Grixis thieves

2x thoughtseize
2x inquisition of kozilek
4x lightning bolt
4x thieves fortune
4x faerie miscreant
2x snapcaster mage
4x oona’s prowler
1x cloak and dagger
2x earwig squad
4x spellstutter sprite
1x quickling
1x sword of light and shadow
2x kolaghan’s command
1x vendilion clique
2x notion thief
2x noggin whack

21 lands
4x polluted delta
2x bloodstained mire
1x faerie conclave
4x secluded glen
1x mutavault
1x blood crypt
1x watery grave
1x steam vents
2 island
1 swamp
1 mountain
1x darkslick shores
1x creeping tar pit

Sideboard:
2x earwig squad
1x Knowledge exploitation
1x gonti, lord of luxury
2x faerie macabre
2x spell pierce
2x Fortune thief
1x Nezumi shortfang
2x crumble to dust
Flex slots

The notable interaction is notion thief+humble defector
And quickling+defector

Both those cards do lots of other things but I just thought it was worth noting and a suggestion

Sure, but keep in mind i have only played more of less 15 matches with it so far (and doing fine):
Sorceries: 12
4 inquisition of kozilek
4 dark salvation
4 collective brutality

creatures: 26
4 cryptbreaker
4 gravecrawler
4 blood scrivener
4 rotting rats
4 diregraf colossus
2 fleshbag marauder
2 Kalitas, traitor of ghet
2 vengeful pharaoh

lands: 22
15 swamp
1 urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
1 shizo, death’s storehouse
1 cavern of souls
2 mutavault
2 tectonic edge

sideboard:
1 duress
2 wail of the nim
2 crypt incursion
2 pithing needle
2 ratchet bomb
2 big game hunter
4 stromgald crusader

So the deck is basically disruption (discard + removal) and threats (tokens and big guys). It is very midrangey and kind of slow but full of value!

Formats that already have hugely powerful cards (i.e. Legacy with Brainstorm, Modern with Lightning Bolt) rarely receive much in the way of straight goodstuff, since those cards usually have to go through Standard first (True-Name Nemesis etc. are the obvious exceptions, although they don’t apply to Modern). That means the longstanding format strategies that receive the most support from Wizards are synergy-based.

There was a time in Modern where running synergy decks was suicide, as Jund and Twin kept everything in check. As more support is printed for synergy strategies, though, we inevitably start to see many crop up (Bant Spirits or Elves, for example).

Luckily for goodstuff decks, the playability bar for synergy strategies is set very high by interactive helpers like Tarmogoyf! Those new Sprits have to be pretty good to justify playing cards like Geist or Rattlechains over a 4/5 who asks you to run Lighting Bolt (according to last weekend’s SCG Classic results, the Spirits do indeed have what it takes). That’s why we don’t see tribal strategies leak into Modern at breakneck speed. We’ll have to wait a little longer before Rogues become a viable option.

I think Traverse is necessary in this kind of shell because it gives us on-demand access to Kiki-Jiki. Otherwise, the Kiki-Mite combo doesn’t really work, since we’d be forced to run multiple copies of the Kiki (bad for the reasons listed above) and more lands (same). And unfortunately, I think including the combo is where the Vial Rogues deck wants to be.

Defector is great fun more than anything else. Opponents frequently get more mileage out of two of their own cards than out of a 2/1 beater, so must will just activate him and pass him back. It’s rare that they have ways to remove him after that since they want to blow their Bolts on Pestermite or Hierarch or something, so they need to draw into another one and then want to kill Defector. Add to that the fact that we rarely pass Defector without squeezing extra value out of him (i.e. untapping with a Pestermite, Snagging him after drawing two) and he’s putting in a lot more work for us than for them. Defector also swings fairly often in this deck. Against anyone without blockers (AN, Tron, Valakut, Jeskai, etc.), we often want to attack with Defector at least until we can combo him with something, so he turns on prowl quite a bit.

I’m not saying this is the best pseudo-Twin deck in Modern, just that it’s probably one of the more reasonable ways to build around Thieves’ Fortune.

Francis,
You’re playing Zombies in Modern? I’m very curious, as I’ve wanted to try that but haven’t figured it out. Have a list, or even just a general description? Thanks!

This is neat in that you just incidentally get to run thieves fortune and get some goyf value for your trouble. Defector and mite do work together and both have kiki tricks. Snag is good with vial as it can save you needing to recast and wait for summoning sickness. Im skeptical of traverse as there is so little versatility – you are getting goyf like 90 percent of the time and kiki the other ten? Tutoring like that seems a bit like a waste, at least add some other niche target to the md to steal games.

All in all looks cool tho – how does defector play out? It seems rattlesnakish where you mostly leave him untapped to punish attacks or respond to removal and then go to valuetown once you have room to snag or pester? Id be iffy about swinging for prowl with him unless I could flash in pester to respond to removal.

Also generally for kiki twin we just moved on to resto angel as the other piece instead of pester or exarch. It wouldnt work with twin but once you’re stuck with kiki angel is a much better card in a vaccum than the blue options.

Rogues is another interesting tribe, building around thieves’ fortune is a lot more fun than around the black rogues from lorwyn/etc. It is always exciting to have one or more brews on hold, makes spoilers more thrilling! For my part i’m crossing my fingers also for artificers/vedalken in the upcoming set, so that i can use my cavern of souls in yet another deck 😛