Hardly a breakout performance, but it did run a full playset of YP alongside snap, tasigur, and of Keral Keep.

Looked pretty interesting.

But maybe that’s just because I’m not willing to let go of my cantrips

4 Dark Confidant
3 Monastery Mentor
4 Young Pyromancer
2 Zealous Persecution
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
2 Thoughtseize
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Lingering Souls
2 Path to Exile
2 Blood Crypt
1 Godless Shrine
2 Sacred Foundry
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Marsh Flats
2 Arid Mesa
1 Vault of the Archangel
2 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
2 Kolaghan’s Command
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Needle Spires
2 Painful Truths
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Shambling Vent
1 Dreadbore
SB: 1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
SB: 2 Kor Firewalker
SB: 2 Crackling Doom
SB: 2 Stony Silence
SB: 1 Obzedat, Ghost Council
SB: 1 Rakdos Charm
SB: 1 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 1 Slaughter Games
SB: 1 Rest in Peace
SB: 2 Celestial Purge
SB: 1 Molten Rain

Obviously, local meta tuning may apply.

Overall matchup comments:

Affinity and Infect are highly favored, they really don’t like the combination of 1/1 spam and heavy access to removal

Tron and other big mana matchups are heavily unfavored. You’re weak to sweepers and aren’t fast enough to kill them before they get online.

Jund, UWR, and other midrange/control matchups are usually sideboard dependent on if they remembered to pack x/1 hate. The more people cut electrolyzes and sweepers the better this list gets, but if your meta is chock full of Night of Soul’s Betrayal you’re going to be in for a world of hurt

Company is generally favored, you have enough removal and can grind hard. Just be sure to play around Chord for Orzhov Pontiff with my favorite Zealous Persecution or other options.

As for other tier 2 decks, Merfolk is miserable as their land disruption punishes our heavy color commitments, Ad Naus is also problematic as we’re too slow to race them and rely on hand disruption and Kommand to stop them from going off, plus don’t have any answers to Phyrexian Unlife other than just killing them. Most other tier 2 decks fall into the above assessments about aggro/midrange/big mana. Only note I’ll make is I’ve found Eldrazi and Taxes favored because they really don’t like seeing 7 copies of 3 damage to target creature.

1. Young Pyromancer – I think you’re onto something with Jancuk’s list. Too many people fall in love with the Pyromancer-Probe interaction for immediate value, but without the Dazes and Forces to push your tempo gameplan while protecting the Pyro (plus the much greater suite of playable creature removal in Modern), I think it’s wise to treat the Pyro as a tool in the toolbox, and employ Mentors and Souls as additional ways to close things out. It’s pretty telling that the most successful Grixis Delver list in a while is Ryan’s list, which eschewed the Pyros altogether.

The question is whether this approach is better than trying to close out games with Nahiri + Emrakul, Kalitas, and maybe Pian and Kiran Nalaar, which is the other option available to Mardu decks. The tokens approach certainly plays nicer with Bob, but I’m unsure as to which measures up best overall. Thoughts?

2. Disrupting Shoal and Snapback are interesting, but I think the Shoal was the one who proved its worth the most in Jordan’s extensive testing with Delver shells. A small minority of Merfolk users have considered the Shoal and Snapback in that shell (since it meets the “must be blue-heavy” and the “must have a variety of CMCs” requirements), but we don’t have enough data to make conclusive judgments. I still think Shoal has potential in Merfolk (though it does push it in more of a tempo direction), but I don’t think Snapback does enough (especially because Shoal incentivizes you to run Snag for more blue 1-drops to pitch).

I think the case against Probe is that most proactive decks don’t care overly much about the information it provides (as in, it will not materially affect their decision trees), and you actually want the deck slots it’s taking up to have a greater diversity of threats. I think it could see more play, but with so many decks putting pressure on player’s life totals (I’ve even eschewed Dismember on my Merfolk in order to make sure that opponents have to deal me the full 20), I don’t know if a lot of people will reach for it.

3. Chalice of the Void – this card I feel is already in Modern, just around the fringes. It drifts in and out of Merfolk sideboards, and some big-mana decks that don’t have much going on in the early game (like Breach Titan/Titanshift) also run it in the sideboard. U-Tron runs some number of it in the main, but it usually has 3-4 copies in the 75.

I don’t think it’s strong enough to run in the main, though – Bogles scoops to it and Infect has a hell of a time overcoming it, but Modern Burn actually has enough 2-drops to survive it (especially if they snuck a creature or two in before the Chalice was cast), as does Grixis Delver (which even has 3+ drops to overcome a mid- to late-game Chalice for x=2). Furthermore, with cards such as Abrupt Decay, Ancient Grudge, and Destructive Revelry flying around, a Chalice on x=1 is no guarantee to stick around. I feel like only a select few decks really get the requisite juice out of it.

As for cards that I think could make the leap… I think Forked Bolt is somewhat under-utilized in Modern, as is Spell Pierce.