Have you ever thought to yourself 'You know what would be great? A four mana sorcery that let you draw seven cards.' Were you to voice this thought, your friends would probably reply 'Are you crazy? Wizards would never be stupid enough to print that!' Well, dear reader, your friends would be wrong. You just have to work a bit for it. May I present: Memory Scourge. Is it a midrange deck? Ramp? Combo? I have no idea; I just know it works. Here's the list.
Memory Scourge is a U/G deck that aims to win using card advantage and synergy, entirely eschewing many cards traditionally seen as playable in the format. Despite all the ramping we do, I don't really see the list as a traditional ramp deck, since the aim is to play tons of medium sized threats instead of one huge one. The enabler and pivotal piece here is the usually-useless Selective Memory. However, when combined with the deck's signature Eternal Scourges and Torrent Elementals, it essentially reads: Draw seven cards, all of which are good creatures. That is absurd. We can also take out all the other copies of Selective Memory from our deck whenever we cast one, and we do.
The Elementals themselves are our main wincon, allowing the cheaper Scourges to swing in unimpeded. Often, we can obliterate our opponent in one or two hits once we assemble a decent boardstate. Without Eternal Scourge, the list wouldn't be nearly as effective in the midgame. Any spot removal becomes an Unsummon against one, and they are therefore almost certain to trade for other creatures or hit face if our opponent doesn't have any sweepers. The Torrent Elementals are fairly resilient, since they survive Lightning Bolt, laugh at Path to Exile, and are essentially uncounterable due to the 'put into play' nature of their ability. Though, we only run three because if you haven't won after playing three of them onto a board already full of Scourges, your opponent deserves their victory. Of course, you can also just cast any copies of either you happen to draw. Below is a card-by-card breakdown of the rest of the deck.
Arbor Elf plus Utopia Sprawl: These two combine to form our main ramp engine, allowing us to hit four mana on turn two and compete with those new-fangled Eldrazi decks. Both also work well individually. This is the same combo utilized by Green Nykthos Devotion.
Scavenging Ooze: Scooze's ability to perform in modern midrange decks is already proven. In this list, it has the added bonus of allowing us to recast any Scourges or Elementals that have hit the graveyard while growing in the process.
Garruk Wildspeaker Another card common in ramp decks, especially in ones with lands that can tap for more than one mana. The beast tokens and mass pump effects are also super useful. An extremely good value.
Kiora, Master of the Depths Replaces the fourth Garruk to lessen our chances of drawing multiples (plus the second one). Her first ability is often better than Garruk's in this deck, but her other two aren't nearly as good.
Intruder Alarm: Almost every time you see one of these, it's in conjunction with something like Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker so you can go infinite, but not for us. Here, its use is twofold. First, it ramps like nobody's business with our mana dorks. With the right combination of cards, we can use this to easily play all our Scourges and an Elemental in one turn. Second, it puts a damper on our opponent's offensive and defensive capabilities, forcing them to play creatures to untap anything that attacked last turn or was tapped down by an Elemental. Meanwhile, we run a spell which tutors for seven creatures. Just be sure to save one to play (or a Garruk activation) for after combat to keep your creatures blocking ready. In multiples, we can stack our mana effects in between the untap triggers to further double our mana acceleration, so we play four.
Breeding Pool: It is important to note that these count as Forests for our ramp cards.
Eldrazi Temple and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx: These two lands both have the ability to tap for multiple mana by themselves. The temple is more consistent, since it doesn't require us to have a devotion-laden boardstate, but we can only use the extra mana on Scourges. Meanwhile, the shrine's mana can be spent on anything, but it's legendary, and we need at least four green pips on board for it to net us an advantage. So, we have a three-three split.
The sideboard is a work-in-progress, and any tips would be appreciated. Other than Relic of Progenitus for graveyard-centric or control matchups and Fracturing Gust for Affinity, I'm not sure what the deck would need post-board. Thoughts on improving the main deck are also more than welcome. Match results will also be posted eventually, once I play some events. Then, I'll turn this thread into a full primer.
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Have you ever thought to yourself 'You know what would be great? A four mana sorcery that let you draw seven cards.' Were you to voice this thought, your friends would probably reply 'Are you crazy? Wizards would never be stupid enough to print that!' Well, dear reader, your friends would be wrong. You just have to work a bit for it. May I present: Memory Scourge. Is it a midrange deck? Ramp? Combo? I have no idea; I just know it works. Here's the list.
4x Eternal Scourge
3x Torrent Elemental
4x Arbor Elf
4x Kiora's Follower
4x Scavenging Ooze
4x Selective Memory
4x Utopia Sprawl
3x Garruk Wildspeaker
2x Kiora, Master of the Depths
4x Intruder Alarm
8x Forest
2x Island
4x Breeding Pool
4x Hinterland Harbor
3x Eldrazi Temple
3x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Memory Scourge is a U/G deck that aims to win using card advantage and synergy, entirely eschewing many cards traditionally seen as playable in the format. Despite all the ramping we do, I don't really see the list as a traditional ramp deck, since the aim is to play tons of medium sized threats instead of one huge one. The enabler and pivotal piece here is the usually-useless Selective Memory. However, when combined with the deck's signature Eternal Scourges and Torrent Elementals, it essentially reads: Draw seven cards, all of which are good creatures. That is absurd. We can also take out all the other copies of Selective Memory from our deck whenever we cast one, and we do.
The Elementals themselves are our main wincon, allowing the cheaper Scourges to swing in unimpeded. Often, we can obliterate our opponent in one or two hits once we assemble a decent boardstate. Without Eternal Scourge, the list wouldn't be nearly as effective in the midgame. Any spot removal becomes an Unsummon against one, and they are therefore almost certain to trade for other creatures or hit face if our opponent doesn't have any sweepers. The Torrent Elementals are fairly resilient, since they survive Lightning Bolt, laugh at Path to Exile, and are essentially uncounterable due to the 'put into play' nature of their ability. Though, we only run three because if you haven't won after playing three of them onto a board already full of Scourges, your opponent deserves their victory. Of course, you can also just cast any copies of either you happen to draw. Below is a card-by-card breakdown of the rest of the deck.
Arbor Elf plus Utopia Sprawl: These two combine to form our main ramp engine, allowing us to hit four mana on turn two and compete with those new-fangled Eldrazi decks. Both also work well individually. This is the same combo utilized by Green Nykthos Devotion.
Kiora's Follower: Arbor Elf in bear form. Can also untap Torrent Elementals so they can be used to block right away.
Scavenging Ooze: Scooze's ability to perform in modern midrange decks is already proven. In this list, it has the added bonus of allowing us to recast any Scourges or Elementals that have hit the graveyard while growing in the process.
Garruk Wildspeaker Another card common in ramp decks, especially in ones with lands that can tap for more than one mana. The beast tokens and mass pump effects are also super useful. An extremely good value.
Kiora, Master of the Depths Replaces the fourth Garruk to lessen our chances of drawing multiples (plus the second one). Her first ability is often better than Garruk's in this deck, but her other two aren't nearly as good.
Intruder Alarm: Almost every time you see one of these, it's in conjunction with something like Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker so you can go infinite, but not for us. Here, its use is twofold. First, it ramps like nobody's business with our mana dorks. With the right combination of cards, we can use this to easily play all our Scourges and an Elemental in one turn. Second, it puts a damper on our opponent's offensive and defensive capabilities, forcing them to play creatures to untap anything that attacked last turn or was tapped down by an Elemental. Meanwhile, we run a spell which tutors for seven creatures. Just be sure to save one to play (or a Garruk activation) for after combat to keep your creatures blocking ready. In multiples, we can stack our mana effects in between the untap triggers to further double our mana acceleration, so we play four.
Breeding Pool: It is important to note that these count as Forests for our ramp cards.
Eldrazi Temple and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx: These two lands both have the ability to tap for multiple mana by themselves. The temple is more consistent, since it doesn't require us to have a devotion-laden boardstate, but we can only use the extra mana on Scourges. Meanwhile, the shrine's mana can be spent on anything, but it's legendary, and we need at least four green pips on board for it to net us an advantage. So, we have a three-three split.
The sideboard is a work-in-progress, and any tips would be appreciated. Other than Relic of Progenitus for graveyard-centric or control matchups and Fracturing Gust for Affinity, I'm not sure what the deck would need post-board. Thoughts on improving the main deck are also more than welcome. Match results will also be posted eventually, once I play some events. Then, I'll turn this thread into a full primer.