Archetype of Imagination - BorbyLoam

Our Vintage players will hate me,
but this card is like two Ancestral
Recalls stapled together. In green.

Eddie back again for the last installment of Archetype of Imagination's series on Assault Loam. It's definitely been a fun ride, and in all, very interesting to see the different decks play out. Each one felt incredibly different, with the first 4-Color Loam list playing very much like a traditional midrange deck with the ultimate goal being to combo off with Seismic Assault and Life from the Loam, the epitome of a grindy win, to the PyroPox deck playing much more like a tempo deck with Smallpox and Young Pyromancer getting you early advantage that you can ride to the end quickly, to this final list which in all honesty, simply felt like a subpar 4-C Gifts list, and if I were to ever try to pilot this list at an event, the entire time I'd simply be wishing I was on Gifts instead. The list I played this past week was the following...

2 Borborygmos Enraged 3 Liliana of the Veil 4 Life from the Loam 3 Seismic Assault 3 Flame Jab 3 Raven's Crime 3 Inquisition of Kozilek 2 Darkblast 2 Unburial Rites 4 Lingering Souls 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite 1 Eternal Witness 3 Abrupt Decay 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 4 Verdant Catacombs 1 Marsh Flats 2 Arid Mesa 1 Blood Crypt 1 Stomping Ground 1 Overgrown Tomb 1 Godless Shrine 1 Temple Garden 1 Sacred Foundry 1 Raging Ravine 1 Lavaclaw Reaches 1 Tectonic Edge 1 Fire-Lit Thicket 2 Graven Cairns 3 Blackcleave Cliffs 1 Forest 1 Swamp 1 Mountain SB: 1 Abrupt Decay SB: 2 Obstinate Baloth SB: 2 Ancient Grudge SB: 2 Combust SB: 1 Dismember SB: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria SB: 1 Ray of Revelation SB: 1 Darkblast SB: 2 Batterskull SB: 2 Thoughtseize
Most of the time while I was playing I was just hoping to cast Life from the Loam very, very quickly and ride that to a reanimation target for the win, or dredge into just the right set of lands for the Seismic Assault lock, or enough copies of Lingering Souls that I could actually stall out to do one of the former. The list ultimately feels like just a bad Gifts Ungiven list as without the nice tutoring of Gifts, you're just hoping to mill into your win conditions slowly. I can understand why the list I started with ran more copies of both reanimation spells and Borborygmos, but I didn't want to be too weak to graveyard removal, so I opted against those plans to the extreme extent that it was attempting; maybe that was wrong.

I only got to play two matches of merit, since random matches on Cockatrice have a pretty high variance for quality of opposing decks. One match was against some Elves running Mass Hysteria which just seemed strictly awful, another against what would have been a good Bant Midrange deck, but then it cast Cloudshift, which... I guess is acceptable in some circumstances. Until you have no creatures to flicker because I cast Seismic Assault. Neither of those matches are really deserving of any coverage, but I guess it is a bit of a testament to how varied Modern fields can be, especially if you're running only at FNM.

The matches I do feel were actually worth talking about were Merfolk and UW Midrange/Control. The two seemed to represent the non-black decks in the format quite well. I wish I had gotten the opportunity to play against Affinity and Twin, though I feel as though neither match up should really be too terribly difficult for me. Against Affinity, we have enough sideboard hate and Batterskull that I don't really feel scared at all about it. Against Twin, in any version, enough discard will usually close out games quite quickly.

First, against Merfolk, I fared quite poorly, mainly because of the sheer number of lord effects. In game one, I started very poorly when he cast Spreading Seas on turn two and stuck me off of red mana for a few turns. I barely cast Seismic Assault, but it wasn't enough to stave off the bleeding. When you're facing an army of 5/5's you're not going to do well when you can only throw 6 damage each turn. Game two I decided to side out the Darkblasts and Lilianas because Merfolk's creatures are simply too numerous and large to deal with effectively with either card. I brought in the last Abrupt Decay and the copies of Combust and Iona just to try to get the free win with the reanimation. Unfortunately, I didn't get there and even though I stabilized quite well, I couldn't deal with a resolved copy of Master of the Waves and simply died two turns later.

I always felt like she was
one of the best cards in the
deck. Never unhappy to see
her, and she did so much work.

Next, against  UW Midrange/Control, which I assume was nearly identical to the Shaheen Soorani list since it had Jace Beleren in it, I fared quite the opposite. The first game ended at the beginning: I had two copies of Liliana and got the Dredge engine online quickly. As he was unable to get rid of Liliana or to counter her, I rode her to an easy victory. Game two I boarded out most of my removal in favor of Combust, Thoughtseizes, and Iona. Iona seemed pretty well suited to close out games against control, and that she did spectacularly. Eventually with Iona on blue and Seismic Assault, I ended the game in two turns. Control definitely seems like it's a matchup in your favor as you have reanimation spells and a significant amount of redundancy in your threats.

In summary, I often felt like Iona and Elesh Norn were the better targets, though I only ever cast Elesh Norn against some silly, durdly tier-4 decks. Borborygmos never actually landed into play, and I don't feel bad about that. I'd almost always just rather have Seismic Assault since it's so much cheaper. I can't exactly justify going up on the numbers for Unburial Rites or Borborygmos, but to make Borborygmos actually matter, you'd absolutely need to play four of him. And I'm not comfortable committing to that. Ultimately, I feel like the deck simply plays like a poor version of 4-C Gifts, and I'd always rather play that deck. It's just simply more fun and less grindy, in all the right ways. Plus, why not play blue when you have the opportunity.

Tune in next week when we start our look into some of the most diverse decks in the format: Kiki-Twin! We'll be looking at some of the lesser known lists for some interesting inspiration; I'd rather not sit down and try to write a primer on Tempo Twin or Tarmo Twin; I don't exactly feel too qualified to do so, but if there's demand I could try to get that together. I hope you take the time to comment on and share this post with your play group. We here at The Cauldron would absolutely appreciate it!

Blumanji

Eddie here again, though today isn't going to be a write up about BorbyLoam just yet. Archetype of Imagination needs another day to wrap up the series on Assault Loam and I've been unimaginably busy. Who would have thought being a chemical engineering junior with a bunch of physics courses on your plate (quantum mechanics is fun!) would make for a very tight schedule.

All of that aside, I hope to return tomorrow with a post about BorbyLoam, but for now we'll be looking at my latest favorite. I must give a good amount of credit to Adrian Sullivan for this kooky list. His article on it can be found here. Let me say, I do think it's a fine deck, but of course, I'm not one willing to just let a good list sit. I have to tweak things, and especially this deck. I tested nearly the same list as Sullivan's and definitely felt sometimes like it was flooding a lot, and was absolutely missing some real oomph if you didn't just combo out. It was also the group's decision that some things Sullivan was attempting were just too cute to actually put to good use; Melira as a singleton isn't that exciting, as you'd often rather just have an additional Finks.

It turns out Sullivan's list is, in a bit of a way, trying to do too much, too loosely. As such, with the suggestions and help of the group here at Modern Brews, I've come up with this updated list.

The core bits of ridiculousness.

3 Lotus Cobra 2 Birds of Paradise 4 Noble Hierarch 3 Kitchen Finks 4 Fauna Shaman 1 Obstinate Baloth 1 Mulldrifter 2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner 2 Spellskite 2 Vendilion Clique 2 Glen Elendra Archmage 1 Phantasmal Image 1 Venser, Shaper Savant 1 Phyrexian Metamorph 1 Courser of Kruphix 1 Mystic Snake 3 Vengevine 1 Scavenging Ooze 3 Forest 2 Island 3 Hinterland Harbor 4 Breeding Pool 4 Misty Rainforest 4 Verdant Catacombs 1 Flooded Grove 1 Scalding Tarn 1 Dryad Arbor 2 Chord of Calling SB: 1 Mystic Snake SB: 2 Wickerbough Elder SB: 3 Viridian Shaman SB: 1 Acidic Slime SB: 1 Thrun, the Last Troll SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze SB: 1 Cold-Eyed Selkie SB: 1 Vengevine SB: 1 Obstinate Baloth SB: 1 Kitchen Finks SB: 1 Sower of Temptation SB: 1 Eternal Witness
Lotus Cobra is an amazing card, but at times it definitely felt like you could have just too many of them, and as a result you'd be stuck with an army of 2/1's and too much mana to do anything with and nothing in hand. That's honestly where the deck struggles most: when you've gone Hellbent, your Vengevine's aren't as great if they're sitting in your yard. You can simply lose steam and then not be able to quickly recover. I've done my best to ameliorate that issue with the inclusion of the one main deck 5-drop, the lone Mulldrifter, and I can't say I've ever been sad to see it, and I've tutored it up quite a few times.

Next, we've gone ahead and switched up the main deck hate a bit. Mainly, we've ofted to get rid of the Viridian Shaman from the main deck, as it really doesn't fulfill too much of a role and opted for a third Kitchen Finks in its stead. Kitchen Finks helps the Affinity matchup by simply being an anti-aggro card, and at the same time, it helps your other aggro matchups more than Viridian Shaman. We've also opted to cut the Merlia, Sylvok Outcast in favor of a Mystic Snake. Now, Adrian argues that he's tested Mystic Snake and been disappointed with it, I'm in love with this card. It may just be my pet card to an extent, but being able to tutor up a counterspell with a 2/2 body seems good.

Moving on to the next interesting change, we've cut a Spellskite and the Tarmogoyf for a bit more value. Tarmogoyf never seemed that exciting of a card to draw to me, and as a result it's been cut entirely. Kitchen finks blocks just as well and gains you life and Vengevine is a better attacker. There's no need to split the difference with Tarmogoyf as a 1-of. Instead of these two, we have 2 copies of Chord of Calling, the only two non-creature spells in the 75. Having these available as Fauna Shamans 5 and 6 works quite surprisingly well. You can even Chord into a counterspell and just crush your opponent.

We've tweaked the mana base a little, but the changes ought to be quite apparent. There's no reason whatsoever to run Reflecting Pool, and Hinterland Harbor is about the most exciting thing in this deck since sliced bread. Gotta run a bunch of them!

The sideboard is a considerable amount different as we've stuck entirely to creatures in here, so we can actually tutor up our hate effects. An additional Mystic Snake helps in the combo match ups;
Wickerbough Elder, Viridian Shaman, and Acidic Slime ruin Affinity's day; Obstinate Baloth numero dos comes in anytime you're facing Liliana of the Veil or an aggro deck; Kitchen Finks number four seals
up so many aggro match ups, it's actually funny; Sower of Temptation turns their big dudes into your big dudes; Cold-Eyed Selkie runs roughshod over control or at the very least demands a removal spell quickly; Eternal Witness is there for all the value; Thrun beats black; and Scavenging Ooze beats graveyards. Effectively, we've covered the whole of the metagame as best as we can in simply blue and green.

There are arguments to try out a Bant list, especially with JOU coming out with some of the grossest hatebears I've ever even imagined, but part of me likes the streamlined version that gets to just eat people alive with Vengevines occaionally.

To anyone who wants to test this out, good luck! Make sure to leave any reports about the deck or questions for me in the comments!

Johnny on the Spot: The Walking Dead Tournament Report

In my last article, I went over my brew called the Walking Dead. Here's the deck as a refresher:

The Walking Dead

4 Gravecrawlers 4 Faithless Looting 4 Lightning Bolt 2 Dark Blast 1 Grim Lavamancer 4 Dark Confidant 4 Bloodghast 4 Stromgald Crusader 3 Nameless Inversions 4 Lilianna of the Veil 3 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge 4 Verdant Catacombs 4 Marsh Flats 4 Blood Crypts 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 1 Dragonskull Summit 6 Swamp SB: 1 Knight of Infamy SB: 2 Torpor Orb SB: 2 Engineered Explosives SB: 2 Damping Matrix SB: 2 Shattering Spree SB: 2 Rakdos Charm SB: 4 Thoughtseize
This tournament report will cover the three tournaments that I played in: an FNM, a Grand Prix Trial for Richmond, and GP Richmond. I won't cover every match, just the more important ones that show off the deck's synergies and weaknesses.

The FNM:

This was the debut for my new version of The Walking Dead without the green and with Haakon. The first match I want to go over was against RWU control. This is a generally favorable matchup for my list. While RWU control has loads of creature removal, most of my creatures recur back into play over and over.

The diversity of creatures shows why it can overcome removal. The bread and butter of removal for RWU is Bolt, Lightning Helix, and Path to Exile. Do you see the problem? Unless the removal is used perfectly, my creatures will be hard to remove and kill.

Good removal spells that typical work against any creature. Except vs The Walking Dead

Gravecrawler and Bloodghast need to be pathed or else they'll come back. Bolts and helixes won't work. Dark Confidants need to be Helixed. If they get pathed or bolted that's one less path for Gravecrawler, Bloodghast, or Haakon and one less bolt against Stromgald Crusader.

Speaking of him, Stromgald Crusader is really tough for RWU control to handle. He was originally a sideboard card against Rest in Peace. With no maindeck way to kill a Rest in Peace (and only 2 Engineered Explosives in the sideboard) I originally thought the deck might be unplayable due to graveyard hate. But, Mike Bonkarooni saved the day. He suggested that rather than try to have an anti-anti-graveyard strategy (like blowing up the Rest in Peace), why not attack the white decks on a level they aren't prepared for (protection from white)? He tested so well that I slotted him as a 4 of in the maindeck.

 

 The best tech attacks the opponent in a way he wasn't aware of.

My match against RWU went pretty favorably for me. In game 1, my creatures overwhelmed him because his removal was ineffective as I described above. For game 2, I sided out 2 Dark Blasts and 2 Nameless Inversions because RWU has almost no creatures and put in 4 Thoughtseizes. In that game, he was able to stabilize with an Anger of the Gods and Sphinx's Revelation and grind out the victory. Game 3 left us both stuck on two lands for a couple of turns after we each mulliganed to 6. This highly favors me since I don't need many lands. I Thoughtseized his Anger of the Gods early and was able to resolve a Faithless Looting to find my third land drop and over run him with creatures.

The other match from the FNM that I'll mention was in the finals against a Bogle hexproof deck. I knew he was on Bogles before the match and he had no idea what I was on. Ahhh...the fruits of brewing. I knew that pre-sideboard my only chance was to get a Liliana out and make him sacrifice his hexproof guy. So, I mulliganed and mulliganed all the way down to 3. No Liliana. Oh well. I made sure he wasn't land or creature screwed and then scooped. On the plus side, he still had no idea what I was on.

 

Where are you?!?!

For game 2, I sided in 4 Thoughtseizes and 2 Engineered Explosives and took out 2 Darkblasts, 3 Nameless Inversions, and 1 Haakon. This time the shoe was on the other foot. He had to mulligan to 5 and I Thoughtseized his only creature away. This is one of the reasons I'm not too big on Bogles...it can lose to itself very easily. In game 3 I got a god draw of Liliana, Thoughtseize, Engineered Explosives, 2 Gravecrawler and 2 land. All my removal could interact with his creatures and the Gravecrawlers would put him on a quick clock. This made me 5-0 and the champion of the FNM.

Grand Prix Trial:

This tournament lasted 5 rounds then cut to top 8. I went 4-0-1 in the swiss portion and was feeling great. My deck hadn't lost a match yet! I could have went 3-0-2 and still made top 8 but I wouldn't have been the top seed like I was at 4-0-1. I made this mistake at another GPT a month earlier and lost in the top 4 in game 3 by one turn. Because I was on the draw. Because I intentionally drew to go 3-0-2. From then on, I vowed to not be satisfied with simply making the top 8. Especially in a GPT where there is virtually no 2nd place. 1st place gets the byes and 2nd place gets about the same prize as 29th place.

Interestingly enough, after 9 rounds of the FNM and GPT, I only ever got the Haakon plus nameless inversion combo to go off. I thought it'd be more common than that but it really wasn't.

 

Unfortunately, this wasn't that common of a combo.

In the top 8 round I played against Tron first. ICK! Wasn't that supposed to be a bad list in the post-Deathrite world? Tron has both maindeck sweepers and graveyard with Pyroclasm and Relic of Progenitus. There is a problem with them though. They need to be played in the right order and at the right time, otherwise my creatures will be back in play before Relic can exile them.

Both good vs zombies but they need to be played in the right order.

I drew a very aggressive opening in game 1. Turn 1 (on the play of course) I had a Bloodghast and Faithless Looting which drew another Bloodghast. Discarding two Bloodghasts almost feels like cheating. He was able to Pyroclasm them away later but was incapable of exiling them. I ran him over for the win.

Game 2, he was on the play and drew a natural Tron. Not too much to see there. He killed me mercilessly.

Game 3 was a classic battle of my mana flood to his mana screw. He mulliganed to 5 (similar to Bogles, which is why I don't like either of the decks) and got stuck with 2 Tron pieces. I had 4 power on board and was beating slowly. I Thoughtseized him and he revealed a Karns, 2 Wurmcoils, and a Chromatic Star. Since I was incapable of eliminating a big drop from his hand, I chose the Chromatic Star so he could could cycle and dig for the last Tron piece. It was a gamble, but one that I really had no choice to take. He wound up hard casting casting a Wurmcoil the turn before I could swing in for lethal. Then I topdecked a bolt and added it to the other one in my hand to burn him to death. I got lucky on two accounts, him getting mana screwed and me topdecking burn. But, I made my own luck by being on the play that game. If I was on the draw, I would have lost. I think there's a very important moral to be learn from earning the right to play in the top 8.

One turn too slow.

I won the next round vs RWU Splinter Twin and faced my my friend and fellow car traveller Abel in the finals. It was cool to face him off in the finals but we also knew it would be an awkward car ride home. He was on a modified Ajundi list. He basically switched the Deathrites out for Kitchen Finks and tinkered around with the mana and a one or two other cards. It was still a powerful deck post Deathrite banning and I'm actually surprised to not see more of it.

Unfortunately for Abel, I knew this was a really bad match for him. The whole motivation for The Walking Dead was to beat the old Jund decks that were atop of the old metagame. All of his Inquisitions, Thoughtseizes, and Lilianas are useless against me. Each game was a long grind fest but he really had no chance of outlasting me. I had won two byes and my brew was 12-0-1 in sanctioned events. Time to run it at the GP.

GP Richmond:

Well, this is where the story goes astray. I had earned two byes and then played against a Merfolk deck. Nameless Inversion does wonders against that deck. Removing all creature types just makes it an instant kill spell for any merfolk. I went to 3-0 and was slated to play LSV when something odd happened. For those that didn't attend the GP, the massive player pool was divided into three pools:  Green, white, and pink. An odd glitch caused LSV to be entered into both the green and white pools and was paired up against me and another player. By chance, he showed up to the other match instead and the judges effectively awarded me a bye. Whoo Hoo! Actually, I would have rather played LSV...just for the story. Even though I most likely would have lost.

Who invited this to the party?

Oh good...round 5 of the GP pitted me against Melira Pod. Of all the decks that I brewed post-bannings, The Walking Dead has put up the best fight against it. Game 1 I got combo'd off on pretty quickly and naturally drawn. Unfun.

Game 2 was much better. It was a true grind fest and I was able to get the Haakon plus Nameless Inversion engine running. After I machine gunned all his his guys down I was able to swing in for the win. That was twice in 14 matches I was able to pull it off. In game 3 I saw some tech from Melira Pod that I didn't really see too much of before the Deathrite, but definitely much more since: Thrun. I assume he comes in against control matchups, but my deck really has no way to deal with him except Liliana sacrifice ability. That's only if Thrun is their only creature too. Thrun is some good tech I couldn't handle.

At 4-1, I played against a B/G rock deck. I knew Jund was a good matchup for me and I figured this should be as well. But, a flood and a screw later I'm sitting at 4-2. Such is Magic.

My final match shows where this deck really is weak and needs some work before getting played again. I played the Amulet of Vigor/Titan combo deck. I don't really think I can win game 1 against it. I stated in my previous article that I purposely removed the targeted discard from my deck based on the old metagame. These odd combo decks (like Amulet or Ad Nauseam) were a much more significant portion of the meta than they were before.

For game 2 I sided out the Dark Blasts, Grim Lavamancer, and Nameless Inversions for Thoughtseizes and Rakdos Charms. I was able to get a turn 1 Thoughtseize and turn 3 Liliana in game 2 to lock him out pretty quickly. But in game 3 he was able to combo off on turn 4 even after I Thoughtseized him twice. He had to get super lucky to do it, however when I am a virtual lock to lose game 1 it's going to be tough to expect to win the match consistently. With that, I was 4-3 and out of contention for Day 2.

Overall, I really do like the deck. The metagame isn't well positioned for it now, though. I can no longer afford to have no targeted discard in the maindeck. Melira Pod represents a very tough obstacle. Even though my deck is geared towards value and recursion, that deck can go toe to toe with me with both and still threaten an instant combo win. I am capable of beating it, but not consistently enough to warrant it at another GP or PTQ. Perhaps once the metagame shakes out a little more and shifts I can dust this deck off I try it again.

Speaking of losing to Melira Pod, next week I'll go over brewing with a deck that I've never lost with against Melira Pod. I'll go over ways to attack the Pod decks and my general opinions and observations of it's two archetypes.

Troll Tuesday:Token from a God

Hey guys, Mike here again.  For this week on Troll Tuesday, i'm going to take a bit of a different spin on B/W Tokens. We're going to splash some red in to make things a little more spicy.  It all starts off with a man who has made Standard fun again for me.

Now, before you say "Hey Mike, you're making a three color deck, you're never going to have the devotion to turn this dude on." Just hold your horses, and look at the brew I've cooked up.

2 Terminate 4 Path of Exile 4 Lightning Bolt 3 Lightning Helix 4 Purphoros, God of the Forge 4 Thoughtseize 3 Bitterblossom 3 Goblin Assault 4 Spectral Procession 4 Lingering Souls 2 Intangible Virtue 4 Arid Mesa 4 Marsh Flats 4 Sacred Foundry 4 Godless Shrine 4 Blood Crypt 1 Mountain 1 Swamp 1 Plains SB: 2 Anger of the Gods SB: 3 Rakdos Charm SB: 2 Shatterstorm SB: 2 Lightning Helix SB: 3 Ghostly Prison SB: 3 Inquisition of Kozilek

                   I'm a decent source of infinite tokens                                            I'm not                                     

This deck has a pretty simple theme behind it.  Land a Purphoros, land either Goblin Assault or Bitterblossom, then sit back and watch as you ping them for two a turn, every turn.  So what if your 1/1 Goblin is getting himself killed every turn? He's still hitting for two damage each time he does it.  So what if Bitterblossom is pinging you for one life a turn, every turn, he does double that to your opponent.

To back up these two cards, I packed the deck full of removal, which red/black/white is full of.  If there are any creature based decks that scare you at your local FNM, this should take care of them no problem.  I included x3 Lightning Helix, because I feel like this deck might be a little suicidal with your own life total, feel free to swap in more Terminates if you disagree.

The sideboard choices for these three colors are endless.  I chose two Anger of the Gods, in case your meta has a lot of aggro decks.  Rakdos Charm is kind of a catch all, and I have fallen in love with this card.
Shatterstorm is a complete blowout vs Affinity, and with Rakdos Charm backing you up this should be more then enough to hate out that deck.

Ghostly Prison is more aggro hate, but also attacks Splinter Twin, and The Inquisitions+Thoughtseize main should be enough to attack spell based combo decks.  There are plenty of other choices for sideboard here, including the classic Stony Silence and Rest in Peace, so feel free to switch this up as you see fit.

That's all for this week.  On a related note, I ran my Venser Tempo deck at a recent FNM.  Very close games, but I ended up not doing so well overall.  I will type up a report on the event later, but I want to figure out how I am going to change the deck before I do that.  If you get a chance to test with this deck, please let me know how it went.  See you next Tuesday!

Vascular Awareness: Spoiler? I'll give 'er the world!

Mason here again, this week I'll be going over last week's spoilers in a modern context.  I may even give a deck list or two.  They'll be rough sketches, but should at least serve as good jumping off points.  Now, first thing's first, I'm going to discuss how I plan to go about discussing spoilers since I hold strong opinions on how this should be done.  First of all this will all be done in a modern context, any time you talk about spoilers ever you should be completely clear.  I don't want to hear anything like this happening:

"This card is garbage"
"Are you kidding? It's the best card in the set!"

The card?  Sylvan Primordial, one hoping for a modern powerhouse, the other raring and ready to blink this 100 times in their commander deck.  Both people are right, both just engaged in an asinine conversation.  This can happen even when both players talking about constructed formats.  To avoid this I'll be talking nearly exclusively about modern and will make it clear when I am not.  Second order of business:  I will try to avoid talking about cards that have better versions, I don't want to wade knee deep through limited filler to discuss the handful of gems and you don't want that either.  I will note that if a card has a better version but can serve a "five through eight" role in a deck it WILL be discussed.  Finally, the flip side of this point is that any card without a clear analogue should and will be discussed because not many people(including myself) are smart enough to immediately peg which new and unique effects will be all-stars.  This is how the entire world convinces itself that Chandra sucks before the have even opened an M14 pack.  The card has now seen play all the way down to Legacy and all the way up to Standard.  So with these philosophies laid out let us begin.

First up we have quite a doozy on our hands.  Eidolon of Blossoms gives us the first look at a solid "enchantment matters" card for the set and this one gets me excited for a few reasons:  First of all the cost is fairly efficient, compared to Verduran Enchantress it costs one more but cantrips.  Cantripping is typically priced at an additional 2, for modern I'd argue the costing of cantripping is probably more fair at 1.5 but either way this card starts off better than the current option which is a good start.  Note the additional 2 power is not the selling point here since you want to draw cards with this, not bum rush the opponent.  Another major point is that this counts enchantments entering play, not when they are cast.  This is worse against countermagic which isn't the worst thing since countermagic is anemic in modern anyways.  It's still worth noting though.  The boon from this point comes in when you start looking at the ways to "cheat" enchantments into play.  There is already a fringe enchantment based ramp deck roaming the halls and this slots in quite well.  This is especially relevant for builds involving Genesis Wave.  With a double G in the mana cost this card also helps out Nykthos build as well.  I know which deck I'll be trying her out in first and I'll definitely be keeping her in mind for other enchantment decks as well, prison and Open the Vaults are two immediate thoughts, although admittedly Open the Vaults probably won't pan out. 

I can already hear the clacking of keys preparing to write angry comments about my inclusion of this, but hear me out.  This effect has not been made available for every color and while there are usually better options withing the colors, it may be a solid "five through eight" card for mono colored swarm decks.  Blue and red don't really have the best access to this effect so I'd say to simply keep this one in mind.  Part of brewing is knowing your options so making sure you note this card's existence can only be a good thing.

Cards that screw with the top card of player's libraries are often times strong.  I do not have the ability to parse the strength of this card(since it is one of the most bonkers weird cards spoiled in a long time), but I won't be all that shocked if someone makes a clean break with this card.  

This card is sooooo cool.  The biggest issue with Howling Mine effects is getting the effect after your opponent does, no longer!  This card puts the symmetry in your favor, allows you to tempo countermagic based decks, and all at a reasonable cost for the effect.  I fully expect Time Warp decks to adopt this one and to great effect.  Do I expect the deck to shoot to tier one over this card/  probably not, but every little bit helps.  Here is a sketch of a build of Turbo Time Warp that plans to do a whole lot of playing on the opponent's turn:

4 Dictate of Kuphrix

3 Quicken

4 Time Warp

4 Temporal Mastery

3 Walk the Aeons

4 Snapcaster Mage

3 Gigadrowse

2 Fog

4 Cryptic Command

4 Remand

3 Howling Mine

4 Misty Rainforest

4 Hinterland Harbor

2 Breeding Pool

1 Forest

11 Island

No one plays Vulshok Battlergear and this is a harder to cast version 99 percent of the time as no one is blocking your buffed guy usually and if the swing in it's usually an alpha strike, the swords see surprisingly little play and are better most of the time.

This will probably go down as one of the better cards in the set.  You can pretty much count the cards not triggered by this on one maybe two hands.  At the very worst it is sicko anti storm tech for burn decks, but honestly I wouldn't be stunned if this were main decked, the damage output if not immediately removed is insane, and if he is removed you'll get some damage out of him anyways, something not every card can boast.

Note about the gods: Ari Lax nailed this best when he said the gods would have a tough time in modern due to how often permanents are removed.  This hasn't been universally true but it has been a solid guide while trying to evaluate the gods for modern.  The gods spoiled as of the time of this writing have held to this(Keranos, Kuphrix, and Iroas) and I expect the others to hold to this once spoiled.

The removal in modern is world class but once you restrict yourself to one color like the rogue's favorite Skred red deck you sometimes need to go for the more obscure(like Skred).  Like Skred the damage on this scales reasonably but probably not as quickly, unlike Skred this scrys which is huge for a deck with such little velocity(the speed at which you go through your deck).  Both only target creatures, but with Boros Reckoner acting as the grease card for the deck this liability is not too huge.  I'm unsure if this will be added but if you are a fan of the archetype it'll be worth testing.

Sometimes you want 8 City of Brass, now you have that.  

Mindslaver is a strong effect and while there isn't a clear home for this card at the moment it is something to keep in mind while deckbuilding.  Perhaps a Tron list wants it, perhaps it spawns yet another variation of the Time Warp deck(so you can take their turns too).

That's it for our thoughts so far, check back soon when and and i'll tell you what I think about the rest of them!

The Sunday Upkeep: Welcome to The Cauldron!

Hey guys, Mike here once again with your Sunday Upkeep.  First of all, I'd like to offer a quick apology to our contest winner.  We haven't had a chance to sit down and brew with your list yet, as a good chunk of our writing base is attending GP Philly right now.  (Mason made it to day 2 last that I heard, go him!).  This is something that will happen in the near future.

The other thing I'd like to announce is, we have decided to change our name.  Welcome to The Cauldron! your home for premium Modern content and brewing.  We have decided on the name change simply because we want to expand our horizons in the future.  While we are, and always will be, a blog about brewing, we also didn't want to tie our hands too tightly and wanted to be able to branch out and explore other options.

That's it for this week folks.  Tune in tomorrow for Mason's article, where he's going to talk about the Journey into Nyx spoilers, and what they might mean for Modern!

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.