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Main » Articles » Modern PTQ Results

Modern PTQ Results

Jarvis Yu
Posted on January 30, 2012
 Reddit

Just over a week ago, there were two more Magic Online PTQs with interesting results. In the PTQ on January 21, we have mono-blue Faeries winning the whole shebang (very similar to the list I went over last week). Affinity, two W/U Caw, Living End, two Jund, mono-blue Faeries, and Storm rounded out this Top 8.

Here is Feefyfohfum’s list:

”Feefyfohfum’s Faeries"

In the Top 8, he defeated Jund, U/R Storm, and finally W/U Caw. Some interesting changes from the original list I saw were the addition of two Tectonic Edges as well as substituting Ratchet Bomb for Engineered Explosives.

The Living End deck played by LuvLizLemon is as follows:

" LuvLizLemon’s Living End"

Some interesting card choices are a three-of Beast Within, the full four Faerie Macabre (it does have a reasonable number of applications at the moment) and seven cascade spells (as opposed to eight or six). Notably, Living End is very good at playing a land-destruction game with its three Beast Within and four Fulminator Mage to buy time for Living End against control decks and aggressive decks alike.

The lack of Forbidden Orchard and Dryad Arbor (for Demonic Dread) is somewhat odd (which allows you to reliably cast it against control decks). Shriekmaw is a card that I feel should be played, since it buys a fair amount of time against aggressive decks. Even if the opponent receives his creature back from Living End, you are so far ahead from the Living End itself that it should not matter. The sideboard consists of a bunch of awkward spells because of how Living End functions.

In the other MTGO PTQ, which started on January 23 at 2:00 A.M. EST, Aggro Isochron Scepter/Delver managed to take it down. Also rounding out this Top 8 was: W/U Caw, Living End, Boros, Death Cloud/Burning Vengeance (wow!), R/U/G Delver, Hive Mind, and Esper Teachings.

This list is very interesting (played by Dracc0n):

" Dracc0n’s Isochron"

This is a new archetype focused on being the aggressor by repeatedly attacking and casting burn spells (with Snapcaster or Isochron Scepter) at its opponents. He has Lightning Bolt, Lightning Helix, Magma Jet, Path to Exile, and Research // Development as notable imprint targets. Note that if you imprint R&D on the Scepter, you are able to cast either half of it.

The biggest draw of this deck is his transformative sideboard to dodge Ancient Grudges in Games 2 and 3; he most likely sides out the Isochron Scepters and Magma Jets for Gifts Ungiven, Unburial Rites, Vendilion Clique, Sphinx of the Steel Wind, and Elesh Norn. The rest of his board seems to be somewhat unfocused in hedging bets. I am surprised by the lack of Iona, Shield of Emeria here.

Another interesting deck from that Top 8 is Wirecat’s (also known as The Ben Seck):

" Wirecat’s B/G Death Cloud Rock"

There’re a lot of interesting things going on here. At its core, it is a B/G Death Cloud Rock deck with some of the usual suspects: Liliana of the Veil, Smallpox, Garruk Wildspeaker, and Inquisition of Kozilek. Notably, it is lacking the ramp spells that most B/G Death Cloud decks play, and it instead focuses on a Burning Vengeance engine that combos with Raven's Crime and Haakon, Stromgald Scourge. Tarmogoyf seems somewhat out of place here, but I suspect he needs it just as a huge wall. In post-sideboarded games, he is very prepared for aggressive decks with three Damnation, Engineered Explosives, and two Victim of Night. He doesn’t seem to have anything to board against Storm except Nihil Spellbomb, which might be enough here given all of his hand disruption.

It would be interesting to see if you could somehow fit Gifts Ungiven into this deck, although that would take a more creative deck-builder than I.

Also of note: the Hive Mind deck that Top 8’ed (by bozidar2121):

"bozidar2121’s Hive Mind"

This guy is legendary for playing Hive Mind in Modern and old Extended (even when it wasn’t really a great deck). However, the deck does have several things going on for it now. They can easily top-deck their way into a win, unlike Storm, which generally needs a few cards in hand to go off. With five copies of Hive Mind (one Ethereal Usher), ten Pacts (and two Tolaria West), the deck has a fair amount of redundancy.

However, his sideboard seems unfocused: two Ignorant Bliss and two Leyline of Singularity seem questionable. Magus of the Moon seems worse than Blood Moon. Pyroclasm is fine but not great (I would consider Volcanic Fallout or Slagstorm here). In addition, I would probably board Leyline of Sanctity in this type of deck—you are pretty weak against pinpoint discard spells.

In summary, after these last few weeks of PTQs, I am convinced you can play almost any deck in Modern as long as you have a reasonable plan against the known decks and your deck is doing something sufficiently powerful. The diversity and innovation we've seen in the past few weeks has been great to watch, ranging from Isochron Scepter and Death Cloud breaking out again as well as seeing the known decks still succeed.

As usual, you can contact me here or on Twitter at @jkyu06. I have also been occasionally blogging about decks at http://llarack.blogspot.com.

Bonus interesting question that came up in IRC:

If you were allowed to build any deck with four of a single card and the rest of the deck being basic lands, what is the best deck and why? You would be battling against similar decks of this construction.

TAGS articles, tournament, results, constructed, ptq, analysis, deck lists, modern, jarvis yu

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