This is a spin-off of the Modern Mono-Black Infect Deck, with alterations to help it deal with problem matches that the Mono-Black version suffers from. At the end of the post, I have attached a tournament report from a Pro Tour Qualifier at which I played this list to a 5-2 standing. The deck should have gone 6-1, but the pilot was an idiot (Myself!) and gave away the last two games of the day.
I am hoping to find more discussion on the possible benefits of adding Red to the list, and ideas on better directions to go with various cards. The degree-of-difference between this and mono-black control is rather low right now, which makes me think it is likely not taking full advantage of the benefits provided by the second color.
Much like Mono-Black Control, this deck's primary answer to a resolved Leyline of Sanctity is to shrug and say "Whelp," then stare at a blank hand as you attempt to race whatever they are doing.
Specific Card Notes:
MAIN DECK:
-Runechanter’s Pike: I never rely on this card, but it is the grandpappy of top-deck game-changers. I never want to see it in my opening hand, but as a turn 5-6 draw? Fabulous. I would never consider Livewire Lash over this card, simply due to the fact that this pretty much automatically creates One-Hit-K.O.s, while Livewire Lash punishes your opponent for trying to remove… your Phyrexian Crusader who is already immune to most removal.
-Phyrexian Vatmother: I have actually been 100% satisfied with her as a victory condition, both in Mono-Black infect, and in Black-Red. She is out of range of Lightning Bolt and Abrupt Decay, generally hits the board after you’ve ground their hand down (meaning they’ll have generally pitched some Terminate and Path to Exile, or used them on your Inkmoth Nexus), and she wins Tarmogoyf Fights. Additionally, with few people knowing what all Funeral Charm does, she can often sneak a nasty two-hit kill when they think they are safe.
-Doom Blade: Too many Jund decks to run more than 1, but still fills an important instant-speed removal role against things like Splinter Twin.
-Go For The Throat: Pretty much the same thing as Doom Blade, except insert the word “Affinity” where the word Jund appears.
-Dreadbore: My time testing Mono-Black Infect online taught me that any resolved planeswalker will tend to run roughshod over you with raw card advantage. The black-based infect deck is not a rush deck, it’s not fast in general (although with certain lines of play, and pike, it can be rather explosive). It’s a grinder that minimizes the opponent’s options and turns their hand and creatures into dust. Planeswalkers completely sidestep that, and your only way to really interact with them is to either completely empty the opponent’s hand before he or she can drop one (a strategy that does nothing to help with topdecks), or extremely-resource-intensively tossing Lavaclaw Reaches and Inkmoth Nexus at them early. In Mono-Black Control, this card slot was generally Geth's Verdict, and removing that for Dreadbore is a noticeable dip in instant-speed removal, and in your first game fortunes against Bogles and Geist of Saint Traft decks. So it feels like a toss up based on what you think you will see at a given event.
-Duress: You can run Thoughtseize instead, but honestly, every time I’ve played it in MBI or in here, it’s done the same thing Thoughtseize would have done, without sacrificing that precious, precious 2 life. I end many games in the 7-4 life range, where I stabilized. Swapping existing discard out for Thoughtseizes would have made that even more risky. Duress is in here for “deck maths,” as I wanted another “see my opponent’s hand first turn” card. It replaced a 4th Raven’s Crime because I don’t really want to draw multiple Raven’s Crime in my opening hand.
-Night’s Whisper/Sign in Blood: 2x/2x Split is due to Inkmoth Nexus and Lavaclaw Reaches. Sometimes you’ll be stuck without double black turn 2, and really desire to draw 2 to dig for it; Night’s Whisper addresses those times. Other times, some targeted draw and life gain can be handy. A few times, I’ve used it against a combo-opponent when I had plentiful discard and they had Serum Visioned leaving 2 things on top. I’ve also used it to push the opponent towards death when they’ve been Shockland/Fetch happy and I’ve got Lavaclaw Reaches online. You could likely go 4x Night’s Whisper and not miss Sign in Blood much, but I am still on the fence.
-Raven’s Crime: Best card in the deck vs combo and control. I do think I would keep a 6land+1 Raven’s Crime opening hand against a combo deck, as long as I was on the draw.
-Lavaclaw Reaches: Okay, before I am lambasted. I fully recognize that this is an awful card. Downright terrible. Utter dreck. It does, however, fill multiple roles with a single card slot, which pushed me to play it. It provides another avenue of victory. With only 12 other “threats” in the deck, I felt it needed an increase in viable paths of victory. A Piked Lavaclaw Reaches acts a lot like a Piked Inkmoth Nexus when every opponent drags their own life total down to 12-11 playing Shocklands/Fetches, in part out of lack of fear because “it’s an infect deck.” The Lavaclaw Reaches also let me optimize additional land drops, if I don’t have a Raven’s Crime to use profitably. Additionally, it was my final “dual land” to make my Black/Red split function. I also looked at Dragonskull Summit for this slot, but with only 4 swamps, 1 mountain, and 4 shocklands in the deck, the reliability level was low, and if I’m playing a land that enters play tapped, it might as well also be a dude. The old Painland, and Fetches were already considered, but I’ve touched on the life-concern, as this is a very grindy deck, life needs to be handled in a miserly manner to avoid death to topdecking. Throughout the tournament (and, when this was mono-black infect, when playing Bojuka Bog or Howltooth Hollow, I never felt that the Lavaclaw Reaches were troublesome. If it was a position where I didn’t want to play them, I just used them as Raven’s Crime Retrace-bait.
-Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: The number of times Funeral Charm for Swampwalk ends games you shouldn’t have won is surprisingly high.
SIDEBOARD:
-1 Dreadbore: Replaces whichever piece of maindeck removal is bad for the current matchup. Also comes in against decks with an abundance of creatures or Planeswalkers that need to die regardless of size.
-4 Nihil Spellbomb: As a discard deck, you have to have Graveyard Hate, because you’re basically feeding them. This is the cheapest, most efficient pure graveyard hate available to the deck, thanks to the cantripping. Rakdos Charm is also a viable choice, but I hate having to leave mana open to reactionary-graveyard removal; in worst-case scenarios, you can still Spellbomb while you are tapped out.
-3 Pyroclasm: Tons of decks are built on 2 toughness or lower creatures right now. This thing wipes out aggressive decks decks, murders Affinity while its Masters are dead or not in play, and provides a cheap reaction to Bogle Decks (If you’re on the play game 2, for example, it helps with a match up that is, frankly, weak.) Helps to cancel out Lingering Souls. Happily, your own Phyrexian Crusader easily survives this thanks to his Pro-Red. It pretty much fills the same role Infest filled in Mono-Black Infect, except a turn faster.
-3 Ratchet Bomb: Good against Bogle, Affinity, and Eggs, 3 matchups which the deck sorely hates game 1. Also comes in against anything with Lingering Souls, or a preponderance of cheap-drops. Great catch-all sideboard card.
-4 Vampire Nighthawk: Oddly key in many matches. There are a bunch of matches where you will need to just straight up increase your threat-density, and Nighthawk lets you do that. Nighthawk also gives you a vector for dealing with burn decks, as he either soaks a card, mana, and 3 damage, making him a decent-to-good “discard spell,” or he starts doing worth padding your life total. A Vampire Nighthawk with a Pike is a terror to behold. He helps out with blocking-and-killing giant threats that are out of reach of some of your cards. During matches where I know I’m going to be feeding my lands through Raven’s Crime something fierce, I’ll often drop Vatmother for Vampire Nighthawk so that I can max out of my land curve at 3 lands safely.
Match-Ups:
Much of this information is drawn from my experience with Mono Black Infect, with select modifications. The changes that moved this to Black Red were largely specific functionality changes for a few matchups, rather than a major shift in the way the deck normally functions.
Affinity:
-1 Go For The Throat, -2 Night’s Whisper, -2 Phyrexian Vatmother, -2 Sign in Blood,
-4 Wrench Mind
+1 Dreadbore, +3 Pyroclasm, +3 Ratchet Bomb, +4 Vampire Nighthawk
Affinity is a troublesome match-up game one. Your Wrench Minds are bad, you have no vector for interacting with a resolved Cranial Plating outside of “kill every creature they play,” and they have a bounty of 1/1 Flying Lands to trade with your Inkmoth Nexus. On the plus side, it’s very easy to discard them down to 0 cards in hand, as they will often only have 2-3 cards left in hand after their turn one. They spend a lot of cards from hand setting up Moxes and Springleaf Drums, and many of their cards are “enablers,” rather than threats in their own right. Pyroclasm and Ratchet Bomb can blow Affinity out of the water when used properly. Nighthawks help you with the life-race, and trade with giant Ravagers and such if they don’t have welding jars down. They generally have a bounty of random worthless blockers they can throw in front of Vat Mother, so her value is reduced. Night’s Whisper/Sign in Blood are also reduced in value due to how much early damage you take, combined with the reach of Galvanic Blast. It is often too dangerous to use these cards. Go for the Throat is obviously terrible here.
Bogles:
-1 Doom Blade, -3 Dreadbore, -1 Go For the Throat, -3 Lightning Bolt,
-2 Sign in Blood
+3 Pyroclasm, +3 Ratchet Bomb, +4 Vampire Nighthawk
This matchup is not one I’m incredibly happy with. With early Inquisitions/bountiful discard, you can often keep their Bogle from being nearly as intimidating as it is in other matches. The problem is, main-deck at least, you still don’t have a way to *deal* with the Bogle, other than racing it. Their top-deck mode is better than this deck’s top-deck mode.
This sideboard set is entirely dependent on whether you think your opponent will drop his Kor Spiritdancers when he sees the ungodly pile of creature removal you possess in your main-deck. This is where it is important to shuffle your entire sideboard into your deck and then separate, so that he doesn’t see you siding out 10 cards. If you don’t think he’ll drop the Spirit Dancers, keep in the 1 Doom Blade, 1 Go For the Throat, and 2 Lightning Bolt in place of the Nighthawks, as Spiritdancer can easily cycle a plain silly number of cards if it isn’t dealt with immediatly. Even if they have Leyline of Sanctity in their board, you can’t really abandon the discard plan, it’s too key to minimizing the power of the Bogles.
Eggs:
-3 Dreadbore, -1 Doom Blade, -1 Go For the Throat, -2 Lightning Bolt
+4 Nihil Spellbomb, +3 Ratchet Bomb
This matchup is almost entirely down to your opponent’s familiarity with his deck, whether he runs Leyline of Sanctity or not, and if he draws Leyline in his opening hand game 2. The sheer amount of discard the deck puts out puts Eggs on shaky ground, often encouraging them to try to go off with insufficient “eggs” to guarantee success.
After board, Spellbomb is amazing if they don’t land the Leyline. Ratchet Bomb can, if the game goes very oddly, blow up Leyline, but primarily does its work by blowing up 1 and 2 cost “eggs” on *your* turn, so that they aren’t available for comboing on the opponent’s turn. Alternatively, Ratchet Bomb can also blow up suspended Lotus Blooms during the upkeep they enter the battlefield, if suspended, which forces the opponent’s hand on whether to save their source of mass-mana or not
.
G-Based Infect
-4 Phyrexian Vatmother
+1 Dreadbore, +3 Pyroclasm
Overload their creature base with murder. Every discard spell you resolve is one fewer pump spell they have to kill you with. Vatmother can be really unplayable in this matchup, so I side it out.
Jund
-1 Doom Blade, -2 Night’s Whisper, -2 Runechanter’s Pike, -2 Sign in Blood
+1 Dreadbore, +3 Ratchet Bomb, +3 Pyroclasm
The bogeyman of the format lives up to its name. I wouldn’t call it a bad matchup, as your discard potential really gums up their “All of my cards are 2for1s” strategy by making all of their cards 1for1s, but you’re likely not favored in game one. Your Raven’s Crimes are bad early, as they’re likely to bin a Lingering Souls. If you can land a Duress or Inquisition to check for Lingering Souls before playing straight-discard, that is always preferable.
One way or another, this is going to be a ridiculously grindy match. They will likely either mainboard or sideboard Abrupt Decay and Deathrite Shaman, significantly reducing the prowess of Runechanter’s Pike. Luckily, many of their better creatures are 2 casting cost, so a 2-point Ratchet Bomb can be pretty brutal (as can a 0 point one, blowing up spirits). Most non-Tarmogoyf creatures in the deck are sitting at 2 Toughness, making Pyroclasm blowouts pretty powerful. Vatmother shines in this matchup. He’s too large to abrupt decay, he wins Tarmogoyf fights, and once you have your sideboard running, you have the sweepers to clear out the chumps that would normally make Vatmother sketchy.
Melira Pod
-2 Runechanter’s Pike, -1 Night’s Whisper
+3 Pyroclasm
Most of this deck is 2 toughness, so Pyroclasms come in. Runechanter’s Pike is underwhelming when they have maindeck, tutor-able Artifact/Enchantment kill. You tend to follow your standard “empty their hand, then deal with their creatures, then play a threat” strategy in this matchup.
Modern Burn
-2 Sign in Blood, -2 Night’s Whisper
+4 Vampire Nighthawk
Every discard spell you play is like a Healing Salve! Okay, that’s not very impressive, but, well, you need to stem the bleeding somehow. Get to your Crusader or Vatmother and rock some faces, everything up until that is about staying alive and minimizing damage, which explains the removal of self-damaging cards for a life-gaining card.
Scapeshift
-1 Doom Blade, -1 Go For the Throat, -3 Dreadbore, -3 Lightning Bolt
+4 Nihil Spellbomb, +4 Vampire Nighthawk
This deck is generally over-run by my discard-package. Yes, Nihil Spellbomb is suggested for sideboard primarily to cantrip with.
Soul Sisters
-4 Phyrexian Vatmother, -2 Runechanter’s Pike
+3 Pyroclasm, +3 Ratchet Bomb
We’re running on different clocks. He can gain as much life as he wants, and I don’t rightly care. As long as I keep killing every creature he plays, I have all the leisure time in the world to Poison him to death with Crusaders and Inkmoth Nexus.
Tron
-1 Go For the Throat
+1 Dreadbore
One of the decks that prompted the deck’s shift to Black/Red, the dreadbore pick up is there to deal with Karn, primarily. Vampire Nighthawks see, like they should go in, but they really don’t. You don’t generally have enough permanents to survive an Eldrazi’s Annihilator, much less block one with Nighthawk.
Twin
-3 Phyrexian Vatmother
+3 Ratchet Bomb
Overwhelm them with discard. Get a Ratchet Bomb up to 3 counters and make their life horrible.
UR Storm
-1 Doom Blade, -3 Dreadbore, -1 Go For the Throat
+4 Nihil Spellbomb, +1 Vampire Nighthawk
Overhwelm them with discard. Nihil Spellbombs help remove Past in Flames. If they have no Past in Flames, consider Vampire Nighthawk instead for more threat density. As long as you get a decent amount of discard, you can generally pummel their hand down to a point where it’s high likely for their storm attempts to fizzle due to lack of initial spell-pool.
URW Tempo
-3 Dreadbore, -4 Phyrexian Vatmother
+3 Pyroclasm, +4 Vampire Nighthawk
All of their guys are tiny, and some of them are untargetable. Vatmother’s a bit slow, and a bit too much of a mana-investment for this matchup. Nighthawks help with the life race, block Geists profitably, and trade with multi-pumped landfall critters.
URW Midrange
-3 Dreadbore, -4 Phyrexian Vatmother
+3 Pyroclasm, +4 Vampire Nighthawk
Plow through their hand with discard, and remove any threats they draw. Your life total will get pretty low in this matchup just due to the sheer amount of burn they can direct at your face in response to your discard. The Pyroclasm is useful in this America matchup because of Geists, Snapcasters, Aven Censors, and Vendilion Clique all dying to it. Their counter-magic can be frustrating to them, as they’ll often be in the situation where they have a counterspell, but the spell being aimed at them is a Raven’s Crime.
Wx Tokens
-4 Phyrexian Vatmother, -2 Sign in Blood
+3 Pyroclasm, +3 Ratchet Bomb
Token decks make Vatmother sad. First game you just need to focus on burning through their hand You’ll likely end up racing the tokens that were successfully made while your opponent still had a hand, so I drop 2 sign in blood to avoid life-loss.
Tournament Report-Lincoln NE Pro-Tour Qualifier-118 Players, 1-19-2013 The Night Before: So, apparently Omaha has like, no shop with any Modern playable-uncommons in stock. I have all the rares/mythics/etc for Tron, Twin, and American Midrange, but random uncommon are missing. And being out of the physical magic scene for a while, I have very few, well contacts (well, none), to borrow such cards from, much less the night before. I so I toss together a physical copy of a deck I’ve been testing a lot on Magic the Gathering Online, Mono-Black Infect, and take it up to Krypton Comics’ Friday Night Magic. There, I am needled by a very important thing: Any resolved planeswalker. ANY resolved planeswalker, makes the deck roll over and die. I’m pretty sure Tibalt would proceed to teabag the deck into oblivion, somehow. I get stomped by Tron, and by Deathcloud (primarily via Liliana, and a brain-fart involving my Ratchet Bombs and my opponent’s Treetop Village). I am unhappy about the deck, and resolve not to attend the PTQ tomorrow, as I’ll just get blown out by better, vastly more expensive decks. And that actually have all their uncommons.
So I head over to the other gaming store at 11:00pm and play some board games until 1:00am, and then drive home. Upon reaching my home, I am seized with some manner of foolish notion that I MUST go to the PTQ tomorrow, and in order to so, I need to have something spicier, more fiery than Mono-Black Infect. So I decided to kick it up a notch, dropping Geth’s Verdicts for Dreadbores to allow me to actually *gasp* interact with my opponent’s planeswalkers, and dropping Disfigures for Lightning Bolts, upping their Toughness-range of targets while also providing another vector of killing Planeswalkers (And, rarely, Lavaclaw Reaches-murder-reach). Collapsing into my bed at 3am, I set the alarm clock for 7am and get some sleep, so that I can get up, shower, eat some breakfast, and head to Lincoln for the PTQ.
Round 1: Tyler Brennenforder-Eggs-Win 2-0 Game 1: Tyler wins the roll off to go first, and runs face-first into my grip of discard spells. He attempts to go off four times, fizzling each time due to the lower starting-threshold of “draw a card” artifacts caused by my rampant discard. During his last fizzle turn, he ghost quarters my Inkmoth Nexus, netting me a land, then Second Sunrises… getting me back my Inkmoth Nexus. After he finishes fizzling, he looks at the Pike on the table, and pops Ghost Quarter on my Nexus again. I untap, stare at my quite impressive stack of land thanks to ghost quarters+never missing a land drop this game, count his life total, severely reduced from repeated Fetching/Probing, and promptly activate Lavaclaw Reaches, equip the Pike, and swing for lethal. People get pretty loose with their life total against an infect deck! Sideboard: -3 Dreadbore, -1 Doom Blade, -1 Go For the Throat, -2 Lightning Bolt//+4 Nihil Spellbomb, +3 Ratchet Bomb Game 2: I go second again, lay into him with discard again. He learned his lesson from game 1 about trying to go-off too early when denied artifacts by my discard, and holds out until he has 3-4 card draw baubles instead of 2. Of course, by that point, I’ve Ratchet Bomb’d away several of his 1-drop artifacts on my turn, and he’s staring down a Phyrexian Crusader and Phyrexian Vatmother poised to end his life on my next turn. So he goes for it, despite suboptimal conditions. He had gotten Leyline of Sanctity out, and he likely would have won that game, but the pressure of the encroaching time limit and the complexity of the eggs process leads to some series procedural misshaps. First, he activates a Conjuror’s Bauble putting a Second Sunrise on the bottom of his deck… and then ghost quarters to shuffle his deck before drawing a card, interrupting the Bauble’s effect (Warning #1). Then, after the judge clears that up, he Elsewhere Flasks all of his lands into plains, and taps a plains to play a Serum visions, drawing a card and scrying things to the bottom before I can point out that his lands are Plains, not Islands, thanks to the flask (Warning #2). Then, flustered by this, he repeats the Conjuror’s Bauble+Ghostquarter mistake again, receiving warning #3 and the game loss. Matches: 1-0
Round 2: Kirby Kaufman-Eggs-Win 2-1 Game 1: I go second, again. I fail to disrupt him enough to avoid getting egg on my face. I concede the game once he has 4 recurring card draw artifacts, so that we can get to game 2. Sideboard: -3 Dreadbore, -1 Doomblade, -1 Go For the Throat, -2 Lightning Bolt//+4 Nihil Spellbomb, +3 Ratchet Bomb Game 2: I keep an opening hand of Raven’s Crime, 4 lands, a Phyrexian Crusader, and a Wrench Mind. I throw the kitchen sink of discard at him, and a few draw-step Funeral Charms later the game is over. He makes one half-hearted attempt at comboing out, but it fizzles. Ratchet Bombs being used on my turn lead to a rather low card-draw threshold on his part. Due to a late Leyline of Sanctity, I have to Lightning Bolt MYSELF in order to bring my Pike up to lethal damage. Game 3: He mulls to 5, never a good sign against a Discard Deck. A combination of Raven’s Crimes, Wrench Mindes, Sign in Bloods, Ratchet Bombs, and Nihil Spellbombs completely remove his artifacts in play, his hand, and his discard pile from the game. Inkmoth Nexuseseses mop up. Matches: 2-0
Round 3: Erik Peters-America Midrange-Win 2-0 (Event Winner, his only loss of the day) Game 1: I go second, again. Inquisition and double Wrench Mind do work. I kill every creature he plays. I accidentally slow-roll him, and feel like a huge jerk, because for some reason I forgot that Phyrexian Crusaders Protection from White didn’t just read “Immune to Path to Exile,” and that my Piked Crusader could, in fact, swing past his Geist of Saint Traft for the win. I ended up doing some convoluted thinking around his tectonic edge that was completely unnecessary and dragged the board state out, annoying him, for which I am sorry. Lavaclaw Reaches blocks Geists like a boss! Sideboard: -4 Phyrexian Vatmother, -3 Dreadbore//+3 Pyroclasm (DIE GEIST DIE), +4 Vampire Nighthawk Game 2: In both of these games, I am very happy that I don’t play fetches or Thought Seizes, as both games end with me at ~4 life, meaning another shock would put me in kill range for a burn spell. I pitch his hand with Raven’s Crimes and Wrench Minds again. He Relic of Progenitus’s a Raven’s Crime, I think. My two Inkmoths and my Phyrexian Crusader get there, as I force him to discard his 1 card in hand before activating my Inkmoths each turn. Matches: 3-0
Round 4: Eric Holmes-U/R Splinter Twin-Win 2-0 Game 1: He wins the die roll and we are off to a roaring…. Stop. Judges deck-check us, and I joke about the deck-check being due to the Judges having to read what my cards actually do. He mulligans, and I get Inquisition, multiple Funeral Charms, Mind Wrench, and plenty of instant-speed creature kill to deal with his Pestermites and Deceivers. Once his hand is down to 2 cards, my Raven’s Crimes feast on Splinter Twins. A Funeral Charm eating a Pestermite by giving it +2/-1 puts the game away. Sideboard: -3 Phyrexian Vatmother//+3 Ratchet Bomb Game 2: Early discard, backed with Ratchet Bomb ticked up to 3, and Night’s Whisper/Sign in Blood seal game two up. Not really much a multi-card combo deck can do when the opponent pitches their hand every turn. There was one really bad derpy moment for me this game, where he played Deceiver Exarch and targeted my 3-point Ratchet Bomb, and I played an Instant Kill spell from my hand instead of just popping the Ratchet Bomb. This was the incorrect play, but would later come back to be the correct play, through no skill or foresight of my own, when he was forced to play two combo critters to stop Phyrexian Vatmother and Phyrexian Crusader from Poisoning him out. Matches: 4-0
Round 5: Brandon Ayers-Spirit Jund-Lose 1-2 Game 1: Brandon knows what I’m playing, since I talked to him the night before, which is a decent disadvantage for me. I go second, again. Double Deathright Shaman “gets there” off my discard spells. I’m burned too-low, too-fast, and die before I can stabilize/kill the Deathrites. He top-decks a Liliana with his empty hand to kill the Phyrexian Vatmother that was going to force him to start throwing Deathright Shamans under the bus to not get poisoned out. Sideboard: -2 Runechanter’s Pike (Deathrite Shaman and Abrupt Decay make this unreliable), -1 Doom Blade, -2 Night’s Whisper, -2 Sign in Blood//+1 Dreadbore (Die Lily), +3 Ratchet Bomb (I didn’t see Lingering first game, but Liliana and white mana means I’d have to be blind not to see them coming), +3 Pyroclasm Game 2: I go first, opening with Inquisition for his Thoughtseize, seeing that he has a 1 land hand featuring Deathrite Shaman and a bunch of awesome 2 drops and a Bloodbraid Elf. He shocks himself with Overgrown Tomb, plays Deathrite Shaman, and ships the turn. I play another land, bolt the Shaman, and Raven’s Crime him. He misses his second land drop. I play a tapped land, and Wrench Mind him. He draws a land, plays it, and drops Dark Confidant. On my turn, the confidant eats a Funeral Charm for +2/-1, dying horrifically. The game progresses, and I get-there off of Phyrexian Crusader and 2 Inkmoth Nexus. Game 3: I get relative control of the game, empty his hand, wipe his board. Of note, he turn 1 fetch->shock, Deathrite, turn 2 Lingering Souls. I turn 2 Wrench Mind. He turn 3 flashes back lingering souls, I turn 3 Raven’s Crime+Lightning Bolt his Shaman and played a tapped land. He plays a land and swings for four. I untap, play a Ratchet Bomb, and clear the board of spirits. The game drags out for a while as I slowly ping him with Inkmoth Nexus. He finally sees a 5th land, plays it and activates his raging ravine to bash in, going up to 4/4 and knocking me down to 5. I then proceed to DRAW a Lightning Bolt. Facepalm. The three dreadbores stare up at me from my hand, while my 2-counter ratchet bomb on the board looks similarly sad. He attacks again, and inkmoth leaps under him. I draw a a land, and die. Matches: 4-1
Round 6: Burt Hamernick-America Aggro-Win 2-0 Game 1: DEAR SWEET MERCIFUL MOTHER OF GOD, I WIN A DIE ROLL. Too bad it had to be against a friend. A friend who mulligan’d to 5. Despite my discard, he drew a very instant-speed burn heavy game, partially disrupting my discard-strategy when he was set to near-empty hand. If he had drawn one more burn spell, I would have lost despite the mull to 5. Pretty scary. Lavaclaw Cliffs ate another Geist of Saint Traft. Those cliffs are not ghost-safe. A Crusader with a Pike deals the finishing blow.
Sideboard: -4 Phyrexian Vatmother, -3 Dreadbore//+3 Pyroclasm (DIE GEIST DIE), +4 Vampire Nighthawk Game 2: I stimey his early Delver (which fails to flip 3 turns in a row) into Steppe Lynx+Fetch Lands and Geist of Saint Traft shenanigans with a couple of well-timed Phyrexian Crusaders holding the fort. He runs out some snap-casters, and we’re in a precarious board position where if I attack with ANYTHING, I lose the game. And then I draw pyroclasm and all of his 1-2 toughness things implode and he loses. Kind of anticlimactic. Two Crusaders and two Inkmoths make a quick clock of things. Matches: 5-1
Round 7: [Didn’t Catch His Name, t8’d with Affinity]-Lose 1-2 Game 1: Features lots of discard, including a randomly accidentally well-timed Wrench Mind when his hand contained only Galvanic Blast and land. He gets a scary board state with a 6/6 Master of Etherium, a Blinkmoth Nexus, and two Ornithopters bearing down on me. Unfortunately, he forgot that Phyrexian Crusader has First Strike, so a Pike’d Crusader first struck his lethal attack down to a 1 point attack, and then he scooped before the Crusader could swing for the kill. Had he not attacked with the Master, he would have gotten in a respectable 4, and still had the blocker for my Crusader.
Sideboard: -2 Phyrexian Vatmother, -4 Wrench Mind, -2 Sign in Blood, -2 Night’s Whisper, -1 Go For the Throat//+1 Dreadbore, +3 Pyroclasm, +3 Ratchet Bomb, +4 Vampire Nighthawk Game 2: Very back and forth, lots of discard, lots of things dying. A Pyroclasm blows out about 3 guys. He gets out a Master of Etherium with a Cranial Plating, but I have out a Ratchet Bomb… which I forget to click-up to 2 at the end of his turn. Which means I lost the game because I couldn’t get rid of his Cranial Plating before he swapped it over to a blinkmoth nexus for the win. Gogo dumb play mistakes on my part. Game 3: Awkward third game, we pretty much both go aggressive. Except he gets two Arcbound Ravagers and two Etched Champion, and 4 Darksteel Citadels I can’t get rid of. So he starts racing me with 7, then 5 damage in Pro-Everything Champions. I have to throw two inkmoths under the bus to slow him down, which is what knocks it from 7 damage to 5. But then, what to my wondering eyes did appear, but a Vampire Nighthawk with a very big spear. Nighthawk proceeds to race the Etched Champions, killing two Inkmoth Nexuses on his side of the board in the process, and outhealing their beat-down. He rips his third Galvanic Blast, and uses it to kill my Vampire Nighthawk, prompting sad-face from me. I drop an Inkmoth Nexus. He beats me down to 2. At this point I have 8 Instants and/or Sorceries in my discard pile. His hand is empty. He controls an untapped Steel Overseer. He is literally dead to ANY SPELL in my deck. I draw a swamp, and that closes the deal. I swing in for 9 poison with my Inkmoth Nexus, shaking my fist at destiny as 5 pro-everything damage worth of etched champions sails into me the next turn for the kill. Matches: 5-2
Finish: 10th Place, 18 Booster Packs, top 5-2 (whee, I guess)
I assume this has no profitable interaction with Dark Depths, unless you have Mirror Gallery?
I assume the Legend Rule offs Thespian's Stage before the "When Dark Depths has no ice counters on it, sacrifice it. If you do, put a legendary 20/20 black Avatar creature token with flying and "This creature is indestructible" named Marit Lage onto the battlefield." kicks in.
Except Ernham was also followed almost immediately by an Armageddon. Without the mass-land-d, he was significantly less impactful than, say, Serra Angel. A vanilla 4/5 is pretty amazing once you remove the ability for the opponent to deal with him.
Fiend Hunter [Decent card, some combo applications during its block format]
Flickerwisp
Intrepid Hero [Narrow Sideboard card, again]
Kor Sanctifiers [We're really rockin the sideboard with this 3 mana cost slot, aren't we]
Lawbringer/Lightbringer [1x/sideboard cards that were largely worthless without Lin Sivvi]
Lin Sivvi [Hooray, an actually good white 3 drop of her own accord! Created an entire, dominant, deck type. Got her face banned in.]
Mirran Crusader [Oh god, a second actually good main-deck-able white creature at the 3-slot]
Mystic Crusader [Paladins are pretty cool, they first strike or evasion and don't afraid of spot removal]
Paladin En-Vec [Again, pretty good for its time. A time where all creatures were bloody terrible and spell-oriented decks grasped the format's throat with an iron fist. Even then, as the card's lifespan reached its endpoint of relevancy, it had mostly shifted to sideboard use.]
Silverblade Paladin [Hooray, a third main-deck good creature]
Soltari Visionary [Old brutal sideboard against artifact/enchantment heavy decks]
"Best White 3 Drop Ever" isn't exactly a hotly contested title. Most of the playable ones have been strictly sideboard bait.
The only one so amazing it could actually carry decks was released in Nemesis, THIRTEEN YEARS AGO. I'd expect "X: Search your deck for X Creatures and put them into play" by now if things were progressing appropriately
I am hoping to find more discussion on the possible benefits of adding Red to the list, and ideas on better directions to go with various cards. The degree-of-difference between this and mono-black control is rather low right now, which makes me think it is likely not taking full advantage of the benefits provided by the second color.
Much like Mono-Black Control, this deck's primary answer to a resolved Leyline of Sanctity is to shrug and say "Whelp," then stare at a blank hand as you attempt to race whatever they are doing.
Clean Deck List
2 Runechanter’s Pike
4 Phyrexian Crusader
4 Phyrexian Vatmother
1 Doom Blade
4 Funeral Charm
1 Go For the Throat
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Dreadbore
1 Duress
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Night’s Whisper
3 Raven’s Crime
2 Sign in Blood
4 Wrench Mind
4 Blood Crypt
4 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Lavaclaw Reaches
1 Mountain
4 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Dreadbore
4 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Pyroclasm
3 Ratchet Bomb
4 Vampire Nighthawk
Specific Card Notes:
MAIN DECK:
-Runechanter’s Pike: I never rely on this card, but it is the grandpappy of top-deck game-changers. I never want to see it in my opening hand, but as a turn 5-6 draw? Fabulous. I would never consider Livewire Lash over this card, simply due to the fact that this pretty much automatically creates One-Hit-K.O.s, while Livewire Lash punishes your opponent for trying to remove… your Phyrexian Crusader who is already immune to most removal.
-Phyrexian Vatmother: I have actually been 100% satisfied with her as a victory condition, both in Mono-Black infect, and in Black-Red. She is out of range of Lightning Bolt and Abrupt Decay, generally hits the board after you’ve ground their hand down (meaning they’ll have generally pitched some Terminate and Path to Exile, or used them on your Inkmoth Nexus), and she wins Tarmogoyf Fights. Additionally, with few people knowing what all Funeral Charm does, she can often sneak a nasty two-hit kill when they think they are safe.
-Doom Blade: Too many Jund decks to run more than 1, but still fills an important instant-speed removal role against things like Splinter Twin.
-Go For The Throat: Pretty much the same thing as Doom Blade, except insert the word “Affinity” where the word Jund appears.
-Dreadbore: My time testing Mono-Black Infect online taught me that any resolved planeswalker will tend to run roughshod over you with raw card advantage. The black-based infect deck is not a rush deck, it’s not fast in general (although with certain lines of play, and pike, it can be rather explosive). It’s a grinder that minimizes the opponent’s options and turns their hand and creatures into dust. Planeswalkers completely sidestep that, and your only way to really interact with them is to either completely empty the opponent’s hand before he or she can drop one (a strategy that does nothing to help with topdecks), or extremely-resource-intensively tossing Lavaclaw Reaches and Inkmoth Nexus at them early. In Mono-Black Control, this card slot was generally Geth's Verdict, and removing that for Dreadbore is a noticeable dip in instant-speed removal, and in your first game fortunes against Bogles and Geist of Saint Traft decks. So it feels like a toss up based on what you think you will see at a given event.
-Duress: You can run Thoughtseize instead, but honestly, every time I’ve played it in MBI or in here, it’s done the same thing Thoughtseize would have done, without sacrificing that precious, precious 2 life. I end many games in the 7-4 life range, where I stabilized. Swapping existing discard out for Thoughtseizes would have made that even more risky. Duress is in here for “deck maths,” as I wanted another “see my opponent’s hand first turn” card. It replaced a 4th Raven’s Crime because I don’t really want to draw multiple Raven’s Crime in my opening hand.
-Night’s Whisper/Sign in Blood: 2x/2x Split is due to Inkmoth Nexus and Lavaclaw Reaches. Sometimes you’ll be stuck without double black turn 2, and really desire to draw 2 to dig for it; Night’s Whisper addresses those times. Other times, some targeted draw and life gain can be handy. A few times, I’ve used it against a combo-opponent when I had plentiful discard and they had Serum Visioned leaving 2 things on top. I’ve also used it to push the opponent towards death when they’ve been Shockland/Fetch happy and I’ve got Lavaclaw Reaches online. You could likely go 4x Night’s Whisper and not miss Sign in Blood much, but I am still on the fence.
-Raven’s Crime: Best card in the deck vs combo and control. I do think I would keep a 6land+1 Raven’s Crime opening hand against a combo deck, as long as I was on the draw.
-Lavaclaw Reaches: Okay, before I am lambasted. I fully recognize that this is an awful card. Downright terrible. Utter dreck. It does, however, fill multiple roles with a single card slot, which pushed me to play it. It provides another avenue of victory. With only 12 other “threats” in the deck, I felt it needed an increase in viable paths of victory. A Piked Lavaclaw Reaches acts a lot like a Piked Inkmoth Nexus when every opponent drags their own life total down to 12-11 playing Shocklands/Fetches, in part out of lack of fear because “it’s an infect deck.” The Lavaclaw Reaches also let me optimize additional land drops, if I don’t have a Raven’s Crime to use profitably. Additionally, it was my final “dual land” to make my Black/Red split function. I also looked at Dragonskull Summit for this slot, but with only 4 swamps, 1 mountain, and 4 shocklands in the deck, the reliability level was low, and if I’m playing a land that enters play tapped, it might as well also be a dude. The old Painland, and Fetches were already considered, but I’ve touched on the life-concern, as this is a very grindy deck, life needs to be handled in a miserly manner to avoid death to topdecking. Throughout the tournament (and, when this was mono-black infect, when playing Bojuka Bog or Howltooth Hollow, I never felt that the Lavaclaw Reaches were troublesome. If it was a position where I didn’t want to play them, I just used them as Raven’s Crime Retrace-bait.
-Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: The number of times Funeral Charm for Swampwalk ends games you shouldn’t have won is surprisingly high.
SIDEBOARD:
-1 Dreadbore: Replaces whichever piece of maindeck removal is bad for the current matchup. Also comes in against decks with an abundance of creatures or Planeswalkers that need to die regardless of size.
-4 Nihil Spellbomb: As a discard deck, you have to have Graveyard Hate, because you’re basically feeding them. This is the cheapest, most efficient pure graveyard hate available to the deck, thanks to the cantripping. Rakdos Charm is also a viable choice, but I hate having to leave mana open to reactionary-graveyard removal; in worst-case scenarios, you can still Spellbomb while you are tapped out.
-3 Pyroclasm: Tons of decks are built on 2 toughness or lower creatures right now. This thing wipes out aggressive decks decks, murders Affinity while its Masters are dead or not in play, and provides a cheap reaction to Bogle Decks (If you’re on the play game 2, for example, it helps with a match up that is, frankly, weak.) Helps to cancel out Lingering Souls. Happily, your own Phyrexian Crusader easily survives this thanks to his Pro-Red. It pretty much fills the same role Infest filled in Mono-Black Infect, except a turn faster.
-3 Ratchet Bomb: Good against Bogle, Affinity, and Eggs, 3 matchups which the deck sorely hates game 1. Also comes in against anything with Lingering Souls, or a preponderance of cheap-drops. Great catch-all sideboard card.
-4 Vampire Nighthawk: Oddly key in many matches. There are a bunch of matches where you will need to just straight up increase your threat-density, and Nighthawk lets you do that. Nighthawk also gives you a vector for dealing with burn decks, as he either soaks a card, mana, and 3 damage, making him a decent-to-good “discard spell,” or he starts doing worth padding your life total. A Vampire Nighthawk with a Pike is a terror to behold. He helps out with blocking-and-killing giant threats that are out of reach of some of your cards. During matches where I know I’m going to be feeding my lands through Raven’s Crime something fierce, I’ll often drop Vatmother for Vampire Nighthawk so that I can max out of my land curve at 3 lands safely.
Match-Ups:
Much of this information is drawn from my experience with Mono Black Infect, with select modifications. The changes that moved this to Black Red were largely specific functionality changes for a few matchups, rather than a major shift in the way the deck normally functions.
Affinity:
-1 Go For The Throat, -2 Night’s Whisper, -2 Phyrexian Vatmother, -2 Sign in Blood,
-4 Wrench Mind
+1 Dreadbore, +3 Pyroclasm, +3 Ratchet Bomb, +4 Vampire Nighthawk
Affinity is a troublesome match-up game one. Your Wrench Minds are bad, you have no vector for interacting with a resolved Cranial Plating outside of “kill every creature they play,” and they have a bounty of 1/1 Flying Lands to trade with your Inkmoth Nexus. On the plus side, it’s very easy to discard them down to 0 cards in hand, as they will often only have 2-3 cards left in hand after their turn one. They spend a lot of cards from hand setting up Moxes and Springleaf Drums, and many of their cards are “enablers,” rather than threats in their own right. Pyroclasm and Ratchet Bomb can blow Affinity out of the water when used properly. Nighthawks help you with the life-race, and trade with giant Ravagers and such if they don’t have welding jars down. They generally have a bounty of random worthless blockers they can throw in front of Vat Mother, so her value is reduced. Night’s Whisper/Sign in Blood are also reduced in value due to how much early damage you take, combined with the reach of Galvanic Blast. It is often too dangerous to use these cards. Go for the Throat is obviously terrible here.
Bogles:
-1 Doom Blade, -3 Dreadbore, -1 Go For the Throat, -3 Lightning Bolt,
-2 Sign in Blood
+3 Pyroclasm, +3 Ratchet Bomb, +4 Vampire Nighthawk
This matchup is not one I’m incredibly happy with. With early Inquisitions/bountiful discard, you can often keep their Bogle from being nearly as intimidating as it is in other matches. The problem is, main-deck at least, you still don’t have a way to *deal* with the Bogle, other than racing it. Their top-deck mode is better than this deck’s top-deck mode.
This sideboard set is entirely dependent on whether you think your opponent will drop his Kor Spiritdancers when he sees the ungodly pile of creature removal you possess in your main-deck. This is where it is important to shuffle your entire sideboard into your deck and then separate, so that he doesn’t see you siding out 10 cards. If you don’t think he’ll drop the Spirit Dancers, keep in the 1 Doom Blade, 1 Go For the Throat, and 2 Lightning Bolt in place of the Nighthawks, as Spiritdancer can easily cycle a plain silly number of cards if it isn’t dealt with immediatly. Even if they have Leyline of Sanctity in their board, you can’t really abandon the discard plan, it’s too key to minimizing the power of the Bogles.
Eggs:
-3 Dreadbore, -1 Doom Blade, -1 Go For the Throat, -2 Lightning Bolt
+4 Nihil Spellbomb, +3 Ratchet Bomb
This matchup is almost entirely down to your opponent’s familiarity with his deck, whether he runs Leyline of Sanctity or not, and if he draws Leyline in his opening hand game 2. The sheer amount of discard the deck puts out puts Eggs on shaky ground, often encouraging them to try to go off with insufficient “eggs” to guarantee success.
After board, Spellbomb is amazing if they don’t land the Leyline. Ratchet Bomb can, if the game goes very oddly, blow up Leyline, but primarily does its work by blowing up 1 and 2 cost “eggs” on *your* turn, so that they aren’t available for comboing on the opponent’s turn. Alternatively, Ratchet Bomb can also blow up suspended Lotus Blooms during the upkeep they enter the battlefield, if suspended, which forces the opponent’s hand on whether to save their source of mass-mana or not
.
G-Based Infect
-4 Phyrexian Vatmother
+1 Dreadbore, +3 Pyroclasm
Overload their creature base with murder. Every discard spell you resolve is one fewer pump spell they have to kill you with. Vatmother can be really unplayable in this matchup, so I side it out.
Jund
-1 Doom Blade, -2 Night’s Whisper, -2 Runechanter’s Pike, -2 Sign in Blood
+1 Dreadbore, +3 Ratchet Bomb, +3 Pyroclasm
The bogeyman of the format lives up to its name. I wouldn’t call it a bad matchup, as your discard potential really gums up their “All of my cards are 2for1s” strategy by making all of their cards 1for1s, but you’re likely not favored in game one. Your Raven’s Crimes are bad early, as they’re likely to bin a Lingering Souls. If you can land a Duress or Inquisition to check for Lingering Souls before playing straight-discard, that is always preferable.
One way or another, this is going to be a ridiculously grindy match. They will likely either mainboard or sideboard Abrupt Decay and Deathrite Shaman, significantly reducing the prowess of Runechanter’s Pike. Luckily, many of their better creatures are 2 casting cost, so a 2-point Ratchet Bomb can be pretty brutal (as can a 0 point one, blowing up spirits). Most non-Tarmogoyf creatures in the deck are sitting at 2 Toughness, making Pyroclasm blowouts pretty powerful. Vatmother shines in this matchup. He’s too large to abrupt decay, he wins Tarmogoyf fights, and once you have your sideboard running, you have the sweepers to clear out the chumps that would normally make Vatmother sketchy.
Melira Pod
-2 Runechanter’s Pike, -1 Night’s Whisper
+3 Pyroclasm
Most of this deck is 2 toughness, so Pyroclasms come in. Runechanter’s Pike is underwhelming when they have maindeck, tutor-able Artifact/Enchantment kill. You tend to follow your standard “empty their hand, then deal with their creatures, then play a threat” strategy in this matchup.
Modern Burn
-2 Sign in Blood, -2 Night’s Whisper
+4 Vampire Nighthawk
Every discard spell you play is like a Healing Salve! Okay, that’s not very impressive, but, well, you need to stem the bleeding somehow. Get to your Crusader or Vatmother and rock some faces, everything up until that is about staying alive and minimizing damage, which explains the removal of self-damaging cards for a life-gaining card.
Scapeshift
-1 Doom Blade, -1 Go For the Throat, -3 Dreadbore, -3 Lightning Bolt
+4 Nihil Spellbomb, +4 Vampire Nighthawk
This deck is generally over-run by my discard-package. Yes, Nihil Spellbomb is suggested for sideboard primarily to cantrip with.
Soul Sisters
-4 Phyrexian Vatmother, -2 Runechanter’s Pike
+3 Pyroclasm, +3 Ratchet Bomb
We’re running on different clocks. He can gain as much life as he wants, and I don’t rightly care. As long as I keep killing every creature he plays, I have all the leisure time in the world to Poison him to death with Crusaders and Inkmoth Nexus.
Tron
-1 Go For the Throat
+1 Dreadbore
One of the decks that prompted the deck’s shift to Black/Red, the dreadbore pick up is there to deal with Karn, primarily. Vampire Nighthawks see, like they should go in, but they really don’t. You don’t generally have enough permanents to survive an Eldrazi’s Annihilator, much less block one with Nighthawk.
Twin
-3 Phyrexian Vatmother
+3 Ratchet Bomb
Overwhelm them with discard. Get a Ratchet Bomb up to 3 counters and make their life horrible.
UR Storm
-1 Doom Blade, -3 Dreadbore, -1 Go For the Throat
+4 Nihil Spellbomb, +1 Vampire Nighthawk
Overhwelm them with discard. Nihil Spellbombs help remove Past in Flames. If they have no Past in Flames, consider Vampire Nighthawk instead for more threat density. As long as you get a decent amount of discard, you can generally pummel their hand down to a point where it’s high likely for their storm attempts to fizzle due to lack of initial spell-pool.
URW Tempo
-3 Dreadbore, -4 Phyrexian Vatmother
+3 Pyroclasm, +4 Vampire Nighthawk
All of their guys are tiny, and some of them are untargetable. Vatmother’s a bit slow, and a bit too much of a mana-investment for this matchup. Nighthawks help with the life race, block Geists profitably, and trade with multi-pumped landfall critters.
URW Midrange
-3 Dreadbore, -4 Phyrexian Vatmother
+3 Pyroclasm, +4 Vampire Nighthawk
Plow through their hand with discard, and remove any threats they draw. Your life total will get pretty low in this matchup just due to the sheer amount of burn they can direct at your face in response to your discard. The Pyroclasm is useful in this America matchup because of Geists, Snapcasters, Aven Censors, and Vendilion Clique all dying to it. Their counter-magic can be frustrating to them, as they’ll often be in the situation where they have a counterspell, but the spell being aimed at them is a Raven’s Crime.
Wx Tokens
-4 Phyrexian Vatmother, -2 Sign in Blood
+3 Pyroclasm, +3 Ratchet Bomb
Token decks make Vatmother sad. First game you just need to focus on burning through their hand You’ll likely end up racing the tokens that were successfully made while your opponent still had a hand, so I drop 2 sign in blood to avoid life-loss.
Tournament Report-Lincoln NE Pro-Tour Qualifier-118 Players, 1-19-2013
The Night Before: So, apparently Omaha has like, no shop with any Modern playable-uncommons in stock. I have all the rares/mythics/etc for Tron, Twin, and American Midrange, but random uncommon are missing. And being out of the physical magic scene for a while, I have very few, well contacts (well, none), to borrow such cards from, much less the night before. I so I toss together a physical copy of a deck I’ve been testing a lot on Magic the Gathering Online, Mono-Black Infect, and take it up to Krypton Comics’ Friday Night Magic. There, I am needled by a very important thing: Any resolved planeswalker. ANY resolved planeswalker, makes the deck roll over and die. I’m pretty sure Tibalt would proceed to teabag the deck into oblivion, somehow. I get stomped by Tron, and by Deathcloud (primarily via Liliana, and a brain-fart involving my Ratchet Bombs and my opponent’s Treetop Village). I am unhappy about the deck, and resolve not to attend the PTQ tomorrow, as I’ll just get blown out by better, vastly more expensive decks. And that actually have all their uncommons.
So I head over to the other gaming store at 11:00pm and play some board games until 1:00am, and then drive home. Upon reaching my home, I am seized with some manner of foolish notion that I MUST go to the PTQ tomorrow, and in order to so, I need to have something spicier, more fiery than Mono-Black Infect. So I decided to kick it up a notch, dropping Geth’s Verdicts for Dreadbores to allow me to actually *gasp* interact with my opponent’s planeswalkers, and dropping Disfigures for Lightning Bolts, upping their Toughness-range of targets while also providing another vector of killing Planeswalkers (And, rarely, Lavaclaw Reaches-murder-reach). Collapsing into my bed at 3am, I set the alarm clock for 7am and get some sleep, so that I can get up, shower, eat some breakfast, and head to Lincoln for the PTQ.
Round 1: Tyler Brennenforder-Eggs-Win 2-0
Game 1: Tyler wins the roll off to go first, and runs face-first into my grip of discard spells. He attempts to go off four times, fizzling each time due to the lower starting-threshold of “draw a card” artifacts caused by my rampant discard. During his last fizzle turn, he ghost quarters my Inkmoth Nexus, netting me a land, then Second Sunrises… getting me back my Inkmoth Nexus. After he finishes fizzling, he looks at the Pike on the table, and pops Ghost Quarter on my Nexus again. I untap, stare at my quite impressive stack of land thanks to ghost quarters+never missing a land drop this game, count his life total, severely reduced from repeated Fetching/Probing, and promptly activate Lavaclaw Reaches, equip the Pike, and swing for lethal. People get pretty loose with their life total against an infect deck!
Sideboard: -3 Dreadbore, -1 Doom Blade, -1 Go For the Throat, -2 Lightning Bolt//+4 Nihil Spellbomb, +3 Ratchet Bomb
Game 2: I go second again, lay into him with discard again. He learned his lesson from game 1 about trying to go-off too early when denied artifacts by my discard, and holds out until he has 3-4 card draw baubles instead of 2. Of course, by that point, I’ve Ratchet Bomb’d away several of his 1-drop artifacts on my turn, and he’s staring down a Phyrexian Crusader and Phyrexian Vatmother poised to end his life on my next turn. So he goes for it, despite suboptimal conditions. He had gotten Leyline of Sanctity out, and he likely would have won that game, but the pressure of the encroaching time limit and the complexity of the eggs process leads to some series procedural misshaps. First, he activates a Conjuror’s Bauble putting a Second Sunrise on the bottom of his deck… and then ghost quarters to shuffle his deck before drawing a card, interrupting the Bauble’s effect (Warning #1). Then, after the judge clears that up, he Elsewhere Flasks all of his lands into plains, and taps a plains to play a Serum visions, drawing a card and scrying things to the bottom before I can point out that his lands are Plains, not Islands, thanks to the flask (Warning #2). Then, flustered by this, he repeats the Conjuror’s Bauble+Ghostquarter mistake again, receiving warning #3 and the game loss.
Matches: 1-0
Round 2: Kirby Kaufman-Eggs-Win 2-1
Game 1: I go second, again. I fail to disrupt him enough to avoid getting egg on my face. I concede the game once he has 4 recurring card draw artifacts, so that we can get to game 2.
Sideboard: -3 Dreadbore, -1 Doomblade, -1 Go For the Throat, -2 Lightning Bolt//+4 Nihil Spellbomb, +3 Ratchet Bomb
Game 2: I keep an opening hand of Raven’s Crime, 4 lands, a Phyrexian Crusader, and a Wrench Mind. I throw the kitchen sink of discard at him, and a few draw-step Funeral Charms later the game is over. He makes one half-hearted attempt at comboing out, but it fizzles. Ratchet Bombs being used on my turn lead to a rather low card-draw threshold on his part. Due to a late Leyline of Sanctity, I have to Lightning Bolt MYSELF in order to bring my Pike up to lethal damage.
Game 3: He mulls to 5, never a good sign against a Discard Deck. A combination of Raven’s Crimes, Wrench Mindes, Sign in Bloods, Ratchet Bombs, and Nihil Spellbombs completely remove his artifacts in play, his hand, and his discard pile from the game. Inkmoth Nexuseseses mop up.
Matches: 2-0
Round 3: Erik Peters-America Midrange-Win 2-0 (Event Winner, his only loss of the day)
Game 1: I go second, again. Inquisition and double Wrench Mind do work. I kill every creature he plays. I accidentally slow-roll him, and feel like a huge jerk, because for some reason I forgot that Phyrexian Crusaders Protection from White didn’t just read “Immune to Path to Exile,” and that my Piked Crusader could, in fact, swing past his Geist of Saint Traft for the win. I ended up doing some convoluted thinking around his tectonic edge that was completely unnecessary and dragged the board state out, annoying him, for which I am sorry. Lavaclaw Reaches blocks Geists like a boss!
Sideboard: -4 Phyrexian Vatmother, -3 Dreadbore//+3 Pyroclasm (DIE GEIST DIE), +4 Vampire Nighthawk
Game 2: In both of these games, I am very happy that I don’t play fetches or Thought Seizes, as both games end with me at ~4 life, meaning another shock would put me in kill range for a burn spell. I pitch his hand with Raven’s Crimes and Wrench Minds again. He Relic of Progenitus’s a Raven’s Crime, I think. My two Inkmoths and my Phyrexian Crusader get there, as I force him to discard his 1 card in hand before activating my Inkmoths each turn.
Matches: 3-0
Round 4: Eric Holmes-U/R Splinter Twin-Win 2-0
Game 1: He wins the die roll and we are off to a roaring…. Stop. Judges deck-check us, and I joke about the deck-check being due to the Judges having to read what my cards actually do. He mulligans, and I get Inquisition, multiple Funeral Charms, Mind Wrench, and plenty of instant-speed creature kill to deal with his Pestermites and Deceivers. Once his hand is down to 2 cards, my Raven’s Crimes feast on Splinter Twins. A Funeral Charm eating a Pestermite by giving it +2/-1 puts the game away.
Sideboard: -3 Phyrexian Vatmother//+3 Ratchet Bomb
Game 2: Early discard, backed with Ratchet Bomb ticked up to 3, and Night’s Whisper/Sign in Blood seal game two up. Not really much a multi-card combo deck can do when the opponent pitches their hand every turn. There was one really bad derpy moment for me this game, where he played Deceiver Exarch and targeted my 3-point Ratchet Bomb, and I played an Instant Kill spell from my hand instead of just popping the Ratchet Bomb. This was the incorrect play, but would later come back to be the correct play, through no skill or foresight of my own, when he was forced to play two combo critters to stop Phyrexian Vatmother and Phyrexian Crusader from Poisoning him out.
Matches: 4-0
Round 5: Brandon Ayers-Spirit Jund-Lose 1-2
Game 1: Brandon knows what I’m playing, since I talked to him the night before, which is a decent disadvantage for me. I go second, again. Double Deathright Shaman “gets there” off my discard spells. I’m burned too-low, too-fast, and die before I can stabilize/kill the Deathrites. He top-decks a Liliana with his empty hand to kill the Phyrexian Vatmother that was going to force him to start throwing Deathright Shamans under the bus to not get poisoned out.
Sideboard: -2 Runechanter’s Pike (Deathrite Shaman and Abrupt Decay make this unreliable), -1 Doom Blade, -2 Night’s Whisper, -2 Sign in Blood//+1 Dreadbore (Die Lily), +3 Ratchet Bomb (I didn’t see Lingering first game, but Liliana and white mana means I’d have to be blind not to see them coming), +3 Pyroclasm
Game 2: I go first, opening with Inquisition for his Thoughtseize, seeing that he has a 1 land hand featuring Deathrite Shaman and a bunch of awesome 2 drops and a Bloodbraid Elf. He shocks himself with Overgrown Tomb, plays Deathrite Shaman, and ships the turn. I play another land, bolt the Shaman, and Raven’s Crime him. He misses his second land drop. I play a tapped land, and Wrench Mind him. He draws a land, plays it, and drops Dark Confidant. On my turn, the confidant eats a Funeral Charm for +2/-1, dying horrifically. The game progresses, and I get-there off of Phyrexian Crusader and 2 Inkmoth Nexus.
Game 3: I get relative control of the game, empty his hand, wipe his board. Of note, he turn 1 fetch->shock, Deathrite, turn 2 Lingering Souls. I turn 2 Wrench Mind. He turn 3 flashes back lingering souls, I turn 3 Raven’s Crime+Lightning Bolt his Shaman and played a tapped land. He plays a land and swings for four. I untap, play a Ratchet Bomb, and clear the board of spirits. The game drags out for a while as I slowly ping him with Inkmoth Nexus. He finally sees a 5th land, plays it and activates his raging ravine to bash in, going up to 4/4 and knocking me down to 5. I then proceed to DRAW a Lightning Bolt. Facepalm. The three dreadbores stare up at me from my hand, while my 2-counter ratchet bomb on the board looks similarly sad. He attacks again, and inkmoth leaps under him. I draw a a land, and die.
Matches: 4-1
Round 6: Burt Hamernick-America Aggro-Win 2-0
Game 1: DEAR SWEET MERCIFUL MOTHER OF GOD, I WIN A DIE ROLL. Too bad it had to be against a friend. A friend who mulligan’d to 5. Despite my discard, he drew a very instant-speed burn heavy game, partially disrupting my discard-strategy when he was set to near-empty hand. If he had drawn one more burn spell, I would have lost despite the mull to 5. Pretty scary. Lavaclaw Cliffs ate another Geist of Saint Traft. Those cliffs are not ghost-safe. A Crusader with a Pike deals the finishing blow.
Sideboard: -4 Phyrexian Vatmother, -3 Dreadbore//+3 Pyroclasm (DIE GEIST DIE), +4 Vampire Nighthawk
Game 2: I stimey his early Delver (which fails to flip 3 turns in a row) into Steppe Lynx+Fetch Lands and Geist of Saint Traft shenanigans with a couple of well-timed Phyrexian Crusaders holding the fort. He runs out some snap-casters, and we’re in a precarious board position where if I attack with ANYTHING, I lose the game. And then I draw pyroclasm and all of his 1-2 toughness things implode and he loses. Kind of anticlimactic. Two Crusaders and two Inkmoths make a quick clock of things.
Matches: 5-1
Round 7: [Didn’t Catch His Name, t8’d with Affinity]-Lose 1-2
Game 1: Features lots of discard, including a randomly accidentally well-timed Wrench Mind when his hand contained only Galvanic Blast and land. He gets a scary board state with a 6/6 Master of Etherium, a Blinkmoth Nexus, and two Ornithopters bearing down on me. Unfortunately, he forgot that Phyrexian Crusader has First Strike, so a Pike’d Crusader first struck his lethal attack down to a 1 point attack, and then he scooped before the Crusader could swing for the kill. Had he not attacked with the Master, he would have gotten in a respectable 4, and still had the blocker for my Crusader.
Sideboard: -2 Phyrexian Vatmother, -4 Wrench Mind, -2 Sign in Blood, -2 Night’s Whisper, -1 Go For the Throat//+1 Dreadbore, +3 Pyroclasm, +3 Ratchet Bomb, +4 Vampire Nighthawk
Game 2: Very back and forth, lots of discard, lots of things dying. A Pyroclasm blows out about 3 guys. He gets out a Master of Etherium with a Cranial Plating, but I have out a Ratchet Bomb… which I forget to click-up to 2 at the end of his turn. Which means I lost the game because I couldn’t get rid of his Cranial Plating before he swapped it over to a blinkmoth nexus for the win. Gogo dumb play mistakes on my part.
Game 3: Awkward third game, we pretty much both go aggressive. Except he gets two Arcbound Ravagers and two Etched Champion, and 4 Darksteel Citadels I can’t get rid of. So he starts racing me with 7, then 5 damage in Pro-Everything Champions. I have to throw two inkmoths under the bus to slow him down, which is what knocks it from 7 damage to 5. But then, what to my wondering eyes did appear, but a Vampire Nighthawk with a very big spear. Nighthawk proceeds to race the Etched Champions, killing two Inkmoth Nexuses on his side of the board in the process, and outhealing their beat-down. He rips his third Galvanic Blast, and uses it to kill my Vampire Nighthawk, prompting sad-face from me. I drop an Inkmoth Nexus. He beats me down to 2. At this point I have 8 Instants and/or Sorceries in my discard pile. His hand is empty. He controls an untapped Steel Overseer. He is literally dead to ANY SPELL in my deck. I draw a swamp, and that closes the deal. I swing in for 9 poison with my Inkmoth Nexus, shaking my fist at destiny as 5 pro-everything damage worth of etched champions sails into me the next turn for the kill.
Matches: 5-2
Finish: 10th Place, 18 Booster Packs, top 5-2 (whee, I guess)
Of course, you lost about 3 turns ago, but gosh darnit, GET THERE NIGHTY.
I assume the Legend Rule offs Thespian's Stage before the "When Dark Depths has no ice counters on it, sacrifice it. If you do, put a legendary 20/20 black Avatar creature token with flying and "This creature is indestructible" named Marit Lage onto the battlefield." kicks in.
Blade Splicer [Solid, strong card]
Defiant Vanguard [As part of the rebel chain, made viable by the existence of Lin Sivvi, not any strength of its own]
Devout Lightcaster [Hooray sideboard silver bullet]
Fiend Hunter [Decent card, some combo applications during its block format]
Flickerwisp
Intrepid Hero [Narrow Sideboard card, again]
Kor Sanctifiers [We're really rockin the sideboard with this 3 mana cost slot, aren't we]
Lawbringer/Lightbringer [1x/sideboard cards that were largely worthless without Lin Sivvi]
Lin Sivvi [Hooray, an actually good white 3 drop of her own accord! Created an entire, dominant, deck type. Got her face banned in.]
Mirran Crusader [Oh god, a second actually good main-deck-able white creature at the 3-slot]
Mystic Crusader [Paladins are pretty cool, they first strike or evasion and don't afraid of spot removal]
Paladin En-Vec [Again, pretty good for its time. A time where all creatures were bloody terrible and spell-oriented decks grasped the format's throat with an iron fist. Even then, as the card's lifespan reached its endpoint of relevancy, it had mostly shifted to sideboard use.]
Silverblade Paladin [Hooray, a third main-deck good creature]
Soltari Visionary [Old brutal sideboard against artifact/enchantment heavy decks]
"Best White 3 Drop Ever" isn't exactly a hotly contested title. Most of the playable ones have been strictly sideboard bait.
The only one so amazing it could actually carry decks was released in Nemesis, THIRTEEN YEARS AGO. I'd expect "X: Search your deck for X Creatures and put them into play" by now if things were progressing appropriately