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So, it's Winter Break in New York City. Prodigal ex-high school students are back in town; the wild rage of late autumn in Las Vegas burning through their veins. The Fire (capital "F") for paper Magic tournaments rekindled for the first time in two years.

Las Vegas was good to the greater New York City Magic community. Not only did my own apprentice (and podcast co-host Roman Fusco) make Top 8 of Limited, but Roman's own apprentice, Etai Kurtzman bested Pro Tour Hall of Famer Shuhei Nakamura to share that final draft table. This has made everyone look towards the next big event. Onward. Battle!

What's next? What's next in paper?

The origin story can wait for another time, but the answer is this:

The American Premodern Championships - In Boston this May

Prior to mid-November I had never even heard of a Premodern. But it looks like Boston is going to draw far-flung heroes including some of my own legendary teammates from the 1990s lacing up their rasslin' boots One. More. Time. I jumped into Premodern, quickly coming to the conclusion that it's about the best format I've ever played. But, again, another time.

I started testing with Patrick O'Halloran-Gannon (Zvi's neighborhood neighbor, incidentally), who is Etai's Magic: The Gathering opposite number. We all decided to test more Premodern last Thursday... In between rounds of an actual Modern tournament!

Thus, I made my first venture to Sip & Play in Brooklyn. I was really impressed! Sip & Play was not only able to attract sixteen Modern players on a weeknight, but the competition level was shockingly high for a local tournament at a store I had never visited before. Multiple PT level players. Multiple Las Vegas Top 8s. I don't know how the pandemic has impacted your LGS, but my old haunting grounds still haven't conducted a single in-person event, and FNM participation at my newer digs is erratically up or down. Some weeks we have three full draft tables; others, can't muster the minimum for the Companion app.

Anyway, Modern:

Modern used to be my favorite Constructed format. We're talking about two years ago at this point, prior to the pandemic and Modern Horizons 2. I felt like I had a really good handle on the incredibly wide format as a whole, and could make innovative yet effective deck-building decisions. Modern Horizons 2 and other recent sets changed a lot of that, with so many of the performing decks heavily reliant on brand spanking mint-in-the-box chase cards like Prismatic Ending; Solitude; and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer dominating or even defining the composition of the top tables.

Which probably makes my own deck choice especially odd, even to longtime readers:

Paleolithic Burn | Modern | Michael Flores

• Creatures (12)
• 4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
• 4 Goblin Guide
• 4 Monastery Swiftspear

• Instants (16)
• 4 Boros Charm
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Lightning Helix
• 4 Searing Blaze

• Sorceries (12)
• 4 Lava Spike
• 4 Rift Bolt
• 4 Skewer the Critics

• Lands (20)
• 3 Mountain
• 2 Sacred Foundry
• 3 Wooded Foothills
• 4 Bloodstained Mire
• 4 Inspiring Vantage
• 4 Sunbaked Canyon

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den
• 1 Seal of Fire
• 4 Searing Blood
• 1 Shattering Spree
• 4 Smash to Smithereens
• 2 Path to Exile
• 2 Prismatic Ending

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With the exception of Companion Lurrus of the Dream-Den, my deck is almost all old cards! Not just old cards, but old strategies.

Case in point: Back in late 2019 - which seems like a lifetime ago - I was racking up consecutive Invitational Qualifier Top 8s with very different Red Decks:

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Lean. So, SO, SO lean. Super lean to the point that it played only a single two-mana card in the main deck. Eidolon of the Great Revel - a card I'd once called the most powerful card in Modern - relegated to the sideboard only... Not just the Staple four copies of Sunbaked Canyon, but free to run a full four Fiery Islet next to them. What did I care? I had the smoothest mana in the room and no second color dependency whatsoever!

Instead, Paleolithic Burn takes a step back. It takes a dozen steps back maybe. It un-learns the lessons of What Everybody Gets Wrong About Modern Burn and plays like we did back in 2016 or 2017.

What gives?

There are two big drivers (and one asterisk, actually) to this deck-build. First of all is a lot of heads up play-testing I did over the summer. I, too, dipped a toe into the Styx of Modern Horizons 2. I was totally enamored of Dragon's Rage Channeler (like everyone else) and just jammed dozens of games in between rounds at the adopted LGS with a less experienced player running his mostly unmodified Modern Boros. He didn't have any of the new cards (or nearly as much experience playing Modern Burn mirrors) but was beating me more than half the time. The reason was really, really, simple. If you look at the current top Modern decks, you won't likely believe it! Had I not played it myself, I wouldn't have. What was everyone else playing online missing? I couldn't argue with the W/L column.

Goblin Guide outperforms Dragon's Rage Channeler heads up.

It was not close. Not close at all. Goblin Guide was just as Goblin Guide as it ever was putting up all those finishes in Standard and everywhere else since it was first printed. It still had haste. Still punished slow draws. Still killed ponderous em effers before they could take advantage of their extra cards in hand. And, as always, it helped its controller (generally my opponent) sculpt his plan for the next turn.

So that was tick number one. Sorry Dragon's Rage Channeler. Old school at the one.

The second reason was more contextual. If other people were going to play Dragon's Rage Channeler and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer... Was there any better deck than 2018 era Boros?

On the spells front, only four copies of Skewer the Critics in place of two Skullcracks and two Grim Lavamancers differ from a PPTQ deck I played three years ago. Since that PPTQ I had decided I Hate Skullcrack; and then we have the asterisk.

ASTERISK!

There were four physical copies of Grim Lavamancer in the Premodern Burn I had brought to test between rounds... So, I didn't play any in the actual Modern tournament! I think I would have played one in the sideboard over the solo Seal of Fire, but Seal of Fire is actually pretty good with Lurrus, and no one seemed to be playing Humans or Affinity, so Grim Lavamancer was not particularly missed.

Again, the two reasons to play Paleolithic Burn:

1. Goblin Guide is better than Dragon's Rage Channeler heads up.
2. If other people are going to play Dragon's Rage Channeler and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, I simply want to be the guy with eight Searing effects. I also predicted Hammer Time and / or Infect to be played; and there is no better option against either of those small creature-based quasi-combos.

Onto the tournament:

Round One: Jeff with Jeskai Saheeli Rai

So, I mentioned Las Vegas Top 8 competitor Etai Kurtzman as the proximate reason I was at Sip & Play on Thursday. But I would be remiss to ignore my Round One opponent Jeff Jao. Jeff was also Top 8 in Las Vegas (albeit in the Modern portion with Infect). But more than that, Jeff has been a bigger influence on me than even he probably knows.

I qualified for the last PT there ever was, in Phoenix 2020. Despite being based in the US, Jeff played in the Brussels equivalent immediately previous. He kicked all kinds of butt with - you guessed it - a Mono-Red Aggro deck, that I copied for my own final foray at that last PT! I didn't do nearly as well as he did in my main event, but managed to cash the Grand Prix the next day with about 56 of his starting 60.

So, probably the best player in the tournament. Not just that, a Modern savant who might be better at Red Deck than I am... Obviously not the first opponent you'd want to pick at a local sixteen man. Plus, he was on a rough matchup rather than his celebrated Infect.

Oh well.

Jeff took it 2-1.

I got the first pretty commandingly. I sandbagged the lethal Lightning Bolt for some turns, just wanting to see what he was playing.

I wasn't sure if I should play Smash to Smithereens or not after Game 1. I initially chose not to play it because my Searing Blazes actually had text. The first one got full value on a Shark Typhoon token, and I did three two different times on Felidar Sovereigns. So, my worst card did nine damage. Shrug emoji?

I sided out two and two Rift Bolts (he had Teferi, Time Raveler) for Prismatic Ending and Path to Exile.

Game 2 was really close. I got Jeff to one in part via a Searing Blaze for one. If I had drawn a fourth land I could have killed him on the spot; but instead my held Lightning Bolt just prevented me from dying to the Saheeli Cat combo the next turn. Eventually I got locked under a Chalice of the Void, which of course prompted me to play Smash to Smithereens.

In Game 3 I made two different decisions that ended up punishing me. The first one was to play a second Eidolon of the Great Revel when Jeff was at a princely fourteen life. He had a Supreme Verdict. Ouch. I mean not for him, obviously. If I just held the second Eidolon, I likely would have won.

The second error was more of a slip than a decision. I didn't consider the opposite line, just getting excited to cast the card in my hand. Jeff followed up his Supreme Verdict with a Chalice of the Void for one, leaving up two Islands. I had Smash to Smithereens, so let it resolve and... Walked into a Counterspell.

Had I responded with Lightning Bolt I would have won whether or not he countered it. Jeff beat me on one again, so if he had not countered it he would have finished on -2 with the same draw; and if he had, I could have untapped and resolved Smash to Smithereens (which would have been similar on life total, but also unlocked all the one-mana spells I ended up not playing).

I had one other decision that I didn't think was wrong, but would have won the game had I gone down that road. Jeff drew all four Spreading Seas in Game 3, so I was operating on essentially one Mountain before finally drawing a Sunbaked Canyon. I could have sacrificed the Canyon to draw a random card a turn or two before I lost, which would have given me a lethal Smash to Smithereens. I knew about this but rejected the line because the Canyon's value as White seemed too great. It could cast Prismatic Ending to turn my one-mana spells back on, or just let me resolve a potentially lethal Boros Charm or Lightning Helix (which aren't one-mana) had I drawn one of those.

You can't really ask more from a match. I had multiple opportunities to play better (or at least differently) that would have influenced the outcome. I didn't, and got Cat combo'd as a result. Justice, am I right? For what it's worth, Jeskai Saheeli Rai doesn't appear to be any kind of a good matchup. The Spreading Seas alone are such a pain, and the ability to kill completely out of the Blue with a 4 toughness threat makes it a much more challenging opponent than pure Azorius.

WLL 0-1

Round Two: Eritt with Izzet Storm

Storm has always been one of the easiest matchups for Modern Burn.

In Game 1, many Storm players don't actually have an out to Eidolon of the Great Revel. That is, if Eidolon resolves, they simply lose to its many triggers before being able to complete their combo. And in-matchup, the Burn deck is actually just a faster Storm-esque combo deck. Storm overloads on cantrips and Dark Rituals that convert to damage via a single big spell. Burn skips that step and just translates one mana and / or one card directly to two if not three damage. As such, Burn goldfishes several different turn three kills before even factoring in direct spoilers like Eidolon or Searing Blaze on Baral, Chief of Compliance.

Game 1 was pretty loose on my part. I was pretty sure he was on Storm but declined to play Eidolon on the second turn, instead just jamming the battlefield with 1-drops. I predicted Eritt would "go for it" prematurely on turn three. He didn't so I just won with regular attacks and Lightning Bolts.

Game 2 went about the same. I opened on Taylor Swiftspear, which Eritt immediately knocked off the stage with a Lightning Bolt before she could sing too many number one hits. I figured he had two Lightning Bolts in his sideboard and just played Eidolon. Turns out he actually had three, but didn't draw any more. Ended circa turn four.

We played a few fun games, all of which went to Burn.

WW 1-1

Round Three: Stephen with Obosh Mono-Red

Jeff watched this one, characterizing it as a clash of new school Mono-Red in the vein of the great MHayashi and what he called "Boomer" Burn. Not the first time I've been called a Boomer.

I think this matchup is dramatically in favor of Paleolithic / Boomer / Boros Burn. I cut my Kor Firewalkers at the last minute, but in some sense they're just overkill anyway. There is no doubt that Obosh Mono-Red has more powerful cards. Seasoned Pyromancer is more powerful on paper than almost anything in Boros; but in-matchup it just costs you two life and can't block anything. Stephen had Chandra, Dressed to Kill in all three games but I ignored her (once to my detriment).

Game 1 was pretty ho-hum not close. My cards all cost 1-2, and Obosh's cards largely cost three. It's not a question of the bigger Mono-Red being able to catch up on the battlefield. It's not a matter of card advantage. It's simply a matter of time. Goblin Guide and Eidolon just rack up too much damage before the bigger Red Deck can do its thing.

Game 2 I pretty quickly got Stephen to one life and just had to draw anything. Literally any non-land card in my deck would have sufficed. 1-drop? I had Lurrus online for the only time in this tournament, so I could have attacked with three creatures out of nowhere. Eidolon? He would have had to cast at least one qualifying spell to win. Burn card? Obviously. Instead, I plucked my third consecutive Bloodstained Mire (which is kind of novel in and of itself) and had the pleasure of losing to a GIGANTIC turn combining Chandra's Ultimate and Obosh already-in-play.

Game 3 I just played to draw a burn card on my last turn. I drew it. Ho hum. Wasn't really very strategic... Stephen had a lot of Pyrite Spellbomb action in anticipation of Kor Firewalker and I played the non-interactive side of my deck. An eight-pack of Searing effects really overperform in this matchup, punishing the more expensive Seasoned Pyromancer and the planned-for Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. Though unfortunately it did Pilfer me once or twice before the slip was signed.

Anyway, 2-1 in my first Modern tournament in two years. I was ultimately very happy with my deck choice but not play. If this were two years ago I think I would have beaten Jeff, and even if I won the next two, I was definitely sloppy in both, relying on deck advantage rather than skill to win.

I'll be back at Sip & Play soon, for sure; but will likely make a few changes.

My sideboard right now is way too biased! I have literally no cards to side in against decks where Searing Blaze has no text. I'm currently considering a fifth (and terribad) Boros Charm for that role. And we should probably have one Grim Lavamancer in there for the inevitability matchups. Path to Exile is going to make way for Fry, which is a great and flexible solution to both Baneslayer Angel and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. And by the latter, I mean Murktide Regent.

LOVE

MIKE