, or useful in the main deck. However, of course Ancient Grudge cannot be ignored. It's probably the most important card when fighting against Affinity no matter what deck you're playing, so long as you have green and red. If you're straying from the typical Jund list and playing a four color build, splashing white for any number of extra options, you also have access to Lingering Souls and Ray of Revelation out of the sideboard, both of which can be useful in a myriad of situations. Lingering Souls also serves as just an incredibly efficient source of damage.

There are a small number of alternative engine cards that can be used to generate advantage or board presence off of discarding lands, though the primary ones are Borborygmos Enraged and Zombie Infestation. Borborygmos Enraged typically replaces Seismic Assault and requires the white splash for Unburial Rites, but does offer a slight amount of resiliency: if Borborygmos gets milled, you unbury him; if he dies, you unbury him; if you mill Unburial Rites, same. However, you do open yourself quite extensively to losing your engine to creature removal which just seems poor, and your engine comes down an entire turn slower, AT THE FASTEST. Definitely not ideal in a meta-game like the current one. Zombie Infestation has the benefit that you get to generate blockers and comes down a turn earlier, but doesn't really differentiate much from Seismic Assault, except for the fact that you can't actively remove any creatures.

Moving on from the spells, we need to investigate the creature base, because when the Seismic Assault plan doesn't manage to go off, you still need some way to block, generate card advantage, or just generally smash your opponent. The top contenders here are very cheap creatures with very strong abilities.

• Tarmogoyf. The most efficient beater in the format has an easy time finding a spot in a deck that usually has a pretty full graveyard. It's not hard to have a creature, land, sorcery, planeswalker, and sometimes an enchantment here for 'Goyf to be pretty large.
• Knight of the Reliquary. A similar card to 'Goyf, and usually replaces it, KotR gives you some additional advantage with the toolboxing it enables, and by being larger than 'Goyf more often than not.
• Dark Confidant. Bob is pretty reasonable in a deck without many high cost spells, and he serves as a very important source of card advantage when you're dredging frequently and actually only hoping for a Seismic Assault.
• Young Pyromancer. This guy has been making lists relatively frequently on MTGO, in particular with Smallpox, since Pyromancer's triggered ability allows you to break the symmetry of Smallpox to some extent.
• Countryside Crusher. Definitely an all star, but really shines in lists that are a bit heavier on lands than spells. Travis Woo went ahead and popularized his ridiculously high land count list, but we're most certainly going to ignore that. It gives you a pretty decent amount of card advantage each turn by filling up your yard with lands, which is pretty great when it's actually just like drawing them.

The mana bases for this deck tend to be a little bit all over the place, since a need for RRR on turn three limits you pretty greatly. There aren't many shock lands, even though there's an overabundance of fetch lands that typically make their way into these lists. 

Moving on from there, we come to our final pieces of the puzzle. The planeswalker(s). Honestly, the only walker that sees any amount of play on MTGO in this archetype is Liliana of the Veil, for hopefully obvious reasons. We get to easily break her symmetric +1 and more often than not, that's about all you need her for. Repeatable discard is very strong in Modern, especially with as many combo decks as there are in the format. All that said, I have an interesting idea that I'll be testing out for next week with the following list.

4 Dark Confidant 4 Knight of the Reliquary 4 Abrupt Decay 3 Raven's Crime 2 Flame Jab 4 Life from the Loam 3 Lingering Souls 3 Seismic Assault 2 Liliana of the Veil 3 Inquisition of Kozilek 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 4 Verdant Catacombs 2 Fire-Lit Thicket 1 Raging Ravine 2 Graven Cairns 1 Overgrown Tomb 1 Marsh Flats 1 Blood Crypt 1 Horizon Canopy 2 Stomping Ground 1 Swamp 1 Forest 1 Temple Garden 1 Misty Rainforest 2 Tectonic Edge 1 Godless Shrine 1 Ajani Vengeant 1 Faithless Looting SB: 2 Ancient Grudge SB: 2 Anger of the Gods SB: 1 Thoughtseize SB: 2 Gaddock Teeg SB: 1 Maelstrom Pulse SB: 1 Bojuka Bog SB: 1 Thrun, the Last Troll SB: 1 Golgari Charm SB: 1 Ray of Revelation SB: 2 Devour Flesh SB: 1 Faithless Looting
I'm opting for an increased amount of discard from what I had originally mentioned, including extra copies of Inquisition of Kozilek for some amount of directed discard. I think Thoughtseize is definitely not the best main deck card for this list, especially with a bunch of shocks and fetches. I don't want to always be "playing Jund" and starting at 15.

Splashing white for Knight of the Reliquary lets us have access to Lingering Souls in the main as well as Gaddock Teeg and Ray of Revelation out of the sideboard, both of which are pretty stellar. More importantly, it's going to let me try my small innovation, which I have yet to get any opportunity to test: Ajani Vengeant.

I'm going to leave it here, and get on off to testing this bad boy. Good luck to anyone who picks up my list; I'd love to hear some feedback if you play it at all. Make sure to check back in next week when I go over how I fared with the list and check out the next list I post!

Johnny on the Spot: Down, Down to Goblin Town

Hello and welcome to the first edition of Johnny on the Spot. I'm David Ozalas (The Junktroller) and as you can read in my intro I love building new decks. I view it as an essential part playing Magic. But I don't just build them for fun. I want them to be competitive. Deep down I am a spike.

So, where's the best place to begin? Brewing is a complicated topic. It is hard to build something that no one else has built before. It can also be expensive if it doesn't work out. I think the best place for new brewers to start is with a simple, cheap, yet incredibly fun and competitive brew: Modern Goblins!

4 Goblin Guide 4 Legion Loyalist 4 Foundry Street Denizen 4 Goblin Bushwhacker 4 Spike Jester 2 Warren Instigator 2 Goblin Wardriver 4 Goblin King 4 Goblin Chieftain 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 4 Blood Crypt 4 Auntie's Hovel 4 Arid Mesa 1 Scalding Tarn 3 Mountain 4 Goblin Grenade 4 Lightning Bolt SB: 4 Thoughtseize SB: 2 Shattering Spree SB: 2 Rakdos Charm SB: 4 Goblin Assault SB: 3 Grafdigger's Cage
This isn't Legacy Goblins. There's no ticking up Aether Vial and cheating in uncounterable 4-drops. This deck's goal is to make sure the game never goes that long. This is an all-out-aggro-spend-all-of-your-mana-every-turn-casting-hasty-creatures-to-pull-your-opponent's-pants-down deck. And it actually works against a lot of the metagame. Let's go over how.

Independence – Most of the creatures were chosen because they are good on their own. Sure, Legion Loyalist likes triggering battalion and Goblin Chieftain wants to pump a whole army. But look at the other choices. Goblin Guide smacks for 2 right away with no help. Spike Jester does it for 3. There's no “silver bullet” card (meaning stop that card and the rest of the deck falls apart). Your opponent can kill any individual threat and it really won't matter.

Does he look like he needs help?

Other goblin builds I've seen rely on Mogg War Marshall and Dragon Fodder to build up a 1/1 army and hope to get a lord or Shared Animosity out. But what if they kill the lord? What if you never draw Shared Animosity? You have a sorry army of vanilla 1/1's. Not this deck. Every individual goblin requires an answer from your opponent.

Haste – Don't underestimate haste on a goblin. Haste makes a goblin feel like half burn spell and half creature. When most of your creatures have haste it seems like you get to Time Walk every turn. Your opponent will have to scramble to get a defense up. This usually means playing untapped shocklands. Haste gives you an extra attack. Opponent's untapped shocklands feel like an extra attack. These “extra” attacks add up and put them in bolt and grenade range fast.

By far the worst creatures in this deck are the non-haste goblins. Warren Instigator and Goblin Wardriver have amazing abilities but they are slow and allow your opponent to catch up. I've thought about replacing them with non-goblin counterparts like Hellspark Elemental and Ash Zealot. If you're on a budget build of this deck feel free to replace Spike Jester with either of those. They won't have synergies with the lords or Goblin Grenade but they're still ok. It does feel odd to spend $400 on lands so you can play four 10 cent uncommons in the maindeck. But Spike Jester is that good. He's worth it.

He wants you to invest in a real estate pyramid scheme. You can trust him.

Swarm – I've noticed something interesting about modern decks. They either have 0-2 slots dedicated to removal or have half of the deck dedicated to removal, with few decks in between. 0-2 slot decks are comprised of Birthing Pod decks, Affinity, and combo decks (i.e. Ad nauseam, Amulet of Vigor, Mono-green Devotion, etc). If your opponent is incapable of removing your goblins they will hit a critical mass of power very quickly.

Quick enough to kill those combo decks before they combo. Fast enough to out aggro affinity. (A lot of people won't believe that last statement. Test the match-up. You might be surprised.) Pod decks are interesting. Kiki-Pod is about a toss-up. Their Kitchen Finks turning into Restoration Angel will give us headaches but Goblin King's mountainwalk and Goblin Grenade's burn will give them a hard time. Melira Pod is a pretty bad matchup. They gunk up the board with two-for-one blockers and they don't play mountains. It happens. Almost every Modern deck has a hard time against Melira Pod so I don't feel too bad.

                                      

Only douchebags play with these cards.

The news gets worse. The removal heavy decks like RWU control are miserable and almost unwinnable. They have about as much removal as we have creatures so we can never hit a critical mass and swarm them. If you have a heavy RWU and Melira metagame I would steer clear of this deck.

The sideboard does what it can to close the gap in those matchups. Goblin Assaults help provide a stream of goblins that are tough to continually remove. Grafdigger's Cage helps to stop Pod decks. Thoughtsieze is brought in against combo decks. The Shatering Sprees come in against affinity (we CAN, not ALWAYS, beat it in a race). Rakdos charm is an all around all-star for a variety of situations. The goblin lords are usually the first cards to side out since there are 8 of them and they are the slowest cards in the deck.

Despite those short-comings this deck is incredibly fun to play. Watching your opponent writhe in fear when on the draw is incredible. CHOO!! CHOO!! Here comes the goblin train to run you over. The win percentage on the play is unreal. No deck in modern can give a new player a better chance at winning. The odds are your opponent has never faced a deck as fast as this. One mistake (for either player) will lose the game.



              

Show me your hand! Oh....let's just go to game 2.

You're prepared though. They probably aren't. That gives you a huge advantage. Did they start their first turn like this; fetchland, shockland, Thoughtsieze? Oops! That's a game loss. Did they cut Pyroclasm from their sideboard in favor of Anger of the Gods? Do they know that Anger is too slow against us? Oops! That's another game loss.

                        VS.     


When our opponents go to games two and three, they will realize that a lot of their opening hands are not keepable because they don't set up a fast enough defense. Forcing your opponent into these mulligan decisions is much tougher for them and gives them another chance to make errors. It also gives us virtual card advantage.

Another bonus that often gets overlooked is the time is takes to finish a round. Game three will usually end with 37 minutes left in the round. This leaves a bunch of time to eat a candybar, drink a soda, go to the bathroom, trade with other players and watch all the grimy RWU mirrors go to time and end in a draw. Good. Put them in the 0-0-1 bracket. It doesn't matter whether we've won or lost. Either way, we won't be in the draw bracket and won't have to face them.

Well, that's about it for goblins. It's great for new players to the format because it's cheap and explosive. It will help you learn just how fast other decks in the format are. And you can exploit the metagame if there's little to no control. Come back next week when I show off a different brew that exploits Jund's diminished presence in the meta.

Troll Tuesday: Torpor Orb Takedown!

Hey guys, Mike here (@Bonkarooni) with our first episode of Troll Tuesday, where we try to ruin the meta game at your local FNM.

The first thing I want to say about this deck is that it is currently a rough draft.  I haven't had a chance to build it and test it, so I'm just spitting ideas out to see what people think.  I'm always open to suggestions to make this deck better, but for now...

4 Serum Visions 2 Sleight of Hand 4 Sundial of the infinite 4 Torpor Orb 2 Ratchet Bomb 4 Hunted Horror 4 Hunted Phantasm 4 Eater of Days 2 Avatar of Discord 2 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas 2 Trickbind 2 Muddle the mixture 1 Academy Ruins 4 Darkslick Shore 4 Watery Grave 2 Drowned Catacomb 3 Marsh Flat 3 Misty Rainforest 4 Island 3 Swamp SB: 4 Thoughtseize SB: 4 Spellskite SB: 3 Steel Sabotage SB: 4 Relic of Progenitus


I first got the idea for this deck while watching my friend play Travis Woo's Mono White Devotion build.  As I looked over the deck, I realized that it was really just a deck of sideboard cards, that ended up hating out most of the good decks in the format with relative ease.

"What if I made something similar, only I actually included a way to kill people in my version," I thought to myself, as I watched him laugh and play another ghostly prism to the misery of his opponent.

I quickly flipped through the modern section of my binder, and my eyes came upon this little beauty..

"This is an artifact, so it can go into any deck.  It also hates on two of the most powerful decks in the format in Pod and Splinter Twin.  Let's start here,"

These guys are about the point that I realized I had stumbled upon something hilarious.  What could be funnier then casting a turn 2 Torpor Orb against your Melira Pod opponent, and then dropping down a 7/7 trample on turn three.  This seemed like a pretty good way to start off a game, but it was apparent to me that this deck needed more.

Since this combo is something you want to be hitting early, I needed more combo pieces, and ways to make sure you would draw them in order.  Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand would help with the second part, but for the first part...welcome to the team, Sundial of the Infinite! What a beautiful little card this is.  Not only does it stop any bad triggers from happening when you play your beaters on the table, but if you draw it late, you also can stop them from killing your dudes!...as long as they do it on your turn.

So it's not perfect, but it's still pretty funny.  I also added a few ratchet bombs into the mix (Play a Hunted Horror, pop the bomb at zero and kill the tokens you gave your opponent) As well as a few Trickbinds.  Both of these cards work with the combo, but can have uses in the game beyond that.

With an artifact sub theme, the last addition to the deck seemed simple.  Hello Tezzeret! After Torpor Orb has done it's job on turn 3, you can turn it into a 5/5 beater as well! Unstoppable, right!?

Okay, to be honest, I would be open to the idea of cutting Tezzeret in favor of something like another two Muddles or maybe just two sleight of hands to make your turn one more consistent.  The reason that I kept it in was because I planned on putting more artifacts in the sideboard.  To be honest, Spellskite is such a good card that, depending on the meta game at your local store, I could be convinced to putting a couple of them in main deck instead of bringing them out of the board.  Cryptic Command is also something I debated for this deck, but ultimately decided against.

At the end of the day, I don't think this deck is going to win you a GP.  However, if you want a fun/relatively cheap deck (Cutting the fetches will drop your price a lot, and with two colors that can easily be done) that you can bring to your local FNM and have some fun with, you should give this a try.  If you do, please comment below and tell me how it went!

The Vascular Awareness: Dead by Dawn

Hi everyone! My name is Mason Sokol, I am a senior at Penn state University currently and a modern enthusiast.  I’ll be your host for Mondays, which will be titled Vascular Awareness, with the goal to make as many people possible aware of the depth of this format.  To this end I'll usually post brews I've found and often add my own tweaks.  I’m not usually known for my brewing, but I usually can spot spiciness when I see it and for the first entry on this blog I endeavored to post the spiciest.  I will always strive to give credit where credit is due and in this case this list comes from Jon Johnson and the list is here.

4 Faithless Looting 4 Birds of Paradise 2 Noble Hierarch 1 Children of Korlis 1 Mogg Fanatic 3 Inquisition of Kozilek 2 Zombie Infestation 1 Lotleth Troll 2 Life from the Loam 4 Congregation at Dawn 4 Skill Borrower 4 Necrotic Ooze 2 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker 1 Borborygmos Enraged 3 Griselbrand 4 City of Brass 3 Gemstone Mine 1 Stomping Ground 1 Godless Shrine 2 Overgrown Tomb 4 Misty Rainforest 4 Verdant Catacombs 1 Forest 1 Breeding Pool 1 Hallowed Fountain SB: 1 Kitchen Finks SB: 1 Obstinate Baloth SB: 4 Goryo's Vengeance SB: 4 Fist of Suns SB: 4 Emrakul SB: 1 Zombie Infestation

3 mana to win the game?  Don't tell Battle of Wits

So what exactly is going on here?  Well actually a whole lot.  First of all the meat card here is Congregration at Dawn.  Depending on your mana situation and cards in hand can find a whole lot of different combo to win you the game often on the spot.  Play it at upkeep with Skill Borrower in play finding Kiki Jiki followed by Mogg Fanatic.  Make a bunch of Skill Borrowers, draw your card, and sac them all using the Mogg’s ability.  If you have an Ooze and Faithless Looting, find Kiki and the Mogg and throw them both in the yard.  You can draw a ton of card with Griselbrand/Ooze then toss the land if Borborygmos is in your yard.  If you need to gain the life back off Griselbrand you can play Children of Korlis, gain it back, then gain even more with and Ooze sac!  Lotleth Troll helps get stuff from hand to the yard either by himself or with Ooze/Skill Borrower if he is in the yard.  Zombie Infestation and Loam are clearly there to fill the yard, and Inquisition is there for disruption/protecting the combo.  The Birds and Hierarchs provide very useful acceleration.  

For changes to the deck I’d consider replacing the Loams with Golgari Thugs, they dredge faster AND can make some more shenanigans with Skill Borrower.

If we do decide to keep the maindeck the same the sideboard probably does need work, the transformative sideboard seems unnecessarily complicated and likely not as helpful as a sideboard with more pinpoint answers.

My first pass for a sideboard would probably look something like this:

3 Thoughtsieze: for control matchups and combo decks.

3 Kitchen Finks: it seems that Jon noted how poor the agro matchup can be but I feel if that is the case I’d like to be a lot more solid than he was being for the matchups.

3 Qasali Pridemage: artifact and enchantments exist that want to make us sad.  I don’t like being sad.

1 Mogg Fanatic: I actually like this card as a value card for certain matchups, making sure there is access to a second doesn’t seem too bad to me.

4 Ancient Grudge: I hate losing to affinity, so much

1 Kami of False Hope: aggro hate that fits the combo!


With a bit more testing a better sideboard will probably emerge, I’ll be looking into the deck more when I get the chance and will try to update you guys if I do.  Thanks for reading!

Welcome to Modern Brew of the Day

Hi guys!

Welcome to the Modern Brew of the Day, a Magic the Gathering blog where all things jank are born, and we try to ruin the meta game at your local card shop.

This blog is the love child of a small group of friends in central PA, who all have a passion for the Modern format, and varying degrees of card knowledge to back it up.  The goal of the blog is a simple, if ambitious one..to post a new deck idea once a day, every day.   Sometimes they'll be serious decks that we think can compete at the highest level, and sometimes they'll just be utter lunacy.

To meet this goal, I have assembled a crack team of authors.  These are the first days of this blog, and this list is sure to grow, but i'd like to take a second to introduce the team we have so far.

David Ozalas (@ ) I started playing during the Ice Age and stopped after the mistake that was the Urza's Block combo nightmare. I started back up during Innistrad which lent it self nicely to picking up Modern. When I first started playing, there was nothing but brews because posting decklists on the internet wasn't really a thing yet. Back then, building your own deck was synonymous with playing Magic. If you copied a deck you weren't really playing the game. I bring that same attitude to this blog. I'm Johnny enough to brew a new deck and Spike enough that it can win your local FNM.

Mason Sokol (@ Poggydude ) More info coming soon.

Ryan Fisher (@rpf5029) More info coming soon.

Corey Mckay (@ ) More info coming soon.

Eddie Slimak (@jeslimak ) More info coming soon.

Marshall Biever (@ ) My name is Marshall Biever and I started playing magic during Shards of Alara. I love the modern format due to the combination of powerful cards, unexplored territory and extremely interactive games. My tier 1 deck of choice is Tarmo Twin, but I love to brew up all sorts of decks. I will be mostly focusing on brews that I believe actually have a shot at being real decks, because as much as I love doing fun things, I also like to win! With that in mind, part of what I'll focus on will be taking existing strategies and changing them to fight what's popular.

Timothy Taylor (@ ) More info coming soon.

Michael Egolf (@Bonkarooni) That's me!.  I'm actually the most casual player of our group, with very little experience in big tournaments such as GPs.  I do have a love of all things aggro though, and will be doing my best to come up with new ideas for you to play around with at FNMs.

Well guys, we're going to get the whole ball rolling tomorrow, and see how long we can keep it going for.  Hope you enjoy!

-Mike