MTG Salvation

Hi all,

I have been on a Magic hiatus for some time and am now just coming back into the game. With Modern my format of choice, I have been trying to brew something original (granted nothing is really totally original and this might be a deck already and I haven't seen it) based on what the current meta is. Please note, I realize I am no expert or genius crafter, so I am sure there are some adjustments to be made (and I would love to hear them).

The Gameplan
Dismantle any combo pieces with Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek and drop an early threat in the form of a Delver of Secrets. Protect that threat with counters and other control elements while using a card advantage engine of Dark Confidant and cantrips like Remand and Serum Visions. If an early threat is eliminated or not available, drop a very efficiently priced Abyssal Persecutor (the deck as a number of ways to eliminate the Abyssal Persecutor when needed)as a win condition or use the unblockable Creeping Tar Pit.



Card Choices

Disruption
Thoughtseize: Fits excellent in the ability to tear a player's hand apart first turn. Only limitation is it costs life and this deck tends to get a bit life hungry.
Inquisition of Kozilek: Another one-drop discard spell, gets rid of everything that needs to be dealt with right away.
Vendilion Clique: One might be a good replacement for a Snapcaster as it adds to disruption and is another beater. Wouldn't run too many regardless due to Legendary status.
Liliana of the Veil: Dual role of discard disruption as well as removal.
Vapor Snag: Tempo card to help slow the opposition as well as another way to remove Percy.

Counterspells
The number and which counterspells you run very much depends on your meta. If unsure, Mana Leak and Remand are good safe bets otherwise running a 'toolbox' of different ones and using Snapcaster Mage as needed to recycle to relevant ones.
Remand: Great tempo swing while keeping your hand filled.
Mana Leak: *Should* be relevant all game and is a catch-all counter.
Spell Snare: Depends on meta, but can be excellent in right situation.
Spell Pierce: Meta choice.
Essence Scatter: Again depends on meta and/or might be sideboard cards.
Countersquall: A Negate that has the nice added rider of life loss.
Cryptic Command: Awesome versatility but most often used for counter spell and draw a card. Can also bounce your Percy. Also very scary to draw with Bob in the deck.

Creatures
Abyssal Persecutor: Very underrated and difficult to deal with beater for 4 mana. Very few creatures can go toe-to-toe with it and you have multiple ways to deal with it's drawback. Yes it hurts to hit with Bob, but only 4 in the deck so the chances are slim.
Dark Confidant: The card draw engine with a body. Taking land into account, you should take on average about 1 damage a turn with this deck's curve. If the opponent doesn't deal with him he provides massive card advantage (and you have a few ways to get rid of him if your life gets too low).
Delver of Secrets: Plenty of spells to activate him and an efficient beater for one mana.
Snapcaster Mage: Card advantage, a body, and plenty of targets. Problem is finding room.

Removal
Devour Flesh: Might seem like an odd choice, but ideally your opponent doesn't have a full board and it hits untargetable and indestructible creatures at instant speed (as well as killing Percy for you).
Far/Away: I really like this card in this deck except for hitting it with a Dark Confidant really hurts and seems a bit too suicidal.
Victim of Night: Kills the most pertinent threats in Moderen as well as your own Percy when needed.

Other
Gitaxian Probe: Thins the deck as well as helping immensely on what to cast turn 1.

Sideboard
I am looking for suggestions here, but I wanted to get the main deck in place first and then optimize a sideboard around it.

Thank you for taking the time to look at this, I really do appreciate any comments!

EDIT (3-19-14): Updated Decklist based on playtesting and feedback.
EDIT (3-24-14): Updated Decklist.

I think Dark Confidant doesn't work with 4 Cryptic Command and 4 Abyssal Persecutor, not to mention shocks and fetches and no lifegain what so ever. Otherwise it's a pretty solid list.

Thank you for the quick reply! I agree that is a bit of a concern of mine, even though Dark Confidant on average is only doing about 1 damage a turn (since you hit lands a lot) you can still get really unlucky. Any ideas on shoring up that shortcoming? I think all three cards really make this deck tick, so maybe some sort of life gain or an edited mana base?

I play Dark Confidant all the time in my decks and it is probably not going to work with 8 4cmc cards in the deck. I would cut cryptic command for more removal personally and you would be fine. 3 Abyssal Persecutors has worked for me in my builds and at that rate bob almost never flips him. This build would also go nice with Bitterblossom if you get rid of some of those fat spells. Also, if you cut cryptic command, you can be a lot more consistent with your mana base and at the same time even remove 2 lands for more spells.

This is basically the blue/black version of my gate deck (see modern deck creation thread here). This looks like a really fun and competitive deck. Abyssal Persecutor is amazing and often you don't even need to remove him yourself. Watch out for Path to Exile.

I would personally do something like this to start:

Thank you for the feedback jwelt. I think you might be right on the 8 4cc cards, regardless of how much I love Cryptic Command. Quick question, is Serum Visions far and away better than Gitaxian Probe? I like the Probe for turn one so I can decide to play the Delver or a discard spell, but I would love to hear people's thoughts.

If you want to be a true tempo deck, I think you want to go a little bit smaller/efficient.



Something like that seems much more focused and streamlined.

I think the more streamlined version of this deck you present lacks the raw power it needs to separate itself from other delver decks. Abyssal Persecutor is virtually unkillable outside of path to exile in the meta, while anger of the gods is suppressing similar strategies. Based on my experience with Percy - he wins games all by himself. If you can use him while minimizing his drawback, you should. The benefit of delver decks that splash red is the ability to snap bolt repeatedly for a faster clock. Discard helps to disrupt but reduces the decks explosiveness and power in the mid-late game. Percy balances that out a bit.

Ninja of the Deep Hours is the stylish way to get Abyssal off the board, also gives you some card draw if you want to drop confidant from the deck.

Thanks again for the comments!

I would tend to agree that the Abyssal Persecutor is an essential piece of the deck and gives it some real board pressure (in testing, a lot of my games turn around as soon as he sticks). If you take out Percy, I think it just becomes a whole different deck.

I do like the idea of Ninja of the Deep Hours for an interesting removal method, but I don't see what I would cut for it (and I would like to keep Bob as he is insanely powerful).

Any more thoughts on how to sideboard against different decks? Also, should Serum Visions be in instead of Gitaxian Probe?

Updated the list based on feedback. Basically upped the black mana in the mana base to reflect the addition of Liliana of the Veil and moreVictim of Night. Also added in Serum Visions over Gitaxian Probe. Still need help on sideboard.

very interesting brew. here's my opinion:

-tar pit is too slow for this deck, you probably want to use mutavault or blinkmoth
-cut lili plz, she doesnt belong to a tempo deck.
-you need 26 spells to maximize the chance of a delver flip
-replace victim of the night with disfigure, replace mana leak and 2 squalls with 4 vapor snags.
-you might want to use 4 snappys and 2 percys instead.

I like this deck, but Desecration Demon seems like it would be greater value.

If you are dead set on Persecutor, Tribute to Hunger would be a good card to run.

I might be wrong, but I think Tombstalker might be better than Abyssal Persecutor.

Quote from TakeYourShoesOff

I might be wrong, but I think Tombstalker might be better than Abyssal Persecutor.

I was just thinking that, but then I realized that he is playing Dark Confidant. That would not be good.

Quote from Valanarch

Quote from TakeYourShoesOff

I might be wrong, but I think Tombstalker might be better than Abyssal Persecutor.

I was just thinking that, but then I realized that he is playing Dark Confidant. That would not be good.

Yeah I don't think bob is right for this deck. With eight four drops, thoughtseize, fetches and shocks it's way too suicidal. It will just get rofl stomped by zoo

Quote from TakeYourShoesOff

Quote from Valanarch

Quote from TakeYourShoesOff

I might be wrong, but I think Tombstalker might be better than Abyssal Persecutor.

I was just thinking that, but then I realized that he is playing Dark Confidant. That would not be good.

Yeah I don't think bob is right for this deck. With eight four drops, thoughtseize, fetches and shocks it's way too suicidal. It will just get rofl stomped by zoo

I agree, especially since he is only playing 2 Snapcaster Mages.

Quote from Valanarch

Quote from TakeYourShoesOff

Quote from Valanarch

Quote from TakeYourShoesOff

I might be wrong, but I think Tombstalker might be better than Abyssal Persecutor.

I was just thinking that, but then I realized that he is playing Dark Confidant. That would not be good.

Yeah I don't think bob is right for this deck. With eight four drops, thoughtseize, fetches and shocks it's way too suicidal. It will just get rofl stomped by zoo

I agree, especially since he is only playing 2 Snapcaster Mages.

Thank you for all the feedback once more! I am not sure on the concern for having Bob in the deck, as there are only four 4-drops and the rest are 2 or below; he seems perfect for this deck as a card drawing engine. I did take out Liliana of the Veil and added in some Vapor Snag to test as per suggested as well. I think Blinkmoth Nexus is a good idea as well as the new iteration of this deck isn't too mana color hungry.

Keep developing your idea - I am not sure people posting here have played with these cards before for an extended time (I have). Don't be concerned about being a "tempo deck" or an "aggro deck" or "whatever." Subscribing to certain cards packages for this reason is exactly what kills neat brews like this. Forcing things together to make a list look more "tempo" is wrong IMO. Make the deck its own thing by grinding out games and trying new things.

I sure would like to see some tournament reports! Anyone actually playing this?

Quote from jwelt

Keep developing your idea - I am not sure people posting here have played with these cards before for an extended time (I have). Don't be concerned about being a "tempo deck" or an "aggro deck" or "whatever." Subscribing to certain cards packages for this reason is exactly what kills neat brews like this. Forcing things together to make a list look more "tempo" is wrong IMO. Make the deck its own thing by grinding out games and trying new things.

I sure would like to see some tournament reports! Anyone actually playing this?

I was not saying there is anything wrong with the deck, I think it looks sweet. I am just personally not a fan of Percy. I dont want to HAVE to have am answer to him to win the game. I think Tombstalker is just better because he does the same thing. He will no doubt be a cheap flying threat that you dont need answer to but your opponent does. Just me though. Also the ability to shrink goyfs could be huge.

Totally get the idea behind Tombstalker, I just personally think it is too dangerous to run with Bob and I think this deck loses even more if you don't run Bob.

Quote from Optimus21

Totally get the idea behind Tombstalker, I just personally think it is too dangerous to run with Bob and I think this deck loses even more if you don't run Bob.

Well when I first mentioned cutting Bob, you were playing four Percy and four Cryptic Commands. None the less the deck seems sweet, though I might prefer a mutavault over the blinkmoth. Its close though.

Any thoughts on going a more control midrange route?

i saw an article featuring a good Abyssal Persecutor deck:



http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/deck/1368



i personally love Percy because of its being a huge 6/6, flying and trample for a 4cmc.. it's drawback is not a disadvantage for us.. and it is still a MUST ANSWER card immediately..