Modern aka dismember/random thoughts part 2.

Modern

I decided to split the post into two, because the following text does not really relate to Dismember. This card has actually triggered all the following thoughts in my brain but does not really have to do much with it. Except, 'will this card be played in different formats'?

Extended format is relatively dead. The cut to Lorwyn till now turned the format into a big standard and that's where no one wanted Extended to be. CawBlade running rampart, Fae-Blade, tricky Valakut and some other crazy decks like well Jund?!
I was looking forward to Mirrodin+ Extended and when I heard the news about this not happening I was sad. Outraged at first, later sad as I couldn't change a think about it.

Some time ago at Community Wizards network I learned something about Community Cup via one girl's blog. The blog is featured for some reason (I still don't get it) and it lacks a lot of information concerning the game itself. But anyway this is the source from which I found out about Community Cup and Modern 'maybe' becoming a reality. I've ignored all the Modern threads on forums because I thought that this would not happen. But I have to admit that WotC starts to surprise me more and more.

So September 2nd is the date. Are you ready?

The prices of cards went ridiculously up and buying them before the big jump was rather difficult. No matter what our country ran off them quite quickly. So the prices will rise even more when they will be in stock once again.

The banlist is vast, so that should mean that there should be a big variety of decks, hopefully.

Concerning the decks that would see play though...

Zoo is no.1. Wide range of cards it can play and even different styles. Ones with little creatures and additional damage cards (how was the goddamn boost spell called?? and tribal flames) or something like a bant zoo. Dark Confidant version or more disruptive and counterspelling/disrupting version? I went through different versions and settled on Gaddog Teeg, Meddling Mages and Negates and that worked wonders. No matter what I guess people will grab their zoo and play it once again.

And then? Grove of the Brunwillows/Punishing Fire? Guess that counts as zoo as well.

What else I would expect? Faeries, different versions of CawBlade. Different kinds of control decks slowly emerging - UWx, UBx. I personally think that red has what to offer.

Jund as well even though I tried to figure out in what Jund could be better than Zoo and apart from Bloodbraid Elf I couldn't come up with anything (hm Anathemancer actually). I don't see the SOM lands as a big plus and running fetchlands + duals does not seem as a solution either. But maybe I just don't know how to play Jund. I just seem to think that Naya has better cards available and thus would see play. Anyway mana base is something people should consider. I except to see two approaches - SOM lands that are not actually dual lands as they lack the basic land type and fetch lands + dual lands. I prefer the latter and I would expect most decks would run this combination as well. This means loss of life... and that brings us to burn type deck. (That can as well run Grove of the Burnwillows + Punishing fire). This kind of mana base makes Blood Moon flash red in my head. Hopefully there's no wasteland or strip mine.

I would expect people to play Elves and Goblins but those are not decks that I would expect to excel. And I can hardly imagine Merfolk being that good at modern either. But Aether Vial is not banned, am I right? But I think people will come up with something better to use vial for.

I can imagine Tempered Steel being played and I've seen crazy decks already in the past. My not so well UW Steel aggro surprised many 5cc decks and even elves and goblin players were like wtf?

As for combos...I'm not really sure. Thopter/Depths, Valakut/(scapeshift) etc are banned so... When I first thought about it I came up with Breach/Hulk, Pyromancer's Ascension, Splinter/Twin (or Kiki-Jiki/Pestermite). But there are already working decks running Ad Naseum (angel's grace not to die), we've seen Time Sieve combos of all kinds and probably other decks as well. The only new combo deck I can see is Melira/persist combos. My favorite creature for sacrificing creatures was always Carrion Feeder but that card is long gone. Now we have a better card - Viscera Seer. This way sacrificing creatures and getting cards you need is way easier (btw this card and hulk....hm yummy)

I used to play different versions of Persist decks that tried to kill with Red Cap (quillspike combo included) or boosted nantuko shade, later bloodthrone vampire. But well persist has limited use and nothing like Melira was printed until now(ok it's been a while). The deck now finally got what it needed.

Well, I guess there are many decks that can come to mind but which ones will prevail? Which ones will define the new format? We have yet to see. (I skipped different kinds of rock decks on purpose.)

Lately my bf told me about Modern TCGplayer tournament and noted that there was a UW Tron deck he liked. He told me me about the other decks so I had to check them out. There was one decklist that caught my eye. It was a Superfriends deck that placed in top16 and it runs some important cards from standard. A part from Jace, Gideon, Batterskull etc etc it runs Preordain, Dismember and Consecrated Sphinx. When I've seen this for the first time I liked the idea. I already played UWR Superfriends at the last 'big' Extended. It consisted of 3x Jace TMS, 1x Elspeth, 1x Gideon, 3x Ajani Vengeant, few burn spells (lightning helix), PTE and counterspells. The win condition was either Jace TMS or Kitchen Finks. I would never expected a similar deck to show up now at modern. But well this deck has come through a zoo test as a winner so why not?

Anyway it's been already a long time since I played this deck and many new cards were printed. Among them the cards from the deck below - Inferno Titan, Batterskull, Dismember, Consecrated Sphinx, Preordain.

Now follows the Superfriends decklist from the tournament.

Superfriends

Creatures [4]
2 Consecrated Sphinx
2 Inferno Titan

Planeswalkers [8]
3 Ajani Vengeant
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Gideon Jura
3 Jace Beleren

Spells [22]
2 Batterskull
2 Dismember
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Lightning Helix
2 Mana Leak
3 Path to Exile
4 Preordain
4 Rune Snag

Lands [26]
4 Arid Mesa
1 Cascade Bluffs
3 Glacial Fortress
2 Island
2 Mountain
1 Mystic Gate
2 Plains
1 Rugged Prairie
3 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Steam Vents

Inferno Titan is a card that can deal a seriously hell of a damage. At one funny standard tournament I played Valakut ramp with a lot of burn spells and Inferno Titans in my sideboard. (how a mono green deck with 12 mountains can change into a burn ramp with titans - lol that sounds terrible). To my surprise this plan worked and Kuldotha Red, different types of Tempered Steel and Burn just stared at me like WTF?

Consecrated Sphinx A card I believed would be good. But it never managed to get into my decks because I had my playset of Jaces TMS. Why play this card when you can kill with Jace or your manlands? When Jace was banned this card lurked in somehow and I could see what the card really does from both my point of view as a player piloting deck with the card and a opponent to someone playing Consecrated Sphinx. I've already gone through several EDH matches in which both of us had this card in play and the card draw was insane. In t2 even with limited cards it is still good.

For Dismember comments see above. (note ehm actually the post is below)

Preordain. As for this card...hm. It's not brainstorm for sure. It's not Jace, the Mind Sculptor either. But it still can allow you to see three different cards. Earlier (talking about standard) we had Ponder and fetch lands and that was relatively fine. But the idea of having ponder and no fetch lands makes me sick. So if I would want to choose a card with similar effect I would go for Preordain.

It seems like Jace TMS was first replaced by Sea Gate Oracle (at least in my case), later by Preordain and now he's* replaced by Ponder + Consecrated Sphinx. At least the Sphinx costs more than the rest of the cards^^.

* see? I referenced the card with 'he'. What the hell is going on? Ok, this happens...I mean I've seen many (not so many in fact) people reference cards like this but since the planeswalker type people reference the planeswalker cards by the depicted characters' gender. It's easier in a way but it wasn't happening. The planeswalkers change some people's mind and also many people are crazy about 'walkers. This seems as a really good marketing strategy but I have to tell you that I'm fed up with planeswalkers already. I was fine with Urza and the other eight but hell how many planeswalkers we have now? It was 21 when I attended Magic: The Gathering Quiz. Now we have even more planeswalkers and in Innistrad we are going to have one with 5 ABILITIES! Jace was enough, thanks...

Back to the deck. I seriously have no idea why the person is not playing Hallowed Fountain but otherwise I like it. The deck plays well and is close to what I like. The last card I'm unsure about is Batterskull.

I've played against Batterskull on NPH Prerelease/Release and I have to say that the card annoyed me as hell. In all those six boosters I did not open any artifact removal nor counterspell (that could counter an artifact otherwise I would even play blue). The card seemed overpowered to me at first. 4/4 lifelink, vigilance?! I was like WTF? What the hell should I do with it?

Later when starting to build different kind of decks (t2 again) I realized that any titan can easily block that. Paying 3 for returning the card to hand and play it once again becomes tricky especially when your opponent keeps you under pressure. In the time I would usually need to play Batterskull I usually need to deal with other threats and this way Batterskull ends up on my hand not being played for the rest of the game.

While including this card in Modern Superfriends deck I realized that there is more space for this. Actually the start is pretty crazy but later in the game you have everything you need. It's not like titan after titan and gideon after gideon. I'm still not convinced about this card in any build but still playing it once in a t2 deck feels right.

It seems that I wrote quite a lot about modern and I did not even wanted to write anything about it. It seems that this shows my joy with WotC's decision.