Anything Goes In Modern!

Posted On 3:09 PM // Leave a Comment

Newsletter
Thursday, March 15th

G/R Ponza, eh? Sure, why not?!

If you ever wondered what makes Modern the best format in Magic, Andrew Wolbers' win at the Dallas Open should put everything in perspective for you. Wolbers, a relative unknown from Eden Prairie, MN, had been playing G/R Ponza for quite a long time. But it wasn't until the unbanning of Bloodbraid Elf that he was able to not only put himself, but also his beloved archetype, into the spotlight. Wolbers and G/R Ponza certainly weren't the picks going into the Dallas Open, but they both walked out with the one thing that matters most—first place.

Is a format where you can play anything and have success with it a good one? I think so, and many at SCG agree. Ben Weitz, for example, loves to walk the unbeaten path and he demonstrates how to do so this week with all things R/G Eldrazi. Dylan Donegan, known mostly for playing tier one decks to perfection, has been hell-bent on breaking a card that saw almost no play six months ago—Bedlam Reveler. As for the Duke of Alabama, Todd Anderson? He's been working on combo decks of all shapes and sizes to get a leg up on every format in Magic.

Even though the SCG Tour is on pause this week, we return next week in style for a Team Constructed Open in Cincinnati. That means you've got a few extra days to find the perfect brew that no one's prepared for. Don't think it'll work? Andrew Wolbers is proof that it can, and if you brew just hard enough, a first-place trophy is your reward!

— Cedric Phillips, Content Coordinator

April 7-8
Modern

April 28-29
Team Constructed

May 5-6
Team Constructed

The Guide To R/G Eldrazi
By Ben Weitz  

Luckily for us, the core stats of Bloodbraid Elf lend themselves to aggressive gameplay. Adding four copies of a 3/2 haste to a deck that already has eight haste creatures gives the deck even more potential to push in damage against cards that have typically been powerful against Eldrazi decks, such as Supreme Verdict, Damnation, Liliana of the Veil, or Nahiri, the Harbinger.

With the addition of Bloodbraid Elf, I can confidently say that planeswalkers are simply embarrassing against R/G Eldrazi (yes, even Jace). Bloodbraid Elf isn't all upside, however. The Elf sadly is not an Eldrazi, which means the card costs a whole four actual mana, which is pretty expensive in Modern. Because R/G Eldrazi wants to play out aggressively, there's a fine line to walk between cheap threats and expensive, hard-to-interact-with threats. I'm not confident that this deck has the totally optimal composition of cheap and expensive cards, but I do believe that whatever that is, it has four Bloodbraid Elf.

Now that we understand the philosophy and strategy behind R/G Eldrazi, we can hop into specific matchups.

Andrew Wolbers
Modern Open

Andrew Funkhouser
Standard Classic

Robert Berni
Modern Classic

Breaking Bedlam Reveler
By Dylan Donegan  

Bedlam Reveler appeared to be an innocuous card on the surface. It requires setup to not be overcosted and it discards your hand, which limits the types of cards you can put in your deck. But we've seen some Bedlam Reveler brews start to establish themselves as Tier 1 Modern decks. With Jund being the new top dog of the Modern format, Bedlam Reveler does a fantastic job of outpacing the Jund deck in resources.

So what different decks can we fit this value Horror into? I personally believe we have only scratched the surface of decks including the card. Let's take a moment to discuss the first and only "real" Bedlam Reveler deck in the format.

Building Decks In The New Age: Combo
By Todd Anderson  

This mantra was instilled in me at a young age, and it is something I've never really been able to forget. A friend of mine from when I first started playing Magic told me that combo decks were all about maximum redundancy. Make sure you have enough pieces that all do similar things, and put all your effort into making that one big combination of cards happen.

While I've learned a lot since then (arguable), that concept has always stuck with me when building a combo deck, but it isn't as cut and dry as the original concept would have you believe. Some combo decks are full of interactive spells to buy time; others are more focused on pushing through the combo by using discard spells to clear the way. And other combo decks still have an entirely separate gameplan that they implement until the coast is clear to resolve the combo and kill the opponent.

Here is my idea of a true combo deck.