I ran an advanced search for this combo and found nothing. So that leads me to believe one of two things, either people have found it difficult to optimise and realized it wasnt woth it or, I'm the first to discover it! (ok It's probably because this combo is just fail, but I think it could still be worth looking into.)
Hellcarver Demon was played in a janky Rock deck back in Rise to drop the Eldrazi as early as turn four. It was impressive when it worked but highly inconsistant.
Restore Balance is played with some success today in modern and from what I understand quite a bit more when it was extended. The only problem that I have with it is the Borderposts.
Combine the two cards and in one foul swoop you have hit your opponent for 6, knocked then down to 1 creature, put them at 0 land and emptied there hand.
So the combo seems strong, but how do we make it consistant? And even harder, how do we make it fast?
Ramp options
The borderposts, like I stated above, I'm not a fan of. I've played them in restore balance and just don't like them.
Lotus bloom is a great sounding choice and looks to be a staple in a lot of decks.
The talismans from the original Mirrodin block seem ok, but a bit slow. However, they can provide mana since hellcarver blows up all our own lands. But they also ruin the consistancy of cascade.
I like this idea, in principle. Hellcarver is just janky combo-tastic.
Getting to Hellcarver
The first big problem I see is one you already mentioned, which is getting a Hellcarver out fast enough to matter. Casting him on turn 4 is certainly too late, unless you can greaves him up or use something like a Battle Rampart to give him haste or use something like a Renegade Doppelganger to copy him the turn he comes in. If you're not swinging with him until turn 5, you've probably already lost to any Zoo, Fish or Elf variants, and there's a very high probability that any combo/storm deck has gone off in your face.
So turn 3 is as late as we ever want to cast him, unless we've got a big suite of hand and board disruption already on tap to keep the opponent from combo-ing out or red-zoning us while we get up up to speed. With 3BBB for casting cost, even an aggressive ramp shell is going to be a little hard pressed to get that much fixing and ramp at the same time. Lotus Bloom isn't going to be available until turn 4, so that's probably not a really good option. Pentad Prism is one less common but very useful possibility, but even that seems pretty unreliable, as you'd need that plus another source of ramp, to cast the demon on 3. You can get this done with enough mana dorks, fetchlands, Lotus Cobra, and the right combinations of Explore, Harrow and maybe Khalni Heart Expedition. But again, that requires a lot of things to go just right.
That leaves cheating him into play early. Quicksilver Amulet and its friend Elvish Piper might be an option. You could semi reliably drop either on turn 3, possibly even activating the amulet, as you can now run off of non-triple color mana (including via a Tron-like manabase or a storm style manabase which uses red-sorcery ramping). But for Amulet or Piper to work you also need a Hellcarver in hand. That's adding up to a lot pieces (ramp, 'carver, Piper/Amulet) that we need right off to make that work.
Green Sun Zenith is banned, and Chord of Calling starts with GGG, making it almost as bad as the demon itself, so those are probably non-starters.
Postmortem Lunge is similar to GSZ and Chord, but is (P/B) rather than GGG. We don't really care about Lunge's downside, as we're going to hopefully win off the Hellcarver's reveal. So this could work in a ramp plus dredge or discard shell. 6 Mana and 2 Life on turn 3 is within possibility, as long as we can get the Hellcarver in the bin and the Lunge in hand, and have enough ramp. That's a fair number of moving parts, but this could be doable.
Summoning Trap would be perfect, if we could rely on our opponent countering one of our early plays. Unfortunately, a lot of decks can't or won't oblige us that, making this a back up strategy at best. On the upside, the 4GG is probably easier to get going than 3BBB, so it's a contender in a ramp oriented deck, and can also hit our other usual big killer of Emrakul.
Polymorph is a very strong option. It only takes a single ramp to get up to casting that on turn 3, with the drawbacks being that you need a target to polymorph, and your ramp and kill conditions are limited due to needing to not whiff with the casting of Polymorph.
Unburial Rites and Zombify are another possibility. Reanimation/Dredge decks have a pretty strong Modern showing. Unlike Polymorph, we don't need to worry about not having mana dorks to help ramp. The downside is that now we need both a reanimator and a Hellcarver in the bin by untap of turn 4 with a haste enabler, or preferably on 3 with some sort of ramp. You'll probably have to lean pretty heavily on self-targeted Tome Scouter, Glimpse the Unthinkable, and maybe even Memory Sluice to get stuff ready. There's a couple of downsides to this strategy. You may need a Noxious Revival in hand in order to get some of your kill conditions back. Also you're can't use the natural combo with Hellcarver of Emrakul, The Aeons Torn as any of the Legendary Eldrazi run the risk of reshuffling your Rites and Hellcarver back into library, ruining your plan, and you can't use Yixlid Jailer to stop that without also shutting off Rites. Zombify doesn't have the graveyard problems, but does need to be in hand. All in all, doable, but there's a lot of little gotchas.
The final option is to basically go the Jund or Grixis Control route and just build a deck that's extremely full of disruption, removal and/or control. With enough discard and removal and maybe some counters, you can hope to last through until you can get your Hellcarver combo off. I'm not a huge fan of this strategy in general, and both of those decks probably have better things to close the deal with than Hellcarver so I can't really offer a ton of insight into the idea.
My Pick:
Of all the options so far, I think I like the Polymorph one best as it requires the fewest number of moving pieces to come together. The downside of any Polymorph based strategy, however, is that you need your deck to be free of any creatures which are not game ending threats like Hellcarver or Emrakul, because wasting a turn 3 polymorph to get a Llanowar Elf is not going to win you games.
Khalni Garden is a traditional favorite for this, as you can leave it in the deck without influencing the chance that you'll hit something you don't want with the Polymorph. Expedition Map can fetch us the Garden early on, counting for Garden's numbers 5 through 8 if necessary, which should be enough.
We can also generate tokens via any sort of land, artifact sorcery, instant, enchant. Something we can play on turn 2 or earlier is ideal. Possible choices depend on the deck, but some of the follow should work.
Assuming we've got the Hellcarver out and ready to rock, the other half of the deck is making sure that when we swing in with the Hellcarver, we're going to reveal a hopefully game-winning combo in our top 6.
Creatures
If we're using Polymorph to cheat Hellcarver Demon into play, we're going to want to keep our creature selection very low. As mentioned earlier, the last thing we want to do is waste a Polymorph turning a token into a mana dork or other cheap beater we could have hardcast. There are fairly few other creatures sufficiently good enough that we want to pollute our chances of hitting a game winner when we Polymorph. The short list:
Emrakul, The Aeons Torn is pretty much our best possible creature flip. Hellcarver says we cast, not just play, so we get the extra turn. As a convenient side effect, he's pretty awesome even if we Polymorph into him directly. No extra turn, but a 15/15 Annihilator 4 for 4 mana is never anything to be sad about.
Hellcarver Demon - Flipping into another one of these is just fine. Two of them attacking at once will destroy each other, but give you two sets of 6 cards to cast.
If we're not using the Polymorph shell, then a fair number of other interesting options open up.
Iona, Shield of Emeria is one of the few I'd consider playing a 1 or 2 of in a Polymorph based deck, as she's a 2 turn clock post-Hellcarver, and a complete hoser to boot.
It that Betrays - Another one that could sneak in as a 1 of in a Polymorph deck, as again, it's quite fine to Polymorph into on turn 3 or 4.
Wurmcoil Engine - The 6th titan. Almost sneaks in as good enough for a Polymorph target, since it still gives 6 power on table if Polymorphed or sacrificed to Hellcarver.
Sun Titan - Helps rebuild our board, returning lands and any artifact ramp we might have.
Grave Titan - also gives you a strong board back, as 10 power plus the 6 from Hellcarver is a 1 turn clock after the first Hellcarver connects.
Sundering Titan - Another titan. Since Hellcarver killed our land anyway, there's no drawback here, and 7 damage is a a 2 turn clock.
Progenitus - A 10/10 pro everything is at most a 2 turn clock.
Board Clears
Restore Balance is obviously our main goal here, and is the whole reason we're looking at this combo in the first place. But we're only revealing 6 out of 60 cards, and sometimes things end up in places you don't want them (like your hand or the graveyard). Balance is also slow if we can't get a Hellcarver going, so having some other options might be nice.
Restore Balance If we put this on the stack last, we'll wipe our opponent's entire boardstate and hand except for a single creature (to match our Hellcarver). That's a trade we definitely want to make, since we'll have potentially up to 5 spells resolving after that.
Boom//Bust is basically Restore Balance numbers 5 through 8 for wrecking their mana base.
Day of Judgement provides similar destruction of their creatures at the cost of giving up your Hellcarver to whatever else you've flipped. Can obviously also be hardcast easily enough to buy time to get a Hellcarver combo off.
Phyrexian Rebirth clears their board and potentially gives you a blocker/attacker.
As a special note, Living End is not the best board clear if we're using the Polymorph shell, but if we're using a Reanimation or Ramp shell, then this could be pretty good, especially if we pair it with some way to make it one sided, like Relic of Progenitus, Leyline of the Void, or similar. If so, then it also acts as a sweeper, meaning we don't need to pack DoJs or the like. But even in the Polymorph shell, if we're also seeing a DoJ or Obliterate, we can stack it so that we get back the Hellcarver at least.
Other Possible Game Winners
Eldrazi Conscription - What's better than a 15/15 with Annihilator 6 swinging in on a free turn? How about a 25/25 with Annhilator 8 and Trample? Also especially funny with It That Betrays, bumping him up to Annhilator 4. Usable on the Hellcarver if he's going to survive the flip, or worst case any of our polymorph-bait tokens if we flip up a Lingering Souls or the like.
Flipping up another Polymorph is not the worst thing in the world. Hitting the Hellcarver for an untapped Hellcarver or an Emrakul is perfectly acceptable. Even a second Emrakul is not too bad; we still get the extra turn from the cast one, and the two of them going to the bin will reshuffle everything back into our deck for another go. Likewise, flipping up a Summoning Trap lets us dig another 7 cards through the library looking for an Emrakul or another Demon. Conveniently, both of those are core cards in our cheating in Hellcarver package.
Time Stretch is almost certainly a win condition if Hellcarver Demon is out. Time Warp doesn't quite give you the full clock by itself, but in combination with any other fattie it does. It's also hard castable if necessary, unlike Time Stretch which we're extremely unlikely to ever have the mana for. Relentless Assault is in most ways just as good as another Time Warp, letting us swing again with Hellcarver immediately.
Any planeswalker is a solid hit. Looking over our options, almost all of them are potentially okay, but anything which gives us a token, card draw, or lets us recover in other ways after a Hellcarver connects is worthy of attention.
Venser, the Sojourner - All 3 abilities relevant, but unblockable Hellcarver is probably most relevant.
Other Suspend Cards
As an interesting note, suspended cards will also live through the Hellcarver's sacrifice spree, letting your rebuild your cleared board. Suspendable cards of note:
Wheel of Fate - Rebuild your hand, possibly disrupt the opponent's if you couldn't Restore Balance.
Search for Tomorrow - 1CC ramp that potentially arrives just when you need it on turn 3, or lives past a Hellcarver to deliver you a land to a barren board.
Lotus Bloom - Post clear mana source, can also suspend on turn 1 in order to hardcast a Hellcarver on Turn 4.
Greater Gargadon - As in the Gargageddon deck, this lets you more usefully sacrifice your lands and any remaining tokens when you're about to clear them with Hellcarver anyhow. Also an excellent beater if you flip into it via Hellcarver or morph into it via Polymorph.
Restore Balance and Living End are also both suspend cards, but we've covered those elsewhere.
Noteable Utility
Since we're effectively a combo deck, we're going to need some card draw/tutor to fetch our pieces.
See Beyond - Deserves special mention. We have certain cards we need in our library so they can be exiled via Hellcarver Demon or found via Polymorph, not in our hand and preferably not in our graveyard. This lets us put Restore Balance, Emrakuls, Time Stretches, etc, back where they need to be: the library.
Serum Visions - With no Ponder or Preordain, this is the next best thing after See Beyond. Scry is going to help set up the Hellcarver combo.
Congreation at Dawn - This basically guarantees you're going to flip an Emrakul or any of your other game finishing creatures when Hellcarver hits. Probably more useful in a Ramp shell than a Polymorph one, where you might also be running Iona, Titans, etc.
Momentous Fall - We have a lot of huge creatures. Gaining 6 life and drawing 6 cards is good. Gaining 15 and drawing 15 is ridiculous, especially if this flips up via Hellcarver. Can be useful if two Emrakul's Flip up. Let one resolve, resolve the Momentous Fall, then let the other one resolve so there's no Legendary issues.
Diabolic Tutor and Increasing Ambition - These are rarely as good as Clutch of the Undercity for finding our combo pieces, but they are quite excellent for flipping up with Hellcarver.
Combo Protection
We're pretty dependent on a few things. Polymorph going off. Hellcarver connecting. And something like Restore Balance kicking off the Hellcarver so that we're not facing down an opponent's full board with nothing but a demon that's not immune to removal.
Cards that may be worth thinking about:
Ricochet Trap - Saves Polymorph or Restore Balance from most counters for R
Delay - A cheap counterspell that goes well with our suspend subtheme. A hard counter on many instants and sorceries, and if we're going to combo out anytime in the next 3 turns, more or less a hard counter for anything.
Okay, I think that's it for now. I spent far more time on this than I really intended to. Given I've been playing Gargageddon, I may try building this out and seeing how it plays. I suspect it's probably a turn too slow to really be reliably competitive. But it also looks like it could be a fun casual Modern deck.
On Mythic Rares: "What's next, Wizards will print six golden Black Lotuses and randomly place them in boosters, and if someone gets one, they get to tour the Wizards facility?"
I like this idea, in principle. Hellcarver is just janky combo-tastic.
Getting to Hellcarver
The first big problem I see is one you already mentioned, which is getting a Hellcarver out fast enough to matter. Casting him on turn 4 is certainly too late, unless you can greaves him up or use something like a Battle Rampart to give him haste or use something like a Renegade Doppelganger to copy him the turn he comes in. If you're not swinging with him until turn 5, you've probably already lost to any Zoo, Fish or Elf variants, and there's a very high probability that any combo/storm deck has gone off in your face.
So turn 3 is as late as we ever want to cast him, unless we've got a big suite of hand and board disruption already on tap to keep the opponent from combo-ing out or red-zoning us while we get up up to speed. With 3BBB for casting cost, even an aggressive ramp shell is going to be a little hard pressed to get that much fixing and ramp at the same time. Lotus Bloom isn't going to be available until turn 4, so that's probably not a really good option. Pentad Prism is one less common but very useful possibility, but even that seems pretty unreliable, as you'd need that plus another source of ramp, to cast the demon on 3. You can get this done with enough mana dorks, fetchlands, Lotus Cobra, and the right combinations of Explore, Harrow and maybe Khalni Heart Expedition. But again, that requires a lot of things to go just right.
That leaves cheating him into play early. Quicksilver Amulet and its friend Elvish Piper might be an option. You could semi reliably drop either on turn 3, possibly even activating the amulet, as you can now run off of non-triple color mana (including via a Tron-like manabase or a storm style manabase which uses red-sorcery ramping). But for Amulet or Piper to work you also need a Hellcarver in hand. That's adding up to a lot pieces (ramp, 'carver, Piper/Amulet) that we need right off to make that work.
Green Sun Zenith is banned, and Chord of Calling starts with GGG, making it almost as bad as the demon itself, so those are probably non-starters.
Postmortem Lunge is similar to GSZ and Chord, but is (P/B) rather than GGG. We don't really care about Lunge's downside, as we're going to hopefully win off the Hellcarver's reveal. So this could work in a ramp plus dredge or discard shell. 6 Mana and 2 Life on turn 3 is within possibility, as long as we can get the Hellcarver in the bin and the Lunge in hand, and have enough ramp. That's a fair number of moving parts, but this could be doable.
Summoning Trap would be perfect, if we could rely on our opponent countering one of our early plays. Unfortunately, a lot of decks can't or won't oblige us that, making this a back up strategy at best. On the upside, the 4GG is probably easier to get going than 3BBB, so it's a contender in a ramp oriented deck, and can also hit our other usual big killer of Emrakul.
Polymorph is a very strong option. It only takes a single ramp to get up to casting that on turn 3, with the drawbacks being that you need a target to polymorph, and your ramp and kill conditions are limited due to needing to not whiff with the casting of Polymorph.
Unburial Rites and Zombify are another possibility. Reanimation/Dredge decks have a pretty strong Modern showing. Unlike Polymorph, we don't need to worry about not having mana dorks to help ramp. The downside is that now we need both a reanimator and a Hellcarver in the bin by untap of turn 4 with a haste enabler, or preferably on 3 with some sort of ramp. You'll probably have to lean pretty heavily on self-targeted Tome Scouter, Glimpse the Unthinkable, and maybe even Memory Sluice to get stuff ready. There's a couple of downsides to this strategy. You may need a Noxious Revival in hand in order to get some of your kill conditions back. Also you're can't use the natural combo with Hellcarver of Emrakul, The Aeons Torn as any of the Legendary Eldrazi run the risk of reshuffling your Rites and Hellcarver back into library, ruining your plan, and you can't use Yixlid Jailer to stop that without also shutting off Rites. Zombify doesn't have the graveyard problems, but does need to be in hand. All in all, doable, but there's a lot of little gotchas.
The final option is to basically go the Jund or Grixis Control route and just build a deck that's extremely full of disruption, removal and/or control. With enough discard and removal and maybe some counters, you can hope to last through until you can get your Hellcarver combo off. I'm not a huge fan of this strategy in general, and both of those decks probably have better things to close the deal with than Hellcarver so I can't really offer a ton of insight into the idea.
My Pick:
Of all the options so far, I think I like the Polymorph one best as it requires the fewest number of moving pieces to come together. The downside of any Polymorph based strategy, however, is that you need your deck to be free of any creatures which are not game ending threats like Hellcarver or Emrakul, because wasting a turn 3 polymorph to get a Llanowar Elf is not going to win you games.
Khalni Garden is a traditional favorite for this, as you can leave it in the deck without influencing the chance that you'll hit something you don't want with the Polymorph. Expedition Map can fetch us the Garden early on, counting for Garden's numbers 5 through 8 if necessary, which should be enough.
We can also generate tokens via any sort of land, artifact sorcery, instant, enchant. Something we can play on turn 2 or earlier is ideal. Possible choices depend on the deck, but some of the follow should work.
Assuming we've got the Hellcarver out and ready to rock, the other half of the deck is making sure that when we swing in with the Hellcarver, we're going to reveal a hopefully game-winning combo in our top 6.
Creatures
If we're using Polymorph to cheat Hellcarver Demon into play, we're going to want to keep our creature selection very low. As mentioned earlier, the last thing we want to do is waste a Polymorph turning a token into a mana dork or other cheap beater we could have hardcast. There are fairly few other creatures sufficiently good enough that we want to pollute our chances of hitting a game winner when we Polymorph. The short list:
Emrakul, The Aeons Torn is pretty much our best possible creature flip. Hellcarver says we cast, not just play, so we get the extra turn. As a convenient side effect, he's pretty awesome even if we Polymorph into him directly. No extra turn, but a 15/15 Annihilator 4 for 4 mana is never anything to be sad about.
Hellcarver Demon - Flipping into another one of these is just fine. Two of them attacking at once will destroy each other, but give you two sets of 6 cards to cast.
If we're not using the Polymorph shell, then a fair number of other interesting options open up.
Iona, Shield of Emeria is one of the few I'd consider playing a 1 or 2 of in a Polymorph based deck, as she's a 2 turn clock post-Hellcarver, and a complete hoser to boot.
It that Betrays - Another one that could sneak in as a 1 of in a Polymorph deck, as again, it's quite fine to Polymorph into on turn 3 or 4.
Wurmcoil Engine - The 6th titan. Almost sneaks in as good enough for a Polymorph target, since it still gives 6 power on table if Polymorphed or sacrificed to Hellcarver.
Sun Titan - Helps rebuild our board, returning lands and any artifact ramp we might have.
Grave Titan - also gives you a strong board back, as 10 power plus the 6 from Hellcarver is a 1 turn clock after the first Hellcarver connects.
Sundering Titan - Another titan. Since Hellcarver killed our land anyway, there's no drawback here, and 7 damage is a a 2 turn clock.
Progenitus - A 10/10 pro everything is at most a 2 turn clock.
Board Clears
Restore Balance is obviously our main goal here, and is the whole reason we're looking at this combo in the first place. But we're only revealing 6 out of 60 cards, and sometimes things end up in places you don't want them (like your hand or the graveyard). Balance is also slow if we can't get a Hellcarver going, so having some other options might be nice.
Restore Balance If we put this on the stack last, we'll wipe our opponent's entire boardstate and hand except for a single creature (to match our Hellcarver). That's a trade we definitely want to make, since we'll have potentially up to 5 spells resolving after that.
Boom//Bust is basically Restore Balance numbers 5 through 8 for wrecking their mana base.
Day of Judgement provides similar destruction of their creatures at the cost of giving up your Hellcarver to whatever else you've flipped. Can obviously also be hardcast easily enough to buy time to get a Hellcarver combo off.
Phyrexian Rebirth clears their board and potentially gives you a blocker/attacker.
As a special note, Living End is not the best board clear if we're using the Polymorph shell, but if we're using a Reanimation or Ramp shell, then this could be pretty good, especially if we pair it with some way to make it one sided, like Relic of Progenitus, Leyline of the Void, or similar. If so, then it also acts as a sweeper, meaning we don't need to pack DoJs or the like. But even in the Polymorph shell, if we're also seeing a DoJ or Obliterate, we can stack it so that we get back the Hellcarver at least.
Other Possible Game Winners
Eldrazi Conscription - What's better than a 15/15 with Annihilator 6 swinging in on a free turn? How about a 25/25 with Annhilator 8 and Trample? Also especially funny with It That Betrays, bumping him up to Annhilator 4. Usable on the Hellcarver if he's going to survive the flip, or worst case any of our polymorph-bait tokens if we flip up a Lingering Souls or the like.
Flipping up another Polymorph is not the worst thing in the world. Hitting the Hellcarver for an untapped Hellcarver or an Emrakul is perfectly acceptable. Even a second Emrakul is not too bad; we still get the extra turn from the cast one, and the two of them going to the bin will reshuffle everything back into our deck for another go. Likewise, flipping up a Summoning Trap lets us dig another 7 cards through the library looking for an Emrakul or another Demon. Conveniently, both of those are core cards in our cheating in Hellcarver package.
Time Stretch is almost certainly a win condition if Hellcarver Demon is out. Time Warp doesn't quite give you the full clock by itself, but in combination with any other fattie it does. It's also hard castable if necessary, unlike Time Stretch which we're extremely unlikely to ever have the mana for. Relentless Assault is in most ways just as good as another Time Warp, letting us swing again with Hellcarver immediately.
Any planeswalker is a solid hit. Looking over our options, almost all of them are potentially okay, but anything which gives us a token, card draw, or lets us recover in other ways after a Hellcarver connects is worthy of attention.
Venser, the Sojourner - All 3 abilities relevant, but unblockable Hellcarver is probably most relevant.
Other Suspend Cards
As an interesting note, suspended cards will also live through the Hellcarver's sacrifice spree, letting your rebuild your cleared board. Suspendable cards of note:
Wheel of Fate - Rebuild your hand, possibly disrupt the opponent's if you couldn't Restore Balance.
Search for Tomorrow - 1CC ramp that potentially arrives just when you need it on turn 3, or lives past a Hellcarver to deliver you a land to a barren board.
Lotus Bloom - Post clear mana source, can also suspend on turn 1 in order to hardcast a Hellcarver on Turn 4.
Greater Gargadon - As in the Gargageddon deck, this lets you more usefully sacrifice your lands and any remaining tokens when you're about to clear them with Hellcarver anyhow. Also an excellent beater if you flip into it via Hellcarver or morph into it via Polymorph.
Restore Balance and Living End are also both suspend cards, but we've covered those elsewhere.
Noteable Utility
Since we're effectively a combo deck, we're going to need some card draw/tutor to fetch our pieces.
See Beyond - Deserves special mention. We have certain cards we need in our library so they can be exiled via Hellcarver Demon or found via Polymorph, not in our hand and preferably not in our graveyard. This lets us put Restore Balance, Emrakuls, Time Stretches, etc, back where they need to be: the library.
Serum Visions - With no Ponder or Preordain, this is the next best thing after See Beyond. Scry is going to help set up the Hellcarver combo.
Congreation at Dawn - This basically guarantees you're going to flip an Emrakul or any of your other game finishing creatures when Hellcarver hits. Probably more useful in a Ramp shell than a Polymorph one, where you might also be running Iona, Titans, etc.
Momentous Fall - We have a lot of huge creatures. Gaining 6 life and drawing 6 cards is good. Gaining 15 and drawing 15 is ridiculous, especially if this flips up via Hellcarver. Can be useful if two Emrakul's Flip up. Let one resolve, resolve the Momentous Fall, then let the other one resolve so there's no Legendary issues.
Diabolic Tutor and Increasing Ambition - These are rarely as good as Clutch of the Undercity for finding our combo pieces, but they are quite excellent for flipping up with Hellcarver.
Combo Protection
We're pretty dependent on a few things. Polymorph going off. Hellcarver connecting. And something like Restore Balance kicking off the Hellcarver so that we're not facing down an opponent's full board with nothing but a demon that's not immune to removal.
Cards that may be worth thinking about:
Ricochet Trap - Saves Polymorph or Restore Balance from most counters for R
Delay - A cheap counterspell that goes well with our suspend subtheme. A hard counter on many instants and sorceries, and if we're going to combo out anytime in the next 3 turns, more or less a hard counter for anything.
Okay, I think that's it for now. I spent far more time on this than I really intended to. Given I've been playing Gargageddon, I may try building this out and seeing how it plays. I suspect it's probably a turn too slow to really be reliably competitive. But it also looks like it could be a fun casual Modern deck.
:o... I had never expected this much imput. So let me start off by saying, Thank you so much.
Ok, so back on topic. I completely forgot about Polymorph. I'll agree that it does seem to be the fastest way to drop our demon. But doesn't it needs a lot of colors to run? Blue for the polymorph. Red for spawning breath. Green for khalni garden. and we are already running black and white. (I guess polymorph could drop the black.) Any other thoughts or is 5 colors fine? (perhaps im just over annalyzing this.)
I also love the idea of summoning trap. With that I could play the deck as originally intended, Janky mid-range lock-out control. Rock has always been a fun deck to play so throwing combo in there makes it seem that much better.
Ok so now time to start working on deck lists. If you happen to come up with any thing before I do, I would love to see it.
As DaR said you are going to want some draw to dig out your pieces, and I think, especially if you have Hellcarver in hand, you'd like to run Peer Through Depths in order to find any of the combo pieces you don't have in hand. Serum Visions is also really good.
it is possible to get him out turn one with a Breach deck. You need a red source, either 2 Simian Spirit Guides or a Guide and a Pyretic Ritual, the Seething Song, Through the Breach and Hellcarver himself. It is six cards all on turn one, but it is in theory possible.
Another good thing about Through the Breach, besides the possible godhand turn one, is that in conjunction with Restore Balance you could run Barren Glory since Hellcarver will be sac'ed at end of turn. Your opponent shouldn't have much of a board to be able to handle Barren Glory, so you can wait for your opponents turn to finish and then win off of the Glory trigger.
Anyway, that's my bit about this idea, good luck to you whatever route you choose to build it.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Why don't you join me at the Table? I'm always up for a game.
I championed Hellcarver when he was Standard legal, winning quite a lot of games and getting several local players to build it.
I ported him to Modern and Legacy ages ago, and Restore Balance was one of my main targets in both ports.
4x Summoning Trap is a must. If They counter Hellcarver, you trap into another Hellcarver, an Eldrazi/Iona/etc. If you hit Trap with Demon, you Trap for free into another Deom/Eldrazi/etc. If you don't have a Demon, you ramp into Trap blah blah blah.
Liliana Vess is solid as a repeatable Vampiric Tutor that conveniently drops the turn before Hellcarver.
I've used Wildspeaker in every build I've ever made. If you run Blue instead of Green, he isn't necessary, but the ramp is also nice.
DaR said pretty much everything I would've said, but I do want to say this: For anybody who thinks this is a janky combo deck that's fun but not tournament viable, you don't understand what Hellcarver does. Mind's Desire for 6 wins games.
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Slowly breaking.
Any more of this, and Team Troll will be more than just a name.
So what is the best route to go? I do like the Summoning trap but when I test played it I had trouble making it fast enough. Turn 5 demon is still too slow, even with pentad prism and lotus bloom it lacked consistancy. I know its a bad card but what about commune with nature? It digs 5 for demon and kitchen finks sounds good too...
What is your current deck list? Maybe if we knew what you were running in its entirety we would be able to make more targeted suggestions to help you out.
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Why don't you join me at the Table? I'm always up for a game.
I'm still having trouble casting either demon or trap before turn 4 or 5 and my lightning storm deck is consistant turn 3-4 wins, Along with melira combo being extremely previlant in my area. I just need to make this faster...
Sadly no disruption. I'm starting to look at the Postmortem Lunge Option, as that deck wouldn't actually need any Black mana in it. Green Ramp to six as fast as possible, Toss Hellcarver into the graveyard and BAM we are good!
Sadly no disruption. I'm starting to look at the Postmortem Lunge Option, as that deck wouldn't actually need any Black mana in it. Green Ramp to six as fast as possible, Toss Hellcarver into the graveyard and BAM we are good!
Your polymorph list could have room for control. I think Emrakul is kind of a win more here, and eldrazi conscription is deffinatly win more. The deck is cheap to build and that is another big part of its attractability. You could drop Emrakul for maelstrom pulse adding some control and it flows when we combo, (demon reveals balance and pulse = complete opponent field whipe.) and then drop the conscription for remand (or similiar counter.)
I'm going to try this out, (if I can find the pulses...)
I like the green list too (Llanowar Mentor is a good idea), but with only one way to pitch hellcarver it seems a little shaky... we'll just have to test it though!
I like the green list too (Llanowar Mentor is a good idea), but with only one way to pitch hellcarver it seems a little shaky... we'll just have to test it though!
Well we don't have to pitch hellcarver due to the fact we are ramping to six, and summoning trap is also six. The real goal of the deck is to ramp to six and win. I threw the mentor in there cause it seemed convenient. If I can find something better to replace it I'm sure I'll drop it.+
I think it's hilariously fun, but a whiff off of a Breached Hellcarver basically is game over, but I haven't whiffed too often with it. As I had mentioned previously it is possible to play Hellcarver turn 1, but it requires a godhand, so on average turn 3 or 4 is when i got out either a demon or Emrakul.
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Why don't you join me at the Table? I'm always up for a game.
I think it's hilariously fun, but a whiff off of a Breached Hellcarver basically is game over, but I haven't whiffed too often with it. As I had mentioned previously it is possible to play Hellcarver turn 1, but it requires a godhand, so on average turn 3 or 4 is when i got out either a demon or Emrakul.
Looks really good. How consistant is droping hellcarver? I guess with the other fat in your list you don't need just demon... So out of curiousity, how many times have you played this and what's your reccord? Even the kitchen table stats are good at this point. lol. How many times have you trolled someone with Barren Glory?
Like I said I don't always need to drop Hellcarver, but my average for dropping the demon or my eldrazi around turn 3-4. I play in a meta where people play some pretty fast decks, or decks that slow down the opponent. Burn and affinity destroy me. I've played at least 20 games so far. I've been having an average of 2 wins out of every 3 games.
I've won with Barren Glory only twice. Since my land base costs me a fair amount of life, there have been a couple times I've hit barren glory off of the demon trigger, but looked at my opponents field and found Emrakul or another hellcarver was a better choice, if i didn't also hit restore balance. Also, it just feels really good to play a turn one Emrakul over Barren glory sometimes.
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Why don't you join me at the Table? I'm always up for a game.
If you want to go the Polymorph route, one last token generator I haven't seen mentioned is Wand of the Elements from Darksteel. Seems like it's good enough.
Hellcarver Demon was played in a janky Rock deck back in Rise to drop the Eldrazi as early as turn four. It was impressive when it worked but highly inconsistant.
Restore Balance is played with some success today in modern and from what I understand quite a bit more when it was extended. The only problem that I have with it is the Borderposts.
Combine the two cards and in one foul swoop you have hit your opponent for 6, knocked then down to 1 creature, put them at 0 land and emptied there hand.
So the combo seems strong, but how do we make it consistant? And even harder, how do we make it fast?
Ramp options
Lotus bloom is a great sounding choice and looks to be a staple in a lot of decks.
The talismans from the original Mirrodin block seem ok, but a bit slow. However, they can provide mana since hellcarver blows up all our own lands. But they also ruin the consistancy of cascade.
Sphere of the suns and coldsteel heart seem to be much like the talismans.
Consistansy
I'm lacking a lot in this department...
So now I am at an impass and need assistance to build what could be a fun to pilot and hysterical combo deck. Imput would be greatly appreciated.
Getting to Hellcarver
The first big problem I see is one you already mentioned, which is getting a Hellcarver out fast enough to matter. Casting him on turn 4 is certainly too late, unless you can greaves him up or use something like a Battle Rampart to give him haste or use something like a Renegade Doppelganger to copy him the turn he comes in. If you're not swinging with him until turn 5, you've probably already lost to any Zoo, Fish or Elf variants, and there's a very high probability that any combo/storm deck has gone off in your face.
So turn 3 is as late as we ever want to cast him, unless we've got a big suite of hand and board disruption already on tap to keep the opponent from combo-ing out or red-zoning us while we get up up to speed. With 3BBB for casting cost, even an aggressive ramp shell is going to be a little hard pressed to get that much fixing and ramp at the same time. Lotus Bloom isn't going to be available until turn 4, so that's probably not a really good option. Pentad Prism is one less common but very useful possibility, but even that seems pretty unreliable, as you'd need that plus another source of ramp, to cast the demon on 3. You can get this done with enough mana dorks, fetchlands, Lotus Cobra, and the right combinations of Explore, Harrow and maybe Khalni Heart Expedition. But again, that requires a lot of things to go just right.
That leaves cheating him into play early. Quicksilver Amulet and its friend Elvish Piper might be an option. You could semi reliably drop either on turn 3, possibly even activating the amulet, as you can now run off of non-triple color mana (including via a Tron-like manabase or a storm style manabase which uses red-sorcery ramping). But for Amulet or Piper to work you also need a Hellcarver in hand. That's adding up to a lot pieces (ramp, 'carver, Piper/Amulet) that we need right off to make that work.
Green Sun Zenith is banned, and Chord of Calling starts with GGG, making it almost as bad as the demon itself, so those are probably non-starters.
Postmortem Lunge is similar to GSZ and Chord, but is (P/B) rather than GGG. We don't really care about Lunge's downside, as we're going to hopefully win off the Hellcarver's reveal. So this could work in a ramp plus dredge or discard shell. 6 Mana and 2 Life on turn 3 is within possibility, as long as we can get the Hellcarver in the bin and the Lunge in hand, and have enough ramp. That's a fair number of moving parts, but this could be doable.
Summoning Trap would be perfect, if we could rely on our opponent countering one of our early plays. Unfortunately, a lot of decks can't or won't oblige us that, making this a back up strategy at best. On the upside, the 4GG is probably easier to get going than 3BBB, so it's a contender in a ramp oriented deck, and can also hit our other usual big killer of Emrakul.
Polymorph is a very strong option. It only takes a single ramp to get up to casting that on turn 3, with the drawbacks being that you need a target to polymorph, and your ramp and kill conditions are limited due to needing to not whiff with the casting of Polymorph.
Unburial Rites and Zombify are another possibility. Reanimation/Dredge decks have a pretty strong Modern showing. Unlike Polymorph, we don't need to worry about not having mana dorks to help ramp. The downside is that now we need both a reanimator and a Hellcarver in the bin by untap of turn 4 with a haste enabler, or preferably on 3 with some sort of ramp. You'll probably have to lean pretty heavily on self-targeted Tome Scouter, Glimpse the Unthinkable, and maybe even Memory Sluice to get stuff ready. There's a couple of downsides to this strategy. You may need a Noxious Revival in hand in order to get some of your kill conditions back. Also you're can't use the natural combo with Hellcarver of Emrakul, The Aeons Torn as any of the Legendary Eldrazi run the risk of reshuffling your Rites and Hellcarver back into library, ruining your plan, and you can't use Yixlid Jailer to stop that without also shutting off Rites. Zombify doesn't have the graveyard problems, but does need to be in hand. All in all, doable, but there's a lot of little gotchas.
The final option is to basically go the Jund or Grixis Control route and just build a deck that's extremely full of disruption, removal and/or control. With enough discard and removal and maybe some counters, you can hope to last through until you can get your Hellcarver combo off. I'm not a huge fan of this strategy in general, and both of those decks probably have better things to close the deal with than Hellcarver so I can't really offer a ton of insight into the idea.
My Pick:
Of all the options so far, I think I like the Polymorph one best as it requires the fewest number of moving pieces to come together. The downside of any Polymorph based strategy, however, is that you need your deck to be free of any creatures which are not game ending threats like Hellcarver or Emrakul, because wasting a turn 3 polymorph to get a Llanowar Elf is not going to win you games.
Khalni Garden is a traditional favorite for this, as you can leave it in the deck without influencing the chance that you'll hit something you don't want with the Polymorph. Expedition Map can fetch us the Garden early on, counting for Garden's numbers 5 through 8 if necessary, which should be enough.
We can also generate tokens via any sort of land, artifact sorcery, instant, enchant. Something we can play on turn 2 or earlier is ideal. Possible choices depend on the deck, but some of the follow should work.
As backups, Kher Keep, Moorland Haunt, and Zombie Infestation are all repeatable, cheap (or land drops) and don't interfere with Polymorph. Lingering Souls and Timely Reinforcements are more expensive, but deserve honorable mentions for sheer value. One other possibility is Wind Zendikon, letting your land be the target for the Polymorph.
As a backup, Summoning Trap mainboard and Zombify in the sideboard seem like a good idea. Torrent of Souls or Unburial Rites can also fill that slot, depending on colors. Proteus Staff has also seen play in some Modern Polymorph Decks.
Post Hellcarver
Assuming we've got the Hellcarver out and ready to rock, the other half of the deck is making sure that when we swing in with the Hellcarver, we're going to reveal a hopefully game-winning combo in our top 6.
Creatures
If we're using Polymorph to cheat Hellcarver Demon into play, we're going to want to keep our creature selection very low. As mentioned earlier, the last thing we want to do is waste a Polymorph turning a token into a mana dork or other cheap beater we could have hardcast. There are fairly few other creatures sufficiently good enough that we want to pollute our chances of hitting a game winner when we Polymorph. The short list:
If we're not using the Polymorph shell, then a fair number of other interesting options open up.
Board Clears
Restore Balance is obviously our main goal here, and is the whole reason we're looking at this combo in the first place. But we're only revealing 6 out of 60 cards, and sometimes things end up in places you don't want them (like your hand or the graveyard). Balance is also slow if we can't get a Hellcarver going, so having some other options might be nice.
As a special note, Living End is not the best board clear if we're using the Polymorph shell, but if we're using a Reanimation or Ramp shell, then this could be pretty good, especially if we pair it with some way to make it one sided, like Relic of Progenitus, Leyline of the Void, or similar. If so, then it also acts as a sweeper, meaning we don't need to pack DoJs or the like. But even in the Polymorph shell, if we're also seeing a DoJ or Obliterate, we can stack it so that we get back the Hellcarver at least.
Other Possible Game Winners
Eldrazi Conscription - What's better than a 15/15 with Annihilator 6 swinging in on a free turn? How about a 25/25 with Annhilator 8 and Trample? Also especially funny with It That Betrays, bumping him up to Annhilator 4. Usable on the Hellcarver if he's going to survive the flip, or worst case any of our polymorph-bait tokens if we flip up a Lingering Souls or the like.
Flipping up another Polymorph is not the worst thing in the world. Hitting the Hellcarver for an untapped Hellcarver or an Emrakul is perfectly acceptable. Even a second Emrakul is not too bad; we still get the extra turn from the cast one, and the two of them going to the bin will reshuffle everything back into our deck for another go. Likewise, flipping up a Summoning Trap lets us dig another 7 cards through the library looking for an Emrakul or another Demon. Conveniently, both of those are core cards in our cheating in Hellcarver package.
Time Stretch is almost certainly a win condition if Hellcarver Demon is out. Time Warp doesn't quite give you the full clock by itself, but in combination with any other fattie it does. It's also hard castable if necessary, unlike Time Stretch which we're extremely unlikely to ever have the mana for. Relentless Assault is in most ways just as good as another Time Warp, letting us swing again with Hellcarver immediately.
Brilliant Ultimatum and Cruel Ultimatum could both be good, but are probably uncastable unless you hit them via Hellcarver.
Any planeswalker is a solid hit. Looking over our options, almost all of them are potentially okay, but anything which gives us a token, card draw, or lets us recover in other ways after a Hellcarver connects is worthy of attention.
Other Suspend Cards
As an interesting note, suspended cards will also live through the Hellcarver's sacrifice spree, letting your rebuild your cleared board. Suspendable cards of note:
Restore Balance and Living End are also both suspend cards, but we've covered those elsewhere.
Noteable Utility
Since we're effectively a combo deck, we're going to need some card draw/tutor to fetch our pieces.
Combo Protection
We're pretty dependent on a few things. Polymorph going off. Hellcarver connecting. And something like Restore Balance kicking off the Hellcarver so that we're not facing down an opponent's full board with nothing but a demon that's not immune to removal.
Cards that may be worth thinking about:
Okay, I think that's it for now. I spent far more time on this than I really intended to. Given I've been playing Gargageddon, I may try building this out and seeing how it plays. I suspect it's probably a turn too slow to really be reliably competitive. But it also looks like it could be a fun casual Modern deck.
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:o... I had never expected this much imput. So let me start off by saying, Thank you so much.
Ok, so back on topic. I completely forgot about Polymorph. I'll agree that it does seem to be the fastest way to drop our demon. But doesn't it needs a lot of colors to run? Blue for the polymorph. Red for spawning breath. Green for khalni garden. and we are already running black and white. (I guess polymorph could drop the black.) Any other thoughts or is 5 colors fine? (perhaps im just over annalyzing this.)
I also love the idea of summoning trap. With that I could play the deck as originally intended, Janky mid-range lock-out control. Rock has always been a fun deck to play so throwing combo in there makes it seem that much better.
Ok so now time to start working on deck lists. If you happen to come up with any thing before I do, I would love to see it.
Thank you again for all the imput.
it is possible to get him out turn one with a Breach deck. You need a red source, either 2 Simian Spirit Guides or a Guide and a Pyretic Ritual, the Seething Song, Through the Breach and Hellcarver himself. It is six cards all on turn one, but it is in theory possible.
Another good thing about Through the Breach, besides the possible godhand turn one, is that in conjunction with Restore Balance you could run Barren Glory since Hellcarver will be sac'ed at end of turn. Your opponent shouldn't have much of a board to be able to handle Barren Glory, so you can wait for your opponents turn to finish and then win off of the Glory trigger.
Anyway, that's my bit about this idea, good luck to you whatever route you choose to build it.
BB Zombie Horde BB
WUBSpirits and TokensBUW
BB Chainer, Master of Death BB
RUG Animar, Lord of Artifacts GUR
I ported him to Modern and Legacy ages ago, and Restore Balance was one of my main targets in both ports.
4x Summoning Trap is a must. If They counter Hellcarver, you trap into another Hellcarver, an Eldrazi/Iona/etc. If you hit Trap with Demon, you Trap for free into another Deom/Eldrazi/etc. If you don't have a Demon, you ramp into Trap blah blah blah.
Liliana Vess is solid as a repeatable Vampiric Tutor that conveniently drops the turn before Hellcarver.
I've used Wildspeaker in every build I've ever made. If you run Blue instead of Green, he isn't necessary, but the ramp is also nice.
DaR said pretty much everything I would've said, but I do want to say this: For anybody who thinks this is a janky combo deck that's fun but not tournament viable, you don't understand what Hellcarver does. Mind's Desire for 6 wins games.
Any more of this, and Team Troll will be more than just a name.
I know where you post.
So what is the best route to go? I do like the Summoning trap but when I test played it I had trouble making it fast enough. Turn 5 demon is still too slow, even with pentad prism and lotus bloom it lacked consistancy. I know its a bad card but what about commune with nature? It digs 5 for demon and kitchen finks sounds good too...
BB Zombie Horde BB
WUBSpirits and TokensBUW
BB Chainer, Master of Death BB
RUG Animar, Lord of Artifacts GUR
4x kitchen finks
4x Summoning Trap
4x Restore balance
4x Serum Visions
3x peer though depths
2x Spoils of the vault
4x Remand
3x Lotus Bloom
24x lands
I'm still having trouble casting either demon or trap before turn 4 or 5 and my lightning storm deck is consistant turn 3-4 wins, Along with melira combo being extremely previlant in my area. I just need to make this faster...
4x Restore Balance
4x Eldrazi Conscription
4x Emrakul, The Aeons Torn
4x Summoning Trap
4x Flayer Husk
4x Beckon Apparition
4x Turn Aside
Sadly no disruption. I'm starting to look at the Postmortem Lunge Option, as that deck wouldn't actually need any Black mana in it. Green Ramp to six as fast as possible, Toss Hellcarver into the graveyard and BAM we are good!
EDIT: Here it is.
4x Restore Balance
2x Eldrazi Conscription
2x Emrakul, The Aeons Torn
4x Summoning Trap
4x Arbor Elf
4x Explore
4x Llanowar Mentor
4x Utopia Sprawl
I like your enthusiam! And your lists!!
Your polymorph list could have room for control. I think Emrakul is kind of a win more here, and eldrazi conscription is deffinatly win more. The deck is cheap to build and that is another big part of its attractability. You could drop Emrakul for maelstrom pulse adding some control and it flows when we combo, (demon reveals balance and pulse = complete opponent field whipe.) and then drop the conscription for remand (or similiar counter.)
I'm going to try this out, (if I can find the pulses...)
I like the green list too (Llanowar Mentor is a good idea), but with only one way to pitch hellcarver it seems a little shaky... we'll just have to test it though!
Well we don't have to pitch hellcarver due to the fact we are ramping to six, and summoning trap is also six. The real goal of the deck is to ramp to six and win. I threw the mentor in there cause it seemed convenient. If I can find something better to replace it I'm sure I'll drop it.+
4 Hellcraver Demon
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Progenitus
4 Simian Spirit Guide
Instants
4 Seething Song
4 Through the Breach
3 Pyretic Ritual
4 Peer Through Depths
Sorceries
4 Restore Balance
2 Artful Dodge
3 Serum Visions
4 Barren Glory
Lands
4 Watery Grave
4 Steam Vents
1 Blood Crypt
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
4 Summoning Trap
2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Iona, Shield of Emeria
3 Shinx of Steel Wind
3 Inkwell Leviathan
I think it's hilariously fun, but a whiff off of a Breached Hellcarver basically is game over, but I haven't whiffed too often with it. As I had mentioned previously it is possible to play Hellcarver turn 1, but it requires a godhand, so on average turn 3 or 4 is when i got out either a demon or Emrakul.
BB Zombie Horde BB
WUBSpirits and TokensBUW
BB Chainer, Master of Death BB
RUG Animar, Lord of Artifacts GUR
Looks really good. How consistant is droping hellcarver? I guess with the other fat in your list you don't need just demon...
I've won with Barren Glory only twice. Since my land base costs me a fair amount of life, there have been a couple times I've hit barren glory off of the demon trigger, but looked at my opponents field and found Emrakul or another hellcarver was a better choice, if i didn't also hit restore balance. Also, it just feels really good to play a turn one Emrakul over Barren glory sometimes.
BB Zombie Horde BB
WUBSpirits and TokensBUW
BB Chainer, Master of Death BB
RUG Animar, Lord of Artifacts GUR
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