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Main » Articles » A Glimpse into Modern and Legacy

A Glimpse into Modern and Legacy

Ali Aintrazi
Posted on November 4, 2016
 Reddit

Welcome back everyone! I hope you all had a great Halloween. Maybe you got all the candy? Hung out with friends? Or maybe you just partied until you passed out. Regardless, I hope you all had a great time! I got to take my son, Aiden, trick or treating for the first time ever and he had a blast. Wish I got that excited for candy! Well, while I may not get super excited for candy, a sweet deck does get me hyped! Today we are going to go over a couple of exciting Modern decks and I’ll also give my updated Tron deck. After that, we’ll be discussing my Legacy options for SCG Baltimore. Not sure which Legacy deck I’ll play, so maybe you guys can help me out in the comments. Before all that though, let’s get down to these awesome decks!

First up, let’s look at a Izzet Control deck!

Izzet Control ? Modern| DDMEELOW

Blood Moon
Yup, that’s right, I said Izzet Control. Not Jeskai, not Grixis, but just straight up U/R. It’s a Blood Moon Control deck, but unlike Blue Moon, it plays some pretty good Red spells! Usually Blue Moon decks control the board with removal and Blood Moon and then slowly finish the opponent off with Vedalken Shackles or a Vendillion Clique. However, Ddmellow decided to go with Pia and Kiran Nalaar over Vendillion Clique and Chandra, Flamecaller instead of Vedalken Shackles. You read that right. Chandra. Flamecaller. Talk about ending the game fast. This Chandra will slam the door shut against many opponents, especially after a resolved Blood Moon. She’s also great at wiping the board and keeping other Planeswalkers in check, say like against, Lilliana of the Veil.

Usually control decks can’t get free wins by drawing the “nuts” as people say these days. However, this control deck can easily get free wins thanks to ye ole Blood Moon! Blood Moon seems great right now, especially since it doesn’t even hurt you. If you like countering spells, keeping the battlefield clean with removal, and locking opponents out until you can Chandra them to death, then I’d highly recommend giving this deck a go.

Collected Company was pretty oppressing in Standard. While it was continuously the best card to play when it was legal in Standard, it was still played in Modern as well. We’ve seen so many decks adopt the 4-mana instant double Demonic Tutor in Modern from Abzan Company to Bant Spirits. Well, good friend Eli Kassis has been playing Retreat to Coralhelm and Collected Company in the same deck for a while. He’s had a lot of high finishes with his deck, after sleeving it up and jamming a couple of games not only can I say it’s good, but it’s also extremely fun to play!

Coral ?N Company ? Modern| Eli Kassis

Noble Hierarch
Bam! I’ve always wanted to play the full set of Birds of Paradise and Noble Hierarchs in my Chord / Company decks but could never justify it. They are just so bad in the mid to late game. Notice that Eli is running Retreat to Coralhelm and Nahiri, the Harbringer. This makes running that many mana creatures not bad at all. Especially since you have the fore mentioned cards to discard them to.

Eli’s Collected Companies are terrifying. You never know what the deck is going to hit exactly since the creatures are diverse. The deck can counter your board wipe with a Selfless Spirit or Spell Queller. It can start gaining card advantage through Courser of Kruphix or Eternal Witness. Or it can literally just kill you by finding a Knight of the Reliquary at instant speed which basically gives the creature haste, if you already have a Retreat to Coralhelm in play, the game is almost over since you can grow your Knight extremely large by continuously untapping it with Retreat and in turn making your Knight The Abyss or just straight up killing them. This also thins your deck of lands making your top decks extremely potent. Don’t forget you can also float mana as you’re sacrificing these lands to the Knight and basically empty your hand if you so desire.

Are you a fan of Collected Company decks? Be sure to try this one out. You can also throw in a Kessig Wolf Run to give your Knight trample and make any swing with it basically lethal. Up to you!

Time for an old favorite. R/G Tron!

R/G Tron ? Modern| Ali Aintrazi

Oblivion Stone
Tron has a special place in my heart. How can it not after winning me the invitational and allowing me to get my very own token in my image? This is the Tron list I would play if I had a Modern event tomorrow and wanted to play Tron.

The main difference between my list and others is that I’m a firm believer of the full playset of Oblivion Stones. That card can just win so many games on its own and you don’t even need the Tron lands online to do so. I’ve also shaved Pyroclasm for Kozilek's Return. I’ve really liked being able to tutor up a board wipe with Ancient Stirring if I really need to. The Instant speed is also great at fighting creature lands, mostly things like Inkmoth Nexus and Blinkmoth Nexus. While it may not kill Prized Amalgam (Pyroclasm won’t do it either) it does deal with Bridge from Below tokens and Haunted Dead well. Recasting the backside of Kozilek's Return by casting an Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger or a World Breaker is also just as great as you would expect.

I’ve been running an Urza's Factory in the main and sideboard for a while now. It’s been hopping from main deck to board depending on what I’m expecting my opponents to play. Factory is just fantastic against the control decks. Without Eye of Ugin, they’ve gotten a bit harder to beat and Urza's Factory is a great way to continuously pressure them with a stream of Assembly-Worker tokens. When you’re out of gas it’s so nice being able to grab this land over a Sanctum of Ugin and then praying to draw a 7-drop. Instead you can just get Urza's Factory and grind your opponent’s out. It’s no Eye of Ugin mind you, but it does tap for mana and it does its job by providing “card advantage.”

Next up we go on to Legacy. Again, the Open in Baltimore is coming up and these are the decks I’m considering. I’ve wanted to play a Planeswalker Nic Fit deck, but everyone I talk to tells me not to. I can’t convince myself because I don’t currently have access to the cards on Magic Online and going out to play-test has gotten harder with kids. So, these are the two lists I’m looking at.

First up!

Kaladeshian Delver ? Legacy | Eli Kassis

Bomat Courier
This is basically U/R Delver but with a twist. We’ve removed Monastery Swiftspear in favor of Bomat Couriers for card advantage and to fuel Bedlam Reveler and Set Adrift later in the game. Worst case scenario, you draw the Courier late in the game and you can just cycle it for 2 mana and a combat step if you’re hellbent already, and you usually are if the game is going super late. Best case scenario, you accumulate four or more cards under the Courier and after you’ve exhausted your hand you get to basically Treasure Cruise. However, instead of exiling your graveyard and turning off Bedlam Reveler, you either fuel it or keep it the same.

Set Adrift may look out of place but it’s a nice way to deal with pesky nonland permanents for a turn or so since that’s usually all you need. It can also return a permanent that was cheated into play through an Ancient Tomb or return the ever annoying Chalice of the Void.

This deck, while not exciting, is a proven strategy in the Legacy metagame. It’s not my style but it is a very solid deck and has a pretty good matchup against most decks in Legacy.

The other deck of choice is more my style. Heck, almost half the cards in the deck are lands.

Thirteen Post ? Legacy| Ali Aintrazi

Cloudpost
Eldrazi. All formats. Emrakul for president! If you like Tron lands, then you’ll love the locus lands that are Cloudpost, Glimmerpost, Vesuva, and Thespian's Stage. You don’t even need three different lands in play to generate a bunch of mana. Just need a couple of Cloudposts and maybe some Glimmerposts. With Candelabra of Tawnos you can massively explode your mana if you already have Posts in play. We all know Show and Telling Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is usually game over, but in this deck, Show and Telling Primeval Titan is close to game over as well. If it gets to attack, your opponent should probably pack it up unless you’re within burn range.

With this deck, you want to Pithing Needle Wasteland as soon as possible since Wasteland can make things rough for you. However, with Crop Rotation you can essentially counter the Wasteland and get another land of your choosing. Crop Rotation is an extremely powerful card here and mastering it is essential to mastering the deck. It can dig you out of situations you thought you couldn’t get out of. It can gain you a bunch of life too by doing something as simple as continuously fetching some Glimmerposts to get out of burn range. It’s also great at countering Price of Progress by fetching up a Glacial Chasm at instant speed! The deck can set up an infinite turn lock too if it is needed for whatever reason with Emrakul and Karakas.

There is an argument to playing the old Eldrazi over Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger because of Show and Tell and annihilator but I believe the Ceaseless Hunger is just too good to pass up. Especially since it’s cheaper to cast than Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre.

So many ins. So many outs. Over and under and all about. This deck can do it all.

I’m still not quite sure what I’ll be playing. Hopefully I’ll know as you’re reading this since this article will go up the day before the tournament.

Thanks for reading and the support. Hope you’ve enjoyed the article and learned something from it!

Until next time!

Ali Aintrazi

Follow me @Alieldrazi

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TAGS articles, strategy, metagame, constructed, analysis, deck lists, legacy, modern, ali aintrazi

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