Warren: Landmine!
Me: What!?
Warren: Isn’t that the card you guys were just referring to?
Me: Warren we’ve been talking about football for the past hour. I don’t think there even is a Magic card called Landmine…there’s Booby Trap though?
Warren: Sure lets go with that.
And thus the rest of the car ride was spent brewing a Booby Trap deck for Modern. If you were to say winning with a 6-mana artifact in a Modern sculpted around recent tournament results is “too slow” you’re probably right, but that won’t stop us. Depending on who you ask though, one of us (Warren) thinks this deck is about beating down with T-Mages. What do I mean by that? Well…
Booby T Mage: Modern
Creatures: 13
4 Trinket Mage
4 Treasure Mage
4 Trophy Mage
1 Wurmcoil EngineSpells: 25
2 Booby Trap
2 Sculpting Steel
4 Mishra’s Bauble
4 Everflowing Chalice
1 Lantern of Insight
1 Pithing Needle
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Relic of Progenitus
4 Serum Visions
3 RemandLands: 22
4 Field of Ruin
2 Ghost Quarter
16 Island
Trinket Mage is one of Warren’s favorite cards. He constantly insists that it is good in Modern despite universal insistence that it isn’t. We first decided on playing the combo of Booby Trap + Phyrexian Metamorph + Mishra’s Bauble. Then when we realized if we switch the Phyrexian Metamorph to Sculpting Steel, all of our pieces would be searchable with a T Mage. The deck idea quickly turned from a way to pass the time to Warren’s favorite brew we’ve created… except maybe Root Maze.
The basic combo is as such. First you activate Mishra’s Bauble looking at the top of the opponent’s library. If the card isn’t a basic land then you play Booby Trap and name the card, then copy Booby Trap with Sculpting Steel naming the same card. On your opponent’s turn they’ll reveal the card and take 20 damage. The combo falls apart if your opponent has an unused fetchland, but there are measures you can take to deal with that.
Besides Booby Trap, the only fetch-able Artifact with Treasure Mage is Wurmcoil Engine. That’s probably reason to justify not playing a full set of Treasure Mages, but what other deck has the luxury of stating that it plays a dozen creatures that start with the letter T and end in Mage?
Trophy Mage has access to a few disruptive pieces, and can potentially get more out of the board like Ensnaring Bridge and Trinisphere. Against the right decks though, Vedalken Shackles or Crucible of Worlds can be potentially devastating.
Trinket Mage fetches the most of our utility. Pithing Needle can shut down a lingering fetchland. Relic of Progenitus helps slow down decks relying on the graveyard, and Chalice of the Void stops a fair share of decks. In addition to the above disruption package, we also have a backup Misrha’s Bauble in the form of Lantern of Insight, or get some help with mana acceleration by getting an Everflowing Chalice.
Nine mana in one turn is a lot to shoot for in Modern without any kind of combo behind it. Luckily most players aren’t interacting right now, so if an opponent’s deck stumbles, the twelve search effects give this deck an odd amount of consistency. It is still a lot to ask for, but the pleasure of Booby Trapping someone to death is a dream that cannot go unfulfilled. Drink and Play responsibly.
DRAW AND GET A BEER 