Overdriven! 62

Posted on June 3, 2013 by BlippyTheSlug

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:


Here’s an interesting brew that’s shown up a few times now. A lot of what you see here is an upgraded Big Zoo build. In the recent past, Big Zoo used Bloodbraid Elf to cascade into Boom // Bust to seal the deal. With the release of Return to Ravnica, and the banning of Bloodbraid Elf, many players either dropped W and became GRuul Zoo, or splashed U and became a Tribal Flames (archetype, not card) variant.


This ubiquitous Elf has become one of the pillars of Modern. There are very few archetypes running B and/or G that don’t include a playset. Many decks – RDW, for example – will splash B and/or G just to include it. This elf is the Swiss Army Knife of Magic: Mana Dork, Pinger, Life Gainer, Graveyard Controller, Chump Blocker, and can swing for 1 in a pinch. All for the low, low cost of G or B. In this deck, there’s a B splash (a singleton Blood Crypt) to utilize his pinging abilities.

 

Now this is where the deck becomes interesting. Since BBE is no longer available to fill the 4-drop slot, why not bring some planeswalking friends and make it a party? *enacts a scene from Animal House* Toga! Toga! Toga!

I wanted to do three columns, with a little descriptive poem under each Superfriend, but the force is weak within this one today, and I’m crunched for time. So I’ll just plop out some drivel. You’ll have to settle for me pretending that I’m telling you something you don’t already know. To wit: Planeswalkers are awesome!

Ajani Vengeant is currently three-timing it with Jund, UWR Control, and UWR Midrange. Now Big Zoo laid out some catnip, Ajani jumps in and starts playing with it, too. This cat’s a stud! Always tapping this, that, and the other… Spitting out some lightning now and again… Then, when he’s all done, he blows up all your (opponents’) land and leaves! Typical cat.

Domri Rade is the new punk upstart. This punk loves to plop critters into your hand. Since this deck has a lot of critters, well, you do the math. Zoo-type decks love Domri, and Domri sure do loves him some critters. Get your mind out of the gutter!

Ahhh, Elspeth. I’ve loved Elspeth, Knight-Errant ever since the first moment I laid eyes on her. She’s one of the few girls I know with no minuses. She plops out chumps. She pumps a dude and makes him fly. She can make your dudes indestructible. I’m surprised we don’t see more of her.



This is not your typical Breach Cannon build. Most of the beasts that are floating around right now use a nifty little Coldsnap treat called Fury of the Horde to swing multiple times during your turn. You can find a beautiful example of this type of Breach Cannon in action in this video from GP San Diego (action starts at the 13-minute mark). While the build featured here does not run Fury of the Horde, or Simian Spirit Guide, it is still quite capable of plopping out Emmy on Turn 3 and swinging for BLARG! It also uses Through the Breach as a secondary cheater.

 

Modern Masters, Paper Magic, And Me

When Modern Masters was announced during PT Seattle last year, I could hear the hosannahs being sung all the way up here in Kanukistan. As a Modern fanatic, I was excited over this as well! As soon as I moved to the big city, I went and got myself a DCI number with the Dragon’s Maze pre-release; expressly in anticipation of drafting Modern Masters, in paper, locally. Woo hoo! I was gonna start playing competitive paper! I was going to start of my “real” paper card collection. Woo hoo!

Today, I find myself cursing the hype and limited print run. Both of my LGS’s are charging CA$300.00 per box! Only one is offering “invite only” drafts at CA$40 a pop. I’m so poor I can barely afford to pay attention. Since I only got my DCI number recently, and have only played in 1 sanctioned event so far, I don’t get an invite. The other isn’t offering events at all, just inflated box prices. I voiced my concerns to both. After all, I got my DCI number specifically to play Modern Masters! I wanna play!

The squeaky wheel gets the grease! Woo hoo! Wednesday morning, Comic Readers, the LGS that is having the “invite only” drafts, made me an offer I couldn’t refuse: if I were to play in both the FNM and Sunday Draft/Sealed this weekend (it’s RTR Block Sealed this time), I may score an invitation to a Modern Masters draft. Woo hoo! This store is holding invitational drafts every Sunday until they run out of product, and I was given to understand that I’d almost certainly be invited to at least one. It probably won’t be the first one, as I’m not a regular (yet!), but I should get at least one.

So, Wednesday night, looking at my cards, my playing style, and what was available to beg, borrow, and steal for the day, I decided to go with what I like to call Borzhov Blitz:

I was testing out the deck at our regular Thursday night Magic parties here at the house. The Islands are my proxies for Bump in the Night, and the lands have little slips of paper labeled “CR” for Clifftop Retreat. I was using my Guildgates as a Sacred Foundry proxy. It did very well, defeating everything that I sat across from, except Freyd’s Naya Blitz. It was consistently capable of dealing lethal damage by Turn 4.

I found a substitute host for Friday Night Standard, and I’m still hustling to find Bump in the Night. Who’d have thought a Common from Innistrad would be unavailable at either LGS?!?! I also want to borrow a few more Ash Zealots, a Boros Charm, and swap out those Guildgates with something more apropos. I can get by without on the Charm, Land, and Ash issue. I’ll probably just do 4 more Mountain if I can’t find Sacred Foundry or Clifftop Retreat. But the Bump is crucial. We’ll see how it turned out next article. Maybe.

(Author’s Note: Couldn’t find the Bumps, added 2x Rakdos Shred-Freak, 1 ea. Spark Trooper and Spike Jester.)

Meanwhile… Online…

The announcement was finally made for the online release of Modern Masters! Drafts will be available to the general public for three and a half weeks. There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the pricing, but what do you expect for a limited-run premium product? They’re not gonna come cheap. Oh well. I’m doing it anyway.

Meta Madness

Well, the Modern “season” is winding down. We have two more GPs coming up: GP Las Vegas on June 22, and GP Kansas City on July 6. After that, no more major paper events until September 14, when Wizzos go Motown! Since I was raised in the suburbs of Detroit, I’m rootin’ for the homies.

I’m really excited about GP Las Vegas! While it’s not Constructed Modern, it will be Modern Masters Sealed! This format has never been played before, and the limited print run should make practicing for this event…. interesting.

The Big Boys

Valakut and Splinter Twin have been making a lot (relatively speaking) of appearances lately, and Storm decks are being sighted. In fact, Valakut has jumped to the number-one spot in the lists and started pulling away since Overdriven 61. It would appear the online meta is currently soft for Combo, while Control and Midrange struggle to keep up with the changes. R(x)DW (Burn) has also put up enough appearances to make it to the “big boys” table. Aggro shows up, but seems to be placing in the lists less.

Middle of the Road

Look, ma! No Eggs! (That still makes me grin!) Breach Cannon is another “combo” that has been making inroads, along with Living End.

Wannabes

These are the archetypes that have made a solitary showing, then scuttled back into the woodwork.

Once again, I have to stress that these numbers are only about a third of the story. WotC is still insisting on redacting ~2/3 of the results. Grrrr. It still pisses me off every day when I look at the What’s Happening? page. I know I’m not the only one who still cares about this. But it seems I’m the only one still speaking out about it.

Overdrive! is the original Modern format Player-Run Event! In fact, it’s even older than Modern, having started out as an event in the Overextended format. Overdrive! is free to enter, and happens every Monday evening at 8:30PM Eastern time. Eurodrive!, a Euro-time friendly Overdrive! clone, happens every Saturday at noon UTC.

 

Overdrive! #93 Champion: pk23 / Kiki Pod
Overdrive! #94 Champion: rittmeyer / Soul Sisters
Eurodrive! #74 Champion: _Kumagoro_ / Bant Pod
Eurodrive! #75 Champion: pk23 / Kiki Pod
Decks from all Overdrive! can be found here.
Decks from all Eurodrive! can be found here.

 

Where Angels Fear To Tread is a limited seating Modern format Player-Run Event that follows the same structure as the MTGO Daily Scheduled Events: 4 rounds of Swiss pairings, with prizes going to all 4-0 and 3-1 players. As with all of my events, it is absolutely free to enter! WAFTT happens every Sunday at 1800UTC. (2PM Eastern, 11AM Pacific)

Where Angels Fear To Tread #54
Players: 21
4-0: ChineseNotebook ~ 3-1: The_Raging_Flump, olioolli, magicoptimus, allstar997
Where Angels Fear To Tread #55
Players: 20
4-0: pk23 ~ 3-1: andres_1995, fliebana, ChineseNotebook, olioolli, Aoirx
Decks from all WAFTT events can be found here.

Interesting Tidbits

Modern Masters will be released on MTGO on June 14! Woo hoo!

MOCS 6 format will be will be Modern Masters Limited. These will happen on June 14 & 15 for the prelims, and June 22 for the championship.

MTGO will host a Modern Masters Limited PTQ for PT “Friends” on July 6.

Due to my recent netless period, Overdrive! #100 is now ending up to be July 8, corresponding roughly with Overdrive!‘s second birthday. (Overdrive! premiered on July 4, 2011.) I will be looking to put together a Modern gala of some sort in celebration.

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