WEEK TWO - DORAN SLAPPP
0-4-0
Well, let’s address the elephant in the room - Doran did in fact not slappp, but in fact was very much slappped. I think I overcompensated a little with this one, in that 8 Whack felt like a cheap shot at the challenge, as it’s of course a known ‘powerful’ budget deck. I mean I even sleeved this one up in the cheapest sleeves I owned, and used empty sleeve packaging as my deck box.
I definitely overcorrected into the territory of ‘but this would be hilarious’, which this deck choice was, however it wasn’t really in the ‘spirit’ of the budget challenge.
With all that said, it was fun, and when it worked it was a real chefs kiss moment. The primary issue is removal is simply too cheap in Modern, and my goodness it hits this deck like a train. There were situations where you’d need to double the ‘Doran’ effect prior to swinging to be safe, due to cards like Leyline Binding exisiting.
I don’t think there’s too much point theory crafting on ‘how to make this deck work’, as it’s simply too slow to be effective in the current meta game. It would put up a better fight in heavier creature deck matchups, and did a great job of ‘stopping the Ragavan connection’. All in all though, the gameplan is far too easy to see coming, and even easier to stop with counter magic/removal.
I believe I took a game off three opponents, but no more. The die rolls didn’t help admittedly, as I believe I lost 4/4 which when using a deck like this isn’t ideal.
I don’t think this is one I’d run back, except for the memes.
Round One was matched into Creativity, and game one ended as you’d expect with a creativity on curve. Game two my opponent was mana screwed and never got there, and game three was actually really close. Necromentia from the sideboard was clutch here, but eventually I was out valued.
Round Two resulted in Leyline Binding shenanigans as I matched up into Zoo. The defenders did a good job of blocking, but when Scion’s are flying over you it becomes signifcantly harder. This was a quick L/W/L.
Round Three was the only 0-2, against Affinity. There’s not much to say, except the deck went far too big, and far too quickly for me to deal with. In game two I tried to mull into Void Mirror to no avail, but I don’t think it would have altered the final result.
Round Four I was scammed - Void Mirror (MVP) got me the win in game two stopping any evoke trickery, but game three was a classic scam stomp.
Despite the poor performance, this was still a lot of fun, and got a lot of laughs at FNM. Would I recommend it as a starting point to Modern? No, no I would not. As a second or third deck choice though, it is pretty funny, and when it works it brings a lot of joy. Hell, I even think the opponents got a chuckle.
“Really? Abzan Treefolk?”
You bet your arse it is.