Last weekend for SCG Cleveland I decided to go back to my roots and play a GB Midrange deck in Modern—in spite of everyone telling me not to. I previously wrote about why I chose GB in Team Nova’s “What We’d Play” article on Hipsters last week. The deck was previously struggling as an archetype because of its atrocious Tron matchup, but the printing of Assassin’s Trophy and Field of Ruin firmly pushed it to a favorable matchup. And with Arclight Phoenix taking over the format, GB is well-positioned with a close-to-favored matchup based on the Arclight player’s skill level.
The Deck
Modern GB Midrange
This is the final list I decided on. GB Midrange decks typically all have the same shell: Tarmogoyf, Liliana of the Veil, Dark Confidant, etc. However, with each GB deck comes a decent amount of customization based on the metagame and personal style.
The Flex Spots
For the past couple of weeks I tested many lists with Abrupt Decay in the maindeck and Liliana, the Last Hope in the sideboard. However, the night before the event I made the decision to go back to Liliana, the Last Hope. The Liliana was great all weekend, and I didn’t particularly notice a difference without Abrupt Decay.
Many lists are running some sideboard cards in the main deck, like Nihil Spellbomb and Collective Brutality. I decided to keep Collective Brutality in sideboard, because it’s not great in a few matchups. Nihil Spellbomb at the worst reads “two mana draw a card,” and provides a good hedge against Phoenix and Dredge. However, I was not the biggest fan of the Spellbomb in the main and would likely change that if I decide to play this deck in the future.
Some of the unique sideboard cards I picked included Kitchen Finks, Damnation, Nissa, Vital Force, and Deglamer. Kitchen Finks and Damnation float in and out of GB sideboards. This weekend I felt like I would see a decent amount of creature decks and definitely wanted a sweeper. Finks provides versatility again aggro decks as well as the mirror or spot removal decks.
For Deglamer, I was hedging for more Whir decks, however Whir continues to be egregiously underplayed. Deglamer gets around Welding Jar seamlessly, which is especially relevant when you want to swing for lethal but your opponent has an Ensnaring Bridge you need to deal with. It also helps against Wurmcoil Engine, which is one of Tron’s best cards against us. Finally, Deglamer helped with random enchantments this weekend like As Foretold, Jeskai Ascendency, and Keranos, God of Storms.
I don’t have much to say about Nissa, Vital Force unfortunately. I only sided her a handful of times this weekend, especially against the mirror, but never drew her. I didn’t test with her either, so I don’t have any data on her strengths or weaknesses in the deck.
The Phoenix Matchup
The matchup against Arclight Phoenix has been drawing a lot of former Jund players to this deck. In the tournament I defeated Phoenix twice and lost to it once. The matchup feels favored, but you can easily lose to Izzet Phoenix’s best draws. The Phoenix deck approaches this matchup on a number of different axes.
There is obviously the Arclight Phoenix plan, which we attempt to dismantle with a number of cards like Scavenging Ooze, Nihil Spellbomb, Grafdigger’s Cage, and Surgical Extraction. However, this is only one axis the deck tries to attack us on. They also have a Thing in the Ice and Crackling Drake plan. Fortunately, we have copious amounts of removal like Fatal Push, Liliana of the Veil, and Assassin’s Trophy.
They could also go for the Pyromancer Ascension plan, which is one of the most powerful plans against GB out of Phoenix. We can only interact with it through Assassin’s Trophy, early hand hate, and the one Maelstrom Pulse. Finally, they can pressure us with their planeswalkers. Against GB, I think Chandra, Torch of Defiance and Ral, Izzet Viceroy are the powerhouses that we have to worry about—especially Ral, because he can kill all of our creatures more easily than Chandra on the turn they play him.
There are two difficult parts to this matchup. First, when the Phoenix player has a quick start with Phoenixes and we don’t have a way to interact with their graveyard. Second, when the Phoenix player is able to attack on the multiple axes and we don’t have the appropriate ways to deal with every threat. Luckily, we have ways to interact with the graveyard for their explosive Phoenix starts. Most of the time they are only able to attack on two different axes, which we can deal with fairly easily.
GB Over Jund
I played Jund for four years and have never touched GB until this month, so I have been getting a lot of questions about why I chose GB. Jund may have access to more sideboard options that can help in various matchups, such as Anger of the Gods for Dredge or Ancient Grudge for artifact-based decks. However, there are a couple reasons the GB reigns supreme in the current metagame.
The big one for me is the favorable Tron matchup from GB. Four Field of Ruin, four Assassin’s Trophy, and three Fulminator Mage from the sideboard swing the matchup, while Jund has to rely on Assassin’s Trophy and Fulminator Mage. Also, life totals matter in many matchups currently. Dredge, Izzet Phoenix, Burn, Amulet Titan, and many more decks benefit from their opponents having to fetch and shock over the course of the match. When everyone is trying to win the game on turn three or four, you don’t want to be fetching and shocking every time you want to cast a spell. With GB, you can easily fetch basic swamp or forest without worrying about mana problems later in the game.
Moving Forward
Rock
I don’t have many changes I want to make moving forward, however this is the list I would likely run if I had a tournament to go to this weekend. I moved the Nihil Spellbomb back to the sideboard for a third Tireless Tracker, cut one Liliana of the Veil for Abrupt Decay, and dropped Nissa, Vital Force from of the sideboard. If you want to keep a haymaker like Nissa or something else, you could probably take out a copy of Engineered Explosives instead. The rest of the deck felt great all weekend, and I hope this article helped with your understanding of GB Midrange! See y’all in Richmond!
Ally Warfield is a Magic grinder and personality. She is an up-and-coming grinder with an impressive range in terms of archetype selection. You can find her on Twitter @ArcticMeebo.