Once again we will have all the videos included in this very article for this week’s Modern Monday!
Today’s deck comes to us straight from my buddy Caleb Durward himself. Well, not straight from Caleb – he didn’t send it to our inbox or anything like that – but he did manage to 5-0 a competitive Modern League with the list. Take a look at the very new and very unique list (well, new and unique to Modern at least).
2 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
1 Birds of Paradise
2 Breeding Pool
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Collected Company
4 Drogskol Captain
3 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
1 Gavony Township
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Path to Exile
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Plains
4 Rattlechains
1 Razorverge Thicket
2 Rhox War Monk
2 Seachrome Coast
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Spell Queller
1 Temple Garden
3 Windswept Heath
Sideboard
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
2 Negate
2 Path to Exile
2 Qasali Pridemage
3 Rest in Peace
3 Stony Silence
Rattlechains? Collected Company? Spell Queller? Yeah, this deck looks like it’s straight out of Standard! This is basically the Standard version of spirits, only with cards like Noble Hierarch to ramp us a little bit and Drogskol Captain because he’s a boss. Well, a lord more specifically, but you get it. In fact I had just spoke to someone last week about them adding Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit to the Standard version of the deck, but I talked them out of it because it was pretty rough on the mana; you basically had to have a Port Town on turn one if you wanted to start with Mausoleum Wanderer into an Anafenza on turn two. Thankfully Modern’s manabase has no such restrictions. Let’s see how the deck fares for us.
Yeah, so as you might have guessed, even in Modern Spell Queller is no slouch. We already knew Collected Company was good, but being able to hit two Drogskol Captains off of one is pretty hot.
Additionally, if you think Cursecatcher is good in Merfolk, Mausoleum Wanderer is a strict upgrade. It flies, it gets bigger, and it can require your opponent to pay more than one mana for their instant or sorcery. It basically does everything better. Unfortunately spirits don’t exactly have as many lords as merfolk do (who does?), but the tribe is still pretty resilient and versatile. Besides, they all fly, and they don’t need something silly like Spreading Seas to acquire their evasion.
One of my favorite additions to the deck was Kira, Great Glass-Spinner. Because she’s also a spirit! Who knew? No, for real, I bet some people knew, but up until now it hasn’t really been relevant. Now it is as she gets pumped by Drogskol Captain and triggers things like Mausoleum Wanderer. (Noticing a pattern here?) The single Phantasmal Image was ago great, as one of the old tricks was to copy your own Drogskol Captain, giving both creatures hexproof and negating the Image’s drawback.
One of the cards I was most surprised about, but also most pleased about, was the Rhox War Monk. We live in a world where Rhox War Monk simply isn’t good enough a lot of the time, which is unfortunate because he’s one of my favorites, but here he was. I actually liked him a lot, and he’s one of the few non-spirits in the deck.
I was actually surprised that the deck performed as well as it did for us, but spirits might end up being the real deal in Modern. I even imagine there was a way we could have won the Ad Nauseam matchup, but I’m not entirely sure. Nevertheless, the deck has a lot of great answers and threats to a lot of the cards and strategies in the format, and oftentimes they’re built into to our creatures! I personally loved the deck and probably wouldn’t hesitate to try it in real life.
Thanks for reading and I’ll catch you next week!
Frank Lepore
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