My first build of my own deck for Modern. It is my take on Hate Bears. This deck is designed to come out of the gates very quickly and disrupt my opponents with problematic creatures. Now I'll give a description for each card and how it functions.
First we'll start with the most important part of the deck, Creatures:
Aven Mindcensor: This card is very important in the deck and can easily disrupt an opponents game plan. He works so well with Path to Exile because a ton of decks in modern play very few basics and the chances of finding some in the top four are slim to none. He works very well with Ghost Quarter as well. Also this card works well against Melira Pod as a whole.
Flickerwisp: This creature serves a few purposes in the deck. First off a 3/1 flyer for 3 mana is not bad at all. Second, he can exile any creature on the board for the turn. This ability is very good at saving your creatures in a pinch (via Aether Vial) or it's very good at removing a problematic creature on the other side to get a good attack through.
Leonin Arbiter: This guy is a key component to the deck and functions very similar to Aven Mindcensor. As you may notice, this deck is only two colors so the demand for fetch lands is not high therefore we won't need to play any. So many other decks in modern love to play anywhere from 4-12 fetches so this creature is a huge pain for most decks to play around. He also is just a straight up land removal spell when paired with Ghost Quarter if they do not have the two mana up. Path to Exile is a beating with him as well. One last thing once again, we aren't playing any fetches!! So he has no downside for us (unless we were to be pathed without mana up)
Linvala, Keeper of Silence: This card is only being played as a one of here due to the fact she is four mana (a little high on the curve) and she is only super good against a couple decks. Although against those decks she is an all-star. She is very good against Splinter Twin decks and Scavenging Ooze. She is also not horrible against Affinity but also not typically ideal.
Loxodon Smiter: Although this creature may have decreased in value due to the decline of control decks in Modern but I still feel he is a good inclusion. Not only does he get around counter spells but he is also wonderful against Liliana of the Veil. And to top that off he's a 4/4 body for three mana! He smashes face!
Noble Hierarch: This is our mana dork. I'd hardly call this card a dork though. This guy is awesome! Not only does he help fix our mana with producing both green and white, but he also has exalted! If you're swinging in one guy at a time then this card is one to have out. This is really the only mana producer you need.
Qasali Pridemage: This card is very awesome in multiple match ups. He starts off with exalted and can also blow up any enchantment or artifact posing a threat to you. He's a solid 2/2 for two and is really useful in a lot of situations.
Scavenging Ooze: One of our most useful Hate Bears in the deck. This guy may start out as a 2/2 but with so many creature based decks in the format, he's gonna grow much larger. He also shuts down graveyard based decks all by himself while gaining you life all at the same time! This dude is a powerhouse!
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben: This card is very disruptive and great in a lot of situations. Since we aren't playing a ton of non-creature spells she is very well suited to slow our opponents down way more than us. Also first strike tacked on to a 2/1 body isn't bad either.
Voice of Resurgence: This bear is one of my personal favorites. He comes in as a 2/2 for two and can easily make your opponent play all their instant speed cards a lot differently. If that wasn't enough for you when they finally kill this pesky guy he replaces himself with something that becomes much larger.
Wilt-Leaf Liege: Our final creature on the list is this guy. He is a huge supportive threat and helps to make all of our little guys just a little bigger. He pumps all our mono colored creatures +1/+1 and our multi colored ones +2/+2. Being a 4/4 for four isn't bad at all and to top it off if he gets discarded by an opponent then he's free! He's a real all-star for the deck.
Now we move on to fairly small but still very important portion of the deck, the Non-creature spells:
Aether Vial: An enormous staple in how the deck functions. This card makes the deck flow so smoothly and can help to really pump out our threats twice as fast as we normally could. 2 charge counters is basically the magic number for this card but 3 and 4 are also reasonable spots. The biggest thing about this card is that it allows you to place your creatures directly into play at instant speed!!! Not only is this great for jamming creatures on your opponents turn but also the ones you place in with the vial can't be countered! The amount of advantage this card gives you when played early on is just tremendous. This deck honestly would not be a deck without this card.
Path to Exile: One of the greatest removal spells in Modern hands down. The great thing about this card is it's very cheap mana cost. The difference of this card being in any other deck opposed to ours is huge though. This spell may cost one mana but yes it does have a big downside, unless you play it in this deck. We can easily abuse this card with the likes of Aven Mindcensor and Leonin Arbiter and basically make the card have no downside at all.
Now we move on to the final section of the deck, Lands. I would expect most lists to not really have a Land section in the description but we have some lands that do a bit more than produce mana. So here are the Lands:
Ghost Quarter: When you first lay eyes on this card you may think "Wow this isn't all that great because they get a replacement for whatever you destroy." Not when you play this deck though. This card is insanely good in this deck and can sometimes be downright unfair. When you pair with either Leonin Arbiter or Aven Mindcensor it's gonna be very hard to find a replacement. They'll either have to find a correct land in the top 4, pay two to go fetch one, or in the dream scenario have to be the luckiest man alive and somehow pull off both.
Horizon Canopy: Very useful land in the deck. Not only does it produce both colors of mana we need, but it can also be used to draw us a card if we don't need it for the mana anymore.
Stirring Wildwood: It's always good to diversify your threats and this "man land" helps you do just that. A 3/4 with reach tacked on to land for just three mana is very good when we aren't using our mana for anything else that turn. Lastly it produces both our colors of mana so that's always great.
Razorverge Thicket: Our green and white "fast land". Great for the early turns.
Temple Garden: Good old shockland. Arguably the best dual land in the format for whatever colors you're running.
Sunpetal Grove: Although I feel this land isn't entirely necessary it serves as a pretty great dual land and functions just fine in the deck.
Now we move on to the sideboard. I have tried to cover a wide variety of threats for the Modern metagame. Here is an overview of my sideboard:
Mirran Crusader: This creature is very good to bring in against certain match ups that that are heavy on black removal or have powerful green creatures. He is hard for Jund to deal with and also the very popular "Rock" decks. 2/2 double striker for three is also pretty insane.
Rest in Peace: This card comes in against any decks that work a lot through their graveyard. It is very good against Melira Pod and Living End. This card also helps to combat Snapcaster Mage. It also has no downside to us because we do not utilize our graveyard whatsoever.
Thrun, the Last Troll: This guy is a just a very, very hard to deal with threat. Once he hits the battlefield he is ready to race your opponent. He comes mostly against control type decks because of his "can't be countered" clause but he also performs well against the removal heavy decks due to the fact he can't be targeted by a kill spell such as Slaughter Pact, Terminate etc.
Ethersworn Canonist: This card comes in for one match up only and that is Storm. Storm decks like to kill you with either Grapeshot or Empty the Warrens by copying said spell a lot of times. This guy completely shuts that plan down by allowing both players to only play one spell a turn.
Choke: This card is rather self-explanatory in the fact that it just shuts down any type of blue deck. If you are able to resolve this against the blue decks your win percentage has just increased marginally.
Stony Silence: This card is mainly here for the Melira Pod match up so they cannot activate the popular Birthing Pod. It can also be brought in against Affinity as they like to use cards such as Arcbound Ravager, Steel Overseer and Cranial Plating. Remember that it does effect your own Aether Vial so you must plan ahead for that.
Obstinate Baloth: This card is brought in for the very grindy racing match ups where the few points of life gain are going to matter. He is also a good 4/4 body for four mana and lastly don't forget he's well positioned against any of the decks with Liliana of the Veil.
Fracturing Gust: Yet another hate card to bring in against decks packing a lot of artifacts. When timed correctly this card will absolutely wreck Affinity and it's also not bad against the Hexproof decks that pack a ton of Aura spells.
Hushwing Gryff: This card is a very useful tool against the Twin and Melira Pod decks by effectively shutting off their combo and making them play a fair game of magic. That's the one reason you'll wanna be boarding him in.
Well that is a my brief analysis of my deck! I hope you guys enjoy this list as much as I do and I hope to grow and evolve this deck to make it as powerful as possible! Any suggestions are welcome and I appreciate any feedback (good or bad) that you guys may have! Thanks for checking out my deck!
