Overdriven! 63

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 gives me time warpy shivers as memories of 2009, and those [expletive deleted] fairies, come flooding back. Blarg! Fae is a classic (in the non-MTG sense of the word!) “durdle, counter, and ping” deck, and I don’t think a card by card breakdown is warranted. While not exactly a new archetype, this is the first appearance of Fae this quarter. Let me clarify this a little here. We’ve had two appearances by Ninja Fae (both times at 3-1), but this is the first “straight up” Fae this quarter.

Blarg! There’s not much else to say. Just… Blarg!

Since Second Sunrise got the ban-hammer, many people thought Eggs was dead, and there was much rejoicing. I know I did. Conley Woods thought differently.

While more expensive to cast at 6CMC, OtV still does the job needed: plopping all your artifacts back onto the battlefield. This higher mana cost also means a mana engine is needed for consistency.

 

 

Enter Krark-Clan Ironworks. This card, along with the updated baubles, trinkets, and do-dads, makes for an impressive mana engine/sacrifice outlet. Of course, these aren’t the same baubles, trinkets, and do-dads you’d find in the previous version. Well, some are, but there are some notable new ones!

Terrarion is something we’ve rarely (never?) seen in Constructed play, but it certainly seems to work well here. I imagine it’s there primarily to generate the WW for Open the Vaults, and also let you generate mana and cards once the Ironworks are online. Ichor Wellspring is almost a no-brainer with KCI: I herd u liek cradz?

Overdrive! 100
or
How I Met Your Modern

If you want to blame anyone, blame Gavin Verhey.

You see, kids, way back in 2010, the people at Wizards of the Coast decided that the Extended format needed to be fixed. Which was true. Pre-2010 Extended (“Ye Olde Extended”) rotation was obscure and arcane, and not too many people played it unless they had to.

What WotC did to fix this was: they changed the rotation schedule to match Standard’s, and limited it to the last four blocks, along with the core sets released therewith.

This turned Extended into basically a “Four-Year Standard,” and not too many people play it unless they have to, to this day. There has not been a sanctioned event in Extended format for almost two years. (Although I have recently seen a large prize pool paper Extended “nostalgia” event planned! Masochists! Blarg!)

This also left a “format gap.” Legacy and Classic, and Vintage in paper, have the ultimate card pool: every card ever released in their respective arenas. Standard has the latest two blocks, Extended the latest four.

Ye Olde Extended was a kind of “middle ground” where players could play with their favorite Standard cards for quite a few more years. I whiled away many an hour during LRW/ALA Standard by playing Extended 2HG, learning how rotation worked, and figuring out the basics of MTGO and the MTGO economy while buying singles for Ye Olde Extended decks. Then it was gone. *snap!* Like that. Card values dropped like paralyzed falcons. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

While “no one played it unless they had to,” as soon as it was gone, it was missed. Players wanted a non-rotating format with a deep enough card pool to be interesting, but not so powerful as to “compete” with Legacy. There was much discussion about this in both the Magic community, and at the Ivory Tower. (I don’t care if that’s what Wizzos calls that one meeting room; I call the whole of WotC’s physical, and collective, presence in that building such.)

The Magic community came up with a format called Overextended. The Ivory Tower durdled, hemmed, and hawed. In early 2011, Gavin Verhey put his money (I’m not sure if was his money, per se, but he was the man handing out the cash) where his mouth was, and Tuesday Night Overextended was born on MTGO. For this act, he has forever earned my respect. Whatever that’s worth.

At that time, I was running a Standard Two-Headed Giant event called Tournament of Kings on Tuesday nights. I noticed a very sharp drop in attendance, and had read a post in the PRE forum on the Mothership. Hundreds of tickets in prizes? Who is this Gavin guy? Everything from IPA/7ED forward? Wha-wha-WHAT?!?!? I read up on the format, took a Tuesday night off, and gave it a whirl.

Woo hoo! This shit was crazy, yo! I could play all my old cards and decks again, and then some! I moved ToK to Wednesday nights, and joined in on the orgy of brainletting: I had Satyriasis for Overextended. The format also figured heavily on how Overdrive!, hence this article series, got its name.

Right about the time Overextended started on MTGO, Wizards of the Coast announced their idea for Modern, starting at MRD/8ED, and that they would premiere it at the Community Cup Challenge later that year.

No one played Modern, except at the Community Cup. No one. I exaggerate, of course. I’m sure that a few dozen Modern games happened in the hidden reaches of hither, thither, and yon. I never saw them, or heard about them. Meanwhile, Overextended games were happening left and right. Modern? chirp! chirp! Overextended? We are the world, shoulder to shoulder, and all that noise. We all know what happened there.

Since then, I have come to love Modern. I am a junkie, and Modern is my heroin.

(to the tune of “My Favorite Things”)
Splinter-twinned Exarchs and poisoned attacking
Valakut fires and fetches for saccing
Tokens deal damage on Elspeth’s wings
These are a few of my favorite things

Urzatron Karn drops, raise dead cycled creatures
Life gain helices and costly Thoughtseizes
Flop down a Bob and see what he brings
These are a few of my favorite things

When I’m land screwed, my spell countered
A bolt to my head
I simply remember all these Modern things
And then I don’t feel
So sad

Overdrive! premiered on July 4, 2011 as an Overextended event, and I’ve never looked back. Modern was sanctioned online on August 24. I clenched my teeth and girded my loins, and Overdrive! 9 became the first Modern PRE on August 29. Overdrive! remains the one.

It still blows my mind that on July 8, we’re up to two years of Overdrive!, and Overdrive! 100. I want to share my mind-blownedness with my players. I am working diligently behind the scenes trying to get some goodies for a Modern cornucopia of awesomeness extravaganza. I have a plan, bubu.

Modern Masters, Paper Magic, and Me

Two weeks back, in order to secure an invitation to a sanctioned Modern Masters draft, I played in a Standard FNM, and had made plans to play in a Sunday Sealed, as well. Due to personal issues, I never made the Sunday Sealed. In the FNM, I played a BRW brew:

The deck did very well in testing, with proxied manabase and Bumps. In actual play, with watered down manabase and poor Bump substitutes, it performed meh! Especially the manabase.

The FNM itself was a fun event. There were plenty of people, and a lot of kids! There were 3 or 4 pre-teen kids, and at least a dozen more teen kids. (In my eyes, just about ANYone under 25 is a kid!)

My last opponent of the night was a 6-year-old kid with a beautiful GW token deck featuring Voice of Resurgence, Thragtusk, Restoration Angel, etc. I originally sat down thinking to myself that I’m not going to “play down,” and easily hammered him dead quickly in Game 1. Then the “grampa switch” kicked over, and I felt so bad! It was the last game of the evening, and I wasn’t in the prizes anyway. So I threw the next two games. I made sure to do it such a way as to make it not obvious, such as using my burn early and letting my guys be chumps, and kept the games close. But I did let him win.

I have mixed feelings on this. I would have taken no joy from such a victory. Should I have been unmoved by the tiny sorrowful face across from me after I smashed him quickly and definitively? Should I have been the mean teacher, applying a harsh lesson?

Sunday morning, I had a substitute host lined up so I could go play in a RTR/GTC/DGM Sealed, but personal issues came up causing me to not go. Oh well. Come to think of it, my event schedule online means I’m busy doing what I love online when what I love in paper happens. Since I’m so invested online, I have come to a rather unfortunate conclusion: I cannot afford to play paper Magic outside of casual kitchen table stuff. I just can’t afford the time, energy, or money. I can only barely afford to play online because of my dedicated pimping of events and spewing of drivel.

Fortune Smiles, For Once

Last Tuesday night I was sitting at home reading my Kindle and minding my own business, when suddenly Freyd bursts in the house. “What are you doing right now? Wanna get in on a Modern Masters draft?” I threw the Kindle across the room, grabbed my pants, and ran out the door.

Everything was done very casually; this was not a sanctioned event. I started out picking W, as Cloudgoat Ranger was p1p1. A few good cards came my way, then the W disappeared. P2p1 was Tombstalker. Ok, I was going BW. By the time all was said and done, I had drafted a BR Goblin/Dredge deck with Murderous Redcap, Mad Auntie, Mogg War Marshall, Stinkweed Imp and Wurmcalling. And a G splash for Maelstrom Pulse.

I did okay: losing the first match, but winning the rest. It was only $35 (which means another week of [generic] Top Ramen & Spam instead of “proper” food for me!), and there was no prize support, but it was fun! I surely would want to do it again. I plan on doing it again this coming weekend. Online. For less, and with prize support. Woo hoo! I would have done it online at 30 tickets a pop, but am even happier now that they’re 25.

This draft also got me to thinking about the possibility of a Constructed Modern deck using the same themes: dredge, discard, and damage. Without Vengevines. I think “dredge” hasn’t been fully explored yet in the Modern format. But that’s fodder for a future article.

While we’re on the subject of Modern Masters…

Viva, Las Vegas!

I’m really excited about GP Las Vegas this coming weekend! Woo hoo! While it’s not Constructed Modern, it will be Modern Masters Sealed! Modern Masters Sealed is an almost unknown environment. Players will have had very limited time to practice with actual Modern Masters boosters, although I imagine some of the more well-backed players will have tested with “proxy boosters” (boosters made up of the existing cards being reprinted in this set).

GP Las Vegas has already shattered pre-registration records, and looks to be the largest attended GP to date. I can easily see 3000+ showing up for this shindig! There are people flying in from all over the world to take part. I wonder if the venue and organizers are prepared for this. I guess we’ll see!

Las Vegas is known for gambling. I believe some of this is going to rub off on the players, as well. I think we’re going to see some interesting deck ideas and innovation come out of this, and maybe a shakeup in archetypes if something scary cool comes out of it. After all, I would have never thought to combine Goblins and Dredge prior to a Modern Masters draft. While my brainfart might not amount to much, imagine if a super wazoo player had one.

Meta Madness

I promised a quick look at the meta, and here it is: aggro and midrange are fighting back, but it’s still looking somewhat soft for combo and control. This will probably change in the coming week.

There ya go. Short & sweet. The next Overdriven! article will be published the day Q3 of the 2013 MTGO Modern Meta starts (July 1). There will be many numbers and breakdowns of the Q2 data then, as well as a blank slate for Q3. Until then, look at the pretty pictures:

The Big Boys

Middle of the Road

Wannabes

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! #95 Champion: rittmeyer / Soul Sisters
Overdrive! #96 Champion: andres_1995 / Robots
Eurodrive! #76 Champion: olioolli / U Tron
Eurodrive! #77 Champion: olioolli / Melira 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 #56
Players: 12
4-0: shuffleorboogie ~ 3-1: allstar997, Sbena, pk23
Where Angels Fear To Tread #57
Players: 16
4-0: pk23 ~ 3-1: shuffleorboogie, call1me1dragon, andres_1995
Decks from all WAFTT events can be found here.

 

Interesting Tidbits

Overdrive! 100 is scheduled for Monday, July 8. Celebrations of sorts are planned for all Modern events I run that weekend. More details next article.

Chris Anderson (Chranderson on MTGO, winner of the very first Overdrive! w/Combo Elves) has joined the Seekers of Glory podcast! You go, boi! It always tickles me when I see Overdrive! alums do something cool in the public eye.

MOCS 6 format will be will be Modern Masters Limited. The championship will be played on June 22, the same day GP Las Vegas starts.

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

Modern’s Second is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 24 at 1800 UTC. (2PM Eastern, 11AM Pacific) This event will be 1v1 Modern, Swiss pairing, and the number of rounds will be determined by attendance. There will be a T8 cutoff. I will be starting to hit up sponsors, Wizzos, etc., at the beginning of August.

I wasn’t able to track attendance during my netless period, hence the gap.