Rothgar’s Competitive Corner: Let the Hatred Flow Through You

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rothgar13

9 July 2017

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Hi everyone,

I'm Roland Rivera, and this is the latest installment of Rothgar's Competitive Corner. This week, we'll be talking about some cards that have carved out a niche for themselves in the competitive metagme by packing strong, specific answers (typically referred to as "hate") against certain strategies. For more details about the decks that are currently prominent in the Modern meta, I strongly suggest you take a look at TappedOut's Modern Tiered List.

We begin with what may be one of the most innocuous-looking cards in the format in Relic of Progenitus. While at first this card seems like it would be mediocre when compared to more dedicated graveyard hosers such as Grafdigger's Cage and Rest in Peace, the strength of Relic lies in that it can be cycled for a card when its effect is irrelevant or in response to removal. This ability to help you churn through your deck while keeping the graveyard under control is especially potent against Grixis Shadow, which both mines its graveyard for value with Gurmag Angler, Kolaghan's Command, Snapcaster Mage, and Tasigur, the Golden Fang and tries to run you out of cards with targeted removal and discard. This has led to Relics being in decks beyond those who jam it because there are no other good graveyard hate pieces in their colors (think Eldrazi Tron and Merfolk), such as the Death & Taxes list that took down the latest SCG Invitational:

Here, we see a deck that has access to Rest in Peace, but has opted against it in favor of Relic. This plan worked out brilliantly, as Relic is typically "good enough" against the dedicated graveyard decks (Dredge, Living End, and Storm, to name a few) when combined with the proactive gameplan afforded by the likes of Thalia and Arbiter, while being better against the preeminent fair deck. Expect to see more of this handy little artifact around in the future.

Next up is a narrow, but powerful counterspell from Kaladesh block: Ceremonious Rejection. While restricting its range to colorless spells may seem like it makes it too limited in a metagame as wide-open as Modern, an analysis of the decks doing well will find that it has quite a few juicy targets. It hits almost everything in Eldrazi Tron and Affinity (both Tier 1 decks), all of the payoff spells for traditional Tron (a Tier 2 deck), and a majority of the cards in Lantern Control (a Tier 3 deck). It can also be handy against Eldrazi and Taxes (part of the Death and Taxes Tier 2 conglomerate) and WB Eldrazi (Tier 3). This range combined with a low mana cost that is very Snapcaster Mage-friendly makes it a potent addition to decks featuring the creature, such as Grixis Shadow and UW Control. However, this card is potent enough without the ability to be Snapped back for value that even blue decks that typically do not feature Snapcaster Mages are beginning to feature it. A prominent recent example is the Merfolk list that made Top 8 in the most recent SCG Modern Open:

Here, Rejection provides a potent tool against Eldrazi Tron (which is typically a close matchup for Merfolk), while shoring up the Lantern and Affinity matchups (which are very bad preboard). This sideboard decision likely gave this list enough game against the Tier 1 field to achieve its prominent position. Given its paltry mana cost and potentially potent effects against several currently prominent decks, I would expect to see many more copies of this card in sideboards going forward.

Last but not least is an old standby when it comes to land hate in both Modern and Legacy in Blood Moon. Curiously, at a time when greedy manabases operating on very tight margins are rampant, the Moon is about as scarce as it’s ever been. However, Blood Moon-centric decks like Skred Red have begun to figure out how to put together a 75 that can stand up to the wide variety of threats in the current metagame. An example is this list that recently did well in a Modern challenge:

Here, Blood Moon is front and center: having it in the mainboard can harshly punish opponents soft to it, as they will not have a chance to bring in any tools they may have to ward it off. Note that it has Relic of Progenitus in the main as well, which makes it surprisingly competent against the combo decks that are currently doing well in the format (which had long been a historical weakness of Skred Red). I'd also like to highlight Roast as a quality hedge against Delve creatures, Eldrazi, and mid-sized Death's Shadows. While not every deck is built to go this all-in on Blood Moon, I would say that an uptick in decks that can feature it in this way is overdue, as is its presence in the sideboards of red decks that have a stable manabase (such as Gifts Storm).

That's all I have for you this week. If you enjoyed it, have any comments, or have any suggestions for for future pieces, let me know in the comments section here, or on Reddit (my username there is /u/rothgar13). I'll see you all in my next article.