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

Five Decks You'll Play This Weekend

Brandon Isleib
Posted on September 9, 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, in advance of the Grand Prix in Oklahoma City, we'll look at Modern, with a peek at a Magic Origins Draft deck that's sending someone to the Pro Tour.

OK-en Brawler

If Oaken Brawler isn't your favorite card, you can use Oak Street Innkeeper for a pun here. There is an Oak Street in Oklahoma City, so the wordplay here is both safe and accurate. Here at Gathering Magic, we look out for your punning safety. And based on this list of Daily 4–0 decks (Bold = won a Daily), here are some safe choices for the weekend:

  • Abzan: 3 (won 3)

  • Affinity: 2

  • Grixis Twin: 1

  • Living End: 1

  • Naya Burn: 1

  • Grixis Control: 1

  • Grixis Delver: 1

  • Melira and Company: 1

  • Suicide Zoo: 1

  • White-Blue Control: 1

In various flavors, Abzan remains top-tier. Based on user name and Daily win, this player knows how to work it:

Abzan ? Modern | BWG

The choice to main-deck Scavenging Ooze is conventional, though not universal. The primary difference between BWG's deck and the other Daily winners is Voice of Resurgence. It comes at the space of some of the cheap removal. That makes some sense, as both Voice of Resurgence and cheap removal combine well with Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize. When the Abzan player can curve Thoughtseize into Abrupt Decay, it makes sense to take something that Abrupt Decay can't hit. On the flipside, if the Abzan player is curving Thoughtseize into Voice of Resurgence, it might make sense to leave the opponent with instants.

The sideboard is also a different plan than usual, although all the cards have seen time in Abzan sideboards before. Versatility of sideboarding, as well as the flexibility of the archetype shell, helps sustain a deck's metagame share, and with access to white over red, Abzan's proven even more versatile than Jund in sticking around.

Meanwhile, Caleb Durward 4–0'd and 3–1'd this week as the most recognizable name at the top digital tables (top tablets?) with a popular choice:

Grixis Delver ? Modern | CalebD

The primary innovations here are the Forked Bolts in the main deck and the sideboard configuration. Rough // Tumble is on loan from Temur Delver in Legacy, the closest thing a Delver deck gets to Whipflare in terms of being one-sided. Abbot of Keral Keep is a surprising choice for an archetype normally considered to have several counterspells, but there are only three here, as Caleb skewed the deck toward proactive capabilities. Spreading Seas hasn't been seen much outside Merfolk, but as prevalent as Abzan—the cousin of Jund in this format—is, why not use time-honored disruption against it? Vampiric Link is here for Eidolon of the Great Revel, a card that punishes 88% of the main deck's spells.

Speaking of low-cost spells, Affinity's had a Worlds-based change to its sideboard that's given it a new lease on life (or whatever robots have):

Affinity ? Modern | herbertwrb0

Much like last year's core set gave Affinity Ensoul Artifact as a sometimes two-of, Ghirapur Aether Grid is this year's inclusion to a perennial archetype. I didn't give it a second thought when it came out, other than finding a superficial resemblance to Crackling Perimeter, but allowing a free, repeatable response to decks relying on the survival of x/1s is a big deal, especially since Affinity's artifacts allow the tapping with no particular tempo or board-state loss. Tapping Cranial Plating and Welding Jar to off an Inkmoth Nexus is fantastic value, and there will usually be other artifacts on hand as a counter-response to a Vines of Vastwood. Affinity in the control seat against aggro–combo decks is not something anybody's used to, and I wouldn't be surprised if that change boosts Affinity's chances of making the top tables this weekend.

One Spicy Metaball

This 3–1 deck from Sunday looks to be an entirely new creation leveraging some old favorites:

Temur Artifacts ? Modern| chuyingfei

Most of where we've seen Thirst for Knowledge in the last year is in Esper Gifts Rites decks, where it provides major card advantage and a discard outlet. Here, it's to sort through a toolbox searchable by Trinket Mage. Having main-decked Engineered Explosives in an artifact-based deck earlier this year, I can tell you that it's the best reason to build this sort of deck. Access to Chalice of the Void, Pithing Needle, Tormod's Crypt, and new kid from a non-block Hangarback Walker give loads of options in Game 1 that are usually only available in the sideboard. The three main-deck Vedalken Shackles are also a surprise, particularly in a three-colored deck, but it's set up as a U/r/g deck, and twelve Islands are enough to deal with most of the format. The sideboard expands on the toolbox package with Elixir of Immortality and Grafdigger's Cage while having Scapeshift's backup creatures in Obstinate Baloth and Thrun, the Last Troll. The deck looks a little slow—if it doesn't have Mana Leak or Engineered Explosives in the opening hand, it might be in trouble—but the concept looks viable, and it can catch a lot of opponents off-guard.

Freerollin the Pro Tour

The weekend's major events were both Limited—Luis Scott-Vargas was defeated in the Cube-based MOCS (Magic Online Championship Series) by a deck even more controlling than he drafted—and the Pro Tour Qualifier was Magic Origins Sealed with a Top 8 Draft. And what a Draft deck to win with:

B/R Draft ? Magic Origins Sealed | FREEROLLIN, Pro Tour Qualifier

Gilt-Leaf Winnower and Dark Petition look good in most any deck, but it's Molten Vortex that stands out most to me (and explains the eighteen lands). If you build around it, Molten Vortex is tough to beat. Given the copies of Mage-Ring Bully and Dragon Fodder, Molten Vortex can join Act of Treason in the agro–tempo side of things—play a threat and clear out blockers—or it can join Blazing Hellhound in squeezing out the last points of damage to finish the game. No matter the role, it's a tough card to get through, and it seems to be used optimally here. Even while my knowledge of the format isn't huge, I'm not surprised in the slightest that this deck didn't lose a game.

Conclusion

It doesn't appear that Oklahoma City's going to have any major breakouts—possibly an increased performance from Affinity that affects the rest of the results—but anything's possible. New cards like Evolutionary Leap and Hangarback Walker are still being explored in Modern, as is Narset Transcendent, a major part of Friday's W/U 4–0 list. Amulet Bloom had a few 3–1 performances that indicate it remains poised to pounce on an unsuspecting metagame. There's a diverse field underneath the Abzan and Grixis top tier, and while we should see loads of them this weekend, what fills out the rest should be interesting to find out.

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

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