Hello all and welcome to this weeks Budget Brews! Winning is nice, but it isn't our main goal here at Budget Brews, instead we just try and have some fun! We tackle a few different ways to build here at Budget Brews, we either look at trying to make the more competitive decks cheaper on the wallet, or we just come up with something new that's easy on the wallet!
Well, that's what I normally do. This week I'm going to take some liberties and look at the latest deck I've been working on playing. The deck is a blast to play, and let's you do nothing in the game and let's you mostly ignore what you're opponent is doing up until the turn you win!
It's a deck I'd probably sleeve up and take with me if I was going to a high profile event, and will probably being playing at SCG NY in Syracuse coming up in August. I'd also be more than happy to play it at the Tower if I was ever able to attend a Modern event there!
Yeah, you read it right. It's another fringe combo deck, except this one isn't powered down like Ascendancy has to be, and this one actually won the (trainwreck) GP Charlotte. There's a few changes here and there about how to build the deck, and a card comes along every so often that may make the deck better but for the most part the game plan is to assemble these cards:
Yeah, it's that simple (ha). Basically Angel's Grace or Phyrexian Unlife lets you go into negative life without losing the game. So with a card like Ad Nauseam you're able to draw your entire deck, end up at an absurdly negative life total (-30 or so), and you end up playing your win-con:
This with the help of Simian Spirit Guide lets you cast the card (or through the use of Pentad Prisms if it's later in the game that you'd like) then with Lightning Storm on the stack you discard enough land cards to kill your opponent.
Traditionally, the deck only runs one of these.
Ouch.
This deck has a lot of hosers out there, that will completely kill your ability to win the game. The fact that your opponent can Pithing Needle your Lightning Storm, is a prime example.
Now a days you see some running two of these, or a split between one Lightning Storm and 1 of these...
This second card taxes your Simian Spirit Guide a little bit more, and you have to cast it for 0 and then flash it back, but it allows you to diversify your win conditions and can still secure the win for you.
Some people also use something Conjurer's Bauble in order to put Lightning Storm back ontop of your library if it's Thoughtseized away or something.
The deck plays a slew of ways to find the combo and to win, and can usually reliably combo around Turn 5.
Thanks to the banning of Splinter Twin, Ad Nauseam has been seen as more of a contender in the Modern format. While it still is considered Tier 2 and a fringe deck it does have some pretty decent match ups.
When I'm playing I like to see linear aggro decks all day long. Between Angel's Grace, Phryexian Unlife, and then our Fog effects after sideboard they can swing all they want they're going to have a helluva time finishing me off. I don't really care what they're doing, usually I'm just going to play my cantrips find my combo and win (on their turn if I'm feeling cheeky).
Pre-board anything with hand disruption is going to be rough. They're able to nuke your hand pull apart the combo or the cantrips and they leave you with a bitter taste in your mouth. When I first thought of playing this, I was testing online when Grixis was everywhere. I hated life. After board however you get four Leyline of Sanctity, and if you mulligan aggressively you can go about and do your thing not having to worry about Thoughtseize.
Blue based control decks I've found can be kind of a toss up. After board you have Boseiju, to make your spells uncounterable and you play a slew of Pact of Negations to force through your spells. Plus, Pact of Negation and Angel's Grace means you're not having to pay five mana for that free counter spell.
Overall if you check out MTGtop8.com, the deck has put up it's fair share of results in events and I'm confident it'll keep doing so. Not a ton of people play it, so it's unexpected and people don't really sideboard for it.
Thanks for joining me while I untap the multiverse, and I look forward to brewing up something for next week!
Have an idea for something you'd like me to brew up? Give me a shout in the comments! You can also follow me on Twitter, @maibuddha, Reddit /u/maibuddha, or you can join my Facebook group!
