Overdriven! 55

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:

This deck takes the W splash of Spirit Jund to a whole ‘nother level, opening up a wide range of tools. While Loxodon Smiter lacks the persist of its Kitchen Finks forbearer, it more than makes up for it by being a much better beater.

The usual Jund hallmarks are all there: Deathrite Shaman pinging, ramping, and gaining you life. Bob feeding you cards and draining your life. IoK, Thoughtseize, and Lily wrecking opponent’s hands. Terminate and Maelstrom Pulse for spot removal. Lightning Bolt for the dome or removal. Yadda yadda yadda.

Since we’re on the subject of Jund, check out these apples:

This list is like a trip down memory lane. Bloodhall Ooze is an interesting choice. It’s easy to see how the play of Turn 1 Bloodhall, followed by Turn 2 Putrid Leech, Bob, or Tarmogoyf would start pumping the ooze on Turn 3.

While Putrid Leech is a fine enabler for Bloodhall, enabling Turn 3 swings for 7 (Ooze w/2 counters, 2 life to give Leech +2/+2), you’re playing a dangerous game using its ability. With a playset of Bob, 8 fetchlands, and varying shocklands tagging along, you can spend your life totals at an alarming rate. But, as I say so often, you can’t argue with results.

Ghor-Clan Rampager, on the other hand, is some fresh tech straight outta Gatecrash. Not only is it a very nice beater (a 4/4 trampler for 2RG is nothing to sneeze at!), in a pinch the Bloodrush ability can become a very nice pump spell to trample those final few points home.

This card will probably start showing up frequently.

Woo hoo! Bobo!

Soory. Had to get that out of my system. Anyway, here we have an interesting mashup: The Gifts Ungiven-Unburial Rites engine mashed under the same hood as the Goryo’s Vengeance-Griselbrand engine. Faithless Looting conveniently feeds both engines.

The Gifts engine works by using Gifts Ungiven on your opponent’s end step to search up and toss Unburial Rites and a reanimation target (Borborygmos Enraged, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, or Iona, Shield of Emeria) into the graveyard.

Then, on your main step, plop out your fatty of choice using the flashback on Unburial Rites.

Since Gifts is 4CMC, this ideally happens on the opponent’s Turn 4 or 5 end step, depending if you started on the play or on the draw.

The Goryo’s Vengeance engine works by dumping a legendary fatty (usually Griselbrand) into the graveyard by looting on Turn 1, then use Goryo’s Vengeance to bring it out and swing on Turn 2.

The Goryo engine can also use Emmy. However, to do that you would have to loot and play Goryo’s Vengeance, so Emmy is usually a Turn 3 play. A Turn 3 Emmy strike is pretty hard to come back from.

The Goryo engine is also very vulnerable to disruption of any sort, hence the common name of “Glass Cannon” for the deck.

PTQ Round-up

This first online PTQ still has pre-ban Jund decks, since the bans didn’t take effect online until 2/6/13. This will also serve as a kind of “yardstick” to see how NuJund performs. More on that later.

2/3/2013

MTGO #4981512 decklists
1st: Eternal Command
2nd: Spirit Jund
T4: GR/b Tron, Jund
T8: UWR Control, Jund x3

2/9/2013

Düsseldorf DE
1st: UWR Midrange
2nd: Robots
T4: UWR Control, Living End
T8: UBR Twin, UWR Midrange, BUG Infect, UW Restoration

Auckland NZ
1st: UWR Midrange
2nd: White Jund (featured above)
T4: GBW Midrange, UWR Midrange
T8: Splinter Twin, Blackshift, Kiki Pod, UWR Midrange

Санкт-Петербург RU
1st: GR Tron
2nd: Huntmaster Jund
T4: Reveillark, Splinter Twin
T8: Dregdevine, Kiki-Pod, Melira Pod, Burn

Београд RS
1st: Splinter Twin
2nd: 2nd Breakfast
T4: GR Tron, UWR Midrange
T8: Kiki Pod, UWR Midrange, Infect, Scapeshift

Garden City, MI US
1st: GR Tron
2nd: Kiki Pod
T4: 4c Bump*, UWR Midrange
T8: UWR Midrange, Robots, U Tron, UWR Control

*4c Bump = Bump with G splash (for Deathrite Shaman lifegain) and W splash (for Lightning Helix and Boros Charm.

Portland, OR US
1st: Soul Sisters
2nd: Robots
T4: 2nd Breakfast, RUG Twin
T8: UWR Midrange x2, Bump, GR/b Tron

Roswell, GA US
1st: UWR Midrange
2nd: Aura Aggro
T4: UWR Control, UWR Midrange
T8: Naya Zoo, GBW Tokens, GBW Midrange, Kiki Pod

Nepean, ON CA
1st: White Lightning
2nd: UWR Control
T4: TFO Jund, Esper Control
T8: TFO Jund, Robots, Omen Scapeshift, Melira Pod

Glendale, AZ US
1st: 2nd Breakfast
2nd: UW Restoration
T4: Huntmaster Jund x2
T8: 4c Bump*, MBC Infect, Melira Pod, 2nd Breakfast

*4c Bump = Bump w/ G splash (for Deathrite Shaman lifegain) and W splash (for Lightning Helix and Boros Charm.

Berkeley, CA US
1st: UWR Midrange
2nd: Kiki Pod
T4: Huntmaster Jund, Robots
T8: Huntmaster Jund, BUG Infect, UW Restoration, UWR Midrange

2/10/2013

Roma IT
1st: TFO Jund
2nd: BUG Infect
T4: UW Sword Restoration, Blackshift
T8: Bump, GBW Jund, Huntmaster Jund, UR Fae

Milano IT
1st: Blackshift
2nd: Hate Bears
T4: TFO Jund, Kiki Pod
T8: Obliterator Jund, TFO Jund, Huntmaster Jund, Scapeshift

Ashville, NC US
1st: BUG Midrange
2nd: U Tron
T4: Melira Pod, Eternal Command
T8: 2nd Breakfast, Leech Jund**, BUG Midrange, White? Jund*

*This version of White? Jund uses Knight of the Reliquary instead of Loxodon Smiter. Also, see below.

**Both the Leech and White? Jund ran a full playset of Putrid Leech. This may be a local paper meta phenomenon.

Break It Down!

Now that the bans are in effect, and Gatecrash is making its presence felt, the Modern PTQ meta is looking a little different than what we’re used to!

 

The standout deck these days is the UWR Midrange package. This deck has been putting up solid numbers over the past few weeks both online and in paper since making its “breakout debut” at GP Bilbao. Various builds with and without Thundermaw Hellkite, Baneslayer Angel, Vedalken Shackles, swords, etc., have been showing up. It currently seems to be “The New Jund”, as oxymoronic as that sounds.

The Wall of Voodoo

The differing types should be easy enough to figure out. “TFO” in the PTQ results above refers to “Troll/Finks/Olivia”. These lists run 2 or 3 of this group in varying numbers. Some Huntmaster lists have singleton Olivias and/or Trolls.

U Tron and GR/b Tron have different angles of attack. U Tron is more controlling, and uses Titans and Wurmcoils, while GR/b Tron wants to ramp up the Tron and throw down Karn.

Oh. Yeah. Lately GR Tron has taken to splashing B.

Note that UWR Control is different than UWR Midrange! UWR Control typically only has two to four Snapcaster Mage as the entire creature base, while UWR Midrange usually has a dozen or so critters.

Overdrive! #82 Champion: andres_1995 / Robots
Overdrive! #83 Champion: andres_1995 / Robots
I’m assuming andres_1995 will be trying for a Hat Trick tonight.
Eurodrive! #63 Champion: olaw / MBC Infect
Decks from all Overdrive! can be found here.
Decks from all Eurodrive! can be found here.

 

Where Angels Fear To Tread #43
Players: 24
4-0: pk23 ~ 3-1: Lyleswann, NivekVamps2821, mbeardsley, Gilipolleces, _BIG_BROTHERS_, Odero
Where Angels Fear To Tread #44
Players: 16
4-0: pk23 ~ 3-1: andres_1995, mbeardsley, _Kumagoro_, SethDrone
Decks from all WAFTT events can be found here.

Interesting Tidbits

Modern attendance looks to be tapering off a bit. I expect another drop in attendance come the end of PTQ season.