The Deterrent Effect *Primer*

Modern Competitive GWU (Bant) Midrange Primer Prison Tempo

JKRice

Land (19)

• 3x Breeding Pool
• 3x Flooded Strand
• 2x Hallowed Fountain
• 4x Misty Rainforest
• 4x Snow-Covered Forest
• 2x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x Snow-Covered Plains

Acceleration (10)

• 4x Aether Vial
• 2x Birds of Paradise
• 4x Noble Hierarch

Utility (17)

• 4x Crystal Shard
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 4x Ice-Fang Coatl
• 4x Knight of Autumn
• 3x Restoration Angel
• 1x Vendilion Clique

Response (14)

• 4x Deputy of Detention
• 4x Mystic Snake
• 2x Reflector Mage
• 2x Spell Queller
• 2x Venser, Shaper Savant

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Sideboard

Other (15)

• 2x Aven Mindcensor
• 2x Eidolon of Rhetoric
• 1x Loaming Shaman
• 3x Meddling Mage
• 2x Phyrexian Metamorph
• 2x Renegade Rallier
• 3x Stonecloaker

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Maybeboard

Other (19)

• 1x Angel of Grace
• 1x Cataclysmic Gearhulk
• 1x Dungeon Geists
• 1x Forbidding Spirit
• 1x Frilled Mystic
• 1x Glint-Nest Crane
• 1x Gulf Squid
• 1x Inspiring Cleric
• 1x Kitchen Finks
• 1x Manglehorn
• 1x Militia Bugler
• 1x Mimic Vat
• 1x Pollenbright Druid
• 1x Reveillark
• 1x Selkie Hedge-Mage
• 1x Shrieking Drake
• 1x Stonehorn Dignitary
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Trinket Mage

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• Have you ever wondered what it would look like for bant to win?
• Do you like prison decks but lack the funds necessary?
• Do have a secret libidinal attraction to Venser, Shaper Savant ?

Then this deck might be for you!

The Deck

Real quick on the cost: if you get every card in the newest printing and get rid of nonessentials (no fetchlands, switch the ratio of hierarchs and birds, no V clique), this deck is ~500 dollars.

I know you have seen flash-vial decks before, and that they have been a disappointment. I pledge to you that this deck will not be a disappointment, despite being in bant colors. This was originally just me messing around with Familiar's Ruse (long since taken out), and it has evolved into a creature-control powerhouse. It might not look like it, but this deck can absolutely beat the meat of the best decks in the meta. Of course I’m not saying this is some sort of OP broken unfair deck that will wipe the floor with anything it comes up against. But it is definitely WAY better than I anticipated. With extensive play testing, this deck does well into the better decks in the meta, but loses to boggles decks and unfair cards like Blast Zone .

This is different from other bant or U/W flicker decks for a couple main reasons. Firstly, there is no Flickerwisp in the deck. We run only four copies of Restoration Angel , and nothing else. In this deck, the instant speed interaction is much more important, and I'm not talking about flash. Flickerwisp wants to return the exiled card at the end of turn, where angel does it instantly. This deck doesn't want to use the flicker effect to respond to the opponent, but rather to flicker one of your own creatures, generating a separate ETB effect that will respond instead. The second difference is the noticeable absence of Eldrazi Displacer and inclusion of Crystal Shard , which leads me to the main playstyle of the deck. Some bant decks are not recursive, they just play their creatures out in response and hope to draw into more. Most flicker decks are recursive, but they use Eldrazi Displacer and seek to flicker the board; they take cards on the board, put them somewhere else, then bring them back for value. This deck seeks to do the opposite. We start out with cards in our hand (that the opponent doesn't see), play them at instant speed, then immediately bounce them with crystal shard. So this is not, in fact, a flicker deck, but rather a self-bounce deck. This creates a disposition in the opponent that I have called the deterrent effect, which is where this deck got its name. If you have an aether vial on the field, your opponent will quickly learn to fear it. Since they cant actually see your threats until they are flashed out, by game two they will be scared to play anything for fear of you answering it with vial. This lets you basically bluff your way to a win, using the threat of even a single card in hand to deter them from playing their threats. Then again, most of the time you won't have to bluff.

At its heart, this is a tempo deck with a heck ton of inevitability. When I say tempo, I don’t mean the kind of deck that makes a tempo play and then uses the opportunity to chip some damage in. I mean a deck that makes tempo plays and does nothing off of them, conserving mana for more tempo plays in the future. Essentially, this deck stalls out the game until it can get a full lock going, then it can start to chip away at the opponent.

Pros and Cons

I personally prefer this strategy for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it is much harder to play around. Sure in other decks you can surprise someone by playing a card from your hand, but most of the time you will be using eldrazi displacer or flickerwisp or restoration angel. With this deck, your responses will want to stay in your hand and be continuously bounces. Secondly, this strategy has a lot more inevitability. Every turn that you stall, you have a larger chance of winning on the spot. I don’t mean killing your opponent, I mean setting up a board that makes it impossible for your opponent to win save Supreme Verdict . However, there are cons. This deck is a lot more susceptible to artifact hate, since it relies heavily on having one of the two artifacts in play. Secondly, the early game is somewhat worse with this deck, since this deck plays no instants or sorceries like Path to Exile to deal with early plays.

Card Choices

Mainboard

Early Acceleration

1: Aether Vial is your main accelerant, and also your main wincon. This is great for your curve (turn 2 birds, turn 3 coatl) and lets you flash in cards that don't normally have flash.

2: Birds of Paradise and Noble Hierarch accelerate you ahead so you can win even without vial. They are nice to have with vial though, especially if you need to play and activate Crystal Shard in the same turn.

Utility Cards

1: Ice-Fang Coatl is the newest addition to the deck. Originally, this deck had no wall of omen effects, but this new card was just too good not to include. This is one of the cards you bounce for value with Crystal Shard late game.

2: Eternal Witness was originally Renegade Rallier to get back vial, but I've found that it is better to be able to bring back anything than just things cmc 2 or less, even if you have to wait a turn to play them back.

3: Knight of Autumn is the best utility card in the deck. Mainboard artifact hate is really really nice to have, and in the matchups where that is useless, you can always use crystal shard to gain four life every turn.

4: Restoration Angel is good to have when you haven’t drawn into a crystal shard, making your creatures twice as effective, and increasing the likelihood that your opponent runs out of steam before you do.

5: Vendilion Clique is mainly here to cycle your own hand. This deck sometimes floods, and it is very useful to flash in a chump blocker on their end step and also get a free draw off of it. However, against combo opponents, this is a very good card to play offensively.

6: Crystal Shard is the second value generator in the deck, behind aether vial. With this on the field, you can play Deputy of Detention or Spell Queller and bounce in response to the trigger, exiling the card forever.

Response Creatures

1: Deputy of Detention is the go-to wide removal spell, answering literally any permanent they could play. The downside is negated by crystal shard.

2: Spell Queller answers anything deputy can’t, killing combo decks and helping into control matchups. Again, the downside is negated by crystal shard.

3: Mystic Snake is just a counterspell. No explanation there.

4: Reflector Mage is a stall card to keep annoying stuff of the board for a couple turns until you can get rid of it completely.

5: Venser, Shaper Savant is both a pseudo-snake and a pseudo-angel, making your creatures recursive when you don’t have shard or when you need to save a creature from Path to Exile . It’s also real fun to bounce all their lands.

Sideboard

1: Stonecloaker is just an absolute beast against any deck that uses its graveyard in any way. The only reason it’s not in Mainboard is because it’s so situational. Loaming Shaman is the wider response to mill or decks like delve.

2: Renegade Rallier brings back lands and Aether Vial . We bring this in against artifact hate.

3: Meddling Mage is great into decks like Ad Nauseam combo, where we can shut down a specific combo card.

4: Eidolon of Rhetoric is basically just a bully card. Into decks like storm, we just let them go off, then (oops I forgot) flash in this guy for the win. Having someone fizzle at the last possible second will usually win the game. It’s pretty fun to play.

5: Aven Mindcensor beats a lot of decks as long as you play it turn two with a birds or a hierarch. In some matchups it plays similar to the way you play eidolon.

6: Phyrexian Metamorph is just an extra two copies of any card you bring in.

The Strategy

This is a tempo deck, and like most decks, it’s strategy can be broken down into three phases.

Early Game

When you have no accelerator (birds, hierarch, or vial), you should mulligan. Also mulligan if you have one land or four or more lands. Two lands is more than enough as long as you have an accelerator. You should always have a turn one play. Turn 2-3 you should keep mana up for your creatures, and to deter your opponent from trying anything. You need to keep your opponent from gaining too much momentum early on, and you also need to stop effects like Assassin's Trophy . If they have a board presence when you are trying to assemble the lock, they will outpace you. Finally, during these turns you should assemble the triple snow lands for ice-gang coatl as best as you can. Ice-fang is a beast if you are starting to lose.

Mid Game

You should be gaining ground at this point. Use Mystic Snake and Deputy of Detention along with Restoration Angel to keep your opponent from sticking anything. If you can, don’t waste your single use creatures (deputy, hunter, queller). Instead, use the snake, and maybe even venser as a counterspell. If you can, abuse venser along with angel to get rid of some of their lands. The most important thing (besides not losing) is trying to find Crystal Shard , because without it, you will run out of momentum. This means just play out the coatl even if you don’t have the deathtouch online.

Late Game

You should have a crystal shard, which means now the fun can begin. Your single-use creatures now become multi-use. Here’s how it works. Let’s say you play spell queller targeting Assassin's Trophy . The trigger goes on to the stack, meaning trophy will be exiled no matter what happens to queller. In response to the trigger, bounce queller to your hand with shard. Queller leaves the battlefield then trophy gets exiled, meaning the second trigger on queller (letting them cast trophy for free) never happens. This works for all of your single use creatures. Crystal shard also lets you loop every other creature in your deck. At this point, you should abuse Knight of Autumn . If you feel confident, you can go the buff route for a quick kill. If you want to play safer, you can just swing every turn, then at the end of their turn you bounce Knight of Autumn to your hand and play it again for some life gain. This lets you outpace anything they play even if they break the lock. Even if they have artifact removal, you can just counter it, meaning there should be no way to break the lock unless they save up mana for some sort of epic counter battle, by which point you should be at 50 life from playing Knight of Autumn over and over again.

Gameplay

Tips/Tricks

This is just how to get the most value out of the deck

Rules

1: if there’s no BoP, hierarch, or vial in your opening hand, that’s probably a mulligan; you want a turn 1 play

2: always play vial first over birds or hierarch

3: this is a draw-go deck; never play KoA or other toolbox creatures on your turn because you lose responsiveness.

4: if you want to vial in a bird on T2, always do it on your opponent’s end step so they lose responsiveness. This goes for all value vial activations.

5: if you have 2 crystal shards and 1 vial, the second crystal shard is useless, meaning you want to keep it in your hand so you aren’t vulnerable to Maelstrom Pulse or Detention Sphere .

6: Vendilion Clique can and should be used primarily to gain information and secondarily to cycle your own hand. This means target them first and remove any threats, but then if you bounce it an replay it, target yourself to cycle away extra shards or lands you don’t want.

7: use Reflector Mage as a setup for a different card you want to play; since it stalls a threat by one turn, it gives you the chance to untap and Spell Queller / Mystic Snake away the card you bounced with mage.

8: When you only have one vial, keep it on three counters; all of your four drops have flash, but most of your three drops would be sorcery speed without vial.

9: shard can be used to chump block to gain survivability. With KoA, you can chump block and gain four life on your turn. It’s pretty fun.

Matchups

Tron

This is your second to worst matchup. This deck cant deal with the cast triggers from Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and Worldbreaker. However, you can definitely deal with most of the board pressure. As long as you can maintain a board presence, you should be fine. You will rely on Knight of Autumn to stop them from assembling tron by targeting Expedition Map .

Board in: 2x aven mindcensor, 2x meddling mage Board out: 2x reflector mage, 2x spell queller

Jund

This could be a bad matchup because of three cards: Abrupt Decay , Assassin's Trophy , and Kolaghan's Command . All of these can hit your vial. The last one is especially problematic because it can grab back creatures that you counter and spell snare doesn’t hit it. Your #1 priority should be protecting vial. The other thing you should look out for is the discard. This deck doesn't really have an answer to discard.

Board in: 2x meddling mage, 2x renegade rallier, 1x phyrexian metamorph Board out: 1x vendilion clique 2x reflector mage, 1x eternal witness, 1x ice-fang coatl

Spirits/Humans

This probably a decent matchup. Since these decks play a lot of 4-ofs, your Deputy of Detention s will do a lot more, and your Reflector Mage s are going to mess up your opponent's strategy.

Board in: 1x deputy of detention, 2x phyrexian metamorph Board Out: 1x eternal witness, 1x vendilion clique, 1x ice-fang coatl

Aggro

These incude zoo, 8-whack, burn, and affinity. This is a decent matchup as long as you maintain your life total and board pressure. This means fetch conservatively and use KoA for the life.

Board in: 2x eidolon of rhetoric, 1x phyrexian metamorph

Board out: 1x vendilion clique, 2x venser, shaper savant

Spellslinger

These include storm, suicide rush, arclight pheonix, and thing in the ice decks as long as they are more aggro than control. This is a relatively easy matchup, since your hard control can block whatever they try to pull off.

Board in: 2x eidolon of rhetoric, 2x meddling mage (2x aven mindcensor vs gifts storm) Board out: 3x deputy of detention, 1x vendilion clique

Yard

Graveyard decks are your worst matchup, since most of them can play their creatures without casting them, thus dodging most of your responsiveness. You're going to rely on Fiend Hunter , and Deputy of Detention .

Board in: 3x stonecloaker, 1x loaming shaman, 1x deputy of detention Board out: 2x venser, shaper savant, 3x Ice-fang coatl

Stuff im Considering

Maybeboard

If you think i should add one of these in, or that i shouldnt even be considering them, please comment.

1: Frilled Mystic would just be extra copies of Mystic Snake that would take the place of Spell Queller . So far, i prefer queller because it can counter uncounterable spells ( Abrupt Decay ) and it synergizes with KoA if you only have one vial and a shard.

2: Kitchen Finks would not be a mainboard card, but it might go in SB, since the lifegain could be crucial against aggro decks. I have found that without KoA’s lifegain, its a lot harder to control aggro decks.

3: Caraclysmic gearhulk used to be in the deck, but I never had the vial on five and some of the time it didn’t more damage than good. It’s still a decent pick though.

4: Reveillark was originally in the deck, but was taken out because a vial on 5 would otherwise be useless. However, reveillark could be useful in getting back creatures that died and resetting their ETB triggers.

5: Selkie Hedge-Mage would require a revamping of the mana base, but it would most likely be worth it. The only reason it isnt included is because there are cards already in the deck that do its job better.

6: Trinket Mage could be extremely useful in grabbing more vials, but after that it would essentially be useless, since having more than 2 vials doesnt do much.

7: Mimic Vat and Stonehorn Dignitary is a fun little combo I found to destroy any aggro deck. However, mimic vat is a bit finicky to use, which is why I haven’t included it. Stonehorn Dignitary is still a rigged card though. I might build an alternate version of this deck that goes harder on the lock and includes dignitary.

8: Forbidding Spirit would just be Ghost Quarter , which isn’t absolutely necessary in the deck.

More Fair Modern Decks

Modern has become linear and uninteractive, generating decks that are so braindead that they play themselves, and they win too. These are a collection of strange, off-meta decks that are supposed to be both fair and fun to play.

The fairest of all Ponza decks:

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Primer ••• “Weird Ponza” (Competitive-ish)

Modern JKRice

SCORE: 2 | 3 COMMENTS | 199 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

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An attempt to make One with Nothing playable in modern:

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The Worst Deck *Primer* (a.k.a. Fair Hogaak)

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A ridiculously finicky and nonlinear turboturns deck built after guilds of ravnica:

deck-large:Time-flies-primer

And finally, the fairest of all fair decks, a mono black deck that just wants to play some knights:

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Korlash and Haakon’s Casual Leisure Club

Modern JKRice

SCORE: 2 | 147 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

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Top Ranked	Achieved #72 position overall 5 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	43 - 8 Rares 10 - 7 Uncommons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.63
Folders	Somewhat Original Deck Primers