Dies to Removal

A discussion of the Modern metagame

The three bad guys, according to mtgo-stats.com in order of metagame percentage (sorted by the last 2 weeks of MTGO + live results), are Splinter Twin (18%), Birthing Pod (13%), and Affinity (8%).

Modern is fundamentally a turn 4 format, as stated by Wizards of the Coast. To build a powerful deck in this format demands that you either try to win before turn 4 (Infect, Griselbrand Reanimator), present efficient, redunant aggro threats (Zoo, Affinity, Pod), win with an uninteractive combo (Hexproof Auras, Eggs, Storm, Burn), or win through an active denial of resources (Discard, UWR Control). Splinter Twin decks occupy the space between uninteractive combo and aggro, playing out both ways according to the matchup.

This deck plays in the same space as Tempo-Twin, but with less emphasis on combo and more attention given to
efficient early threats.

The Red Menace

If you’re looking to play in Modern, and you’re looking to play with creatures, you need to be aware of the primary weapon against them.



Easily the most played removal spell in Modern, your creatures need to survive a Lightning Bolt, provide value even before or after dying to a Lightning Bolt, or be otherwise expendable enough to make spending a Lightning Bolt on it unattractive.

This deck features, among other things, a heavy emphasis on Lightning Bolt resistance. Several of the creatures have toughness 4 (Brimaz, Hero of Bladehold, Restoration Angel, Spellskite), or can be made into a 4 toughness creature at instant speed (Figure of Destiny). Auriok Champion can’t be targeted by Lightning Bolt. Spellskite can redirect Lightning Bolts (and survive them). Restoration Angel can blink a creature in response to a Lightning Bolt, or any other single-target removal.

Oops, I Win!

The deck features two turn 5 combos, one degenerate, one fair.



Restoration Angel + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker can win the game in a single turn if your opponent taps out, letting you flash in an Angel at their end of turn and combo with Kiki-Jiki on turn 5.



If you’re not playing a reactive game vs. a fair deck, you can alternatively tap out for Hero of Bladehold, and cast Kiki-Jiki on turn 5. A Hero of Bladehold, plus a copy from Kiki-Jiki, can attack for exactly 20 damage if you stack triggers correctly (put both Battle Cry triggers on the bottom, you’ll end up with a 4/4, a 4/4, and 4 3/1s).

Even if you’re not threatening a combo, you can still just attack with a bunch of efficient creatures, hold up mana for instant-speed removal, or fight fairly as needed. You won’t be drawing any dead Splinter Twins in the late-game.

Against a board stall, you can send copies of creatures into the red zone with Kiki-Jiki, threatening deathtouch activation with Vault of the Archangel and making blocking a nightmare for your opponent.

Oops, You Can’t Win!

Disruptive creatures Auriok Champion and Spellskite can, almost single-handedly, make the Splinter Twin matchup laughably easy, assuming that you also have board presence to take advantage of their disruption. With a single Auriok Champion on the field, an opponent cannot win with a Deceiver Exarch / Splinter Twin combo (you can gain a life for every 1 power copy he puts on the board). With two, an opponent cannot win with a Pestermite / Splinter Twin combo (you’ll gain 2 for every 2 power copy). With a Spellskite on the field, you can steal a Splinter Twin enchantment from the stack. Occasionally, Spellskite steals the Infect / Hexproof Aura match as added value.

From the sideboard, Hide // Seek single-handedly turns the Ad Nauseam / Lightning Storm match into a cakewalk (assuming you draw it), since they play only 1 copy of Lightning Storm or Conflagrate. It occasionally searches out and exiles an Emrakul from Tron, or a 1-of Gifts target, or pulls the winning Valakut from a Scapeshift player. Hide acts as Path to Exile 4-8 against Wurmcoil Engine, denying them the 3/3 tokens. It’s also instant speed removal against the entirety of the Affinity deck (you can hide their Darksteel Citadel, if needed).

Leyline of Sanctity is difficult for a Scapeshift deck to fight through, impossible for a Burn deck to handle, and a real bummer for the player piloting 8-rack or any other targeted discard deck.

Rest in Peace is a giant hoser for a Storm deck relying on Past in Flames, a Pod deck looking to abuse an infinite Persist combo featuring Melira, Sylvok Outcast, and Living End. It shrinks Goyfs to 0/1s and Knights of the Reliquary to 2/2s.

Batterskull is here as a test for grindy matchups.

Dat Synergy, Son

On top of the degenerate Kiki combos, Auriok Champion can gain arbitrarily large amounts of life with your tokens entering the battlefield from Brimaz / Hero of Bladehold. If the opponent has a Rain of Gore, the trigger says “may”, so you can choose not to gain life. Seems fine!

The mana base is highly suited to playing and playing against Blood Moon. Nearly every dual taps for red, so a Blood Moon won’t hurt if you’ve fetched out 2 Plains. If you only have 1, you have access to Path to Exile to find the other. Under a Blood Moon, the most restrictive mana cost is [mana]1WW[/mana], which is quite reasonable.

I don’t play any Blood Moons, but I could.

Tweaks and Tips

In a future revision of the deck, I might like to incorporate Blade Splicer as another blink target with bonus Kiki-Jiki synergy, carve out a few sideboard slots for a Blood Moon, and play Linvala, Keeper of Silence as (YET ANOTHER) hoser against Twin, Melira Pod and Affinity.

Lists
[deck]BBBSG v. 1.0[/deck]

Ok bros, now let's start tweaking this to perfection.

I'm not sure you even need Dark Confidant. You have a lot of powerful cards and it seems like Chandra would be better here, especially if you're looking for resistance to Bolt.

I sense a token subtheme as a potential development for the deck. Brimaz, Hero, Auriok Champion, and you mentioned Blade Splicer. Why not Lingering Souls?

Dark Confidant is great but he's usually just kill-on-sight, I seldomly draw extra cards from him. I have a big soft spot in the 2drop slot. I considered Thalia as a way to disrupt the faster combo decks.

I'm happy to try out Chandra in his place, and sprinkle in a few LingSouls for value.

I think Thalia would be great. Thalia + Spellskite is pretty much unbeatable for Storm and Twin.

I have a soft game 1 to Storm (doesn't everyone, lol) that Thalia would help a lot.

Dropping Confidant would let me drop the singleton Swamp, which screws up my FoD a surprising amount.

This leaves 1 extra spot that I'm tempted to plug with a Sword. Feast & Famine is my favorite.

Lol I like the idea of agressive deck with ups I combo .

I cant however understand why the hell you want aurok champion, especially in md.

I would go with Thalia personally and Blade Splicer.

Why would you go for black if u dont play any discard / terminates / liliana / bob?

Auriok Champion is a leftover from a beta version where I was running Anger of the Gods and wanted a 2 drop that could survive it. While testing, I found that it let me tap out freely vs. Twin which is everywhere these days.

I am playing Bob, look at the bottom deck list.

Even without him, the black splash lets me cast the back half of Hide // Seek.

Don't know a ton about modern as I just started playing so take this with a grain of salt, but based on what you said earlier, if you were thinking about dropping Bob, have you thought about moving Hide//Seek to the MB which would free up 4 SB slots? Worst case a turn 2 Seek would give you information on their sequencing and what they have in their opening hand.

Black seems very unnecessary in this deck. Just my $0.02

Lorddax:

I think maindeck artifact / enchantment hate is a pretty loose plan, it doesn't contribute to my primary win con: beating down with totally sweet dudes.

Indeed, Dark Confidant is my least favorite creature. I'll keep a singleton Blood Crypt to activate Vault, though, fetched along the way towards the 3 red sources for Kiki as necessary.

Will test tonight with 3x Thalia and either a Sword or the 25th land.

Or something else? Open to suggestions.

3x Thalia, 1x Chandra.

#yolo mode activated, will test this version tonight.

[deck]BBBSG v. 1.1[/deck]

Trimmed the Godless Shrine and Swamp for 2 Plains.

dat Eiganjo Castle

Seems like you aren't going all in on Kiki-Resto, so are 3 Kiki necessary? After a quick scan at the list it seems like you could run 3 Hero of Bladehold and 2 Kiki, swap the numbers. Would you ever want to run Wall of Omens? It's not really aggressive, and probably stepping on the toes of RW Twin too much. Cool 2-drop though...

I like the list, it's great to see someone doing something different in Modern.

I watched the "Team Italia" video, did you test Spirit of the Labyrinth much?

Todd:

I could certainly swap the numbers around a bit, I've had Kiki rot in my hand before, and putting in more Legendary creatures makes him worse. I'll think about it a bit.

I was disappointed with Spirit of the Labyrinth. I put him in as a Storm hoser with upside against Zoo, but he doesn't hose storm very well and Zoo isn't very common. I think Thalia will be more effective.

I wouldn't run Wall of Omens because it telegraphs that I might be running a Kiki deck, and does nothing by itself. It's a good draw engine in raw Twin lists, but I'm only including the combo as a plan B. I usually win without ever seeing or resolving Kiki.

I would totally get rid of auriok champion and play stuff like blade splicer, which combos nicely with resto angel. In most matches it doesnt close to nothing.

Played a bit this morning and ran this up against a UB Teachings list, Zoo and Tron, beat all 3. Didn't see any Twin, so the verdict is still out.

I swapped the 4 Auriok Champions for 4 Blade Splicers and generally enjoyed the change. I hit the Grim Lavamancer, Thalia, Blade Splicer, Restoration Angel curve once, it felt pretty broken.

Here was the list -

[deck]BBBSG v. 1.2[/deck]

Wouldn't replace with Blade Splicer. Need another two drop so you aren't glutted at 3cmc.

I just tried it out for yolos. I didn't have enough time to do real testing before downtime, so I just wanted to see how the heavier curve felt.

If anything, I like having more creatures and am considering testing without Grim Lavamancer or Lightning Bolt. I know, blasphemy, but the skinny 2-drop spot concerns me.

I'm also not opposed to testing reduced counts on Figure of Destiny (even though I have a man-sized crush on him). He's a great mana sink, but drawing him in multiples can muck up my board presence.

Shouldn't you just play Mono-White, or go white-splash-black, if you don't want Lightning Bolt? Not saying that's a bad thing. Seems like this sort of list would love a sword or two.

Have you ever tried Dryad Militant as a Storm-hoser?

I do want Lightning Bolt, I'm just saying that there are no sacred cows here, I'm willing to test every slot.

Dryad Militant is a fine card, certainly better in the red zone than Grim Lavamancer and has bonus Storm-hosing applications. I tried it in small Naya Zoo and it was fine, maybe it has more of a home here.

If I decided to drop the cute Kiki combo, I would replace him with 2 swords and lean more heavily on Hero of Bladehold.

Shit, I could just play AEther Vial in the 1 spot.

/scribbles furiously in mad scientist notebook

Cheat in Blade Splicer and cast Resto in the same turn?

You'd want lots of creatures at 2 and 3 right, that seems to be where Vial is good?

Yes, the 2/3 spot offers a lot of Vial value.

Aether Vial on turn 1 sets you up for excellent disruption. Turn 3 lets you drop a Spellskite for the opponent's untap and intercept a Splinter Twin. Also lets you drop a Thalia in the middle of Storm's turn 3 to muck up their rituals and force them to spend an expensive Bolt or Grapeshot to remove her.

AEther Vial is a terrible topdeck though, so who knows...

You might want to try and bild deck similar to hatebears with red only.

This will allow you to use cards like Leonin Arbiter, Aven Mindcensor, Ethersworn Canonist, Flickerwisp, Linvala Keeper of Silence plus Ghost Quarter in lands to blow them with it.

Leonin Arbiter seems brutal in a Blood Moon deck, but maybe I'm getting a bit too far off topic...

Yeah, I'm only considering AEther Vial for its possible contributions to the deck concept I outlined in the OP. I'm not going to build a rogue version of the hatebear deck just to be cute.

Going too deep. Vial isn't powerful enough for what this deck wants to be doing, which is to play powerful cards that our opponent can't profitably interact with. You could play a second Spellskite main. It does a good job of protecting your Figures. I also think three Lavamancer is too many.

Val:

Agreed, I'd like access to a second Spellskite, and the 3rd Grim Lavamancer may not be worth the slot. I'm usually not worried about killing x/2s, but it's fine to see him in the midgame.

In a test version, I replaced him with 2 Swords of Fire and Ice. Was OK, let me kill Etched Champion which was good value.

There's probably some correct number of Kitchen Finks to beat alongside my Brimaz.

The curve on this one looks pretty great:

[deck]BBBSG v. 1.3[/deck]

1 CMC: 10
2 CMC: 10
3 CMC: 7
4 CMC: 6
5 CMC: 3

Average CMC: 2.5

Lightning Helix can be Path to Exile depending on metagame or preference. Might need 1 more land, would cut the 4th Kitchen Finks or 4th FoD to make room.

But then again, #greed.

Could you explain the choice of Hide//Seek over things like Wear//Tear or Shattering Blow or Rakdos Charm? I just don't see how it's worth playing over those better options. Does it solve any impossible match-ups?

I'll explain why I run it, you can decide if it's worthwhile.

The Hide side can, at instant speed, effectively "exile" a Wurmcoil Engine, denying the tokens granted upon destruction. It can hit an artifact or an enchantment, offering flexibility in case I need enchantment removal in a pinch.

It's extra removal to bring in against Affinity, and gets around indestructibile cards, though that's rarely relevant.

The artifact decks don't run enchantments, and the enchantment decks don't run artifacts, so the upside on Wear // Tear is minimized.

The Seek half can strip 1-of win conditions from Gifts players or the Ad Nauseam combo decks, the Craterhoof Behemoth from combo elves, or silver bullet answers from a Pod player.

Played this in the daily that just crashed.

[deck]Modern BBBSG v. 1.4[/deck]

I was 2-1 going into round 4, beat a Junk deck and a Pod deck, losing to some sort of Jund brew in round 3.

The Resto-Kiki combination is brutal when the opponent doesn't expect it, but I lost round 3 and a pair of games in earlier rounds because I didn't make land drops or I had too many white sources. I'm going to adjust the mana slightly, but not go nuts.

There's
also a tension between PtE and Blood Moon that I don't like. I think I need to choose a different kill spell (likely Terminate or Dismember).

I love what Thalia adds to the deck, slowing down my opponent without affecting my critical combo turn.

Terminate seems like a reasonable concession to postboard Blood Moon.

Then you would need basic swamp somewhere.