The Vascular Awareness: Better Than All pt. 1, The Big 5

So this week's column is somewhat inspired by my last couple of columns, both the Modern interaction column and the set review.  Today we will be looking at the best cards in the format and giving them a review.  This should serve as a great guide to figuring out how to both fill spots in your brews as well as simply understanding the big players.  Decks like Affinity and Boggles will not be having much in this column because the decks are just so darn insular, they don't lend themselves to having their cards used in other spots.  This will be a test run for an article of this style, so it will go over what, in my mind, are the key cards for each color, ones that you need to have in mind every time you brew in that color.  If this article style proves popular it will be revisited.

The number one spot by a large margin, Lightning Bolt is the defining card of the modern format.  One aside: the argument "dies to removal" gets thrown around a lot by amateur card evaluators in order to dismiss cards that they clearly don't understand well enough.  Not that this is far from the same as the "dies to Lightning Bolt" argument.  When someone dismisses a card as dying to Bolt they are usually referring to the mana cost in relation to that of Lightning Bolt.  if the card has no comes into play effect costs 3 mana and has 3 toughness I wish it the very best of luck making waves in modern because it will surely need it.  The reason Lightning Bolt is so big is because it offers an insane mana advantage that is typically unmatched in this format.  As for where it fits?  If you are running red you better have a darn good reason this isn't making the final cut and even then you probably should put it in your sideboard.

Filling a similar role as the bolt, path is another premium removal spell in the format often taking out prey much larger than itself which is the goal of removal in this format.  Unlike bolt, this is less of an automatic inclusion.  Not every aggro deck will run this, many do, but some aggro decks want to place a larger focus on damage output something that path won;t always help with.  More importantly this card actually doesn't shine too brightly in midrange decks.  These decks are designed to go card for card with the other player and gain their advantage by simply playing out the better card each time.  If the other side can run out two things in a turn, or even worse a curve topper larger than the midrange deck it'll be lights out.  Most other decks will end up wanting such a card, at the very least it will make the sideboard of most decks so be prepared to face it and know that this is you best tool in white for getting rid of dudes.

One of the best, if not THE best creature in the format.  Tarmogoyf has served as a brick wall for more controlling strategies such as Eternal Command, it is a beatdown card for Zoo, a solid Jack of all trades in midrange builds, and even a backup plan for combo decks such as the recently popular "Tarmo-Twin".  This card simply grows to be so large that it must be respected immediately.  Midrange loves it for both blocking and as a finisher.  Some control decks like to for defensive capabilities as well as being able to turn the corner of a slow opponent.  Aggro loves it for the obvious reasons.  The amazing thing about this card is it even found a home in combo decks such as Pod and Twin since it acts as a "Spellskite" style card attracting removal away from the real perpetrators.  I would have said this card is limited to decks that deal in combat but after combo decks started picking this up you need to think about this guy every time you brew in green.

  

"BOLT SNAP BOLT" goes the standard war cry of a modern player.  This card has a bit more of a narrow application than some of the others on the list, but with such power it still creeps its way into quite a few decks.  It allows some TYwin builds to grind better, it gives UWR one of the best late games in the format, it gives Delver decks the ability to not lose attrition wars, it does it all.  I even tested him out in a Time Warp deck to great results, any time you are in blue make sure this guy is at least on your mind.  Just note, that unlike the other cards his role is a bit more limited, for instance he isn't making the cut in many combo decks even if they feature blue. 

While having fallen out of favor recently due to midrange taking a massive hit in the last banned list update this card is still amazing.  Affinity has picked this up for the sideboard, Pod has run it for a long time in the board and even maindecks it occasionally.  Every midrange deck will run this card even though they are still in a state of rallying at the moment.  This card is amazing for combo as it takes the disruption out, it is great for control as it removes the most difficult to deal with card, and it is amazing for midrange as it keeps the opponent off balance just long enough.  Even aggro will run it out of the board to rip wraths and combo pieces out.  This card is so good that after midrange took a beating people INVENTED spots for it, the Monoblack Rack deck that I wrote about a few weeks back on this site came to be a larger player because this card is so darn powerful.  Much like Lightning Bolt if you are in black you don't need much of a reason to find a spot somewhere in your 75 for this, in fact the issue right now is more so finding a reason to play black.

That's going to do us for this week's edition of The Vascular Awareness. I want to know: did I  choose the wrong representatives for each color?  Did I miss a sweet application for a card?  Did the article waste your time and you want you 15 minutes back?  Let me know in the comments below!

Also I have a Twitter now! Feel free to follow me @poggydude for incredibly clever things being said every so often.