Rogue Decks and their Viability
Modern forum
Posted on Nov. 20, 2015, 1:07 p.m. by Dalektable
I am a huge fan of playing rogue, out there brews. I'm not one to play a top tier deck, not for lack of a spike-y attitude just because it's not my style. Deck building is my favorite part of magic, so creating, tweaking and improving my own designs is what gives me satisfaction in the game. In modern, there are countless possibilities and decks but those often go unnoticed under the rug amidst the flood of those decks at the top of the metagame. Making viable, unique decks that actually stand a chance in modern is a real challenge. Do you guys have any decks which you have innovated, and have you had good results with them?
Some of my notable and more successful brews include the following:
Mono White Turbofog
UW Titan Control (inspiration from the few sources available)
Mono Black Infect
RG Scapeshift Titans
Some of these are odd and others are more viable than others, but I am proud of all of these and I'm interested to see some of your decks.
GlistenerAgent says... #3
Can't embed my image on mobile, but I have been thoroughly loving this masterpiece.
November 20, 2015 1:21 p.m.
TheAnnihilator says... #4
@GlistenerAgent Why has messing around with Esper become so popular lately? For the longest time, I thought me and a small few others, namely tclaw12, were the only ones!
November 20, 2015 1:33 p.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #5
I'm messing with Mentor rather than Esperanza. I've also got a 4C version and a Jeskai version and different iterations on Esper.
November 20, 2015 1:35 p.m.
TheAnnihilator says... #6
Ah, yea. I just re-looked-over the list and realized I missed the Mentors -- I had mistaken them for being Lingering Souls. xD
The card choices make a lot more sense to me now.
November 20, 2015 1:38 p.m.
I'm liking your Mentor list, GlistenerAgent. Have you tried Esper Charm over Painful Truths?
November 20, 2015 1:49 p.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #9
I'm working with Charm in my Cryptic version of the deck. Haven't reached a conclusion on it yet, but I really like Painful Truths so I'm trying to make it work if I can.
November 20, 2015 1:53 p.m.
LampeShades says... #10
Rogue is the way to go! Deck building is my favorite part of Magic. Rogue decks are very much the underdog; often it takes doing not so well many times and adjusting your deck little by little- a very painful process at times. But the reward is so much sweeter when you take your deck that you created and stuck with and finally do well at a tournament, and it's fun to think about the many versions/ metamorphoses the deck has taken to get to that point.
I am also of the opinion that once you have finally got your rogue deck to the point where it can compete, there is a pseudo-advantage in the fact you can catch people at a tournament slightly off-guard and unprepared; that said it is still an uphill battle most of the time against the established modern decks that continually do well.
Anywho, below is my rogue deck that has done best for me. I originally made it because I really liked the card Zhur-Taa Druid when it came out (seems so long ago now); although the druid is no longer in the deck, it has turned into a well-performing aggressive off-version of zoo. Beastmode.
I have lots of others too on my profile under all decks; most decks I have built I would consider "rogue" or an altered take on a popular strategy (although there are exceptions, my jund mid-range being one, even that though i try to add a little of my own flavor choices); I continually try to re-work them to get them to the point where they can compete (some will probably never get there, but the fun is in the chase). Thanks for the post! Sorry for the rant, I just love when other people are dedicated to making rogue decks. Keep the dream alive!
November 20, 2015 1:53 p.m.
Servo_Token says... #11
Stacks on Stax
Modern
SCORE: 24 | 3 COMMENTS | 2190 VIEWS
This is what i'm currently working on. In it's pure colorless form it was about 50/50 with every deck I played against, but now that i've dipped into white a bit it's doing very well. There's two ways to name the deck, either White Tron or Stax, it's basically a prison deck that looks to establish the Bottled Cloister + Ensnaring Bridge lock by turn four and grind them out. Super fun deck to play, and because of this deck Crucible of Worlds is slowly taking Loam's place as my favorite card ever.
November 20, 2015 1:54 p.m.
JaceArveduin says... #12
Protection Bending
Modern
SCORE: 1 | 0 COMMENTS | 114 VIEWS
Here's my pet project. Well, at least the non-pegasus tribal one, lol. It's... I guess an aggro deck, but all the creatures have protection, and we have Mind Bend (And Glamerdye once I get a hold of one) to make getting rid of them with anything short of edicts or wraths troublesome. There's a few little extras, like the singleton Knight Exemplar, but for the most part it's quite straight forward. Unfortunately, that also means that it doesn't handle colorless very well. Tron is a horrible match up, affinity is irksome, and you're praying to RNJesus when you face Lantern, and probably eggs too. On the bright side, you have great matchups against BGX, and you're opponent's going to hate you in a Grixis matchup if they don't run Damnations. It's also a fairly cheap deck to build once you subtract the staples you likely already own.
November 20, 2015 3:46 p.m.
Dalektable says... #13
Some sweet decks floating around.
GlistenerAgent I've been toying around with mentor since he was spoiled, but I've never found a build to play him optimally...that I can afford at least, haha. Have you ever tinkered with Mardu Mentor? Young Pyromancer, burn, hand disruption, removal, Butcher of the Horde, Lingering Souls. I liked it a lot. Also, I know it's been at least a few days but I've been meaning to ask what happened to your username?
JaceArveduin I can't believe I'm actually recommending this card, but have you thought about Trait Doctoring over Mind Bend?
November 20, 2015 4:25 p.m.
JaceArveduin says... #14
DalektableOh I definitely looked at it, but it's sorcery speed, and voiding someone's Path because your Crusader has protection from Black and White all of a sudden.
November 20, 2015 4:42 p.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #15
I'm not a fan of Mardu because the blue cards make this deck so much more fluid. You get to play cheap counterspells, Snapcaster Mage is obviously a huge draw, and Thought Scour pulls everything together.
November 20, 2015 4:52 p.m.
How has the esper list been working out for you Glistener? I need to give it a shot sometime, but I've been busy with various essays I needed to get done. Part of the effectiveness in rogue brews is that people don't expect them, so they don't sideboard for them. Tokens, for example, can be very successful at some events because no one tends to expect them. It also has the tendency to do well against tier 1 decks, but falters against other tier 2 decks, but I'm not sure if this is something that transfers well into other rogue decks.
November 20, 2015 5:12 p.m.
my pride and joy is You and this army!. Its a deck that i engineered from the ground up and have been slowly and slowly making more and more competitive.
The main idea is to play Suture Priest followed by Hunted Phantasm and have a Illness in the Ranks to mitigate the response.
November 20, 2015 5:22 p.m.
JaceArveduin says... #18
I ran into that once aholder7. Or something similar. They didn't use Phantasm, they used Intruder Alarm Kiora's Follower and Forbidden Orchard to infinite loop the drain/heal. I think this was before DTK, so no CoCo to help it out.
November 20, 2015 5:42 p.m.
November 20, 2015 5:50 p.m.
ive seen things like that, but i dont want mine to be an infinite combo. its just largely synergistic. it doesnt play the follower or the alarm. because they dont work well outside of the combo.
November 20, 2015 5:51 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #22
Oh that is a lovely combo. Too bad it has so many moving pieces.
November 20, 2015 6:09 p.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #23
@xzzane This list feels pretty solid. I like that it's versatile in letting you get aggressive with Souls or just killing everything and casting Ancestral Recall.
It's also cool that there are tons of possible builds. I currently have a cantrip-based Esper version, Jeskai, Esper Red, a build that takes a heavy control role with 4 Cryptics, etc. You can build it in the style of Twin or Grixis with ports of various cards, you can take it the way Ichikawa originally played it...
Hella fun.
November 20, 2015 9:15 p.m.
hey man, i play unburial rites in modern, and it kicks ass. i have tweaked it a ton to compete against the meta, and yeah, rogue decks ARE viable, always. You just have to test a ton, play a ton, fish a ton. Rogue for days baby.
If you play Elder Scrolls Online on XboxOne, we are the Rogue Basterds guild. It is our magic team name. lol. Peace.
TheAnnihilator says... #2
Not sure it counts as a "rogue" deck, since it's pretty Spike-y, but here's my favorite non-T1 (yet!) deck. It's Esper Draw-Go Control:
How much time is left in the round? [PRIMER]
Modern TheAnnihilator
SCORE: 7 | 29 COMMENTS | 523 VIEWS
November 20, 2015 1:13 p.m.