Brewing to Win

Hey everyone, Marshall here. Today I'll be talking about brewing with the intent to put targets on the heads of the decks you expect to play against (as opposed to brewing with a generically powerful engine) so that when you show up to FNM, you can put the hurt on people who stick to the same deck every week. The concepts I'm about to dive into certainly apply to a larger scale, and have been used to take down big tournaments, so don't skip this thinking it just applies to your local FNMs.

Rule Number One:

Know. Your. Enemy.

When you set out to make a brew with the intention of taking down a specific tournament, you need to have a solid idea of what decks are going to be there. Part of the downside to taking this approach is that if you're wrong about what your opponents bring to the table, the outcome will not be pretty. For the sake of an example, we're going to pick a few popular decks to target. Unfortunately, you can't beat everything, but if you know a few decks are showing up at your shop a lot, figure out how to pick on them!

Let's start with Affinity:

4  Blinkmoth Nexus
4  Darksteel Citadel
3  Glimmervoid
4  Inkmoth Nexus
1  Island

4  Arcbound Ravager
3  Etched Champion
1  Master of Etherium
3  Memnite
4  Ornithopter
4  Signal Pest
3  Steel Overseer
4  Vault Skirge
4  Cranial Plating
1  Galvanic Blast
4  Mox Opal
4  Springleaf Drum
4  Thoughtcast
1  Welding Jar

Sideboard:
2  Ancient Grudge
1  Blood Moon
1  Etched Champion
1  Galvanic Blast
1  Master of Etherium
2  Relic of Progenitus
1  Spell Pierce
2  Spellskite
2  Thoughtseize
1  Torpor Orb
1  Whipflare

This is the list that Christian Sibold took to the Top 8 of the most recent Modern Pro Tour. This deck is powerful because it's extremely fast. It feels more like a combo deck than an aggro deck, because it usually needs one of its "unfair" cards to win. Oftentimes that will be Cranial Plating, Arcbound Ravager or an unchecked Steel Overseer.

So how do we beat it? Having access to good sideboard cards against them like Ancient Grudge, Stony Silence, Kataki War's Wage, Shatterstorm, Vandalblast (if you're playing Snapcaster) or Creeping Corrosion is great, but I'm interested in also having a solid game 1 against a deck that's so popular. In order to beat up on a deck like this, you either need to be able have a very quick clock plus interaction with their important permanents, or you need to have a ton of interaction and not let them do anything too busted. The later is the reason why UWR control has such a solid matchup with Affinity. Not only do they have tons of instant speed interaction, four of their removal spells (Lightning Helix) gain them life!

The other deck I'd like to pick on is Melira Pod.

3  Forest
3  Gavony Township
1  Godless Shrine
4  Misty Rainforest
2  Overgrown Tomb
3  Razorverge Thicket
1  Swamp
1  Temple Garden
4  Verdant Catacombs
1  Woodland Cemetery23 lands

4  Birds of Paradise
1  Eternal Witness
4  Kitchen Finks
1  Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1  Melira, Sylvok Outcast
2  Murderous Redcap
3  Noble Hierarch
1  Orzhov Pontiff
1  Qasali Pridemage
1  Ranger of Eos
1  Reveillark
1  Scavenging Ooze
1  Shriekmaw
1  Spellskite
1  Viscera Seer
2  Voice of Resurgence
2  Wall of Roots

Sideboard:
1 Entomber Exarch
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Obstinate Baloth
2 Path to Exile
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Sin Collector
2 Slaughter Pact
4 Thoughtseize
1 Voice of Resurgence



This deck gets it's power from resilient creatures and having a toolbox enabled by Birthing Pod and Chord of Calling. So how do we beat up on this deck? Keep their board clear. Birthing Pod and Chord of Calling don't do much when they don't have creatures in play.

Which brings me to this:

x4 Lightning Helix
x4 Lightning Bolt
x4 Boros Signet
x3 Izzet Signet
x2 Flame Slash
x3 Anger of the Gods
x4 Molten Rain
x4 Boom/Bust
x2 Gideon Jura
x1 Chandra Pyromaster
x4 Ajani Vengeant
x1 Aurelia's Fury
x1 Fulminator Mage
23 Lands
x4 Arid Mesa
x4 Darksteel Citadel
x4 Flagstones of Trokair
x3 Mountain
x2 Plains
x3 Rugged Prairie
x3 Sacred Foundry
Sideboard:
x1 Batterskull
x3 Chandra's Phoenix
x4 Rest in Peace
x4 Path to Exile
x3 Wear/Tear

Before I go on I'd like to give a shout-out to my good friend Tristan Allen for coming up with the original version of this deck. Some of the card choices were different, but the concept of the deck was definitely his. However, I think this list illustrates my point of picking a deck that stacks up really well against things that I'd be expecting to play against, with the added bonus of having a solid generically pro-active plan against everyone else so that it at least has a shot when it's not playing against a creature deck.