Overdriven! 65

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:

Woo hoo! Here is a deck with an alternate win condition near and dear to my heart: forcing a draw on an empty library. Mill! Some of you might remember Team Cookiemonster running around 2HG Standard a few years back running Twin Mill. So yeah, it tickles my funny bone to see it pop up in the Modern results.

With the amount of fetch cracking that goes on in Modern, it’s no wonder that Archive Trap is one of the all stars of this deck. I have seen games where the opponent starts on the play, cracks a fetch, and boom! Thirty nine cards gone. *snap!* Just like that. Bye bye. For 0 CMC.

And if you happen to run across Emmy as you mill? I do believe that’s what Surgical Extraction in the sideboard is for.

 

This deck isn’t just about mill, tho. There are some graveyard loving beaters here, too! A nice addition to the Mill archetype here is the inclusion of Wight of Precinct Six. This cheap (CMC2: 1B) puppy gets +1/+1 for every critter in your opponent’s graveyard. So unless your foe is playing a creatureless deck, it’s coming out the gate pumped almost every time. Same with Jace’s Phantasm, although that’s just a +5/+5 pump. *cackles maniacally* “just!”

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 swing” deck, and I don’t think a card by card breakdown is warranted. While not exactly a new archetype, this one is a little different: how often do you see fishies slinging Lightning Bolts?

When I first saw this deck, what popped into my head almost immediately was Death and Taxes. I had to do a double take (which turned into a spit take) to see that it wasn’t D&T at all. Well, kinda sorta, but not really. For one thing, it’s Esper. Not mono white. And yeah, it has a lot of the griefers from D&T, but also a smattering of control and beaters. It’s almost as if D&T and Hate Bears had an illegitimate baby that they left in the woods, but was found and weaned by wolves, then later rescued and raised in an orphanage by evil nuns.

Which brings up another thought. Could decks like this one, Death and Taxes, and Hate bears be all one group? I don’t know, call it “Griefer”? It’s making me go hmmm….

Masters of the Universe

When Modern Masters was explained after PT Seattle last year, one of the stated goals was to make Modern more accessible to the people. The main facet stressed over and over and over again was increasing card availability while maintaining collecability. A fine balance had to be struck.

Please note that the two words/concepts used most in that announcement are cards “availability” and “accessibility”. Nowhere did it say affordability! So if you were one of the many people (like me) expecting dirt cheap Goyfs, too bad, so sad. It ain’t gonna happen.

The short term results seem to indicate that they hit pretty close to the mark. GP Kansas City pulled 950 people in the middle of summer, and online attendance has taken a jump that puts it on par with “PTQ Season” levels. Modern games abound in the Just For Fun room. One of the local LGS’s is running Modern at FNM every other week, and the other LGS is considering it as well. People are watching/reading Modern coverage with avid interest. This pleases me to no end.

I know it’s too early to call this experiment a success. From what I can see, Modern has taken root, and with Modern Masters as fertilizer, is starting to bloom.

The long term data won’t be available until there has actually been a long term effect. I’m sure there are people tracking these things as I type, and that we’ll hear from them in a few months.

For now, tho, I’m going to say “Job well done, Wizzos! When does Modern Masters 2 come out?”

Meta Madness
The Q3 Modern meta is starting to take shape! Storm is a factor in the metagame once more, as well as a plethora of other combos like Valakut, Splinter Twin, and Glass Cannon. I’m expecting another shake up in the format as M14 comes on board. We’ll see tribal Slivers and Strionic combos soon enough! Mark my words, bubu.

 

Top of the Pops

Melira Pod has been continuing its tear, and starts up at the top of the charts for Q3. It may take a few quarters of being solidly at the top for Melira Pod to start being eyed by M’banor (The Ban-Hammer), just like it did when Jund was king of the hill. So don’t look for any Pod bannings coming soon.

The Jund and Tron sub-metas are also starting to take shape.

Note that while both GR(b) and U(x) flavors of Tron are on this chart, each Tron flavor is tracked separately.

 

Middle of the Road

Valakut has a pretty straight forward sub-meta.

The Control sub-meta is looking remarkably small. I expect this group to have many more types before the quarter is out.

 

The Little Leagues

These guys haven’t made it out of the sandbox yet.

 

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! #99 Champion: ChineseNotebook / Titan Ramp
Overdrive! #100 Champion: _wolf_ / Elves
Eurodrive! #80 Champion: romellos / GRuul Zoo
Eurodrive! #81 Champion: justcanceled / Shamanism
Decks from all Overdrive! events can be found here.
Decks from all Eurodrive! events 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 #60
Players: 23
4-0: pk23, ChineseNotebook ~ 3-1: Procrastination, MagicGatheringStrat, bluedragon123, allstar997, romellos
Where Angels Fear To Tread #61
Players: 21
4-0: longtimegone ~ 3-1: jProcrastination, olioolli, allstar997, rock2011, Enderfall, call1me1dragon
Decks from all WAFTT events can be found here.

 

Interesting Tidbits

MOCS Season 8 Preliminaries (August 9-10) and Finals (August 17) will be Modern format.

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.