So why doesn't Modular see more play?

[Negator131]

Before I even start, I'm calling the deck 'Modular', because that's the mechanic it abuses, and it runs, count 'em ZERO cards with Affinity for Artifacts.

The Modular archetype, the deck which Jesse River hit third place with at SCG Chicago, seems like an extremely good metagame call right now. In my testing, this deck has STOMPED/DONKEY PUNCHED/*insert term for extreme violence here*'d Fish of almost any build, and seems like a decent choice against the Control decks currently populating the format (Gifts and Control Slaver). It also happens to have a good match against Aggro, minus strongly metagamed R/G lists. Here's Jesse's list:

4 Metalworker
4 Myr Servitor
4 Myr Retriever
4 Arcbound Ravager
3 Triskelion

4 Tangle Wire
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Skullclamp
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
R Memory Jar

9 SoLoMoxCryptVault
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Wasteland
R Strip Mine
R Tolarian Academy

SB: 4 Chalice of the Void
SB: 4 Phyrexian Furnace
SB: 3 Eon Hub
SB: 3 Razormane Masticore
SB: 1 Crucible of Worlds

My proposed changes are as follows:

-1 Triskelion, -1 Ancient Tomb +2 Arcbound Crusher

This card was in an earlier build of the deck, and its very good in the Fish matchup. You should already beat any version running Chalice of the Void over Null Rod, as in testing resolving Rod was absolutely crucial, but decks running Rod are more difficult. This helps in that matchup, as with Rod on the board you can still produce a monster fatty that wins games against the little blue men. I also expect to see around 50/50 Rod Fish and Chalice Fish, with Rod Fish showing up as a metagame answer to Chalice Fish.

Possible other changes include:

-3 Sword of Fire and Ice, +3 Umezawa's Jitte

Jitte seems like it helps this deck in quite a few different ways, as it gives a cheap answer to an early Welder, and Legend-rules Fish's Jittes. Also, this seems like it would help in the match against Workshop Aggro, because it gives a non-6 mana, multiple use answer to Juggernaut.

The sideboard still seems solid, despite the passage of time, although I would like to see the one random Crucible as something more consistent.

Chris Franson

[Lunar]

sword of fire & ice...as jesse has explained before...is for card drawing/faster clock...the card draw was key here...it was stated that even if first turn clamp bit the big one, then second turn sword would get the draw going and win the game for you...

dropping the third triskelion is bad....its the win condition you know....ive been tempted to actually up it to 4 a number of times...(ive run it in tourneys here on the west coast, and its not too shabby)

If your worried about juggernaughts with this list then your doing something wrong...READ: this deck runs a:blockers and faster aggro, b: tangle wire.

speaking of tangle wire though...its a weak link sometimes (for me anyways) with it only really shining against stuff like fish...you cant forget about stuff like gifts with instant speed removal/draw...too bad they dont still work with eon hub...(which is a great SB card for this deck btw)

Null rod fish is a tougher matchup though than vial fish...shutting down lots of little pieces in the deck...

Jesse's build is pretty tight really...ive tried tinkering around with it a number of times, and generally end up back with his original list.  The only other option I like is switching the swords for staff of domination...but that is a meta choice...ive stolen quite a few games with turn 2 staff wins...(turn 1 metal worker, turn 2 staff, with 3 artifacts in had for those who arent in the know.)

I did also drop the extra ancient tomb...the damage was getting a little heavey, and I found it rarely improoved my mana options (the mana output of this deck is already amazing) believe it or not I swapped it for a lone mishras factory, which also has won me a couple of games against control decks...I wish it could fit another one or two...but then the mana gets a little rough...

[PipOC]

I don't see why you would choose Jitte over SoFI.  The card draw provided by it is crucial to beating control, and it's better against fish, automatically fattening your men and making them essentially unblockable.  You  also make yourself vulnerable to opposing jittes, and a majority of the time when you would be able to cast jitte, you're also able to cast SoFI.  Your men also become immune to Old Man, and rack and ruin with it equipped.

[Negator131]

Makes sense on Sword. So it's in over Jitte.

What do y'all think of Crusher? It does just that under Null Rod, which is why I like running it. That's also the reason why I cut the third Triskelion for it; under Rod it's a 4/4 for 6 (Read: more mana than you can produce, especially with Wastelands and only 24-25 mana sources) that does absolutely nothing.

[JuJu]

Why Trisk? Wouldn't Masticore or Razormane Masticore be better, Null rod would not shut off the Razormane and Servitor would help keep both in play. I love Trisk, no doubt but it's not good enough right now, also, if you one of the Cores over it, you could then switch out Sophie for Jitte. Have you tried Crucible? To help keep your lands in play and his out of play could give you more board control, along with whatever else you're using to get that needed board control. So, my changes from Jesse's deck would be something like

-3 Trisk, -3 Sophie, +3 Razormane, +3 Crux

I haven't tried it but it seems it could help your situation for board control out, or I could just be full of crap.

[endersdouble]

You do realize that the point of the deck (or at least one point) is the combo of arcbound ravager + trisk...
Sac your board to ravager, sac rav, mod it to trisk, swing for a bunch, ping for the rest.

[Duncan]

Have you tried Crucible? To help keep your lands in play and his out of play could give you more board control, along with whatever else you're using to get that needed board control. So, my changes from Jesse's deck would be something like

-3 Trisk, -3 Sophie, +3 Razormane, +3 Crux

I haven't tried it but it seems it could help your situation for board control out, or I could just be full of crap.

I wouldn't add crucible or trisk = masticore . The main point of this deck is to swing hard and win within 4 or 5 turns. With adding crucible you tend to go for the control while you need to go for beatdown

[Dralock]

Makes sense on Sword. So it's in over Jitte.

What do y'all think of Crusher? It does just that under Null Rod, which is why I like running it. That's also the reason why I cut the third Triskelion for it; under Rod it's a 4/4 for 6 (Read: more mana than you can produce, especially with Wastelands and only 24-25 mana sources) that does absolutely nothing.

Crusher is decent, but a very slow clock if you don't have a metalworker and a ton of artifacts to play out. There isn't enough draw in the deck to really feed him like you would want to.

Razormane is a good sideboard option for the null rod matchup.

[mrieff]

I would agree that the metagame seems to be more open for modular nowadays. Too bad that Null Rod has made a resurgence, considering it´s dormance it had for a few months.
This would have me cut Skullclamp (which i didn´t like anyway), but that´s another discussion.

I have a lot of experience with this deck. To be honest I don't think I like Negator's131 changes to the list:

The huge advantage of Trike over Crusher is that Crusher is only good in the first few turns of the game. Later on, he is quite a wasted draw. Furthermore, Crusher can only do player damage, Trike can do a lot more. Also don´t underestimate the synergy between Ravager and Trike.

I prefer Sword over Jitte. The main advantage of Jitte is the 1 colorless mana less: This is far less important in T1 (Moxes/Shops) than in other formats. The `Draw a card`phase is so valuable, and for me that makes Sword outshine Jitte by quite a margin.

[jeremy_78]

One of my old teamates use to play a mono-brown Worker staff deck in a null rod heavy environment.  One of the SB options he used to use was culling Scales.  If your worried about null rod you can try it out.  Its not great but it works ok, your choices for artifact removal are slim with a mono brown list.

[Lunar]

wow, ive heard some terrible ideas on here so far...have some of you guys actually tested/played this deck???

cutting skullclamp  :shock: in fact  :shock: :shock: (if your that worried about null rod then this isnt your deck..."this is not the deck you are looking for." - Obi-wan)

cutting triskelion  :shock: (ditto, its one of the most important pieces in the deck...he must stay. Removal=good, direct damage=good, synergy with ravager=good, 4/4 at the worst=good)

6 mana is too much for this deck   :shock: (ditto, between workshop, city of traitors, ancient tomb, moxen, tolarian academy, metal worker, lotus, sol ring, mana crypt, mana vault...even if you take out the artifact accel if you cant hit 6 mana with this deck on turn 2 or 3 at the latest your doing something terribly wrong.)

crucible of worlds is cool and all but it has no place in this deck...(believe me ive tried, and tried, and even when I knew it didnt work I tried.)

I could just be full of crap

   quoted for truthery!


I disabled smileys in this post, because you shouldn't be using them instead of real words.
-Jacob

[Moxlotus]

One reason is the deck is very very draw dependant.  I've tried messing around with Jesse's deck, especially with the TangleWire slot.  It was wires, then Storage Matrix, then Razormanes, then Jittes.  Jitte's were probably the best.

The deck has 1 of 3 options.

1/2 the time it goes nuts.
1/4 of the time it draws stalls with tons of mana
1/4 of the time it doesn't get enough mana.

The deck was too draw dependant for me, but it still pounded fish into the ground.

[Pizzatog]

Crusher is absolutely crazy if you use the Genesis engine - Skullclamp draw engine.



 He is like dryad on steroids.

[islanderboi10]

That deck has been in my meta even before River's Affintiy came out. It was similar and different. Our list ram 3 Arcbound Crushers. These things are like Quirion Dryads in this deck. They grow fast. It also ran Myr Moonvessel over Myr Servitor. It would do this because it would clamp the Vessel, have one mana open to clamp again. Plus you could use the one mana more efficiently.

But I think Arcbound Crusher is a great addition to this deck. Trisk needs to be maindecked because another trick the deck would do is when your opponent R&R your stuff, you would sacc it all to the Ravager and then sac ravager and put all the counters on trisk. Shoot for the win....

But there is my 2 cents.

[Ben Kossman]

I had a thread on this deck in the newbie forum and Jessie was cool enough to contribute his experiences to it. I also examined the Strawberry Crush thread I beleive was in this forum. The two cards that really strike me as overlooked are Genesis Chamber and Lightning Greaves. Sword of Fire and Ice is top notch as well but seems more like a sideboard option versus Fish and Welder Decks than maindeck material to me. This deck is quite capable of winning turn 3 consistently with first turn Chamber Followed by Trisk/Ravager. In my build pre-Trisk Plating was actually the primary win condition and I would seriously consider a mulligan if I didn't draw it since this deck can  recover card parity with Skullclamp. At this point though I'm leaning towards Crusher over Plating as it's unaffected by Null Rod. Here's the build I'm testing at the moment...

Win Conditions:12
4 Triskelion
4 Crusher
4 Ravager

Engine:8
4 Genesis Chamber
4 Skullclamp

Recursion/Clamp Fodder:8
4 Myr Retreiver
4 Arcbound Worker

Acceleration:14
4 Metalwoker
4 Lightning Greavees
5 Moxen
1 Lotus
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Tolarian Academy

Disruption:8
3 Tangle Wire
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland

Mana Base:10
4 Mishra's Black Lotus (I mean Workshop)
4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors

This deck is more combo than Aggro. The big misconception I hear is that this deck is vulnerable to Null Rod and to a certain extent that's true but it's not as bad as people make it out to be. Granted it sucks but it doesn't stop you from
just beating down with Crusher and you can still use your "real" lands to cast stuff. Also it doesn't affect Modular so
if they screw up and try to kill ravager or Crusher you can just continue with the beatdown using a smaller creature or Metalworker. I think the key to being successful with this deck is to be aware of Null Rod and design the deck accordingly
without neutering the speed that makes the deck a real threat in the first place.

[JuJu]

I remember there was a Modular deck that won quite some time ago(Around the time Tsphere started really hitting) in Europe, it ran Junk Divers instead of the Workers and Ashnod's altars instead of the Greaves. It got near infini mana too, it also had Disciple of the Vault for another win condition but that's a whole new story.

[Ben Kossman]

Yeah, me too. That's what inspired me to try the deck in the first place. Disciple is in fact the most efficient source of damage (on legs) that I can think of besides Tog or Dryad.

[Negator131]

Hehe now I *know* why it doesn't see more play.

I took almost the exact list in my first post to a Type One in Minnesota. I went 3-3. Either the deck went 2-0 or 0-2. It either went completely broken and just destroyed my opponent, or it sat around and did basically nothing.

Is there any way to fix this consistency issue? This deck seems really good, if that issue is addressed. I'm talking really digging deep here. Weird stuff, a la Sensei's Divining Top over Sword of Fire and Ice. Anyone have any ideas?

[mrieff]

Hehe now I *know* why it doesn't see more play.

I took almost the exact list in my first post to a Type One in Minnesota. I went 3-3. Either the deck went 2-0 or 0-2. It either went completely broken and just destroyed my opponent, or it sat around and did basically nothing.

That is exactly why I never liked all the very narrow cards that don't do much themselves (Myr Servitor, Skullclamp,  Genesis Chamber). Try replacing those with cards that do something in themselves, and I'm sure you'll find the consistency improve significantly.

[Mr.Morphling]

I have been playing this deck for a while now except I have added Uba Masks to it.  It makes so much of the matchups better its insane.  Also, the synergy between it and ravager is pretty nice.  Like if ur opp gets a card u rather not c just sack uba mask during there draw step.  The card is gone forever.  I also have tried adding bazzar of bagdads to it to intereact with the masks but that hasnt been going well.