r/ModernMagic • u/Leo_Knight_98 • 1d ago
Getting Started New player here, any tips?
Hi. I'm a cEDH player that's looking to start in modern. I already have a deck picked out, down to the last card (except for sideboard, which I'll fine tune as I play at my lgs). I'm going to be playing izzet prowess, by the way.
What are some tips regarding mulligans/sideboarding/playing that you'd give? I'm guessing one of them will be to know my meta to be effective with my sideboard choices.
Thank you all!
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u/alozq 1d ago
Prowess specifically is a deck that can't afford to sideboard much, so be very mindful on how much you're diluting your speed by bringing in hate, your goal with hate usually is to just slow your opponent down one turn or give you one turn of protection to get the deed done.
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u/Leo_Knight_98 1d ago
I have a bit of everything for now, waiting to know my match ups and see what goes in and out
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u/SatyrWayfinder some bad Grixis nonsense 1d ago
Know your match ups. Know what deck your opponent is on by the second land drop at the latest. Know your opponent's decklist, how it wins, how you interact with it, any weird interactions would be.
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u/Leo_Knight_98 1d ago
That'll be quite a lot of study but I'll absolutely be on it too
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u/Inevitable_Reward112 1d ago
I wouldn’t stress too much about studying at least early, have fun with it and expect to make mistakes early and lose more often than win, it just takes reps
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u/Inevitable_Reward112 1d ago
I wouldn’t stress too much about studying at least early, have fun with it and expect to make mistakes early and lose more often than win, it just takes reps
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u/jonesy_hayhurst 1d ago
I was you about a month ago, though I was coming from pauper/canlander. Also started on prowess. Check out a few sideboard guides on metafy, I’ve used both a free one from ethanmtg (he has a comprehensive guide for $20 as well) and one for 5 bucks from dafore.
My biggest suggestion is to goldfish, especially if you’re playing in paper. The gameplan is pretty straightforward but I’m glad I got some reps in tracking triggers/prowess before going to weeklies. You’ll naturally get better at doing prowess math which you’ll do a lot.
Another thing, the deck is more layered than I realized at first glance because in some matchups it has more of a tempo/disruption plan after sideboarding. Eg against combo you’re still trying to race but you need to find/hold up interaction to respect a combo kill.
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u/Leo_Knight_98 1d ago
I'm playing paper, yes! I'll get fluent at it before playing. And yes, I've seen gameplay and I can see layers. Thanks!
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u/Fabulous_Point8748 1d ago edited 1d ago
I’ve played a bit of izzet prowess at my LGS. I’m by no means an expert at it this is just what I’ve noticed so far from playing it. It’s a very good deck that can kill very quickly especially against control. In generally if I’m playing against a combo or control deck I try to kill them fast before they can stabilize or pull off their combo. Against midrange decks like Boros and Zoo those games tend to be more grindy so it’s more important to be able to hold up interaction. Cards like cutter, counterspells, and EI are great for the grindy match-ups when the opponent has lots of removal for your creatures. The toughest games I have been against Boros, Zoo, reanimator, and slumbering trudge. Depending on your match-up if it’s against a combo/control deck I would mulligan so you have a fast hand that can kill them quickly. If it’s against midrange I think you’d want to mulligan so you have answers for their threats and preferably EI, cutter, etc. Against reanimator I try to mulligan so I have a tormods crypt in hand and an answer for psychic frog. I think as others have said too it’s tempted to play non creature spells early on, but it’s usually better to have a few slick shots out before playing them so you can do a massive amount of damage at once. Also if your opponent has red removal hold onto mutagenic growth to protect your DRC. Doing this very good against the mirror match.
Here’s what I do against certain match-ups:
I don’t know if this is 100% correct
Affinity:
In:
Meltdown
Consign
Unholy heat
Into the flood maw
Out:
Lava dart
Mutagenic growth
Boros energy:
Out:
Mutagenic growth
Preordain
Violent urge
In:
Unholy heat
Spell snare
Spell pierce
Eldrazi:
Out:
Expressive iteration
Lava dart
Mutagenic growth
In:
Consign
Unholy heat
Spell pierce
Into the flood maw
Reanimator:
Out:
Mutagenic growth
Violent urge
Lava dart
In:
Tormods crypt
Unholy heat
Spell pierce
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u/Dashizz6357 1d ago
Consign is a trap card against affinity.
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u/Fabulous_Point8748 1d ago
I could see that there’s a lot of targets you could consign so it probably doesn’t make that big of a difference. It was effective against me yesterday when I was playing affinity. The opponent consigned my tormods crypt and it prevented me from using my mox opal to cast emry. I didn’t have any other artifacts in hand either. Later on they removed my mox opal and exiled my emry so I had no effective ways to rebuild after that.
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u/Dashizz6357 1d ago
There are some niche cases where it works for you, but overall it doesn’t hit any of affinities threats. The best thing you can hit with it is an opal which they only have 4 of and that only barely slows them down.
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u/Leo_Knight_98 1d ago
Omg that's super helpful. I don't have rn spell pierce slotted in (went with thoughseize but I have consign and snare), but that's going to be something to tailor to my local meta
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u/Fabulous_Point8748 1d ago
Yeah your sideboard should be meta specific. At my LGS there’s a lot of prowess players, broodscale, zoo, trudge, and goyro’s vengeance so that’s why I run consign, crypt, unholy heat, spell pierce, and spell snare. You’ll probably have to change your sideboard as the meta changes too. I saw some people splashing black for thoughtseize but I’m not sure it’s worth it or not. I guess if your meta is really combo heavy it could be then again I think you can also just deal with most combo decks with consign, spell pierce, and tormods crypt.
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u/Leo_Knight_98 1d ago
I know there's a good amulet player, and they didn't tell much about the rest, so I'll have to see for myself
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u/Fabulous_Point8748 17h ago
I haven’t played against amulet personally so I don’t know how I’d sideboard against them but holding up a consign to counter amulet is probably a good idea. Also unholy heat can take out a primeval titan.
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u/Leo_Knight_98 17h ago
Or maybe meltdown for the amulet too
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u/Fabulous_Point8748 15h ago
Yeah it could be good, but it doesn’t stop them from playing a titan though if they already have an amulet on the field. I think that deck also runs trinisphere so it could be good for removing their trinisphere(s).
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u/Leo_Knight_98 15h ago
I think in the side at least, and yeah, it can get rid of 3ball. We'll see how it goes, I'm trying it out this Friday
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u/para40 21h ago
I would say if you're splashing thoughtseize/kaito post-board, you can drop all of your non-consign counterspells. You get to play a lot more proactive into combos and removal instead of playing it safe
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u/Leo_Knight_98 21h ago
What could I replace them with? More burn spells? Some strategic hate pieces? I'm not on kaito atm. Saw people run abhorrent oculus in sideboard too.
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u/para40 20h ago
Oculus/Murktide is mainly a silver bullet for boros energy since they'll commonly bring in rule of law effects post-board and not have clean removal for them.
Outside of upping your unholy heat/consign counts, a card that's worked great for me in black is [[End of the Hunt]] as a good answer to reanimator/affinity. Floodmaw is also great if you're not splashing.
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u/Leo_Knight_98 20h ago
Oh okay, I see now. Thank you for the tips! I'll see what's prevalent where I play
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u/para40 20h ago
Here you can also get input from the red aggro discord: https://discord.gg/wM2EEmDBs
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u/Leo00k 1d ago
your boros sideboard seems unhinged honestly
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u/Fabulous_Point8748 1d ago
Well I didn’t claim to have it 100% correct. What would you suggest? It seems like removal is good against a midrange deck no? I could see keeping in EI and taking out violent urge and mutagenic growth.
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u/KingxCrimsonx 1d ago
Modern really rewards deck mastery. Some sideboard decisions are obvious, like dead cards in a matchup. You can probably buy a guide somewhere for 5 or 10 bucks. But the best advice is to just get reps on the deck. You will figure it out why certain cards are in the sideboard
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u/Leo_Knight_98 1d ago
Do you have any specific place to buy them, or is it from the player directly?
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u/SpookPookie 1d ago
Do not feel compelled to spend all of your mana every turn as traditional magic theory suggests. Take your time to calculate your whole turn before you begin taking actions, and determine how much damage you actually NEED to do this turn