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Main » Articles » The Best Deck in Premodern

The Best Deck in Premodern

Michael Flores
Posted on September 24, 2024
 Reddit

This past weekend was My Superbowl.

Okay, okay... Lanny's Superbowl (more on Lanny in a minute). Hopefully you know what I'm talking about:

The North American Premodern Championship!

My reports from the last two years:

2022: North American Premodern Championship Tournament Report - 3rd Place

2023: The Gathering

2022 was the best tournament I attended in 24 years; and 2023 was even better. In 2022 I made Top 4 in what was then the largest Premodern tournament of all time... But only followed that up with a Finals appearance in the Saturday consolation tournament in 2023. Still... one of the best, most memorable, most vulnerable, loving, and FUN weekends of my life.

If there is one piece of advice I can give you, it's to pick up Premodern. Many of my closest friendships at this point in my life are solidified around a format that I didn't know existed three years ago. I don't write about Premodern that much on this site right now... but tell you what? Don't take it from me. Take it from one of the world's preeminent COMMANDER influencers.

... premodern as the best way to enjoy Magic...

Facts.

Anyway, rumors of my missing LobsterCon this year were... Largely promulgated by Yours Truly. I had a PTO blackout; but at the 11th hour begged for one day off to attend. I had given up hope a few months ago, but that was reversed by Sunny Seelamsetty. Sunny printed up a set of specialized sleeves for the New York crowd to play at LobsterCon.

I saw them and basically cried.

Win. Lose. Otherwise.

I had already won the North American Premodern Championship this year.

I begged for that PTO day but had probably already given away my edge. Doesn't matter. Sunny and nine of my other friends already won the weekend for me. Did I mention more on Lanny in a minute?

This is what I played:

How about that deck pic? Second best deck pic of all time, and the handsomest.

I practiced the last few weekends with the New York crew - primarily SWB, Luis Neiman, Dave Kaplan, and Andy Levine - even though I didn't think I could play myself. Therefore, I was acting more like a metagame punching bag than training my own deck.

When in doubt... Old Faithful, right?

During this year's PSS my friend Fran (@fpawluszmtg to his legion of fans) told me that if he were me he'd never play any other deck.

Andy pointed out that if I played the "meme" version of my Red Deck was a perfect pairing to the Deckade sleeves. "Can you imagine activating Cursed Scroll and revealing the all-text basic Mountain?"

I was sold.

You see, Premodern players are largely obsessed with old borders. Some of them collect foils; but like nice foils. I own a beautiful version of the Red Deck including FBB Lightning Bolts that Lanny gave me. But I love the "meme" version just as much. It was a labor of love to assemble. I already own multiple play sets of Wooded Foothills... But I bought a garbage new border version just to troll people as I search up an Unhinged basic Mountain. Because you have to be unhinged to play all this stuff. My favorite card is the foil-etched Shock. That card doesn't even exist in English printing. You just have to believe me it's a Shock.

Tournament-wise, my own LobsterCon was as much a heartbreaker as you can possibly have while a legion of your friends are repping your face in the feature match area and you get to reconnect with old friends like poker and Master Chef superstar Dave Williams.

I was 6-1 going into the last round and won a miracle mirror match game stuck on lands while drawing three Jackal Pups. But the plot armor was stronger with my opponent. I drew five Overloads in two games against zero Cursed Scrolls; he drew four Fireblasts to my nil.

Could I have played better? I've been gaming this out in my head nonstop for the past three days. The answer is yes. I might - MIGHT - have been able to eke one one more turn in Game 3. Would it have been enough? Who knows? That happened in a nearby universe, but a different one. This is a bitter pill to swallow for someone whose identity is largely bound up in playing flawlessly in Burn mirrors. But if I'm 100% honest with myself, I didn't play to my full potential. I'll have to wait a year to try to redeem myself.

I followed up my 6-2 heartbreaker on Friday with a 5-2 (from 0-2) on Saturday. I knew it wasn't my day in Round Two when I faced six Silver Knights in three games, plus Dawn Elemental + Pariah (no there is no way in my 75 to crack that). So weirdly a 5-2 having never been in serious contention felt better at the end of the day than a 6-2 in the main event where I was inches from Top 8 with twenty minutes to go. Three of my housemates made Top 8.

If you want more information on my Red Deck, the individual choices, etc. hit me up on Premodern for Non-Idiots Spike Colony Premodern or on X. The rest of this article is about the actual best deck in Premodern.

At least for the weekend.

I think all other things held equal; Burn is the best. It's the best for me, and it won the European Championships which took place at the same time as Lobstercon.

But it's tough to argue that David Raczka didn't rule the format with his Mono-Blue Shrimp deck.

Brian Selden - yes that Brian Selden - miraculously repeated as the North American Premodern Champion. Two years ago he was playing his own [essentially legal] 1998 World Champion deck as a meme in the format; followed that up with a win with LandStill last year; and followed that up this year with a win using Raczka's innovative Shrimp deck. Every time I tried to give Brian an accolade on the weekend, he'd just shout "RACZKA!" to make sure the right magician got the credit.

The Best Deck in Premodern | Premodern | Raczka

Card Display

Buy This Deck Export text

The Deck:

The baseline strategy of this deck is Phyrexian Dreadnought + Stifle or Vision Charm. A two-card combo for only two mana, a fast 12/12 is literally unbeatable on the play when facing certain decks (including my own). Combine that with Daze and Foil and the 12/12 nuts draw can and will beat countless opponents with very little effort.

If you know anything about Premodern as a format, you probably already know about Dreadnought. No one is really impressed that you can win with a turn-two natural combo with multiple cover spells.

Raczka's innovations are all the things that make the deck a little bit different.

In the main deck those include:

I've been pretty low in Impulse in Dreadnought decks since LobsterCon last year. Give me Opt! But Impulse makes sense in this version... as does "budget Impulse" Flash of Insight. The front side of the card is kind of like a terrible cycling card for three mana... But the back side of Flash of Insight is basically a Demonic Tutor at instant speed.

I watched Selden cast as many as six copies of Flash of Insight in long games, often out-landing decks based around Thermokarst and Winter's Grasp. Subtly, Flash of Insight is a source not only of card selection (how you would think of an Impulse variant) but card advantage.

This is important because, structurally, Dreadnought decks expose themselves to a two-for-one in almost every game they win. Their core "combo" is a one-for-two that is pretty prone to spot removal. On balance, the only natural card advantage tends to be Gush (a card that can set you behind in mana development). Flash of Insight gives the deck a different way to play, and a route to the long game.

Mishra's Factory is perhaps the more important innovation. Mono-Blue Dreadnought decks have long been decried as just worse than uw Dreadnought variants because they have no Plan B. What happens if the opponent just has a Meddling Mage on "Phyrexian Dreadnought"? How many Swords to Plowshares and Powder Kegs, Disenchants and Goblin Tinkerers can you fight through?

Well Mishra's Factory gives the Counterspell-Control mode of Mono-Blue Dreadnought a heck of a Plan B. Among other things, it's a good answer to an opposing Meddling Mage. So now what are you going to do?

If you think these innovations are minor... I won't try to argue with you. But check out David's sideboard.

The most important addition being Parallax Tide.

Phyrexian Dreadnought and Parallax Tide have always overlapped at Stifle. So Raczka isn't the first person to try to put them together. He just did it the best. Flash of Insight ties together both combos, and finds you the resources you need to execute the more expensive one.

There are two ways to break Parallax Tide.

Of course you can play it "fair" ... Just disappear some of the opponent's lands and tempo them.

Or you can execute a one-sided Armageddon.

Either you target circa five lands without passing priority and respond with a Chain of Vapor (Selden/Raczka/LANNY played 2 + 1) or you can just Stifle the trigger to return the opponent's lands if and when the Parallax Tide leaves the battlefield.

Dreadnought has been a bit of a paper tiger in recent months.

Highest reputation historically... But knocked off of the S-Tier in many metagame lists. What Raczka ultimately did was shore up some of the matchups that rose in response to the 12/12 juggernaut.

Against Control you can transform into Tide Combo-Control. Against land destruction you can Impulse and Flash for more lands than the opponent has, drawing a piddling one card per turn. Against everyone you're one of the fastest, most powerful combo decks.

Sometimes you just win with Vision Charm Milling.

Selden's win on Friday was one of the most impressive feats ever in the history of Premodern. Not just repeating as Champion, but repeating in the largest tournament of all time. But I don't know if I would have declared this the best deck if that's all that happened.

Lanny couldn't follow up his 3rd place in the main event last year, but he did keep the Saturday Championship not only under the New York umbrella but in our house by taking down Day Two.

Remember what I said about winning LobsterCon before the first round started? My podcast co-host and one of my best friends (though I'm only his Very Good Friend) took down the Saturday tournament... In the Deckade sleeves.

Some people are truly blessed.

And then there's me.

Andy Levine was repping the sleeves in the main event Top 8 and Rebell (who we quoted above) followed up with a Top 8 in the Saturday tournament. I can't possibly express how humbled but loved my friends made me feel. Even if I only pulled off a 6-2, losing the Burn mirror.

LOVE

MIKE

(New York already does)

P.S. I said earlier that I had made maybe the second best deck pic of all time. Even before figuring out the Parallax Tide transformation, he won the deck pic Olympics last autumn.

Somehow no one noticed that he had already broken Mono-Blue Dreadnought WHEN HE WON THE PREMODERN FALL BRAWL. I mean this Tweet is aging pretty badly. I actually commentated the Fall Brawl finals but couldn't yet wrap my head round David's innovations, or the idea that he'd choose Mono-Blue over uw.

Live and learn, am I right?

That said, no one (who saw it) could miss the majesty of the man's deck pic.

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TAGS articles, constructed, analysis, decklist, michael flores, premodern, 09242024, raczka, phyrexian dreadnought

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