The Intro
Brain in a Jar is an awesome flavorful card. Unfortunately in standard, the instants and sorceries aren't quite powerful enough to really make a competitive deck. Luckily in modern, we have access to an amazingly powerful curve. Behold:
The Deck
1-drops:
Alive / Well , a 3/3 for 1 is pretty powerful (just ask zoo). (Also some nice life gain in case you happen to be playing zoo).
Aside from this, we have Serum Visions to help smooth out our combo and dig for the good stuff, as well as Path to Exile to help us survive the early game.
2-drops:
Beck / Call, this is the money card, 4 birds and 4 cards for 1 mana at the end of your opponents turn is oppressive. If you manage to resolve this, its tough to lose (imagine a much stronger sphinx's revelation that only cost 1).
We also have Turn / Burn & Far / Away for some more removal if there's no beck / call in hand.
Finally we have Boom/Bust to lock the opponent out once we've amassed enough of an advantage.
Muddle the Mixture and Mana Leak are also here, but they're not usually brain targets
3-drops
Day's Undoing another great reason to play the brain. This card is lackluster when cast on your turn, but at your opponents end step, it's pretty much a draw 7.
At 3, we also have Turn / Burn & Far / Away in case you used your 2 for something better.
Muddle the Mixture can also be transmuted for 3 in case you kept a hand without a brain in it.
4-drops
Supreme Verdict is here in case the board still doesn't look the way you want it too. (an instant speed board wipe is much more powerful than a sorcery speed board wipe. just ask any U/W control player from the 2013 standard season about quicken).
This is usually the point where you probably want to start looking at that second option on Brain in a Jar. If you really need, Alive / Well is still available again, but getting the scry, and resetting is usually your best option. If beck/call is in your hand, scrying down and using brain for 2 is better than making your way to 6.
The Sideboard
Most of our sideboard is never actually meant to be sided into the deck. Using Glittering Wish, our cards can help us more in the side than in the deck.
Assault/Battery - for when you really need another creature. notice there are 3 so 2 can be sided into matchups where you think 3/3 tokens will perform better (abzan would be that matchup)
Beck / Call - This one should be obvious. We keep one in the side to allow our wish to act as copies 4-7.
Catch / Release - This is for when your opponent has a very "diverse" board state. it offers removal for pretty much any permanent that is causing us problems. it is much more effective if you have power conduit out so you don't have to sac brain (or if your opponent has a nice looking artifact to steal).
Dispel - if you're afraid of your cards being countered, you can bring in up to 3 of these. (its not multicolored so don't worry about leaving one in the board)
Far / Away - This is just some extra removal, just in case. Notice there are 2, so you can side 1 in if need be.
Jund Charm - A great multitasker. graveyard hate, or a small board wipe if we need.
Kiora's Follower - This is a fun card that allows us to use brain (or power conduit) twice in one turn for some powerful results.
Maelstrom Pulse - In case our opponent gets greedy and puts out multiples to make it "harder to remove them all"
Supreme Verdict - You can probably guess what this is for.
Wear / Tear - cheap artifact and enchantment hate (even though its a fuse card, you're usually just going to hard cast a single side of this one, its cheap enough you should still have mana for brain activations and maybe another spell even).
The Combo
If you've read this far, you've probably already figured it out. Brain in a Jar lets you pick a card with a certain cost from your hand and then cast it without paying its mana cost. The good news is, fuse cards have 2 mana costs, and you can cast both halves as long as you're casting from your hand. (If your opponent doesn't believe you, tell them to go check out rule #708.6c.
The Conclusion
Thanks for reading. I'd love comments and suggestions (maybe a sideboard?) Good luck testing!
