I. Introduction I got inspired to build this deck when I saw Brian Eleyet get 2nd place with his Hive Mind/Show and Tell Deck and I immediately started pondering whether we can build this type of deck in Modern. I created a few lists that would see a lot of play testing and a hectic amount of cutting and repasting.
Since Show and Tell is not allowed in Modern, I needed another way to bring Hive Mind in as fast as possible. I thought about Ramp with green / elves, I thought about Red storm rituals. I even tried to stall the game while I was building my combo out. I came across a few cool tricks: Chalice of the Void and Erayo's Essence do not counter the copies made by Hive Mind and therefore your opponent has to play thedoomspells. Another neat trick is to cast a 0-mana card and Negate it so that your opponent is forced to counter and lose the game on his next upkeep.
II. Initial Decklists Here is the very first list I created:
As you can see this deck fell so hard to Mid-Range Aggro decks. It however did pretty well vs. other control and combo decks but I was not impressed. Jace did more killing than the combo.
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The Second deck I built involved Elves getting the mana for me. Summoner's Pact seemed to me as a card that did alot for this deck.
This deck ran a little better but it was not as consistant as I wanted it to be. I completely died to G2 and G3 matches since their sweepers come in.
I was not yet happy with the green type however some games were really fun unlike the previous build.
III. Current Decklist Here is my current decklist. I built an AIR / Dragonstorm revamp. I ritual ramp into Hive Mind quite quickly and therefore this deck sticks with me the most.
This deck was by far the most consistent in getting the combo and winning with it. I am roughly on 50% (after 7 games) on G1 since I am not yet playing Games 2 and 3 since I want to get my win % to 75% on pre boarding.
I would like to get everyone's input on how to improve this deck, and I promise this will be the last Modern Combo deck I'll make
If you can take anything from this deck, it'd be the Mystical Teachings package that lets you get any of your pacts, making it perfect game 1 where you don't know what color they're playing, then game 2 you side out any colors they are playing and put in more copies of what they aren't.
During the last extended season (which had pretty much the same card pool as this new modern format), I played this deck at 2 PTQs and 5-2ed both of them, my losses being to awful misplays in G3s that I only made from lack of testing. The list was a little slower but was ridiculously more consistent. It destroyed aggro decks and control and usually had an equal clock vs other combo.
SB:
2 firespout
2 chalice of the void
3 gigadrowse
3 negate
2 echoing truth
2 Magus of the Moon
1 Engineered Explosives
I don't really know what the metagame is, but I bet that 3-4 colour strategies will be very popular (and thus making blood moon AMAZING) If the meta shifts to more control/midrange, use the condescends, or more aggro use repeals.
If the meta shifts to a more mono coloured manabase (which I doubt, blood moon is amazing vs fae, zoo, hypergenesis, 3/4/5cc, teachings etc.) drop 2 rite of flame for +1 seething, +1 condescend/repeal and -1 Moon for +1 any pact.
You should almost ALWAYS t4 with this deck. it's pretty sweet.
this deck is by far not fast enough unless u get a God hand.
I have to disagree. This deck, built properly, has the same speed as Dragonstorm but with way more resiliency. Unlike Dragonstorm, which requires Rite of Flame, Seething Song, Lotus Bloom, and in some builds, Desperate Ritual, Hive Mind can do without a lot of that. Indeed, for Hive Mind to work, it would need to prove to be better or as good as Dragonstorm in the Modern metagame. Part of that is speed. Pentad Prism sets up a cool turn 4 win without much difficulty. If Zoo is more prevalent in your area, with its 4 Pridemages, then the Prisms can be ditched for Songs. Either way, you come out ahead on slots from Dragonstorm. Consider it this way:
Main Combo
4 Hive Mind vs. 4 Dragonstorm
4 Pact of Negation + 4 Pact of the Titan vs. 4 Bogardan Hellkite + 1 Karrthus
Acceleration
4 Seething Song
vs.
4 Seething Song, 4 Rite of Flame, 4 Lotus Bloom, 2-4 Desperate Ritual
Hive Mind Slots: 16
Dragonstorm Slots: 21-25
Hive Mind can get a whole playset of cards in that Dragonstorm just can't. Also, Pact of Negation is not really just a combo piece, as it is perfectly capable of protecting a recently cast Hive Mind, or even as critical countermagic in a pinch. This means that Hive Mind effectively has 2-3 playsets of cards up on Dragonstorm. This makes it a potentially more powerful deck.
So how can we take advantage of this? As I have done in the last 4 deck threads I have posted in, I will again tout Blood Moon/Magus of the Moon as awesome inclusions. Blood Moon in particular is a beating, because it improves two of Hive Mind's worst matchups: Zoo (all its variants) and Jund. With just a standard UR manabase, you could easily pack in Cascade Bluffs and Steam Vents for mana fixing, when you don't have the Moon in hand, and just use them as mountains, when you finally get the card. If Hive Mind is just a tiny bit too slow in the current metagame, then Blood Moon gives you the extra few turns you need to get the combo set up. As an added bonus, it makes the opponent virtually incapable of paying for something like Summoner's Pact or Pact of Negation. (That said, as a negative, it makes Pact of the Titan payable in some cases...)
All in all, I think this deck has a lot of potential. Blood Moon should definitely be included maindeck, as Hive Mind can support its symmetrical effect, and it improves two of the probable worst matchups.
well dont get me wrong ive come up with a large number of t3 t4 wins, usually it jsut seems I can either get the hive mind and mana but cant find a pact/tolaria west or i have the pact/mana but cant get a hive mind/etheral usher. ill post my deck in a few minutes.
i just im also just still learning how to run the deck
Ravarshi Kashaku, Ancient Dragon of the Darkened Realms;
The Merciless Lord of Torture, Permanently Bound To: ">[THE PACK] 11/5/63 - 11/25/09 Goodbye mom, i'll always love you...
In case I didn't tell you, I don't care about your opinion I just want your facts. And not the facts that make you seem smart. I want the ones that are actual facts.
Consistently a t3-5 win, t2 if I have the right cards in hand. Rarely do I not have Hive Mind active by that point. I haven't really worked the sideboard out a lot, so I'm not so sure on it, yet.
everyone seems sold on Gitaxian probe, i have yet to try it. besides adding to a storm count, does it really make that much of a difference?
Checks to see if you play Hive Mind safely without getting countered. Pretty important, honestly.
Also, has anyone considered a 12-Post Version? I haven't really tried building a version like that, but I'm interested in how that might work out. Seems like it would be more of a control-based deck, which might be better than all-in ramping, but I'm not sure...
I played against Zoo which went 8-7 and TarmoRack which went 5-7. Against Zoo, it was pretty much whoever got to turn 4 won, with the exceptions that I mulled to 6. TarmoRack can destroy your hand with it's spells, but it's easier to get Hive Mind out and just sit on it, especially when they don't have Bob out. I haven't tried Probe yet, though I don't know what I would cut for it. I'll be doing some more testing over this week to see how other decks fair against it
you know if you can resolve something, as they have counters or not, you could have a tranformational sideboard and use splinter twin maybe in some metas.
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P.S im sorry that this "wall" of text is very scary and menacing but i believe you can do it the lack of gramer and punctuation is because i have a blood fued with it due to the fact when i was four and the teacher said i would die poor and lonely and the kids would dance on my grave when i died because i could not correctly punctuate with commas
What about a U/G/W version with Wargate and Lotus Bloom?
This allows a pretty consistent turn-4 kill with either Lotus Bloom suspend on turn 1 or turn 3 wargate into turn 4 Hive Mind. Meanwhile we play control turns 1-3 to stay alive.
Legacy Hive Mind had Show and Tell + Emrakul as an alternate win condition, so we could run Dramatic Entrance + Progenitus.
Summoner's Pact doubles as allowing us to search for progen, so we only need one copy of that.
I stand by my version of the deck. It has a combined record of 16-6 in GP/PTQ level play and has about an 80% win against zoo, ESPECIALLY big zoo when the season gets on a little bit and the big zoo decks beat the fast zoo. I am personally 5-0 against normal zoo decks in PTQ level tournaments, and probably maintained this 80% win in about 50 games of testing (yeah, we tested a lot). Having the 4 blood moon, (4 seething song, 4 pentad prism, 4 simian spirit guide for accel). Running firespouts or EEs makes zoo even easier, gives game against red aggro/generic aggro and gets you to turn 4-5 where you almost always can combo.
I got inspired to build this deck when I saw Brian Eleyet get 2nd place with his Hive Mind/Show and Tell Deck and I immediately started pondering whether we can build this type of deck in Modern. I created a few lists that would see a lot of play testing and a hectic amount of cutting and repasting.
Since Show and Tell is not allowed in Modern, I needed another way to bring Hive Mind in as fast as possible. I thought about Ramp with green / elves, I thought about Red storm rituals. I even tried to stall the game while I was building my combo out. I came across a few cool tricks: Chalice of the Void and Erayo's Essence do not counter the copies made by Hive Mind and therefore your opponent has to play the doom spells. Another neat trick is to cast a 0-mana card and Negate it so that your opponent is forced to counter and lose the game on his next upkeep.
II. Initial Decklists
Here is the very first list I created:
4 Hallowed Fountain
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Marsh Flats
7 Island
3 Plains
4 Glacial Fortress
1 Intervention Pact
2 Angel's Grace
4 Path to Exile
2 Rule of Law
4 Wrath of God
4 Pact of Negation
4 Preordain
3 Mental Misstep
3 Spell Pierce
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Hive Mind
3 Pact of the Titan
6 Forest
4 Yavimaya Coast
4 Breeding Pool
4 Misty Rainforest
Creatures:
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Druid Heritage
3 Arbor Elf
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Elvish Archdruid
2 Regal Force
4 Summoner's Pact
2 Glimpse of Nature
4 Manamorphose
3 Hive Mind
4 Pact of Negation
I was not yet happy with the green type however some games were really fun unlike the previous build.
III. Current Decklist
Here is my current decklist. I built an AIR / Dragonstorm revamp. I ritual ramp into Hive Mind quite quickly and therefore this deck sticks with me the most.
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Steam Vents
4 Shivan Reef
2 Mountain
2 Island
4 Simian Spirit Guide
Non-Creatures:
4 Pact of Negation
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Hive Mind
4 Pact of the Titan
4 Rite of Flame
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Seething Song
I would like to get everyone's input on how to improve this deck, and I promise this will be the last Modern Combo deck I'll make
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
4 Manamorphose
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Mystical Teachings
1 Summoner's Pact
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Pact of the Titan
1 Pact of Negation
1 Intervention Pact
3 Ethereal Usher
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Steam Vents
4 Scalding Tarn
7 Island
5 Mountain
If you can take anything from this deck, it'd be the Mystical Teachings package that lets you get any of your pacts, making it perfect game 1 where you don't know what color they're playing, then game 2 you side out any colors they are playing and put in more copies of what they aren't.
Tolaria West: Transmute for whatever 0-cost card you need. Opponent is playing green and you got a Summoner's Pact in hand? Grab a Pact of the Titan!
Ethereal Usher: Another transmute card, but grabs Hive Mind.
Halimar Depths: Looking at the top three and rearranging them is pretty good to have, especially if you need that last combo piece next turn.
Manamorphose: Mostly for the cantrip effect, but is still good if you need a blue source for whatever reason.
The list:
3 steam vents
3 tolaria west
7 island
2 mountain
4 simian spirit guide
2 ethereal usher
2 pact of negation
1 intervention pact
1 slaughter pact
1 pact of the titan
4 Preordain
4 ponder
2 condescend/ Repeal
2 firespout
1 engineered explosives
4 blood moon
4 pentad prism
3 seething song
2 Rite of flame
SB:
2 firespout
2 chalice of the void
3 gigadrowse
3 negate
2 echoing truth
2 Magus of the Moon
1 Engineered Explosives
I don't really know what the metagame is, but I bet that 3-4 colour strategies will be very popular (and thus making blood moon AMAZING) If the meta shifts to more control/midrange, use the condescends, or more aggro use repeals.
If the meta shifts to a more mono coloured manabase (which I doubt, blood moon is amazing vs fae, zoo, hypergenesis, 3/4/5cc, teachings etc.) drop 2 rite of flame for +1 seething, +1 condescend/repeal and -1 Moon for +1 any pact.
You should almost ALWAYS t4 with this deck. it's pretty sweet.
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I have to disagree. This deck, built properly, has the same speed as Dragonstorm but with way more resiliency. Unlike Dragonstorm, which requires Rite of Flame, Seething Song, Lotus Bloom, and in some builds, Desperate Ritual, Hive Mind can do without a lot of that. Indeed, for Hive Mind to work, it would need to prove to be better or as good as Dragonstorm in the Modern metagame. Part of that is speed. Pentad Prism sets up a cool turn 4 win without much difficulty. If Zoo is more prevalent in your area, with its 4 Pridemages, then the Prisms can be ditched for Songs. Either way, you come out ahead on slots from Dragonstorm. Consider it this way:
Main Combo
4 Hive Mind vs. 4 Dragonstorm
4 Pact of Negation + 4 Pact of the Titan vs. 4 Bogardan Hellkite + 1 Karrthus
Acceleration
4 Seething Song
vs.
4 Seething Song, 4 Rite of Flame, 4 Lotus Bloom, 2-4 Desperate Ritual
Hive Mind Slots: 16
Dragonstorm Slots: 21-25
Hive Mind can get a whole playset of cards in that Dragonstorm just can't. Also, Pact of Negation is not really just a combo piece, as it is perfectly capable of protecting a recently cast Hive Mind, or even as critical countermagic in a pinch. This means that Hive Mind effectively has 2-3 playsets of cards up on Dragonstorm. This makes it a potentially more powerful deck.
So how can we take advantage of this? As I have done in the last 4 deck threads I have posted in, I will again tout Blood Moon/Magus of the Moon as awesome inclusions. Blood Moon in particular is a beating, because it improves two of Hive Mind's worst matchups: Zoo (all its variants) and Jund. With just a standard UR manabase, you could easily pack in Cascade Bluffs and Steam Vents for mana fixing, when you don't have the Moon in hand, and just use them as mountains, when you finally get the card. If Hive Mind is just a tiny bit too slow in the current metagame, then Blood Moon gives you the extra few turns you need to get the combo set up. As an added bonus, it makes the opponent virtually incapable of paying for something like Summoner's Pact or Pact of Negation. (That said, as a negative, it makes Pact of the Titan payable in some cases...)
All in all, I think this deck has a lot of potential. Blood Moon should definitely be included maindeck, as Hive Mind can support its symmetrical effect, and it improves two of the probable worst matchups.
-ktkenshinx-
i just im also just still learning how to run the deck
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2 Etheral Usher
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Hive Mind
3 Condescend
1 Intervention Pact
2 Mana Leak
2 Pact of Negation
1 Pact of the Titan
4 Seething Song
2 Slaughter Pact
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
2 Rite of Flame
5 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Steam Vents
3 Tolaria West
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Blood Moon
2 Gigadrowse
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Intervention Pact
2 Bribery
1 Firespout
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7 Mountain
4 Steam Vents
4 Cascade Bluffs
4 Tolaria West
2 Island
Creatures:
4 Bogardan Hellkite
3 Simian Spirit guide
3 Ethereal Usher
1 Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund
4 Seething Song
4 Rite of Flame
4 Dragonstorm
4 Hive Mind
4 Blood Moon
3 Lotus Bloom
2 Pact of Negation
2 Pact of the Titan
1 Summoner's Pact
The Merciless Lord of Torture, Permanently Bound To: ">[THE PACK] 11/5/63 - 11/25/09 Goodbye mom, i'll always love you...
Tibalt & His Devils vs. Avacyn's Inquisitors
My EDH decklists
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No, it really doesnt. Once you resolve hivemind you have the advamtage in any counterspell war, rnough to win
Level 1 Judge
Currently Playing:
W Death and Taxes
BGR ScapeWish Nic Fit
BGR Punishing Nic Fit
2x Ethereal Usher
3x Pact of the Titan
3x Summoner's Pact
4x Seething Song
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Rite of Flame
4x Preordain
4x Gitaxian Probe
1x Blood Moon
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Tolaria West
9x Island
6x Mountain
3x Firespout
3x Blood Moon
3x Spell Pierce
3x Echoing Truth
3x Slaughter Pact
Consistently a t3-5 win, t2 if I have the right cards in hand. Rarely do I not have Hive Mind active by that point. I haven't really worked the sideboard out a lot, so I'm not so sure on it, yet.
I think he meant for allowing Hive Mind to resolve. I hope.
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Checks to see if you play Hive Mind safely without getting countered. Pretty important, honestly.
Also, has anyone considered a 12-Post Version? I haven't really tried building a version like that, but I'm interested in how that might work out. Seems like it would be more of a control-based deck, which might be better than all-in ramping, but I'm not sure...
3 Ethereal Usher
4 Hive Mind
4 Preordain
4 Repeal
4 Remand
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
4 Ideas Unbound
3 Pact of Titan
3 Pact of Negation
3 Ponder
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Steam Vents
2 Shivan Reef
I played against Zoo which went 8-7 and TarmoRack which went 5-7. Against Zoo, it was pretty much whoever got to turn 4 won, with the exceptions that I mulled to 6. TarmoRack can destroy your hand with it's spells, but it's easier to get Hive Mind out and just sit on it, especially when they don't have Bob out. I haven't tried Probe yet, though I don't know what I would cut for it. I'll be doing some more testing over this week to see how other decks fair against it
DCI MTG Level 2 Judge
Simple math kids:
Redhead + Tsundere = Win
Shimapan + Thigh Highs = Win
This allows a pretty consistent turn-4 kill with either Lotus Bloom suspend on turn 1 or turn 3 wargate into turn 4 Hive Mind. Meanwhile we play control turns 1-3 to stay alive.
Legacy Hive Mind had Show and Tell + Emrakul as an alternate win condition, so we could run Dramatic Entrance + Progenitus.
Summoner's Pact doubles as allowing us to search for progen, so we only need one copy of that.
I've been testing a version like this.
1 Progenitus
2 Ethereal Usher
Other Spells
4 Hive Mind
4 Condescend
4 Rune Snag
4 Dramatic Entrance
4 Repeal
4 Pact of Negation
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Wargate
4 Seaside Citadel
4 Flooded Grove
4 Mystic Gate
4 Yavimaya Coast
3 Island
1 Forest
1 Plains
It seems like it would be worth splashing a bit of white for.
[[b]B]DCI Level 2 Judge[/B][/b]That's what Ethereal Usher is for.
1. Emrakul backup
2. Able to go off T4-5 without having to rely on ramping mana spells.
3. 12 post matchup increases.
That's what I'm currently working on. UR Post w/ Hive Mind.
4 Steam Vents
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Watery Grave
4 Vesuva
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimerpost
4 Pact of Negation
3 Pact of Titan
3 Slaughter Pact
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Flameblast Dragon
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Everflowing Chalice
3 Izzet Signet
3 Rakdos Signet
I have had a T3 kill. Once...lol. But it's there.
T1: Cloudpost
T2: Vesuva, Signet/Chalice
T3: Watery Grave (or Post) Hivemind and win.
Flameblast is in for testing.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=519290
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