Can Heroic be Modern Competitive?
Modern Deck Help forum
Posted on June 26, 2015, 1:03 p.m. by mardolous
I'm looking to make my new deck: Modern Heroicness! into a competitive modern heroic deck.
My other heroic decks did fine in standard, but they failed in a recent modern tourney.
I need a replacement for Hero of Leina Tower, there must be a better alternative.
Also I don't want to spend hundreds so could you suggest some budgety kinds of cards.
Thanks
Unfortunately, if you're running pump spells in Modern you're better off racing to 10 instead of 20. What I mean by that is Infect is the "Pump-spell Aggro" deck of choice in Modern. And if you're running Auras, the better deck is GW Slippery Bogles. Hexproof is too powerful to ignore when it comes to protecting your creatures from the widely played removal spells, e.g. Lightning Bolt, Path to Exile, Terminate, etc.
That said, if it's fun and you win games, go for it! No one is stopping you from running it. But some cards to consider that are budgety: Kor Spiritdancer and Spider Umbra are a good place to start. Non-budget cards to consider are Daybreak Coronet, Windswept Heath, and Horizon Canopy.
June 26, 2015 1:08 p.m.
If you want to play heroic, you should just play infect.
10 less damage that you have to do that doesn't get shut-the-fuck down by life gain.
I'd have to agree with Junk Mage's sentiments on how prevalent removal is, totally just muffs up the strategy of beefing one guy up and swinging big. Infect has this same problem but they only have to do half the damage. Since infect usually runs blue, there's lots of unblockable shit you can do to your creatures as well.
It's good for doing some FNM stomping, but I think it will be a while before someone can "crack the code" to make heroic a tournament viable strategy if it's even possible.
June 26, 2015 1:10 p.m.
RedUndead40 says... #5
I've seen UB heroic do well. Shimmering Wings + Agent of the Fates is incredible board control.
June 26, 2015 2:32 p.m. Edited.
Short answer: No. It was only viable in a Standard that was light on removal, which is not how Modern works. Plus there are lots of decks that can just plain outrace you.
Long answer: As WotC is fond of saying, Modern tends to be a "turn 4" format for its aggro decks (which Heroic undeniably is), which means that if you're winning or building an overwhelming board state on turn 4, chances are you're in trouble. The issue with that is that most Heroic creatures either cost 2 mana, or in the case of Hero of Leina Tower, cost mana to pump. That affords you precious little time to outrace the other aggro decks, such as Burn and Affinity.
The second issue, as ThatJunkMage alluded to, is removal. It's not a coincidence that Heroic sprung up as a deck after Return to Ravnica (and by extension cards like Abrupt Decay and support for decks like Black Devotion, who ran cards like Bile Blight, Doom Blade, and Hero's Downfall) left the format. If your creatures can be targeted, they can (and probably will) be killed. Now, that's fine if you're running 24-26 creatures along with some disruption to fend off removal spells (like Merfolk does), or can just blurt out 2-3 creatures a turn at a moment's notice (like Elves or Anafenza's Company do). Heroic doesn't have that luxury - you need to play lots of spells that target your dudes in order to make them bigger, as well as some card draw in order to make sure you can continue to target them and get them to critical mass. That means that every creature that dies is a huge blow to your chances of winning the game.
And boy, does Modern have a bunch of efficient ways to kill your guys - Lightning Bolt, Electrolyze, Kolaghan's Command, Lightning Helix, Terminate, Murderous Cut, Abrupt Decay, Path to Exile, the list just goes on and on and on. Moreover, Heroic (because it builds up using +1/+1 counters) is also flawed in the sense that even bounce will force you to start over - when playing against a deck that provides pressure of its own, a Vapor Snag targeting your Heroic creature is as good as a Terminate, which is not the best place to be.
Last but not least, Heroic also puts you in the unenviable position of either playing a "protect the queen" strategy until you can gather enough pump spells to swing for a killshot, or rely on Aura-stacking and risk getting 2-for-1'd (or 3-for-1'd, or 4-for-1'd, or... you get it) by a well-timed removal spell. Put all of those together, and it's very readily apparent that it's just not worth the hassle.
However, you shouldn't be discouraged by this if you enjoy the Heroic "build-a-monster" type of playstyle. Just go about it in a different way - Infect and Aura Hexproof (Bogles to many) builds play in a very similar fashion, but are either more efficient (Infect only has to race to 10 instead of 20 and has 1-drops and manlands that can do the job), or safer (Hexproof creatures are a bear to interact with outside of sweepers, and Totem Armor auras can fend those off). To boot, neither of those decks are overwhelmingly expensive and both are flying a bit under the radar at the moment (it's been a while since either of them made Top 8 anywhere big). Try one of them out for a spin and see.
June 26, 2015 2:50 p.m.
JexInfinite says... #7
Heroic in modern is a worse version of the single threat decks. Infect is so good because it only has to deal 10. Bogles is good because it's hard to interact with, but Lili's existence makes that a difficult thing.
Heroic has the pitfalls of both, and the advantages of none.
June 26, 2015 8:15 p.m.
I feel like heroic is actually not viable for modern. It is just my opinion i know but when you start building a modern deck based around heroic, you are going to give up a lot of slots for important cards such as removal and disruption in order to get heroic triggers. And the nightmare situation in a heroic deck is actually when all of your heroic creatures get removed and you are left with a lot of pump spells in your hand. It just does not seem like a worthwhile mechanic to build around.
As for using heroic, there is this one deck I know of that has a successful balance of removal and other cards to trigger heroic.
Sagarys had made an ultra budget heroic deck that I actually like. it is a great build to start out with. The crazy shenanigans i pulled when playtesting this deck were a great start to heroic in modern. Personally, i would add in Phyresis and Tainted Strike so that i could use infect damage to kill my opponent.
I could not tag it properly so here is the link:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/18-05-15-golgari-heroic/
Anyways, the problem with heroic is not the mechanic itself, but it is actually the number of cards you have to put in to enable it. This makes the heroic deck rely heavily on combat tricks in order to deal with problematic creatures. And in my experience, there are barely any combat tricks that can deal with stuff like an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Servo_Token says... #2
I would say that Heroic is not a modern viable mechanic because the removal in the format is so efficient. none of your creatures can protect themselves without being open to a two-for-one or greater, which means that the deck is going to have a very difficult time against a majority of competitive decks.
If you want to play a heroic strategy, play Bogles.
June 26, 2015 1:06 p.m.