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Polish’s Deck Tech: Kitty Cats & Zombies - Modern Competitive

So here’s a deck I’ve been trying to make all summer. It’s based on Sam Black’s original list he piloted a few months ago during a Modern GP and it’s surprisingly very powerful (aggro+control). Not to be confused with his Legacy version, the Modern List focuses on speed and control, whereas the Legacy one focused more on the Blood Artist engine.

My original B/R list started off as a Modern Vampires list, but I found that the other actual competitive decks in the format were just too much and way too fast. Sure, it crushed a lot of normal brews for Modern, but when it was up against the tier 1~2, it lost some pretty sad, drawn out matches. I’ll share my list someday, since it has been upgraded a lot since the last iteration.

With the B/R/W Zombies list, it has almost everything you’ll need for the current environment (Pre-RTR). You’ve got cats and zombies for insane match-ups against control decks, Tidehollow Sculler and Liliana of the Veil against the combo decks. Against other aggro/token lists, you have access to Zealous Persecution/Grim Lavamancer, which just bodies and finishes games.

You might notice the deck runs on 12 fetchlands, which could be trimmed down to 11 or 10, but they’re there mainly for the Lavamancer and Steppe Lynx. While you might take a lot of damage between the fetching/shocking yourself, the deck is fast enough to stabilize or just end games with swarms.

For those of you not familiar with the actual canon, Liliana did force Thalia to do things she didn’t want to. I can think a lot of wacky things to draw just from this alone, so stay tuned in the coming weeks!

Here’s a brief summary from the wiki page:

Liliana traveled to Innistrad to deal with another of her demonic masters. However, Griselbrand had gone missing after a duel with the archangel Avacyn, leaving Liliana with the problem of searching for her tormentor if she wished to possess her soul once again. Unfortunately, she was not the only one hunting, as Garruk had tracked her to the world. He crossed her path once in Nephalia, but she raised a swarm of ghouls to defend herself. He slew all of the undead, but it was enough to allow Liliana to escape.

Her searches then pointed her towards the Church of Avacyn, and she refused to let them stand in her way. That search brought her to the high cathedral of the city of Thraben at the critical moment where an undead army, commanded by Gisa and Geralf, had besieged the city. Geralf killed Mikaeus the Lunarch, the highest official in the Church of Avacyn, and probably one of the few who could tell her where Griselbrand is.

With her purpose firmly in mind, she retrieved and resurrected the corpse of the dead lunarch, turning him into a zombie. Her machinations bore fruit, and she learned the resting place of her prey. Unfortunately, she could do little to free him from the Helvault herself, but she knew of ways around that. She wove a spell upon the Helvault and gave the choice to the cathar Thalia. The spell would either destroy the vault, or kill the soldiers under her command. The choice laid in Thalia’s hands, and as Liliana predicted, Thalia chose to save her men.

The spell shattered the Helvault, freeing Griselbrand and Avacyn. Liliana then tracked Griselbrand down, slaughtering both angels and demons alike until she finally cornered him. Griselbrand attempted to bribe her with promises of power, but Liliana saw through his lies and used the Chain Veil to kill Griselbrand once and for all before leaving Innistrad.

Main Deck:
3 Dark Confidant
3 Geralf’s Messenger
4 Gravecrawler
4 Grim Lavamancer
2 Liliana of the Veil
4 Steppe Lynx
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Tidehollow Sculler

2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Path to Exile
2 Pillar of Flame
2 Zealous Persecution

4 Arid Mesa
2 Blood Crypt
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
2 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs

Sideboard:
2 Disenchant
2 Combust
2 Path to Exile
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Thoughtseize
2 Zealous Persecution