This past week, I was feeling the competitive itch and so I took a little brew to the Modern FNM at the Nexus.
By playing towards the wizard synergy this deck has access to effectively 8 copies of Lightning Bolt (my favorite card), gets value from Snapcaster Mage and can output a lot of burst damage thanks to Adeliz. I added in the Blood Moons for some disruption against the more greedy and unfair decks in the format.
Round 1: 1-1-1 vs Orzhov Walkers (Ebony and Ivory)
We timed out in our first round of the tournament and ended up with a draw. My opponent was on a really spicy Black White brew with lots of Planeswalkers, vehicles and grindy value. He always managed to remove the Blood Moons with discard spells, so they didn’t have much of an impact in this game. I did get to make the proper play with Electrolyze to kill a Lilliana of the Veil with a Spellskite in play, which was sweet.
Round 2: 2-1 vs Humans
The second round saw me up against the stock humans deck. While I didn’t see any Blood Moons (which would have been fantastic), the combination of all my removal and a solid clock were enough to win the round.
Round 3: 2-0 vs Storm
Storm has a difficult time going off in modern without their creatures, which I could remove. I then could board out the Blood Moons and bring in more permission.
Round 4: 2-0 vs Jeskai Control
In the first game, I managed to sneak in a Blood Moon on turn 3 and that was enough to win the game. For the second game I side-boarded in more permission and went down to a single Blood Moon. I was able to protect my threats with the permission and got the win. My opponent later showed me that he had two enchantment destruction spells in his hand, but even then I’m not sure I was right to board out Blood Moon.
Round 5: 1-2 vs Jeskai Phoenix
I hadn’t actually played against this deck before, and I think I made a number of mistakes. There are a surprising number of 4 toughness creatures here which are great against all my lightning bolts. I ended boarding out the Blood Moons again and brought in Tormod’s Crypts, which was probably a mistake. I should have brought in Dismembers instead.
All told, I came 4th out of 18 and I was quite happy with the deck’s performance. Electrolyze and Izzet Staticaster were great in spots and while Blood Moon didn’t make as much impact as I’d hoped, it was good in 3 out of my 5 matches
The study of magic began when the first mage taught herself to throw lightning.
Naban, dean of iteration
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