What would be best for a tournament?
Modern forum
Posted on July 12, 2013, 4 p.m. by Skulldrey
Hey guys, my LGS is starting up Modern tournaments this coming week, and while I won't be there - vacation - I will be there every Thursday from then on. I was wondering what deck you guys thought would be the best for me to take out on my first go-round.
I have:
Basic Living End
Mono U Tron
R/U Affinity (Not finished yet, but will be by two weeks from now)
Pump Infect
So far in play testing, none of my decks have been able to beat the Infect. Apostle's Blessing is just too much of a card. I'm betting the Affinity gets the upper hand once it's complete, as artifacts are colorless and the Blessing doesn't do much.
Give me your opinions. I have a deck list for the Tron up on my profile, but have not yet added the others.
NobodyPicksBulbasaur says... #3
For the record, Apostle's Blessing can grant protection from artifacts.
July 12, 2013 4:59 p.m.
DeletedNow4ever says... #5
I built a mono-blue infect deck from scratch and I'm running Apostle's Blessing too. The only thing is, since I'm mono blue and I already have Mutagenic Growth and Dismember in my deck, I'm wondering if I should switch it up to Mizzium Skin . The skin gives me hexproof and not just protection from one source, meaning I don't have to worry about naming red to avoid a Lightning Bolt just to run into a Path to Exile . Any ideas on that since you run infect too? Here's the deck if you don't mind checking it out, Mono-Blue Artifect.
July 15, 2013 4:07 p.m.
By the way, Infect should ideally be Blue-Green.
What you should play really depends on the meta. Affinity and Infect are extremely fast, while Living End and Tron are slower. If your meta is slower, play Living End (I love combo). If your meta is faster, play your faster deck.
July 16, 2013 7:48 a.m.
More on meta choices:
Speed of the meta is important, but I think that the composition is more important. One of Infect's weak matchups is against a pretty slow deck in UWR Geist. It has enough cheap removal to either kill your creatures or to force you to play pump spells defensively rather than offensively.
Things to look for in your meta then:
- Infect is very quick and powerful, but the slightest bit of removal (or a bad opening seven...it does not mulligan well) slows or even destroys it. You can protect your creatures, but every time you spend a spell defensively, it's one less spell to use offensively.
- Affinity is almost as quick, but it's easily hated out. It's extremely dependent upon the opening hand but mulligans very well. If the hate isn't in your meta, I'd favor this for a fast deck, because it's more resilient anything that isn't artifact hate than Infect is.
- Living End is tremendous against creature-based decks, but it's slow and doesn't interact until the Living End goes off. This deck has been very successful lately, but if your meta is full of Storm or Splinter Twin then I'd lay off. Fast creature decks can be problematic, though generally (except against powerful Infect draws) you can clear the board before they kill you, and then they're powerless to stop you.
- Mono-Blue Tron is unstoppable once it gets set up, but it's slow to set up. The counters make it very effective in a combo-dominated meta, but it's soft against fast creature strategies.
July 16, 2013 9 a.m.
One more thing to add to the above, after re-reading the OP: if Modern is new and if you don't know what the meta is going to be like, just look at the decks that are cheap (money-wise) to build. These tend to be fast creature decks, RB burn, Storm, or Living End (I'm sure I'm missing a few).
If you can, find out what did well that first week when you weren't there. If you can't or if it's still unclear, I'd be inclined to play Affinity if you get it ready because slower control decks are hard to play in an unknown meta and because the artifact hate will tend to be spotty when other people also don't know what the meta will be like.
July 16, 2013 9:03 a.m.
decks iv'e seen at my LGS are Affinity, Vampires, red deck wins, mono-white equipment, angels, gifts ungiven, u/b mill.
i run W/R knights personally myself because thats what im comfortable playing and they are my favorite creature.
BrennanM says... #2
It really depends on your meta game and what you are comfortable playing with. For the first tourney, I'd just play what I enjoy playing with the most. Then, after seeing how much hate everyone is packing in various forms, bring the deck people are least prepared to deal with. That's just me though.
July 12, 2013 4:15 p.m.