A few weeks ago I decided that I was going to make my triumphant(?) return to a Monday night Modern event at one of the local game stores near me. I won’t name them because they haven’t thrown us a sponsorship along with a lifetime supply of gaming goodies. C’mon! You know I’m in this for the free stuff! I kid! I kid! Ahem.
The one part of going to game nights that causes me anxiety is picking which deck to play. I basically went back and forth between Bogles and Storm for the entire week before. Bogles is annoying and one of those Tier 2 modern decks that sneaks into Tier 1 from time to time, while Storm is more fun to actually play with and can lead to some quick kills if your opponent doesn’t recognize the important cogs of the deck but I did have the “Weird Paradise Mantle” combo in the deck and always felt slightly sheepish playing it. In the end, after talking with (at?) Shawn (Modern isn’t his thing), about which deck I should play, I decided to go with Bogles.
Having played at the same spot many times, I know who the regular attendees are and which deck that they tend to play. Unfortunately, Lantern Control is one of those decks that always seems to be present. I can’t stress how much I HATE Lantern Control. I loathe it. Ensnaring Bridge is such a piece of ******* ****. You know a control deck is too controlling when Shawn, king of the blue mages, hates it too. I fully support a new rule that says if your opponent brings Lantern Control to a game night, you are well within your rights to take that deck outside, light it on fire, and then piss on it to put the fire out. I had joked with Shawn about having crap luck and knowing that I would have to play against someone who was running Lantern Control….
Round 1: Lantern Control. Yup. Very. First. ****ing. Round.
My opponent, who was actually the judge of the event, was a really nice guy. I think people at these game nights tend to think that they are going to be paired up with “Serious Sam” and just get down to business with no friendliness. He was very formal to begin with but once he plopped down a Codex Shredder only to be met with a stream of expletives from the other side of the table, he relaxed and joked around a bit with me which made playing this piece of crap deck bearable. The first game was actually close because he had trouble getting his hand empty and I had stopped pumping up my Bogles and was just swinging with 1/1’s. I was able to get him down to 8 life before he was able to get that last card out of his hand and then lock me, and the game, down. The 2nd game went worse for me, he started with the necessary pieces in his hand and basically had me locked down by the 4th turn. Just to be a dweeb about it, I made him play the entire game out instead of conceding. God, I hate this deck.
0-1
Round 2: Druid Combo
From Lantern Control right to an infinite combo deck! LA DEE ****ING DA!
I made several misplays in the first game and he beat me without even getting the infinite combo of Devoted Druid and Vizier of Remedies out on the table. For those of you not familiar with the combo, Devoted Druid taps to add 1 green mana to your pool but also has the ability to untap if you put a -1/-1 counter on him. Vizier of Remedies basically prevents your creatures from getting -1/-1 counters. Yep. Infinite Mana to do fun things like use Duskwatch Recruiter to search endlessly through your deck until you hit the stompy favorite of your choice and play it. In this case my opponent went with Walking Ballista, which gets infinite counters on it, which in turn does infinite damage to me. I don’t think I even hit him once in this game. Complete and utter blowout.
0-2
Round 3: Elves
Ok, I’ll be honest, this isn’t an official match. My buddy and I both had byes this round and decided to play each other instead of wandering around aimlessly for an hour waiting for the next round to begin. Against Elves you know you have to take it down quick by either outracing it or remove the little guys immediately once they hit the table. Since I was running only 2 copies of Path to Exile in my deck, (mistake), I had to outrace it. I lost the first game but won the next one and we left it as a tie.
0-2-1
After our match, we both decided to pack it up and call it a night, we both were in the running for last place as he had gone 0-2 as well and wasn’t really happy about it. Most likely we would have ended up paired with each other in the last round anyways. I wasn’t surprised at all that I had not done well. Modern is like swimming with the sharks. Some nights you eat and some nights you get eaten. Hindsight is a cruel mistress and I realized that if I had brought my Storm deck I would have done slightly better against Lantern Control since I had burn spells along with Guttersnipe. So basically, I could have just used all of my one mana cantrips and pinged away at my opponent with ‘Snipe’s ability. Most likely I would have still lost but damn it, I can dream of putting up a better fight than I did.
For those of you who are curious, these were the decks that were played that night:
Eldratron, Burn, Elves, BG Elves, Jund x2, Lantern Control x2,
Druid Combo, and my bitch ass Bogles.
I believe a Lantern Control deck won the whole shebang. #banthebridge
Thanks for reading! I look forward to sharing many more stories of getting absolutely pummeled at Modern nights with you all!