I've been playing variants of Death and Taxes in Modern for a few years and have constantly tried to improve upon the archetype's strengths and weaknesses. I've played through every variant and have found the Eldrazi lists to generally be the most potent. The issue with B/W E&T is the clunky mana base and tendency for the deck to run out of steam. Mono-White E&T provides a more streamline mana base is probably the best established variant of Death and Taxes in Modern, yet it still remains a tier 2 deck.
There are 3 main issues with that deck which I've sought to improve upon with this build.
1:
Aether Vial
isn't great. So hear me out, Vial is obviously very good in certain games (primarily if you can get it out on turn one), but it's often much too slow for the Modern format, at least for our deck. If you look at the decks Vial is great in, i.e. Humans and Merfolk, the bulk of their creatures are cmc 1 and 2. Death and Taxes relies heavily on the 3 drop slot which makes Vial a lot less good.. It also makes for a very poor top deck, which leads me into my next point...
2: Death and Taxes is too top deck reliant. For Death and Taxes to function properly, it needs all the pieces of the puzzle to come together at the right time. Unfortunately there aren't any safeguards in place in the current builds to aid you in this endeavor. All you're left with are the possibilities of cracking a clue left behind by a
Thraben Inspector
or the pipe dream of blinking the fringe
Wall of Omens
a million times. The result is you end up taxing yourself more than your opponent trying to find the right card play.
3:
Eldrazi Temple
is underutilized. Eldrazi Temple is one of the most busted cards in Modern and you're not getting your salt's worth by just playing 4
Eldrazi Displacer
(even though it does play a much different role in Mono-White E&T). Displacer is definitely one of the top 3 best Eldrazi in Modern (especially along side Temple), soooo why not play the other top 2 also?
With this new build I've catered to these 3 issues by a) replacing
Aether Vial
with mana dorks, b) adding
Ancient Stirrings
to help with card selection, and c) adding playsets of
Thought-Knot Seer
and
Reality Smasher
. I'm happy with the build so far and plan on creating a more comprehensive primer in the future. Is this build better than the other D&T builds? It's too early to tell, but the deck is showing promise. +1's and feedback are appreciated :)
