Much Abrew: Richard's Infamous Modern Mosswood Dreadknight Deck
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Much Abrew About Nothing! If you listen to the MTGGoldfish Podcast, you'll know that Richard has been trying to break Modern with the help of a deck that looks like it belongs back in 2015 but also embraces the power of Mosswood Dreadknight, of all things! I snagged the decklist from Richard, so today, we're going to give his janky brew a shot and see how it holds up to the 2024 Modern meta. Is Mosswood Dreadknight actually a Modern staple? Do cards like Siege Rhino and Tarmogoyf have a home in 2024 Modern? Let's find out on today's Much Abrew About Nothing!
Much Abrew: Richard's Infamous Abzan
Discussion
- Record-wise, we finished 2-3 with the deck, which is a pretty typical Jundian record. With a bit more luck, we could have probably pulled off one more win. But winning around 50% of the time sounds about right for a Jund-style midrange deck in Modern, especially one stuffed full of 2015 cards.
- If you look at the decklist, it really does look a lot like a 2015 Modern deck: Siege Rhino, Scavenging Ooze, Tarmogoyf, and two different Lilianas. Meanwhile, Modern Horizons cards are almost completely missing from the deck, outside of Prismatic Ending and Vindicate in the removal suite.
- Let's start with the good news: Mosswood Dreadknight was super impressive, especially in slower, grindy matchups. While it might not look like much, the repeatable card advantage it offers, combined with a reasonable body, lets it fill the role that cards like Dark Confidant and Bloodbraid Elf used to fill in Jund and Abzan in Modern. Siege Rhino was also oddly effective in games where we managed to get it down. It turns out that a 4/5 trampler with a Lightning Helix attached is still a pretty powerful creature, to the point where we're playing it over Sheoldred.
- The bad news for the deck is that it doesn't really get any free wins. If you look at the best decks in Modern, pretty much all of them have a draw where they can win the game (or pull super-far ahead) by Turn 3 or, at the latest, Turn 4. Our deck simply doesn't have this option; instead, we're looking to grind out every advantage possible to hopefully eke out a victory in the late game. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, it is hard mode compared to accidentally winning by slamming a Primeval Titan, Karn Liberated, or Crashing Footfalls on Turn 3.
- One card I'm torn on is Crime // Punishment. In some matches, it was the card we wanted to draw most since it cleanly answers any number of tokens and blows up Urza's Saga for just two mana. In other matchups, it was the worst card in our deck, basically being a really clunky, overcosted removal spell. It might be better in the sideboard than the main deck, although we might have also just drawn it in the bad matchups, making it look worse than it really is.
- So, did Richard break Modern with a bunch of 2015 cards and Mosswood Dreadknight? Probably not. While the deck felt better than I expected considering how janky it looks on paper, and cards like Mosswood Dreadknight and Siege Rhino were legitimately impressive, it also felt like we had to work incredibly hard for each win. While I think the deck certainly has the power to 5-0 a league, it's going to take some really tight play. If you're feeling nostalgic for good, clean, fair midrange Magic and want to play some 2015 Modern in 2024, the deck is a really fun and oddly effective option, although I think it's probably the Jund Master Richard special rather than a new top-tier deck.
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
