Modern Family – Prepping for Grand Prix Chicago

Hey everybody! Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Chris Adraneda. I am a long time Magic player dating all the way back to when Legends first dropped in 1994.

A brief history: one day my brother came home with a bunch of extra commons and uncommons from Revised and Legends that a friend gave to him. Needless to say, that is all it took. I was addicted. Fast forward 5 years and I’m PTQ grinding all over the midwest: Madison, Urbana-Champaign, St. Louis, Iowa, Ohio and obviously my hometown of Chicago. A few years after that I decided to let the game go. Around the time Phyrexian Scuta was the next Juzam Djinn I sold off my entire collection to help finance an engagement ring and a wedding, I got married, completely forgot about the game and moved on.

One evening, years later, I’m teaching a Photoshop class at the local college I was working for. My demo illustration of a Frost Monster was projected onto the wall. It was titled “Icy Manipulator.psd.” After the demo a student comes up to me and asks, “Did you used to play Magic: The Gathering?”

And once again, that’s all it took. He brought in what cards he had. I did the same. I was swinging with Rancored Kird Apes! I was hooked all over again. That was right around the time of Ravnica (original Ravnica) and Time Spiral Standard when I traded in what old cards I had left for some new stuff.

I have always been interested in writing about Magic, attempting at first a blog about my FNM experiences, which nobody read and I eventually gave up. Now I’m thankful for this opportunity to be writing again.

One of my biggest issues with Magic, and a main reason for quitting the first time, is the need for rotation of the most important format, Standard. I completely understand that Magic: The Gathering is a business first and rotating formats is how they make money. I get that. But it still bugs me that spending $20 on a Day of Judgment one day it becomes a $2 nothing another day. The same goes for tons of other cards: Baneslayer Angel, Vengevine, Lotus Cobra, the Titan cycle, etc.

My point isn’t to complain about Standard but really to segue into Modern.

Any Magic player worth his or her salt already knows what Modern is made of so I won’t bother with the format’s details. But I will say that because it is an eternal format it doesn’t rotate like Standard. Format staples hold their value (for the most part). Reprinting of important cards is possible, i.e. Shocklands and the soon to be reprinted Tarmogoyf in Modern Masters.

Being an old school player with barely any old cards, Legacy has been out of the question. Having issues with rotation makes Standard annoying. Modern has been a perfect fit for me.

I really want to discuss a few decks that I will be testing for the upcoming Modern Grand Prix in Chicago. Since I moved to Florida a few years ago, it will be nice to return to my old Stomping Grounds to rock some Modern.

I have been testing a few decks, mainly Jund and Valakut but the latest Pro Tour: Return to Ravnica has shaken the Modern format up a bit.

Here is what I am looking at playing:

JUND

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Creatures 4 Bloodbraid Elf 4 Dark Confidant 4 Tarmogoyf 4 Deathrite Shaman 4 Geralf’s Messenger Spells 2 Thoughtseize 3 Inquisition of Kozilek 4 Lightning Bolt 1 Terminate 1 Maelstrom Pulse 2 Abrupt Decay 3 Liliana of the Veil Lands 4 Verdant Catacombs 1 Marsh Flats 1 Arid Mesa 2 Overgrown Tomb 1 Blood Crypt 1 Stomping Ground 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 2 Treetop Village 2 Raging Ravine 2 Twilight Mire 1 Graven Cairns 1 Forest 1 Mountain 1 Swamp Sideboard 2 Obstinate Baloth 3 Slaughter Games 1 Thoughtseize 1 Abrupt Decay 3 Ancient Grudge 2 Jund Charm 3 Fulminator Mage

Pro Tour Return to Ravnica has slightly changed the face of the Modern Poster Boy: Jund into something resembling the above list.

There have been arguments that not having Kitchen Finks main is a bad thing. PT RtR has proven otherwise. Deathrite Shaman put many players in the Top 8 including Player of the Year and 1st runner up at the PT Yuuya Watanabe. After playing with Deathrite Shaman I’m completely sold. This card is amazing and provides reach, life and mana acceleration, it seems like a nice replacement for the old guard Persister. If the Shaman is left un-checked it will win games with incremental card advantage. It can mean a possible Turn 2 Liliana of the Veil or Turn 3 Bloodbraid Elf. Deathrite Shaman is a better Grim Lavamancer by leaps and bounds and adds so many possibilities all the while being easier to cast. The Shaman was made for Modern.

Throwing Geralf’s Messenger into the mix also adds a nice almost 3-for-1 that fits into the Jund paradigm as well. This guy is the actual reverse Kitchen Finks and takes his place as a soon-to-be-staple of the deck. The mana on the Messenger being BBB is pretty bad and admittedly I will have to test and adjust accordingly. It has been said that not being able to block is also a negative mark in the Messenger’s favor. But who really blocks in Modern anyways. And not having that extra life off of the Kitchen Finks can be problematic in a deck with fetches, shocks, Thoughtseize and Dark Confidant. Greatness at any cost I always say.

For the most part my sideboard is built to fight the decks I’m scared of, mainly combo decks like Eggs and Storm. Slaughter Games provides that much needed push to win those games. With Deathrite Shaman it can even go off turn 3, a turn sooner then most combos in the format need to win. Robots is very much a deck and I have 3 slots dedicated to that menace. Fulminator Mage is solid against Tron and Valakut decks as well as the mirror since Jund’s Achilles’s Heel has always been its mana.

Jund nouveau is right up my alley and I’m most likely going to play it at the Grand Prix. But there is another deck that I’ve been toying with that has been making me grin ear to ear.

Consider this deck:

AGGRO VALAKUT

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Creatures 4 Bloodbraid Elf 4 Kitchen Finks 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder Spells 4 Rampant Growth 4 Explore 4 Harmonize 4 Scapeshift 4 Lightning Bolt 2 Dismember Lands 4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle 3 Stomping Ground 3 Fire-lit Thicket 2 Raging Ravine 3 Treetop Village 2 Forest 9 Mountain Sideboard 2 Nature’s Claim 2 Ancient Grudge 3 Engineered Explosives 3 Chalice of the Void 1 Shatterstorm 2 Obstinate Baloth 2 Relic of Progenitus

I have been testing this deck a lot the past few weeks. This iteration of Valakut has proven to be very resilient. I tested it against control, Jund, and Robots. It has faired well in all of the match-ups.

What I like about the deck is that it actually plays out like a midrange deck, ramping, controlling the early board with Bolts and Dismembers and dropping Bloodbraid Elf for the win. In the Jund matches I have found that Valakut has been more card advantageous then Jund. Some games came down to Bloodbraid Elf into Kitchen Finks. Other games were just Harmonizing into Scapeshift on turn 5 for the win. What I did notice was Harmonize and Explore really provided the card draw to dig for the Scapeshift or any other answer. Because of Harmonize I always had business spells. If my opponent would Thoughtseize my hand consisting of both Scapeshift and Harmonize they would always take Scapeshift, rightfully so. But Harmonize was always that card that got me back in it. One game I Harmonized so many times that I played all four of my Bloodbraids in a game, obviously for the win. All in all I think my version of Valakut has a good game against Aggro and Midrange decks.

My version of Valakut really is an Aggro-Combo deck as opposed to the popular RUG versions of the deck that are Control-Combo. What I don’t like about the RUG Valakut decks how they just stymie the board with Cryptic Commands and Remand until they hit 7-8 lands. My version attacks the board aggressively almost always having a turn 3 Bloodbraid Elf or Harmonize to dig for more Bloodbraids. Also, the aggressive side helps knock your opponent down below 18 to be able to win off of Scapeshift at 7 lands. Some games have gone: Turn 2 ramp, Turn 3 ramp, Lightning Bolt them at the end of their turn, Turn 4 ramp spell and Scapeshift for the win.

I do understand that RUG Valakut has a very good game against other combo decks but, hopefully, that is where my sideboard comes in. Now that Eggs has won a Pro Tour it will be hated out. Enter Chalice of the Void x 3. Chalice set to 0 or 1 should effectively shut them down. Unless they board in Echoing Truth and have it in their opening hand, as opposed to digging for it, Aggro Valakut should be able to out combo them. Chalice set to 1 will also help slow down RG Tron and Storm decks. Engineered Explosives set to 0 will help against pesky token strategies like BW Tokens itself, Splinter Twin and Kiki-Pod. I know this Aggro Valakut brew certainly isn’t the most optimal but it fits my play style and I really enjoy it!

But I won’t know how either deck will do until I hit the Grand Prix. Hopefully I’ll have decided what to play by then.

As much as Modern has become “defined” with almost 35% of the last Pro Tour being Jund, there is a wealth of decks to be tested and played. Any deck can pop up out of nowhere and win. I encourage new players to start hoarding eternal cards, get a full set of Shock lands and Fetch lands, buy into Modern Masters and start brewing the format! WOTC is obviously trying to push the format with tons of GPs, PTs, the upcoming PTQ season, RtR Shock land reprints. They are pushing Modern because it is an amazing format. When Modern becomes an FNM option instead of tired Standard (Midrange Jund, American Midrange, Naya Midrange, Junk Midrange, Thragtusk x 4 in every deck, Reanimate Angel of Serenity or Griselbrand.dec ), I’ll be a happier Magic player.

Until then, keep brewing!

Peace,
Chris Adraneda
Twitter: @cpa13

P.S. I actually really enjoy playing Standard. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to write about it in the near future. Modern just had me at “Hello.”