Smallpox was thought to have been eradicated in 1979 but it is making a comeback, this time in the form of an exciting modern deck packed with powerful planeswalkers and ways to cheat the apparent symmetrical effect the card provides. This deck has had some recent results on Magic Online and is definitely a strong choice to consider going forward in modern. With lots of decks opting for a powerful midrange strategy, generating incremental value over the course of the game can quickly turn the tide and you cancan easily find yourself with multiple threats in play and your opponent with just a couple of lands.

Smallpox presents an interesting deck building opportunity, in which you can play cards that make the card effect you less but still be devastating for your opponent. Flashback cards such as Lingering Souls allow you to be able to happily discard cards and can still cast them from the graveyard, while cards like Flagstones of Trokair can be sacrificed with no real downside. You can use this to build lots of ways to increment a low advantage over the course of the game, while disturbing whatever your opponent is trying to do.

A perfect start with this deck involves a turn 1 discard spell, using Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, followed up by a Flagstones and then Smallpox. You opponent is left with one less land, one less card and one less creature in play, while you sacrifice Flagstones, find a Plains, discard a Lingering Souls and don’t sacrifice a creature as you don’t have one in play. Not so symmetrical an effect now.

Not only do we have ways to abuse the effect of smallpox, we also have an assortment of planeswalkers that aren’t impacted by the spell. Liliana of the Veil is arguably the most powerful planeswalker currently available in modern and as such we are playing as many as we can in this deck. The fact that Liliana is usually at worst a 2 for 1 is fantastic and again we have ways to abuse the symmetrical discard from this planeswalker making her even better. Some match ups you will face, such as UW control, will have a hard time dealing with Liliana making them discard every turn.

Gideon, Ally of Zendikar can easily take over a game, especially when your opponent is behind on resources. Through knight allies, Bloodghasts and spirit tokens, Gideon’s emblem can turn your small creatures into sizeable threats.

A recent addition to this deck is Never // Return, the flexibility this card gives for this deck helps to setback the negative that it is a 3-mana sorcery in modern. It can be discarded early to Smallpox or Liliana and then provide some small value later on in the game when we begin to start top-decking, or it can be used to deal with threats like planeswalkers that are usually hard to deal with. Another possible addition to this deck could be Start // Finish, which keeps with the game plan of creating tokens to be buffed with Gideon, while providing an effect from the graveyard. Something to potentially consider when moving forward with this deck.

As expected with white sideboard cards, there are plenty of powerful answers in the board that allows you to effectively answer some of the more difficult decks to beat with your deck, such as Affinity and Dredge. Alongside the synergistic main deck, BW Smallpox provides a powerful option for battling it out in a midrange format, so next modern tournament why not try breaking the symmetry with this deck.

WB Smallpox

IxidorsDream

Competitive Modern League 11/07/2017 (5-0)