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Main » Articles » Five Decks You'll Play This Weekend

Five Decks You'll Play This Weekend

Brandon Isleib
Posted on June 24, 2015
 Reddit

Welcome to Gathering Magic's weekly quintet of Magic Online decks you should be aware of this weekend, whether you're playing a major online event, going to a Grand Prix, or hitting Friday Night Magic. In an era of big data, Magic Online provides some of the biggest data, so even a quick-and-dirty snapshot of recent activity gets you ahead of the competition. This week, with Grand Prix Singapore being Modern and Grand Prix Buenos Aires being Standard, I'll highlight three Modern decks and two Standard decks.

Raffle Shuffle in Singapore

According to Wikipedia, modern Singapore was founded by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles in the 1800s. He later wrote The History of Java, which, from a glance, seems to be about geography and neither computer languages nor coffee. Enough old history—here's last week's history of what 4–0'd at least twice in Modern Dailies (Bold = won a Daily):

  • Affinity: 7 (2 wins)

  • Amulet Bloom: 4

  • Jund: 4

  • Abzan: 3

  • Grixis Control: 3

  • Elf Company: 3

  • Red-Green Tron: 3

  • Naya Burn: 3

  • Infect: 3

  • Blue-Red Twin: 2

  • Dredgevine: 2

  • Grixis Delver: 2

Affinity took three spots of Sunday's Top 8, all with normal lists. This 4–0 list from Thursday went to slightly different places:

Affinity ? Modern | zbishop

It's not as though main-decking Spellskite is a nonbo; unlike several decks that jam it in out of necessity, there's real synergy here. In addition to the usual reasons people play Spellskite, Affinity has a particular interest in it now because Spellskite can change both targets of Kolaghan's Command to itself, changing a two-for-one into an even trade (minus some life of course). Pendelhaven's rare in an Affinity deck; it seems to be at its best pumping Inkmoth Nexus here, but there are several other creatures such as Vault Skirge with which it has utility. The sideboard has Wear // Tear as an efficient use of a sideboard slot and Rule of Law, which makes a lot of sense in this deck since it's virtually a curve-topper. If you've dumped your whole hand, as Affinity is wont to do, Rule of Law shuts the door behind you. I like the idea, and it shows, as many Affinity decks have, that Glimmervoid and Mox Opal let Affinity's sideboard be surprisingly diverse.

After Liliana's dedication to Jund the last few weeks, she gave some Abzan a little more love recently, winning Friday's Daily with a Knight to defend her:

Abzan ? Modern | samout

While Knight of the Reliquary is more associated with its native Bant shard than with Abzan, it makes a lot of sense with both Dark Confidant as a cheap, eventually large threat and with Liliana of the Veil as it gets pumped by discard. In other words, Knight of the Reliquary in Abzan has similar synergies as Tarmogoyf except that it tutors for stuff. And as Raging Ravine is a key card for Jund right now, its little cousin Stirring Wildwood isn't too bad either. It's certainly not the only way to build Abzan right now—Siege Rhino is still plenty popular—but Stirring Wildwood, Lingering Souls, and Path to Exile make white a still-attractive option for Liliana lovers.

One Spicy Metaball

This metaball dish has egg in it:

Krark-Clan Eggs ? Modern | Spokes

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
If you missed Eggs in its original form (perhaps causing you to wonder why Second Sunrise is banned in Modern), the basic idea is to loop cantripping artifacts like Chromatic Sphere and Chromatic Star, use cards like Faith's Reward (and in this deck Open the Vaults) to gain incremental advantage, use Reshape to find critical combo pieces and pull ahead on mana (like with Lotus Bloom), and after a long time of this loop, play a win condition. The win loop isn't conducive to Magic Online's timed play, but instead of a main-decked Pyrite Spellbomb win condition (here, it's in the sideboard), Krark-Clan Ironworks–style Eggs is able to make absurd colorless mana to hard-cast Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and win the game on the spot.

Due to the main deck being tight on space and the deck having few reliable sources of colored mana, the sideboard is necessarily weird. It appears to be skewed toward burn, with Leyline of Sanctity and Nyx-Fleece Ram joined by Leonin Elder (who probably also comes in against Affinity). Defense Grid and Tormod's Crypt keep instant-heavy decks in check, especially now that many Snapcaster Mage decks are Grixis with delve creatures.

As a complicated, noninteractive deck, this might not be your thing, but like Amulet Bloom, it can reward practice and patience. Attacking the format from an angle presumed dead definitely has its merits, as opponents don't have the sideboards for it. Plus, who doesn't want to hard-cast Emrakul, the Aeons Torn?

Don't Cry, GP Argentina

A pun along that line was in-evita-ble . . . Anyway, here're the Standard results:

  • Esper Dragons: 5 (2 wins)

  • Red Aggro: 5

  • Mardu Dragons: 4

  • Naya Dragons: 4

  • Atarka Red: 3

  • Green Devotion: 2 (2 wins)

  • Abzan Control: 2

  • Abzan Midrange: 2

  • Jeskai Tokens: 2

That table notwithstanding, I'm pulling both my decks from the finals of Saturday's Pro Tour Qualifier, presented winner-first:

B/R Dragons ? Standard | hieraru

Although Draconic Roar, Foul-Tongue Invocation, and Dragons give the deck its name, hieraru put an underbelly of Warriors to have a different type of synergy. (Was this done to call it a Dragon Warrior deck? If hieraru thinks like I do, the answer is yes.) Taking out the usual white to make the sleeker curve, this deck is an agro–tempo hybrid of red and Mardu, and the abundance of Warrior evasion, flying, and dash/haste makes the deck hard to deal with.

It certainly was too much for this deck to handle:

Esper Dragons ? Standard | jbe_limeboy

Going less of the permission route for more scry lands, more Haven of the Spirit Dragon, and Sign in Blood, an incredible fourteen lands enter the battlefield tapped (including Opulent Palace in a deck that doesn't need green). Running the full set of Hero's Downfall to go with the Bile Blight and Sign in Blood, this is Esper that leans heavily toward black, so the extreme color-fixing is necessary. Once the colors are fixed and some creatures are removed, the Dragons and the full complement of Haven of the Spirit Dragon make an inevitable grind more resistant than even normal Esper Dragons decks. The archetype's well known by now, but the tweaks seem good for the current metagame.

Conclusion

The Magic Online results this past week barely match the Grand Prix Copenhagen results, so it will be interesting to see which one players put more stock in while practicing Modern for this weekend. Apart from confirming the quality of R/G, Grand Prix Providence zagged similarly from the Standard Dailies preceding it. Will paper or online Magic be more predictive this weekend, will there be a mix of both, or will there be a third metagame entirely? Whatever happens, I'm glad to be able to ask the question so late in a format, and I look forward to the answer.

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TAGS articles, standard, metagame, constructed, analysis, modern, decklist, brandon isleib, 5 decks, five decks, five decks you'll play this weekend

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