This past weekend, I drafted Modern Masters 2015 twice. The first time, I played in a bizarre casual tournament where I drafted in a five person pod, then played a best of one match against people in other pods. I drafted UR Elementals and went 2-1. The draft didn’t really prepare me for GP Vegas nor did it satiate my desire to draft MM2. At least I opened a Tarmogoyf. The second time, I tried forcing UW Affinity. I found out somewhere in pack two that people on either side of me were also trying to do the same thing and ended up in a mono blue deck with Cryptic Command and a two Plains splash for Oblivion Ring. I somehow managed to make the finals where I quickly split and snagged three prize packs of Modern Masters. Erica also decided on playing in that draft and opened a foil Tarmogoyf to totally one-up me.
After the second draft, a group of friends all came back to my place to hang out and barbecue. Not enough of us won packs to do a draft, but we decided on putting our packs together to practice building a sealed pool for GP Vegas. Here it is:
Colorless and Lands
| Lands (1) 1 Selesnya Santuary Spells (6) 1 Flayer Husk 1 Kitesail 1 Karn Liberated 1 Rusted Relic 2 Sphere of the Suns Creatures (8) 1 Alloy Myr 2 Blinding Souleater 1 Gust-Skimmer 2 Lodestone Golem 2 Myr Enforcer |
Multicolored
| Creatures (1) 1 Boros Swiftblade Spells (4) 1 Necrogenesis 1 Savage Twister 1 Sigil Blessing 1 Wrecking Ball |
White
| Creatures (6) 3 Conclave Phalanx 1 Court Homunculus 2 Waxmane Baku Spells (8) 1 Apostle’s Blessing 1 Arrest 1 Daybreak Coronet 1 Dispatch 1 Mighty Leap 1 Otherworldly Journey 1 Raise the Alarm 1 Sunlance |
Black
| Creatures (8) 2 Dread Drone 2 Plagued Rusalka 2 Thief of Hope 1 Vampire Lacerator 1 Vampire Outcasts Spells (6) 1 Bone Splinters 1 Death Denied 1 Deathmark 1 Dismember 1 Grim Affliction 1 Waking Nightmare |
Green
| Creatures (11) 1 Ant Queen 2 Aquastrand Spider 2 Kavu Primarch 1 Kozilek’s Predator 1 Matca Rioters 1 Nest Invader 1 Pelakka Wurm 1 Root-Kin Ally 1 Scion of the Wild Spells (6) 1 All Suns’ Dawn 1 Overwhelm 1 Sylvan Bounty 2 Sundering Vitae 1 Vines of Vastwood |
Red
| Creatures (7) 1 Blood Ogre 2 Dragonsoul Knight 2 Incandescent Soulstoke 1 Smokebraider 1 Soulbright Flamekin Spells (4) 1 Blades of Velis Vel 1 Goblin War Paint 1 Lightning Bolt 1 Smash to Smithereens |
Blue
| Creatures (4) 1 Aethersnipe 1 Faerie Mechanist 1 Helium Squirter 1 Mulldrifter Spells (7) 1 Inexorable Tide 3 Narcolepsy 1 Repeal 2 Steady Progress |
Alright, that’s a lot to take in at once, so let’s start by separating out the rares:
Daybreak Coronet is stone unplayable and I suspect Inexorable Tide is as well. Karn Liberated will go in any deck we build barring some insane aggro deck that can’t afford a seven drop. Lodestone Golem is interesting as it’s excellent in artifact based strategies but still a reasonable body that could be played in a variety of decks. Lastly, we have Ant Queen which is a legitimate bomb and pushing me toward green and All Sun’s Dawn which is fantastic in the five color green decks but is a card I would play in a deck with three colors if I thought I could reliably draw three cards.
After looking through the colors, we identified green as the deepest color in terms of playables and the color with the highest upside as Ant Queen and Pelakka Wurm are bombs and a base green deck should have no problem splashing Savage Twister which is also insane in limited. After picking green as a base we laid out a few potential decks:
GW. Splash for Savage Twister. Dismember can be played for Phyrexian mana or off Alloy Myr/Sphere of the Suns.
GU. Splash for Savage Twister and Dismember.
GB. Splash Red for Savage Twister/Wrecking Ball/Lightning Bolt.
- GW. Green-white gives us some additional removal in Sunlance and Arrest as well as access to two Blinding Souleater which I would be scared to play without white sources in the deck. The Raise the Alarm is a bit speculative but does help us cast our Kavu Primarchs a bit earlier. I’m not 100% sure the Lodestone Golems should be in the deck as it makes it a bit difficult to get to our end game, but having a 5/3 as early as turn three (off of one of the Sphere of the Suns) seems good.
- GU. This is the deck I like the best. While the curve is a little wonky, blue gives us three removal spells in Narcolepsy as well as Mulldrifter, Aethersnipe, and Helium Squirter (which can make our big green creatures fly).
- GB. This deck has access to the very powerful Necrogenesis. The curve looks really lopsided in this deck but the synergy of Bone Splinters and the Eldrazi Spawn as well as the late game power of Death Denied shouldn’t be overlooked.
Since this is a thought experiment, we decided to try to build the deck from another angle. This time we decided to cut green entirely and just try to jam the UW affinity style deck. Here it is:
- UW. With 13 artifacts we should reliably be able to to cast Dispatch as Swords to Plowshares and to get a reasonable discount on Myr Enforcer. The curve of the deck actually looks pretty good, there is a reasonable amount of removal, and the artifact theme looks to be synergistic enough to consider playing.
Ultimately, I would put together something close to the GU deck with a red splash for Savage Twister. Feel free to post your builds or tell us why our builds are terrible. I’d rather know now than on Saturday morning in Vegas.
At age 15, while standing in a record store with his high school bandmates, Shawn Massak made the uncool decision to spend the last of his money on a 7th edition starter deck (the one with foil Thorn Elemental). Since that fateful day 11 years ago, Shawn has decorated rooms of his apartment with MTG posters, cosplayed as Jace, the Mindsculptor, and competes with LSV for the record of most islands played (lifetime). When he’s not playing Magic, Shawn works as a job coach for people with disabilities and plays guitar in an indie-pop band.