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Modern Izzet Murktide Tips Tricks & Sideboard Guide By Mogged

Mogged
08/12/2022 · 6 min read
guides

This week, Mogged gives us his latest guide about one of the top Modern Archetypes: Izzet Murktide. It includes a comprehensive sideboard guide to dominate any match-up and his best tips and tricks to guarantee your seat at the top tables.

Article at a glance

The Modern metagame
My current version of the deck
Card choices
Gameplay: tips and tricks!
Sideboard Guide (Visual)
Sideboard Guide (Text version)

The Modern metagame

Modern is a vast format that rewards knowledge of it and mastery of your deck rather than adapting and innovating.

In this piece I will be going through some card choices and tips as well as a sideboard guide for the most popular matchups

This is an extremely complicated and versatile deck and even it’s top pilots don’t have complete mastery over it so don’t rely on your heuristics or even on this surface level guide more than building your fundamentals and analyzing gameplay.

My current version of the deck

Card choices

Why Dragon’s Rage Channeler over Ledger Shredder?

Dragon's Rage Channeler by Martina Fačková #121

Dragon’s Rage Channeler (DRC)

Dragon’s Rage Channeler is cheaper than Ledger and provides a faster clock, it does a better job of fueling Murktide and plays better into open mana ,it gives you that important 1 drop which is essential to the deck so you can focus your turn 2 on disrupting and building your plan.

It also plays better with all your 2 mana cards as it is a valid turn 3 hit exile from iteration for maximum efficiency, Counterspell is also a smoother Dragon’s Rage Channeler followup while it is kinda awkward with ledger because they both cost 2 and because it rarely ever triggers ledger’s ability

Ledger Shredder

Ledger on the other hand gives you a better flood insurance and is the better reactive card excelling in long games, it is more of a control card while Dragon’s Rage Channeler is more of a clock type of card, Ledger’s downfall is how scary it is to play it early into open mana as nearly every removal in the format answers it, imagine being on the play against a fetchland only to die to a Lightning Bolt which gives away your on the play advantage and alternatively having to sequence it later might hold a real tempo cost overlapping with your iteration

That being said, I do consider Ledger a choice as it could shine in low copies and is the better postboard card.

Murktide Regent

This card used to be undisputable in my opinion until leyline binding appeared however I do think it’s an exception to big finishers played in low copies as it synergizes with itself making the previous copy bigger. All in all, we will be always running 4 copies.

Force of Negation and Subtlety

Low copies of quick answers to the most common threats have always been good in these kinds of decks due to their abundance of card selection spells. I like these ones as an answer to Wrenn and Six, which spells doom for our 1-drops when we are on the draw—a really tough situation that you can only avoid with Force of Negation and Subtlety.

Force of Negation by Paul Scott Canavan #52

Gameplay: tips and tricks!

These are some tips that can be used to simplify some decisions:

Misha’s Bauble

Mishra’s bauble can be used with a fetchland as a pseudo scry 1 effect, crack the fetch on your turn for bottom and on opponent’s turn for top, Ragavan and Mishra’s bauble can also Fateseal your opponent, for example if your opponent is flooding and you know their top is a land don’t attack with the Ragavan.

Murktide threshold

Intentionally playing a small first copy of your Murktide leaving some instant/sorceries for the 2nd copy to make both copies relevant, the usual thresholds are 4 toughness to play around bolt, 7 toughness to play around heat

Disruption vs threats

Prioritize Disruption over Excess threats when selecting cards.
Usually your opponent’s deck in Modern benefits more from having their synergies unlocked while our threats are strong by themselves.

Assuming your role: being the control player

You assume the control role more often than not, a quick kill might seem appealing but reducing your clock from 4 to 3 turns is usually less important than digging for one more disruption spell.

The burn plan

This ties to the next point that the Burn plan is usually a scam, I only resort to the burn plan if I can’t find another win condition or to trigger Dragon’s Rage Channeler. This is very Generic but it’s better to ask the question “can I outgrind my opponent? ” rather than “can I kill them if nothing goes wrong?”

Best turn 1 drop

Ragavan is often a better card to lead on than Dragon’s Rage Channeler, being on the play or complimenting it with a removal is your chance to get that sweet Ragavan value, as the game goes on it gets harder for ragavan to connect with a direct attack against more mana or a board with creatures, Dragon’s Rage Channeler on the other hand has evasion and it’s selection is very valuable in end game scenarios as it scales with gametime.

Sideboard Guide (Visual)

VS IZZET MURKTIDE (Mirror)

VS HAMMER TIME

ON THE PLAY

ON THE DRAW

VS RAKDOS MIDRANGE

VS RAKDOS SCAM

VS CREATIVITY

VS CREATIVITY WITH TEFERI

VS 4 / 5 COLOR

VS BURN

VS AMULET TITAN

VS RHINOS

VS YAWGMOTH

ON THE PLAY

ON THE DRAW

VS LIVING END

VS GRINDING STATION

VS TRON

VS ELDRAZI TRON

VS MERFOLK

VS DEATH SHADOW

VS 5C SCAPESHIFT

VS RG SCAPESHIFT

VS CONTROL DECKS