Yesterday was Modern Monday and, with our new format, we now stream the matches live on my Twitch channel, 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.
Here is the deck that we piloted which was played by QmunkE in a Magic Online League to a 5-0 finish:
Creatures
4 Blood Artist
3 Bloodghast
1 Bloodthrone Vampire
1 Drowned Rusalka
4 Hedron Crab
2 Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy
4 Magus of the Bazaar
4 Sidisi’s Faithful
3 Viscera Seer
2 Zulaport Cutthroat
Spells
4 Bridge from Below
3 Ideas Unbound
4 Rally the Ancestors
Lands
4 Flooded Strand
1 Godless Shrine
3 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
3 Marsh Flats
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Plains
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Watery Grave
Sideboard
2 Darkblast
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Felidar Cub
3 Lone Missionary
1 Ronom Unicorn
2 Spellskite
4 Tidehollow Sculler
While this isn’t a true Aristocrats deck, as we mentioned yesterday it’s definitely a combination of Aristocrats and Dredge. As an always-fan of Hedron Crab I was excited to see what the list was capable of, seeing as it managed a 5-0 finish in a League: no small feat! Let’s take a look at how it performed.
Hoo boy. Well, just like last week, things didn’t go quite as expected. It’s been a while since we’d had two records as poor as these in back-to-back weeks, but that’s how it goes sometimes. At least now people know I’m not cherry picking my matches!
While someone managed a 5-0 with the deck, I was also told in chat that there were others who ended up 0-5 and 1-4 with the deck. I’m not convinced I gave the deck the showing it deserved, what with some misplays and all, but I’m also not sure how many of those games I could have won if I played absolutely perfectly. The deck seemed to want to be doing too many things at once. While it was great to draw two cards with Magus of the Bazaar, I never had that many cards I was eager to discard. The only cards you really want in your graveyard are Bloodghast and Bridge from Below, and we only have three of the former! Maybe I was playing the deck incorrectly, but I never felt good discarding cards like Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat. I could see simply trying to get every creature into the graveyard in order to bring them all back with Rally the Ancestors, but…it just seemed so difficult.
The other main problem is how susceptible we are to both large armies of creatures and graveyard hate. Unfortunately the first elf deck we played against made both of these quite clear. Our G/W opponent who Collected Companied into a Magus of the Moon didn’t help either. We simply have no way to deal with problematic creatures, and once a card like Relic of Progenitus was on board, forget about it! I also felt the deck could use a few more sacrifice outlets, but maybe that’s just me.
One thing to keep in mind is that streaming is a lot harder than simply recording videos of a deck without an audience. There were a couple times where I accidentally forgot to attack or grabbed the wrong land with a fetch land. This happens when you’re looking at and reading chat, but still trying to maintain an appropriate pace of play for both the audience and your opponent. It’s not easy, and one of the shortcomings of Modern Monday being livestreamed might be more misplays, but I’m hoping that fact that it is indeed livestreamed will trump that. Let me know what you guys think in the comments!
Thanks for reading and I’ll see you on Thursday with another Magic Minute.
Frank Lepore
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