Musing Modern

Hello everybody! Recently I downloaded Magic Workstation (MWS), which in case you don't know is like Magic Online except free, and so I have been testing a couple decks online that I wouldn't conveniently have the means to do IRL. Mainly I have been testing Legacy and Modern. In Legacy I have been rocking Enchantress and Aluren, but Modern is where I have been spending all of my time recently, slowly touching up and improving my Dredge deck. Right now I feel the deck is doing well overall, but there is definitely room for improvements. Here's how it looks right now:

4x Fauna Shaman
4x Vengevine
4x Hedron Crab
3x Birds of Paradise
4x Enclave Cryptologist
4x Extractor Demon
2x Sedraxis Specter
2x Skaab Ruinator
4x Oona's Prowler
4x Stinkweed Imp

3x Visions of Beyond

4x Misty Rainforest
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Scalding Tarn
2x Forest
2x Island
3x Creepig Tar Pit
2x Watery Grave
3x Breeding Pool

Sideboard:
2x Nature's Claim
2x Obstinate Baloth
2x Doom Blade
1x Go for the Throat
4x Maelstrom Puse
4x Spell Pierce

For a while I was trying a snapcaster package sideboard, but it was way too clunky to actually do anything. The sideboard is always where I am shakiest... However, I think this one has a few good ones with Obstinate Baloth and Doom Blade/GftT against Zoo and Red Deck, Spell Pierce against Control, and Maelstrom Pulse against anything I may need it against. I would consider cutting 2 nature's claims and a Pulse if I found something better that I wanted.

Oona's Prowler is something very new that I am trying out, but I really like it so far, replacing it 1-for-1 with Tarmogoyf. In this deck by itself goyf is usually a 2/3 and sometimes a 3/4, so I have to have opponents cast sorceries and planeswalkers and artifacts for him to get any better. Whereas Prowler offers the same amount of power, but has evasion as well and provides a 0 mana discard outlet for your 6 unearth cards and Vengevine. Yes, your opponent can discard cards to knock its power down, but I am perfectly fine with that. Because of Prowler, we don't need to run cards like City of Brass to make Sedraxis Specter better.

One thing this deck lacks right now is a powerful redundant mill engine. Right now the only self mill cards are Stinkweed Imp and Hedron Crab. However, that's what is awesome about this deck, is that it is not solely reliant upon the graveyard. With Oona's Prowler and Fauna Shaman we can still punch them in the face without worry. That's 16 cards we want in our opener, which is very good odds.

But that's not all there is in modern. There's the traditional offenders like Zoo and Red Deck and Twin, but there are some other awesome decks that I have been seeing online. Some of these include Enchantress, Burning Vengeance, Merfolk, and Soul Sisters! Modern seems to be an awesome format right now, and I plan on looking into the data from the upcoming PTQ season!

Thats all I have for today! Until next time, Stay Classy!

Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack