Modern Adventure

This will be probably a post with pretty random information in it, but I feel like writing something about this (me playing modern in the last few weeks). With the banning of Deathrite Shaman and unbanning of Wild Nacatl I wanted to build something 'new' but I failed at it. From playing with the deck and some insight from elsewhere I realized that Modern is completely different beast than I thought it is. But my perspective changed now and opened my eyes. Now I won't have a problem with figuring out what to put in my sideboard (I was struggling with that lately). Main deck is a different story. I won't break the format alone but I know what I want in a certain archetype.

After several tournaments with Zoo deck (that's the failure) I decided to change it. My Zoo deck was not fast enough nor 'Big' enough to be able to win more consistently. My records were 4:0 (the best card actually being Blood Moon in my SB), 1:3 (lost against Burn twice, Hatebears, won against Merfolk), 2:2 and the games I did not play at tournaments were more random than I would expect. I had games in which I just played bears for 2-3 mana (with one having +1 toughness) and couldn't do much else (and be overrun by hatebears that were actually DOING something). I was also pretty disappointed with Tarmogoyf in this deck. My recent changes consisted of adding Chandra Pyromancer (cutting Domri, in environment with not so many creatures this card seems better, also I did not run enough creatures. Her 0 ability proved to be better in the deck I put together) and Thundermaw Hellkite (totally playable even though +1 BoP would probably be a good thing. No idea what I would cut though, Lightning Helix is the card that I was running 2-4...so it would most probably be this card). These cards can be played after Blood Moon resolves and deal with my two problems - running out of cards and dealing the last 5 damage (I know this sounds crazy, but I usually ended the games I lost with my opponent having less than 5 life and I couldn't finish them off. Both Chandra and Hellkite can do this). Still this did not seem enough for the deck, it still was acting too random. So I decided to go for something else completely. I was deciding between two decks - Storm and Birthing Pod. Not my own brew but someone elses. I do not follow who brews what and who plays what at major tournaments so I cannot say where the origin of the deck comes from. I used LSV's decklist for the Pod and Fennel's for Storm. I went with LSV list mainly due to the fact that he runs almost all the combo pieces in one copy and has more possibilities what to do in the game. I like this much better and I know this from playing Melira Pod before GP Prague (January 2014). At that time I played 3 Voices, 1 Melira, 2 Seers, 2 Redcaps and I have to say that they were annoying in those numbers for me. If I would feel that I would need something in more copies in LSV's deck I would add it to the deck. Voice of Resurgence in more copies proved to be the only card I would add but even without 2 or more copies it worked just fine. As for Fennel's Storm list I just picked the first that showed up and was playing Faithless Looting. Anyone can be trying to convince me that Desperate Ravings is better but I prefer Looting and after today's game in which I resolved 8 copies of it and won the game with just all red mana in my mana pool I won't (most probably) switch to Ravings. Looting is about quality, not quantity and after Past in Flames it doesn't matter if the cards end up in the graveyard or nor. Storm count may be lower but with resolved Past in Flames it's just a question of finding Grapeshot. At least my point of view on this matter.

I'd like to get back to Zoo and give it another shot but this time I should think a bit more about deck construction. After listening to Chapin's Next Level Deckbuilding I realized that I really should concentrate on something else than I did at first and should finally accept the fact that Modern is not what Extended or Legacy used to be (I mean the old Extended). Modern is Turn 4 kill format and will most probably be full of combos nowadays. My deck should thus be either fast enough to kill on T4 or Big enough to be able to deal with T4 kill decks or do something really big to survive the 't4 kill' and Sphinx's Revelation won't do for me now in Modern. My Zoo deck was more like an old Extended Big Zoo build but that does not work that well in the environment now. 5c zoo is suicidal and 4c is tricky and can be punished by its manabase a lot. Counting with this my Big Zoo should be more Blood Moon proof and should be able to deal with Twin, Pod and Storm. My sideboard plan should actually BE A PLAN unlike before. But I couldn't come up with one as I wasn't getting enough consistency in my Zoo deck.

So I just put the deck aside and looked for cards for Melira Pod and UR Storm. Yeah finding my Pyromancer Ascension deck took a while. It's been quite a long time since I played Storm (not Legacy one). Birthing Pod just needed some small changes like...unsleeving Deathrite Shamans and adding Noble Hierarchs instead.

I sleeved both decks and tried them against other decks I have (not really the relevant portion of modern field - Burn, Big Zoo, Storm, Pod, Dredgevine). In the games I played Storm performed better but Pod was more fun. Pod was killing usually one turn later than Storm. I managed one t3 kill with it but that was just a coincidence. The Storm deck managed that few more times. Anyway I took the Pod deck to a local tournament. Before the tournament I found out that there's Grapeshot in it and that there was a card missing in my SB^_^. So I played with Grapeshot in my SB and I have to say that I would actually side it in all the matches. In all the games I played it would actually do something and I had a source of red....yeah sometimes more sources of red than I would want. I went 3:1. Not that it would mean much. But I learned that I like the deck and decided to take it to another tournament to see if I can pilot it or not.

Today I participated in another Modern event and managed to get 6th^^. I managed to lose few games due to not playing well and forgetting about cards my opponent or I myself put in a deck. In my first round against Merfolk I completely forgot about something like Thassa so I died to unblockable Mutavault. But I could have overcome this by just searching for Kitchen Finks, but my brain did not expect this outcome and decided that there's nothing I can fear and then that I can win with the combo next turn. The moral of the story - if you can get an advantage even though you think you don't need it just do it^_^. Few rounds later against Storm I completely forgot that I sided in Ethersworn Canonist. I just needed one more turn to play all the combo pieces but silly me, I did not use Pod to search for the Canonist^_^ I won all the other matches but I managed some serious misplays during some of them as well (*facepalm*) but it was mostly due to the fact that I forgot what my opponent is playing (but considering the fact that I was more or less asleep throughout the whole tournament I finished better than expected, I expected 0:x record).

After those 9 rounds in total I really would add Entomber Exarch. I really needed something costing 4 and I needed the card to have some kind of discard ability (mainly). I would also add Thrun in the SB and probably ditch Slaughter Pact. I wasn't sure if having the combo pieces just once in the deck is ok (except Kitchen Finks) but the deck works wonderfully. Sometimes it has a bunch of creatures that seem totally random but still it can beat down with them just fine. I had problems with black source of mana though. I should most probably fetch for black to have it earlier then wait for a fetchland to get the black source later. This did not work much and I lost like 3 games due to this. Once I managed to play Murderous Redcap using my 2 'expensive mountains' but otherwise no black as well...

And here's a photo from one of today's games. What can happen to you...Storm player went down to 1 life so it was his time to combo. He started to dig for Grapeshot but did not really have that much mana. But managed to get all three Grapeshots and hit me with them for 7, 8, 9. My life total at that time was 23. ^_^.

The first photo shows the finals from the smaller local tourney. That's when things get simply wrong. Neither of us could draw something that could end the game. But I was pretty lockdown by Suppression Field, Grafdigger's Cage, Leyline of Sanctity and Stony Silence. My hand consisted of Archangel of Thune and Spike Feeder. What you see was just the beginning. Next about ten turns my opponent was attacking for 18 with his boggle and I chumped it with something - trying to keep 7 mana open for Gavony Township. Spike Feeder survived in the game unlike the Angel and was adding me 2 life once per 3 turns (as I did not have enough mana to do it each of my turns). Thrun helped as well but my opponent then started playing more boggles and enchanted both of them with Ethereal Armor which was too much for me. He couldn't draw a single Rancor or Spirit Mantle. It was quite fun^_^. But well I could hardly win that one.

The pod decklist follows.

Birthing Pod
By STsung

1 Archangel of Thune
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Eternal Witness
4 Kitchen Finks
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
1 Murderous Redcap
3 Noble Hierarch
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Ranger of Eos
1 Reveillark
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Shriekmaw
1 Spellskite
1 Spike Feeder
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Viscera Seer
1 Voice of Resurgence
1 Blade Splicer
1 Wall of Roots

2 Abrupt Decay
4 Birthing Pod
3 Chord of Calling

3 Forest
3 Gavony Township
1 Godless Shrine
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Razorverge Thicket
1 Swamp
2 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
Sideboard:
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Orzhov Pontiff
3 Path to Exile
1 Sin Collector
1 Slaughter Pact
4 Thoughtseize
1 Obstinate Baloth
+ Grapeshot (as it accidentally got there...from my Storm deck obviously)
The last card in my sideboard was actually Scavenging Ooze.