Rogue Brews: BW Smallpox (Modern)

 
Some people like to attack. Some people like to remove.

Some people like to tap out and some people like to respond.

Some people like it fast, while others like it slow.

You want to know what I like?

I like to grind.

What does it mean to grind?

Grind [grahynd] - 3. to oppress, torment or crush

How do you do that in a game of Magic? Like this:





"Great losses often bring only a numb shock. To truly plunge a victim into misery, you must overwhelm him with many small sufferings."

Most players stay away from cards like this because they are symmetrical. Who wants to lose 1 life, discard a card, sac a creature and then sac a land; and spend your turn and your mana doing it? How are you able to leverage this type of effect in your favor. You want to be able to afford the life loss or be able to gain it back later. You want to be able to benefit from discarding or be able to get the card back. You want creatures that like to die or like to come back. Lastly, you want to benefit from lands in the graveyard or you want to run a low curve.

I am going to skip the life loss, so we will start with discarding. Lets look into a few ways to gain leverage when discarding your own spells. The first mechanic that comes to mind is Flashback, its reminder text states "You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it." When discarding a spell with Flashback you do not suffer the inherent card disadvantage you normally would.

The second mechanic that comes to mind is Madness, its reminder text states "If you discard this card, you may cast it for its madness cost instead of putting it into your graveyard." More often than not the Madness cost of a card is less expensive than its mana cost. Not only does this help against the card disadvantage it can also help with tempo.

Now how can we benefit from discarding our own creatures? You can utilize either gravedigging effects, or reanimation effects. Gravedigging effects are ones that would allow you to return a creature card from you graveyard to your hand, such as the limited all-star Gravedigger. Reanimation effects are ones that would allow you to put a creature card from your graveyard onto the battlefield, such as the Cube staple Reanimate. My preferred way to break this strategy are creatures that allow themselves to enter the battlefield from the graveyard.

Are there ways to benefit from blowing up your own lands? Benefit, not really but there are ways to leverage it. You can return the lands to your hand to replay them. You can play the lands from the graveyard. In very rare cases they replace themselves.

Ok, so now that you know how to leverage Smallpox lets build a deck. We know the format is Modern and we know we are playing black. We also know how hard I like to grind, and one card that grinds as hard as I do?

Lingering Souls is my all time favorite Magic card. WE ARE PLAYING LINGERING SOULS. You can discard it to Smallpox and get two 1/1 flyers for 1B, grinding.

4 Smallpox

4 Lingering Souls

Modern, check. Smallpox, check. Lingering Souls, check.

Modern is a format of staples. We know we are playing black so lets look at the black staples.

The disruption package.

4 Thoughseize

3 Inquisition of Kozilek



The advantage package.

4 Dark Confidant

My second all time favorite Magic card. Liliana of the Veil. She is the repeatable nonsymmetrical Smallpox. Grinding.

3 Liliana of the Veil



White staple?

2 Path to Exile

Our creature count is a little low and we know we want creatures that do not mind being discarded or do not mind dying. The two best self-recurring creatures in black are Bloodghast and Gravecrawler. Gravecrawler recurs at the stipulation of needing a zombie in play. Any other zombies we like? What about Tidehollow Sculler? More disruption on a zombie body, we will take it.

4 Gravecrawler

4 Bloodghast

3 Tidehollow Sculler

It will not be uncommon for this deck to win by attacking for two over ten turns. We have thirty-five nonlands and nothing over 3CMC. I feel like we have 1-2 flex spots, so lets try out a card that has huge blowout potential.

1 Zealous Persecution

It feels like we have 1-2 flex spots, but we are going to err on the side of caution and play twenty-four lands. Where do we start? Fetches and Shocks. How many Fetches is too many? In a two color deck I feel like the sweet spot is six.

   

4 Marsh Flats

1 Verdant Catacomb

1 Arid Mesa

4 Godless Shrine

Fetches and Shocks are Modern land staples. Are there any other Modern land staples? Mutavault and Tectonic Edge. Mutavault is another 2/2 attacker and is another zombie to synergize with Gravecrawler. Tectonic Edge is more disruption and is a silver bullet to all the manlands and utility lands running around Modern. We need to be able to consistently hit BB or WB on turn 2, so is it worth it to run colorless lands. It is if you have a way to make your colorless lands, and Fetches, produce black mana. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.





3 Mutavault

3 Tectonic Edge

2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Six more land slots. Any ideas? How about an ace up our sleeve? No, that is cheating. Instead how about Flagstones of Trokair? Turn 1 Urborg and Inquisition. Turn 2 Flagstones into Smallpox discarding Bloodghast, sac the Flagstones you tapped for black off of Urborg, trigger, search for a Godless Shrine and put into play tapped, trigger, Bloodghast enters the battlefield from the graveyard. If you are on the play they untap turn 2 down two cards with no lands staring at a vampire spirit. GRINDING.

4 Flagstones of Trokair



Two more spots what now? Basics, what are basics? I guess Path to Exile is a card. I guess Blood Moon is a card. I guess Ghost Quarter is a card. How about?

1 Swamp

1 Plains

That is 60. We will worry about the other 15 some other time. Modern is such a large, varied format that having some kind of stock sideboard is pretty pointless. I will say, the obvious weakness to this deck is aggro. Affinity will be damn near unwinnable game 1. Bring in some Finks to use those robots to spruce up the kitchen.

Well I hope you enjoyed it! If you did please let me know, if you did not please let me know. I will be playing a budgeted version of this deck on MTGO (I have everything but the confidants and the Lilianas). I am hoping to record some videos with this deck soon, so be on the lookout.

MTGO Username: crossbonesx11

MTGSalvation Username: crossbonesx11