World Magic Cup Qualifier- Meet the Modern Hit List Pt. 1

Modern as a format has shifted significantly multiple times this year already, from the Eldrazi Winter/Spring, to the current iteration. For those of us in the midwest, we already know that there is only one modern tournament this summer that we need to prep for, but it is the one shot of making it to a plateau some would consider higher than the pro tour. The World Magic Cup. A chance to represent America and compete against the best of each nation. Yea, you could say this is a bit of a dream for me.

Edit: There is also Grand Prix Indianapolis coming up, it just won’t mean as much to me as the WMCQ. Nonetheless, the results will be indicative of the meta, and thus it is worth keeping track of nonetheless. For this purpose also keep track of the first WMCQ in California that’s coming up soon (modern format as well).

Anyways, this article will be the first in a series that tries to break down where the modern format is currently. Once this series wraps up, I’ll likely have gotten through some more testing so I can start hypothesizing where I expect the Meta to shift for the Cup and how I would approach it. Check in every Friday at 8:00 a.m. for new articles this summer.

Now, for those who are wondering about the WMCQ details, I’ll go ahead and link the wizards site here, and also post the following details for those who really don’t want to try and navigate that site:

Sunday, July 10th, at 9 AM, in Lincoln, Nebraska, at the Embassy Suites Hotel, Modern Format. 500 Planeswalker points in the past season is the minimum to qualify, and 4,000 points gets you a 1-round bye (so does a certain number of pro points, but lets be honest, those players aren’t reading my articles).

Let’s take a quick look at the modern format and what archetypes you can expect: (These numbers are courtesy of www.Mtgtop8.com)

The Heavy Hitters: (43%) These decks make up almost half of the expected metagame currently, and they encompass a fairly full range of archetypes (Combo/Ramp/Aggro/Mid-Range)

Infect – 13%

Jund – 10%

Zoo –  9%

Burn – 7%

R/G Tron – 4%

The Early Risers: (26%) These decks have been surging in the past few weeks, and in general should be tested against as ambitious players tend to move towards any archetypes they see rising.

Dredge –  6%

Junk – 6%

Grixis Control – 6%

Nahiri Control – 3%

Eldrazi Aggro – 2%

Hate bears (B/W Eldrazi) – 3%

The Fallen: (12%) These decks have put up solid numbers in the past few months but due to the hate leveled against them due to their recent successes, have fallen by the wayside for the time being. Remember that we still have nearly a month to go before the tournament, and that many modern players tend to pick an archetype and stick with it through thick and thin, due to both experience and expense of transitioning into something else. These decks will be at the tourney, and possibly in far greater numbers than shown here.

Affinity – 5%

Abzan CoCo – 2%

Kiki Chord – 2%

Scapeshift – 1%

Merfolk – 1%

Ad Nauseum – 1%

Tier 1.5: (9%) My disdain for these archetypes is rather apparent from the title. These are your linear archetypes that don’t make up enough of the meta to warrant more than a basic mention. You’ll probably play one of these decks at the WMCQ, but wasting time testing against them all is advised against unless you enjoy unemployment at the moment.

Elves – 2%

Primeval Shift (Valakut Ramp) – 2%

Lantern Control – 1%

Boggles – 1%

R/G Land Destruction – 1%

U/R Storm – 1%

Living End – 1%

Total Percentage tallied = 90%

Outside of that 90% we estimate that given how diverse this format is, that roughly 10% of any meta will go to either random brews or just reinforcing existing archetypes via local bias.

Let’s bring out the first deck on the hit list, a blast from the past, Dredge. We’ll do a brief summation on testing, along with where the deck evolved as a result, and a final analysis on where I think it is positioned in the current meta.

Dredge 2.0 – The First Draft

4 City of Brass

4 Mana Confluence

4 Gemstone Mine

2 Steam Vents

2 Dakmore Salvage

1 Mountain

4 Hedron Crab

4 Faithless Looting

4 Insolent Neonate

4 Drowned Rusulka

3 Stitchwing Saab

4 Narcomoeba

4 Prized Amalgam

2 Bloodghast

4 Golgari Grave Troll

4 Stinkweed Imp

2 Dark blast

3 Bridge from Below

Sb:

4 Ancient Grudge

3 Gnaw to the Bone

2 Dark Blast

4 Ghost Quarter

The Initial Analysis:

I tested this initially against decks without Anger of the Gods and/or Grafdigger’s Cage/other graveyard hate. Testing results, as anticipated, were excellent when the primary hate cards were missing from the other lists. However, once you add in 1-2 of hate cards, the Dredge deck was typically losing. I went back to the drawing board and looked through a few more variants that had come out online, and eventually found a new iteration, that I liked quite a bit.

There has been a spike in dredge decks lately, and while no one has quite figured out the optimal build, trends currently are to play the 5-color mana-base, and to go with between 12-16 ways to discard/start the dredge engine. Furthermore, it seems everyone has moved away from Bridge from Below already, and simply pushed for more speed in flooding the board via Street Wraith and Burning Inquiry.

Dredge 3.0 – The Second Draft

4 City of Brass

4 Mana Confluence

4 Gemstone Mine

2 Blackcleave Cliffs

2 Dakmore Salvage

1 Mountain

4 Burning Inquiry

4 Faithless Looting

4 Insolent Neonate

4 Street Wraith

2 Dangerous Wager

1 Stitchwing Saab

4 Narcomoeba

4 Prized Amalgam

4 Bloodghast

4 Golgari Grave Troll

4 Stinkweed Imp

3 Dark blast

Sb:

4 Ancient Grudge

3 Gnaw to the Bone

1 Dark Blast

3 Lightning Axe

2 Vengeful Pharaoh

The Second Analysis:

This deck isn’t ready for play yet, but this set brought it a lot closer to being viable for a tournament. If I thought all the graveyard hate/Anger of the Gods were gone from sideboards, I’d make like a bandit and run this in a heartbeat. The archetype remains a ton of fun and worth spiking a random modern FNM with to relive the glory days of dread return dredge. The problem with this list was that it was trying to speed dredge at the expense of stability, and high variance hands are not where we want to be going into a 6+ round tourney like the WMCQ or GP Indy.

Dredge 4.0 – The Third Draft (Magus of the Moon)

4 Blackcleave Cliffs

1 Blood Crypt

3 Dakmor Salvage

2 Wooded Foothills

1 Stomping Grounds

3 Mountain

3 Bloodstained Mire

4 Faithless Looting

4 Insolvent Neonate

4 Shriekhorn

4 Narcomoeba

4 Bloodghast

1 Golgari Thug

1 Rally the Peasants

1 Conflagrate

4 Stinkweed Imp

4 Bridge from Below

4 Prized Amalgam

4 Golgari Grave Troll

4 Greater Gargadon

Sb:

1 Gnaw to the Bone

4 Thoughtseize

3 Darkblast

3 Ancient Grudge

4 Lightning Axe

Third Analysis: As stated by a fellow magic player, this list has been tearing it up on Magic Online lately, and it’s easy to see why. That said, I found that I wanted more Gnaw to the Bone in the sideboard, and I wanted more outlets in the main without reducing the dredge count. Rally the Peasants didn’t come up as incredibly relevant in a majority of matches, nor did conflagrate, so that’s where we started our cuts for our final list.

Dredge 5.0 – The Final Draft

Lands (17)

3 Dakmore Salvage – doubles as a dredge source

4 Blackcleave Cliffs

2 Wooded Foothills

4 Bloodstained Mire

1 Swamp

1 Mountain

1 Stomping Grounds

1 Blood Crypt

 

Dredge Outlets (16)

4 Shriekhorn

4 Insolvent Neonate

4 Faithless Looting

4 Greater Gargadon

 

Pay-off Cards (16)

4 Narcomoeba

4 Bridge from Below

4 Prized Amalgam

4 Bloodghast

 

Dredge Sources (11) + 3 Dakmore Salvage (14 total)

4 Stinkweed Imp

4 Golgari Grave-Troll

3 Darkblast

 

Sb:

3 Ancient Grudge – Artifact Hate

3 Gnaw to the Bone – Hate for Burn

1 Darkblast – Removal for the Infect issue

4 Lightning Axe – Removal for more creature heavy decks

4 Thoughtseize – Combo/ On the play vs. decks that boarded Grafdigger’s Cage

The 12-16 starting outlets argument:

I began looking through legacy dredge lists from the past few months, and noticed a common theme. They tended to have between 12-14 outright outlets (Putrid Imp, Faithless Looting, Careful Study, and Breakthrough), and 4 Mana/Discard Outlets (Lion’s Eye Diamond). I noticed that a common issue I was having with the prior list is having to mulligan otherwise acceptable hands because they didn’t contain a way to begin the dredging process. Fast-forward through some basic math, and if I want a turn one outlet for dredging at 90%+ (typically the percentile I aim for in many aspects of deckbuilding, from perfecting the manabase to ensuring enough interaction, etc…), then I need to include at least 14 outlets. In the latest iteration we have 12 outright outlets, and then we have 3 Darkblasts that function as outlets if our opponent plays creatures. My list incorporates 15 technical outlets to begin dredging, and 14 cards that have dredge. Dark blast fulfills 3 roles (dredge outlet for turn 1, dredge card that can begin to find our combo, and removal that slows down our opponent.

The 17 Lands argument:

Continuing in my review of most legacy base lists, and comparing them to modern lists, I found that 13 lands and 4 Lion’s eye Diamonds in legacy, or 17 mana sources was common in that format. similarly, modern seems to function on roughly the same number. Essentially we’re looking for two lands, and luckily 3 of our lands can come straight out of the graveyard, so we’re making our land drops with relative consistency. The beauty of this list is that it can function on a solitary land easily if need be, it just doesn’t get the speed of flashing back turn 3 faithless looting with consistency.

The 14 Dredge Card Outlets:

We know that we need the 4 stinkweed imp and 4 golgari grave troll as our initial engine, but the question after that swiftly becomes what we’ll use to supplement them. 2-3 Dakmore Salvage is normal, but after that we still need 2-3 additional sources to make sure we hit a speedy start. Dark blast is my choice for the 2-3 additional sources as it fulfills 3 roles as mentioned above. With 14 sources, we remain 90% to have one in our opening hand, and thus begin the process.

The Payoff Package:

4 Narcomoeba, 4 Prized Amalgam, 4 Bridge from Below, and 4 Bloodghast. This package encompasses speed and backup for wrath effects. Not going into a lengthy explanation here, just remember that Narcomoeba does in fact bring Prized Amalgam’s back from the graveyard, as does Bloodghast, and you’ll be fine. Also remember that Bridge from Below will be removed from the graveyard when you dark blast to kill one of their creatures, but against a majority of decks that have darkblast-able creatures, we don’t mind in the slightest that it goes the way of the dodo bird.

The Greater Gargadon Argument: Protection against Anger, a consistent clock and an entirely new angle to pressure your opponents with. This card has some excellent interaction against a large number of decks.

 

Final Analysis:

After a solid afternoon of throwing this deck against a control deck with mainboard of 3 Anger of the Gods and coming out ahead, I can affirmatively say that this iteration has more game against them. Greater Gargadon fulfills many roles, and can truly ruin a control players day as they play Anger of the Gods only to find the creatures back in the graveyard and ready to return the following turn. Also hilarious to have multiple bridges in the grave and on their end-step create a lovely zombie army by sacking all your bloodghasts/amalgams/narcomoeba’s.

Grafdigger’s Cage is still a nightmare, but thankfully this deck has 3 options for dealing with it.

1. We can simply ignore it, as it is typically a 1-2 card in opponents sideboards, and the odds of them having it for multiple sideboard games is relatively low.

2. On the play we can board into the Thoughtseize plan if we’d like to attempt to counteract it coming down on the first turn or so unless they top deck like champions. This plan gains a lot of traction if the deck boarding it against us is a basic combo deck anyways, as we want thought seize in that situation anyways.

3. Ancient Grudge can always be boarded in to handle this card, but I personally don’t recommend this as you’ve now given up the first 2 turns typically to counteract their 1 to 2-of answer to your deck, and you’ve lost a ton of tempo. However, against decks like Affinity/Lantern Control, you’re boarding this in anyways, so it all works out.

Quick Public Message:

Now, for those who are wondering about the WMCQ details, I’ll go ahead and post the some for those who really don’t want to try and navigate the wizards site:

Sunday July 10th, at 9 AM Registration, 10 AM start time, Hosted by HobbyTown USA-Lincoln at the Embassy Suites (1040 P St, Lincoln, NE 68508). 500 Planeswalker points in the past season is the minimum to qualify, and 4,000 points gets you a 1-round bye (so does a certain number of pro points, but lets be honest, those players aren’t reading my articles).