Recently we have had the first of many exciting events involving modern. As many of you know we have the players championship where we will get to see people like Luis Scott Vargas and Paulo Vitor Damo De Rosa coming up with new ideas. However there are events between now and then one of which was GP Yokohama. As you know from reading my earlier blog posts, I am absolutely in love with the card Restoration Angel. Much to my excitement, so was half of the top 8 of Yokohama. Older Birthing Pod combo decks focused mainly on Melira. I think this is a mistake going forward because of the decks lack of an ability to have a game plan that is not killing people with the combo. This is where Restoration Angel swoops in and saves the day. Not only does Angel work well with cards like Kitchen Finks and Wall of Roots but it also provides a different combo that isn't as fragile as the old Melira combo. If I were to play a modern tournament tomorrow with this deck, this is the list I would play:
Restoration Angel Pod
Artifacts
4 Birthing Pod
1 Spellskite
Creatures
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Wall of Roots
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Restoration Angel
4 Kiki Jiki Mirror Breaker
2 Noble Hierarch
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Eternal Witness
1 Cunning Sparkmage
1 Linvalla, Keeper of Silence
1 Quasali Pridemage
1 Village Bellringer
Spells
4 Chord of Calling
Lands
3 Razorverge Thicket
2 Copperline Gorge
4 Fire Lit Thicket
4 Arid Mesa
2 Temple Garden
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Stomping Ground
1 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Forest
1 Gavony Township
1 Raging Ravine
Sideboard
1 Sowing Salt
2 Combust
2 Forked Bolt
2 Fulminator Mage
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Linvalla, Keeper of Silence
2 Quasali Pridemage
1 Sigarda Host of Herons
1 Stonecloker
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
This list is closely based on the one by Toshiyuki Kadooka from the Yokohama top 8. Since the whole point of this deck is to have a better game plan than the old Melira decks, I changed up the mana base a little bit and added in a raging ravine as something to do if you are flooding. Also, I didn't like the addition of Grove of the Burnwillows to the mana base so I put in an extra Temple Garden and Stomping Ground. The only problem I have with this deck is its weakness to storm. The colors its in do not have any way to interact with storm short of Thalia and Ethersworn Canonist and if storm is popular where you play modern, I might even add one copy of each to the main deck because if you can win game one, they have less of a chance to win with their sideboard. This was one of the strengths of the Melira decks but I would still play this deck due to its strength against most other decks.
Despite my excitement with modern, we are in the middle of a standard PTQ season so I think I should write a little about that. I played in the SCG open in Seattle this past weekend and made a huge mistake that I hope others can learn from. I played UW delver in the main event and quickly went 0-3 drop. While the reasons for this could have been numerous things, I believe that it came down to my deck decision. While most UW decks played Geist of Saint Traft, I played Blade Splicers because of the fact that the card is much more consistent. This was a huge mistake because while Splicer is more consistent, Delver is not the deck for Blade Splicer because it is too much of a defensive card. I found myself often behind because I couldn't close out games that I believe Geist could have.
The other reason that I believe my deck choice was poor was the large population of Naya Pod decks in the SCG open that were playing the card Geist Honored Monk. This card is a nightmare for Delver decks much like lingering souls is. You cannot keep parody very well against a monk especially if they have Restoration Angels or Phrexian Metamorphs. It is terrible against your Vapor Snags and Gut Shots and you are lucky if you get to Dismember it. And then even if you are able to kill it you have half of a lingering souls to deal with. If I were to play in a standard tournament tomorrow I would play Esper Midrange because of its access to cards like Doom Blade and Go for the Throat. I don't know what the exact list should be right now but with M13 on the horizon there are a few cards that I would love to add into the list. Auger of Bolas comes to mind immediately to allow you to keep board presence while sculpting your hand, plus it has awesome synergy with Restoration Angel. That is all I have time to write about this week, but hopefully I will be back with more on standard for those joining me in the PTQ grind this summer.
Until next time,
Thomas Overton
@darkwingduckz on twitter
Tloman on MTGO
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