I've said this many times with modern, but this time I'm certain. I've been searching for a deck to play in the format for a long time. This has got to be the one for me. This deck was originally this list: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=80614 As you can see I've made changes as I better learned the deck and new sets came out.
Mana Base:
Not much to say about it, I believe it to be very solid. It allows us to very well stand up against Blood Moon. We're able to cast any of our spells even with that on the board, which is why we have more basics than most people would in a three or more colored deck. Our fetches and shocks let us get our mana how we want it quite easily. The ideal is to have triple blue as quickly as possible, a white and red or two early on, and then a black whenever we're ready for our black spells. Also, Celestial Colonnade, like any man land, is difficult to get rid of.
Instants:
As you can see almost everything in the deck is instant speed. Counter magic consists of
Remand
, Cryptic Command, and Mana Leak to keep things from hitting the board, or being successfully cast. With burn spells, Lightning Bolt and Lightning Helix, we're able to bring down the opponent's life total and/or get rid of their threats. Sphinx's Revelation for life gain and card advantage, and we're even able to cast it with Blood Moon on the board. Kolaghan's Command is a great card with a number of options. Path to Exile is able to get rid of almost anything that we can't burn out. There are a ton of interactions with this deck. And of course you can always flash in Snapcaster Mage if you need to flashback anything. Also, Mystical Teachings is able to grab almost anything that you could need to answer whatever the enemy throws at you.
Sorceries:
We don't run many, but I think they're some of the better ones.
Supreme Verdict
for when the board gets out of hand, on top of that it can't be countered! What's better than that? Lingering Souls is our only other sorcery spell. It's just great all around, it's able to chump block most creatures, and it's been the cause of winning a lot of games.
Wincons:
The usual plan is to dwindle them down with our burn spells, and then finish them off with beat downs from Snapcaster Mage, Lingering Souls, Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Celestial Colonnade,
Pia and Kiran Nalaar
, or Olivia Voldaren. Of course, it doesn't always work that way. Sometimes the burn plan just doesn't work. When that happens you can steal their dudes with Olivia Voldaren and beat them to death with their own creatures. Sometimes we can't keep our main creatures, so we have to just keep recurring our burn spells with Tasigur, the Golden Fang and/or Snapcaster Mage.
Sideboard:
The sideboard is still rather close to the original one. When I did an overhaul of the deck I did a lot of tinkering with the sideboard by looking at our difficult match-ups. Based on the last FNM I attended, it's gotten a lot better. Every card has a place that it can be sided in for depending on the match-up.
Match-ups:
One of my favorite things about this deck is that I've never found a deck that it "just can't beat," the match-ups seem to be almost always either fair, or in our favor. There are, naturally, some where the opponent holds the advantage.I've played most of the popular modern decks except for tron with this. The most difficult match-ups for this deck are RDW, some Jund lists, Infect, and Burn. The best match-ups for us are control, Abzan/Junk, Delver, Geist, and Tokens. The most even match-up for us seems to be Twin.
Other Information:
The modern community where I live is pretty limited, but I still retain a very high win:lose ratio with this deck, even when I play out of town. In FNMs the worst I've ever done is either fourth or fifth.
I'm always open to suggestions, especially for the sideboard, so if you have any, please leave them. If you like the deck please leave a +1 and a comment, they're always appreciated.
