Whir of Invention - one of the top decks in modern?
Modern forum
Posted on Oct. 20, 2018, 2:43 p.m. by ToolmasterOfBrainerd
Where the heck did this deck come from? I've never heard of it before and now it's in the top decks on mtggoldfish. And somehow it's an artifact deck that isn't affinity that doesn't play Ancient Stirrings.
It's basically Lantern Control's more evil cousin. I see 2 wincons; the first is milling with ipnu riverlet, which it plays as a 1-of with 4 Tolaria West to find it and Crucible of Worlds to recur it. The other is putting Pyrite Spellbomb + Academy Ruins.
But uh, how good is it? Does anyone here play this? I can't really gauge how good it is. Obviously if it slams Ensnaring Bridge vs Humans or Chalice on 1 vs most things, or some of that graveyard hate vs Dredge or Bridgevine, it will be favored to win. And those Pithing Needle effects are amazing vs UW Control's planeswalkers. Nonetheless it's easy to imagine it drawing into the wrong half of the deck.
Pretty sure this is just an evolution of the mono-U prison deck that Jody Keith was playing a while ago. I assume it runs into similar problems to Lantern Control; I guess which version of the deck just depends on personal preference.
October 20, 2018 5:37 p.m.
Your deck can't go too far. Its too easily hated on. Rogue at best.
October 20, 2018 6:33 p.m.
Flooremoji says... #5
I just saw it pop up too, but I think it is far from the best deck in modern. I believe that LC is better, but I have not see Whir in action.
October 21, 2018 3:48 a.m.
U(R) prison was a deck for very long and it seems that it finally put up a result
October 21, 2018 6:37 a.m.
TheLordStormCrow says... #7
It looks a lot like the list Jeff Hoogland has played a bunch on his stream. Link to his list is here if anyone's interested
It feels like most decks that run Ensnaring Bridge are probably pretty decent right now, card is just great.
Overall, it seems fine, but not all that exciting, as you can imagine, being a deck that tries to slowly block all ways of your opponent winning, it creates miserable games of MtG for both players
October 21, 2018 11:04 a.m.
HAHAHAHAHA, whatever madman built this has my eternal gratitude. List is deceptively powerful. You have 12 copies of agro showstoppers in whir, explosives, and bridge. You have 11 copies of controls nightmare in chalice, sorcerous, and whir. You have combos worst nightmare in witchbane at instant speed via whir to poop on their big combo turn. You just scoop to tron though, or any deck with Rest In Peace... I mean I guess you aren’t stone dead but it’s a real bad day against either of those.
Still, this list is sweet. Artifact prison. It’s like my wet dream come true.
October 21, 2018 11:36 p.m. Edited.
ToolmasterOfBrainerd says... #9
Against Tron you spyglass whatever walker is in their hand (or walking ballista), bridge their wurmcoil engine, then whir for crucible of worlds to blow up all of their lands with recurred ghost quarter.
October 22, 2018 11:18 a.m.
Well at least thats the plan
The Tron MU is horribly bad for decks such as this though
October 22, 2018 11:47 a.m.
ToolmasterOfBrainerd that’s christmas land against tron and loses to one ulamogg... you’re right you have A game plan against tron but it’s not a consistent or even particularly good one.
October 22, 2018 11:19 p.m.
Let me i trodice you to o-stone.
Tron is also designed to get any card it wants
October 23, 2018 6:39 a.m.
TheAlexGnan speaking from experience with tutor heavy decks, that’s still Christmas land. You get 1, maybe 2 tutors to lock your opponent out before you start running dry on them. Even in a deck like izzet whir, you only have four whirs and one damping sphere + one crucible. You need both those one of’s, or essentially 2/6 specific cards in your deck by turn 4. Then you also need a tutor for ghost quarter, maybe another 9 cards in the deck can fetch that, and you need tron to both go second and/or not hit turn 3 natural tron.
That’s a ton of ifs. Against an agro deck it’s just “whir for bridge gg. If they pop it, draw/whir for another bridge gg”. Way simpler.
October 23, 2018 11:39 a.m.
To be clear, I'm not saying that Izzet whir has no game against tron and might as well scoop. TheAlexGnan already described exactly why that isn't the case, and how izzet whir can win against tron. My only point here is that tron is definitely a bad MU where Izzet whir really suffers from "drawing the wrong cards" more than against most other archetypes. It's not like storm where Witchbane Orb just sticks and wins you the game, nor dredge where Ensnaring Bridge is lights out, or U/W control where Chalice of the Void, Sorcerous Spyglass, and Ensnaring Bridge can all ruin a control player's day. Decks like tron (which is both fast and has a ton of ways to break gimickly locks), and to a lesser extent abzan/selesnya-coco & jund, are just bad matchups for decks like izzet whir. I'd imagine 8-rack isn't that fun for Izzet whir either. Decks that just need 1 card to win and have tons of flexible removal which can hit artifacts are just not favorable for a whir deck. Ironically, Affinity ROFLstomps whir's bad matchups. In the end, artifacts master race.
landofMordor says... #2
I'd guess that's why they run Whir! It's just a 60-card sideboard that has 4 tutors. Seems like a lot of those cards aren't dead draws, either -- Sorcerous Spyglass is a big upgrade over Pithing Needle in game 1, and whatever is dead turns on Whir and Mox Opal.
That said, this is the first I've heard of it too (:
October 20, 2018 5:28 p.m.