It’s an exciting time to play Modern, isn’t it? New set, new bannings, new landscape. For what it’s worth, I think the banning of Bloodbraid Elf was both appropriate and needed, but I am a little more confused by the decision to cripple storm decks. On the one hand I get it; Storm’s position in the meta was half the reason we ended up with Spirit Jund, since Rule of Law is a strong sideboard option against them. On the other hand, Storm hasn’t been doing well as of late. It’s powerful, but people were learning how to disrupt it. But, them’s the breaks. I’m glad I got a chance to play Epic Storm and Jund before they both got borked, but I’m also a bit relieved to play in a more open format.
There is a great degree of unknown in the format right now. I suspect we’re going to see some more Domain shenanigans, now that Boros Charm is in the format. I also think we might see some more American Delver or American Counterburn. Other than Boros Charm, though, nothing jumps out at me as being the next big thing for Modern in this set; after a set pushed specifically for eternal formats, we’re now seeing one that has almost entirely eschewed them. So, what does a person play in an open format?
I’ve been experimenting with two different monocolored decks: Monoblack Infect and Death & Taxes. Each one attacks your opponents in fairly universal ways. Infect strips your opponent’s hand bare, while Death & Taxes makes use of land disruption and shuffle–blocking effects to keep your opponent off interaction. Let’s start with the ubiquitously–named Death and Taxes. Leonin Arbiter and Aven Mindcensor make Path to Exile and Ghost Quarter a lot more powerful. Judge’s Familiar takes advantage of the mana restrictions to stop some decks in their tracks. Like Cursecatcher, just having the card out often keeps your opponent from playing spells for an extra turn or two. Add in Thalia, and some decks just crumple.
On the other side of things, Monoblack Infect has a fascinating strategy to take apart its opponent. The name itself is a bit of a misnomer; the deck is actually focused on discard, and only uses Infect to provide a clock that is immune to lifegain should your opponent top–deck a Kitchen Finks or Baneslayer Angel. In addition, Phyrexian Crusader dodges much of the removal played in the format, and Phyrexian Vatmother’s five toughness makes it similarly difficult to kill. Between the targeted discard like a turn one Inquisition of Kozilek, the instant speed discard in Funeral Charm, and the retrace discard of Raven’s Crime, it becomes really hard for your opponent to keep cards in their hands. Once you’ve stripped them bare, killing the few things that hit the table, you are free to drop one of these implacable threats and swing away at your opponent, wearing them down turn after turn. Plus, there’s always Runechanter’s Pike and Lashwrithe to make that clock lethal in one or two hits.
Here are the lists I found. When looking for interesting decks to play, I tend to check out the 4-0 decklists in the last week of the Modern Dailies. Now, the MTGO metagame is going to be different from that of a local tournament, but it’s still a great place to get ideas and to find decks that aren’t getting big writeups on the Mothership or other big Magic Commentary sites. Which is to say that while I did not come up with these lists, I built and tested them, and have been enthusiastic about the outcome.
Creatures (28): 4 Aven Mindcensor; 3 Hero of Bladehold; 3 Judge’s Familiar; 4 Kitchen Finks; 4 Leonin Arbiter; 1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence; 4 Serra Avenger; 2 Student of Warfare; 3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Spells (8): 4 Aether Vial; 4 Path to Exile
Lands (24): 4 Ghost Quarter; 4 Horizon Canopy; 10 Plains; 4 Tectonic Edge; 2 Windbrisk Heights
Sideboard (15): 2 Celestial Purge; 1 Disenchant; 1 Dismember; 1 Kataki, War’s Wage; 1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence; 3 Rest in Peace; 1 Rule of Law; 2 Stony Silence; 2 Torpor Orb; 1 Wrath of God
Creatures (8): Phyrexian Crusader; 4 Phyrexian Vatmother
Spells (30): 4 Disfigure; 1 Doom Blade; 4 Funeral Charm; 3 Go for the Throat; 4 Inquisition of Kozilek; 4 Raven’s Crime; 2 Runechanter’s Pike; 4 Sign in Blood; 4 Wrench Mind
Lands (22): 4 Howltooth Hollow; 4 Inkmoth Nexus; 13 Swamp; 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Sideboard (15): 4 Infest; 3 Lashwrithe; 4 Nihil Spellbomb; 4 Vampire Nighthawk
Now, clearly the sideboard options should be the ones most in flux right now. The original Death & Taxes list I was working off had an extra copy of Rule of Law, which I cut down to one, and maybe should have cut completely. Monoblack Infect, meanwhile, cycles through different options based on the meta. I like the Infect/Lashwrithe/Spellbomb/Nighthawk package for an open meta, but I’ve also seen Duress and Ratchet Bomb in there as well.
Last night I ran both decks against two gauntlet decks that will invariably continue in the meta, and encapsulate both sides of the spectrum: Titan UW and Robots. We only played a few games, but I got a sense of how the matchups go. Let’s start with seeing how both decks did against the faster deck, Robots, which will likely end up one of the fastest decks in the format with Jund and Storm effectively banned.
In this matchup, Monoblack Infect is in a lot of trouble. Wrench Mind is terrible against Robots, and they almost always draw hot off the top of their library. Once they land Cranial Plating they tend to win, since you have no way of getting the permanent off the board once it lands, and they can block your poison attackers for days, either with their many disposable zero–drops or with an activated Etched Champion. Post–board the matchup gets better, because you can side in Infest to kill their team and Lashwrithe to make your team bigger. This might also be a matchup for Nighthawk to come in, as the lifelink and flying are both very relevant.
Death & Taxes also has difficulty with this matchup. Most of their deck is filled with creatures, and it vomits out so much of its hand on turn one, which makes a turn–two Thalia not as strong a play as it should be. The Arbiters are unnecessary, since most versions of the deck don’t search much; the deck runs at most two basic lands, and usually just one, meaning Ghost Quarter and Path to Exile are already better than average. Fliers are important in this matchup, and best case scenario the earliest you can get a flier to the board is turn three, either off an Aether Vial or by flashing in a Mindcensor. That having been said, the sideboard options you get are much stronger. Stony Silence shuts down Robots fairly completely, and Kataki makes it hard for the deck to stay alive. But you have to find your sideboard cards before they kill you, and that’s often challenging in and of itself. Still, Robots is a deck you beat post–board, and that’s a rough position to be in.
Now, against Titan UW (my pet name for the blue/white deck that runs Jace Beleren and Sun Titan), Death & Taxes has some more play. Their few big threats don’t like being exiled, and while the deck doesn’t search all that much, both Tectonic Edge and Ghost Quarter are active (and useful) against their manlands. Their roadblock, Wall of Omens, doesn’t fly or have reach, meaning your Serra Avengers and Aven Mindcensors can usually drift in above without interaction, so long as you hold up the removal spell for any Baneslayer Angels or Restoration Angels they might throw up on defense. Usually this means you can get ahead of them, although you’re still vulnerable to Supreme Verdict and a well-timed Path to Exile.
Titan UW has some more problems with the Monoblack Infect deck. Discard against them tends to hurt them more, and unless they land a Jace Beleren you’re probably going to strip them bare fairly quickly. Since your discard is relevant, every card you draw off the top is either action, removal, or discardable to Raven’s Crime, which means they can’t sandbag anything they might have in their hand. Similarly, since most of their removal and creature base is white, they have to Dismember or Verdict away any Phyrexian Crusaders you drop. Post–board they gain access to more of these effects, while you have to settle for adding in Nihil Spellbombs to turn off their Snapcasters and keep cycling through your own deck.
So, look. Neither one of these decks is as strong as the ones I tested against. If you want pure power, you’ll probably still do well running a Blue White Control variant or one of the many Robots configurations. But if you want to have fun, and strip away your opponent’s answers (or their lands), try one of these decks! When everything else is going gold, try some mono in modern. You might be surprised at how much fun you could have.