Last week, I asked the audience which deck I should start with to reboot Modern Hero. When the results came in, Elves was the clear winner with 41% of the vote (Skred and UR Storm had 23% each and Burn had 14%). Here is the week one decklist:
MH Elves Week One
| Creatures (35) 4 Dwynen's Elite 4 Elvish Archdruid 4 Elvish Mystic 3 Elvish Visionary 2 Ezuri, Renegade Leader 4 Heritage Druid 4 Llanowar Elves 4 Nettle Sentinel 1 Reclamation Sage 4 Shaman of the Pack 1 Sylvan Messenger Spells (7) 3 Chord of Calling 4 Collected Company | Lands (18) 4 Blooming Marsh 9 Forest 4 Llanowar Wastes 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx Sideboard (15) 2 Choke 4 Essence Warden 2 Evolutionary Leap 2 Fracturing Gust 1 Krosan Grip 2 Lead the Stampede 1 Reclamation Sage 1 Scavenging Ooze |
The deck can be purchased for $150 in paper with some smart buying online. The MTGO version cost me 133.11 Tix. Here is a deck tech on Elves and five matches with the deck:
As you can see, my initial foray into playing the deck didn’t go as planned. I ended up going 1-4 in matches and 6-8 in games. Though I certainly encountered some bad match-ups, our games would have been winnable with a better sideboard plan against combo (specifically UR Storm). It is worth noting that the online metagame is not the same as real life and I imagine decks like Storm are popular online because they are cheap to build and much easier to manage given that MTGO tracks your available mana and storm count. As such, some of our better match-ups—Death’s Shadow comes to mind—might also be underrepresented online due to prohibitive cost. Given that the majority of my games up until GP Vegas will be on MTGO, I will do my best to build the deck to address the online metagame.
Next week, I will spend $20 on improving the deck and run it through another league. Hopefully we can dodge a few of our bad match-ups this time.
In terms of Magic, Shawn Massak is a Modern enthusiast, with a penchant for tier two decks, counterspells, and pre Eighth Edition frames. In terms of life, Shawn lives in Brighton, MA where he works as an employment coordinator for people with disabilities, plays guitar in an indie-pop band, and spends his free time reading comics, complaining about pro-wrestling, and wishing his apartment allowed dogs as pets.