Leovold, Emissary of Trest has made an impact in Legacy since his release and was the tipping point that lead to the banning of Deathrite Shaman. Leovold's ability to turn off Brainstorm or Ponder and has the added benefit of making interacting with you a bad proposition for the opponent.
With the printing of Narset, Parter of Veils, we have a new iteration of draw-lock and Narset even provides card advantage, much like Leovold. Narset made waves in Legacy upon her release, but this effect is even more ground breaking in Modern. This new piece opens up plenty of potential locks with symmetrical draw effects like Lore Broker or Day's Undoing. People have decided to abuse with a deck dubbed “Pitch Blue.” This deck has achieved two MTGO 5-0 runs (which vary only in a couple cards), and looks really sweet.
The list looks, at first glance, to be a bit of a jumbled mess. But when you play it, everything comes together pretty nicely to actually feel like a cohesive list. Lore Broker is one of the best cards for our lock, allowing us to make our opponent keep a constantly empty hand, which stops them from casting their spells. And if we don’t have the lock yet, we can at least keep digging for the other half with Broker’s ability. Vendilion Clique gives us a one-shot version of this effect along with three power in the air, which means we can use it to quickly turn the corner once we’re in control. Our last creature is Notion Thief, which acts as a beefed-up version of Narset’s ability and gives us even more card draw.
Spell Pierce is a generally solid Counterspell early on, and keeps its potency after we establish the lock, since the opponent won’t be playing anymore lands and might try to break the lock with an instant-speed removal spell. Spell Snare is similar, but has the added benefit of taking out things like Snapcaster Mage, Eidolon of the Great Revel, and most of 5c Humans. Vapor Snag helps remove annoying creatures that we would otherwise struggle to get back, Disrupting Shoal gives us our own mini-Force of Will to protect the lock, and Remand is a nice tempo play early on that still stays relevant in the late game. Snapback gives us an extra Unsummon effect, except this one can be cast for no mana, allowing us to play out our hand and keep up interaction on the opponent’s turn. Unsubstantiate is yet another Unsummon-variant, and this one acts as a diet Remand as well in a pinch.
Day’s Undoing is a big part of the lock and gets the opponent empty-handed once we have Narset or Notion Thief down, allowing us to completely halt our opponent’s board progress. Commandeer is useful if we need to stop removal from hitting our stuff, and also allows us to send it back at the opponent to keep ourselves alive longer. Commit // Memory is our last Unsummon variant, and is really just an Unsubstantiate that hits any nonland permanent. The Aftermath half, Memory, also gives us additional wheel effects like the one found on Day’s Undoing, except this one costs twice as much and doesn’t end the turn instantly. Narset allows us to lock our opponent down while also digging deeper for answers, and Mistvein Borderpost is essentially a blue dual-land, meaning it can be pitched to any of our free spells.
In the lands, Blast Zone gives us an Engineered Explosives on a land, allowing us to use a land slot on a board wipe. Geier Reach Sanitarium is a land version of Lore Broker (Land Broker?), and is another great way to guarantee that we have the lock. This one is pretty mana hungry, so it’s good to drop a Broker even if you do have it. Mikokoro, Center of the Sea is similar to Sanitarium, except we just outright draw a card instead of looting. Finally, we have the lands that just make mana for us with Islands, Polluted Deltas, and Watery Graves.
The sideboard has a couple extra copies of Blast Zone, as well as some Relic of Progenitus to deal with graveyard strategies that might not mind us constantly discarding their hand. An extra Spell Pierce helps against decks like Phoenix and control, Ashiok gives us extra graveyard hate while also stopping decks that want to tutor like Amulet Titan, and Unmoored Ego allows us to dismantle the gameplan of combo decks. Engulf the Shore is a nice board wipe that will hit almost anything we want, and with a Day’s Undoing follow up, lets us Wipe Away the opponent’s boardstate. The extra Notion Thief helps in case we’re against draw-heavy decks, and Commandeers also help against more spell-heavy lists.
Tips
- Be careful with your Day’s Undoing. You only have four of them, so using it to dig for something you need comes with the risk of giving your opponent ways to deal with the lock. At the same time, occasionally you need to find something to survive even one more turn, in which case you shouldn’t be afraid to fire this off (as long as what you need is an instant).
- Once you establish the lock, use Lore Broker in the opponent’s draw step to keep them from casting spells. You get priority here after they draw for the turn, making it the perfect opportunity since they won’t get to cast anything that isn’t instant-speed.
- Keep your counterspells at the ready. There’s always the chance that your opponent has some instant-speed removal to take care of the lock, so you need to have some way to prevent that.
Extra Spice
- Jace’s Archivist is absolutely worse than Lore Broker, but if you need to dig while your opponent is locked down, a repeatable wheel is a pretty good way to do it.
- Howling Mine is a pretty popular card for Taking Turns, and here would be able to draw us extra cards while the opponent gets nothing.
- If you want to go for more of a mill win condition, Jace Beleren has the ability to replicate Howling Mine while also letting us ult him to mill the opponent’s deck. Of course, given the speed of Modern right now, this isn’t something I would personally recommend.
- The Rack is definitely one way of dealing with the opponent once you have them empty-handed, and if you’re looking for a different, fun win-con, this is a good way to go.
- Teferi’s Puzzle Box adds a lot more randomness to the equation for you, but also stops your opponent from ever having a hand again. If you’re absolutely terrified of graveyard strategies, this is a fun, albeit more expensive, way to lock your opponent out of the game.
This deck is a lot of fun, and if you like being the only one at the table having any fun, this is absolutely right up your alley. This deck is, in a way, quite similar to Lantern Control. This deck stops you from drawing cards, while Lantern stops you from drawing useful cards. Basically the same thing. Give the deck a shot, and I think you’ll find that, especially for a mono-color deck, it’s a lot of fun.
