I am getting tired of playing against RG Tron. For this past Sunday’s Modern event at the Twenty Sided Store, I tried Aggro Jund again. I like Jund, and I was still missing some cards and some reps for the Reanimator deck, so I thought, “hey, maybe this time will end up better for you!” Still, as a hedge, I changed the Molten Rain in my sideboards to Sowing Salt, and then proceeded to lose to Leyline of Sanctity after failing to realize a) Tron was going to side that in, b) Eggs was going to side that in, and c) every relevant effect in my library targets. So here’s how that tournament went:
Round 1: Vasu, Eggs
I tend not to test heavily against Eggs, despite having it in my gauntlet, because it is such a stupid matchup. It’s quite possibly the most masturbatory combo deck you can play, and yet like High Tide in Legacy there’s always the chance they’ll lose their chain and give you another turn to punch them in the face. Anyway, I lose this one in two, largely because I rarely bother to put answers for the deck in my sideboard. This was further complicated game two by the Leyline of Sanctity that entered play right after I kept a hand with plentiful discard, and again that card seriously hoses me.
0-1, 0-2
Round 2: Jonathan, Percy Grixis
Jonathan was running Orlando’s Grixis deck, which I actually recognized after he dropped an Abyssal Persecutor round one. I really want that card to be better positioned than it currently seems to be, but Orlando built the deck around having the outlets for it to die after it’s done its work. I take game one, but game two I play into a Damnation and die to his Creeping Tar Pits. Which is another card I think is super sweet and not seeing enough play. Game three I take on the back of a slightly premature scoop… we both did the math wrong, and my attack would have left him at one life. I still think I had inevitability there, since even if he topdecked a Damnation I could have killed him with any burn spell, a Deathrite, or even an un-pumped Bloodhall Ooze. After the match I got a few more reps against the deck with the other two decks I had on me, Soul Sisters and Monoblack Infect. Neither stood a chance.
1-1, 2-3
Round 3: Devon, RG Tron
I seriously want to go a tournament without seeing that deck. I mean, I’m short three Grove of the Burnwillows to run it myself, and perhaps its because I’ve never played it in a tournament setting that I feel the deck is invulnerable. But it is super hard for Jund to deal with in the best of times, and the games do not play out that way. Game one I get hammered, hard. Game two I manage to take on the back of a turn three Sowing Salt taking out his Urza’s Towers before he can get Tron mana up; it still takes forever to close out, but Ancient Grudge is a pretty solid way to deal with Wurmcoils, and I get to Pulse away a Wurmcoil’s two tokens at one point in the game. Game three he starts with a Leyline of Sanctity in play, and having not seen it round two I have only one card in my entire deck that can handle it. I never see Maelstrom Pulse. To make things worse, my hand has Sowing Salt, Deathrite and three lands, but I have to drop the Deathrite on turn two to play a turn three Sowing Salt, and he has the Pyroclasm. Of course. Because RG Tron always has the Pyroclasm. It’s another four turns or so before I manage to get another land to finally Salt away his Tron, but by that point he has about seven lands out and an active Karn that I can’t burn away, so suffice it to say things end poorly for me.
1-2, 3-5
Round 4: Jason, UW
Jason was playing an interesting deck, and I wish we had gotten a chance to play three games so I could have a better sense of it. It felt like Titan UW, but I never saw a Sun Titan; what I did see was Mind Stone, Gideon, and Feeling of Dread. Mind Stone is a great card and I keep hoping to find a home in Modern. Anyway, I lost the only game we ended up playing because I would play into things like Feeling of Dread and Cryptic Command as I was over-eager to get lethal in. To be fair, I wasn’t expecting Feeling of Dread, but I was playing around Path to Exile and I don’t think I ever saw a copy of it. I think games two and three I could have gotten there, but we had split the two pack prize anyway and Jason needed to leave, so he gave me the win.
2-2, 3-6
So, I did awfully. Which is the backdrop for my decision to say “screw it” to Jund and switch over to my own UW Titan homebrew for next week’s Tuesday Night Modern. I was debating between UW and Zoo, but the sense I was getting was that there was going to be a lot of Zoo in the house this week based on borrow requests and people’s enchantment with the deck. Which I get! Zoo seems awesome, and I was really quite torn. But that means next week is going to have a lot more hate for the deck, and might be more susceptible to a UW Control/Midrange build. So I was de-proxying and updating our gauntlet UW deck and I found myself a lot more interested in how it would play out than how a Zoo matchup would play out. Thus UW Titans, making sure to provide it with hate against aggro. It also didn’t hurt that I think the UW decks might have a better matchup against Tron, since they run counterspells and Path to Exile, and I am beyond tired of losing to that deck. Here’s my list:
Creatures:
3 Kitchen Finks
1 Phantasmal Image
3 Restoration Angel
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Sun Titan
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Wall of Omens
Spells:
1 Blind Obedience
4 Cryptic Command
1 Detention Sphere
2 Jace Beleren
2 Mana Leak
4 Path to Exile
3 Spell Snare
1 Sphinx’s Revelation
2 Supreme Verdict
Lands:
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
2 Mystic Gate
1 Plains
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Tectonic Edge
Sideboard:
1 Blind Obedience
1 Celestial Purge
1 Detention Sphere
1 Dismember
2 Mana Leak
2 Negate
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Spellskite
2 Stony Silence
1 Wall of Omen
My sideboard choices are a little weird, with a lot of ones and twos. Basically, in the decks where I want to be more counter-based I have extra Mana Leaks in the side and a spare Snapcaster. The mainboard can’t support three Snapcasters, particularly with the Restos, but having the option for a third seems beneficial. Blind Obedience is pretty damn good against Eggs, so there’s that plan. Spellskite’s not just good against Infect and Enchantments, but it’s also a solid board choice to slow the aggro roll. Wall of Omens should provide a similar role.
Anyway, we’ll see how it goes next week!