The point behind this deck is to operate similarly to the Grixis Control decks that are currently in circulation. Grinding out games and slowly eking out an advantage with value cards like Kolaghan's Command & Snapcaster Mage. The biggest concern at this point in time in regards to the decks construction is the mana base. Being that we are running 7 white cards main board, we cant get away with only 2-3 white sources. With one of these cards being Path to Exile, we kind of need a Plains main board. With this exception in mind, the mana is "fine" at this preliminary stage.
The Reason for adding white is for an edge in grindier match up's. To make our Infect and Affinity Match up's better and for a more diverse sideboard plan.
I've added Kozilek's Return to test it out and see how it fares in modern, I believe it will be a good replacement for Anger of the Gods. If it impresses, I can see dropping an Anger of the Gods for another Spellskite or Stony Silence.
Landbase
I've tried to spread the mana out as much as possible thus making it as flexible as possible too. The reason there is no mountain is that, Blood Moon will provide mountains. opponents once they figure out we are a 4 color deck will feel the need to blood moon thus giving us plenty of red sources. I've kept 1 Plains 1 Swamp and 3 Island so that we can continue to cast spells however blood moon will hurt this deck ALLOT.
In total (including fetch lands) the colored sources come to:
9 (6 fetches) , 11 (5 Fetches and 2 non-basic) , 7 (4 Fetches) , 14 (7 Fetches and 2 non-basic). These representations haven't taken into account a / fetch such as Scalding Tarn fetching a like Watery Grave and similar circumstances. This is subject to change as I tinker with the land base.
The Shock lands have been picked making sure that each one has provided either or (being the 2 more relevant colors for us while also being as flexible as possible with our fetching options (the only one missing being Sacred Foundry to my knowledge).
Currently (with 23 lands) the chance of starting the game with 2 lands in hand before first draw is 83.4% and 3 lands being 54.9%. and with your first draw 3 lands going up to 66.2%. Dealing with a 4 land hand (after draw) should only occur 36% of the time.
The 1 off land we don't really want to start with (at least game 1) the plains, has an (just under) 12% chance of being in your opening hand for those that feel uncomfortable about it being in the deck list.
Creatures
4x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
- This guy will allow us to recast anything we have in our graveyard (much like Snapcaster Mage) and in the early turns of the game, allow us to loot through out deck to find the cards we need.
4x Snapcaster Mage - A main win condition of the deck, Snapcaster Mage + Lightning Bolt is still a big hit to the opponent. Essentially he will be cast to help recast anything we need from our graveyard to help push our opponents out of the game.
2x Tasigur, the Golden Fang - This guy is in here to help stall out game's, dig though our deck and get some form of recursion happening with our spells. He can come out as early as turn 2, but more than likely turn 3 and also turns into a very quick clock for the opponent by himself.
Instant
3x Kolaghan's Command - Main board artifact hate, removal, discard and creature recursion. This card does everything you could ever want in modern, and to top it off, you get 2 choices.
4x Lightning Bolt - Modern's premiere removal card, used in conjunction with Snapcaster Mage to quicken clocks or to boot creatures to the grave.
3x Mana Leak - Running a few counters never hurt anyone. these are here to help prevent cards like Karn Liberated from hitting the field on turn 3 or trying to fight over a Scapeshift in game 1. I'm well aware that this isn't a hard counter to these things, but some resilience is better than none.
3x Path to Exile - Removal doesn't get much better than this in modern. This guy lets us deal with cards like Voice of Resurgence, Wurmcoil Engine and other pesky cards that have "death" effects while still removing them from the board.
Planeswalkers
1x Liliana of the Veil - She is a main deck answer to boggles. Amazing in grindy match ups, is discard to help fuel our own graveyard while also forcing plays / eating away at our opponents hand, and if her ultimate is used, can and usually ends games. ultimately she has been added as another angle of attack, while also providing un-targeted removal.
Sorcery
2x Dreadbore - Slower creature removal, with the added bonus of also being able to hit planeswalkers that might show up (i.e. Liliana of the Veil, Karn Liberated, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon) as well as large creatures like Tarmogoyf & Oblivion Sower.
4x Inquisition of Kozilek - Hand disruption that hit almost everything in the format, and provides us with plenty of information.
3x Lingering Souls - Helps us with our affinity and infect match ups and is very resilient to most control decks due to the card advantage it generates when opponents are forced to try and remove the spirit tokens. Having flashback on itself is just 1 less card Snapcaster Mage has to worry about. having to use 2 cards at least to stop this one card is just amazing value.
4x Serum Visions - Digs us through our deck, helps smooth out our draws. Simply the best cantrip in the format.
Sideboard
1x Anger of the Gods - A field wipe for more aggressive and creature reliant strategies. NOTE: it exiles as well.
1x Crumble to Dust - Another way for us to completely turn off tron and nice interaction for other land reliant decks / strategies (Scapeshift).
2x Dragon's Claw - Sideboard tech for red decks. Gaining life every red spells makes it just that much harder for them to burn us out.
2x Leyline of the Void - Amazing against Dredge, Living End decks. Against the mirror it also provides card advantage in the sense that by removing their graveyard, you halve the efficiency of their deck (see below).
1x Vendilion Clique - Keeps people off of combo pieces / nice draws and apply's a very nice clock with flying.
1x Shatterstorm - kill all against affinity and any other hard artifact reliant deck.
2x Damnation - Deathto all creatures!.
1x Countersquall - An alternative counter spell that harms our opponents. is more mana intensive than Mana Leak however it is also a hard counter.1x Spellskite - Protection from Boggles & Infect, resilience against Burn, this creature is an all star of the format against some of the most popular decks out there.
2x Stony Silence - Nice against Tron and Affinity, preventing them from using their artifacts abilities, this card can slow down and even against tron almost stop them in their tracks unless they draw well.
2x Spellskite - Brought in against burn / infect / boggles. this fella does huge amounts of work in any match up that we don't want our permanents targeted or in matches that require a good blocker to help stem bleeding.
Other Options
Grafdigger's Cage - if your local meta has an abundance of Goryo's Vengeance or Living End decks, this does however hurt us somewhat.
Wear / Tear - If there are heaps of enchantment based decks / storm decks at your local meta.
Surgical Extraction - Removing all copys something entirely from someones 60 is very powerful especially when it has the flexibility of 2 life () or .
Molten Rain - because destroying lands isnt enough, we gotta hurt them as well :D
Fulminator Mage - a bit costly atm, but acts and a threat AND land destruction at the same time.
Sideboard "Strats"
Affinity:
Gaining card advantage in the form of possibly 3-4 for 1"ing" our opponent is about as good as it gets against affinity. 2x Stony Silence are being brought in as it prevents a number of their cards from working. The rest of the cards are just field wipes. The jace was cut to make room for 1 more damnation.
Boggles:
Unfortunately the best we can hope for here is a turn 2 Spellskite every game. Targeted removal has been removed as its pointless. Field wipes brought in because they have a slightly (very slight) higher chance to be useful, however these can still be considered dead cards depending on how big their creature is.
Burn / Red Aggro:
The reasoning here is that Dreadbore isn't really necessary as we are bringing in more efficient removal, and between our board wipes and their burn/removal Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
will almost never do anything except soak a burn spell. Whether this is better than the Mana Leak is still to be seen though. Spellskite is coming in as an exceptional blocker and a means to absorb some burn spells.
G/R Tron:
Not a whole lot happens here either, what we are trying to do is just stop their tron lands, and hope this buys us enough time. I think keeping the Mana Leak's in for Karn Liberated and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon are our best bet against those threats with Dreadbore as a backup. Inquisition of Kozilek is a nice card, but doesn't do a massive amount against their deck so bringing in Stony Silence as it shuts off any means of searching for missing tron pieces. Crumble to Dust turns it off completely. The Vendilion Clique's are included to help keep them away from win conditions.
The Countersquall is comming in as an additional hard answer to any turn 3-4 threats that might become an issue (Karn Liberated / Ugin, the Spirit Dragon).
Blue Tron:
The changes to this sideboard plan in comparason to Tron (G/R) is mainly that Inquisition of Kozilek and Kolaghan's Command are more than likely more useful than the Lightning Bolt's will be. This might be the correct line of thought for G/R Tron decks too, however I figure either decision will help. Crumble to Dust turns off their tron mana. This doesn't hurt them as much as their G/R counterparts. as they still have plenty of blue mana available most times.
Scapeshift:
Removing path to exile because A: they dont have many creatures and B: out of all the removal, the one we want least, is the one that gives them land. Countersquall is just a hard counter for Scapeshift and Cryptic Command.
Grixis Control:
This Match up is pretty simple as both decks are very similar. They will more than likely board in either (or both) Blood Moon & Keranos, God of Storms. removing the Path to Exile so reduce our dependency on white. Crumble to Dust allows us to deal with their Creeping Tar Pits. As for Leyline of the Void you halve the efficiency of Snapcaster Mage. Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
becomes a Merfolk Looter. Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Gurmag Angler are now full costed and Tasigur's ability is now useless. Their Thought Scours only effective target is us and completely turns off 1 mode of Kolaghan's Command. This should be back breaking for them as their graveyard is the main way they gain an advantage over other decks. The Vendilion Clique is being brought in as an additional threat with evasion that can also help remove their better draws (hopefully).
Infect:
Simply, we are already running a crazy amount of removal in the deck, we should have answers from the get go. However Dreadbore is slow and color intensive so we are siding 1 out. The reason for the 3 board wipes is that, if they have a creature intensive start for whatever reason, this provides us with some outs in the deck. The Liliana of the Veil was cut as it was ultimately just a slow removal spell (albeit not as slow as damation) but I figure the extra kill all that dodges the color protection would be nicer.
Living End:
We don't have much against this match up, but what we do have is lethal for them. If we start the game with Leyline of the Void out, they have lost their combo entirely and they then have to play a long, inefficient game. Countersquall comes in to help counter Living End, NOT THE CASCADE SPELL.
Jund:
I don't know if what I'm doing here is correct, but my line of thought is that Leyline of the Void turns off their graveyard to help contain Tarmogoyf and prevent the expansion of their Scavenging Ooze while also turning off the threat recursion from Kolaghan's Command and Tasigur, the Golden Fang. The Vendilion Clique's are coming in to remove relevant cards and provide another threat..
Removing the Mana Leak's and 1x Path to Exile because we want spells that hinder them, and the chosen spells to come in feel like the do a better job at this. A side note: The Leyline of the Void also makes it very inefficient to cast Tasigur, the Golden Fang. Again I'm not sure about this match so the reasoning here may be off.
Storm:
This is pretty straight forward, we are taking out removal as there is nothing to target and bringing in Leyline of the Void to remove their graveyard. These are just slowing tactics, so the intent it so apply as much pressure as possible. Countersquall is just another card to help us stop the combo /
pyromancers ascension
. 2x Vendilion Clique to remove combo pieces and provide us a quicker clock.
Lantern Control
This is a bitch of a match up for most decks. We are bringing in everything we can to interact and stop their game lock, but this match will just come down to whether you can kill them before they can lock you out of the game. Pray you draw into Stony Silence and hope they don't have an Abrupt Decay or Maelstrom Pulse hahah. The reason for cutting Path to Exile is simply that if they do summon ANYTHING target-able the last thing we want to do is give them something like the ability to thin their deck out. the Crumble to Dust is in here to hit those Academy Ruins to eliminate 1 of their win con's and the Countersquall is comming in purely because its more useful than Dreadbore.
Breach Re-animator
What we are doing here is trying to make their entire strategy useless. By bringing in Leyline of the Void they can no longer Goryo's Vengeance their creatures back. The Countersquall is coming in to help counter and prevent Through the Breach and Goryo's Vengeance. This is one of the few matches where we would prefer our Inquisition of Kozelik's to be Thoughtseize. We have to be careful using the discard option of Kolaghan's Command as giving them a free discard outlet might cost us the game, thus why they have been cut.
Eldrazi
This is a hard deck to deal with, what we have access too are not the best of cards and feel slow. but its all we got. Crumble to Dust is being brought in to hit Eye of Ugin (preferable) or Eldrazi Temple and Damnation is effectively our best way to interact with what they are doing. it is slow so unfortunately we can't really stop their explosive starts, but its the best we have access too I think. The Mana Leak's are staying in to hopefully prevent what early plays that they will undoubtedly have with the hope that we will draw into a Damnation once they have applied enough pressure. Finally the Inquisition of Kozilek's are being taken out because allot of their threats and cards of concern are not hit by this card.
Thanks for viewing the deck, if you have any thoughts please let me know below. My maths may be wayyyyy off and if this is the case please point it out and lend me a hand with it =P
The card used for the Display picture is Frog Tongue and yes I'm aware its not in the deck list, or modern legal for that matter.
I've put a fair bit of effort into this so please show your support by up voting this and THANKS FOR YOUR TIME :D
