Why I Choose to Blink

What’s good, Spirit Squad!

Today we’re gonna talk about the Modern format as we get ready for the Regional Championship in Charlotte, North Carolina, and why I’m changing decks only a month before such a big event!

So you’re not playing Spirits in Modern? Kek.

Emoting aside (the kids… don’t say “kek”, right?) I haven’t played Spirits in Modern in a pretty long time. Instead, I’ve been on Merfolk, which “is the same deck” on paper but operates very differently in practice.

• Rather than Spirits being at its best against spells on the stack, Merfolk is at its best when attacking opponent’s mana directly. Spell Queller can steal your opponent’s best spell, but Harbinger of the Seas can stop your opponent from playing any of them.
• Merfolk has been getting FIRE-design, appropriate power level support from cards like Svyelun of Sea and Sky, where Spirits hasn’t seen a Modern-playable card printed since probably Skyclave Apparition … which was printed almost five years ago!
• Where Spirits is a very reactive deck, Merfolk is a proactive deck that has just enough reactive elements to disrupt opponents. When you’re playing a format like Modern, it’s typically much better to be proactive than reactive.

Even with all of these strengths that made Merfolk appear to be right up my alley, it’s always an exciting time when there’s a new kid on the block. Instead of playing a deck with Aether Vial, a bunch of 2/2 Creatures for 2 mana, a proactive plan, and some free interaction, I could be playing a deck with Aether Vial, a bunch of 2/2 Creatures for 2 mana, a proactive plan, and some free interaction!

You sound like that one episode of Family Guy where Peter chooses a mystery box instead of a boat… 

OK, so hear me out.

Orzhov Blink is the newest version of Death and Taxes to exist as a relevant part of the Modern metagame, although Death and Taxes as an archetype is about as far from new as it gets. Brian Coval even won a Star City Games Invitational event with it back when cards like Mirran Crusader were played on purpose!

Now we have access to 2025-appropriate cards like Solitude and Overlord of the Balemurk! This was honestly enough to pique my interest, and I took the deck through a small test run on Magic: the Gathering Online. The deck felt pretty strong, but ultimately not strong enough to dissuade me from playing the Merfolk deck that’s won me tournament after tournament.

And then the Aetherdrift spoilers attacked.

Ketramose, the New Dawn is one of those cards that makes me question why I even considered playing anything else in Modern.

This card has synergy with just about everything the deck already wants to be doing. Cards like Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd and Flickerwisp give the deck a source of card advantage with Overlord of the Balemurk, on top of everything else they can do. Ephemerate is already a card that’s been good enough to generate its own archetype multiple times. Solitude is already one of the best removal cards printed of all time. Now I get to just attach the words “Draw a card” onto each of those effects? We used to play Risen Reef, for crying out loud.

Here’s a sample deck list:

4 Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd
4 Emperor of Bones
3 White Orchid Phantom
3 Ketramose, the New Dawn
2 Flickerwisp
4 Witch Enchanter/Witch-Blessed Meadow
1 Boggart Trawler/Boggart Bog
4 Overlord of the Balemurk
4 Solitude
4 Aether Vial
4 Ephemerate
4 Fatal Push
1 Relic of Progenitus
4 Marsh Flats
2 Godless Shrine
2 Flooded Strand
3 Plains (331)
1 Swamp (339)
2 Shadowy Backstreet
1 Flagstones of Trokair
3 Concealed Courtyard

This is definitely a “simple but effective” approach to the Blink archetype, and it’s nothing at all like the Death and Taxes decks of years past. Instead of trying to soft-lock the opponents out of doing anything with cards like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Leonin Arbiter, the deck takes a much more realistic approach to the format. Also, unlike Stoneforge Mystic the combination of Overlord of the Balemurk and Ketramose, the New Dawn gives you repeatable card advantage that doesn’t make you dilute your deck or center your plan around resolving any one card.

All-in-all, this is a deck I’ve been happy to mess around with over the last few weeks and I look forward to playing a solidified 75 when the Regional Championship at Charlotte, North Carolina comes. For anyone who’s attending, good luck and I’ll see you there! For everyone else, I’ll see y’all in the next one!