Goodbye, Modern Horizons Part 5: R/B and G/B

This is the last installment of my 5 part series on the 10 Modern Horizons color pairs, and today we're finishing off by going over R/B and G/B. 

R/B "Sacrifice"

R/B Sacrifice, or alternatively R/B Goblins is a deck based around cheap aggressive creatures that accrue value over the course of games, usually reaching a high point around turn 4-6.  There's a lot of different looks to this deck, as it often assumes a "Jund" playstyle, and is the most midrange looking deck in the format.  All of your cards are functional in an aggressive gameplan, but you can assume a more controlling or even combo role in various match-ups.  None of your cards are particular stand-outs, but every card is flexible, from the lowly Goblin Champion, which will chip in for a few points early, count toward Munitions Expert or Return from Extinction mid game, and get sacrificed to Sling-Gang Lieutenant or Bogarden Dragonheart at the end of the game.  B/R decks can often be quite controlling, where you lean on Ransack the Lab and Igneous Elemental to accrue a steady advantage that can crush aggressive decks easily.  This deck definitely wants diversity, as cards like Goblin Matron lend themselves to having lots of options, and cards like Warteye Witch don't scale as well in multiples as the first copy often is.

Key Commons: Return from Extinction, Rank Officer, Goblin War Party (enablers)
Bogarden Dragonheart, Goatnap (Pay-offs)

This deck will generally take the shape of whatever class of cards you end up seeing a lot of.  Sometimes you'll be R/B Tokens, with a bunch of Goblin War Parties and Sling-Gang Lieutenants, and others you'll be graveyard focused, or sacrifice focused.  R/B rarely will lead to an amazing deck unless you're fortunate enough to have a fleshed out Goblin deck, but will consistently lead to decks that are above average.  It's important here to pay attention to what specific cards you're seeing in order to correctly draft a good R/B deck, rather than just to know that R/B is the open color combination.  Lots of Goblins will be self explanatory, but things get off the rails easily if you find yourself flooded with good common removal spells, as that'll move you toward a more controlling deck with numerous Phyrexian Gargantuas and Igneous Elementals.

General Pick Order For R/B:  Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, Seasoned Pyromancer, Pashalik Mons, Plague Engineer, Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis, Sling-Gang Lieutenant, Endling, Lightning Skelemental, Firebolt, Graveshifter, Munitions Expert, Goblin Matron, Crypt Rats, Cordial Vampire, Mob, Defile, Pyrophobia, Magmatic Sinkhole, Bogarden Dragonheart, Gluttonous Slug, Undead Auger, Vengeful Devil, Putrid Goblin, Force of Rage, Hollowhead Sliver, Carrion Feeder, Goblin War Party, Changeling Outcast, Unearth, Cheap Filler Creatures (Orcish Hellraiser/Warteye Witch, etc.)

This deck has a long and inaccurate pick order, as card evaluations change so rapidly throughout the draft  that it's more important to know your general theme and to make a cohesive deck based around it, rather than to take cards off raw powerlevel.  Goatnap is good once you have two sacrifice outlets, and becomes fantastic once you have any more.  Feaster of Fools is really powerful once you have lots of cheap creatures, as it's as powerful as the amount of risk you're capable of taking on.  Ransack the Lab, Gluttonous Slug, Phyrexian Gargantua, and Rank Officer all form the same 4 card core that they do in Mono-Black.  Aside from Snow, I believe this to be the most difficult deck in the format to draft, although unlike Snow I think this deck is substantially more forgiving as you're not forced to spend numerous picks on basic lands.

Takeaways

This deck largely takes shape as a very typical "good" limited deck, made of mostly good cards but with smaller overarching synergies.  Sure, sometimes you were R/B Goblin tribal, but that deck very rarely came together compared to how often R/B cards came together.  This is the consensus 3rd place deck in this format, but unlike any other strategy there could be tables where 2-3 people draft R/B and all have good decks, just based off of what bundles of cards each is interested in.  Commons in Red and Black are strong in general, with only Shenanigans, Umezawa's Charm, and Mindrake as real duds.  I've done lots of transitioning into this deck when it seemed like I had no good options, and although it rarely led to anything great I salvaged an awful lot of 2-1s from the jaws of 0-3 with random mixtures of Red and Black cards.  The weird thing about R/B is that it led to a lot of decks that looked like Rube-Goldberg Machines, where you'd sacrifice a Goblin to Sling-Gang Lieutenant, scry off of Warteye Witch, and ping something with Vengeful Devil until your opponent just died, much like Slivers with Bladeback Sliver.

G/B "Graveyard"

G/B Graveyard is very similar to R/G, and it could have its name changed to G/B Winding Way instead.  As this is another deck heavily based off of Winding Way, the same incentives apply: high creature count, 16 lands, and spell slots reserved for removal.  Unlike, G/R, however, here we have access to Ransack the Lab as a less powerful but less constrictive Winding Way.  Also present here is the ability to kill big creatures thanks to Mob, something G/R really suffers at without access to it's own 8/8 Murasa Behemoth.  The name of the game is to fill the graveyard for value, either with cards like Return from Extinction to build a resource advantage, or to mill over cards like First-Sphere Gargantua and Dregscape Sliver to build incremental advantage alongside Rank Officer.  If you've read my earlier article about Mono Black in Modern Horizons, this deck really uses the same strategies, with the advantage of the Winding Way draw engine and green mana fixing to splash off.

Key Commons:  Winding Way, Ransack the Lab, Rank Officer (Enablers)
Return from Extinction, First-Sphere Gargantua, Gluttonous Slug (Pay-offs)

I'm not going to repeat everything I've said about Winding Way, you can find that here. This deck cares a lot more about putting certain cards in the graveyard as opposed to R/G which only really wants lands there.  This deck is very consistent thanks to Ranksack the Lab and Winding Way, but can struggle against more powerful slow decks that feature counterspells or a certain snow crab.  If you have powerful cards, such as Yawgmoth or Hogaak, finding them with your Winding Ways and Ransack the Labs is trivial, as it having enough random creatures in play to maximize them.

General Pick Order for G/B Graveyard:  Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis, Deep Forest Hermit, Hexdrinker, Genesis, Crashing Footfalls, Endling, Cordial Vampire, Ayula, Queen Among Bears, Plague Engineer, Sling-Gang Lieutenant, Graveshifter, Mob, Crypt Rats, Defile, Springbloom Druid, Saddled Rimestag, Rotwidow Pack, Gluttonous Slug, Savage Swipe, Mother Bear, Webweaver Changeling, Wall of Blossoms, Krosan Tusker, Putrid Goblin, Rank Officer, Twin-Silk Spider, Winding Way, Ransack the Lab.

Just like in R/G, Trumpeting Herd is incredible in this deck but only if you have the spell slots to spare, which in general you won't.  Creatures, especially ones that facilitate grinding go massively up in value in this deck, and creatures and spells with aggressive slants go down quite a bit.  This is one of the best decks for various Changeling synergies, as unlike with W/B you have much better mana, but also cards like Ayula that aren't tough to make good in your deck just by playing cards you already want.  You always want some number of Murasa Behemoths or First-Sphere Gargantuas, often 1-2 of each, but they're relatively replaceable and you should expect to get them late.  Gluttonous Slug scales incredibly well in multiples here, as you have big green creatures to get them to incredible 4/7 and 5/8 sizes.  Hogaak is the absolute best card you can get in this strategy, very slightly edging out the almighty Yawgmoth and often impersonating his Modern self.

Takeaways

Personally, I struggled harder with this deck than any other in the format, and it took me by far the longest to get a handle on what I was supposed to do.  The problems was that I was skimping on enablers like Ransack the Lab and Winding Way, in favor of just playing a pile of mopey creatures and spells.  This deck is largely as consistent as R/B, as you have access to numerous good commons that work well together, and you're interested in cards no one else wants.  The problem here is that the ceiling of this deck isn't much higher than the floor, as when you're not fortunate to pick up cards like Yawgmoth or Hogaak this deck is often too slow against aggressive decks with lots of fliers, and too clunky against decks with crabs and counterspells.  Don't be too unhappy to end up here, but don't expect to 3-0 your draft pod, either.

On Modern Horizons

I'd really like to give my thanks to Wizards of the Coast and the amazing team that put this set together.  It was an absolute joy to play and I hope to see something along the same lines in the future.  Thanks to you(yes you), for taking the time to read these articles.  I hope I can help someone playing in GP Vegas next weekend, but also anyone who plays in a Modern Horizons draft in the future, maybe from a saved up box or a flashback MTGO league.

Until next time,
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on Twitter
Podcast here.