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Modern Masters
Adam Koska
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Modern Masters Limited
Adam Koska
About Adam Koska
Adam is an experienced player from the Czech Republic who has a number of high-profile finishes under his belt:
9th at Worlds 2009
9th at Pro Tour Kyoto 2009
45 Lifetime Pro Points
Top 32 GP Vienna 2008
Top 64 GP Krakow 2007
Three times Czech Nationals Top 8
Modern Masters Limited Guide
Hey everybody and welcome! Today, we’re going to talk about something special. Modern Masters is a set quite unlike any other, in many aspects. It was designed mainly for constructed (something that’s obvious even from the name) and it contains many of the Modern powerhouse cards, but at the same time, players are also encouraged to play drafts with it and there’s even a limited GP in Las Vegas coming up very soon. The number of pre-registered players for this event has already topped the number 2300 and at this point, it seems almost certain that we’re going to see the biggest GP of all time. Even at my local store, Modern Masters drafts are really popular, despite the high price of entry, and I can confirm that the format is fun, fresh and combines well many of the aspects of limited blocks of Kamigawa, Lorwyn, Time Spiral and more. Also, Modern Masters drafts are constantly firing on Magic Online. Because of the immense popularity of this format – and also because many people are preparing for GP Las Vegas – I’d like to talk about Modern Masters limited today: about the anatomy of the format, some basic rules and my personal experience with it.
Generally speaking, Modern Masters limited feels like a crossover between a regular draft and cube draft. What this means is that the power level is lower than in cube, but way higher than in a normal draft. If you compare the commons in Modern Masters with those in Dragon’s Maze, for example, you’ll find that both the average power level and also the depth of all colors is quite insanely higher in MM. So everybody is going to have a good deck: even if you switch colors late or get cut from your left or right, you should have enough playables (usually even more than enough). This gives people more freedom to maneuver during draft, since there’s not that big of a risk of having only eighteen playable cards in your colors after the draft, but also, it means that synergy is the key. Everybody can play creature removal because there’s such an abundance of it, but in order to have a better deck than the other players, you'll need to have a clearly defined plan. Fortunately, there are many archetypes to choose from and every single one of them offers quite a lot in terms of synergy and a well defined game plan. Sometimes it’s possible to blend two different archetypes together, but as a rule of thumb, you should go as deep as possible in just one of them. These are the basic archetypes in MM limited:
Versions:
Modern Masters (Foil)
Time Spiral (Foil)
Rebels – usually black/white, but sometimes you can also be in a different white-based or black-based two color combination, where Rebels are just a sub-theme. The two rebel searchers – Blightspeaker and Amrou Scout – are obviously key here. One of the biggest upsides of these two commons is that they can fetch the tribal Pacifism called Bound in Silence and also the white Avian Changeling, which can in turn enable other tribal-based strategies like activating your Kithkin Greathearts and Blind-Spot Giants. The downside is that they are vulnerable to removal, which is abundant in MM limited, and once your opponent gets rid of your Rebel searcher, you’ll often be left with a bunch of creatures which can easily get outclassed by anything your opponent plays. I’m not a big fan of going „all-in“ with Rebels and especially if you don’t have too many searchers, you should have a sound plan B.
Giants – this strategy is always red-based and usually red/white (for Avian Changeling, Kithkin Greatheart and Hillcomber Giant), red/green (for acceleration) or red/black (for removal and occasional bombs like Demigod of Revenge). The two most important cards that give the deck synergy are Blind-Spot Giant and Thundercloud Shaman. The first one is a bit risky and really demands a dedicated approach, but that shouldn’t be too difficult, since there are usually very few people willing to move into this archetype and the Blind-Spots usually wheel. Still, I’d want at least nine giants in my deck before running the three-mana 4/3s that can easily go on strike. Stinkdrinker Daredevils are only good when you’re heavy on 5-drops or literally all your other creatures are giants (so that you can go turn 3 Daredevil, turn 4 two 4-drops), but I usually wouldn’t really bother taking them too highly. My advice here is only to go into this archetype when you know that you’re the only person at the table drafting it.
Affinity is an archetype that gets the most support in white and blue. Myr Enforcer used to be a really high pick in the old 3x Mirrodin format and even Frogmite used to be alright, but this time around, the situation is a bit different, because we don’t have the artifact lands that gave you the one mana discount on every „affinity for artifacts“ card you’d run. In the current format, it’s not even possible to play a Frogmite on turn two with commons only and that clearly says something, especially as it’s not all that hard for green to slam an Imperiosaur as early as turn three. It’s still possible to go aggro with Court Homunculus and as many Bonesplitters as you can get your hands on, but the controlling approach is even more stressed this time and there are two commons that provide an easy card advantage – Faerie Mechanist and Sanctum Gargoyle. However, this split between cards that aim for aggression and those that give you card advantage is not a healthy one for the artifact decks. Also, you really need to hit a critical mass of artifacts, otherwise cards like Myr Enforcer and Faerie Mechanist are very mediocre. Affinity can be ok if you’re the only player at the table and get all the Esperzoas, but it’s definitely neither one of the strongest nor one of the most reliable archetypes in MM limited.
Storm is also not an archetype that is very stable, meaning that sometimes the cards are simply not there, but the power level is high enough when everything does work out that it’s sometimes worth trying. There are two common storm cards in the set – Grapeshot and Empty the Warrens – and while the first one is almost never going to be a win condition, only a „mere“ 2 for 1 removal spell in the right deck, Emptying some Warrens can easily be your plan A. However, most of the storm enablers are uncommon, which is why the archetype oscillates between a fully fledged combo deck (which is rather rare) and an aggro / midrange deck with some combo features. To achieve the first one, you really do need multiple cards like Grinning Ignus (probably the best enabler, even if a bit vulnerable), Desperate Ritual and Manamorphose and then stuff like Echoing Courage or Tromp the Domains to make your 8-10 goblins lethal in a single attack. Peer Through Depths works really nicely at finding the key pieces, so the „all-in“ combo deck will usually be G/R/U. However, a much more usual scenario will involve decks with a lot of suspend that don’t really go „all-in“, but merely use the storm cards as incredibly powerful combination cards. Apart from the G/R/U shell, black can also make good use of a couple of Goblins, with cards like Tar Pitcher and Mad Auntie, but I’ll get to that later. All in all, storm is good and taking a couple of Warrens and Grapeshots „just in case“ is a sound tactic, but I wouldn’t first pick Desperate Rituals and Manamorphoses and try to force the archetype. It’s nice when the cards are there, but not something that you can try to force.
Many green decks will have some storm elements, because suspend is abundant, but many won’t. There are two basic directions in which you can take your green decks and often these two will overlap. Because of the omnipresent mana fixing (Search for Tomorrow, Kodama's Reach, Vivid lands), green can often be a ramp deck, playing all the expensive bomb rares and uncommons that you can draft (and that’ll often equal to „quite a few“). Blue is a good supplement to green, because ramping and card advantage usually go well together. Also, you can get cards like Skyreach Manta and Etched Oracle very late and with a couple of Vivid lands, having four or five colors shouldn’t be an issue. Just be careful with Imperiosaurs – while obviously very powerful, these don’t play well with Vivid lands at all. Having one or two Vivid lands in a deck with an Imperiosaur is fine, but decks with 4+ Vivids should really set their priorities straight.
Versions:
Fallen Empires
Modern Masters (Foil)
Time Spiral (Foil)
Another direction in which you can take your green deck (and again, this will often overlap to some extent with the „ramp“ deck) is relying on mushrooms, funghi and saprolings. The more token-generators you have, the better cards like Echoing Truth and Tromp the Domains become and while curving out with a turn 1 Thallid, turn 2 Thallid Shell-Dweller might not look very impressive, it’s actually a fairly potent start, when backed up by the right cards.
R/B Goblins is another viable archetype and while at the beginning, I didn’t give this deck too much credit, I actually think it’s one of the strongest possible decks now. At the last MM draft I’ve attended, two of the three pods have been won by almost identical R/B Goblin decks, characterized by a very low curve and – curiously – almost a complete absence of rares. The deck does need some key uncommons, but quite often, nobody will want the Mad Aunties, Tar Pitchers and Auntie's Snitches and when you see some of these late, it’s time to move in. The advantage of this deck is a very aggressive approach, playing one-drops like Festering Goblins and Facevaulters, but also loads of removal and powerful lategame in suspend (or one-mana spells) + Empty the Warrens. A good deck to draft when you open a Demigod of Revenge.
U/B Faeries might not look overly powerful on paper, but it is also right at the top of limited playability in Modern Masters. Typically, this is going to be a tempo deck with loads of flyers, removal and even some countermagic. The allstars here are Pestermite, Errant Ephemeron, Dreamspoiler Witches and Latchkey Faerie – usually the backbone of the deck. You can also try to go more for the synergy with cards like Spellstutter Sprite, Thieving Sprite and even Mothdust Changeling to have some Faeries in play right from the get-go, but this strategy might be too „all or nothing“ and is a bit more clunky than the old „removal + evasion“ approach.
There are more archetypes than these ones – U/R Arcane/Dampen Thought or some rare-based strategies, for example – but the ones above are the most important ones, in my opinion. As you can see, the format is very creature-oriented and creature types matter a lot. This means two things: first, removal is crucial and you should either have a very fast and reliable game plan, or (and) have a bunch of removal spells to disrupt the plan of your opponent. Second, the two decent-sized Changelings (the white one and the red one) are very important and often hold decks with multiple tribal strategies together. The blue changeling is pretty weak because of its poor stats, but sometimes, when you really need that sixth cheap rogue or faerie, it’s possible to run even that one.
Because most of the archetypes (maybe with the exception of Rebels) rely heavily on uncommons, it’s important to try to be the only drafter at the pod. This is made a bit easier by how many different archetypes there are to choose from and quite often, there will even be some that nobody will want (zero dedicated affinity or giant players at the table is a common sight, for example) Reading signals in the first pack is crucial, especially scanning for late archetype staples like Thundercloud Shaman, Grinning Ignus or Latchkey Faerie. Some of these cards will end up as smaller sub-themes in other decks, but for some of them, that’s not even possible.
Since it’s quite dangerous to force an archetype, it’s important to stay open until mid-first pack (not a big risk, with almost all cards being playable in each pack). Because of this, „general“ cards that fit into any deck should have a priority early on in pack one. Cards like removal or changelings that go nicely into several different tribal archetypes should be high on your list of cards to pick in the early stage of the draft.
To conclude this article, and as an inspiration for those of you who are planning to draft this format soon, here are two of the most recent successful decks that I’ve drafted.
UR Kiki-control 3-0 Modern Masters draft
Deck by Adam Koska on Sun, 06/16/2013 - 12:37
Main Deck
(40 cards)
1
Mogg War Marshal
1
Errant Ephemeron
2
Pestermite
1
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1
AEthersnipe
3
Pyrite Spellbomb
2
Reach Through Mists
2
Peer Through Depths
1
Dampen Thought
2
Glacial Ray
1
Thirst for Knowledge
1
Torrent of Stone
2
Careful Consideration
1
Logic Knot
1
Cryptic Command
1
Take Possession
1
Terramorphic Expanse
9
Island
7
Mountain
Colors
Artifact
3
Blue
15
Land
17
Red
5
Converted Mana Cost
1
5
2
7
3
3
4
4
5
1
6
1
7
2
Type
Artifact
3
Basic Land
16
Creature
6
Enchantment
1
Instant
13
Land
1
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UBr Faeries 4-0, Modern Masters draft
Deck by Adam Koska on Sun, 06/16/2013 - 12:47
Main Deck
(40 cards)
2
Riftwing Cloudskate
2
Errant Ephemeron
1
Rathi Trapper
2
Pestermite
1
Stinkweed Imp
2
Latchkey Faerie
1
Dreamspoiler Witches
1
War-Spike Changeling
1
Vedalken Dismisser
1
Skeletal Vampire
2
Reach Through Mists
1
Pyrite Spellbomb
1
AEther Spellbomb
1
Glacial Ray
1
Horobi's Whisper
1
Drag Down
1
Traumatic Visions
1
Death Rattle
7
Island
5
Swamp
2
Mountain
2
Vivid Crag
1
Vivid Creek
Colors
Artifact
2
Black
7
Blue
12
Land
17
Red
2
Converted Mana Cost
1
4
2
2
3
5
4
4
5
3
6
3
7
2
Type
Artifact
2
Basic Land
14
Creature
14
Instant
7
Land
3
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Well, that’s all from me for today. Until next time, have fun drafting this incredible new format and may you open many foil Tarmogoyfs! (one guy at our most recent draft actually did)
Adam Koska
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Average: 4.5 (2 votes)