Overdriven! 59

Modern: Huge Tracts of Unexplored Land

It has been said of Modern: “The most important thing about Modern is diversity. It’s by and far the most open format right now, there are huge tracts of land no one has explored. It’s the new frontier of competitive Magic.” And “The nice thing about Modern is that the format is very open. There’s a lot of room to explore and find decks that can work.” And just to hammer that point, here are maps from some recent explorations:

Glittering Gifts; 13dcol (3-1) Modern Daily #5230760

Creatures (2) 2 Snapcaster Mage Other Spells (33) 3 Coalition Relic 2 Cruel Ultimatum 3 Esper Charm 3 Gifts Ungiven 4 Glittering Wish 3 Inquisition of Kozilek 1 Life from the Loam 3 Lightning Bolt 4 Mana Leak 3 Path to Exile 1 Raven’s Crime 3 RiseFall Lands (25) 1 Blood Crypt 1 Breeding Pool 3 Creeping Tar Pit 1 Drowned Catacomb 1 Godless Shrine 1 Hallowed Fountain 1 Island 1 Overgrown Tomb 4 Reflecting Pool 2 Scalding Tarn 1 Steam Vents 1 Sulfur Falls 3 Verdant Catacombs 1 Vivid Crag 1 Vivid Creek 1 Vivid Marsh 1 Watery Grave Sideboard (15) 1 Cruel Ultimatum 1 Fracturing Gust 1 Fulminator Mage 1 Jund Charm 4 Molten Rain 1 Rakdos Charm 1 Sigarda, Host of Herons 2 Slaughter Games 2 Supreme Verdict 1 Worm Harvest

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It always tickles my funnybone when I see a Glittering Wish deck show up. Way back when Return to Ravnica was first announced, I rambled a bit about how this card might become a player. Since that time, this is only the second time I’ve seen it, so I guess that prognostication was off by a little bit!

This deck appears to have a broad disruption package, culminating in a Cruel Ultimatum to seal the deal. In my own opinion, the deck seems light on beaters, and the reanimation package isn’t there at all! But what do I know? I’m not a “control” player, and as I am so fond of saying: you can’t argue with results.

Ninja Fae; djpika (3-1) Modern Daily #5294145

Creatures (35) 4 Faerie Impostor 4 Judge’s Familiar 4 Memnite 2 Mistblade Shinobi 4 Ninja of the Deep Hours 4 Ornithopter 4 Spellstutter Sprite 3 Trinket Mage 2 Vendilion Clique 4 Zephyr Sprite Other Spells (5) 1 Bonesplitter 1 Pithing Needle 3 Vapor Snag Lands (20) 1 Darksteel Citadel 15 Island 1 Pendelhaven 3 Tectonic Edge Sideboard (15) 1 Brittle Effigy 1 Elixir of Immortality 1 Grafdigger’s Cage 1 Pithing Needle 1 Relic of Progenitus 1 Shuriken 4 Spell Pierce 4 Spreading Seas 1 Steel Wall

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This looks to be basically a Modern port of Pauper Fae, with a surprise thrown in! Trinket Mage is especially interesting here. All those extra artifacts are a nice little trinket package there in the sideboard.

Meta Madness

Three weeks into the new quarter, and we have a new meta! Woo hoo! You have no idea how happy I am to be able to serve up the madness that is the Modern Meta to you on a platter once again.

The overall meta will be changing again today with the Banned & Restricted announcement. Who knows where the mighty banhammer M’bannor will fall? We saw a Glass Cannon deck go off on Turn 2 for lethal during coverage, so maybe there is a Griselbanned announcement. I don’t know. I wrote this last week.

Of course, we’re still dealing with WotC’s decision to redact the majority of results, but oh well. What we have is close enough for institutional work. This is not to say I’m not still upset about this it.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Kiki Pod with Domri Rade has been making inroads. Since Pod decks are almost all creatures, Domri is almost guaranteed to pop a critter to your hand with his +1.

Jund

The new darling of the Jund sub-meta is W Thundermaw. Here is a typical decklist:

W Thundermaw

Creatures (14) 4 Dark Confidant 4 Deathrite Shaman 4 Tarmogoyf 2 Thundermaw Hellkite Other Spells (15) 1 Abrupt Decay 2 Inquisition of Kozilek 4 Lightning Bolt 3 Lingering Souls 2 Path to Exile 3 Thoughtseize Planeswalkers (7) 3 Ajani Vengeant 4 Liliana of the Veil Lands (24) 1 Arid Mesa 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 1 Blood Crypt 1 Forest 1 Godless Shrine 4 Marsh Flats 1 Overgrown Tomb 1 Plains 2 Raging Ravine 2 Stirring Wildwood 1 Stomping Ground 1 Swamp 4 Verdant Catacombs Sideboard (15) 2 Aven Mindcensor 1 Batterskull 4 Fulminator Mage 1 Olivia Voldaren 1 Rakdos Charm 3 Stony Silence 3 Timely Reinforcements

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Burn, Baby, Burn!

Burn decks are positioned pretty much “same as it ever was.” White Lightning and Jund Bump both show promise.

Control

The Control submeta would actually be at the number two position in the charts if we were counting strictly by appearances.

Premiere Events

Really. Really? REALLY?!?!?!

So. In the time I’ve been offline, apparently we’ve gotten a wonderful new feature: the client now lets us know that it failed to create a game we didn’t ask for. Over and over and over again, Ad Nauseam.

This has been going on for at least three weeks, and WotC is aware of the issue. The latest downtime did nothing to correct it.

This feature only affects the old client, so there’s apparently no hurry for anyone to get up and do anything about it. Oh, no! The old client is going by the wayside soon anyway, so why bother?

In the meantime, since I am still very dissatisfied with the wide beta, I use the old client. Therefore must I suffer the slings and arrows of WotC coding not giving a rat’s ass.

Or being too incompetent to find it, which is worse.

Interesting Tidbits

MTGO will host a Modern Masters Limited PTQ for PT “Friends” on July 6. Woo hoo! So now we know that at the very least, Modern Masters will be available online at that time. I’m hoping that the online release is a little sooner than that, tho! It’d be nice to get some practice in before a PTQ…

I wasn’t able to track attendance during my enforced absence, hence the gap.