For when you're too much of a poor bitch like me to afford Snapcaster Mage, and you have to settle for boneless-snapcaster and fatcaster. I need help looking at and refining the list, as this is my first ever modern deck built from scratch.
Snapcaster-lite:
Mission Briefing is an amazing budget option, being about three dollars instead of seventy five. Additionally, it in my opinion is a better card in a select few decks, specifically those using any delve mechanics (which I am becoming more inclined to use as I test the deck). Regardless, by playing 4 copies of Mission Briefing, and 3 of Torrential Gearhulk, we can run 7 snapcaster-like effects. We could run another copy of Gearhulk for 8 of this effect, but that is too much in my opinion. Being able to flashback our spells is amazing card and tempo advantage, but we do not want to be stranded with too many snapcaster effects in hand, and not enough spells in the yard.
Removal:
We've got our snapcaster effects, but what are we casting with it? Largely, we are looking to keep the board clean. Inquisition of Kozilek allows us to check our opponent's hand, get an idea of what their gameplan is, and take what ever their most threatening early-game play is. Fatal Push is a modern all-star, and we can easily activate revolt with our fetches and Field of Ruin. Terminate is cheap, and can remove the late-game creature threats that Fatal Push does not hit. Finally, Lightning Bolt as everyone knows can either acts as an early removal spell, or go face.
Counters:
With eight exceptions, all of our spells can be played at instant speed, meaning the best option to keep threats off the board are counterspells. We don't need to remove a threat if it never even hits the board. Remand is only a temporary counter, but it disrupts our opponents, essentially wasting one of their turns, and it cantrips, allowing for us to dig for our more permanent removal, or win conditions if necessary. Ionize is another interesting option to come out of Guilds of Ravnica. It is a hard counterspell, and it deals a small amount of damage to our opponent. This two damage is not much, but that burn stacks up with our bolts, and it being flashed back. Ionize still needs more testing, and may be removed in future builds, but for the mean time, I'm willing to give it a chance to shine. Last but most certainly not least in our counter package, is Cryptic Command, the bane of everyone not playing a blue heavy deck.
Cantrips:
Opt and Serum Visions, not much to talk about here. Opt is a nice cantrip that we can fire off at instant speed, and can be casted off our snaps if we are desperately digging for a certain card. Serum Visions cantrips and digs fairly deep with the scry 2. Remand cantrips itself, and Cryptic Command not always, but often cantrips.
Win Conditions:
We've (hopefully) kept the board clear, and the game fairly under control, but now we need to find a way to close out the game. The first, and most obvious rout to victory is former Standard all-star, Torrential Gearhulk. Affectionately referred to by many as fatcaster, Gearhulk after flashing back a spell for us is a large body that can quickly kill the opponent if left to his devices. On the subject of creatures, Wandering Fumarole is a great way to apply additional pressure on our opponent without using another spell slot on a win con. It will always enter tapped, but as we've seen in numerous other control decks, man-lands are often times more worth it than not. Jace, the Mind Sculptor is obviously powerful, and if he sticks on a stable board, we can simply lock our opponent out of the game with his + until we simply exile their entire library. In an optimal build, I would likely run more, but I only have one copy, so for now, Jace remains a one of. Finally, running four Lightning Bolt also gives us a way to close the game. If we haven't needed to use bolts on our opponents creatures, we can possibly burn them out. Four Lightning Bolt, two Ionize, and the ability to flash them back, combined with the life loss naturally incurred due to our opponent's fetchlands and shocklands, and burning our opponent is far more likely than many may assume.
Sideboard:
Are you really still reading the description for my garbage first modern deck? Anyway, it's time to talk sideboard. Three copies of Delver of Secrets
can catch our opponent quite off guard in game two or three if they are playing a non-aggressive deck. After game one, our opponent likely takes out most if not all of their early game removal, allowing Delver to run amok and quickly whittle our opponent's life total. Negate is another counterspell that we want in many match ups, but not all. Anger of the Gods is our sweeper of choice, for now. Collective Brutality is a very flexible card, acting as another removal spell, hand hate spell, or life gain. Damping Sphere is a good budget option to help deal with Tron. Kolaghan's Command is another flexible card that can fit into many match ups. Liliana, the Last Hope can repeatidly kill our opponent's creatures if they have only one toughness, return our Gearhulks or Delvers to hand, and if left unchecked, is another wincon with her ultimate. Finally, Surgical Extraction is a catch all for many match ups, and can remove key pieces of enemy combos.
