Yesterday was Modern Monday and, with our new format, we now stream the matches live on my Twitch channel on Monday, alerting readers of the deck we’ll be playing and of the stream itself in an article here on NumotGaming.
Then, on the following Tuesday (today), we post the matches for those who missed them along with our thoughts in article form.
This list we’re trying out this week is an interesting one. It was piloted by Magic Online user k_f_chicken to a 5-0 finish on Magic Online!
Spells
4 Condescend
2 Confirm Suspicions
4 Cryptic Command
2 Pact of Negation
4 Remand
4 Spell Snare
4 Stubborn Denial
4 Vedalken Shackles
2 Warmonger’s Chariot
Lands
20 Island
4 Tectonic Edge
Sideboard
1 Bribery
4 Master of Waves
4 Spellskite
4 Spreading Seas
2 Vendilion Clique
It looks pretty unconventional, especially since there’s a general lack of control decks in Modern to begin with. What’s even stranger is the lack of Ancestral Vision, a card that was so good it was on the banned list for an extended period of time! The deck also has two copies of the brand new Confirm Suspicions – a card I never thought I’d see in Modern, yet here we are. Let’s take a look and see how the deck handles itself.
Okay, so all said and done the deck was actually pretty sweet. I know we misplayed against the U/W Thopter Sword list, and we still managed a pretty sweet 3-2 finish. Not bad for an extremely obscure control deck with only access to blue cards! I would definitely consider trying a few changes, however.
Plumeveil was awesome, but the very inclusion of Plumeveil means that we also have to run Warmonger’s Chariot in the deck, which does nothing without Plumeveil! There were also a couple times where we only had three Islands in play (and say one or two Tectonic Edge) and we couldn’t play both Plumveil and a counterspell. While Plumeveil does turn on Stubborn Denial, I feel like we could actually just replace those with Spell Pierce, and perhaps replace the Plumveil with Thing in the Ice. This deck is mono-counterspells, so it makes sense that we could not only protect the Thing in the Ice, but easily flip it as well.
Another change that I think the deck count benefit from would be the addition of some bounce spells. With the deck being chock full of counters, once something sneaks past our defenses, it’s basically in play for good! We should probably have a way to remedy that, whether we’re talking about Repeal, or Hurkyl’s Recall, or Engulf the Shore.
I might even be tempted to add another copy of Guile just so we make sure we hit a resilient threat in a reasonable amount of time. Additionally, I wonder if there are other cards we could be successfully utilizing in the deck like Rise from the Tides. I even wonder if there’s a place for Ancestral Vision in the deck afterall as drawing three cards for one mana seems pretty reasonable. The fact that there isn’t any of the one-mana suspend card and no Snapcaster Mages leads me to believe that this is perhaps a budget list that managed to do fairly well.
Either way, I really thought the deck was pretty sweet and I wouldn’t mind trying it out again with a few tweaks. The format seems like it’s in a decent play for some counterspells, so we’ll have to experiment and try to find out. Thanks for reading and I’ll catch you on Friday for another Magic Minute, or in my stream!
Frank Lepore
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