Where did little kid go?
Modern forum
Posted on July 6, 2017, 1:22 p.m. by InnerFlame
As the name suggest, I want to know what happened with the little kid deck variants in modern? For those who aren't familiar, the link for such a deck is here.
I saw somewhere that nearly two years ago the deck variants were winning something like 63% of their games. Yet, I never really heard anything about the deck and you surely don't hear about it much anymore. There's even a budget variant that does decent. Did the less frequent lilianas make it less powerful. What happened? Why did it never catch on? Why is not much of a thing these days?
InnerFlame says... #3
I was wondering if it was a response to counteract abzan or jund. Thank you, ToolmasterOfBrainerd.
July 6, 2017 2:09 p.m.
GeminiSpartanX says... #4
Well I can't say for everyone else, I can at least tell you why I personally stopped playing it- Eldrazi. Little Kid was a decent deck during Splinter Twin/Jund days since it had MD outs to the combo (path, Pridemage), and a good matchup vs discard and Lily from BGx decks. Then came the twin ban and Eldrazi winter, which showed us that turn 2 4/4 Thoughtseizes and turn 3 5/5 trample-hasty Black Cats (vs removal) were better than what little kid was doing. Today, if people want a 4/5 creature they either pay 1 mana for it on turn 2 (tasigur), or play bigger beaters than what little kid brings to the table (Shadow, Angler, Smasher). With Fatal Push so easily turned on in modern, there just isn't enough justification to run little kid over the more efficient threats that other decks are running. However, I will say that little kid runs more threats overall, so if opposing decks don't have all the removal you could still get there, but it doesn't seem to work out so much. Plus Tron decks are still a horrible matchup (they were horrible a few years back too), and eldrazi tron just seems better than ever against a deck that relies on both dorks that get pinged by Walking Ballista and creatures that aren't normally bigger than the 5/5 eldrazi. Blood Moon decks are still everywhere as well, making life tough for abzan in general.
I personally changed the deck into an Abzan Company list during Eldrazi Winter since it boasted a decent matchup against the menace, and maybe someday I'll change it to the Counters Company if I ever get around to buying Devoted Druids, but for now it's just one of the decks I lend to people who want to change things up on Modern night.
ToolmasterOfBrainerd says... #2
If I recall, little kid abzan was a response to big abzan back when abzan was over 10% of the meta, so when abzan lost most of its meta share, so did kid abzan. Kid zoo became bushwhacker zoo, and that's kinda sorta a thing still (soft to push). I don't recall little kid versions of other decks existing.
July 6, 2017 1:29 p.m. Edited.