[Deck] Caw Blade

[Spartacvs]

Tom Strong 1st tcg player 2k modern


MAIN DECK
3 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Vendilion Clique
Creatures [11]
2 Jace Beleren
Planeswalkers [2]
4 Cryptic Command
1 Dismember
3 Mana Leak
4 Path to Exile
4 Preordain
2 Spell Snare
3 Sword of Feast and Famine
Spells [21]
2 Arid Mesa
4 Celestial Colonnade
2 Glacial Fortress
3 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
4 Mutavault
1 Plains
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Seachrome Coast
3 Tectonic Edge
Lands [26]
SIDEBOARD
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Mana Leak
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Sower of Temptation
1 Spellstutter Sprite
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Threads of Disloyalty
2 Wrath of God

[Spartacvs]

No one had posted this yet and I think it deserves to be part of the gauntlet until we see what shakes out at PT Philly.

[Aggro_zombies]

I'm willing to bet it will be one of the top decks of the format. It's hard to hate effectively, has a powerful game plan, and appeals to top players used to playing the deck in Standard.

[SpikeyMikey]

I'm willing to bet it will be one of the top decks of the format. It's hard to hate effectively, has a powerful game plan, and appeals to top players used to playing the deck in Standard.

It has 3 basic lands. That'd be a start for hating on it, since everyone and their mother is talking Blood Moon. All its creatures have 1 toughness, meaning without SoFF it has no clock. That'd be a second weak point.

While the prize pool was pretty decent for the tournament, a 20 man event is hard to take seriously as a format shaper. I'd say it's better than nothing, but I'm not even sure of that. How many of those 20 decks weren't even "real" decks to begin with? If you're beating up on random-midrange.dec, anything looks pretty good. I'm pretty firm in my belief that control is simply not viable in this format unless you're talking half a dozen counterspells in a combo shell a la Splinter Twin or Hive Mind.

On the actual list itself - having no Spell Pierce in the 75 seems almost criminal. The mana base looks decent except for Tectonic Edge. Tectonic Edge is too slow to be relevant against Post decks and 3 Tec Edges isn't enough to cause serious harm to anyone else; I can't see man lands being particularly popular.

[Aggro_zombies]

You can fix the mana. It's a two-color deck.

Caw-Blade has shown itself in Standard to be highly customizable. I could see splashing black for Dark Confidant, red for Magus of the Moon, or green for more guys, or going with something like Emeria Angel/Sun Titan/Kitchen Finks/whatever. SoFF on a guy is still a really solid game plan, especially when backed up by counters, so I would expect decks like this to pop up in various forms.

And I bet at least a few people at the Pro Tour will be on this deck. It has a lot of appeal to skilled players.

[SpikeyMikey]

You can fix the mana. It's a two-color deck.

Caw-Blade has shown itself in Standard to be highly customizable. I could see splashing black for Dark Confidant, red for Magus of the Moon, or green for more guys, or going with something like Emeria Angel/Sun Titan/Kitchen Finks/whatever. SoFF on a guy is still a really solid game plan, especially when backed up by counters, so I would expect decks like this to pop up in various forms.

And I bet at least a few people at the Pro Tour will be on this deck. It has a lot of appeal to skilled players.

This is true. Pros tend to play what they're familiar with since most of them are terrible at deck construction. So it's possible that it will be a factor but I don't see Joe Local winning games with it.

[Final Fortune]

I don't see what you have against Man Lands, considering all of the blue draw spells in Modern are terrible control and aggro-control don't have a lot to do with their mana in the mid-game. Mutavault aside, Celestial Colonade, Creeping Tarpit and Faerie Conclave are definitely playable and Knight of the Reliquary -> Celestial Colonade is pretty unfair.

[SpikeyMikey]

I don't see what you have against Man Lands, considering all of the blue draw spells in Modern are terrible control and aggro-control don't have a lot to do with their mana in the mid-game. Mutavault aside, Celestial Colonade, Creeping Tarpit and Faerie Conclave are definitely playable and Knight of the Reliquary -> Celestial Colonade is pretty unfair.

Because blue in Modern is terrible unless it's combo. I have yet to play against a blue control deck I felt was even a little competitive, and this includes the time before they banned Misstep and Jace. Without the free counters, control can't adequately protect itself in the early game. What does this deck do about a turn 1 Koth of the Hammer? There is literally not a single thing main or board that can handle that. What about a multiple Nacatl hand out of Zoo?

[Mr. Safety]

It has 3 basic lands. That'd be a start for hating on it, since everyone and their mother is talking Blood Moon. All its creatures have 1 toughness, meaning without SoFF it has no clock. That'd be a second weak point.


I think a lot of folks are just plain forgetting that THERE ARE NO FREE COUNTERSPELLS in Modern...this means your plays of Squadron Hawk happen on turn 3 with protection, not turn 2. Spell Snare will be played in the format, Maelstrom Pulse will be played in the format, Pyroclasm and Volcanic Fallout will be played in the format. Never mind Moon effects, those cards are pretty good at hating out Caw Blade. Hell, even Echoing Decay and Infest will probably pop up in the format. I already know based on a few lists that Enduring Ideal.dec will be using Night of Soul's Betrayal.

I can't imagine this deck making it very far in Modern. It needs more tools. It can be attacked from the red direction (Moon effects, low level whipers), the Rock direction (Infest/Maelstrom Pulse/Engineered Explosives) and the control direction (Ghostly Prison/Wrath of God/Damnation/Echoing Truth). It's clock is just too slow for the combo decks (Dragonstorm/Second Sunrise/Elves).

Stoneforge Mystic makes the deck good. Without it, blah. In standard it may happen, but jeesh, this deck has zero balls in Modern (in my non-expert opinion)

@SpikeyMikey: I think Bant aggro/control and control-heavy variants will be good...but that isn't really a blue control deck. It's more tempo oriented, hoping to get superior beats and a fast clock after disrupting. I say it again: people need to remember that there are NO FREE COUNTERSPELLS in modern. Ya gotta play fair, and it affects deck/card choices BIG TIME.

[edgarps22]

While this deck can be solid, and will be played, there are easy ways to hate it out. This is not standard, nor is it extended. Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon exist and punish this manabase. Grove of the Burnwillows and Punishing Fire exist, and punish the entire creature suite. Seeing as how both Jund and Zoo would be considering both of those options, Grove Fires for things like this and other aggro and Moon effects to slow down 12 post, this is something this deck needs to find out how to beat. Possibly Phyrexian Revokers for Grove/Ghost Quarter. I am not sure the answer here, but this deck seems very badly positioned against some of the top aggro decks.

[jjjoness']

I don't think this type of deck is viable in modern.
For control to succeed it needs to:
a) Win against all the fast zoo type aggro decks. Absolutely possible.
b) Have an actual plan against Combo (Dragon Storm, Hive Mind, Ideal, Splinter Twin, Elves and many more)
c) Don't sit there and play small dudes, when your opponent can just play lands, eventually drop an Emrakul and win the game immediately.

Those are the most played archetyps in the format and I just don't think you can possibly tweak the deck to beat at least two of them consistently. 12Post seems like an impossible matchup to me, even with Moon they can have 15 Mana before you kill them. The other two archetypes aren't as bad, but Zoo is fast as hell. Also I Gigadrowse, which is played in most combodecks, is an insane card against control, with Clique being the only real answer.