Flicker/Blink in Modern

[MS4]

I want to start playing modern. I really like my esper flicker deck or flickering in general.

Is fickering strong enough for Modern or can i forget it and should search for something new?

[KouriNick]

You have a couple options when it comes to a "Flicker" deck.

Kiki Chord is an established combo deck that wins by using Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Restoration Angel (Angel flickers Kiki, Kiki copies angel, repeat, make a million copies and swing for lethal. the overall deck is Naya colors (Red, White, Green) and runs other cards that get value off Restoration angle and Kiki-Jiki like Wall of Omens, Blade Splicer, and Kitchen Finks. You can even run the infinite life combo of Spike Feeder + Archangel of Thune. Finally, what brings the deck all together is Chord of Calling to find whatever cards you need.


You're other Flicker deck option is Hatebears. It typically comes in either White, Black / White, or Black / White / Colorless. The basic premise is all the same though. You run an almost purely creature deck that all synergize and make it hard for your opponent to play effectively. Staples for mono white are cards like Leonin Arbiter, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Flickerwisp, Blade Splicer, Restoration Angel, and Ghost Quarter. When you add black you get access to Tidehollow Skuller + Wasteland Strangler (you can process the card exiled with Skuller to get rid of it forever). Adding colorless Eldrazi gives you access to Thought-Knot Seer, Reality Smasher and Eldrazi Displacer. Displacer alone is a flickering beast, and combos with anything that has "Enter the Battlefield" triggers. It also spells doom for decks that run a lot of tokens, and Eldrazi Temple makes it very easy to activate.


I think there's also an U/W flicker deck gaining popularity that eventually casts Sun Titan, but I'm not familiar enough with it to give a real primer. It's probably the most "pure" flicker deck of all, but I haven'y seen enough of it to know what exactly it runs.

Hope that helps! If you have questions, feel free to ask. Good luck

[MS4]

Okay thanks.

I looked up Kiki Chord, i like it. Not exactly my colors but looks nice.


What about Panharmonicon? Or was it only strong enough in Standard?

something like this: https://deckstats.net/decks/67495/616550-panharmonic-flicker-control/de

[MS4]

Okay thanks.

I looked up Kiki Chord, i like it. Not exactly my colors but looks nice.


What about Panharmonicon? Or was it only strong enough in Standard?

something like this: https://deckstats.net/decks/67495/616550-panharmonic-flicker-control/de
or
https://deckstats.net/decks/77478/618665-esper-panharmonicon/de

[KouriNick]

The second deck is completely standard legal, so that would be a fine option if you wanted to play standard.  The only thing you may need to think about is running 3 colors plus the eldrazi. They require colorless mana specifically, which makes the deck closer to 4 colors than 3. Might be worth cutting black to run extra copies of other stuff, like Thraben Inspector (getting an extra clue on flicker is nice, plus it's a fine T1 play). Eldrazi Displacer + Thought-Knot Seer is a deadly combo as it can ruin your opponents hand really fast.

It wouldn't even be too hard to transition the deck to Modern. Squeeze 4 Eldrazi Temple in, go up to 4 copies of Displacer and Thought Knot, cut some smaller stuff for Flickerwisp, Blade Splicer, and either Restoration angel or Sun Titan and you got yourself a deck!

[Jabilac]

Wall of Omens, Lone Missionary, and Eerie Interlude are all good choices for a UW flicker deck. If you wanted to increase your colorless sources to cast Eldrazi you can go with painlands like Adarkar Wastes

[MS4]

Puh. You both show me some nice options there.

Cant decide if i wanna for UW/Panharmonicon flicker or Thought knot seer..

[Lyonsbane]

Puh. You both show me some nice options there.

Cant decide if i wanna for UW/Panharmonicon flicker or Thought knot seer..

Panharmonicon in modern is a dead play.
Unless you cheat it into play somehow, you tap 4 mana at turn 4 for an artifact that will... do nothing until turn 5, 99% of times.

Since you have no experience in modern being a new player, here is the unwritten rule of the format:

• For a deck to be considered competitive, you have to close the game at turn 3, or at least be enough in advantage that the opponent can't recover ever unless you do a really bad play or topdeck 5 lands.
• Corollarium: this does not apply to pure control decks, where you grind your opponent down with answers  cheaper than his threats.
  In those cases, your goal is to prolong the game as much as possible to obtain the virtual card advantage a control deck is structured for.

Of course this is not always possible, nor the rule is always applicable, but it remains valid for a good number of top tier deck (infect, ur kiln fiend, affinity, jund, junk, burn).

While you play your panharmonicon, your opponent will:
- attack with a 17/2 double attack trample pumped Kiln Fiend (UR Kiln fiend deck)
- swing for lethal poison damage via a 7/7 Inkmoth Nexus (infect deck)
- bolt you down (literally.) (burn)
- swarm the field and swing for lethal with an army of little robots (affinity)
- etc...

See the problem with panharmonicon, and modern in general?
Is a quick format.
You got to be aggressive, and you got to be fast.
Almost everything with CMC > 3 is unplayable, unless you find a way to cheat it into play or you got a crazy fast mana acceleration (and that's why cards like Noble Hierarch, Chord of Calling and similar cards have such high $$$ price).

Care that flickering is not an ability you can build a deck on.
It's more of a supportative ability to squeeze the most advantages you can from your cards.
When you include flickering cards in a deck, you have to look at the sinergies they can create.
Flickering is used in conjunction with EOT triggers.
More specifically, EOT triggers that create some permanent effect on the field, tangible for you and/or the opponent.
Example are:

- Creating tokens: Blade Splicer, Nest Invader, Dwynen's Elite, Attended Knight, Eldrazi Skyspawner, Pia Nalaar,
- Cut cards: Tidehollow Sculler, Brain Maggot, Ravenous Rats
- Create card advantage: Auramancer, Snapcaster Mage, Wall of Omens, Abbot of Keral Keep, Treefolk Harbinger, Augur of Bolas, Elvish Visionary, Rogue Refiner
- Recover pieces: Leonin Squire, Eternal Witness, Ironclad Slayer, Renegade Rallier
- Board Control: Fiend Hunter, Oblivion Ring, Aether Adept, Reflector Mage, War Priest of Thune, Azorius Arrester, Leonin Relic-Warder, Meddling Mage, Spell Queller
- Mana adjustment: Burning-Tree Emissary, Hidden Herbalists, Priest of Urabrask
- General utility: Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit, Kor Outfitter, Maulfist Revolutionary,Mentor of the Meek, Rishkar, Peema Renegade

A little trick you can do with flickering is when a card says something like
"When enter the battlefield, exile X.
When leave the battlefield, return exiled card X".

Oblivion ring is an old example of this.
Flickering the ring while the "enter on battlefield" effect is on the stack basically allows you to exile 2 permanents, and the first one will be permanently exiled.

[MS4]

Thanks for the heads up.

So your point is...basically... I cant really do what i wanted to do and still be competitive.


What would you recommend in my case when I like the flicker-effects (card draw, bounce, exile etc) but cant build a deck on it?
Do you have a link to a deck that you would find playable?

[Jabilac]

There are several decks that like to abuse ETB effects and have found ways to be Competitive.  Death and Taxes, Merfolk, Abzan Company/Evolution shoot even UW control or RG Breach/TitanShift/Valakut.  Those are top tier decks, taken to large tournaments, tuned to win over many months, by hundreds of players.

What really matters is on what level you are playing.  Are you just hanging out with friends, playing games? or  Do you want to go to your local game store and play in tournaments? or Do you want to go to GP's with the intent of making the Pro Tour?

There are several ways to play Magic and all of them are correct.  I have decks I use with friends that win lots of games that aren't "Competitive" and I run a fairly "Competitive" deck that I take to the LGS and play in more structured tournaments.  It really depends on what you are wanting to get out of it.

[Lyonsbane]

Thanks for the heads up.

So your point is...basically... I cant really do what i wanted to do and still be competitive.


What would you recommend in my case when I like the flicker-effects (card draw, bounce, exile etc) but cant build a deck on it?
Do you have a link to a deck that you would find playable?

That's not what I mean at 100%.
I said that you can build a deck that rely entirely on flickering to be competitive.
Well yeah, there is still is Kiki, but I find combo decks to be not too much reliable, since if a single piece of your strategy falls apart, the entire plan is going down the bin.
And as a control player, I assure you that combo decks are easy to identify, understand, and choke their strategy by countering the right pieces at the right time.
The only reason that combo decks are prevalent in modern is that the format is non-interactive and everyone just plays their pieces of board while trying to reach the winning condition faster than the opponent.

Yet, you can make a deck that use flickering as his primary support condition.
The only downside to flickering is that there are no card that flicker permanents with a good balance between effect and cost.
The chepeast I can think off is Otherworldly Journey .

Anyway, as we said before, a LOT of deck abuse ETB (and flickering as a side effect) to be effective.
I would suggest you to look for a Death&Taxes archetype primer, and customize it with powerful ETB cards and flicker effect.
But remember that the flicker is just a way to help you win (in D&T you usually win by bashing the opponent with your creatures), not the winning condition (unlike Kiki Chord).
D&T is pretty easy to use even for a beginner (since you just put creatures down and... that's it - the creature does the rest), has a pretty high skill ceiling (since the tricks you can do with flicker effects and ETB are pretty much infinite), is competitive AND pretty cheap (well, for a competitive modern deck).

[terry.schmitt]

I'd suggest EDH/commander. If you have a bunch of cards, or a mechanic you really like, you might find that you can build a fun commander deck around it for casual play. After the Innistrad block, I was so impressed by the spirits of that set that I built a trial spirit/flicker deck with Brago as the commander. When panharmonicon came out, it was an auto include.

[MS4]

Okay i see. Thank you all.
I learned a lot and stopped me from making a mistake

[robort]

While I might not be a blue player but essence flux is a fav flicker card I love using. Simpliest 1 drop I ever used. Having the card I'm flickering a spirit is just a bonus.