I hate your modern deck...or at least my sideboard does. Modern is a huge format, with piles of good decks, and oodles of card choices. People are constantly trying to catch the competition unaware by showing up with a deck that has fallen off the current metagame radar. But despite the wide open format with a plethora of strategies, modern decks really fall into two categories: those that are doing something extremely linear and those that are trying to stop them. If you are one of the people showing up with a linear strategy then you generally cannot mess around with a wide array of sideboard cards. Swapping more than a few cards in between games dilutes the streamlined nature of linear decks and the few sideboard cards that are brought in should still contribute to what your deck is trying to do. For example, burn players want to sideboard Skullcrack and Searing Blaze because they deal damage while also preventing opposing life gain or while killing a creature. Blood Moon may be a powerful card that doesn't hurt the mana base of a burn player, but the enchantment doesn't kill the opponent and turn 3 is around the time that a burn player wants to be figuring out how to end the game. The enchantment does not fit with the burn strategy. The real sideboard fun is for the people not piloting linear strategies. The Abzan, Jund, and Jeskai control decks out there want to show up with haymakers that really swing the game percentages post sideboard. If the opponent cannot win it means that the control player eventually will. This is a list of the most hateful cards that can be brought in for games two and three. If you are one of the linear players of the world then you had better be ready for them, and if you are one of the control players of the world then you had better be showing up with them. #10 Timely Reinforcements
A great card with a great name. Timely Reinforcements is an absolute nightmare for burn and zoo strategies. Six life and three creatures is a ridiculous return for the investment of a single three-mana spell. This sorcery rarely ever fails to deliver maximum value. #9 Choke
Blue mages are the worst. Counterspells are the worst. With the help of a mana creature on Turn 1 Choke can slip onto the battlefield underneath of the opponents permission and then punish them for the rest of the game. Boil also punishes those who choose to play islands but casting the red instant as soon as possible often dampens its effectiveness. Choke has no such problems. #8 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
With the ubiquitous nature of creature removal there are not many warm bodies that make this list. Linvala brings enough angel punch to be the exception. At four toughness she skirts Lightning Bolt, the most common removal card in the format, and at four mana she is cheap enough to come online when you really need her. Viscera Seer, Kiki‑Jiki, Arcbound Ravager, and Scavenging Ooze all look very pedestrian when affected by this holy presence. #7 Kor Firewalker
More hate for the Burn and Zoo players. Sometimes I wonder how a Burn player ever wins a sideboarded game. This two cost soldier can attack or block, is almost impossible to remove from the battlefield, and mitigates burn damage without requiring the investment of more resources. The only downfall is the double white mana cost. #6 Crumble to Dust
This updated Sowing Salt is the best way to be countering Tron and Valakut strategies. While the Scapeshift decks can try to sandbag the legendary peak until the turn they kill you, a Tron player has no such luck. Fulminator Mage may be a mana cheaper, but the elemental shaman is a temporary solution to a more permanent problem and the 2/2 body he brings along usually has negligible value. Better to Crumble them right out of the game. #5 Fracturing Gust
If Affinity was the only deck to worry about, Shatterstorm and Creeping Corrosion would be the headliners here and Fracturing Gust merely a footnote. However, the five mana instant has some versatility that the others don't. Ask SCG's own Cedric Phillips what happens when people are underprepared for a Boggle strategy. Dedicated artifact strategies also have to worry about Hurkyl's Recall, Ancient Grudge, and Kataki, War's Wage. #4 Rest in Peace
There are A LOT of decks that look to their graveyards for value. Snapcaster Mage, Lingering Souls, Eternal Witness, and looming over all of them is the ever present Tarmogoyf. Then there are the dedicated graveyard strategies like Living End and Goryo's Vengeance. The only thing holding Rest in Peace back is that almost every deck wants to use its own graveyard to some advantage and the white enchantment would create some collateral damage stopping its caster from doing that. #3 Night of Souls' Betrayal Finally a black card. This enchantment has long been underutilized but no more. People have discovered the utility in shrinking the battlefield. Affinity, Infect, token strategies, Thopter Foundry and Elves all have fits trying to beat this card. Curse of Death's Hold may seem like a better option but waiting for one more mana can be an eternity against these aggressive strategies. And besides, who cares if your own Tarmogoyf is slightly smaller when your opponent has no chance of winning? #2 Blood Moon
What can be more hateful than your opponent never casting spells? This red enchantment is in a pretty good spot with the way Modern currently looks. There are so many three color decks with greedy mana bases out there just asking to get shut out of the game and let's see Tron try to cast Ulamog when it requires 10 actual lands in play. Blood Moon can often be a one card combo to win the game. #1 Stony Silence
This enchantment looks simple enough but does wonders against tons of decks out there. Obviously this is Affinity's worst nightmare but it also comes in against Tron and has utility against Thopter Foundry/Sword of the Meek decks. What lands Stony Silence at the No. 1 slot is the low mana cost that it carries. Slamming this enchantment on the second turn just feels unfair. And really, who wants to be playing fair with their sideboard? Wrapping this all up, it is notable how many of the powerful, hateful sideboard cards are white. Also, many of them are enchantments. If your deck folds to these cards then you had better come prepared with a strategy to counteract them. Conversely, you can embrace the dark side and let the hate run through you. Either way, post-board games in this Modern format often play drastically different from the first, so don't be caught unawares. — Craig Krempels, @CraigKrempels |
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