One Deck, Three Formats

Posted on January 8, 2014

I’m starting out fulfilling a New Year’s resolution out of the gate. I have one deck that I can scale up to Legacy and Vintage, and I think I can finally do so. I have a hard time constantly keeping up with rotations, meaning the Standard format is just out—that and scaling a Standard deck to Vintage is absurd at best.

I needed a cheaper deck to build with very little upkeep. I noticed a few infect decks being able to sneak into Top 8s in 2011, and I figured, well, I like to play crazy aggro decks, and God knows longer control games will just have me making a ton of misplays to lose. The mono-colored infect decks often have subpar options due to color commitment, and the decks that added red for Assault Strobe are just splashing for one card. I tried out the B/G versions and finally settled on the B/U/G combination, considering the mana base is easily smoothed with fetch lands.

Cropped art of Rancor by Kev Walker

After a few years, my Modern deck is finally ready to rock each week, with sideboard changes being constant. Thankfully, most sideboard options are cheap in Modern. I play Modern on Wednesday at my local game store Universe Games, and I sleeve up this marginal, but functional, list:

Modern Deck

"Modern Infect"

15 Creatures

4 Glisener Elf

4 Blighted Agent

4 Plague Stinger

3 Noble Hierarch

Poster from Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum
You should totally Google “graphic modernism poster” right now!

It’s a pretty Standard list here. Blighted Agents are just so difficult to deal with. I started the list going B/G, but the sheer power of this card forced me to play it. I found the same situation with Noble Hierarch, but I’m still not sure if three is the right number of copies to play. At four copies, it came around too often and not enough pump spells showed up. I need that gas, you know?

I will keep hands with fewer pump spells if a Noble Hierarch and a dude show up. I’ll also keep a hand with a Hierarch, two poison dudes, spells, and lands. Both have appeared to be effective in my metagame. Often, people will kill the elven mana producer instead of the following turn’s infect creature. I’ll always take a free win.

24 Spells

4 Might of Old Krosa

4 Rancor

4 Groundswell

4 Mutagenic Growth

4 Vines of Vastwood

3 Simic Charm

1 Distortion Strike

The top five spells are the net-decked spells you have to play. The remaining spots I’m testing with Simic Charm—seemingly the perfect infect card. It pumps, it protects, and it removes blockers. It does cost 2 mana, making my deck slow a bit, but it’s the card that allows the turn-three win, not enable the turn before. Thus far, it’s been utterly unseen and has caught folks off guard. Maybe it’s new to infect decks on a greater stage and folks haven’t net-decked it.

Also, Distortion Strike has won me so many games because people forget about it the second time. Every time I play a token deck, folks forget about it and are blown out once they drop their piles of 1/1s. I love seeing Artful Dodge in sideboards because it’s the worse version of the ’Strike.

21 Lands

4 Inkmoth Nexus

3 Overgrown Tomb

3 Breeding Pool

3 Misty Rainforest

4 Verdant Catacombs

2 Pendelhaven

1 Forest

1 Island

The more I play the Eternal formats, the more I believe a full set of shock lands and fetch lands is actually incorrect. Hitting myself for 6 damage over two turns from Misty Rainforest into Breeding Pool has put me into firing range of red decks being able to blow me out. This is especially true when I need the two colors of mana for Simic Charm or something is Unsummoned. I have the lands to make play sets, but when I drop to under 10 life by my own doing, bad times are had.

I was lucky in that I started building this deck when fetch lands were around $10 each and shock lands were around $6 to $13. We’re not always lucky, but I’m sure the Onslaught fetch lands will be reprinted eventually!

Sideboard

3 Abrupt Decay

1 Maelstrom Pulse

2 Spellskite

2 Phyrexian Crusader

2 Nature's Claim

3 Apostle's Blessing

2 Hurkyl's Recall

Basically, when I see Electrolyze or Melira, Sylvok Outcast, I just lose. I’ve had in Dismembers, as shown below, but Melira is rather rare in my local metagame. Were I to bring this to a bigger tourney, the Crusaders would probably be Dismembers. I see a lot of white tokens and Red Deck Wins, making the Crusader so clutch.

The largest changes I seemingly always need to make is to kill the opponent’s first creature with an Abrupt Decay or blank a removal spell with Apostle's Blessing. That card is a defensive- and evasive-making beast. The problem is that it seals a win; it doesn’t pump my dude for a win.

Other Sideboard Options

2 Twisted Image

3 Inquisition of Kozilek

2 Ichorclaw Myr

2 Ranger's Guile

2 Dismember

1 Nature's Claim

2 Bojuka Bog

1 Phyrexian Crusader

2 Spell Pierce

2 Whiplash Trap

3 Virulent Wound

2 Vampire's Bite

The numbers all vary, but I work with these.

Twisted Image kills Spellskites and Walls at best, and at worst, it cycles to draw a land and makes the Pendelhaven +1/+2 flip to +2/+1, which is nice! I’ve taken out a lot of Rancors for Twisted Images as a precaution against Spellskites.

The rest make sense, with Ranger's Guile just not making the cut. I feel that it’s a more situational Apostle's Blessing that doesn’t help with offense. The +1/+1 has yet to be enough to matter, as hitting for 9 has been more uncommon for me.

Virulent Wound is supposed to be an all-star, but when I stare down Spellskites, Merfolk, or Zoo decks, it’s nearly always useless. I’d probably include it were I at a Grand Prix though. Against mana dorks, Pod decks, or Splinter Twin, it could be a little fun.

Other cards just had better options: Vampire's Bite is a worse pump than any of the green spells. Ichorclaw Myr isn’t cheap or evasive, so it was cut.

Cards I Won’t Be Using

Livewire Lash

Contagion Clasp

Viridian Corrupter

Mental Misstep

Necropede

Nihil Spellbomb

Wild Defiance

Llanowar Augur

Crop Rotation

Revenge of the Hunted

Blessings of Nature

Echoing Decay

Veilstone Amulet

Mindbreak Trap

The miracle cards of Revenge of the Hunted and Blessings of Nature I really tested out a lot. Revenge of the Hunted is just bad enough to cut, but man is it fun to top-deck that on turn two. I need six to eight of them to be dependable, and frankly, there are just better options at instant speed.

Wild Defiance is just terrible. It takes until turn four to even be relevant. I picked up a play set in case it even blows up or other cards are banned, but they’ll collect dust for now. Same went for Llanowar Augur! On paper, it’s an incredible card to save up to . . . the problem is that it’s only during upkeep, pushing the win out a turn, which is an infect no-no.

Nihil Spellbomb is also too slow, as are Livewire Lash and Veilstone Amulet. I feel the Lash could be incredible in a matchup against Eggs or some prison/enchantment deck, but the game should be over before that.

Contagion Clasp was actually an all-star in my local metagame when people played Delver of Secrets or when I saw a ton of Snapcaster Mages. The second ability was normally used twice, and I won on turn five rather easily. It felt awesome to win without doing anything.

I looked at Echoing Decay to annihilate token decks, but it was a kill spell for a mana dork, making Virulent Wound better and Abrupt Decay the best option.

Mental Misstep helped with keeping some decks in check, but in Modern, it’s not quite an option yet for the vast majority of decks—same with Mindbreak Trap. I just haven’t needed them yet.

Legacy Deck, Add Money (around $600 or just $50 a Month)

"Legacy Infect"

Creatures

4 Elvish Spirit Guide

4 Glisener Elf

4 Blighted Agent

4 Plague Stinger

The Elvish Spirit Guides are easily acquired on CoolStuffInc for like $5 each. Or, if you want to wait a while, you can find them on Pucatrade for like $4 each. Either way, that’s not killing the budget thus far.

Spells

4 Berserk

4 Mutagenic Growth

4 Invigorate

4 Vines of Vastwood

4 Distortion Strike

4 Rouse

4 Groundswell

Rouse is $.14 on Pucatrade and $.49 for a play set on CoolStuffInc.

Berserk on CoolStuffInc is $45 to $55 and $47 on Pucatrade.

Invigorate is a steep $2 each on CoolStuffInc and $.93 on Pucatrade. (Puca is behind the curve!)

The Berserks are stupidly expensive, I know, but sweet baby Jesus! For 2 mana, I have a 10/10 infect creature with Invigorate. Silly. I’ve blown people out in so many games. It’s basically a free win, and then you have two games to sideboard correctly. The opponent has to hold back a Force of Will because he or she will have a clock that will expire if he or she even hiccups. Playing on the opponent’s heels urges him or her to just make mistakes. It might take you an extra turn or two, but it’ll get there. Once you obtain the Berserks, your Vintage deck is almost done!

Lands

4 Inkmoth Nexus

2 Bayou

2 Tropical Island

4 Verdant Catacombs

4 Misty Rainforest

2 Pendelhaven

1 Island

1 Swamp

I don’t think all the dual lands are needed. The fetch lands will get you there, saving you a little money, but four dual lands are still a couple hundred bucks. You can just use shock lands until you upgrade; it’s possible, and it works. Eventually, acquire dual lands that are sleeve-playable but look terrible. You don’t need pretty, just functional. It’s also a budgeting thing. Set aside $50 a month for a year, and you’ll have an eternally-playable deck. Do it automatically from a bank account into PayPal, for example, and you’ll never feel the hurt. Once you pass a year, you’ll notice that you could do this again. I’m just saying: Delayed gratification is a thing, but once you do it for two months, it’s a pretty great feeling. I do it with buying original art all the time, and it makes the acquisition that much sweeter.