How To Chainwhirl Your Way To The Top

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Newsletter
Thursday, May 17th

Goblin Chainwhirler has finally made its arrival.

It might be a bit early to call this Standard format one of the best of all time, but I'm already starting to lean that way. Consider that over the past three weeks we've had dominant performances from three very different decks and it's hard not to be excited about the next few weeks of Magic. First, it was U/W Control with Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, Lyra Dawnbringer, and Torrential Gearhulk. Then, it was W/B Aggro with Toolcraft Exemplar, History of Benalia, and Knight of Malice. But last weekend was maybe the most important, as Goblin Chainwhirler, Unlicensed Disintegration, and Chandra, Torch of Defiance showed that red is just as good as it ever has been.

I'm not the only one pumped about this Standard format though. Four-time Grand Prix champion, Matt Severa, is one of many trying to figure out if R/B Aggro will continue its dominance this weekend at GP Toronto. Three-time Pro Tour Top 8 competitor, Sam Black, is up to his usual madness by pushing the limits on creatureless control. As for Emma Handy? Her focus may be on Modern, but when a deck as dominant as Humans is floating around, it would be unwise to ignore it.

Speaking of Modern, I'll be watching a lot of it this weekend as the SCG Tour rolls into Derby City for the Louisville Open. I'll be joined by Patrick Sullivan, Nick Miller, and the rest of the @SCGTour crew as we work our way through 15 rounds of Modern action to find out if Humans can keep its stranglehold on Magic's most popular format. Be sure to join us for all the fun starting at 10:30am ET at twitch.tv/scgtour!

— Cedric Phillips, Content Coordinator

May 26-27
Modern

June 2
Modern

June 8-10
Season One

Will R/B Aggro Continue To Win?
By Matt Severa  

How did we get to this spot? Most of the deck has been Standard legal for over a year now, so why the sudden resurgence? Is Goblin Chainwhirler just that good? Well yes, it is, but there's more to it than that. At the end of the last Standard season, before Dominaria was released, R/B was already poised to become the deck to beat in Standard. To understand what's going on here, we need to turn back the clock a few months...

Last season's Standard was all about The Scarab God. Many excellent articles have already been written analyzing The Scarab God's ability to dominate the late game, so I won't rehash that here. Instead, I want to discuss those times when it's used to stabilize the game. These are the games where, against an aggro deck, you just decide to ignore their threats for a turn and cast it. If you untapped with The Scarab God, you were probably going to win. This play tended to work out pretty well when Mono-Red Aggro was the premier aggro deck in the format. Your Mono-Red opponent was often forced to produce an Ahn-Crop Crasher immediately and hope that you didn't have a way to kill it before combat. That, or throw two removal spells at The Scarab God and hope they still had enough gas left over to kill you.

The efficacy of that line was reduced considerably when R/B Aggro replaced Mono-Red as the aggro deck to beat.

Pushing Creatureless Control
By Sam Black  

Watching coverage of GP Birmingham, I was really impressed by Leo Lahonen's U/W Control deck.

I love the move away from creatures, as blanking the opponent's removal is great in this format. I'd been playing decks that focused on doing this, but I went further, and tried to blank Vraska's Contempt by not playing planeswalkers either. After trying a few configurations, I settled on The Mirari Conjecture loops with Blink of an Eye that eventually killed by copying and/or rebuying Fight with Fire.

I like the value The Mirari Conjecture generated, and I liked that the Fight with Fire kill just required playing one or two copies of a mediocre removal spell to give my deck a win condition. What I didn't like was how much harder I had to work to get my card advantage than I would if I were just playing Teferi. When your deck is all reactive spells and you're looping The Mirari Conjecture, chapter three doesn't actually do anything for you most of the time, and when you're returning Blink of an Eye with chapter one, you're basically just spending nine mana to draw a card and add Commit to your hand every few turns. That's not bad, but if your opponent isn't doing anything, it doesn't really get you anywhere; you just end up with a full hand and discarding a lot.

Play Humans Or Be Wrong
By Emma Handy  

Humans is the best deck in Modern. Period.

We can spend time arguing the deck's matchups, results, or positioning, but looking at the past six months or so, Humans' presence is undeniable. The fact that it's still succeeding illustrates that there's some combination of the deck truly being great and people refusing to properly respect the archetype. Regardless of these two points' distribution, Humans is what you should be playing in Modern if your goal is to consistently do well.

I don't use these words lightly and wouldn't put my name to them if I didn't think it true. The last time I said something to this effect it eventually ended up getting me a job. Like the old Rally the Ancestors decks of Standard's past, Humans tends to abuse an axis that the format isn't quite prepared to handle. The way that Humans does it is a bit subtler and takes some explaining.