Travis - Lark in Modern

[John Galli]

Ali Antrazi wrote about this today, it seems right up your alley-

Lark
Featured by Ali Aintrazi on 2011-08-28 (Modern)
Print this deck!
Maindeck:

Artifacts
4 Fieldmist Borderpost

Creatures
1 Body Double
2 Glen Elendra Archmage
4 Knight of the White Orchid
1 Mirror Entity
3 Mulldrifter
3 Reveillark
3 Sower of Temptation

Instants
4 Cryptic Command
2 Gifts Ungiven
1 Noxious Revival
4 Path to Exile

Legendary Creatures
2 Venser, Shaper Savant

Planeswalkers
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Venser, the Sojourner

Sorceries
2 Wrath of God

Basic Lands
5 Island
4 Plains

Lands
1 Celestial Colonnade
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Mystic Gate
4 Scalding Tarn

Sideboard:
4 Aven Riftwatcher
2 Glen Elendra Archmage
4 Meddling Mage
3 Stillmoon Cavalier
2 Runed Halo

His comments-

"Lark has a natural advantage against aggressive decks since it can trade creatures or spells one for one and recur them all with Lark. They even get the cards back with the help of Mulldrifter. I can see Lark struggling game one against any combo deck, but after you bring in Meddling Mages, Archmages, and maybe even Runed Halo, combo should be much easier to handle. I can see myself playing this type of deck for the Pro Tour.

I was a huge fan of Reveillark back in the day—especially when it had the bounce permanent combo. Now you have that combo along with Gifts Ungiven. Your first Gifts should not be for the combo but good cards with Lark and one other combo piece, say Venser. The second Gifts, you can get Lark, Mirror Entity, Noxious Revival, and Body Double and proceed to combo off. Gifts can also just be used to get a Lark in your hand with Lark, Body Double, Revival, and X, X being whatever you want.

A nice thing to note about Knight of the White Orchard is that he fetches up a “Plains” card so he can get shocklands—WOOT! Back in its day Lark was known to beat pretty much any aggro deck but struggled against Fae. Now that Fae is gone and aggro is going to be rampant, I don't see why this deck can't rise again.

Your board is made to beat combo and control. Usually against control, one Glen Elendra Archmage is hard to deal with but doable. Once you start recurring her or playing more, it's just too overwhelming for the control player. Meddling Mages and Runed Halos put a damper on any combo deck. Stillmoon Cavalier will do battle against hawks any day—all the while dodging Path to Exiles. I'm excited for this deck!"

[Travis Lannoye]

Happy birthday to ME!

EDIT: So many things I want to do with this list...
- Mistmeadow Witch
- Phantasmal Image
- Phyrexian Metamorph
- Mimic Vat

Not sure if I like the combo aspect of it or not. Gifts is cool, and sets up degenerate Lark-ing possibilities.

[Zach]

I suggest running a 1/1 split of Day and Wrath. So that if a Meddling Mage player names one, you still have the option of casting the other.

[Travis Lannoye]

Aug 28, 2011 16:56:51 GMT -5 Zach said:

I suggest running a 1/1 split of Day and Wrath. So that if a Meddling Mage player names one, you still have the option of casting the other.

Ya, that will likely happen, assuming there aren't any regenerators in the format.

[John Galli]

Aintrazi just posted this list. NOW THIS is up my alley-

Reveillark Control
Featured by Ali Aintrazi on 2011-09-04 (Modern)
Print this deck!
Maindeck:

Artifacts
2 Mimic Vat

Creatures
2 Avalanche Riders
4 Fulminator Mage
4 Mulldrifter
2 Reveillark
2 Sun Titan

Instants
2 Cryptic Command
4 Mana Leak
3 Path to Exile


Legendary Creatures
2 Vendilion Clique

Sorceries
4 Preordain
3 Wrath of God

Basic Lands
2 Island
2 Plains

Lands
2 Arid Mesa
3 Cascade Bluffs
1 Celestial Colonnade
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Mystic Gate
4 Reflecting Pool
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
2 Vivid Creek
2 Watery Grave
Sideboard:

3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Path to Exile
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Cranial Extraction
2 Memoricide
3 Thoughtseize
1 Wrath of God

"This deck can easily lock out other Modern decks. Its endgame is pretty much unmatched. You might be thinking, “Nuh uh, Ali, 12post has Emrakuls.” Well if you are going into the late game with this deck, it means you have them on a land lock, and 12post can't really recover from that.

Zoo is running very few lands. One or two land destruction effects followed by some removal and you should be able to cripple them until you can recur your land destruction. This deck might struggle against fast combo decks unless you can disrupt their mana base or hand with Vendilion Clique early.

Unlike the other version, you want Preordain here because you want to dig for your spells, and the spells you are digging for are not 5+ mana; they are three or four mana. So we can't really run Thirst or Compulsive Research here since we really want a turn 3 Fulminator or Lauren... I mean Mulldrifter."

[Travis Lannoye]

Taking a closer look at this list, I'm thinking about doing two different things here:
- Cutting the Gifts package. It seems overly complex and I'm really not looking to combo out.
- Adding four Fulminator Mages. Cloudpost needs to die, and this seems like the most Lark-able way to do it.

These two changes would also require me to butcher the mana-base, which means less room for basics, which would probably mean I'd need to cut the Borderpost/White Orchid pieces as well.