Green White Sentinel Hardened Scales primer

Update 01MAR22:Card breakdown of Bojeisu, Eiganjo and Patchwork automaton+new

decklist.

Twitter.com/MrSeriMTG

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Hello! I am MrSeriMTG (MrSeri on MTGO) and I have played a lot of Hardened Scales
during the years. I was there when mox opal was banned (rip)and when the Ozolith was
printed (yay!). Even though the deck remained playable it was not until MH2 that the deck
became again competitive to be able to measure up to the most popular decks. I am not
saying that scales is a tier 1 deck (that highly depends on what you consider a “tier”), but
rather that with mastery it can compete in almost any metagame.

The main cards that affected Hardened Scales from MH2 are: Urza’s Saga, Zabaz, the
glimmerwasp, Prismatic ending and Esper sentinel. I will talk extensively about each of
them. Bellow you find the table of contents so you can find what info you are looking for:

If you like this content and would like to hang out you can check out my stream and if you
are omegahappy with the content you can even sub to me. All content I make is free for all,
but the support is still appreciated :D

Table of contents

Intro: WTF is Hardened Scales? 2

Card breakdown 2

Scales enemies 7

Sideboard “guide” 9

FAQ (in progress) 11

Mulls and keeps (Coming soon)

Puzzels! (Coming soon)

Intro: WTF is Hardened Scales?

Hardened Scales is a deck birthed by the colorful MagicAids

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z1aNgPXwI4) and has since then been more or less a
player in the Modern metagame. Hardened Scales is an aggressive synergy based deck.
The goal with scales is to abuse counter and artifact synergies to present lethal to your
opponent. The deck can kill on turn 3 but it most commonly can present lethal turn 4. It is
important to realize that scales is an aggressive deck that can grind, not a grindy deck that
can win fast. That means that you should make your decisions with the focus of winning the
game, not grinding down your opponent’s resources. This is especially important in
postboard games where your opponents can bring extremely powerful hate pieces that shut
you down on the spot. This can also inform sideboard decisions, you should sideboard
enough, but you don’t need to bring all your interaction all the time. You want to kill your
opponent and that should be the primary plan. On the other end of the spectrum, Scales
CAN win turn 10 so there is no need to go all in turn 4 if it is not safe to do so. I feel that
keeping this balance between aggression and grindiness and knowing when to go for the kill
and when to take it slow is where most new scales players mess up.

Card breakdown

In this section I am going to break down every important and new cards for Hardened
Scales. I was inspired by the great Will Krueger and his thoughts on Hammer
(https://twitter.com/Will__Krueger/status/1478394409813266435?s=20 ) and I am going to
try to do something similar for scales. Let’s go:

Urza’s Saga

You probably know how busted this card is. I would say there are two kinds of Saga decks:
the decks that saga enables and the decks that want saga to help grind. Of course, all decks
can use saga to grind but some decks also can find their key pieces with saga whereas
others are just finding some random artifact that they would not be playing without saga.
Saga-enabled decks are Amulet Titan, Hammer time and Lantern control. Grindy saga
decks: Jund Saga, Food decks, Affinity decks. The former can normally play saga on t1,
using it to become a “suspend 2: key card” that taps for mana for 3 turns. The latter would
almost never do it and rather play it either turn 2 or later, when there is nothing else to do
with their mana. Scales falls somewhat in the middle. You will rarely play saga t1 with scales
unless you either need a hate card out asap (pithing needle, grafdigger's cage) or you want
to set up a turn 3 kill. How does saga enable a turn 3 kill? Glad you asked! By playing saga
on t1 and either Ozolith or a worker zabaz, you can kill your opponents on 3 by playing
inkmoth/ravager on 2 or ballista on 2, ravager/worker on 3. Exercise: try setting it with cards
yourself if not clear! Most often, the best time to play saga in non-UW control matchups is
turn 2. What I find optimal is to use your turn 3 to make a karnstruck. That will generally lead
your opponent to tap out, since they don’t want to fall behind on board to your robots. Then
turn 4 you can tutor up the Ozolith and play a ravager, so you still have 1 mana to activate
inkmoth nexus or 2 to play a ballista. You will be surprised how fast you can kill thanks to
saga here. If your opponent still holds interaction, then the best is to just make another
karnstruck and play for the long game. The pressure from the karnstrucks will often force
your opponent to tap out and give you a window to go for the kill.

So, what do you get with saga? Normally my priority is Ozolith, then Zabaz, then worker. If I
expect heavy removal a jar is also good. Post sideboard games, relic is a great pickup
because you can make a karnstruck, get relic, attack and exile your ops graveyard so no
unholy heats/murktides hit you. Animation module is normally a high priority vs control
decks. One neat trick I do is that I don’t sideboard in needle vs engineered explosives decks.
They will tend to pop their EE in response to saga’s chapter 3 in fear of the needle and you
just get something else. The logic is that they play 3 EEs tops and you 1 needle, so it is
unlikely your needle will be there on time to save you but they still need to respect it (Please,
keep respecting it grixis opponents). By the time a saga will trigger to turn 3, I normally
would rather get something else than needle, so I just don’t play around explosive much.
Against Archmages Charm decks (!steal) I tutor Zabaz over Ozolith if I have a red source.
This way I can keep my cards for myself instead of letting other people play with them.

Zabaz, the Glimmerwasp

Zabaz holds the records for the most kreygasm/minute heart in the Hardened Scales discord
when it was spoiled. The card just does so much for scales. The floor is a second Arcbound
worker, which has already the best counters to mana ratio in the deck (1 mana for 1
counter). On top of that, Zabaz can fly to be one more evasive attacker, it can add some
counters (Only works with modular triggers, not enter the battlefield) and it can be a sac
outlet for R which really allows for the deck to not have to rely so much on ravager as the
sole sac outlet. All this comes at a cost: Zabaz is legendary. But is it really a cost? Thanks to
the legendary rule Zabaz can “self-sacrifice” if another is standing on the battlefield. This will
give you a modular trigger which will give you not 1 but 2 counters thanks to Zabaz ability. It
is an easy way to make a ballista huge, since this obviously gets even more out of control
with Scales and Ozolith.

Esper Sentinel

It has taken a while to adopt this card in Scales, but I would say now it is a mainstay for the
GW version of the deck. Esper sentinel is almost always the best 1 drop in the deck turn 1.
That means that you need to have as many (Hopefully 14) white sources in your deck as you
can. Don’t skimp here, playing sentinel t1 is waaay better than turn 3. The same is not true
for Hardened Scales (the card), you can get away with playing it later. The beauty of scales
and sentinel is that the deck really takes advantage of all the facets of it. First, it is an artifact
so it can be sacrificed for counters and it can be modulated into. That means your sentinel
can easily become a 2/2 or a 3/3, pretty much guaranteeing a draw with every noncreature
your opponent casts. On top of that, I tend to favor 3-4 welding jars on my deck, so not only
do you play it turn 1 but you can also protect it! Imagine your opponent casting a 2 mana bolt
just for you to counter it with a 0 mana artifact. Tempo, people. Thirdly, Scales plays
pendelhaven so you can respond to the sentinel trigger and buff it, making your opponent
pay 1 extra or you draw a card. This works the same with ravager. If your opponent has 3
mana up and Prismatic ending your ravager, you can sac it in response, modular to sentinel
and draw a card. Once you get enough artifacts rolling, it’s hard to be stopped and seeing
more cards with sentinel is, for lack of a better word, gas. Most medium hands with t1
sentinel/jar or double sentinel can be kept vs interactive decks, specially on the play.

Prismatic ending

This card is the most flexible removal ever printed. Although it is very good against scales, it
is also great for scales. Normally sideboard slots need to be devoted in part to removal for
creatures and removal of hate pieces. In the past, you sometimes would bring in dismember
and lose to a random stony silence or bring nature’s claim and your opponent has sided in
collector ouphe. Not anymore, Prismatic ending answers both small creatures and hate
pieces. It can even answer chalice of the void or ensnaring bridge, thanks to spire of
industry. Another great reason to be in W and highly prioritize W sources in the manabase.
This card has won me so many games.
Ingenious smith

I am not uber high on this card. I think having 16 2-drops makes the deck really clunky and
also you cannot find Saga/Inkmoth off it, which are normally really good hits. The fail rate
with a standard list is of about 10%, less if you play artifact lands and portable hole. Then
you either start running into colored source problems or into the age-old problem of “making
your deck better by making your deck worse”. Of course, it is a body and, of course, it grows
huge with scales, but ancient stirrings has basically a 0% fail rate and hits lands (which
allows you to cut the stingy springleaf drum and play overall less lands). People has done
and will continue to do well with this card, but you need to build your deck to make it good:
more manasources, more artifacts and not keeping 1-2 landers since with 16 2 drops you
might be too slow. This card is phenomenal vs control and 4c nonsense though. Stirrings is
my preferred option at the moment, since I build this deck to have only 24 mana sources and
I like being able to look deeper for a ravager.

Hardened Scales (the card).

This card seems straightforward but about 50% of my paper opponents read it when I play it.
Scales is a replacement effect, so if 1 counter is placed, 2 are placed instead. This means
that this will stack: if you have 2 scales, 1 counter will become 3 counters. This is a strength
of Hardened Scales compared to other “namesake card” decks, additional copies work
nicely instead of being redundant. Hardened Scales also makes up for most of the colored
source requirements for the deck, since playing Scales t1 is often key to getting ahead in the
game. Scales works both as a ramp spell and as a combo enchantment. It makes a ballista
for X=1 enter as a 2/2, which will normally cost you 4 mana. It also allows that combined with
a sac outlet and modular to multiply your counters and get as many as 10 on a ballista or 9
on an inkmoth for a kill. I suggest you watch some of my videos to see how all the
interactions work but the most important is that scales adds a counter every time a counter is
placed on a creature, not just entering the battlefield. Importantly, if you play a ballista or
hangarback for X=0 it will not enter the battlefield with 1 counter if you have scales but rather
it would die since no counters were going to be placed in the first place.
The Ozolith

The ozolith was a godsend from a dinosaur realm that nobody saw coming, The ozolith
basically “doubles” modular counters, allowing for some super explosive turns. But it is more
than that, the Ozolith is an insurance policy vs bounce effects and exile effects, since you
still get the counters on the Ozolith. It is also a bank account where you can store all your
counters, should you get wiped. It is, however, also the prime target for the prismatic
endings of the world so be judicious about keeping counters on it for too long. The ozolith
can also target your opponent creatures with minus counters. In my most recent GW lists I
am running only 2 and there are two reasons for that. First, I already have other really good
1 drops in the form of esper sentinel and 2) with stirrings and saga is fairly easy to get into
play and the second copy usually stings. Worth noting that unlike Hardened Scales, the
Ozolith does nothing until something leaves the battlefield so I tend to play my scales out
first unless expecting enchantment removal. In those cases, I play my ozolith first, since I still
value more scales and I am playing more virtual copies of the Ozolith (Saga almost always
finds the Ozolith and stirrings can either find the Ozolith directly or a saga that can give you
Ozolith).

Arcbound ravager

“This card Is pretty good” DemonicTutors(twitter.com/demonictutors, just after double unholy

heating a ravager unsuccessfully). I would say ravager is at its best vs red removal, but I
generally tend to wait to cast them until either my op has used up their removal or I have a
big board. Scales and jar makes me more liberal with ravager usage, but the best ravager is
the one that comes down, eats a bunch of friends and then wins the game on the spot.
Rarely will people expect or play around a ravager in your hand and on many occasions you
will just win through interaction because it is simply so difficult to interact with ravager.
Against thoughtseize decks it might be smart to play it out early if you have 1-2 jars, since it
will be easier to discard than to remove. Best card in the deck. My personal favorite is the
modern masters one but the foiling on inventions is fantastic.

Welding jar

Some people play 1. I play 4. I have 1050(updated 03MAR22 :doge:) followers on twitch.
You do the math.

LULs aside, I really believe this card is suuuuper good in the current meta. Even when it is
bad (Humans?) it is still a 0 mana artifact that allows you to kill people faster. One thing I do
and I don’t see any people do is that I aggressively attack with jar up or block and jar my
creatures. Your creature will be removed from combat after damage, so you basically can
turn jar into a 0 mana removal spell. You can get 2for1d if you do that and your op has the
removal spell, so be judicious. Jar is insane with t1 esper sentinel and with t2 overseer, a
good reason to play all of them in one deck. T1 sentinel jar into t2 steel overseer is the stuff
my horniest dreams are made of (Sorry, MrsSeri). In the mirror, you can use it to regenerate
your opponent’s artifact when your OP tries to shatter it with Zabaz. You are welcome.

Steel Overseer

Underwhelming to many, Steel overseer compensate for a weakness of scales that it might
not seem obvious at first glance. Scales has no must answer t1 and t2 threads. Even a
scales into ballista is not something your opponents need to worry about RIGHT NOW. But
untapping with t2 steel overseer is generally a win. In that sense, it works much like
stoneforge mystic. In conjunction with sentinel and jar, it really changes the dynamic of the
deck towards your opponent being forced to spend resources dealing with your creatures
instead of doing what they wanted to do. And easy cut in many sideboard games, don’t be
afraid to bring it back on the play. The 2 mana win the game potential is huge. This mate is
also very resilient to the current removal. Lava dart is extinct and W&6 is not that popular
anymore. Prismatic ending trading even on mana is also good news for us and 4 jars allow
you to dodge most R removal. If your opponent spends their t2 double bolting your 2 drop, it
has done its job.

Lurrus, of the dream den

Some people don’t play some cards to play this cat. We get to play it for free and it has the
upside of preventing us from playing scrapyard recombiner (MH1 for scales card by the
way). So it is free, it is very castable to an already good W manabase and it can return either
scales ozolith or a ravager. This card is simply insane and it helps grind so well. Vs control
decks I tend to return it early in the game, so there is always the double spell thread from t5
onwards. People will sometimes not counter a creature because they are afraid of the cat
resolving. Be smart and don’t cast Lurrus then, instead using your mana in the many other
things that scales can use mana on.

The manabase

Not a specific card choice but I want to have a few words about it. This deck plays at least 8
colorless sources and, although the deck is mostly colorless, its best t1 play and its best
card are all colored. My goal with this list was to have a somewhat consistent 14W sources
T1 and 13/14 green sources as well. Here are the specifics of this list:

-4 spire of industry. Allows us to cast all our colored spells and provides R for Zabaz sac
ability. Can be a t1 colored source with a welding jar.

-1 Needleverge pathway. Somewhat of a controversial choice, this card is basically a plains

that if you find yourself with many W sources can also be a R source for Zabaz.

-No artifact lands. I don’t believe there is room for more colorless lands in this version.

-No taplands. Taplands (even colored ones) slow you down when you want to play sentinel,
overseer etc on curve. They are also very awkward with Saga. Therefore I decided to cut
them all and have only untapped sources. Other versions of the deck can play up to 4
taplands, but here they just slow you down.

-Even though you could get a more consistent manabase with more brushlands, I don’t want
to play all 8 painlands because it has killed me more often than it should. That is why I play
the 2nd Branchloft pathway over the 4th Brushland.

-Update03MAR22: My thoughts have somewhat changed on this topic. With the printing of
Patchwork Automaton, I believe that having 23 lands and drum is the way forward. Drum
both triggers Patchwork and it allows to cast 2 2-drops on t3, which is really huge with 16 2
drops in the deck. With the addition of Bojeisu and Eiganjo, our W source have also gone
slightly down but I think the power level is higher this way. Specially since saga can fetch
drum and stirrings can find a W source if needed.
Boseiju, who endures
Kamigawa: Neon Destiny gave us 3 powerful tools for scales. In the beginning, everyone was
like “but Mr.Serious, will Bocheisu not be the end of artifact decks?” And I was like: “I am all
about my opponent missing landrops to Assassin’s trophy me”. You see, Bojeisu’s effect is
not strong enough to be built around. At best is an assassin’s trophy that does not hit
creatures/planewaslkers and if you build your deck around it, it’s even worse. Now you
really are working hard to make your worse assassin’s trophy an actual assassin’s trophy.
Boseichu’s strength comes from its flexibility. It’s arguably on the highest level of flexibility
since it is (most importantly) A: an untapped Green land and B: A mediocre spell. The best
decks for Boseiju are decks that would be playing forests anyway. The flexibility here is
excellent because it means that for 1G (or G, if you control Zabaz) you can answer any
maindecable hate piece, from ensnaring bridge to pithing needle, with a card that you can
always tap for mana! The best bojeisu deck is amulet titan because they can both tutor for it
easily and bounce it later but Scales also plays the powerhouse card Ancient Stirrings, which
means you can almost “soft tutor” your uncounterable answer!

I have tried two bojeisus and my verdict is that it is not worth it. With 1 you get all the
upside and none of the downside and since, again, the effect is not powerful enough to
build around. 1 is the perfect number. I would not cut Pendelhaven for it though, I would
just cut any other green source in the deck. Extended art beats the special art by a mile.

Eiganjo, seat of the empire

Similar to Bojeisu, an untapped W source with upside is very good in our deck. This card is
excellent in the very classical situation of your op discarding/killing everything you got and
poking you with a DRC. This is an uncounterable, undiscartable answer to DRC, ragavan with
dash, even some more niche monsters like Thought Knot seer. Don’t forget you can use it
aggressively: You can make a bad attack and kill your opponents blockers before damage,
giving you a great advantage and making your opponent play around your trick for the rest
of the match. Extended art beats the special art by less than Bojeisu, but you can see the
doors of the entrance and that is pretty hot.

Patchwork Automaton

Now, I get it. Lands are not exactly the most sexy, especially when they are just marginal
upgrates to existing cards (I know you spent your money on those beta forests). What about
a 2 cmc thread that is basically unkillable in Modern and has counters synergies? now THAT
is exciting. If I was a robot, I would be patchwork automaton (Picture), both in pose and on
occupation. Ward 2 means that for the first 3 turns of the game nothing that costs 1 mana
can kill it and that also means that Solitude cannot target it (Or it can target it and get
countered). Interestingly, Patchy is insane vs prismatic ending, costing a total of 4 mana to
remove. Also Patch boy can grow and can grow quick! It is not limited to growing once a
turn, so casting 2-3 artifacts with a scales in play will mean you will get a 7/7 ward 2 on t3!
This is virtually unkillable for any red deck (Needing 6 mana to double unholy heat it) and
black/white decks have their own issues, specially in combination with esper sentinel and
welding jar. Overall I think this is a fantastic thread that will see a lot of play and it could be
possible it even becomes a 4off. Make sure you save your welding jars t1 if you don’t need
them in order to trigger Patchman more! Patch is also great vs 4control, where they always
want to tap out and then deal with your threads with free spells. Also a good play vs t2
Wrenn and six t3 t3feri, since their minus abilities cannot target it and Patchperson can just
attack and kill them easily if they plus. I have felt this matchup to be quite favorable since I
have added Patchwork automaton.
Scales enemies

Here is a list of cards that scales hate. Some are pretty obvious but some might not be. I will
provide suggestions on how to play around them.

Force of vigor

Undoubtedly the worst offender in the free spells that kill your deck category. This is not only
removal, but it is removal for 0 mana on card parity. Not too bad when hardcast either. It is
very hard to play around it (It being free and all) but I suggest the following: 1)don’t play saga
turn 2 so you can play a 2 drop even if it gets destroyed with the saga trigger on the stack. 2)
keep welding jars in even vs decks where it is normally not good against 3)try to not give
them a clear blowout. The longer the game goes the worse force gets, since if you have 10
artifacts you can probably find lethal even through FoV. Still, this card is disgusting and I cry
every night.

Solitude

Since scales goes “tall” rather than “wide” you normally end up with a supermecha at the
end of the game, not many small dudes. Solitude both being free and having flash means
that you can get suuuper blownout even if your op is tapped out. Worse yet, if your opponent
ephemerates it, it becomes a machinegun of exile effects. Hardcasted is not too bad either
but it can be seen coming. I suggest not playing too hard around it. Specially in an 80 card
deck, the odds of them having it are not great and if they keep it in hand the odds of them
randomly running out of cards are slim. Unless you have a very nice animation module setup
where you can run them out of answers, solitude will be there for you. In solitude matchup,
Ozolith is key.

Prismatic ending

Answers 95% of the deck for 1 mana, the rest for 2 mana. Card is good.

Kaya, Orhov usurper

This cards minus answers 90% of the deck, and does it more than once. Brutal but not
popular

Dress down

Dress down acts as a counter for a modular creature of and XX construct and also draws a
card and also turns off any our your dying effects and also kills your karnstrucks. This card is
good but the decks that play it are normally decent matchups.

Collector ouphe/Stony silence

The age old hate pieces. These are I would say traps for opponents sometimes because we
are mostly a creature deck so all our creatures have the secret mode of turning sideways
and killing em. Saga helps with that plan a lot.

Karn, the great creator

Every time someone casts this card against me I go. Why? But I am not game designer so I
just will tell you that vs KTGC you need to play the board as much as possible so you can kill
it. G1 you have few outs to a KTGC/bridge lock (it sill baffles me how many people don’t go
for this vs scales). G2 and G3 you have answers to bridge so it gets better.

Hushbringer/rest in peace/Leyline

They all turn off the dying effects and hushbringer also turns off the Ozolith effects. This
cards are hard to beat if unprepared, but I would say they are not as popular as they should
be? You can still win with beats, but it is harder than vs stony silence.

Tasha’s Hideous Laughter

3 mana exile your entire library. The TOTAL CMC of my list is 30, so it will exile at least 2/3s
if not more. Mill was a rough matchup but there is really not beating it at the moment. KEKW
indeed.

Sideboard guide

Let’s use this list as a base reference:https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4547196 . Skill and

chalice could be whatever (Damping sphere, another relic, shadowspear…) so I will not
mention it. Bring it vs removal decks or when there is nothing better to bring.

Hammer time

Out: 4 jar, 1 steel overseer

In: 3 Pendings, 2 claims

Esper sentinel is great here and we are favored as long as they don’t have the nuts. Just be
patient and block a lot.

Grixis Death Shadow

Out: 2 Steel overseers, 1 arcbound worker, 1 stirrings, 1 saga

In: 3 prismatic ending, 2 relic of progenitus

This matchup I take it as if I was playing vs an aggro deck. There are a few ways to lose: t1
unanswered monkey, dress down and ee loops and a dressdown shadow attack. Relic shuts
off Lurrus, Kroxa, unholy heat and drc, card is great. We cut a saga because they have
answers to karnstrucks and they bring in alpine moon. Note, in all matchups I cut steel
overseers, I might bring them back in on the play if I see my opponent going very high on
saga hate and light on threads.

4c nonsense

Out: 1 steel overseers, 2 welding jars, 1 worker

In: 2 torpor orb, 1 animation module, 1 pithing needle

This matchup ranges from horrible to ok depending on their draw and how many FoV they
play. Going all in is scary, the best is to try to produce a constant stream of threads that
exhaust their resources and force them to solitude early. Needle names t3feri most of the
time, since the card is super annoying to deal with and can bounce a loaded Ozolith.

UR Murktide

Out: 2 Steel overssers, 1 arcbound worker, 2 stirrings, 1 saga

In: 3 prismatic ending, 2 relic of progenitus, 1 path to exile

Same plan as vs Grixis. G1 saga is your friend. G2 and G3 not so much but still can be
good. Sentinel turn 1 is a nightmare for them. The main way you lose is them t4 murktide
with counterspell up. That can be enabled by monkey or drc so I focus on killing those to
delay murktide. T1 relic is great in this matchup. You can sometimes race a murktide when
they cast it if you already have a board or play something so they counter and then path the
murktide.

Rhinos

I don’t really play any sideboard cards vs this at the moment. If you do have chalices/void
mirrors, then cut steel overseer because it dies to fury and 1 worker.

Burn

Out: 2 steel overseers, 3 stirrings

In: 2 claims, 3 pendings

If you have shadowspear, bring it in obviously. This matchup is not difficult. You just claim
your own things if they are tapped out, exile their 1 drops and generate blockers asap. You
can easily turn the corner here and soon they are bolting your dudes instead of you, you are
favored. You can prevent the damage of smash to smithereens by sacking the target, but not
searing blaze. That is why I don’t have many sideboard cards for the matchup. Claim being
good here is just great, remember you can snipe eidolon of the great revel or that a ballista
for X=2 will not trigger it. You can effectively lock your op out of the game with your XX
creatures if they go too hard on eidolon. Remember to attack!

Amulet

Out: 4 esper sentinel

In: 2 claims, 1 torpor orb, 1 pending

I know you can sb in more cards but this matchup is rough post board so I don’t want to wait
to get blown-out by FoV and instead I try to kill my OP as soon as possible. Claim is great
because it answers dryad,saga and amulet at instant speed. Pending only answers amulet
and even if you do they will titan you eventually so I don’t bring in too many. This is not a
good matchup.

Yawgmoth

Out: 4 esper sentinel, 2 welding jars 1 worker

In: 3 prismatic ending, 1 pithing needle, 2 relic, 1 path to exile

Another FoV deck. The goal here is to prevent yawgmoth from sticking. They don’t run so
many lands, so killing dorks is a great plan. I keep 2 jars in because they are handy vs fov
and outland liberator. This matchup is pretty even but FoV can tip it easily.

Mill

In: 2 relic, 3 pending

Out: you dreams of 5-0

This is the worst matchup. You need to go for a kill fast. I would 100% go all in t3 if I can
even with mana up. If the game goes long then they will Tasha you and then you will cry.
Better be fast and be done with it soon so you can grab a sandwich or talk to your friends or
something.

Living end

Out: 2 jars, 2 steel overseers

In: 2 relics, 2 torpor orb

This is a weird matchup. Ozolith and ravager make living end bad, but they have FoV and
foundation breaker post board. I bring in orb vs breaker (also works vs grief, subtely,
endurance and architect of will). If you expect a lot of these decks, then chalice/void mirror
are awesome.Torpor orb might sound weird, but I think that if you turn off their ETBs you can
deal with most of their board states, but if they foundation breaker turn 2 into agent breaker
t3 you are basically screwed.

UW control+

Out: 1 Hardened Scales, 1 jar, (1 worker 1 jar if they have chalice)

In: 1 pithing needle, 1 animation module (2 pendings if they have chalice)

This is a good matchup if you are skilled at playing vs control decks. The key here is to not
yam into countermagic and to keep applying pressure so they cannot just tap out for a
planeswalker. Solitude is a thing but they don’t have so many avenues of value like 4c. Turn
3 if your op is holding counterspell, just draw Lurrus. Animation module is crazy in the
matchup since it can also proliferate a chalice to 3. Be sure to have a sac outlet handy to
prevent the !steal, Hangarback walker is especially susceptible to Archmages charm. This
matchup you want to delay playing saga as much as you can so they have to sea at
awkward moments and not be able to hold counter magic. Needle names T3feri most of the
time, but I have named shark typhoon when going all in with an inkmoth.

There are many more decks in Modern but this hopefully gives you a bit of insight on what
to do in the most common matchups!

FAQ

Why GW over GR or other combinations of colors?

GW has in my opinion several advantages over other combinations of colors. Back in the
day (Before the dark times, before MH2), the deck used to be monogreen and splashes
were mostly for sideboard cards. The most common combination was in fact Black and
green, since it allowed for fatal push and thoughtseize on the sideboard, as well as having
good access to Lurrus.

Nowadays, we got Zabaz and with that we have been incentivized to splash for at least Red,
if not for White as well. Green/Red version that take maximal advantage of Zabaz as a sac
outlet are very good, but those list forego three things: t1 esper sentinel is the best t1 play
possible, Lurren is a crazy manasink/comeback mechanic and Prismatic ending really does
a lot to free up sb slots+answer t1 plays at a low cost.

With all that taken into account, I do believe GW is the best version at the moment but Gr is
still a super fine option. The difference lies mostly in how powerful some of the W cards are
compared to how consistent the Gr manabase+utility lands are. If you don´t own all the white
lands, you can still do very well with Gr: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4549337#paper.

Why play Hardened Scales over Hammer time?

Two reasons: Scales actually has a good hammer matchup if your opponent doesn’t nut
draw you (t2 kills, t3 hammer+shadowspear or the like) and people are catching up on how
to play vs hammer. Many people still have a hard time playing around scales cards and it is
inherently more difficult to count on “potential ravager+ozolith” than “2 hammers”. Scales
does get collaterally hit by hate pieces against Hammertime, but in some ways Scales is a
little bit more resilient to hate since we have different avenues to victory. Our card quality is a
bit higher too: hanbarback and ballista are better than a nacked paladin or ornithopter.

Hammer is probably the best deck in Modern, but having a good matchup vs the best deck is
a good place to be imo. I know everyone thinks they have a good Hammer matchup these
days, but that is just based on the fact that they play good sideboard cards vs Hammer.
Hammer can still beat those cards. Scales has a good plan A vs Hammer (Tons of blockers,
ballista, ability to kill fairly fast) and gets to play pending and claim on the sb, which are great
vs hammer too.

Why not X (X=witch's oven, shadowspear, pithing needle,etc) in the main?

You are of course welcome to experiment with as many 1-offs as you want on the main
deck. The reason I am not running any is that these cards are situational and are not
generally good when drawn. Of course, shadowspear vs burn is game winning, but it is
equally game losing vs UW control. I also would not consider saga to be a reliable tutor for
hate pieces since it is both slow and susceptible to hate. I like my maindeck plans to be
focused so I use saga to get me closer to killing my op. Postboard, I do bring in good saga
targets like relics, cage and needle but only when they are better than the worst saga target,
which is the worker.

Why no removal in the main?

This comes from the assumption that scales is somehow a midrange deck. It is not. We play
all the removal we need in the form of Walking ballista game 1. If you start diluting your deck
too much with answers, your main plan suffers. The only removal I would play main deck is
Galvanic blast off the Gr version, since this can become a burn spell later if needed. Still, I
think removal is at its best when it is targeted, so I tend to focus on my own gameplan g1
and then bring in removal when needed g2/g3.