I've played against a few Hall of Famers and countless players with strong reputations in my time, but sitting across from Huey Jensen while battling for day two of GP Omaha was probably the most intimidated by my opponent I've ever been.

Fortunately for me, Huey's deck was not kind to him in our match and I was able to defeat him and lock day two up at 7-1.

This made me feel tremendously better about my tournament after making a blunder and losing an almost assuredly winnable match to Kiki-Pod in round six. The Delver deck in Modern is just absurd.

A Quick Tournament Recap and Some Lessons

My technical play is a bit rusty and unrefined in Modern, however. Round 9 delivered another such situation, where I didn't Spell Snare an Izzet Charm, despite having two Snares in my hand, because I didn't see the looting as being remotely problematic against my grip of counterspells.

After my opponent untapped and played Boseiju, Who Shelters All, it become clear that I might have just cost myself the game. And indeed my opponent pulled that game out at one life.

7-2 was good enough for day two, and with 3 of my wins being against Splinter Twin and both of my losses being within the realm of my control, I was feeling pretty good.

I started day 2 by flipping my Delver of Secrets with a Treasure Cruise against Merfolk and later failed to draw the last five damage before he cracked back and killed me.

I rattled off three quick losses in comparable fashions and was a longshot for money even if I won my last three matches. I stuck it out and was able to win exactly one match on day two--a match where I won a mull to four against Bogles--and then dropped after outcarding a Pod deck but losing to a Siege Rhino the turn before I could kill my opponent in game three.

As a quick aside, big shoutout to my round 13 Bogles opponent Ian Law, my round 14 Pod opponent Kelly Hoesing, and Huey Jensen for their excellent sportsmanship. They were all very pleasant to interact with and players like them help make Magic what it is.

My Merfolk opponent, while generally a pleasant person, did not exhibit excellent sportsmanship, however. There was a situation in our match in which I was being attacked by two creatures that were pumped by different lords--Master of Waves and Master of the Pearl Trident.

All of my opponent's cards were in Japanese. I knew with 100% confidence what they did, but asked the stats of the creatures (Master of Waves and one Elemental token) before declaring blockers/effects, because you can never be too sure.

My opponent informed me that he didn't have to tell me and that the floor rules state that players don't have to tell opponents derived information. He was fully aware that a judge did have to tell players derived information if asked, and made me call a judge over despite that fact that I stated the correct power and toughness of the creatures and had no good blocks one way or the other.

I asked him after the match why he would hold up a tournament and particular waste an opponent's time when he knew the information was something that could be accessed with inevitability, and he said that he felt his only shot with his deck was his opponent making mistakes and not asking judges the right questions.

Is he operating within the confines of the rules? Absolutely. Was he acting in a way that seemed reasonable/sportsmanlike to me? I would say no.

Chime in in the comments if you would defend how my opponent acted, though bear in mind that just because actions are "legal" doesn't mean they're correct or respectable.

For the record, in situations like this, even if your position is completely justifiable, it is important to keep your cool. I managed the above situation by asking my opponent why he did what he did and explaining that I don't believe he was likely to accomplish what he was trying to accomplish.

How About That Decklist?

Anyway, this is the 75 I registered for the tournament. Had I piloted it optimally given the way I was drawing on day one, I think I could have made it through day two's bad luck with some money:

It's hard to say whether all of the cards in this deck will be legal in Modern for too long, so it doesn't seem especially purposeful to discuss a lot in depth.

What I will say is that all of my mulligans with this deck and most of my tough decisions involved not having enough lands. Having to choose between playing a threat, leaving up Spell Snare and playing Serum Visions branches into so many different directions, and simply having your second/third land in hand will hands down win so many of these games that I would happily cut a spell for a 19th land.

The only cuttable spells are Remand and Gitaxian Probe. Given that the problem is hitting land drops, I would say that the Remand is the clear cut.

As for the land to put in the deck, it's between Sulfur Falls and a 10th fetch. I've fetched out all my lands more than once and some people already like Sulfur Falls in their 17/18 land deck, so I'm currently biased towards Sulfur Falls.

Going forward in Modern is going to hinge entirely on the coming Banned/Restricted list update, and without Treasure Cruise, this deck could very well become tier 2/3 and not worth investing a great deal of time in.

What we do know for certain is that Siege Rhino is the real deal, and that no matter what happens with the update, we will want to play to beat Rhinos.

One way or the other, I really like Steam Vents as a spec right now. There is some uncertainty around the card with so many blue cards potentially on the chopping block to be banned, but, as I've said before, you can't ban the Steam Vents decks out of Modern, shy of doing something absurd like banning Splinter Twin.

Steam Vents has been picking up a little (more) steam on TCGplayer, and if Modern Masters 2015 reaches its goal of acquiring more Modern players, then demand for Steam Vents can only go up.

The other element of uncertainty about buying in would be the potential for shocks to be in Modern Masters 2015, but the operating theory is that enemy fetches and/or something like filters will be printed instead, and it's highly unlikely that they just overload the set with lands.

Given current reprint trends, it might be possible that the window to sell off things like Steam Vents could  narrow, but I'm of the belief that this window will at least exist and that the window to buy in is closing.

While my tournament wasn't tremendously successful, I would be happy with a ban list update that left Treasure Cruise legal and allowed me to continue playing this deck. I don't find this likely, though, and I fully expect to need to do some adapting with the coming update.

Being on the road, I haven't had much time to grok Fate Reforged spoilers. I'll spend the coming week looking things over and gathering my thoughts for the coming week's article. For my money, I'm hoping things look good for Jeskai and Boros!

Thanks for reading.

-Ryan Overturf
@RyanOverdrive on Twitter