by Johnny Cycles, July 31st, 2024

The dog days of summer are officially here! The month of August is a busy one for me and my family, so I’m going to cut back on the number of articles I’m publishing to two instead of four. In general, I’ve had a lot less time to put in to deck building and play testing since I began my part-time job, so I think this change will result in some better games and videos.

I won’t lie, though. I’m dying to try out a bunch of new cards, both from Modern Horizons 3 and Bloomburrow. There are still cards I want to build around from Outlaws of Thunder Junction! I just can’t dedicate the kind of time it takes to test and refine these decks before posting articles about them.

However, I’ll keep posting game play to my YouTube channel as I build and test the various decks I have in mind. This means there will be some fails and tough lessons (Flare of Cultivation isn’t good enough in post-MH3 Modern, it turns out) as I refine my decklists. Hopefully this will yield some good articles for September, after the kids are back in school!

Schedule

August 9th – Keeping Modern Janky – Frogvine!!!

August 23rd – Commander – Breaking the Color Pie: Mono White Card Draw

I spent some time yesterday playing a single match with a handful of decks that I want to work on in the coming weeks. The idea was to give y’all a sneak peek of things to come. With such a small sample size it’s hard to get a true sense if any of these decks will be viable in Modern, but last evening’s games don’t bode well. Still, if you’re interested or want to give me some directions for the future, please let me know in the comments! I provide a brief deck tech for all but one.

Practice Match – Gruul 4-Drop Tribal vs. New Yawgmoth

Impressions: Yawgmoth eats Midrange decks for breakfast… Even when we were close to executing our plan, it wasn’t good enough. Of course, had we just drawn a Lightning Bolt, we would’ve gone to game 3. Maybe there’s hope for this style of deck, but this match didn’t feel great.

Practice Match – Hydra Tribal with Fanatic of Rhonas vs. Storm

Impressions: Apparently, Storm eats Midrange decks for breakfast, too… You can tell I’m rusty when I miss my Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner–Fanatic of Rhonas combo to get a 9/9 hasty Hydra. Sigh. It still wouldn’t have mattered.

Practice Match – 4-Drop Demon Tribal vs. Mono White Land Destruction

Impressions: What a sweet deck our opponent is playing! We got to do our thing in game 1 and it still wasn’t enough…sigh. Game 2, well, mistakes were made and we were left durdling until death. Still, this build feels more competitive aaannnnddd, who doesn’t want to play a bunch of Demons?

What does the future hold?

After some truly painful games and some lackluster, underwhelming performances, will I still work on these decks, or is it time to try out some new brews? How about both! Of course, this is wishful thinking since I have such limited time this month, but hope dies last, as they say in Russian! Maybe with two less articles to write this month, I’ll find some time to play test more.

But what are the decks I still want to play in Modern?

Here’s a hint…

Thanks for reading and watching!