Shardless BUG
Welcome and thank you for reading this deck primer. My name is Atrocitus72 and this is my take on Shardless BUG in Modern.
With the printing of Shardless Agent into the modern format, I thought it would be cool to brew around and stumbled upon the once beloved Legacy Shardless BUG deck. After a lot of different configurations I have settled on this build. It functions very similarly to the Shardless BUG decks of old with a few exceptions. Obviously we are missing two of the most important cards from the Legacy version in Brainstorm and Force of Will. But with MH2 and Midnight Hunt we got two cards that almost make up for it. Subtlety and Otherworldly Gaze.
Necessary Innovations
Classic BUG lists played Brainstorm to set up cascade hits and make Ancestral Vision a viable card. We're doing the same thing here with Otherworldly Gaze. It gives you excellent draw filtering and can get you a great cascade setup. It also allows you to turn on Delirium way easier, allowing us to play Whispers of Emrakul with the absence of Hymn to Tourach in Modern. Ideally a turn one play is either hand disruption or an end of opponents turn Otherworldly Gaze to smooth out your draws and dig deeper.
Subtlety is currently the least popular of the pitch elementals from MH2 mostly because it isn't a hard counter and only targets creatures and planeswalkers. But you know what people are playing right now that this dude absolutely hoses? ALL the other pitch elementals. Subtlety shuts down Solitude, Fury, Endurance, Grief, and even Teferi, Time Raveler.
Ice-Fang Coatl, the MH1 reimagining of Baleful Strix, has bounced in and out of the list. A non-snow mana base is easier to keep track of but Ice-Fang Coatl is just so much value as a cascade hit, a removal spell, an instant speed threat, and a cantrip.
See the Truth is currently sitting in place of Ancestral Vision and may or may not stay in the deck. In testing so far it has proven to be invaluable as a cantrip that doesn't require suspend and is just as potent of a cascade hit as Vision.
One of the best cards in the deck has definitely been Brazen Borrower. I had it in as a four of initially but having too many in your hand gets annoying and unnecessary. I have never needed more than two to close out a game. People tend to direct their removal at Tarmogoyf and forget that a Brazen Borrower and a Creeping Tar Pit equate to six unblockable damage a turn usually with free counter magic up in Subtlety and Force of Negation. Brazen Borrower is an excellent catch all removal spell. It’s saved me from Blood Moon and Teferi, Time Raveler. Right now it is a one of since it can hang out in exile until I need it to finish a game.
Drown in the Loch has also exceeded expectations and is rarely a dead draw or bad cascade. Legacy Shardless BUG lists used Abrupt Decay and Fatal Push but neither of those are very effective in modern right now. Abrupt Decay might earn itself a sideboard slot if my local meta gets counter heavy but for right now a two mana counter spell that is a decent cascade hit is invaluable.
The discard suite is flexible with three copies of Whispers of Emrakul and a two/two split between Thougtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek. Wrench Mind is a potential alternative but I have found that Whispers has a higher floor and significantly higher ceiling. Very few decks can recover from double random discard.
Sideboard
The original sideboard was transformative, allowing me to switch to a Crashcade plan with Crashing Footfalls but ultimately that stretched the deck way too thin. Now it focuses on having a strong game two and three against whatever I'm facing.
I included two more Subtlety which I board in against anything that is creature or planeswalker reliant.
Plague Engineer is great at keeping back tribal decks like Infect and Elementals.
Dauthi Voidwalker is great against graveyard strategies and is another unblockable threat. I have yet to use it in anything outside of commander but it's performance at MTG Vegas convinced me to give it a sideboard slot.
Unmoored Ego is probably my favorite sideboard tech since it rewards you for knowing the meta and understanding your opponents deck. Naming Solitude or Fury feels really good against any red or white decks. It can also get rid of Urza's Tower in a pinch.
Force of Vigor has proven itself to be game ending against Hammertime and can even be sided in to hate out other sideboard hate like Blood Moon and Leylines. It is also brutal against any Urza's Saga decks.
Damnation and Maelstrom Pulse are good against go wide and token strategies, which I have to respect in my local meta.
This build has been really fun so far and is my deck of choice for my local FNM. I have no real ambitions for the deck to top 8 a challenge or anything, but right now Modern is a wide open format and I think it's best to play something you love.
*f-pre*