Modern Abzan Beatsticks
Modern
SCORE: 7 | 21 COMMENTS | 1665 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER
First Modern night with this deck- —May 7, 2015
So I took this deck to Modern night last night, and I feel like the deck did admirably. I went 2-2, but one of those losses was 100% due to my misplay.
Round 1 vs Naya Burn- This is the match I lost due to misplay. Game 1 I was on the draw, and had a slow hand against Burn (I was in an unknown meta). Game 2 I opened with a Spellskite into Thalia and my flooded opponent scooped after I dropped my first Siege Rhino. Game 3 was my epic misplay. I had a Rhino, Quasali Pridemage, and Noble Hierarch in play with a 2nd Rhino in hand. My opponent had only an Eidolon of the Great Revel in play. I attacked with only my Rhino, figuring that 2 exalted triggers from the noble and pridmage would be the same as attacking with both the Rhino and Pridemage. However my opponent had the Deflecting Palm which brought me down to 1 life. After combat I played my 2nd Rhino which took me to 4 and brought my opponent down to 1 life. He attacked with his Eidolon and I stupidly blocked with my rhino thinking that I'd have less than 3 life left if I let him through. I didn't realize that if he had any burn spell he would just die to his own Eidolon trigger if his Eidolon stayed alive, so by blocking to kill the Eidolon I allowed him to freely Boros Charm me for the win. It still pains me after the fact that I wasn't paying enough attention to his cards to realize that I had the win by just letting him through. I'm the only burn player in my normal meta, so I'm not used to being on the other side of the table against Burn I guess.
Game 2 I won the semi-mirror against a more controlling build of abzan that used Tasigur, the Golden Fang and no mana dorks with more hand disruption. It was a grindy game 1 that I lost when we were both trying to topdeck threats after trading and he drew his threats first. Game 2 I won thanks to his turn 1 Inquisition of Kozilek revealing my hand of lands, 4-drops, and a single Loxdon Smiter which got put into play! Game 3 was his turn to flood, and I curved out well and won.
Game 3 was against my cousin using Soul Sisters. Game 1 he was on the draw, and grinded me out after Pathing my guys and flying over me. Game 2 was a grindfest with me growing my army every turn with Gavony Township and winning with a bunch of 7/7 mana dorks. Game 3 he had his nut draw on the play with T1 Martyr of Sands into turn 2 gain 18 life play a 6/6 Serra Ascendant with me unable to find a path or decay to deal with it.
Game 4 was against Twin, which I feel is a good matchup for me. He flooded out game 1, and game 2 was mana screwed, but in both cases I always made sure to keep 1-2 white mana open for Path if he were to have the combo.
I feel like the deck itself is exactly the right balance of aggression and disruption. Although next time I think I'll add some token hate and a Sweeper in the SB for the Soul Sisters matchup. Also there was a storm player there, so a Rest in Peace will be going back into the SB for sure. I may add the black hand disruption to the MD in place of the Decays since in a meta of burn, Infect, and creature-light decks they'll hit more in game 1's. I just don't like the idea of not playing a mana dork on turn 1 with this deck, but I'll test it out next time and see how it goes.
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GeminiSpartanX says... #2
ChiefBell- True, this list is more midrange than Zoo or Affinity, but you have to agree that it's more aggro than traditional Rock/Abzan midrange lists that run fewer creatures but more discard and removal. Also I never owned a pod deck, so I don't feel like this is like the common 'pod leftovers' lists that people are running nowadays. I think many of those lists have now switched to using Collected Company to keep most of the pod combos alive. (some of which I see have top 8'd in the tcgplayer Modern state championships)
April 8, 2015 11:14 a.m.
Oh for sure. Definitely more aggro than traditional BG/x lists. But it's still not true, true aggro. There are a few cards in there that actively encourage the game to go on a bit longer. Siege Rhino, Kitchen Finks, Voice of Resurgence. These guys pump your life and gain you value over time.
Basically when pod died it blew midrange wide open. There was no longer a creature deck that was just straight up better than every other creature deck. Therefore we started seeing an explosion of aggressive midrange decks. Abzan started going a bit more cretaure heavy and cut Dark Confidant. It didn't need the slow control elements as much anymore. Selesnya midrange became a large thing. These were offshoots of pod (they ARE running largely the same cards), and then a few people get to the combo origins with Collected Company (as you said). It is worth noting that in pods latter days it really was just selesnya midrange more than a creature deck. It was perfectly happy to just beat your face in with voice, goyf, kitchen finks or any other threat. Decks like this just continue the tradition and leave all of the combo side out.
April 8, 2015 11:22 a.m.
GeminiSpartanX says... #4
ChiefBell- I guess the point that I'm trying to make, is that my original selesnya list in my description didn't come about due to pod's banning or its existence in the first place. I actually went on the gatherer and found all the best creatures that were both green and white and made a deck around them and Wilt-Leaf Liege (which if I recall wasn't used in many pod lists). I decided to do so due to the printing of Loxodon Smiter and realizing that I should take another look at an old casual selesnya Watchwolf aggro deck I had. It just so happens that pod's value-engine of using creatures with useful ETB and death triggers also is made up of many of the same selesnya cards I had been running, so there was and is a lot of overlap.
ChiefBell says... #1
This is 'little kid abzan' or 'little kid junk'. It's essentially a few of the pieces from a pod deck just made up to 4 ofs. Its pretty midrange though, not really aggro. There's lots of attrition and interaction in there.
April 8, 2015 10:42 a.m.