Modern Mayhem: Esperits (Modern, Magic Online)
What if the spirits we knew and loved added some black? Well, let's take a look as StreexIT piloted this to a 5-0!
The Gameplan
It's quite simple really. We're all about tempo plays and if we're able to use our Aether Vial and Rattlechains to blank our opponent's spells...our little spectral friends will start to snowball out of control as we'll then be able to back them up with Drogskol Captain. We get to be very disruptive with Mausoleum Wanderer and Collective Brutality. This chain can allow us to remove any sweepers our opponent may have outside of Terminus. We can also pick off a few key removal spells with our best friend Spell Queller.
Why Add Black?
So far the biggest pay off has been being able to use the flashback on Lingering Souls but we do get to use cards like Brutality and Fatal Push. Also outside of the sideboard we can bring in Countersquall which is more disruption plus the two damage from it will usually matter.
Match Recaps:
Selesnya Hatebears 2-0 (W): Game one was close but the fact that all of our little spectral friends fly just helped us edge out against them. Game two the double Drogskol Captain lock is very brutal as they're relying on using Aether Vial to flash in a Flickerwisp and their Path to Exile.
Golgari Midrange 2-1 (W): Queuing into any league, I expect to play this at least once and I did. I took game one with chip damage in the air from a few two powered spirits. Game two was an L for us as Languish is one heck of a card and it goes around Selfless Spirit (Hey just like in standard!). But game three was a close one as I was able to race thanks to a few timely removal spells while getting chip damage in the air. Cards like Lingering Souls shine here as they're just trying to one for one us as long as they can but Souls helps us grind better and not need to commit a ton of things to the board. We were lucky though as I assume there's a Liliana, the Last Hope somewhere in their deck and we didn't see it.
Gruul Midrange 2-0 (W): This matchup was quite terrifying as this deck is able to get some quick mana with the help of Arbor Elf. Game one was a win for us as we were able to ride our Aether Vial to victory as that helped us get around the Blood Moon. Game two the opponent started off with a fiery hot start but it seemed they weren't able to hit any of their big payoffs in time. I assume they either play Dragonlord Atarka or Inferno Titan somewhere in their deck but we faded those while having a Sefless Spirit to play around Anger of the Gods and other red damage based sweepers.
Bogles 0-2 (L): To be completely honest. I don't know how we ever beat this deck. We have no ways to interact with them and countering a few spells doesn't really slow them down all that much. We swiftly lose game one to Ethereal Armor and a Daybreak Coronet. When it comes to sideboarding against them, I didn't want to leave a ton of removal spells in because the only target that we could kill would be Kor Spiritdancer....oh the irony that we died to that card but if it wasn't the Spiritdancer that would've killed us...it would've probably been that Slippery Bogle they had on board at the same time. This just feels like a miserable matchup unless we have a sideboard for it but even then, that's only small percentages.
Grixis Death's Shadow 2-0 (W): I'm not going to lie, the first game was hilariously close. We ended up stealing a win because our opponent had lowered their health to 4 when we had a 2 power flier and a Collective Brutality in hand to close the game. It was nice to switch to Esper burn for a brief moment. Game two they had a ton of hand disruption and were a bit light on threats but that probably had to do with the fact that we cast Rest In Peace to eat up their graveyard. Shadow decks have problems without their graveyard as their Snapcaster Mage doesn't get value and their Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Gurmag Angler are just 6+ mana vanilla threats. Not saying they can't win without them because Death's Shadow can still just be a massive threat...but it does significantly slow them down. Also eating their Faithless Looting is a perk. From then on out, we were able to just control them with a few Fatal Push and Path to Exile while chipping away in the air.
Conclusion
The splash of black was spicy and I would personally like to explore what else we can do with it but as of right now, I don't know if I like it more than Collected Company but it sure is fun. I think we could definitely abuse the black cards more by adding cards like Thoughtseize. I would also like to see a few more Unified Will out of the sideboard as I think that card is a blast. Regardless, the Spirit tribe has power and it shows as a Drogskol Captain lock is hard to beat. As of right now, I like the green version more but I will be exploring what else I can do with black.
See you all at the next one!
-TheAsianAvenger
