Modern Blue/Black Aggro-Control

4 Dark Confidant
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Geralf's Messenger
1 Vendilion Clique

4 Victim of Night
4 Mana Leak
2 Remand
2 Cryptic Command
1 Vapor Snag

4 Serum Visions
4 Thoughtseize

1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Sword of Feast and Famine

4 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Mutavault
4 Darkslick Shores
2 Watery Grave
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Island
3 Swamp


Been toying around with these recently. By no means in its final form yet, quite possibly, but I've really been enjoying this deck.

Might up the equipment count to play a Fire and Ice too.

Geralf's Messenger was actually the last addition here (that made me cut Mutavault from 4 to 2) and he's been absolutely spectacular. Playing around Deathrite Shaman has actually proven to be oddly easy, but I guess the manlands have helped that mostly.

But... isn't Go for the Throat better?

CDDRodrigo wrote:But... isn't Go for the Throat better?

Haven't I explained to you in the past why I think Victim of Night is the best black removal spell in modern?

The only creature that sees play that it doesn't kill is Olivia Voldaren, and unlike GftT it can do a lot of work against Affinity. It can also kill Wurmcoil Engine for what it's worth, and if they resolve a Wurmcoil that's one of my only ways of dealing with it at all. Affinity is the absolute main reason though, and it's enough to sway me from GftT to Victim of Night. Trust me, sitting the opposite side of a large Master of Etherium with no way to kill it with your kill spell feels absolutely miserable.

Hitting double black is also incredibly easy here.

Why only 2 Watery Grave? Along with Darkslick, it's basically the easiest way to hit both Serum Visions and Thoughtseize turn 1. Less priority in two-colour decks on fetches, as a general guideline.

Because then I have a total of 4 lands that make me take 2 damage to put them into play untapped that don't thin my deck.

I have a preference of playing 24 lands so I can hit the first 4 land drops most of the time (Snapcaster + Mana Leak/Remand/Victim mana or for Cryptic Command), so naturally, once I hit that number, I want to be thinning the deck with my lands, which is what the fetches do, so they're by no means useless. They also show both colours to my opponent, before they're cracked, so I can essentially hold up 2 colours with a fetch land anyway.

My only priority here is to hit triple black by turn 3, provided I even have Geralf's Messenger, anyway, after that, I only want 5-6 lands for Sword/Tar Pit/Mana Leak reasons, where the extra shocks start being annoying. They have their upsides, but so does 6 basics. 6 basics also makes Path to Exile and Ghost Quarter much easier to play against.

Hitting the right colour turn 1 is easy as hell anyway, the deck's just 2 colours and 6 fetches, 2 Watery Graves and 4 Darkslick Shores makes for a very smooth early game so far.

I don't ever actually recall seeing 2 colour decks playing all 4 shocks in modern, but I could be mistaken.