A Modern Primer

[SpikeyMikey]

This is currently under construction while I update from the changes to the B/R list.



Modern: the Final Frontier?


Legacy is going to die. Like a star going red giant, eventually, its growth will prove to be unsustainable with the limited amount of fuel available and it will collapse on itself just as Vintage did. Without abolishing the reserved list, the format cannot be saved. Modern is Wizards of the Coast's solution to this problem, an Eternal format that begins after the end of the reserved list. Wizards can potentially reprint any cards that become expensive enough that they become format-limiting. Whether or not they will take that sort of direct action remains to be seen, but that is at least the idea.

Modern includes all regular issue sets from 8th Edition forward for base sets and Mirrodin forward for blocks. As such, its similar to Gavin Verehy's "Overextended" format but lacks many of the balancing factors and most notably the allied colored fetch lands from Onslaught. The current banned list can be found at http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/res...rces/sfrmodern.


Community Cup


In June of this year (2011), Wizards hosted the Community Cup with Modern as one of the featured formats. Because of the constraints of the Unified Deckbuilding rules and the fact that the Community Cup was a multi-format event, neither the community team nor the Wizards team put much effort into the format; the decklists were mostly variations of old Extended decks. However, there was some buzz that Modern was being run out as a potential replacement for the despised Extended format and a small Modern community formed, centered at MTGSalvation and the newly created MTGModern. The banned list for the Community Cup was much smaller than the current banned list and the format looked much different than it does today.

Hypergenesis was accounted the top deck (although it's this writers opinion that Hypergenesis was never an actual DtB due to a number of weaknesses) but a number of decks that would later see play were developed at this time including 12Post, Living End, Splinter Twin, Ad Nauseam, Elves! and Melira combo (although the Pod version didn't show up until later). The format was not at all friendly to aggro or control decks, with 12Post, Elves and Hypergenesis making up around half of the metagame. It is interesting to note, given its later dominance, that Zoo was simply uncompetitive at this time.


Pro Tour: Philadelphia

In August, an announcement was made that the upcoming Pro Tour in Philadelphia would be dropping Extended in favor of a Modern component. The banned list was changed at this time to include most of the playable control cards and a few of the more egregious combo cards like Hypergenesis and Glimpse of Nature. This killed two of the 3 most common decks, Elves! and Hypergenesis. This left 12Post - GreenPost in particular - as the de facto DtB going into Philadelphia in early September. A lot of metagaming with and against 12Post ensued. Because it had a very favorable 12Post matchup and a passable Zoo matchup, Splinter Twin was also considered a strong deck within the community.

In the wake of the loss of the two most prolific combo decks, the expected metagame for Philly was equal parts Splinter Twin, 12Post and Zoo. The tournament more or less fell out that way, although U/R Storm posted higher than expected numbers. As I predicted here on the Source, Splinter Twin walked away with the top spot. Control was non-existent, also as predicted. Even with the Community Cup banned list, blue was a dog to the rest of the format and the loss of the most powerful control and aggro-control cards didn't help matters. The closest to a control deck was team Channel Fireball's blue Zoo deck, alternately called Counter-Cat or CatFish, depending on who you talked to.

With egg on their face (Tom LaPille had said in an article that they had killed all the turn 3 combo decks, only to watch Ascension, Swath and Infect roll over "fair" decks all day at the PT) and rumblings of discontent from the larger Magic community with the combo-centric nature of the format, Wizards again nuked the format from space, banning Ponder, Preordain, Rite of Flame and Blazing Shoal in an effort to kill off more combo decks. They also banned Cloudpost, despite 12Post's poor performance against the field in Philly. This was probably the most insightful and necessary ban in the format's brief history, as 12Post's inevitability completely eradicated any hope of midrange or control strategies. Without Wasteland or any other viable land destruction (an aspect of the game that Wizards has avoided in modern design), the deck could not be interacted with in any meaningful way, ensuring that opponents that could not race it would simply be run over by it. Additionally, Green Sun's Zenith was inexplicably banned.


The End of the Worlds as We Know It

Going into the last Worlds, Zoo and Splinter Twin were considered the decks to beat (Cloudpost and Storm having been killed with bannings). Splinter Twin accounted for 15% of the field and various forms of Zoo a whopping 28%! Unlikely Philly, Twin underperformed against the format while Zoo (excluding the Snapcaster versions) stayed roughly the same at 56% vs. the field. Only 4 decks managed to 6-0 the Modern portion of Worlds; Shuhei Gifts, Affinity, LDZ and RUG Tempo. Alan Warnock was also undefeated, going 5-0-1 with Martyr/Proc.

Despite the untuned nature of the field (most players were still scrambling for decks at 10PM the night before), a number of interesting decks came out of the tournament in addition to Shuhei’s Gifts and Warnock’s Martyr/Proc. Alan Comer and Noah Swartz both piloted U/R Faeries listings that used Splinter Twin not only for the well-known infinite combo but also for use with Spellstutter Sprite or Mistbind Clique.

There were dozens of Snapcaster Zoo listings played as the deck had generated immense buzz among the pros going into day 3 but the deck bombed horribly. It went a measly 46% vs. the field and probably would have been worse had it not been so overrepresented. The deck accounted for almost half of all the Zoo decks played at Worlds and mirror matches naturally push a decks performance towards 50%.

Zoo's heavy saturation and excellent performance at Worlds lead to additional grumblings from the community at large. While few people were happy with the dominance of combo in Philadelphia, it appears that people aren't excited about a Zoo-centric format either. This caused Wizards to give Wild Nacatl and Punishing Fire the axe to open up deck design space in other aggressive decks. It's this writer's opinion that this was a mistake and will lead to a less interactive and therefore less "fun" format, but only time will say for sure.


2012 PTQ's and GP: Lincoln

As of January 1st, 2012, Wild Nacatl and Punishing Fire were banned in Modern. The stated goal of the ban was to open the format up to aggro decks other than Zoo, creating more diversity in the field. Many of the game's talking heads were quick to assert that the banning of Nacatl would not kill Zoo, but since the little kitty's removal from the format, Zoo has ceased to be a role-player in the Modern environment.

Zoo, while incredibly popular prior to the banning of Nacatl, was simply not that good. It had a 51% GWP at Worlds and even after eliminating the Snapcaster variants that brought the win percentage down, you were only looking at 56% GWP against the field. Now I'd consider 56% a tier 1 performance, but it's hardly the kind of dominating win percentage that you associate with bannings.

With Zoo out of the picture, the PTQ season started out dominated by Affinity. The first 9 PTQ's sported 18 Affinity listings in the T8's and 4 Affinity wins. While the deck has cooled some since then (as aggro decks tend to do as seasons go on), it is still one of the top 2 most populous decks in the format, along with Jund. Whether the recent drop in Affinity's presence can be attributed to an actual weakening of the deck's position in the metagame or simply the attraction of other aggro decks like Boros or American Stick is a sticky question.


Aggro


Affinity had a good showing at Worlds, going 6-0 in the hands of Tzu-ching Kuo. Affinity packs smaller creatures than Zoo or Jund, relying on a couple of bombs to turn their junk creatures into real threats. Because the deck's creatures are worse on their own than other aggro decks, the deck plays in a much more "all-in" fashion. It can do this successfully because it has the potential for much better goldfishes than bigger aggro decks that are more focused on utility or card advantage. The high burst damage potential of Galvanic Blast and Shrapnel Blast combined with the free/cheap creatures and the Battle Cry mechanic lead to a number of realistic turn 3 kills. Beating Affinity is incredibly difficult if they get a great hand. Fortunately for everyone not playing with Signal Pests, the deck does have internal consistency problems and it's generally incapable of interacting with other decks in a meaningful manner. Unfortunately for those people, the deck still has considerable reach in the late game with the aforementioned blasts and Cranial Plating.

Affinity was a deck that saw a relatively large jump in popularity from Philadelphia to San Francisco. Early in the PTQ season, it was under a lot of people's radars and its performance in the first few weeks showed. As I mentioned above, it won 4 of the 9 PTQs in the first two weeks of brick-and-mortar play. Even at the GP, with interest in the deck cooling, Affinity managed to place 2 copies in the T8, a feat matched only by Jund.

Affinity's speed means that early removal is even more important in the post Nacatl format than it was when Zoo was accounting for 28% of the field. The Affinity of today is slower and less explosive than Tzu-Ching's deck from Worlds, but the deck is still fast and capable of blowing slower decks out before they can get their gameplan online. This has led to an incredibly red-heavy format, as burn's flexibility in playing removal or reach makes it a perfect choice for handling a format heavily populated by Affinity and decks that ignore traditional creature removal like U/R Storm or U/W Tron.

Red Affinity
by Mary Jacobson
Grand Prix: Lincoln

4 Memnite
4 Ornithopter
4 Signal Pest
4 Vault Skirge
4 Steel Overseer
4 Etched Champion
2 Arcbound Ravager

4 Galvanic Blast
3 Shrapnel Blast

4 Cranial Plating

4 Mox Opal
3 Springleaf Drum
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
2 Mountain
2 Glimmervoid

Sideboard

3 Ancient Grudge
3 Blood Moon
3 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Torpor Orb
3 Whipflare

Contemporary Affinity builds are generally based in red (as above). It's interesting to note that all 3 of the Affinity lists that made 15 points or better at Worlds (5-1-0 or better) were mono-red. Additionally, all of the PTQ T8 lists in January and early February were either mono-red or splashed a spot of white for Steelshaper's Gift (as Samuel Friedman's T8 list in Lincoln did). Traditionally, blue has been the strongest base color for Affinity because it gives access to Thoughtcast and Master of Etherium, who provides the deck with another stand-alone threat. However, red provides Affinity with a faster kill and in a format where aggro can actually race combo, that seems to be more important than a little bit of stability and card advantage. As the deck slows, adding value cards like Steel Overseer, blue and black may make a comeback.

There are also two important sub-categories of Affinity that I'd like to mention briefly. Kuldotha Red (named after Kuldotha Rebirth) is a deck that took Tzu-Ching Kuo's listing and went the other direction from the rest of the Affinity builds. Eschewing any pretense of a late game, Kuldotha Red, or K-Red, seeks to maximize the turn 3 and turn 4 kills, racing everything every game. In my own experiments with the deck, I managed to tune a listing to an average goldfish of turn 3.6, with a 40% turn 3 goldfish ratio over 30 games (15 play/15 draw). While I've moved off of K-Red and on to other things, the deck still enjoys some success in the hands of the small population playing it; I know at least 1 made day 2 in Lincoln, as I was sitting next to him in round 9 D1 and we were already locked for D2. The other sub-category is Tempered Steel. The deck centers around its namesake and runs a much heavier white component in its mana base to support that enchantment. Most Affinity players find it easier to run the slightly worse, but infinitely easier to cast Steel Overseer.


There was only 1 burn deck at 15 points or better at Worlds, but Max Sjoblom's deck shows that no matter what the format, someone will be slinging burn spells and melting faces. While Modern Burn loses a few Legacy staples like Chain Lightning and Fireblast, the recent printing of Bump in the Night gives the deck enough 3 damage, 1 mana spells that it can still function in Modern. Because the two best combo decks both revolve around creatures, burn has a better combo matchup than other aggressive decks can boast.

Burn
by Max Sjoblom
Worlds, 2011

4 Goblin Guide
3 Keldon Marauders

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Shard Volley
4 Lava Spike
4 Bump in the Night
4 Incinerate
4 Rift Bolt
3 Volcanic Hammer
3 Searing Blaze
3 Flame Javelin

8 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Arid Mesa
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blood Crypt

//Sideboard

4 Smash to Smithereens
3 Torpor Orb
2 Combust
2 Flamebreak
2 Ball Lightning
1 Searing Blaze
1 Rain of Gore

Max's list seems a little loose in places but is a pretty good starting point for anyone looking to maximize their time between rounds. With a goldfish speed not far behind Affinity, the deck is an excellent choice for the metagame moving forward. Post board, the Affinity matchup is heavily in the burn player's favor (since they can already remove threatening creatures and Smash to Smithereens is an absolute beating). Very few decks can meaningfully interact with burn and the best one, Martyr/Proc, seems to have fallen off the face of the Earth in the post-ban world. B/W Tokens is a problematic matchup, but Tokens is still flying under the radar for now, although PTQ wins in Portland, OR and Madison, WI will probably change that.

U/R is also an option for burn, exchanging Bump in the Night for Delver of Secrets/Insectile Aberration. The blue Nacatl has proven to be incredibly strong in Legacy. The addition of counterspells out of the blue (pun intended) vs. decks like Ad Nauseam and U/R Storm can be a potent weapon for a deck with a fast clock, as Counter-Cat proved at Worlds and in Philly.


There are two Lynx based aggro decks that are viable in Modern right now. The first, Boros, is basically a burn deck with a slightly heavier creature base, splashing into white to pick up Steppe Lynx, Lightning Helix and occasionally, Path to Exile