>Begone Long Description<
We'll start this deck out pretty much the same way I start every deck out, with the creatures.
Dark Confidant kicks the scene off because he's the simplest to describe. He's this decks main source of card advantage, pure and simple. He allows me to keep on the aggro tempo pressure where in normal situations I would fall behind. Individually, my cards don't hold very much value, but combined they are devastating. In order to develop a wide board, I need an immediate dose of card advantage, and Dark Confidant gives me that.
Coming in next on the list. Young Pyromancer, the younger of the two, is an all star in any tempo deck. A two drop that can produce an army of tokens for either swinging or chump blocking. Stalls out games that would normally be lost right away, or tramples the opponent faster than they can stabilize.
If you though Young Pyromancer was high value, Monastery Mentor kicks it up a notch as the second high value creature. The biggest difference between these two is the Prowess. It takes far fewer Monk tokens to kill an opponent than it takes Elemental tokens.
Now, for the nature of this deck. You see, everything here that needs protecting costs extra to cast. The reason is this, you don't want to play something down and not have anything to protect it. No number of high card advantage creatures or high value creatures will save you if you can't protect them. In this, our 1 mana protection grants are included in the cost of most of our creatures.
Butcher of the Horde costs symbolB Dark Confidant costs Monastery Mentor costs Young Pyromancer costs
The only exception, is Auriok Champion. Purely because the only removal spell that is played in modern right now that can get rid of it is Path to Exile, and very few decks run it. I define Auriok Champion as the number one sideboard card for modern right now. It excels against RDW, Twin, Zoo, Delver and Grixis control and decent against Tokens, Elves, Merfolk, Jund and Junk. It can block Grixis Control and Grixis Delver's creatures all day long, and be the sole card that puts me on par against the hefty midrange decks. Sure it may be a "sideboard card", but these are all reason enough to run this creature.
But there are even more reasons. The first is because of the shocking I'm going to be doing to myself that I mentioned earlier. The lifegain is needed to counter act those shocks. The second is because I have 7 token producers, and each one has the potential to produce 2-5 tokens. With just one Auriok Champion out on the field, every spell gets "gain 1 life", and this just escalates with more Auriok Champions and more token producers. Finally, the last reason is because this deck is actually fairly slow since I have to make sure my creatures stick otherwise I never have a boardstate ready. Having a constant lifegain presence for my plays and my opponents in a modern that is pretty creature heavy allows me to live for 2-4 more turns than I would if I didn't have Auriok Champion
Well that's enough for the creatures, next comes the non-creatures. Lightning Bolt, Path to Exile, Terminate and Thoughtseize are so common they don't even need explanation. So we'll skip those and go for the unusual stuff.
Butcher of the Horde is one of those unusual stuffs. This is the ultimate aristocrat finisher, and in a token shell I'm generating an endless amount of utility value for Butcher of the Horde. Against an aggro deck? Gain some life. Have lots of tokens on the field? Surprise finish them with a 5/4 hasty flier. On the defensive? Give it vigilance. Flyers in modern are definitely hard to deal with as they are frequently given a much higher cost that makes them hard to dodge a bolt and keep up any pressure, but a 4-5 mana 5/4 flier is certainly within our casting range and can deal a hefty amount of damage. The bonus is that it can turn the tides when you're behind, dropping this on an empty board immediately puts you in winning range.
Next up, is the card that's making so many decks turn Grixis is Kolaghan's Command. This card oozes playability in its ability to be relevant at any point in the game. It's affinity hate and merfolk hate, can remove creatures and force the discard if they are trying to save up the mana for a play in their hand, and finally, it can bring back my creatures should they die a horrible and gruesome death.
Enter our protection grants, Emerge Unscathed and
Gods Willing
. Both serve the same purpose, but one is the beef of this deck's survivability.
Gods Willing
helps with the card advantage plan with its scry, and is usually what I play to prevent removal when I don't have a heavy board state. Emerge Unscathed is what I play when I have a heavy board state. It being two procs in one on any prowess or Young Pyromancer means I gain far more value out of it than any other deck. That's the power of Emerge Unscathed, it counters any targeting or damage removal spell, and allows me to alpha strike them in the face. Can I hear a "FALCON, PUNCH!"
