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Main » Articles » An Artificer's Brain

An Artificer's Brain

Ali Aintrazi
Posted on March 31, 2017
 Reddit

Splinter Twin
Welcome back! Hope you’ve had a great week so far and that you’re ready for the weekend. Starting next week, we are going to start getting Amonkhet spoilers. I’m extremely excited for Amonkhet for multiple reasons, one being that I’m ready to shake up this Standard because I’m a little tired of seeing Saheeli decks and Gideon decks. I’m hoping Amonkhet brings some new decks to the table. Second, Nicol Bolas is my favorite Magic character by a mile and we are literally going to his plane. I’m hyped to learn more about him, his plane, and what he has been planning. He is responsible for releasing the Eldrazi and he’s been peeking in on New Phyrexia. I don’t think Nicol Bolas will be in Amonkhet since his face was on the Hour of Devastation booster packs that got leaked a while ago. While that’s a little disappointing, I’ll still be okay with going to his plane and seeing what’s going on. Okay! Enough Amonkhet talk for now. Today I’m going to talk about some exciting Modern decks that have started showing up and more importantly, doing well. We know that Brain in a Jar has been showing its head here and there in Modern, but it hasn’t put up many strong finishes. Well I got a list for you! I also have a sweet Saheeli combo deck for you!

“But Ali, we are tired of hearing about Saheeli. Saheeli combo isn’t new in Standard.”

You’re right, it’s not. This Saheeli control/combo deck is for Modern and is very reminiscent of Splinter Twin decks of old. They aren’t the same thing obviously, but they do share many similarities and we’ll go into all of that. So, get ready for some awesome Modern decks!

The first one I want to go over, is Brain in a Jar.

Brain in a Jar ? Modern | TZIO

Talk about a sweet sweet deck! Tzio went undefeated with this list in an online Modern league. I’m not usually the biggest fan of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn decks, but this is doing so much more than just casting the big Eldrazi Titan. For those that are unfamiliar with how the deck works, let’s go over that first.

Brain in a Jar

This unplayable draft card is an all-star in this deck. Think of it as an Aether Vial but for spells. The downside being that you are forced to add a charge counter anytime you activate it, unlike Aether Vial. That is set off by the other ability where you can remove any number of counters to Scry X, which is great here since it can help you find a combo piece.

Faithless Looting
Okay, so this is how it works. You play Brain in a Jar and activate it. Putting a counter on it allows you to cast any spell with a converted mana cost equal to the number of charge counters on Brain in a Jar. So basically, the first time you activate it you can play Thoughtseize, Serum Visions, or Faithless Looting for free and at instant speed if you so wish. The real fun happens when you add the second charge counter. When you add the second charge counter you can then cast Beck since the converted mana cost of the Beck half on Beck // Call is only two. When you do this, you can then fuse Call since Brain in a Jar lets you play spells without paying their mana cost. This means you’ll put four 1/1 birds onto the battlefield and draw four cards. Keep in mind you can do this at instant speed for surprise blockers if you so wish. What’s crazy is that Beck // Call is great with Brain in a Jar but it’s not even the best one you can cast. When you put the second charge counter on Brain in a Jar you can cast the Breaking part on Breaking // Entering and the same thing happens, you’re allowed to fuse the cards and play both halves. So, you’ll put the top eight cards of your deck into your graveyard and then you can pick a creature from a graveyard to reanimate. Getting a creature like Emrakul or Griselbrand almost always spells game over for your opponent. What’s fantastic about Breaking // Entering is that it’s so resilient. Even if your opponent somehow exiles your graveyard with something like Nihil Spellbomb, you will still mill eight cards afterward and have a chance of hitting a creature to bring back with Entering. EVEN if you miss on Breaking after they exile your crypt, or maybe they have a Leyline of the Void in play, you can still pick a creature out of your opponent’s graveyard with Entering since it says any graveyard. Also, as soon as you choose a creature with Entering, it’s too late for your opponent to Surgical Extraction it or exile it in any other way since Entering doesn’t target.

Brain in a Jar is great for the grindy games too since you can just keep adding counters to it every turn and then on one turn you can remove all but one counter from Brain in a Jar at the end of your opponent’s turn to find that Breaking // Entering or Beck // Call. This even works if your opponent has picked your hand apart and you were only able to resolve Brain in a Jar on turn one too. Again, resilient for a combo deck!

What if I don’t get Brain in a Jar?

Goryo's Vengeance
You’ll still have other ways to combo off. You can still always Faithless Looting turn one and then Goryo's Vengeance turn two to bring back a Griselbrand. If you want to vengeance an Emrakul back, you’ll just have to wait for when you can Faithless Looting and Goryo's Vengeance in the same turn since you’ll have to respond to the shuffle ability on Emrakul and then bring it back with Goryo's Vengeance.

You can even Yahenni's Expertise or Kari Zev's Expertise into either of the fuse cards. Some Abzan decks will have Anafenza, the Foremost as their graveyard hate of choice since it’s great against dredge. However, against you, you can just Kari Zev's Expertise on Anafenza, gain control of it, and then cast Breaking // Entering without getting your creatures exiled by Anafenza. The one downside to Kari Zev's Expertise is you’ll need a creature to target with it. Some decks play little to no creatures or maybe your opponent is holding their creatures until they draw a Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek first so they can make sure the road is clear before they deploy their creatures. Well, if you happen to have a Forbidden Orchard you can just give your opponent a creature so that you can cast your Kari Zev's Expertise and go nuts!

The sideboard of this deck is mostly for when your opponent brings in cards to disrupt you. Cards like Defense Grid, Dispel, Echoing Truth, and Leyline of Sanctity are great at protecting your combo while cards like Painful Truths are a great way to refill your hand or even raise your opponent if they are also a combo deck. Anger of the Gods deals with pesky things like Gaddock Teeg or any Thalia. It’s also a fantastic way to win against those small creature decks.

Like combo decks or just want to play a wacky card like Brain in the Jar? Then this deck is for you.

Next up we have Jeskai Saheeli!

Jeskai Saheeli ? Modern | Megabjarke

If you’ve played a lot of Modern you know that Jeskai can be built a plethora of different ways. This is no different. This deck goes for the combo of Saheeli Rai instead of Nahiri, the Harbinger. The plus side to this is that you can kill them out of nowhere while still sculpting your draws with Saheeli. Saheeli can just create value with cards like Wall of Omens and Snapcaster Mage.

The Combo and the Deck

Sun Titan
We all know the combo of Saheeli Rai plus Felidar Guardian but there is also another combo with Saheeli. If you have a Saheeli in your graveyard and one on the battlefield, you can then cast Sun Titan and minus your Saheeli on Sun Titan. The new Sun Titan will get the Saheeli in your graveyard so you can do it again . . .  And again . . .  And again . . .  Basically making as many Sun Titans as you want to attack your opponent with. Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir is an extraordinary creature for this deck since it will not allow your opponent to do anything on your turn and gives you free reign to combo off.

While this deck has a combo finish you don’t need to combo by any means to win. You absolutely can just control the game with your removal and Remanding them to just tempo them out and kill them with something like a Vendilion Clique or a couple of Snapcaster Mages. Sun Titan is still Sun Titan, it doesn’t need to bring back Shaeeli for you to win. A 6/6 creature with vigilance just bringing back creatures or even lands is good enough! The deck also has Desolate Lighthouse for when the games go long or become grindy as they tend to do when you’re killing everything. We talked about how Teferi is great at allowing you to combo off without worrying about your opponent stopping you. Well even if you don’t have the combo, Teferi does other things like giving all your creatures Flash. This means you can start flashing in your Felidar Guardians to protect your Teferi from removal or just to get more value out of your Snapcasters or Wall of Omens.

Supreme Verdict
You’ve probably noticed that this deck doesn’t have much countermagic. I really like this strategy in Modern because it allows you to be much more proactive instead of constantly having to be reactive. In Modern being reactive and not having the right answer for just a single turn can mean death since the format is so hostile.

The sideboard for the deck is what you expect out of control decks these days. A bunch of different cards that kinda do the same thing but aren’t the same card. For example, Wear // Tear is great against Affinity and Blood Moon, but instead of running the third Wear // Tear for Blood Moon something like Celestial Purge is great since it can also overlap into other matchups like Jund or Death's Shadow. Same thing can be said about Anger of the Gods and Supreme Verdict. Both are great against Merfolk but since you aren’t running two Anger of the Gods, you can now bring in that Supreme Verdict against Eldrazi decks where you wouldn’t be able to if you just had two Anger of the Gods. Another thing about varying your sideboard cards is that it allows you to have more options with Snapcaster Mage and more options is never a bad thing.

I would highly recommend this deck for people that loved Splinter Twin or just like control in general. Jeskai can be built many ways and that means you could easily tune this deck to suit your meta for wherever you play. Maybe you have a bunch of Eldrazi players. If so, then you can play more board wipes like Wrath of God. Maybe you have a bunch of Jund or Abzan decks, then you can easily just jam four Ancestral Visions in the main or sideboard to combat that. Same thing if you have a lot of combo decks. You can jam more countermagic or just more hate cards in the sideboard like Rule of Law for example. It’s not Burger King, but you can have it your way!

As always thank you for reading.

Much love,

Ali Aintrazi

@Alieldrazi on Twitter

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TAGS articles, combo, constructed, analysis, modern, ali aintrazi

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