Against the Odds: To Myrfinity and Beyond (Modern)

by SaffronOlive // Dec 29, 2016

Hello, everyone. Welcome to episode sixty-six of Against the Odds. Last week, we had an all-tribal Against the Odds poll, and in a surprising twist, it was Myr coming out on top with a commanding victory over Assassins and Merfolk. As a result, this week we are heading to Modern to see if we can win some games with little mana-producing artifact creatures. The thing about Myr is they are only good at one thing. They all have low power, so they aren't good at attacking, and they don't have any sweet enters-the-battlefield abilities or removal, or any of the other things that make Magic cards good. However, they are amazingly good at producing mana. Well, "good" might not be the right word, but many of them do make mana. In fact, out of the 35 Myr in the game of Magic, more than 25% make mana in one way or another. So, what do you do when life gives you mana producers? Go infinite, of course!

Anyway, let's get to the videos, but first a quick reminder. If you enjoy the Against the Odds series and the other video content here on MTGGoldfish, make sure to subscribe to the MTGGoldfish YouTube Channel.

Against the Odds: Myr-finity (Deck Tech)

Against the Odds: Myr-finity (Games)

The Deck

On one hand, Myr-finity is pretty simple: we play a bunch of Myr and hope we can assemble a game-winning combo. On the other hand, we have not one, not two, but three different methods for going infinite, so let's break them down!

Myr

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First off, we have a ton of mana Myr, mostly focused on Gold Myr and Silver Myr but also some Copper Myr and Iron Myr as well because we want to draw a lot of mana producers. Most of our infinite mana combos require at least two and usually three mana from our Myr to function, so by playing a total of 13 mana Myr, we can make sure we always have enough to combo off.

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Palladium Myr is a bit more expensive, costing three mana, but it also taps for two mana, which helps reduce the total number of Myr we need to combo off. Instead of needing three two-mana Myr, we can get by with one and a copy of Palladium Myr.

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Padeem, Consul of Innovation is our honorary Myr leader, and it's surprisingly good in our deck. The main reason we are playing the Vedalken Artificer is to give all of our Myr hexproof and protect them from targeted removal, but it also draws us cards on a fairly regular basis. Even though our Myr don't have very high converted mana costs, most decks don't play any artifacts at all, which means we usually have the artifact with the highest converted mana cost, which is enough to trigger Padeem, Consul of Innovation every turn.

Combo #1

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The most straightforward of our combos involves two copies of Myr Galvanizer along with at least two mana from other Myr (which means one Palladium Myr or two two-drop Myr). Once we get this combo assembled, we can simply tap all of our mana Myr; use one of that mana to activate a Myr Galvanizer and untap all of our mana Myr, which lets us tap them for mana again; and activate the other Myr Galvanizer, which not only untaps all of our mana Myr again but also the first Myr Galvanizer, so we can repeat the process. Every time we go through this loop, we are netting some mana, so eventually we'll have a ton of mana floating in our mana pool. So, what do we do with all this mana?

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Muddle the Mixture is in our deck because it helps us set up our second combo, which we'll talk about in a minute, but it also gives us a way to find our finishers when we combo off with Myr Galvanizer. Once we make unlimited mana, we can simply transmute Muddle the Mixture to find a Train of Thought, which in turn draws our entire library (by replicating it a bunch of times), and included in our entire library is a single copy of Blue Sun's Zenith, which we then use to force our opponent to draw their entire library plus an extra card or two and force them to lose to drawing on an empty library.

Combo #2

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Our second combo works pretty much like the first, but instead of needing two copies of Myr Galvanizer and a bunch of mana Myr, we need to get a Dramatic Reversal imprinted on Isochron Scepter along with at least three mana from our Myr. This might sound hard to set up, but it's actually easier than it looks because Muddle the Mixture can search for either half of our combo or for an extra mana Myr in a pinch. Once we have everything we need, we can simply tap all of our Myr for mana and use two of that mana to cast the Dramatic Reversal from under the Isochron Scepter, which untaps all of our mana Myr and the Isochron Scepter itself, allowing us to repeat the process, make infinite mana, and eventually win with the Train of Thought / Blue Sun's Zenith package.

Combo #3

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Our last combo does something a bit different. Instead of making infinite mana, it makes infinite Myr while also allowing us to tutor any number of Myr from our deck! If we have at least two mana Myr and an Isochron Scepter with Dramatic Reversal imprinted, the last piece of the puzzle is Myr Turbine, which can tap to make a 1/1 Myr token. With this set up, whenever we untap everything with Dramatic Reversal, we can tap Myr Turbine to make a Myr token. Eventually, we'll have a ton of Myr tokens on the battlefield, which lets us activate the second ability on Myr Turbine, tapping the tokens to tutor all of the Myr from our deck, one at a time. At this point, we can either win by beating down with our Myr token or tutor up our infinite mana combos and win with Blue Sun's Zenith.

The Matchups

Based on the matches we played, it seems our best matchups are against decks that are lacking in interaction and not super fast, like Soul Sisters and Martyr Proc. If you think about our combos, this makes a lot of sense. The downside of Myr is that they are super fragile and die to just about anything, which means if our opponent has an Electrolyze or a couple of Path to Exiles, it can become almost impossible for us to combo off. So, controlling decks with a lot of removal are certainly among our worst matchups.

The good news is that, with our best draws, we can combo off as early as Turn 4, which is a pretty reasonable speed for the Modern format. It means that we at least have a chance to race against the other unfair decks, especially if they stumble at all on their draw. Having some counters in the sideboard also helps. While we can't really play the control game, a single timely Negate or Muddle the Mixture can buy us a couple of extra turns against combo decks, which is often enough to win us the game.

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Speaking of the sideboard, we also have a secret weapon in Silence. If we are playing against a deck without a lot of instant-speed interaction, we can get a Silence on an Isochron Scepter, cast a Silence on each and every one of our opponent's upkeeps, and pretty much keep our opponent from ever playing spells!

The Odds

All in all, we managed to win two of our five matches, good for a 40% match win percentage and six of our 13 games, bumping our game win percentage up to 46%. While these percentages don't look bad, I think they are actually a bit better than they should be, since we managed to run into both Soul Sisters and Marty Proc, which are not common decks and among our best matchups. As a result, if we played our matches over again and ran into more controlling, removal-heavy decks, I expect that our percentages would drop. This said, we did manage to pull off every combo in our deck, which is the most important thing!

Vote for Next Week's Deck

It's time for another second-chance poll, giving cards and synergies that came in second or third in previous polls another chance to shine! This time around, we have an interesting mixture of tribes and artifacts, and even a "you win the game" card thrown in for good measure!

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Conclusion

Anyway, that's all for today. Don't forget to vote for next week's deck! As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com!