First off, very good points LtGlitter and Picelli89. I think the big things to take out of this are that Repeal and Venser, and Mystical Teachings could all very well have a place in the deck.
Reforge the Soul This is nice, but also doesn't have the same effect as Time Reversal. For one , the miracle portion of it will probably never come into play because we are drawing so many cards each turn. It does have some applications though. The double red in the cost would be a problem for the deck because as a red splash you would only run a single mountian if you could. Of course you only play this when there is a Dictate down, but then you have no red mana for anything else that you splashed. Lastly there is no reusing your Early Harvests or other spells that have already been used in your combo. This limits the number of cycles that you can untap with the combo. It is an option, but it has even more downsides than Time Reversal.
Past in Flames (esp with Reforge the Soul) This is probably the best option for a red splash. There are really only two downsides with it. 1) is that it involves a color splash in a deck that only runs basics. I suppose you could maybe run a Scalding Tarn but that is still iffy... 2) is that once you use a flashbacked card it is gone. With this deck you need to use each card 3-4 times by cycling them with Time Reversal. It is not always fesable to win with just two uses of an untapping spell, although it can work in some scenarios. Basically this is the most piratical and consistent card we could add in a red splash.
Manamorphose We are not trying to make a storm count. We don't need to produce specific colors of mana. There is really no reason for playing something like this is we are not playing storm. There are much better things we can be running that help the deck at 2 cmc.
Lotus cobra The deck runs basic lands, and it is not making landfall triggers. It also gets hit by the opponents removal. If we play as few creatures as possible then we can blank some removal. There are also better mana-producing creatures that could be run.
Ricochet Trap This is a possible sideboard card if we palyed a red splash. I can add it to the color splashes section once I get around to finishing it. Good suggestion.
Also some questions:
What is the deck's fundamental turn? It is whenever it resolves a Dictate on the opponents endstep and then untaps. You can ususally win on that turn. That being said, Dictate costs 5, and with a Sakura-Tribe Elder or Search for Tomorrow you can win as early as turn 4 or 3 if you have a god-hand. The most consistent win is somewhere between turn 4 or 5 depending on how the game plays out. It is trying to be streamlined to have a turn 4 win since that is the crucial turn in Modern.
Are we soft to scapeshift/twin/control? A bit yes, but we pack our own counters and ways to both protect our combo and disrupt theirs. In all honesty these matchups have not been tested in-depth enough to give a 100% solid answer.
How common/fast are wins without a mana doubler? There isn't really a win without one. They are the cornerstone of the deck because you need 45+ mana to have the opponent draw their deck. They are the only real way to produce that much mana when going off. It will be more clear when I am finished the "How to Play" section which should be done soon.
I developed neo-Heartbeat for like three months testing against a competitive field so I have a very good cognition of the engine behind the deck.
Eventually I found out that the reliance on Heartbeat combined with the symmetrical effect and the susceptibility to enchantment removal (Nature's Claim and the likes) makes the combo turn quite fragile, and the loop of continuosly generating mana with untap effect can fizzle in certain situations- it's just not a mathematically safe way to win.
At first I thought that Dictate of Karametra could solve these issue being at instant-speed, but I realized that five mana is really a lot to ask for in Modern.
If I can give you some tips anyways, play four Blue Sun's Zeniths. They are your combo engine and an incredible topdeck against grindy strategies. Moreover, the fact that both BSZ and Harvest are instant-speed lets you do some cute things like drawing four in response to an instant spell (Remand, Cryptic, Bolt, and so on). This usually puts you very ahead against blue-based decks. BSZ is also excellent after having been hit by multiple discard spells like Jund.
I think that I have already experienced a lot of what you are talking about here. 5 mana is a lot for the Dictate, but at the same time any control deck in Modern can get to turn 5 or 6. UWR, Tempo Twin, and Blue Moon to name a few... It isn't hard to stall even a few threats and then then be able to win on the spot.
As far as playing 4 Blue Sun's Zenith, yes it is the #1 card that makes us combo off, but it is also extremely bad if we draw it in multiples. With the shuffle clause that the card has, you don't need to play multiples because it will keep on being recycled after each use. We see enough cards in our library that we will always have a way to retrieve it after drawing say 10 cards. Which brings me to my next point. We only need to use it when X=10+. Anything else will be a waste of mana, so playing multiples will have you cast each of them for less mana compared to just one for a lot. The deck wants to be very flexible, even in a toolboxy kind of way. I have looked into upping the number of BSZ, but the best results have came form playing 1.
Merchant Scroll is nice, but it slows down things furtherly. I'd rather have the BSZ in hand most of the time, since it's the spell you will be Scrolling for 90% of the time, and Cyclonic Rift isn't worth justifying Merchant Scroll. I see that you have geared your list towards Reality Spasm, but with a single mana-doubler out Scrolling for spasm to untap 4 lands costs 8 and brings a total additional mana of..zero. How many times can you count on the fact that you have multiple Heartbeats out to break Spasm? You're likely to go on with just one at least for two loops (I hope you get what I mean).
Spasm is there for when you have a dictate down. It acts as Early Harvests 5-6, and it the mana it gives is (Number of Lands*2)-(2+Number of Lands). So for example if you have 6 lands on your turn after playing the dictate you will get 4 mana. This doesn't seem like a lot, but it still has applications outside of just land untapping. The whole point is that you can stop aggro coming your way, as well as tap opponents lands on their upkeep for a Time Walk like effect. Generally you only use Reality spasm when you are comboing off, not when you have to scroll for it.
On the other hand, Rude Awakening is an excellent Early Harvest #2 for redundancy as well as another angle of winning with the deck that exploits your land acceleration; from 5 lands on, RA untaps for more mana than RS.
You could easily bait removal or tapping out with Dictate/Snapcaster in their eot, untap and swing with 2/2 lands if your opponent has gone down enough life.
2 copies ensure that you have greater likeliness of not fizzling through the combo turn, otherwise you're fully reliant on finding Harvest.
Rude Awakening is nice, but it really only has one application. I'm looking for cards that can be more flexible in the deck. Nevertheless, it is an option to look into. I can't see the 2/2 land portion ever being very relevant unless some sweet Biorhythm tech is used. But that is for a different deck.
Urban Evoluton and Time Reversal are respectively too slow and too risky.
Urban Evolution is amazing for continuing your combo. It helps get rid of all the dead land draws that you get. The additional cards also give you just what you need to keep going. Paired with something to manipulate the top of the deck creates a really powerful play. I have never been unhappy to draw one, but they are on the expensive side. This could be avoided by playing Explore. I have a feeling the additional card draw would be missed though.
I think you are missing the point of Time Reversal, because it is one of the powerhouses in the deck. Casting it at 5 mana, draws the same amount of cards as casting a BSZ for 10 mana. It reuses the graveyard, so you can get up to 4 uses per spell compared to 2 if we payed something like Past in Flames. It is extremely risky to play, but if you resolve one and draw even any gas to continue your combo you can win almost every time. Additionally, it hoses any kind of a graveyard deck, such as Melira Pod, Living End, Dredgevine, Gifts, and Goyfs to name a few which is the kind of additional uses that we are looking for. 90% of the time you will be casting it when you have 15-20 mana in your pool, and 1 or 0 cards left in hand, so it is easy to empty your new hand and continue to combo.
Try to retool the deck so that you can accomodate more mana acceleration and slightly more disruption. 4 Remands are not going to give you a chance against other proven control-combo decks (like Twin and Scapeshift). You can try a couple of Repeals which fit very well in the deck. You can also bounce Snapcaster mage mid-combo to rebuy a card you need.
Post-board Terminus plan is neat. Kudos for that, didn't think about it; I still fear it will be more cute than effective and inferior to just picking Firespout.
Yeah, the newer lists have been packing 1-2 Cryptic Commands, and my new favorite card in this deck; Rewind. Swan Song has also been looked at as a 1-of because it protects from everything that this deck could possibly have a problem with.
The only thing about Repeal is that we don't have the kind of ramp the way U Tron does, so getting ahead of the curve and tapping out for a turn to repeal something could be a problem. Although when we are going off it would be amazing, so it can be something to look into. Snapback gives us a similar effect at a card-disadvantage, but no mana investment when we are in trouble.
Thanks for the input for the deck. I've been looking over all your advise and will make changes where appropriate.
My guess is that he wanted another boardwipe that could kill larger creatures but also hit Affinity. In other words, that he used it as the "5th O-Stone" instead of All is Dust.
I would say this is why I'd choose to run it, and the other applications are cute frosting. You can't really deny the results. It's not something to mindlessly copy, but it's an interesting call. Seems like a lot of people on MTGSal are good armchair deck readers, but if you're literally not able to see the application or understand why that guy would want to play it, that speaks more to their ability.
Lets just look at some scenarios though:
If you draw it at any point in the game when you are not prepared to cast it, then it is a sub-optimal boardwipe that is sitting in your hand. By the time you cast it for anything large enough to wipre the board, lets say 5 mana when X=2, you might as well have dropped an Ostone, or cast Pyroclasm.
1) If you miracle it and choose to cast it in the first few turns you will be not using any search in order to assemble Tron, which is the main goal of the deck. You will most likely be casting it for 2-3 mana, meaning you could have just been playing a Pyroclasm or Firespout.
2) If you draw it in the midgame, say at 3 lands, you either have Tron assembled and need a sphere/star to cast it which is very well possible, but chances are you already had to use them to cast your Ancient Stirrings or Sylvan Scryings in order to get Tron. Otherwise you have 2 tron pieces and a Grove or something which isn't ideal. If you were at 4 lands by this point, then you could either be casting All is Dust, O-Stone, or this all with the same amount of mana. If for some reason you are on four lands and don't have tron yet, you will be casting a more expensive Firespout.
3) In the lategame this will shine. You will probably have 10-11+ mana and be able to cast it easily for 10+. Hopefully if they have taken some damage from lands then it will take a single swing from a Wurmcoil to kill them. At the same time, I wouldn't mind casting an Ulamog or Sundering Titan and doing the same effect damage wise. If I needed to wipe the board, the it wouldn't be hard to dig for an O-stone or All is Dust and be able to do the same thing for less mana and less chance of having to miracle it.
The point is that trying new things is good, yes. But you have to weigh the pro's and con's of everything and determine if it would be overall better than something else. There were only a couple of really vague situations, but they were more or less the overall situations that arise when playing Gr Tron.
Many creatures in the format with 3 toughness and 4. Bonfire can be pumped to that level, increasing the ability to wipe creatures without resorting to the full O-stone.
It's also a capable finisher when you're digging. Crack an egg on their turn for red, top deck that, tap your two towers, mine, and power plant and put 11 to their dome.
I think it's very interesting and worth taking for a spin. When I played in the Portland PTQ last weekend, there were a few cards in my 75 that underperformed and I'm always willing to try new things.
There are several problems with this. One it isn't colorless, so we can't find it off of Ancient Stirrings, and it isn't a creature so Eye of Ugin is out of the question. If you want to cast it for 7 (which will kill basically every creature in Modern) then you need 3 urza lands and a Grove. This is the same const as an O-stone. If you don't have Tron online, you can drop the stone and use it the next turn. With Bonfire, you don't really have that option because once it is in your hand you will be forced to pay double for the same amount of damage. Also there are lots of times that it can get into our hand when we are chaining mana rocks in a turn. If you accidentally draw it then you are basically screwed and at that point having a Banefire is basically better.
You shouldn't be worrying about their life either, all the threats in Tron will kill them fast enough weather they have 30 life or 10. So all it is really useful for is the boardwipe. All is Dust and O-stone are the best options for these because they are colorless, and kill everything regardless of the mana spend (which is equal to the amount that you would need for Bondfire).
In fact Repeal is bad against Twin because post-board you can't afford to pay four mana to bounce a Pestermite and you never ever would want to bounce a Snapcaster or a Clique. Perhaps you can keep a 1-of against TarmoTwin because of Tarmogoyfs, but against the straight UR version I'd suggest cutting out all of those.
-1/2 Solemn Simulacrum
-1 Platinum Angel
-1 Wurmcoil Engine (if playing two)
-2 Remand on the draw
-1 Cyclonic Rift
-1 else (I'd suggest Oblivion Stone as it's poor here)
Ok, that's how I was boarding, for the matchup for the most part already. I figured that any artifacts maindeck would just be wrecked by Ancient Grudge. Is there any value to bringing in Ætherize? It would stop them if they tap out for a Splintertwin on turn 4, but I don't think they would be dumb enough to do that without some countermagic backup.
Also, on the post advice for splinter twin, never side remand out against twin. It's most important function is at stopping the turn 4 kill and letting you buy time to make land drops to play other spells. After that the games tend to drag on long so you can use remand on your own spells to gain advantage in counterwars. Also, repeal is great against Twin, but not on its own. Cards like remand and condescend buy you time early, then repeal gives you more options to stop them as the game goes on. I'm always pretty happy to see repeal against twin, especially if they try to go for a combo early you punish them and if they try to play around then you gain a lot of time. I generally find the CMC of repeal less relevant than just needing blue sources in the twin matchup.
This is what I did in my games vs Tarmo Twin. The problem was that he had no way of winning with Splintertwin, but I couldn't afford to waste counters on the Goyfs that were beating me down. As the game went further, we both just seemed to stock more and more counters hoping that he would resolve something through mine. It just seemed like I was stretched too thin from the different angles of attack to really deal with it all effectively. I could deal with one or the other really well, but both of them only mediocrly.
Vs. Twin, Dismember and Repeal are key. You have be playing 4 Remand MD and 3+ Dismember SB, imho. Always keep mana up to counter or bounce/remove guys.
What is your advice for playing vs Tarmo Twin? I had the most problem spreading my resources around trying to not be beat down by it, and still preventing their combo. The game I won vs it I had a mindslaver lock that git trough about 3 counters worth in a counter war. And the game I lost to it I never drew one because I sided out some of the search for more removal.
Also if we are on the draw game 2 (or 3), then how well does Repeal actually work? If you drop your 4th land on turn 4, then you can remove their Pestermite/Deciever in response at the end of the turn, but they still have a mana for Dispell. Similarly if they hit a 5th land drop by chance, then they still have their mana up, and unless you have 2 counterspells at this point, paying the 4 for Repeal won't allow you to have mana left for a counter. Are there scenarios that put us at an advantage without accelerating our mana turn 2 with a talisman?
You didn't add much to the discussion, so I guess I'll ask. How do you expect to play Slaughter Games without a black source from a land, mainly Llanowar Wastes? I know you're relying on using the Sphere and Star for black, but what if you don't have any, or have to use them earlier for a different color? I'm just wondering if it has been working out for you, because since you are only running 3 creatures that can be hit by Path to Exile you really don't need both Forests. You could probably cut one for a Wastes.
The response that you will probably get after being asked what deck you are playing at FNM this week will probably be followed by a quick "JUDGE!" or just a look of confusion. The fact is that we are not playing Green Sun's Zenith, but better yet Green's Sun's Zenith. The namesake of the deck comes from the green cards that are played in order to amass copious amounts of mana and finally win by forcing the opponent to draw their deck with a Blue Sun's Zenith.
Although this type of deck has been played before in the Kamigawa-Ravnica standard era, it is more well known for it's Legacy counterpart High Tide, which it is modeled after. The deck will constantly net positive mana and draw cards until it can win with a Blue Sun's Zenith, or a Brain Freeze with lethal storm. Since we only have access to one of these win conditions and almost no methods of generating mana in the same way, we can only take the ideas and playstyle of the deck into account when piloting this list.
If this idea intrigues you then read on and happy brewing!
This is one of the more unique decks that is attacking Modern by storm. Have you ever played High Tide in Legacy? Are you intrigued by the complexity of Legacy Ad nauseam Tendrils? Were you ever 'that guy' who played Eggs back in early 2013? If you answered yes to all or none of these questions then this deck is for you! It combines the complexity of Storm decks and it plays out like a puzzle that needs to be solved. The non-interaction of the combo turn may turn you off at first, but this is made for up by the fact that the deck is very interactive through all of the counterspells it runs. To best describe the deck would be to describe a mix between RUG Scapeshift, UR Storm, and Nykthos Green Devotion. It is a unique deck that is guaranteed to gather a crowd around your table and deliver some of the most fun games of Magic you will have ever played.
You will enjoy this deck if:
- You enjoy playing combo decks
- You want to play spells rather than creatures
- You want a rogue deck to take this weeks FNM by surprise
- You have a good understanding of the Modern format and your meta
- You are looking for a fun deck that can be built on a budget
You won't like this deck if:
- You want to play only creatures and turn them sideways
- You want to play a deck that could be pioleted by an untrained monkey
- You want to play a deck that is going to win the match in under 10 minutes
If any of these points have caught your attention then I highly advise trying out the deck. It offers lots of fun, can be built on a budget, and attacks Modern at a unique angle that is unlike any other deck being played right now.
The deck plays out much like High Tide in legacy because this is what we modeled it after. It is a combo-control deck that's main goal is to control the game and prevent threats until there is a surefire time to combo off and win in one turn. Unlike High Tide, we don't have access to Cunning Wish so playing a wishboard is out of the question. This means that we have to play all of our threats and win conditions mainboard, and this forces us to play the cards that both add to our combo and can add utility to protect it too.
The way the deck will play out will involve trying to amass as many land untapping spells as possible, and then draw a single Dictate. On the first turn it is probably in the best interest to cast Serum Visions, followed by a turn two Telling Time if you can. A good thing to take into account is that is that if the opponent is playing and discard spells you can stack the top of your library to draw the more important spells you need the turn after in order to avoid the discard. This creates a Brainstorm-like effect where we essentially 'hide' our cards on top of our library. Another thing to take into account when scrying is to think ahead to if you will be drawing a card before you next draw step. It is important to think about cards like Remand and Cryptic Command and how the will effect your scrying choices.
The next thing to take into account is that Modern is a turn 4 format. If you plan on dropping a Dictate on turn 5 then you won't have any countermagic backup to help you out. If you have one ramp spell prior to turn 5 you can cast a dictate with a single counterspell such as Swan Song, but having two counters is what we are aiming for. If we can set up some ramp in the form of Sakura-Tribe Elder and Search for Tomorrow on turns 2 or 3, then we will be in a position to cast the Dictate at the end of turn 4 and win on turn 5. This is the most common turn to win at, although not ideal, it works because we are able to delay others gameplans and push their winning turns back further.
In order to combo off we need to look for a couple of things. The first is at least one land untapping spell (but having two is going to ensure that you have more than enough mana to work with). The second is having at least one way to search up a Blue Sun's Zenith. This can be in the form of Snapacaster Mage and a Merchant Scroll or a Mystical Teachings. I have found that it is very easy to go off with only a resolved Dictate, two land untapping spells, and a tutor for Blue Sun’s Zenith.
The most efficient way I have found to go about comboing off is to cast both untapping spells, netting around 14-18 mana depending on if you made a 6th land drop or not. Assuming you are at the minimum, 14 mana, you can Blue Sun's Zenith yourself for 6 and hope to go off with the remaining cards you drew. Usually you will be able to grab a Snapcaster Mage or Early Harvest and regain all your mana.
If you can, try to not tap out all of your lands before casting an untapping spell. It may make sense to float all your mana so you can use dice or whatever to do the math of how much is left in your pool while going off, but this can lead to wanting to have lands left up when you are revealing additional Dictates off of Telling Times or Serum Visions. My main goal when going off is to always try to get at least one Dictate in play in between each untapping spell I play. If it is an Early Harvest, then it will take 8 mana, a Reality Spasm is typically 12 mana, and anything flashed back is two more. Using this method of comboing off I have only fizzled out about 2 in 50 goldfishes of the most current list from 08/10/2014.
When playing the more tempo list, a good idea is to try and use digging spells like Serum Visions and Telling Time to get as many Early Harvests into your hand as possible before turn 5. You can expect to set up some draws, but more often expect to just draw the counterspells that are needed to protect the combo. Once there is a way to get 5 mana, you can ship all of the additional lands and ramp cards to the bottom of your deck. You can do the same with singleton silver-bullet cards that you expect to have to tutor for mid combo. There are advantages to drawing a Blue Sun's Zenith, but if it is on turn 2 and it means that I would be missing out on additional tutors or Early Harvests then I will gladly put them on the bottom of my deck.
Remember that you are the control deck! Since this is a combo-control deck like High Tide, you need to me in the mindset that you are playing control. You are playing the permission, so make sure that you play out the way a control deck would. If you are planning on comboing out fast with nothing to contest it, play proactive. If you expect the opponent to try and counter your Dictate, or destroy it with a Qasali Pridemage etc… then play reactively.
Being proactive is a possibility when you know the opponents deck and know what to counter. If you hinder them beforehand enough then you won't even have a problem when you combo out. If you are more reactive, say when you are expecting the plethora of counters coming from Mono U Tron or UWR Control then just try to amass as many counterspells as possible. Usually 2 is enough, but then it pushes our winning turn back because we still need 5 for the Dictate and then some for the counters so be careful about that. Another option is to give an ultimatum through Determined, because you bait counters, and win if they don't deal with it.
The best way to figure out how to get the deck going is to try it out for yourself. You need to goldfish it as a start in order to learn the ins and outs of the combo. Knowing if you have enough land-untapping spells in hand, or if flashing back one will hurt you later is key. The complexity of the deck may be overlooked by some who think that it is just about resolving a Dictate or Heartbeat. Playing a list like the one mentioned in the primer will take a bit of practice to get right, but they pay-off and fun you can get out of the deck is unparalleled.
For this deck we are going to try to keep the land count to 18 or as low as possible, which is the same as legacy High Tide lists.
Forests & Islands: We need to play basics for our best land-untapping spell, Early Harvest. We play Forests for the ramp spells, and Islands for the dig spells. The deck plays more forests than islands because it plays more double green cards than double blue. With no dual lands a close to even split is needed to ensure that both colors are accessible.
Misty Rainforest: Playing a playset of fetchlands ensures that we can search up either color of mana that we need at any the given moment. Fetches are staples in almost every Modern deck, and this is no exception.
Gitaxian Probe : Almost all combo decks play them. It replaces the card for 0 mana, and gives us information on whether we can combo off or not. Depending on how combo-oriented you want the deck to be you can run them.
Serum VisionsU: This is the premier one mana cantrip spell in modern right now. It replaces a card and lets us potentially set up the next two turns worth of draws. Doesn't get much better than that.
Sleight of HandU: When comboing this is slightly better than Serum Visions, but not quite as good when you are trying to set up your combo. If you want to play with all around cheaper spells and try to cantrip through your deck rather than dig and grab spells one by one then I'd suggest running this.
Merchant Scroll1U: This is a reason why we can run 1-of's in the deck. It allows us to tutor for almost any situation that we are foreseeing, and prepare accordingly. The downside is that it takes a turn earlier in the game and if a 1-of gets discarded or exiled then we are doomed. It used to be played but has since fallen out of favour.
Gaea's Blessing1G: This is the single card that can cover almost all the faults in the deck. The first ability is one that can replicate the effects of Time Reversal by shuffling used Early Harvests and Reality Spasms back into the deck. If we go so far as to draw the whole thing with Blue Sun's Zenith, then we can ensure that the top three cards we draw in the deck would be what we shuffled in. This gives the potential for easily above 500 mana in our pool. The card replaces itself which is what we are looking for in our deck. It also gives us protection form milling strategies, which have proved to be a problem in the past when all of our singletons get milled. Overall it is a great card and a welcome addition to cover all the weak areas of our deck. It has a 4.5/5 on the Gatherer for a good reason, and to top it all off the art is by Rebecca Guay meaning it is near impossible to pass up playing.
Explore1G: This can be a tough call to include in the deck because we want to run such a low land count. Other than that it has what we are looking for in a cantrip, only one mana symbol in its cost, and lets us play any lands in out hand for the turn.
Search for Tomorrow2G: This is a card that has been proven in Scapeshift decks before. It is a great turn 1 play because the extra land drop it provides will allow us to go off on turn 3-4. Later in the game it provides extra lands for use to untap and keep netting more mana with.
Urban Evolution3GU: If Explore and Divination had a child, this would be it. This is a card that really helps push the combo over the top when we are going off. The extra draw can help us a lot when we are running low on cards, and the additional land drop will use any dead lands in our hands for the turn while we are comboing off because you will be drawing extras.
Time Reversal3UU: Ah, the mythic rare that was preordering for 30$ and has since dropped to 0.75$. It didn't quite please the hopes and dreams of players as the second coming of Time Spiral, or Timetwister, but it tries to do a good impression of the two in our deck. Drawing multiples is always going to be bad, and not drawing any when you have emptied your hand and have 20 mana in your pool is even worse. The truth about this card is that it is an extremely big gamble to play it. There is a high risk that you don't draw any action after casting it, and that you fizzle mid combo. As well as you can run too few of them in a deck which means that after you use them they are gone and you only have as any chances to win as copies you are playing the in the deck. It is a necessary poison, but the payoff is great... when it works.
Praetor's Counsel5GGG: At 8 mana this is a tough one to cast, but when it resolves you are pretty much guaranteed to win. Just remember that is is normally a dead card in your hand and that it makes you weak to graveyard hate.
Pact of Negation0: This is one of the riskier counters to play, but often times if you are using it to protect a mana-doubling effect then you will have more than enough mana to pay the cost on your next turn.
Swan SongU: This new counterspell deals with almost everything that can harm our gameplan. There are only a few creatures that can harm us, and the Swan token that it gives the opponent is not very relevant. It is one of the best 1 cmc counters we have access to.
Remand1U: This is by far the best counterspell in Modern when playing a tempo deck. It replaces itself and allows us to delay the opponent until we can win in a single turn.
Mana Leak1U: Although it is not a hard counter, it acts as one 90% of the time. This is the counter of choice if you really don't want to let something resolve, and the only downside is that it doesn't replace itself. I would only suggest running these after maxing out Remands in the deck and if you feel as though you still need more countermagic.
Delay1U: The forgotten counterspell from the Timespiral block. It may not be a hard counter like Remand, but it should leave their spell suspended long enough for us to win. Like Mana Leak it doesn't cantrip, so it is down to personal preference for which one you play. One is better early game and the other late game.
Cyclonic Rift1U: This is more of a panic button that we have to search up in order to deal with problematic perminants such as Eidolon of Rhetoric or Ethersworn Canonist. The overload cost can be relevant when we have extra mana and need to clear the board for some reason.
Telling Time1U: Because we can't play Brainstorm in Modern we have to try and find a good alternative that allows us to dig through our deck. It does a lot of work by allowing us to look at the top 3 cards in our library and cantripping. Since we need to see a lot of our library to find the right cards in order to combo off it's a great card for that reason.
Peer Through Depths1U: If you are looking to combo off on turn 4 and nothing else then play this in place of Serum Visions or Telling Time. It digs deeper to get what you want.
Early Harvest1GG: This is half the reason the deck exists. By untapping all of our lands it allows us to constantly generate more and more mana each time we cast one. It is the first land-untapping spell that you should always be looking for when going off.
Rewind2UU: This counterspell can get rid of a problem card coming our way and allow us to continue comboing off after. It is a good choice and an alternate to the blue mana heavy Cryptic Command that is the usual choice for decks at the 4 cmc spot.
Mystical Teachings3U: Great card because it lets us grab any card in the deck. The problem is that you will rarely find a window to tap out and cast this so it has fallen out of being played.
Cryptic Command1UUU: This is the go-to blue counter in Modern. If we could play it we would, but the decks manabase can't handle the triple blue cost early in the game. It is still a good tutor target when any of the various options are needed.
Plasm CaptureGGUU: If you can't afford Cryptic Command then this is a fine replacement. It is especially good when playing Mirror Sheen or Heartbeat of Spring version of the deck because you can use the mana from what you countered to play the enchantment and then be left over with all of your lands still untapped. The downside is that it is held back by both what your opponent chooses to cast, and its heavy mana requirements.
Dig Through Time6UU: The newest addition to the deck since Khans of Tarkir. It lets us esentally grab two of the three cards we need to combo, and can be regurally be cast for UU. There will regurally be 2-3 cards being put into the graveyard per turn, and during the combo you can spare some mana so that you don't delve away your Early Harvests.
Reality SpasmXUU: This acts as Early Harvest copies 5-8. It is less efficient in what it does, but once we have a mana doubling effect down it is almost as good. It can also tap down enemy lands to create a pseudo Time Walk effect, or enemy creatures for a Fog.
Blue Sun's ZenithXUUU: This is our wincon. The deck will try to win by having the opponent draw their deck with the ridiculous amounts of mana that we can produce. It also doubles as a way to keep on drawing cards while we are going off so that we can refuel our hand and generate as much mana as our deck will allow. Because of the tutoring power of Merchant Scroll and Mystical Teachings we only need to play one since drawing multiples would lead to dead draws.
The deck plays few creatures because there aren't many that help facilitate our gameplan. However that doesn't mean that there aren't any that we can play. Some of the better choices include...
Sakura-Tribe Elder1G: "Steve" allows us to get an extra land and represent a turn 3-4 win. His land comes in on the same turn as Search for Tomorrow (turn 3) but they do it in a different route. When going off always make sure to play him before and untapping spell in order to net positive mana. He also provides a body to chump with before you sack him for the land which can essentally 'gain' a few extra life that we aren't very good at protecting.
Snapcaster Mage1U: He represents a second chance at almost any card in our deck. Being able to flashback something when we are in trouble can really come in handy, or getting that extra untap effect when we need one more. It's been proven as a staple in Blue decks in almost every format since it's printing so it would almost be a waste not to play a couple.
Laboratory Maniac2U: This is an alternate win condition for when you can't target the opponent, or for when you can't safely allow them to draw their deck for one reason or another. Just be careful about protecting it so that it isn't removed before you draw with no cards in your library!
Eternal Witness1GG: This is a debatable creature in that it is harder to get a good net mana after you return an Early Harvest to your hand because it will take 9 total to play it, but perhaps a single copy can help from time to time.
All of the mana-doubling effects in the deck come from Enchantments. Although there are many options in Modern, only two really fit into the deck. The upside is that Enchantments are probably the hardest type of permanent to remove as most decks don't pact much hate for them.
Fertile Ground1G: A replacement for Sakura-Tribe Elder that shines in the Sheen version on the deck. It does everything Steve can do, and even gives immediate mana once we have 3 lands, but falls off once there are more than 1 mana-doubler in play. With the Sheen combo it makes infinite coloured mana which can be relevant to flashbacks of cards and other colours we splash for.
Mirror Sheen1(U/R)(U/R): The newest addition to the enchantment line-up doesn't double the mana our lands produce like the others, but it does something that neither of them can; it allows us to go infinite. By copying Early Harvest on the stack we can untap our lands until we have more mana than reasonable. With only 4 basic lands in play and 6 mana in our pool we can combo off which makes for consistent turn 4 wins. It allows for interactions like sending a Thoughtseize back at the opponent, or drawing our whole deck with a single Gitaxian Probe. Overall it allows us to play more non-basic lands in the deck and take it in a new direction which is good for the diversity of the archetype of this deck.
Heartbeat of Spring2G: This is the card that paved the way for mana doubling enchantments. At 3 mana it is the cheapest we can get in the format, but the downside is that our opponents will get the first use of its effect. Cards like Abrupt Decay, or Cryptic Command will be able to get rid of it and leave us not able to combo off while they probably dumped their hand with all of the extra mana. It can be good when we are going off and could use another mana-doubler for a reduced cost, but outside of this situation it will be too big of a target to for us to keep on the board until we can use it to its full potential.
Dictate of Karametra3GG: The reason we play this over other 5 cmc effects is for the keyword Flash. The big mana cost may turn some people away, but the real power of the card lies in casting it on the opponents endstep and being the first one to use the mana that it generates. Since we only need one turn to win the opponent will never have an opportunity to use the extra mana that they are given to try and disrupt us. The mana cost relies on hitting an early Sakura-Tribe Elder or Search for Tomorrow so that we can cast it on par with other combo decks in the format.
The deck has a couple of options for the sideboard, however the best cards that we can use come with splashing a third colour. White has the most options, followed by red which adds power to the maindeck at the cost of weakening our manabase.
DispelU: This comes in when you need additional cheap countermagic to protect your combo. It should really only be an addition to Swan Song, because it is hits less things and we don't worry about the swan token.
Spell PierceU: This isn't a hard counter, but it helps in the Tron and Affinity matchups. It can also stop the odd Birthing Pod, or other counterspells. It is really up for debate on which is better to run, this or Swan Song, though most of the time I would stick with the hard counters.
Squelch1U: This rather unknown card can make for some blowout plays. It is a two mana Wasteland that replaces itself, it stops Kiki-Jiki from comboing out, it hits Birthing Pod right in the value, it makes a Tron player look dumb when they sacrifice their Oblivion Stone and get nothing out of it. The examples can go on and on with how good the card can be. It is undervalued in Modern and the opponent should be punished for thinking that.
Snapback1U: This can be viewed as our panic button. It deals with troublesome creatures that we need to get rid of but can't afford to waste mana for. It is especially great against Ethersworn Canonist, or Eidolon of Rhetoric as you will have mana after to cast spells.
DeterminedGU: This is probably the only card that can combat Counterflux. It is slightly better than Autumn's Veil because it replaces itself, It is really up to you for which one to run, I personally would go with this.
Krosan Grip2G: If you really need an Artifact or Enchantment dead without any contest, then play this. The downside is that it is more expensive than any other option we have.
VoidslimeGGU: This is be be all end all of counterspells. It combines Counterspell, Stifle, and Squelch to create a counter that can hit anything. It is in out colours and has a reasonable cost. It is the best hardcounter in Modern for the purposes of protecting our combo.
Dismember1 : Similar to Snapback, we can deal with a troublesome creature for only one mana. Loosing the life will hurt, but if you have to use it then there is a pretty good chance that you would have lost more life in the long run anyways.
Leyline of Sanctity2WW: This is one of our most crucial sideboard cards. The deck is very vulnerable to targeteddiscard and other burn. This shuts those cards down and improves out bad matchups by 100%. It makes matchups such as Burn, UR Storm, and Ad nausiem near unwinnable for the opponent. Since almost every deck has something that targets you, whether it is discard, burn, or creatures such as Vendilion Clique, it creates a format where this card is always relevant. As a bonus, you don't even need to be playing White to have this in your sideboard. Just be playing with lots of luck.
Ætherize3U: This is a temporary fix to aggro decks. If you get a early extra land then you can cast it on turn 3 to gain a bit of time. The problem is that most decks you are using this on will be able to reassemble within a turn, so make sure you can end the game with your 'free' turn after casting it.
Venser, Shaper Savant2UU: Think of him as a counterspell that can stop Counterflux. Because it bounces a spell on the stack, something that is uncounterable is not a problem for him. He can be searched up through Mystical Teachings which just expands his utility. He competes at the 4 cmc slot with Cryptic Command so it is up to you on which is better to run.
The two most obvious colour splashes as a third colour are Red and White. Black has its place, but its implications are not as in-line or able to help the decks game plan as much. Because of this, it is probably the last colour to look into. Without further ado, the colours, what they have to offer, and select cards from each!
This colour probably has the most amount of options when looking into a third colour for the deck. It gives us access to direct damage burn which opens up a new way to win for the deck. It gives us creature removal as well, and also is pretty big on artifact removal which helps against Affinity, which is one of our worst matchups. Red also has the best cards with the Strom mechanic, because when going off we will often times easily have a storm count of over 30. The question then becomes why not just play UR Storm, which is not what we want the deck to devolve into.
Lightning BoltR: There is a reason this is the most played non-land card in Modern. It is so efficient in what it does that it almost makes us want to play it for the removal that it provides. In Modern it isn't uncommon for opponents to shock themselves below 15 with their own lands, so a couple Lightning Bolts cast and then flashed back can end a game rather quick. But since we don't rely on damage as our main win condition, it is narrower of a card than normal. Aside from hitting Planeswalker loyalty, the Bolts will be used for removal all of the time and thins means that we could be looking for better removal spells to do this job.
Flame SlashR: See Lightning Bolt above. This does 1 more damage for the same cost, and is hitting the same targets almost all of the time. I think that is most situations it is a better card to be playing, but don't consider it to be better than Lightning Bolt for an instant.
Grapeshot1R: This is an amazing kill card when we go off. Getting over 30 copies of it on the stack at once is near unbeatable, but at the same time UR Strom is a deck that is more tuned to winning with it. If we simply added it to the standard UG deck then whenever we drew it while not going off it could be considered a dead card. All it would do would be make winning faster, but comboing off less reliable. I think it should stick to Storm decks and get enough play before Wizards decides to ban the card itself.
Pyroclasm1R: This is the best damage to cost ratio we can get. Since we run a very low creaute count it just make it better. It is at it's height against decks like Melira Pod or GW Hatebears. Pod isn't much of a problem for us, but Hatebears is harder so if you feel there is a need for additional support then run this.
Ancient Grudge1R: Aside from destroying Affinity it is useful because the flashback cost is in one of our more accessible colors. If you are having a real problem playing vs the Robots decks then pack these and say goodbye to those losses forever.
Desperate Ritual and Pyretic Ritual1R: Although making mana is nice, we need far more than these two can offer. It could come in handy to get us above 5 so we can play an enchantment and go off in the same turn, but in the long run it is just not worth it.
Izzet CharmUR: All modes of this charm are useful for us. The counterspell mode is a pseudo-Spell Pierce which allows us to play more counters in the deck while still maintaining a level of versatility on every card. The damage can help us deal with small creatures that are causing problems. It kills all of the popular X/2 creatures like Leonin Arbiter, Master of the Pearl Trident, Phantasmal Image, Melira, Sylvok Outcast, Murderous Redcap, as well as all the X/1 creatures in Modern. Finally the looting mode can act as another copy of Telling Time in a way so we have better filtering to find our combo pieces. Duping the cards into the yard is not our first choice, but they are still accessible through Snapcaster Mage. Overall this is one of the most well-rounded card that we could play if we splash red.
Goblin ElectromancerUR: Even though he is a staple in UR Storm decks now, he could also find a home in ours. He wouldn't be there for saving mana when comboing off, but rather for making it easier to start the combo because once we get going mana is never an issue. The only problem that I foresee is that in a deck immune to creature removal, playing a creature to turn on all of their removal is just asking for trouble. I would never mind if he got hit by a Path to Exile, but anything ranging from Lightning Bolt to Abrupt decay will kill it and this opens up far too many removal spells vs our deck.
Firespout2(R/G): See Pyroclasm above. This is only better if you are playing against a lot of Big Zoo decks.
Electrolyze1UR: With the potential for 2-for-1's and drawing a card on top of that is what makes this such a powerful card. Out three drop spot is quite full, but the versatility of this card is always something to consider.
Cerebral Vortex1UR: A win condition that works with only around 20 mana, and it also can draw us some cards when we are in a pinch. I would prefer this over Grapeshot because of the versatility of this card.
CounterfluxUUR: This is a great card to be the be-all-end-all of counterspells. It protects the combo better than any other card, with the only problem being that the only deck you would need it against is UWR Control or U Tron. A better strategy vs these decks is to just amass more counters than them and overwhelm them in the counterwar. This keeps out maindeck with relevant spells for all matchups and more consistent with the colors it runs.
Empty the Warrens3R: This provides an alt-wincon in the form of creature damage. We will have more than enough storm to oneshot them with all of the tokens that are produced. You would only ever need this if for some reason the Blue Sun's Zenith isn't going to work. The only downside to the card is that the tokens will not have Haste and need a full turn to lose their summon sickness.
Past in Flames3R: This is a hopeful option for the deck. It works both from the yard and in our hand which is a good option to have. It can make for some cool interactions, such as flashing back an Increasing Vengeance to copy a flashed back Early Harvest and making more mana than you would ever need. It makes comboing off much easier because you won't have to rely on Snapcaster Mages to flash back Early Harvests to get that last bout of mana needed for a lethal Blue Sun's Zenith. The only downside is that each spell is exiled after being cast so you better be sure that you get the maximum use out of them as you will have no second chance.
Firemind's Foresight5UR: This is a different card. One of the junk rares that was cast aside from the Return to Ravnica block is one of the most powerful tutors for our deck. When cast, it is able to tutor for everything in one spell. The casting cost of 7 isn't a problem for us, and the main targets will be Blue Sun's Zenith or Early Harvest at 3 cmc, Reality Spasm or Merchant Scroll at 2 cmc, and whatever draw spell you require at 1 cmc. If you are playing red then including this as a one-of can pay off big.
Epic ExperimentXUR: This is another card that could have a place in the maindeck. Because our deck is almost all instants and sorceries as well as lands, we only need one untap after a resolved Dictate or Heartbeat to generate enough mana and go off. The upside of this spell over Blue Sun's Zenith is that you are not investing the mana twice. With Blue Sun's Zenith you pay to draw, then pay to use what you draw. This cuts it a step short, because you pay once and cast every spell you reveal at the same time. The downside is that everything else is put into the yard after, and our deck isn't the best at getting those cards back. The card is good enough that I think in a dedicated RUG shell it could put up some good results.
Playing a White splash as the third color for the deck opens up a lot of possibilities to help in areas that Green and Blue can't reach on the color pie. It has the most influence coming from the sideboard options that it offers, but because of this it lacks in maindeck options. Most of the cards that White offers are going to be flat-out hate cards that punish a certain deck, or they will be reactive cards to recover from our worse matchups.
SilenceW: This is similar to Autumn's Veil and Determined in the way that it protects your spells and allows you to combo off uncontested for the turn. What sets it apart from those two is that it can be used on the offensive on the opponents upkeep to stop them from advancing their boardstate for the turn. It used to be a sideboard favourite of past Eggs decks, and with both decks taking 20 minute turns why can't we play this too?
Kataki, War's Wage1W: If you really hate Affinity THAT MUCH then play this. I'm pretty sure there is a law against hating something this much though...
Stony Silence1W: Hate Affinity? Hate Tron? Hate Artifacts? Play this and you can cripple those decks to the point where you can combo off at your own leisure.
Rest in Peace1W: This would be a perfect card if it didn't hurt us too. Right now the deck is relying on Snapcaster Mage to flash back cards for the final bouts of mana. If we shut down the opponents deck completely, we will still have to be jumping through hoops to win which is never a fun time. Keep it in mind as a good card to combat graveyard decks, but remember that Leyline of the Void does the same thing and is asymmetrical.
Suppression Field1W: Since we don't have any activated abilities other than Sakura-Tribe Elder, we are mostly in the clear for playing this. It hurts Splinter Twin and Kiki-Jiki decks the most as they won't be able to combo out while this is on the field.
Ray of Revelation1W: If you need to destroy some Enchantments then this is a good card for it. The flashback is in one of our main colours which makes it easier to cast. I don't know if I would be playing it over something like Back to Nature if I was playing the enchantment hate for the Boggles matchup, but if you are being hit with a lot of discard then it might make for a good alternative to the latter.
Glittering WishGW: This is played in conjunction with what is called a wishboard. Basically we dedicate ~10 cards of our sideboard to multicolored silver bullet cards. Then when needed we can pull them into our hand. It is good because it allows us to play a toolbox style deck, with the only problem is usually having to cast the spell we fetch with it on the next turn. It is a powerful card, and the closest thing we have to Cunning Wish in Modern.
Ghostly Prison2W: Another card designed to hit aggro decks where it hurts, and they just happen to be our worst matchups. The opponent will still likely be able to swing through with one big creature, aka a Vault Skirge equipped with a Cranial Plating so watch out for that.
Oblivion Ring and Banishing Light2W: Speaking of exiling, this is another premiere choice. It hits everything in Modern from Emrakul to Liliana and because of this it is an amazing removal option for us to have access too.
Timely Reinforcements2W: If Burn, Zoo, and Affinity decks are really getting you down you can start siding this in to put a big dent in their game. The blockers it makes and life it gains are good buffers to buy us enough time to combo off. The card essentially reads "You gain 6 life. Put three 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens onto the battlefield." Who could pass up a card like that?
Detention Sphere1WU: An Oblivion Ring with the potential for 2-for-1's? Count me in! This is basically an improved O-ring and can be played beside the latter to get around cards like Maelstrom Pulse if need be, but these cases are few and far between. It is also a target if we are playing with Glittering Wish.
Bant CharmGWU: This is a pretty versatile card, maybe not on par with what Izzet Charm can do, but it still has relevant modes. The Artifact destruction is not that relevant to us, because if we board some we board a lot. The hardcounter is what we are looking for to protect ourselves when going off, and it can disrupt the opponents odd spell too. The creature tuck effect can also be relevant when we are being beaten down my an opposing Wurmcoil Engine, or when we need to stop a combo with Kiki-Jiki from happening. Overall it is a well rounded card for the white splash to have access to.
Leyline of Sanctity2WW: This is one of our most crucial sideboard cards. The deck is very vulnerable to targeteddiscard and other burn. This shuts those cards down and improves out bad matchups by 100%. It makes matchups such as Burn, UR Storm, and Ad nausiem near unwinnable for the opponent. Since almost every deck has something that targets you, whether it is discard, burn, or creatures such as Vendilion Clique, it creates a format where this card is always relevant. As a bonus, you don't even need to be playing White to have this in your sideboard. Just be playing with lots of luck.
Terminus4WW: With so many cards that can manipulate the top card of our library, playing the miracle mechanic should be looked forward too. Even though it is a Sorcery, it can be cast at instant speed when miracled which can surprise unsuspecting aggro decks. Because the creatures hit go on bottom, it hoses graveyard based creature decks such as Melira Pod, Goryo Reanimator, Dredgevine, and Living End to name a few.
Clarion UltimatumGGWWWUU: This here is a pretty splashy card that people only know exists because of the Ultimatum cycle. It would be a part of a wishboard, and come in as a game ending card. Basically, by fetching up any lands left in our deck as well as the last copies of Dictate of Karametra and Heartbeat of Spring. After resolving it we will be producing boatloads of mana and win shortly thereafter.
Sphinx's RevelationXWUU: If you are splashing white then this can be considered better than Blue Sun's Zenith. The lifegain is relevant and it does essentially the same job. If you are playing with your win conditions in your sideboard with Glittering Wish then it is a fine replacement to the traditional BSZ in the maindeck.
The list I will be using for all of the matchup write ups is the same decklist that can be found in the UG Dictate Tempo. I will try to update all of the matchups as the deck evolves, and give better descriptions and tips on the matchups. I won't be saying any matchup percents, as everyone will just caomplain and it's no worth arguing. If you have anything to say about my comments then take the deck to a tournament yourself and come back with a tournament report.
RG Tron: Tron is a really good matchup for us. Basically any control deck is going to have a good time against Tron. Unless they can get a nut draw and an explosive start you shouldn't have much of a problem. You can ideally take the match two ways; counter all of their big spells that they can only cast one of per turn, or try to disrupt their land fetching and mana rocks to prevent them from playing anything later. I like the first personally, but it has the risk of going to the late game where they can amass enough lands for Emrakul. Usually 1-2 Remands is enough to stall them until we can combo off. Since they can't do anything at instant speed you won't be contested very much.
Jund: This is a really hard matchup for us because we are a combo deck that needs 3 specific cards in our hand to combo off. They have so much disruption in the form of Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, and Liliana of the Veil that it is hard to come back form getting 1-2 crucial cards taken form your hand. We can try to negate this by using all of our cantrips to try and get multiple copies of what we need to replace what gets discarded, but then you have to give up ramping to 5 mana by turn 3-4. Without winning in a timely fasion the deck can't handle the efficient beaters that they play which put a quick clock on us. If you do manage to get to later in the game you have to watch out for Scavenging Ooze. Flashing back our expended Early Harvests are often needed to have a comfortable amount of mana to win with. Exiling them in response to a Snapcaster Mage really hurts. In the same fashion, I don't think I need to talk about what happens if they resolve a Slaughter Games... Your best bet to winning is getting a good start with ramp and avoiding as much discard as you can. For now, Leyline of Sanctity is the best bet to stall Jund long enough that we can combo off. It also blacks their Lightning Bolts that can punch through the last couple points of damage.
The Rock: Much like Jund, this is a problem matchup for us. They have all the same cards that ruin our day and to top it off, they often run more copies of Scavenging Ooze. All I can suggest is get a Leyline out and try to combo fast.
Twin/Tarmo Twin: Another even matchup. The game is to have countermagic that stops their combo and make sure we set ours up at the same time. It is pretty straightforward but we still have the potential to get blown out by things like a Deceiver Exarch preemptively tapping down one of our lands so we can't cast a Dictate or something like that. Our general sideboard really hurts the deck, with things like Squelch/Voidslime, Repeal, Ætherize, Dismember, etc... There shouldn't be a problem keeping their combo off of the table, but the real problem comes when some number of Tarmogoyfs are in play as they are had to kill and bouncing them only prolongs the inevitable. My advice is to focus on keeping anything Splinter Twin would enchant off of the table rather than countering the enchantment itself. In game 2 they'll all be boarded out so then look to take down the Goyf's and other things that are attacking you. The matchup shouldn't be too bad assuming you can get a couple of good counters in and avoid any Dispels that get sided in.
Burn: A lot of rogue decks have problems with Burn. Fortunately for us, not running any shocks makes them actually count to 7 which if they are a turn late it gives us time to combo off. A single Leyline of Sanctity can be the nail in the coffin, so don't be afraid to mulligan until you hit one if it means having them scoop on turn 0.
Melira Pod: This is a matchup that is pretty even but has the potential to swing in our favor. Keeping key pieces such as Birthing Pod off of the board is the top priority, as well as always respecting the fact that you could be hit by a Chord of Calling silver bullet. The ones that really hurt us are Reclamation Sage/Harmonic Sliver, Eidolon of Rhetoric, and Scavenging Ooze. All of these will really hurt our game plan, so be wary of a chord for 3 or more happening at any time. Aside from that you want them to not try to race you in their combo. The beat down plan will be too slow, so if you can convince them to commit to it then you will be very far ahead in the game. I have found that often times they will think we are on Scapeshift as any logical person would do, so even if they go to combo off they will try for infinite life. If you have multiple Dictates that you could play, don't be afraid to play them over the course of two turns if you don't feel threatened. Often times Pod will have more mana than they need and no be able to use all of it, which the extra mana we give them won't help with at all (just watch out for Gavony Township). Overall there are a few silver bullets that will hurt us, but they either can be Remanded or they will come out at sorcery speed giving us time to deal with them.
UWR Control: One of the harder matcups after side boarding but, but not unwinnable. The reason for this is because of their access to Counterflux, and how it stops our combo dead in its tracks. Aside from that they are going to be playing a very slow game, so don't be afraid to try and hit 7-8 lands before comboing off to ensure that you have the necessary counters to protect your Dictate. The only hard counters they have access to will be Cryptic Command. Things like Mana Leak or Spell Snare can put a little bump in front of us, but it should never be too much to stop us from winning. One card to watch out for is Shadow of Doubt as it prevents searching for the entire turn which is a circuital part of us comboing off. Always have mana up for this id you can. I'd even go so far as to suggest that if you are expecting a lot of UWR Control when you play that you should have Spell Snares somewhere in your 75. It hits half their deck and is still relevant in almost every other matchup at some point. Aside from that, always be ear of a possible Vendilion Clique hitting you on your draw step. Take this into account when using things like Serum Visions and maybe put the cards you want second from top so you don't draw them until the turn after. Same ting goes for Think Twice. If you have the mana to spend, use it in response and then leave the card you want on top, that way you don't draw it and have it taken away. My last tip is that they are not so great with using all of their mana. Don't be afraid to run out a Dictate and have it sit around for a couple of turns. All they will benefit from it is activating their Celestial Colonnade and then having too much left over. This will open you up to Snapcaster Mage -> Cryptic Command but you should be able to counter it on your own with all of your mana. Plus it will give you a really big head start when you start to combo off.
Affinity: Another bad matchup. The speed and different angles of attack that come out of this deck can be a real problem. Their threats are so cheap that we can't Remand any of them and come out ahead which leaves us with trying to combo off before we die. One really effective card that I have found is Repeal. It can be brought in from the sideboard to give big tempo swings on things such as Archbound Ravager or anything equipped with Cranial Plating. The biggest downside is not being able to hit Inkmoth Nexus, which is protected from everything in our mainboard except for Cryptic Command. Another personal favourite to deal with this, and about half of the entire deck is Squelch (or Voidslime, whichever you prefer really). It will stop the three aforementioned cards as well as Steel Overseer, Springleaf Drum, Mox Opal, and Blinkmoth Nexus; all while replacing itself. Sometimes that single turn worth of stalling is enough to get a Dictate down and combo off. One thing to be careful of in games 2 and 3 is the threat of Thoughtseize being sided in. If they get a early one on us it can take away a crucial piece of the combo, so all we can hope for is being able to recover from it really.
RUG Scapeshift: Oh hey it looks like we are playing a Scapeshift mirror! This is a pretty even matchup, and like any deck with blue in it, it will come down to who can win a big counterwar to resolve their game-winning spell. We are at a disadvantage here I feel because playing a Dictate with 5 mana and then holding up mana for a counter will put us at 7 lands. Conveniently the same amount that the other player will be trying to get to. The games usually come down to who can get a better ramp going and be ahead on lands since it's sort of the high ground advantage in a way. What I have found to work is trying to bait a counter out with an Early Harvest, and then flashing it back with a Snapcaster. This will also leave them vulnerable if they use what they had to protect their Scapeshift. Lastly the thing to remember is that they have more counterspalls than us. With Remand, Cryptic Command, and Izzet Charm there will be a lot more disruption coming from their end of the table. Use what you have wisely to out think them in the long run. A couple of tricks that can be done include Remanding a Search For Tomorrow when it comes off of suspend to make them cast it from their hand. You can also Voidslime a [card-Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle]Valakut[/card] trigger and be left with 3+ life while they have no followup.
- Before 02/08/2014 the thread up to page 8 will serve as an archive for what has been discussed card-wise. All changes that have been made to the primer before this date have since been lost. - 02/08/2014: Archived original deck that started the thread in the spoiler below. Updated cards: Mirror Sheen, Electrolyze, Praetor's Counsel, and Cerebral Vortex.
- 03/08/2014: Published version 1.0.0 of the Primer. - 17/08/2014: Added Plasm Capture, Sphinx's Revelation, and Fertile Ground to card choices. Updated sample decklists. Fixed some formatting and spelling. - 21/09/2014: Updated decklists, added some of the KTK cards with it. - 28/09/2014: Moved the sections around. Added Tier 1 matchup comments to the Matchup section. Added some cards, and rearranged/edited the sample decklists. - 09/10/2014: Edited the sections to list cards by cmc. Added cards. Changed UG Combo list and put up new lists for White and Red splashes. - 01/12/2014: Redid all of the sample decklists, added a black splash list, and removed some redundant and outdated cards in the primer.
Version 2 of the thread:
Green's Sun's Zenith
This primer is quite long, so if you want to skip it and get to the discussion about the deck then click here.
Credits to user Chalupacabra for ideas on the look of the primer.
Green Sun's Zenith? But that's banned in Modern! This is the response that you will probably get after being asked what deck you are playing at FNM this week. You also might want to bring your opponent a book of Sudoku games to do during the match. The namesake of the deck comes from the green cards that are played in order to amass copious amounts of mana before winning by forcing the opponent to draw more than their deck with a Blue Sun's Zenith.
Although this type of deck has been played before in the Kamigawa-Ravnica standard era, it is more well known for it's Legacy counterpart High Tide, which it is what it is modeled after.
If this idea intrigues you then read on and happy brewing!
What exactly is this deck? How is it different from any Kamigawa-era standard deck? Why would you want to play it at all? All of these questions are answered in this section!
This is one of the more unique decks in Modern. Have you ever played High Tide in Legacy? Are you intrigued by extreamily complex decks? Were you ever 'that guy' who played Eggs back in early 2013? If you answered yes to all or none of these questions then this deck is for you! It combines the complexity of Storm deck and every game plays out like a puzzle that needs to be solved. The deck is best described as a mix between RUG Scapeshift, UR Storm, and Nykthos Green Devotion. It is unique and is guaranteed to gather a crowd around your table and deliver some of the most fun games of Magic you will ever play.
You will enjoy this deck if:
- You enjoy playing combo decks
- You want to win with spells rather than creatures
- You want a rogue deck to take this weeks FNM by surprise
- You have a good understanding of the Modern format and your meta
- You are looking for a fun deck that can be built on a budget
You won't like this deck if:
- You want to turn your creatures sideways
- You want to play a deck that could be pioleted by an untrained monkey
- You want to play a deck that is going to win the match in under 10 minutes
If any of these points have caught your attention then I highly advise trying out the deck. It offers lots of fun, can be built on a budget, and attacks Modern at a unique angle that is unlike any other deck being played right now.
So now that you're all hyped up about the next biggest deck in Modern, you're probably wonderng what it looks like all put togeather. Well look no further!
The deck plays like the legacy deck High Tide which it is modeled after. It is a combo deck that's main goal is to not loose until there is a sure-fire time to combo off and win in one turn, think of Ad Nauseum or Storm. Unlike High Tide, we don't have access to Cunning Wish which means that we have to play all of our win conditions mainboard. To migate lots of dead draws the deck tries to play cards that both provide dual duties for ramping, drawing cards, or protecting us.
The way the deck will play out will involve trying to amass as many land untapping spells and card draw as possible before playing a Dictate. Since Modern is a "turn 4" format you want to play a Dictate at the end of the opponents turn 4, and a turn 3 is possible but not common. You will then untap with 10-12 mana available which is enough to start using all of the digging spells in the deck to search for more Early Harvests, Dictates, and a Blue Sun's Zenith. Eventually you will be able to draw all of the useful cards in the deck and cast Blue Sun's Zenith for more cards than are in the opponent's library forcing them to lose the game.
The elusive turn 4 Dictate is only going to happen off of a turn one Search for Tomorrow, and turn two Sakura-Tribe Elder. You will have to evaluate from your opening hand whether you want to rush for 5 lands on turns 3-4, or if you want to use the digging cards in the deck and try to play a longer game. I strongly suggest always trying to get a mana advantage over your opponent so that way you never get blown out by a single Remand if you tap out. Use your life as a resource, and don't worry about taking a couple of hits from early creatures. As long as you're above 0 life you'll still win!
Some tips and tricks I have found from playing the deck include:
- Watch out for suspending a turn 1 Search for Tomorrow then casting a turn 2 Serum Visions and keeping the cards scried on top of your library. They will be shuffled away at the beginning of your next upkeep!
- Hardcasting a Search for Tomorrow with one Dictate loses you 1 mana. With 2 Dictates you gain a mana. Anything past turn 2 will probably require a hardcasted Search for Tomorrow. Similarly with Explore, any Dictate in play will cause no loss in mana.
- If you are in need of drawing cards and have lots of mana, you can Remand your own spells to add a cantrip to anything. Same concept works when something is getting countered. You can Remand your spell to have the counterspell fizzle. Watch out for trying this after casting Determined as it won't work!
- You will often have fetchlands left over once all of your basics are played. Casting them off of additional Explores will allow you to shuffle away a bad card put on top by Telling Time or potentially recover something important put on the bottom of your library with Sleight of Hand.
- I like using dice and cards to represent how much U and G mana I have floating as you can get warnings or game loses for not telling your opponents how much mana in in your pool at any given point in time. It also helps you calculate plays much easier.
The best way to figure out how to get the deck going is to try it out for yourself. You need to goldfish it as a start in order to learn the ins and outs of the combo. Knowing if you have enough land-untapping spells in hand, or if flashing back one will hurt you later is key. The complexity of the deck may be overlooked by some who think that it is just about resolving a Dictates and mashing spells together. Playing a list like the sample one mentioned in the primer will take a bit of practice to get right, but the pay-off and fun you can get out of the deck is unparalleled!
Lands
The deck should try to keep the land count as low as possible. Fetchlands help thin it so there is less drawing lands since they will be mostly searched out.
Forests and Islands: We need to play basics for our best land-untapping spell, Early Harvest. With no dual lands a close to even split is needed to ensure that both colors are accessible. It also makes the deck naturally resilient to Tectonic Edge and Blood Moon.
U/x and G/x Fetchlands: Playing Misty Rainforests ensures that we can search up either color of mana that we need at any given moment. The other fetchlands are to thin the deck and help shuffle away unwanted cards on top of the library.
Gitaxian Probe : Almost all combo decks play them. It digs a card deeper for no mana, and gives us information on whether we can combo off or not. It used to be better since it acted as a Lotus Petal for Delve cards and has since fallen off in favor of more powerful things.
Serum VisionsU: This is the premier one mana cantrip spell in modern rightnow. It digs a card and lets us potentially set up the next two turns worth of draws and gets rid of dead cards. Doesn't get much better than that.
Sleight of HandU: When comboing off this is slightly better than Serum Visions as you get a bit of choice, but it still doesn't dig quite as deep.
Merchant Scroll1U: Lets the deck run 1-of's but makes it wide open against any form of discard. Makes for a good budget alternative to Snapcaster Mage. The downside being that it has to be played on the main phase means it slows us down and makes the hand vulnerable. It used to be played more but has since fallen out of favor.
Explore1G: This can be a tough call to include in the deck because we want to run such a low land count. Other than that it has what we are looking for in both a cantripand ramp all in one card which not much else offers. I think having at least one in the deck can offer utility in every situation.
Edge of Autumn1G: It ramps when we need it and cycles when we have too many lands. Playing a couple in the deck can really help out when you need it. It is a solid ramp spell right behind Search for Tomorrow and covers the same slots as Explore.
Search for Tomorrow2G: This is a card that has already been proven in Scapeshift decks. It is a great turn 1 play because the extra land drop it provides will allow us to go off on turns 3 or 4. Later in the game it provides extra lands to untap, and with two or more Dictates in play it will actually generate mana.
Time Reversal3UU: Ah, the mythic rare that was preordering for 30$ and has since dropped to 0.75$. It didn't quite please the hopes and dreams of players as the second coming of Time Spiral or Timetwister, but it does a good impression them in the deck. It is a lifesaver when you have emptied your hand and have 20 mana in your pool. The problem is that this card is that is an extremely big gamble to play but lets be honest, you wouldn't be playing the deck if you weren't already a little bit crazy.
Anticipate1U: Baby Impulse is the best thing to happen to the deck since Dig Through Time... wait. Anyways, it digs for cards and grabs anything needed for any situation. Play four and never question if Telling Time is better than it.
Telling Time1U: This has been bumped down from its prestigious 4-of spot ever since Anticipate became the new kid on the block. The math is there to back it up that it will always be worse, but since it can grab anything compared to Peer Through Depths it is best to find a good split between the two cards. You want Telling Time early in the game before you combo off, and Peer for later in the game once you have a Dictate in play.
Peer Through Depths1U: Same thing as what is said above. It digs deeper to get what you want once you already have a Dictate in play. Find a good split that works for you. All we can wait for is that some kind of mana doubling card gets printed someday.
Remand1U: This is by far the best counterspell that we can run maindeck since it is a catch-all for game 1. It draws cards and allows us to delay the opponent until we can win in a single turn which is conveniently the point of the deck.
Rewind2UU: This counterspell can get rid of any problem card coming our way and allow us to continue still comboing off after. It is great for bypassing the flaw of giving the opponent so much mana. Play it as untappers 5-8 instead of Reality Spasm if it appeals more to you.
Cryptic Command1UUU: This is the go-to blue card in Modern. If we could play four we would, but the decks manabase can't handle the triple blue cost that early in the game. The value of this card is beyond anything else and shouldn't be overlooked. It is hard pressed to name a situation where the command won't provide value.
Reality SpasmXUU: This acts as Early Harvest copies 5-8. It is less efficient in what it does, but once we have a mana doubling effect down it is almost as good. It can also tap down enemy lands to create a pseudo Time Walk effect, or enemy creatures for a Fog.
Blue Sun's ZenithXUUU: This is the wincon. The deck will try to win by having the opponent draw more than their deck with the ridiculous amounts of mana that we can produce. It also doubles as a way to keep on drawing cards while we are going off so that we can refuel our hand.
Dictate of Karametra3GG: The reason we play this over other 5 cmc effects is for the keyword Flash. The big mana cost may turn some people away, but the real power of the card lies in casting it on the opponents endstep and being the first one to use the mana that it generates. Since we only need one turn to win the opponent will never have an opportunity to use the extra mana that they are given to try and disrupt us.
Heartbeat of Spring2G: The 'fixed' Mana Flare. At 3 mana it is the cheapest we can get in the format, but the downside is that our opponents will get the first use of its effect. Cards like Abrupt Decay, or Cryptic Command will be able to get rid of it and leave us not able to combo off while they probably dumped their hand with all of the extra mana. It can be good when we are going off and could use another mana-doubler for a reduced cost, but outside of this situation it will be too big of a target to for us to keep on the board until we can use it to its full potential. This is the reason it's not played.
Sakura-Tribe Elder1G: STEve allows us to get an extra land and represent a turn 3-4 win. His land comes in on the same turn as Search for Tomorrow (turn 3) so you can get 5 mana on turn 3. He also provides a body to chump with before you sack him for the land which can essentially 'gain' a few extra life that we aren't very good at protecting in the first place.
Snapcaster Mage1U: He represents a second chance half the cards in our deck. Being able to flashback something when we are in trouble can really come in handy, or getting that extra untap effect when we need one more. It's been proven as a staple in Blue decks in almost every format since it's printing so it would almost be a waste not to play a couple.
Swan SongU: This is a catch-all counter to anything that would stop the deck. The Swan token that it gives the opponent is not very relevant and it has the random upside of countering every other combo deck in the format as well as Affinity and Tron.
Nature's ClaimG: Just like Infect and Tron, the deck doesn't care about the opponent life total meaning that we can play this with no drawbacks. It makes for a great answer to a variety of cards found almost in every deck.
Squelch1U: This rather unknown card can make for some blowout plays. It acts as a two mana Wasteland that replaces itself. It stops Splinter Twin from comboing out. It makes a Tron player look dumb when they sacrifice their Oblivion Stone. The examples can go on and on with how good the card can be. It is criminally undervalued in Modern and adds some real value to the sideboard by answering tons of different strategies.
DeterminedGU: This is one of the only cards that can combat Counterflux. It is slightly better than Autumn's Veil because it replaces itself, It is really up to you for which one to run, I personally would go with this. Keep in mind that you cannot Remand your own spells to draw extra cards after casting it.
Dismember1 : Another catch-all for creatures for only one mana. Loosing the life will hurt, but if you have to use it then there is a pretty good chance that you would have lost more life in the long run anyways.
Leyline of Sanctity2WW: The deck is very vulnerable to targeteddiscard and getting burned out. This shuts those cards down and improves out bad matchups by 100%. It makes matchups such as Burn, Storm, and Ad Nauseam near unwinnable for the opponent or at least puts a big roadblock in front of them. Until better cards get printed and the lists get more resilient, the Leyline is often a necessary evil to ahve.
THAT'S ALL FOR NOW. THE REST OF THE SECTIONS BELOW WILL BE UPDATED SOON!
"Green Sun's Zenith...? But that's banned in Modern!" is the response that you will probably get after your friend asks you what deck you'll be playing at FNM this week. You might also want to bring along a book for your opponent to read, that is assuming they aren't entertained by your ability to sling spells at an impressively fast rate while you churn through your deck, working to cast a Blue Sun's Zenith and forcing them to draw too many cards and lose the game.
As you may have guessed by now, the confusing name of the deck comes from the green cards that are played in order to ramp your lands and amass copious amounts of mana before winning by forcing the opponent to draw more cards than they have in their deck with a Blue Sun's Zenith.
Although this type of deck has been played before in the Kamigawa-Ravnica standard era and can be found all the way back to the days of Alpha with Mana Flare, it is more well known for it's counterpart Legacy deck named after its signature card High Tide.
Trying to replicate these decks in Modern is a challenge, but it leads to the clever deck building required to turn a pile of commons and rares that you wouldn't even want to last pick in a draft into something playable in Modern. If brewing up rouge decks that attacks from and angle unseen by the rest of the format intrigues you then read on and happy brewing!
It all started in Alpha with Mana Flare, but was not competitively discovered and developed as High Tide until combo winter in 1998. The deck started out playing Palinchron to make infinite mana and win with Stroke of Genius, but moved to Brain Freeze post bannings. From here High Tide has branched off into several different versions, adapting to different formats and more bannings. The deck as since been popularized by Feline Longmore. A deck tech with her can be found here, and if you have an hour then check out the episode of Legacy's Allure on the deck.
The 2003 standard era saw a deck played by a Japanese player on Magic Online which was later developed by Brian David-Marshall into what is known as Tight Sight. Much like Green's Sun's Zenith of the present, the deck used ramp spells to get lots of lands into play, Early Harvest to untap its lands, and Future Sight as the engine card of the deck allowing you to play through the entire deck by continually untapping your lands and drawing cards. Unfortunately the deck only had minimal success as it focused so hard on a resolved Future Sight that if it was removed in any way you could not do much of anything.
Green's Sun's Zenith is a combo deck that tries its best to play like mana-doubling combo decks of old as described in the history section of the primer. It revolves around getting a mana-doubling card in play and then continually untapping your lands and drawing cards until you have sufficient mana in your pool that you can cast a lethal Blue Sun's Zenith on your opponent. The deck can be broken down into roles of: cards that ramp mana, cards that draw other cards, utility cards, and extra cards that are necessary for the deck to function.
The deck runs on a very high amount of synergy between its cards, and therefor each card that is played is carefully considered against every other card that could be a viable contender for the same slot. Cards that make the cut often can perform multiple roles in the deck at different stages in the game. Having a high flexibility in the cards of the deck will allow you to get out of situations you would otherwise draw dead cards in, resulting in a higher chance to lose the game.
The early turns of the game are often spent getting as many lands into play as possible while playing any draw spells that can be cast with free mana. For the highest chance of success you want to sculpt your hand so that you can cast a Dictate of Karametra as fast as possible and untap with a hand containing many draw spells.
The current most consistent iteration of the deck to date is:
The core of the deck is made up of 11 cards. It plays 9 ramp spells (of which 5 can be used to draw cards if needed), 16 dedicated draw spells, and the remaining 5 'flex slots' are for utility. The manabase consists of 12 basic lands, and 8 fetch lands to thin the deck in an attempt to draw less lands while comboing off.
"But there are no creatures in the deck... what about Sakura-Tribe Elder or Snapcaster Mage? And you can cast a Heartbeat of Spring much faster than a Dictate of Karametra... Are you mad!?" is what you may be thinking at this point. These concerns are addressed in the Variations of the Deck section. For now lets go over the proven 75 maindeck and sideboard card choices and the reasons behind their inclusions.
Overall there is no best decklist. Each list can have its own personal tweaks and card choices. Over the years now some cards have been found to be better than others, and this list of 'proven' cards are what are viable and could be found in your maindeck.
Serum Visions & Sleight of Hand
Serum Visions is the go-to Modern cantrip since Ponder and Preordain are both not legal in the format. It digs us 3 cards deep for only one mana which would set a baseline for all draw spells going forward, but it is really more like digging 2 cards deep since scyring is generally considered to be 0.5 of a card. It is great early game as a draw spell since it is so cheap, letting you potentially cast a ramp spell and still have mana left to sculpt your hand. Late game it is used to get unwanted lands to the bottom of the deck and set up important draws. Lastly there is no restrictions on what you can draw with it, so it can get Instant, Sorceries, and even a Dictate!
Sleight of Hand is the second best cantrip we can play, and even is better than Serum Visions in the right scenario. Although it only digs 2 cards deep compared to Visions digging one deeper with its scry, Sleight of Hand is able to draw the second card of your library without additional help. You may be in a situation where you have 4 mana left and there is an Early Harvest second from the top of your Library. In this case Sleight of Hand will let you draw it and keep on comboing while Serum Visions will not. This is a corner-case scenario, so max out on Visions before beginning to add any of these to your deck.
Telling Time & Anticipate & Strategic Planning
Moving onto the more powerful draw spells we move into the 2cmc spot. Telling Time combines the best aspects of Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand allowing you to dig 3 cards deep and still put one directly into your hand. Telling Time gets some percentage points over other 2cmc draw spells like Anticipate because it lets us keep up to 2 cards. It is another corner-case situation, but the times you will have a good draw spell and Early Harvest, or a Wildest Dreams and Dictate (for example) in your top 3 cards. Having to put a good card on the bottom never feels good, and in the cases where you have to leave a bad one on top you can always get rid of it with a fetchland. All that said, with the inclusion of Wildest Dreams having cards in your graveyard isn't as bad anymore. For this reason Strategic Planning is a great choice now since you can always get the cards back at a later point. It does open the deck up a bit more to graveyard hate but in the long run its worth it.
Pieces of the Puzzle
Pieces of the Puzzle is an absolute powerhouse in the deck. Normally paying 3 mana do do noting but draw cards in Modern is going to spell certain doom. We get around this by not really caring about mana costs once we get going, and also we only need to resolve one before the combo turn to get a critical mass of cards in hand to be ready to combo off. It lets us churn through the deck at an alarming rate while grabbing every Early Harvest, Wildest Dreams, or Blue Sun's Zenith we can.
Time Reversal
Timetwister or Time Spiral this is not, and Day's Undoing isn't doing the best impression either. It looks like we are stuck with the once $30 preorder, yet now bulk card. It has be best draw rate for a non X card in Modern by drawing 7 for 5cmc, gaining cards at a rate of 1.4 mana per card. It is a lifesaver when you are sitting on upwards of 20-30 mana in your pool but have exhausted all other resources. It also lets us shuffle back in cards so casting 10 Early Harvests in a game is not unheard of. There is a random element to the card, but the deck has a critical mass of draw spells that it's not a problem. And you wouldn't be playing this deck anyways if you weren't looking to go on a roller coaster of emotions.
Blue Sun's Zenith
Half the namesake of the deck and the only win-condition, I'd argue that Blue Sun's Zenith works harder than any other singleton in Magics history. It was emphasized before that each card in this deck was chosen for its ability to play multiple roles at any point of the game. Thanks to the second ability which shuffles it back into the deck after use we can only play one copy and still cast it as many times as we need. While you are comboing off use it on yourself to draw as many cards as you can at a time allowing you to eventually draw your entire deck and then use it one last time on your opponent to have them overdraw.
Edge of Autumn
Out of all of the 2cmc ramp spells available in the Modern format such as Rampant Growth, Farseek, or Into the North, Edge of Autumn does it the best because of its additional ability to draw a card when needed. Sometimes you need the card that you scried to the top with Serum Visions, and sometimes you just have to draw a card in a pinch. The beautiful design of this card is that its drawback and cycling ability work together allowing it to never be dead at any point of the game. It is the most flexible ramp spell available and best one for our purposes.
Search for Tomorrow
Search for Tomorrow has found success in various Scapeshift decks that aim to ramp out lands for a different type of win. It is the best Turn 1 play we can make in the deck as it allows us to get to the critical 5 lands the fastest. It synergies great with the rest of the deck since we only play basic lands, meaning it will always have something to search up. One key thing to note about the card is that it puts the land into play untapped. Once you have two or more mana-doublers in play you will start gaining mana on each Search for Tomorrow.
Spring to Mind
Spring // Mind is a great example of a card that performs both of the ramp and draw conditions of the deck. Obviously due to its added utility it does both of these things at a worse rate, with Spring costing 1 more than a Rampant Growth and Mind costing 2U more than a Divination. Still, the flexibility of the card earns it a single maindeck slot for the times that it is needed.
Early Harvest
Early Harvest is a pillar of the deck and the reason that it is viable at all. It does place an extremely heavy constraint on our manabase but the rewards are worth it. With a Dictate in play the mana generation gets out of control and once you cast the second one games are all but guaranteed to be over.
Wildest Dreams
Back in Extended the Heartbeat combo decks would play Nostalgic Dreams to great success. This is the best imitation of the card that we have available in Modern so we have to make due with what we have. As always it is a very flexible card being able to get back anything that may have been countered or discarded. It is mostly used to get back Early Harvests as there are no redundant cards in the deck to replace them. Although the XX casting cost ma seem quite steep, it is not a problem once the deck starts generating mana at a consistent rate.
Dictate of Karametra
The peanut butter to Early Harvest's jelly, Dictate of Karametra is another pillar of the deck. It allows for the mana generation to get out of control. The reason we play Dictate is because it has Flash. This allows us to play it on the opponents end step and avoid giving them any mana which is the biggest concern because any deck in Modern with double mana for a turn can probably find a way to win. If they choose to counter the Dictate then it will potentially force them to tap out on their turn allowing us to try and resolve another on ours. Flash also lets us get around discard spells. If you play a Dictate on the endstep you get to untap with 10 mana with the potential for 12 if you use your land-drop for the turn. Playing Heartbeat also requires you to have 5 lands and cast an Early Harvest in the same turn. You will be left with the same 10 mana, but you will already be down an Early Harvest. This is why we play Dictate over Heartbeat.
Determined
Protection against pesky counterspells is key to the deck and a matchup against any blue-based deck can be a disaster Game 1. To negate this we have Determined to let us play through any sort of countermagic. In any matchup where there are no counters it is not a dead card because it still acts as a cantrip. This is why it is played over other cheaper cards like Autumn's Veil. The Bound half of the card cannot be cast in the deck, but if you are feeling confident why not throw a Transguild Courier in the sideboard to make your own Wildest Dreams!
Research
Research is a very very weird, and bad card that is seemingly out of place in the deck. It is used as a last resort to grab cards from the sideboard if they are needed to help out in a matchup. Did someone Surgical Extraction your Blue Sun's Zenith? Why not shuffle in another! Are you facing an unexpected aggro deck game 1? Why not add some Haze of Pollen to your deck! It will always be there to help out when you least expect it and since the opponents will have likely never heard of the card before you can keep it as some super secret tech until the moment is right.
Fetchlands are used to thin the deck and make our draws marginally better. There is nothing worse than finding a bunch of lands with Telling Time or Pieces of the Puzzle. Misty Rainforest is especially good for the obvious reason of being able to get whatever land you need when you need it. Much like playing in Legacy, Fetchlands in this deck don't need to be cracked at the end of a turn to preserve life because of Shocklands, they can be held onto and used whenever is convenient. They can be used to shuffle the deck if you put a bad card on top with Telling Time or put a Dictate on the bottom with Pieces of the Puzzle. The only downside is that they do shuffle back in with a Time Reversal, but by that point you should be winning the game anyway. They are not 100% necessary to the deck but they do help out quite a bit if you can play them.
Island & Forest
Playing all basic lands is a necessary evil of this deck. They are required for Early Harvest and there is no getting around that. On the bright side it does mean that we are one of the best decks against Blood Moon in the format! A mixture of 20 lands is the right number to be playing.
Proven Sideboard Cards
Haze of Pollen
Getting beat down by big dumb creatures is one of the most common things to happen to you while playing this deck. With no creatures or removal of our own to stop them we really have no choice but to race them. Originally the idea was to play Fog in the sideboard for the matchups that are just too fast for us but with the printing of Haze of Pollen we got an even better card. It does cost 1 more but the ability to cycle the card is what earls it a slot in the sideboard. It will never be dead during the combo turn and will gain us valuable turns against creature decks. You can think of it as a ramp spell in a way that draws us a card later in the game. It's no Moment's Peace, but it is a very good contender.
Much like Haze of Pollen, Devastation Tide is here to mess up creature based decks. Most of the time you will blindly miracle it be happy about it as it slows the opponent down by a turn. It can be set up on purpose with Telling Time for a more intentional effect and easily miracled on the opponents turn to really slow them down. Take note that it does bounce all nonland permanents so it can be used as a catch-all or to save your Dictate from removal in a pinch.
Spell Pierce & Spell Snare & Swan Song & Negate
Having a suite of counters is going to be important to stop problem cards from the opponent and to protect yourself. Spell Pierce is arguably the worst because even through is is very versatile early game, the mana requirement gets thrown out the window with the symmetric effects of a Dictate.
Swan Song is easily the best one mana counterspell for protecting us from discard and other counterspells. The 2/2 Swan token that it leaves behind is negligible because whatever you countered way far worse than what will add up to 4-6 damage over the next turns. Having a cheap counterspell is key for limiting the mana needed to be help up to protect and resolve a Dictate.
Negate is the classic catch-all counterspell. Its increased cost is a fine price to pay for the ability to hit enchantments like Rule of Law or Pyromancer Ascension or planeswalkers like Liliana of the Veil or Karn Liberated. A catch-all hard counter is usually the best route to take since we can deal with creatures through other means.
Leyline of Sanctity
Leyline is the MVP against burn decks playing cards like Lightning Bolt or Lava Spike, and discard spells like Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek. The latter are especially bad for our deck because we rely on having a full hand of cards the turn we resolve a Dictate. If you are facing down Burn or any kind of BG/x deck then it is probably in your best interest mulligan for these to make the matchup not an automatic loss.
Grafdigger's Cage
A hate card that specifically shuts down Abzan Company, Dredge, Grishoalbrand, Jeskai Control, and a ton of other decks in the format. For a single generic mana you are able to slow down a lot of decks gameplans until it can be dealt with which provides a good distraction so you can try to ramp up and combo off.
If you aren't happy with what is presented in the maindeck then how about going reeeally deep into the Modern card pool and seeing what it has to offer. All of these cards have their own strengths, but will be taking away from the core concept of the deck. Still it is good to consider them and always have them in your back pocket for any times they may be relevant.
Utopia Sprawl
Utopia Sprawl gives the deck some good turn 1 ramp and is pretty relevant at all stages of the game. One of the main drawbacks is that because we are only playing basic lands you can get opening hands with only Islands and be unable to cast you Utopia Sprawl. It does open up the deck to random Ghost Quarters too. Aside from very corner case scenarios, it is going to be better to play ramp spells over this card.
Merchant Scroll
This is the best tutor we can have for the deck. It is able to search out Blue Sun's Zenith without having to expend a lot of cards to find it. If you already have it then it can find Telling Time or Anticipate. It allows you to use your digging cards to ficus on getting Early Harvests and Dictates. If you are playing it only to find Blue Sun's Zenith then you might as well just play multiple copies of it before this.
Memory's Journey & Gaea's Blessing
These two cards are good for shuffling back in any expended cards like Early Harvest or Dictates so you have a higher chance of drawing them. Memory's Journey has flashback so you can get a total of 6 cards shuffled back in and it is instant speed so you can protect against cards like Surgical Extraction. Gaea's Blessing has protection against Mill decks. Both cards target a player so make sure you don't try to cast it with a Leyline of Sanctity in play or you will have to target your opponent with it!
Cyclonic Rift
We can put the Overload to good use here against decks that try to lock us out with things like Eidolon of Rhetoric or Ethersworn Canonist by bouncing everything they have before comboing off. Otherwise it is used as a weaker Echoing Truth to remove problem permanents for a turn. It can't bounce our own cards which is kind of bad, so there won't be be saving a Dictates from removal.
Peer Through Depths
Peer Through Depths is more powerful than either Telling Time or Anticipate but it suffers from not being able to take a land or Dictate when we really need it. Not to mention that a good about of Sideboard cards that completely shut down some matchups can't be found by it either. There is most likely a happy medium between the three cards but having the consistency of getting anything is a safer decision to make.
Squelch
A neat counterspell that can stop fetchlands among other things. It can potentially act as a Timewalk if done early game but it is kind of a risky play because the situation has to line up perfectly. Similar cards include Trickbind or Voidslime.
Day's Undoing
Day's Undoing is more like Timetwister than Time Reversal is. The drawback is so impactful that it cannot really be played without Quicken or Leyline of Anticipation. These place heavy restrictions on the deck building more so than we already have with Early Harvest. If a way is found to make it playable the it could greatly improve the deck.
Rewind
Rewind is a neat coutnerspell because you can counter whatever the opponent plays on their turn and then still flash in a Dictate. During the combo turn you can counter some dead card like Edge of Autumn and then untap lands for even more mana. It isn't super relevant until you have 2+ Dictates in play but it will come up and keeps with the theme of all the cards providing double-duty.
Cryptic Command
Cryptic Command gets its own little description because it can do so many different things. It acts as a Fog effect, draws cards, protects our spells or proactively counters the opponents spells, and can remove problem permanents for a turn. It has a rather high cost for not directly advancing the gameplan but it is so versatile you'll probably feel bad for not playing some.
Reality Spasm
Reality Spasm is pretty unique as it is one of the only other Early Harvest like effects. It can work during the combo or on defense to tap down your opponents creatures. The reason that it is not played as much anymore is that Wildest Dreams does a better job of generating mana when rebuying and chaining together Early Harvests.
One of the biggest questions is "Why aren't you playing any Creatures in the deck?" The first reason is that it will often catch opponents off guard as Modern is a very creature-centric format and all of their removal spells will be dead cards. It gives us an advantage game 1 and we can prepare to combat what comes in game 2. The second reason is that there have been enough good instant and sorcery spells printed at this point that we can replace the creatures with them. The four main creatures that are considered for maindeck slots in the deck are Sakura-Tribe Elder, Eternal Witness, Snapcaster Mage, and Baral, Chief of Compliance. Each creature is discussed further below.
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Lets first talk about the elephant snake in the room... Sakura-Tribe Elder otherwise known as STEve. It is a great magic card and has been used to great success in Scapeshift decks. Because the sacrifice is at instant speed it means that Steve can never be hit by removal and he can also block a creature before sacrificing himself therefor preventing the damage of one attack. From what has been found so far the added card draw on Edge of Autumn puts it ahead of the single creature Fog effect of Sakura-Tribe Elder.
Eternal Witness
Eternal Witness acts as a Regrowth in the Modern format and also has the benefit of blocking a creature and saving some life. Although it is very good at getting back an Early Harvest when you haven't drawn another, or a Dictate after it has been discarded, it misses one of the critical things this deck can do which is doing things in mass. If you are getting cards back then Wildest Dreams is going to give you the best rates of doing that as it can scale into the lategame.
Snapcaster Mage
Tiago Chan is ubiquitous in Magic as the "OP Blue 2-drop" and since this is a Blue deck he can sometimes be found here too. The only reason to be playing Snapcaster Mage over other card returning methods is because of the cheaper cost. There are going to be corner cases where you only have 2UGG mana left in your pool, Early Harvest in the graveyard, and Wildest Dreams just wouldn't do the job. These corner cases are far and few between so playing more copies of Wildest Dreams is going to be the better call.
Baral, Chief of Compliance
Modern Storm is another deck that plays similarly to us and they have put both Goblin Electromancer and Baral to great use. Baral is considered for his cost reduction which can add up very fast in mana savings and start the combo off even without a Dictate. Baral is also the type of card to be considered in a Heartbeat of Spring shell where if he is in play and Heartbeat is played with four lands you can immediately cast an Early Harvest off of only one land. The biggest flaw in playing him is that without any other creatures in the deck the opponent will have a hand full of removal so he will never stay in play for more than a turn. You could try to sideboard him in game 2 and hope your opponent sided out any removal, but it is a trick that will only ever work once.
Enchantments
The other direction that the deck can take is in how it generates its mana. Although Dictate of Karametra has been found to be the best way to do it, it is not the only way to do it. Heartbeat of Spring, Leyline of Anticipation, and Jace's Sanctum all add their unique angles to the deck which are discussed below.
Heartbeat of Spring
The original card that really made the archetype which is why Dictate being played instead of it is quite weird. The reason behind this is as follows: If you cast Dictate at the end of your opponents turn you will get to untap with 10 mana and another land drop making it 12 mana, and all of the cards in your hand. If you cast a Heartbeat and intend to not give your opponent any mana then you will also need 5 lands in play, same as Dictate, but you will need to cast an Early Harvest immediately after in order to continue to combo off. This will leave you with 11 mana in your pool but you will be required to start with one Early Harvest and will have one less to combo off with. The difference in one more turn for the opponent versus requiring more cards in hand to combo off has been found to be a better tradeoff. Through all of your card selection if you can cast two ramp spells on then comboing off on turn 4 is not a problem.
Mirror Sheen
This is a unique card in that it allows us to truly go infinite. With Mirror Sheen in play, an Early Harvest, and 2GGUU available you can copy Early Harvest with Mirror Sheen never letting the original resolve and gain any amount of mana that you want to. It really speeds up games and makes playing on MTGO better. It is not necessary to the deck by any means which is why it can be found in the sideboard if anywhere. You can always get it with Research.
Leyline of Anticipation
Leyline offers something that no other card can do; play the game at instant speed. This opens up a lot of play with cards like Day's Undoing which is extremely powerful when played like a Timetwister. You can combo off in response to any sort of removal or simply ignore counterspells. Leyline also is a free card which is amazing as it requires no investments in it. The downside is that it doesn't offer anything in multiples and any extra drawn copies are always dead cards. There is also a very large luck component associated with playing the card.
Jace's Sanctum
Jace's Sanctum is very powerful in that it offers the same cost reduction effect as Baral but doesn't open itself up to creature removal. The scry effect tagged onto the card allows all of the digging and even ramp spells to become more consistent. The main drawback is that you will have to spend your turn 3 to play this and then combo off on turn 4. It is not as powerful of an engine as a mana doubling effect but can be played alongside them to virtually never fizzle.
White Splash
Playing with White in the deck is a good colour to move into. It allows for more powerful cards but slightly less consistency. Finding the land isn't a problem because we have so many search outlets with Edge of Autumn, Search for Tomorrow, and Spring so all we need is a single Plains to accommodate it. Glittering Wish is the main reason to move into White as it allows for a wishboard and hiding powerful cards in the sideboard. We can replace Blue Sun's Zenith maindeck with Sphinx's Revelation because until the very end we are only targeting ourselves anyway. It gains us life which will provide a good cushion against aggro decks. Once we are ready to win you can use Glittering Wish to get Research and shuffle in a Blue Sun's Zenith to kill your opponent with. We get access to Terminus to clear the board whenever it comes up and it is so cheap that the single Plains can support the miracle cost. Other neat things include being able to hardcast a Leyline of Sanctity eventually and many other white hate cards like Blessed Alliance, Celestial Purge, Disenchant, Ray of Revelation, Ghostly Prison, Porphyry Nodes, Stony Silence, or Suppression Field. White opens up a lot of paths for this deck but these are some of the most common ones.
A sample deck with a White splash could look something like this:
13/06/2014 to 02/08/2014 - the thread up to page 8 will serve as an archive for what has been discussed card-wise. All changes that have been made to the primer before this date have since been lost. 02/08/2014 - Archived original deck that started the thread in the spoiler below. Updated cards: Mirror Sheen, Electrolyze, Praetor's Counsel, and Cerebral Vortex. 03/08/2014 - Published version 1.0 of the Primer. 17/08/2014 - Added Plasm Capture, Sphinx's Revelation, and Fertile Ground to card choices. Updated sample decklists. Fixed some formatting and spelling. 21/09/2014 - Updated decklists, added some of the KTK cards with it. 28/09/2014 - Moved the sections around. Added Tier 1 matchup comments to the Matchup section. Added some cards, and rearranged/edited the sample decklists. 09/10/2014 - Edited the sections to list cards by cmc. Added cards. Changed UG Combo list and put up new lists for White and Red splashes. 01/12/2014 - Updated all of the sample decklists, added a black splash list, and removed some redundant and outdated cards in the primer. 04/05/2017 - Scrapped the whole thing and rewrote the entire primer! This version should be sufficient for many years to come. Lets call it version 2.0 26/05/2017 - Added in the "History" section and edited a few things. The new primer is done now! 25/10/2017 - Added in some more cards that were left out and new ones that have been printed. 23/05/2018 - Cleaned up some small formatting to make all of my primers more cohesive.
I went 2-2 last night, loosing to Splinter Twin both times. Round 1 I lost 0-2 to the straight up combo version of Twin. Round 2 I won 2-1 vs U Tron by mindslaver locking him twice, Round 3 I won 2-1 vs that Time Walk deck that tries to get infinite turns, and in Round 4 I lost to Tarmo Twin 1-2.
I saw on here not too long ago people talking about how Twin is almost unwinnable for them once you know the matchup. What sort of things should I know to make this matchup better? Right now it seems as thought they need less resources than us to win, and they have easier threats to play (mainly Tarmogoyf). I just run out of cards to delay them and by that time they can drop their Pestermite/Deciever end of turn and then play a Splinter Twin under the cover of a Remand and Dispell.
I have been stuck on the pyromancer version. This is what my creatureless version looks like in theory with commune
Something that I think you should watch is that Abrupt Decay is way too valuable in Modern to not include maindecking them. They nit almost anything, so I'd suggest dropping the Bolts and Anger of the Gods for them. You will probably want to get a Ravens Crime more than a Glame Jab, so cutting 1 for the fourth Ravens Crime could be beneficial. Other than that it is pretty stock and close to what I was running when I was testing out Commune. The only thing is the lack of targets and the waste of a turn when you cast it in the creatureless version.
I have been testing the last week with Coursers and Communes. My conclusion is that Courser and Young Pyromancer can work well in the same deck to an extent. The courser takes lands off the top, so we can dredge some instants and then flashback/retrace them and get a bunch of tokens. On the flipside, missing that first cast of the spell hurt the deck a bit. Maybe I was just playing it wrong so I'd want others opinions on this.
I also ran Commune with just Pyromancer and it flopped hard. There is too few targets, and as someone said earlier, just filling the yard for a turn wasn't good enough. The creatureless version was ok with it, but I found it to be rather underwhelming when not interacting with the opponent for a turn (aka playing discard or removing creatures).
Overall I would say that Commune with the Gods looks good on paper, but it doesn't preform as good as it possibly could. It did help me find Assualts from time to time, but not as much as you would think. Also being a sorcery hurt it because we already have so many cards competing for things to do on our turn such as Loam, Ravens Crime, casting Assualt and Lily's, that jamming another in there really stretched its focus. I think that it can be god in the right setting, but overall it wasn't what I had hoped it to be.
It does depend on what you want to go for. If you want to go pure burn, damaging players with spells (and maybe gaining some life to keep you afloat) A white splash would be better.
If you are going for creature destruction burn with some other win con, maybe Chandra's pets, black might be the better choice for their specific creature destruction. Then you can drop 2 mana to kill that 10/10 instead of 6 mana. If you did run black, that would be the best place i could see to fit in a Dash Hopes. Stop something from hitting the field that otherwise you would have a hard time dealing with, or 5 damage for 2 mana.
Yes, but there are very few things that Burn will want to remove. If they are not trying to get to 20 as fast as possible then they are doing something wrong. That is why Black is played for the Bump in the Night. It is essentially another Lava Spike in another color. If you are wasting a card in order to remove a creature or something else, then in most cases you will be loosing the game.
There are other burn spells, such as Skullcrack that are used to get past any life gain that the opponent tries, and Smash to Smithereens is sometimes played to get past artifacts that could be a problem (Platinum Angel etc...)
I like Goblin Guide for more competitive metas because it's a low mana investment for 4-8 damage. I was having trouble closing out games against Tier 1 decks, even when I got Assault and Loam together. I could do between 12-16 damage over a turn or two which is substantial but won't win you games. Goblin Guide gets in the additional points of damage to make the deck capable of consistent turn 4 kills. So basically, I can go for a kill, instead of having to throw my lands at creatures and grind out games. Which opens up the opponent into drawing an out against me. He opens up the ability to play a solid tempo deck with Mid-Game reach. The draw back is actually not that terrible either. I get to see almost every card going in to my opponent's hand, which lets me prepare for potential things to play around as well as just general information. If he's doing his job, then the game should be closed out before the extra lands the opponent may draw can become relevant. Since in the early turns you are only playing one spell a turn typically. I was consistently impressed with him back when I originally put it in. I started with him as a 3-of originally just as a "it might be nice to see one in a game" and quickly became a "I want this in every opening hand." So I bumped him up to a 4-of. It's really solid.
Ah, I was surprised to see Blue in there. Guess I should have looked at your sig... Thanks for the explanation, and have you tried the Goblin in a Jund shell before? I guess I can try it out to see if it works about the same, but my guess is that we would rather be Looting or using some discard turn 1 instead.
i kept 3 harmonize main board, it just helps with excelleration if i cant get any wincon cards. i like the idea of pissed off Akroma, just cant figure out where to fit her even if i wanted her in.
You have weigh whether or not Akroma is worth it though. She dies to 2 Bolts, and dies to ANY black removal spell. If you draw her you will basically never be able to cast her because of the triple red cost. You should only have a couple of threats that are searched up with T&N. The more you have, the more redundant draws you will have and more dead cards in hand. Things like Primeval Titan are fine because they are castabe, and once you play them they help your game plan.
Think about it, would there ever be a reason to search for Akroma rather than Emrakul with T&N?
My comments to the following are in bold.
As far as playing 4 Blue Sun's Zenith, yes it is the #1 card that makes us combo off, but it is also extremely bad if we draw it in multiples. With the shuffle clause that the card has, you don't need to play multiples because it will keep on being recycled after each use. We see enough cards in our library that we will always have a way to retrieve it after drawing say 10 cards. Which brings me to my next point. We only need to use it when X=10+. Anything else will be a waste of mana, so playing multiples will have you cast each of them for less mana compared to just one for a lot. The deck wants to be very flexible, even in a toolboxy kind of way. I have looked into upping the number of BSZ, but the best results have came form playing 1.
Spasm is there for when you have a dictate down. It acts as Early Harvests 5-6, and it the mana it gives is (Number of Lands*2)-(2+Number of Lands). So for example if you have 6 lands on your turn after playing the dictate you will get 4 mana. This doesn't seem like a lot, but it still has applications outside of just land untapping. The whole point is that you can stop aggro coming your way, as well as tap opponents lands on their upkeep for a Time Walk like effect. Generally you only use Reality spasm when you are comboing off, not when you have to scroll for it.
Rude Awakening is nice, but it really only has one application. I'm looking for cards that can be more flexible in the deck. Nevertheless, it is an option to look into. I can't see the 2/2 land portion ever being very relevant unless some sweet Biorhythm tech is used. But that is for a different deck.
Urban Evolution is amazing for continuing your combo. It helps get rid of all the dead land draws that you get. The additional cards also give you just what you need to keep going. Paired with something to manipulate the top of the deck creates a really powerful play. I have never been unhappy to draw one, but they are on the expensive side. This could be avoided by playing Explore. I have a feeling the additional card draw would be missed though.
I think you are missing the point of Time Reversal, because it is one of the powerhouses in the deck. Casting it at 5 mana, draws the same amount of cards as casting a BSZ for 10 mana. It reuses the graveyard, so you can get up to 4 uses per spell compared to 2 if we payed something like Past in Flames. It is extremely risky to play, but if you resolve one and draw even any gas to continue your combo you can win almost every time. Additionally, it hoses any kind of a graveyard deck, such as Melira Pod, Living End, Dredgevine, Gifts, and Goyfs to name a few which is the kind of additional uses that we are looking for. 90% of the time you will be casting it when you have 15-20 mana in your pool, and 1 or 0 cards left in hand, so it is easy to empty your new hand and continue to combo.
Yeah, the newer lists have been packing 1-2 Cryptic Commands, and my new favorite card in this deck; Rewind. Swan Song has also been looked at as a 1-of because it protects from everything that this deck could possibly have a problem with.
The only thing about Repeal is that we don't have the kind of ramp the way U Tron does, so getting ahead of the curve and tapping out for a turn to repeal something could be a problem. Although when we are going off it would be amazing, so it can be something to look into. Snapback gives us a similar effect at a card-disadvantage, but no mana investment when we are in trouble.
Thanks for the input for the deck. I've been looking over all your advise and will make changes where appropriate.
Lets just look at some scenarios though:
If you draw it at any point in the game when you are not prepared to cast it, then it is a sub-optimal boardwipe that is sitting in your hand. By the time you cast it for anything large enough to wipre the board, lets say 5 mana when X=2, you might as well have dropped an Ostone, or cast Pyroclasm.
1) If you miracle it and choose to cast it in the first few turns you will be not using any search in order to assemble Tron, which is the main goal of the deck. You will most likely be casting it for 2-3 mana, meaning you could have just been playing a Pyroclasm or Firespout.
2) If you draw it in the midgame, say at 3 lands, you either have Tron assembled and need a sphere/star to cast it which is very well possible, but chances are you already had to use them to cast your Ancient Stirrings or Sylvan Scryings in order to get Tron. Otherwise you have 2 tron pieces and a Grove or something which isn't ideal. If you were at 4 lands by this point, then you could either be casting All is Dust, O-Stone, or this all with the same amount of mana. If for some reason you are on four lands and don't have tron yet, you will be casting a more expensive Firespout.
3) In the lategame this will shine. You will probably have 10-11+ mana and be able to cast it easily for 10+. Hopefully if they have taken some damage from lands then it will take a single swing from a Wurmcoil to kill them. At the same time, I wouldn't mind casting an Ulamog or Sundering Titan and doing the same effect damage wise. If I needed to wipe the board, the it wouldn't be hard to dig for an O-stone or All is Dust and be able to do the same thing for less mana and less chance of having to miracle it.
The point is that trying new things is good, yes. But you have to weigh the pro's and con's of everything and determine if it would be overall better than something else. There were only a couple of really vague situations, but they were more or less the overall situations that arise when playing Gr Tron.
There are several problems with this. One it isn't colorless, so we can't find it off of Ancient Stirrings, and it isn't a creature so Eye of Ugin is out of the question. If you want to cast it for 7 (which will kill basically every creature in Modern) then you need 3 urza lands and a Grove. This is the same const as an O-stone. If you don't have Tron online, you can drop the stone and use it the next turn. With Bonfire, you don't really have that option because once it is in your hand you will be forced to pay double for the same amount of damage. Also there are lots of times that it can get into our hand when we are chaining mana rocks in a turn. If you accidentally draw it then you are basically screwed and at that point having a Banefire is basically better.
You shouldn't be worrying about their life either, all the threats in Tron will kill them fast enough weather they have 30 life or 10. So all it is really useful for is the boardwipe. All is Dust and O-stone are the best options for these because they are colorless, and kill everything regardless of the mana spend (which is equal to the amount that you would need for Bondfire).
Ok, that's how I was boarding, for the matchup for the most part already. I figured that any artifacts maindeck would just be wrecked by Ancient Grudge. Is there any value to bringing in Ætherize? It would stop them if they tap out for a Splintertwin on turn 4, but I don't think they would be dumb enough to do that without some countermagic backup.
This is what I did in my games vs Tarmo Twin. The problem was that he had no way of winning with Splintertwin, but I couldn't afford to waste counters on the Goyfs that were beating me down. As the game went further, we both just seemed to stock more and more counters hoping that he would resolve something through mine. It just seemed like I was stretched too thin from the different angles of attack to really deal with it all effectively. I could deal with one or the other really well, but both of them only mediocrly.
What is your advice for playing vs Tarmo Twin? I had the most problem spreading my resources around trying to not be beat down by it, and still preventing their combo. The game I won vs it I had a mindslaver lock that git trough about 3 counters worth in a counter war. And the game I lost to it I never drew one because I sided out some of the search for more removal.
Also if we are on the draw game 2 (or 3), then how well does Repeal actually work? If you drop your 4th land on turn 4, then you can remove their Pestermite/Deciever in response at the end of the turn, but they still have a mana for Dispell. Similarly if they hit a 5th land drop by chance, then they still have their mana up, and unless you have 2 counterspells at this point, paying the 4 for Repeal won't allow you to have mana left for a counter. Are there scenarios that put us at an advantage without accelerating our mana turn 2 with a talisman?
Version 1 of the thread:
The response that you will probably get after being asked what deck you are playing at FNM this week will probably be followed by a quick "JUDGE!" or just a look of confusion. The fact is that we are not playing Green Sun's Zenith, but better yet Green's Sun's Zenith. The namesake of the deck comes from the green cards that are played in order to amass copious amounts of mana and finally win by forcing the opponent to draw their deck with a Blue Sun's Zenith.
Although this type of deck has been played before in the Kamigawa-Ravnica standard era, it is more well known for it's Legacy counterpart High Tide, which it is modeled after. The deck will constantly net positive mana and draw cards until it can win with a Blue Sun's Zenith, or a Brain Freeze with lethal storm. Since we only have access to one of these win conditions and almost no methods of generating mana in the same way, we can only take the ideas and playstyle of the deck into account when piloting this list.
If this idea intrigues you then read on and happy brewing!
Coming Soon!
This is one of the more unique decks that is attacking Modern by storm. Have you ever played High Tide in Legacy? Are you intrigued by the complexity of Legacy Ad nauseam Tendrils? Were you ever 'that guy' who played Eggs back in early 2013? If you answered yes to all or none of these questions then this deck is for you! It combines the complexity of Storm decks and it plays out like a puzzle that needs to be solved. The non-interaction of the combo turn may turn you off at first, but this is made for up by the fact that the deck is very interactive through all of the counterspells it runs. To best describe the deck would be to describe a mix between RUG Scapeshift, UR Storm, and Nykthos Green Devotion. It is a unique deck that is guaranteed to gather a crowd around your table and deliver some of the most fun games of Magic you will have ever played.
You will enjoy this deck if:
- You enjoy playing combo decks
- You want to play spells rather than creatures
- You want a rogue deck to take this weeks FNM by surprise
- You have a good understanding of the Modern format and your meta
- You are looking for a fun deck that can be built on a budget
You won't like this deck if:
- You want to play only creatures and turn them sideways
- You want to play a deck that could be pioleted by an untrained monkey
- You want to play a deck that is going to win the match in under 10 minutes
If any of these points have caught your attention then I highly advise trying out the deck. It offers lots of fun, can be built on a budget, and attacks Modern at a unique angle that is unlike any other deck being played right now.
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Snapcaster Mage
Enchantments
4 Dictate of Karametra
Sorceries
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Serum Visions
4 Search for Tomorrow
Instants
2 Peer Through Depths
3 Dig Through Time
4 Telling Time
3 Remand
2 Rewind
4 Early Harvest
2 Blue Sun's Zenith
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Any U/x Fetch
3 Any G/x Fetch
4 Island
4 Forest
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Swan Song
3 Nature's Claim
2 Dismember
2 Repeal
1 Bound // Determined
1 Voidslime
White Splash - Last Updated on 01/12/2014
1 Snapcaster Mage
Enchantments
4 Utopia Sprawl
2 Fertile Ground
3 Mirror Sheen
Instants
2 Silence
3 Peek
4 Early Harvest
3 Dig Through Time
Sorceries
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
3 Glittering Wish
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath
4 Flooded Strand
3 Island
3 Forest
1 Plains
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Spellskite
2 Swan Song
1 Mirror Sheen
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Bound // Determined
1 Boros Charm
1 Bant Charm
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Sphinx's Revelation
Black Splash - Last Updated on 01/12/2014
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
Enchantments
3 Dictate of Karametra
Instants
2 Spoils of the Vault
2 Spell Pierce
4 Remand
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Sultai Charm
3 Early Harvest
2 Dig Through Time
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Serum Visions
4 Search for Tomorrow
2 Villainous Wealth
Lands
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
4 Island
3 Forest
2 Swamp
Red Splash - Last Updated on 01/12/2014
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Snapcaster Mage
Enchantments
3 Mirror Sheen
Instants
2 Lightning Bolt
4 Remand
3 Izzet Charm
1 Cerebral Vortex
4 Early Harvest
2 Rewind
2 Dig Through Time
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
4 Serum Visions
4 Search for Tomorrow
1 Past in Flames
1 Epic Experiment
Lands
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Island
4 Forest
2 Mountain
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Bound // Determined
2 Counterflux
2 Dismember
2 Squelch
1 Firespout
3 Pyroclasm
Oldschool Heartbeat Gifts Combo - Last Updated on 03/08/2014
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Drift of Phantasms
2 Eternal Witness
1 Snapcaster Mage
Enchantments
4 Heartbeat of Spring
Planeswalkers
1 Jace Beleren
Sorceries
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Search for Tomorrow
1 Revive
1 Praetor's Counsel
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Early Harvest
4 Remand
1 Wipe Away
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
Lands
4 Misty Rainforest
7 Forest
3 Snow-Covered Forest
4 Island
4 Snow-Covered Island
2 Krosan Grip
1 Dismember
2 Echoing Truth
2 Damping Matrix
2 Genesis Wave
2 Dispel
2 Grazing Gladehart
2 Voidslime
The way the deck will play out will involve trying to amass as many land untapping spells as possible, and then draw a single Dictate. On the first turn it is probably in the best interest to cast Serum Visions, followed by a turn two Telling Time if you can. A good thing to take into account is that is that if the opponent is playing and discard spells you can stack the top of your library to draw the more important spells you need the turn after in order to avoid the discard. This creates a Brainstorm-like effect where we essentially 'hide' our cards on top of our library. Another thing to take into account when scrying is to think ahead to if you will be drawing a card before you next draw step. It is important to think about cards like Remand and Cryptic Command and how the will effect your scrying choices.
The next thing to take into account is that Modern is a turn 4 format. If you plan on dropping a Dictate on turn 5 then you won't have any countermagic backup to help you out. If you have one ramp spell prior to turn 5 you can cast a dictate with a single counterspell such as Swan Song, but having two counters is what we are aiming for. If we can set up some ramp in the form of Sakura-Tribe Elder and Search for Tomorrow on turns 2 or 3, then we will be in a position to cast the Dictate at the end of turn 4 and win on turn 5. This is the most common turn to win at, although not ideal, it works because we are able to delay others gameplans and push their winning turns back further.
In order to combo off we need to look for a couple of things. The first is at least one land untapping spell (but having two is going to ensure that you have more than enough mana to work with). The second is having at least one way to search up a Blue Sun's Zenith. This can be in the form of Snapacaster Mage and a Merchant Scroll or a Mystical Teachings. I have found that it is very easy to go off with only a resolved Dictate, two land untapping spells, and a tutor for Blue Sun’s Zenith.
The most efficient way I have found to go about comboing off is to cast both untapping spells, netting around 14-18 mana depending on if you made a 6th land drop or not. Assuming you are at the minimum, 14 mana, you can Blue Sun's Zenith yourself for 6 and hope to go off with the remaining cards you drew. Usually you will be able to grab a Snapcaster Mage or Early Harvest and regain all your mana.
If you can, try to not tap out all of your lands before casting an untapping spell. It may make sense to float all your mana so you can use dice or whatever to do the math of how much is left in your pool while going off, but this can lead to wanting to have lands left up when you are revealing additional Dictates off of Telling Times or Serum Visions. My main goal when going off is to always try to get at least one Dictate in play in between each untapping spell I play. If it is an Early Harvest, then it will take 8 mana, a Reality Spasm is typically 12 mana, and anything flashed back is two more. Using this method of comboing off I have only fizzled out about 2 in 50 goldfishes of the most current list from 08/10/2014.
When playing the more tempo list, a good idea is to try and use digging spells like Serum Visions and Telling Time to get as many Early Harvests into your hand as possible before turn 5. You can expect to set up some draws, but more often expect to just draw the counterspells that are needed to protect the combo. Once there is a way to get 5 mana, you can ship all of the additional lands and ramp cards to the bottom of your deck. You can do the same with singleton silver-bullet cards that you expect to have to tutor for mid combo. There are advantages to drawing a Blue Sun's Zenith, but if it is on turn 2 and it means that I would be missing out on additional tutors or Early Harvests then I will gladly put them on the bottom of my deck.
Remember that you are the control deck! Since this is a combo-control deck like High Tide, you need to me in the mindset that you are playing control. You are playing the permission, so make sure that you play out the way a control deck would. If you are planning on comboing out fast with nothing to contest it, play proactive. If you expect the opponent to try and counter your Dictate, or destroy it with a Qasali Pridemage etc… then play reactively.
Being proactive is a possibility when you know the opponents deck and know what to counter. If you hinder them beforehand enough then you won't even have a problem when you combo out. If you are more reactive, say when you are expecting the plethora of counters coming from Mono U Tron or UWR Control then just try to amass as many counterspells as possible. Usually 2 is enough, but then it pushes our winning turn back because we still need 5 for the Dictate and then some for the counters so be careful about that. Another option is to give an ultimatum through Determined, because you bait counters, and win if they don't deal with it.
The best way to figure out how to get the deck going is to try it out for yourself. You need to goldfish it as a start in order to learn the ins and outs of the combo. Knowing if you have enough land-untapping spells in hand, or if flashing back one will hurt you later is key. The complexity of the deck may be overlooked by some who think that it is just about resolving a Dictate or Heartbeat. Playing a list like the one mentioned in the primer will take a bit of practice to get right, but they pay-off and fun you can get out of the deck is unparalleled.
Forests & Islands: We need to play basics for our best land-untapping spell, Early Harvest. We play Forests for the ramp spells, and Islands for the dig spells. The deck plays more forests than islands because it plays more double green cards than double blue. With no dual lands a close to even split is needed to ensure that both colors are accessible.
Misty Rainforest: Playing a playset of fetchlands ensures that we can search up either color of mana that we need at any the given moment. Fetches are staples in almost every Modern deck, and this is no exception.
Gitaxian Probe
Serum Visions U: This is the premier one mana cantrip spell in modern right now. It replaces a card and lets us potentially set up the next two turns worth of draws. Doesn't get much better than that.
Sleight of Hand U: When comboing this is slightly better than Serum Visions, but not quite as good when you are trying to set up your combo. If you want to play with all around cheaper spells and try to cantrip through your deck rather than dig and grab spells one by one then I'd suggest running this.
Merchant Scroll 1U: This is a reason why we can run 1-of's in the deck. It allows us to tutor for almost any situation that we are foreseeing, and prepare accordingly. The downside is that it takes a turn earlier in the game and if a 1-of gets discarded or exiled then we are doomed. It used to be played but has since fallen out of favour.
Gaea's Blessing 1G: This is the single card that can cover almost all the faults in the deck. The first ability is one that can replicate the effects of Time Reversal by shuffling used Early Harvests and Reality Spasms back into the deck. If we go so far as to draw the whole thing with Blue Sun's Zenith, then we can ensure that the top three cards we draw in the deck would be what we shuffled in. This gives the potential for easily above 500 mana in our pool. The card replaces itself which is what we are looking for in our deck. It also gives us protection form milling strategies, which have proved to be a problem in the past when all of our singletons get milled. Overall it is a great card and a welcome addition to cover all the weak areas of our deck. It has a 4.5/5 on the Gatherer for a good reason, and to top it all off the art is by Rebecca Guay meaning it is near impossible to pass up playing.
Explore 1G: This can be a tough call to include in the deck because we want to run such a low land count. Other than that it has what we are looking for in a cantrip, only one mana symbol in its cost, and lets us play any lands in out hand for the turn.
Search for Tomorrow 2G: This is a card that has been proven in Scapeshift decks before. It is a great turn 1 play because the extra land drop it provides will allow us to go off on turn 3-4. Later in the game it provides extra lands for use to untap and keep netting more mana with.
Urban Evolution 3GU: If Explore and Divination had a child, this would be it. This is a card that really helps push the combo over the top when we are going off. The extra draw can help us a lot when we are running low on cards, and the additional land drop will use any dead lands in our hands for the turn while we are comboing off because you will be drawing extras.
Time Reversal 3UU: Ah, the mythic rare that was preordering for 30$ and has since dropped to 0.75$. It didn't quite please the hopes and dreams of players as the second coming of Time Spiral, or Timetwister, but it tries to do a good impression of the two in our deck. Drawing multiples is always going to be bad, and not drawing any when you have emptied your hand and have 20 mana in your pool is even worse. The truth about this card is that it is an extremely big gamble to play it. There is a high risk that you don't draw any action after casting it, and that you fizzle mid combo. As well as you can run too few of them in a deck which means that after you use them they are gone and you only have as any chances to win as copies you are playing the in the deck. It is a necessary poison, but the payoff is great... when it works.
Praetor's Counsel 5GGG: At 8 mana this is a tough one to cast, but when it resolves you are pretty much guaranteed to win. Just remember that is is normally a dead card in your hand and that it makes you weak to graveyard hate.
Pact of Negation 0: This is one of the riskier counters to play, but often times if you are using it to protect a mana-doubling effect then you will have more than enough mana to pay the cost on your next turn.
Swan Song U: This new counterspell deals with almost everything that can harm our gameplan. There are only a few creatures that can harm us, and the Swan token that it gives the opponent is not very relevant. It is one of the best 1 cmc counters we have access to.
Remand 1U: This is by far the best counterspell in Modern when playing a tempo deck. It replaces itself and allows us to delay the opponent until we can win in a single turn.
Mana Leak 1U: Although it is not a hard counter, it acts as one 90% of the time. This is the counter of choice if you really don't want to let something resolve, and the only downside is that it doesn't replace itself. I would only suggest running these after maxing out Remands in the deck and if you feel as though you still need more countermagic.
Delay 1U: The forgotten counterspell from the Timespiral block. It may not be a hard counter like Remand, but it should leave their spell suspended long enough for us to win. Like Mana Leak it doesn't cantrip, so it is down to personal preference for which one you play. One is better early game and the other late game.
Cyclonic Rift 1U: This is more of a panic button that we have to search up in order to deal with problematic perminants such as Eidolon of Rhetoric or Ethersworn Canonist. The overload cost can be relevant when we have extra mana and need to clear the board for some reason.
Telling Time 1U: Because we can't play Brainstorm in Modern we have to try and find a good alternative that allows us to dig through our deck. It does a lot of work by allowing us to look at the top 3 cards in our library and cantripping. Since we need to see a lot of our library to find the right cards in order to combo off it's a great card for that reason.
Peer Through Depths 1U: If you are looking to combo off on turn 4 and nothing else then play this in place of Serum Visions or Telling Time. It digs deeper to get what you want.
Forbidden Alchemy 2U: This can be played as a support card to Dig Through Time in order to fuel a turn 3 delve for 6.
Early Harvest 1GG: This is half the reason the deck exists. By untapping all of our lands it allows us to constantly generate more and more mana each time we cast one. It is the first land-untapping spell that you should always be looking for when going off.
Rewind 2UU: This counterspell can get rid of a problem card coming our way and allow us to continue comboing off after. It is a good choice and an alternate to the blue mana heavy Cryptic Command that is the usual choice for decks at the 4 cmc spot.
Mystical Teachings 3U: Great card because it lets us grab any card in the deck. The problem is that you will rarely find a window to tap out and cast this so it has fallen out of being played.
Cryptic Command 1UUU: This is the go-to blue counter in Modern. If we could play it we would, but the decks manabase can't handle the triple blue cost early in the game. It is still a good tutor target when any of the various options are needed.
Plasm Capture GGUU: If you can't afford Cryptic Command then this is a fine replacement. It is especially good when playing Mirror Sheen or Heartbeat of Spring version of the deck because you can use the mana from what you countered to play the enchantment and then be left over with all of your lands still untapped. The downside is that it is held back by both what your opponent chooses to cast, and its heavy mana requirements.
Dig Through Time 6UU: The newest addition to the deck since Khans of Tarkir. It lets us esentally grab two of the three cards we need to combo, and can be regurally be cast for UU. There will regurally be 2-3 cards being put into the graveyard per turn, and during the combo you can spare some mana so that you don't delve away your Early Harvests.
Reality Spasm XUU: This acts as Early Harvest copies 5-8. It is less efficient in what it does, but once we have a mana doubling effect down it is almost as good. It can also tap down enemy lands to create a pseudo Time Walk effect, or enemy creatures for a Fog.
Blue Sun's Zenith XUUU: This is our wincon. The deck will try to win by having the opponent draw their deck with the ridiculous amounts of mana that we can produce. It also doubles as a way to keep on drawing cards while we are going off so that we can refuel our hand and generate as much mana as our deck will allow. Because of the tutoring power of Merchant Scroll and Mystical Teachings we only need to play one since drawing multiples would lead to dead draws.
Sakura-Tribe Elder 1G: "Steve" allows us to get an extra land and represent a turn 3-4 win. His land comes in on the same turn as Search for Tomorrow (turn 3) but they do it in a different route. When going off always make sure to play him before and untapping spell in order to net positive mana. He also provides a body to chump with before you sack him for the land which can essentally 'gain' a few extra life that we aren't very good at protecting.
Snapcaster Mage 1U: He represents a second chance at almost any card in our deck. Being able to flashback something when we are in trouble can really come in handy, or getting that extra untap effect when we need one more. It's been proven as a staple in Blue decks in almost every format since it's printing so it would almost be a waste not to play a couple.
Drift of Phantasms 2U: This is a great uncountable pseudo-tutor for our deck. It hits Early Harvest, Heartbeat of Spring, Search for Tomorrow, Blue Sun's Zenith, and Dismember as well as more. It also acts as an anti-aggro wall that can even put a stop to angry Tarmogoyf's coming at you.
Laboratory Maniac 2U: This is an alternate win condition for when you can't target the opponent, or for when you can't safely allow them to draw their deck for one reason or another. Just be careful about protecting it so that it isn't removed before you draw with no cards in your library!
Eternal Witness 1GG: This is a debatable creature in that it is harder to get a good net mana after you return an Early Harvest to your hand because it will take 9 total to play it, but perhaps a single copy can help from time to time.
Fertile Ground 1G: A replacement for Sakura-Tribe Elder that shines in the Sheen version on the deck. It does everything Steve can do, and even gives immediate mana once we have 3 lands, but falls off once there are more than 1 mana-doubler in play. With the Sheen combo it makes infinite coloured mana which can be relevant to flashbacks of cards and other colours we splash for.
Mirror Sheen 1(U/R)(U/R): The newest addition to the enchantment line-up doesn't double the mana our lands produce like the others, but it does something that neither of them can; it allows us to go infinite. By copying Early Harvest on the stack we can untap our lands until we have more mana than reasonable. With only 4 basic lands in play and 6 mana in our pool we can combo off which makes for consistent turn 4 wins. It allows for interactions like sending a Thoughtseize back at the opponent, or drawing our whole deck with a single Gitaxian Probe. Overall it allows us to play more non-basic lands in the deck and take it in a new direction which is good for the diversity of the archetype of this deck.
Heartbeat of Spring 2G: This is the card that paved the way for mana doubling enchantments. At 3 mana it is the cheapest we can get in the format, but the downside is that our opponents will get the first use of its effect. Cards like Abrupt Decay, or Cryptic Command will be able to get rid of it and leave us not able to combo off while they probably dumped their hand with all of the extra mana. It can be good when we are going off and could use another mana-doubler for a reduced cost, but outside of this situation it will be too big of a target to for us to keep on the board until we can use it to its full potential.
Dictate of Karametra 3GG: The reason we play this over other 5 cmc effects is for the keyword Flash. The big mana cost may turn some people away, but the real power of the card lies in casting it on the opponents endstep and being the first one to use the mana that it generates. Since we only need one turn to win the opponent will never have an opportunity to use the extra mana that they are given to try and disrupt us. The mana cost relies on hitting an early Sakura-Tribe Elder or Search for Tomorrow so that we can cast it on par with other combo decks in the format.
Dispel U: This comes in when you need additional cheap countermagic to protect your combo. It should really only be an addition to Swan Song, because it is hits less things and we don't worry about the swan token.
Spell Pierce U: This isn't a hard counter, but it helps in the Tron and Affinity matchups. It can also stop the odd Birthing Pod, or other counterspells. It is really up for debate on which is better to run, this or Swan Song, though most of the time I would stick with the hard counters.
Nature's Claim G: Because the deck doesn't care about the opponent gaining life, we can play this as if there is no drawback. It will destroy opponents Leyline of Sanctity, Ethersworn Canonist, or Eidolon of Rhetoric which would stop us from otherwise comboing out.
Squelch 1U: This rather unknown card can make for some blowout plays. It is a two mana Wasteland that replaces itself, it stops Kiki-Jiki from comboing out, it hits Birthing Pod right in the value, it makes a Tron player look dumb when they sacrifice their Oblivion Stone and get nothing out of it. The examples can go on and on with how good the card can be. It is undervalued in Modern and the opponent should be punished for thinking that.
Snapback 1U: This can be viewed as our panic button. It deals with troublesome creatures that we need to get rid of but can't afford to waste mana for. It is especially great against Ethersworn Canonist, or Eidolon of Rhetoric as you will have mana after to cast spells.
Determined GU: This is probably the only card that can combat Counterflux. It is slightly better than Autumn's Veil because it replaces itself, It is really up to you for which one to run, I personally would go with this.
Krosan Grip 2G: If you really need an Artifact or Enchantment dead without any contest, then play this. The downside is that it is more expensive than any other option we have.
Voidslime GGU: This is be be all end all of counterspells. It combines Counterspell, Stifle, and Squelch to create a counter that can hit anything. It is in out colours and has a reasonable cost. It is the best hardcounter in Modern for the purposes of protecting our combo.
Dismember 1
Leyline of Sanctity 2WW: This is one of our most crucial sideboard cards. The deck is very vulnerable to targeted discard and other burn. This shuts those cards down and improves out bad matchups by 100%. It makes matchups such as Burn, UR Storm, and Ad nausiem near unwinnable for the opponent. Since almost every deck has something that targets you, whether it is discard, burn, or creatures such as Vendilion Clique, it creates a format where this card is always relevant. As a bonus, you don't even need to be playing White to have this in your sideboard. Just be playing with lots of luck.
Ætherize 3U: This is a temporary fix to aggro decks. If you get a early extra land then you can cast it on turn 3 to gain a bit of time. The problem is that most decks you are using this on will be able to reassemble within a turn, so make sure you can end the game with your 'free' turn after casting it.
Venser, Shaper Savant 2UU: Think of him as a counterspell that can stop Counterflux. Because it bounces a spell on the stack, something that is uncounterable is not a problem for him. He can be searched up through Mystical Teachings which just expands his utility. He competes at the 4 cmc slot with Cryptic Command so it is up to you on which is better to run.
The two most obvious colour splashes as a third colour are Red and White. Black has its place, but its implications are not as in-line or able to help the decks game plan as much. Because of this, it is probably the last colour to look into. Without further ado, the colours, what they have to offer, and select cards from each!
Lightning Bolt R: There is a reason this is the most played non-land card in Modern. It is so efficient in what it does that it almost makes us want to play it for the removal that it provides. In Modern it isn't uncommon for opponents to shock themselves below 15 with their own lands, so a couple Lightning Bolts cast and then flashed back can end a game rather quick. But since we don't rely on damage as our main win condition, it is narrower of a card than normal. Aside from hitting Planeswalker loyalty, the Bolts will be used for removal all of the time and thins means that we could be looking for better removal spells to do this job.
Flame Slash R: See Lightning Bolt above. This does 1 more damage for the same cost, and is hitting the same targets almost all of the time. I think that is most situations it is a better card to be playing, but don't consider it to be better than Lightning Bolt for an instant.
Grapeshot 1R: This is an amazing kill card when we go off. Getting over 30 copies of it on the stack at once is near unbeatable, but at the same time UR Strom is a deck that is more tuned to winning with it. If we simply added it to the standard UG deck then whenever we drew it while not going off it could be considered a dead card. All it would do would be make winning faster, but comboing off less reliable. I think it should stick to Storm decks and get enough play before Wizards decides to ban the card itself.
Pyroclasm 1R: This is the best damage to cost ratio we can get. Since we run a very low creaute count it just make it better. It is at it's height against decks like Melira Pod or GW Hatebears. Pod isn't much of a problem for us, but Hatebears is harder so if you feel there is a need for additional support then run this.
Ancient Grudge 1R: Aside from destroying Affinity it is useful because the flashback cost is in one of our more accessible colors. If you are having a real problem playing vs the Robots decks then pack these and say goodbye to those losses forever.
Desperate Ritual and Pyretic Ritual 1R: Although making mana is nice, we need far more than these two can offer. It could come in handy to get us above 5 so we can play an enchantment and go off in the same turn, but in the long run it is just not worth it.
Izzet Charm UR: All modes of this charm are useful for us. The counterspell mode is a pseudo-Spell Pierce which allows us to play more counters in the deck while still maintaining a level of versatility on every card. The damage can help us deal with small creatures that are causing problems. It kills all of the popular X/2 creatures like Leonin Arbiter, Master of the Pearl Trident, Phantasmal Image, Melira, Sylvok Outcast, Murderous Redcap, as well as all the X/1 creatures in Modern. Finally the looting mode can act as another copy of Telling Time in a way so we have better filtering to find our combo pieces. Duping the cards into the yard is not our first choice, but they are still accessible through Snapcaster Mage. Overall this is one of the most well-rounded card that we could play if we splash red.
Goblin Electromancer UR: Even though he is a staple in UR Storm decks now, he could also find a home in ours. He wouldn't be there for saving mana when comboing off, but rather for making it easier to start the combo because once we get going mana is never an issue. The only problem that I foresee is that in a deck immune to creature removal, playing a creature to turn on all of their removal is just asking for trouble. I would never mind if he got hit by a Path to Exile, but anything ranging from Lightning Bolt to Abrupt decay will kill it and this opens up far too many removal spells vs our deck.
Firespout 2(R/G): See Pyroclasm above. This is only better if you are playing against a lot of Big Zoo decks.
Electrolyze 1UR: With the potential for 2-for-1's and drawing a card on top of that is what makes this such a powerful card. Out three drop spot is quite full, but the versatility of this card is always something to consider.
Cerebral Vortex 1UR: A win condition that works with only around 20 mana, and it also can draw us some cards when we are in a pinch. I would prefer this over Grapeshot because of the versatility of this card.
Counterflux UUR: This is a great card to be the be-all-end-all of counterspells. It protects the combo better than any other card, with the only problem being that the only deck you would need it against is UWR Control or U Tron. A better strategy vs these decks is to just amass more counters than them and overwhelm them in the counterwar. This keeps out maindeck with relevant spells for all matchups and more consistent with the colors it runs.
Empty the Warrens 3R: This provides an alt-wincon in the form of creature damage. We will have more than enough storm to oneshot them with all of the tokens that are produced. You would only ever need this if for some reason the Blue Sun's Zenith isn't going to work. The only downside to the card is that the tokens will not have Haste and need a full turn to lose their summon sickness.
Past in Flames 3R: This is a hopeful option for the deck. It works both from the yard and in our hand which is a good option to have. It can make for some cool interactions, such as flashing back an Increasing Vengeance to copy a flashed back Early Harvest and making more mana than you would ever need. It makes comboing off much easier because you won't have to rely on Snapcaster Mages to flash back Early Harvests to get that last bout of mana needed for a lethal Blue Sun's Zenith. The only downside is that each spell is exiled after being cast so you better be sure that you get the maximum use out of them as you will have no second chance.
Firemind's Foresight 5UR: This is a different card. One of the junk rares that was cast aside from the Return to Ravnica block is one of the most powerful tutors for our deck. When cast, it is able to tutor for everything in one spell. The casting cost of 7 isn't a problem for us, and the main targets will be Blue Sun's Zenith or Early Harvest at 3 cmc, Reality Spasm or Merchant Scroll at 2 cmc, and whatever draw spell you require at 1 cmc. If you are playing red then including this as a one-of can pay off big.
Epic Experiment XUR: This is another card that could have a place in the maindeck. Because our deck is almost all instants and sorceries as well as lands, we only need one untap after a resolved Dictate or Heartbeat to generate enough mana and go off. The upside of this spell over Blue Sun's Zenith is that you are not investing the mana twice. With Blue Sun's Zenith you pay to draw, then pay to use what you draw. This cuts it a step short, because you pay once and cast every spell you reveal at the same time. The downside is that everything else is put into the yard after, and our deck isn't the best at getting those cards back. The card is good enough that I think in a dedicated RUG shell it could put up some good results.
Silence W: This is similar to Autumn's Veil and Determined in the way that it protects your spells and allows you to combo off uncontested for the turn. What sets it apart from those two is that it can be used on the offensive on the opponents upkeep to stop them from advancing their boardstate for the turn. It used to be a sideboard favourite of past Eggs decks, and with both decks taking 20 minute turns why can't we play this too?
Path to Exile W: Unconditional removal is always welcome when it is hitting things such as Eidolon of Rhetoric, Qasali Pridemage, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, and many other cards that we don't like. If you want a creature gone, you can't get much better than this in Modern.
Kataki, War's Wage 1W: If you really hate Affinity THAT MUCH then play this. I'm pretty sure there is a law against hating something this much though...
Stony Silence 1W: Hate Affinity? Hate Tron? Hate Artifacts? Play this and you can cripple those decks to the point where you can combo off at your own leisure.
Rest in Peace 1W: This would be a perfect card if it didn't hurt us too. Right now the deck is relying on Snapcaster Mage to flash back cards for the final bouts of mana. If we shut down the opponents deck completely, we will still have to be jumping through hoops to win which is never a fun time. Keep it in mind as a good card to combat graveyard decks, but remember that Leyline of the Void does the same thing and is asymmetrical.
Suppression Field 1W: Since we don't have any activated abilities other than Sakura-Tribe Elder, we are mostly in the clear for playing this. It hurts Splinter Twin and Kiki-Jiki decks the most as they won't be able to combo out while this is on the field.
Ray of Revelation 1W: If you need to destroy some Enchantments then this is a good card for it. The flashback is in one of our main colours which makes it easier to cast. I don't know if I would be playing it over something like Back to Nature if I was playing the enchantment hate for the Boggles matchup, but if you are being hit with a lot of discard then it might make for a good alternative to the latter.
Glittering Wish GW: This is played in conjunction with what is called a wishboard. Basically we dedicate ~10 cards of our sideboard to multicolored silver bullet cards. Then when needed we can pull them into our hand. It is good because it allows us to play a toolbox style deck, with the only problem is usually having to cast the spell we fetch with it on the next turn. It is a powerful card, and the closest thing we have to Cunning Wish in Modern.
Ghostly Prison 2W: Another card designed to hit aggro decks where it hurts, and they just happen to be our worst matchups. The opponent will still likely be able to swing through with one big creature, aka a Vault Skirge equipped with a Cranial Plating so watch out for that.
Oblivion Ring and Banishing Light 2W: Speaking of exiling, this is another premiere choice. It hits everything in Modern from Emrakul to Liliana and because of this it is an amazing removal option for us to have access too.
Timely Reinforcements 2W: If Burn, Zoo, and Affinity decks are really getting you down you can start siding this in to put a big dent in their game. The blockers it makes and life it gains are good buffers to buy us enough time to combo off. The card essentially reads "You gain 6 life. Put three 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens onto the battlefield." Who could pass up a card like that?
Detention Sphere 1WU: An Oblivion Ring with the potential for 2-for-1's? Count me in! This is basically an improved O-ring and can be played beside the latter to get around cards like Maelstrom Pulse if need be, but these cases are few and far between. It is also a target if we are playing with Glittering Wish.
Bant Charm GWU: This is a pretty versatile card, maybe not on par with what Izzet Charm can do, but it still has relevant modes. The Artifact destruction is not that relevant to us, because if we board some we board a lot. The hardcounter is what we are looking for to protect ourselves when going off, and it can disrupt the opponents odd spell too. The creature tuck effect can also be relevant when we are being beaten down my an opposing Wurmcoil Engine, or when we need to stop a combo with Kiki-Jiki from happening. Overall it is a well rounded card for the white splash to have access to.
Leyline of Sanctity 2WW: This is one of our most crucial sideboard cards. The deck is very vulnerable to targeted discard and other burn. This shuts those cards down and improves out bad matchups by 100%. It makes matchups such as Burn, UR Storm, and Ad nausiem near unwinnable for the opponent. Since almost every deck has something that targets you, whether it is discard, burn, or creatures such as Vendilion Clique, it creates a format where this card is always relevant. As a bonus, you don't even need to be playing White to have this in your sideboard. Just be playing with lots of luck.
Terminus 4WW: With so many cards that can manipulate the top card of our library, playing the miracle mechanic should be looked forward too. Even though it is a Sorcery, it can be cast at instant speed when miracled which can surprise unsuspecting aggro decks. Because the creatures hit go on bottom, it hoses graveyard based creature decks such as Melira Pod, Goryo Reanimator, Dredgevine, and Living End to name a few.
Clarion Ultimatum GGWWWUU: This here is a pretty splashy card that people only know exists because of the Ultimatum cycle. It would be a part of a wishboard, and come in as a game ending card. Basically, by fetching up any lands left in our deck as well as the last copies of Dictate of Karametra and Heartbeat of Spring. After resolving it we will be producing boatloads of mana and win shortly thereafter.
Sphinx's Revelation XWUU: If you are splashing white then this can be considered better than Blue Sun's Zenith. The lifegain is relevant and it does essentially the same job. If you are playing with your win conditions in your sideboard with Glittering Wish then it is a fine replacement to the traditional BSZ in the maindeck.
RG Tron: Tron is a really good matchup for us. Basically any control deck is going to have a good time against Tron. Unless they can get a nut draw and an explosive start you shouldn't have much of a problem. You can ideally take the match two ways; counter all of their big spells that they can only cast one of per turn, or try to disrupt their land fetching and mana rocks to prevent them from playing anything later. I like the first personally, but it has the risk of going to the late game where they can amass enough lands for Emrakul. Usually 1-2 Remands is enough to stall them until we can combo off. Since they can't do anything at instant speed you won't be contested very much.
Jund: This is a really hard matchup for us because we are a combo deck that needs 3 specific cards in our hand to combo off. They have so much disruption in the form of Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, and Liliana of the Veil that it is hard to come back form getting 1-2 crucial cards taken form your hand. We can try to negate this by using all of our cantrips to try and get multiple copies of what we need to replace what gets discarded, but then you have to give up ramping to 5 mana by turn 3-4. Without winning in a timely fasion the deck can't handle the efficient beaters that they play which put a quick clock on us. If you do manage to get to later in the game you have to watch out for Scavenging Ooze. Flashing back our expended Early Harvests are often needed to have a comfortable amount of mana to win with. Exiling them in response to a Snapcaster Mage really hurts. In the same fashion, I don't think I need to talk about what happens if they resolve a Slaughter Games... Your best bet to winning is getting a good start with ramp and avoiding as much discard as you can. For now, Leyline of Sanctity is the best bet to stall Jund long enough that we can combo off. It also blacks their Lightning Bolts that can punch through the last couple points of damage.
The Rock: Much like Jund, this is a problem matchup for us. They have all the same cards that ruin our day and to top it off, they often run more copies of Scavenging Ooze. All I can suggest is get a Leyline out and try to combo fast.
Twin/Tarmo Twin: Another even matchup. The game is to have countermagic that stops their combo and make sure we set ours up at the same time. It is pretty straightforward but we still have the potential to get blown out by things like a Deceiver Exarch preemptively tapping down one of our lands so we can't cast a Dictate or something like that. Our general sideboard really hurts the deck, with things like Squelch/Voidslime, Repeal, Ætherize, Dismember, etc... There shouldn't be a problem keeping their combo off of the table, but the real problem comes when some number of Tarmogoyfs are in play as they are had to kill and bouncing them only prolongs the inevitable. My advice is to focus on keeping anything Splinter Twin would enchant off of the table rather than countering the enchantment itself. In game 2 they'll all be boarded out so then look to take down the Goyf's and other things that are attacking you. The matchup shouldn't be too bad assuming you can get a couple of good counters in and avoid any Dispels that get sided in.
Burn: A lot of rogue decks have problems with Burn. Fortunately for us, not running any shocks makes them actually count to 7 which if they are a turn late it gives us time to combo off. A single Leyline of Sanctity can be the nail in the coffin, so don't be afraid to mulligan until you hit one if it means having them scoop on turn 0.
Melira Pod: This is a matchup that is pretty even but has the potential to swing in our favor. Keeping key pieces such as Birthing Pod off of the board is the top priority, as well as always respecting the fact that you could be hit by a Chord of Calling silver bullet. The ones that really hurt us are Reclamation Sage/Harmonic Sliver, Eidolon of Rhetoric, and Scavenging Ooze. All of these will really hurt our game plan, so be wary of a chord for 3 or more happening at any time. Aside from that you want them to not try to race you in their combo. The beat down plan will be too slow, so if you can convince them to commit to it then you will be very far ahead in the game. I have found that often times they will think we are on Scapeshift as any logical person would do, so even if they go to combo off they will try for infinite life. If you have multiple Dictates that you could play, don't be afraid to play them over the course of two turns if you don't feel threatened. Often times Pod will have more mana than they need and no be able to use all of it, which the extra mana we give them won't help with at all (just watch out for Gavony Township). Overall there are a few silver bullets that will hurt us, but they either can be Remanded or they will come out at sorcery speed giving us time to deal with them.
UWR Control: One of the harder matcups after side boarding but, but not unwinnable. The reason for this is because of their access to Counterflux, and how it stops our combo dead in its tracks. Aside from that they are going to be playing a very slow game, so don't be afraid to try and hit 7-8 lands before comboing off to ensure that you have the necessary counters to protect your Dictate. The only hard counters they have access to will be Cryptic Command. Things like Mana Leak or Spell Snare can put a little bump in front of us, but it should never be too much to stop us from winning. One card to watch out for is Shadow of Doubt as it prevents searching for the entire turn which is a circuital part of us comboing off. Always have mana up for this id you can. I'd even go so far as to suggest that if you are expecting a lot of UWR Control when you play that you should have Spell Snares somewhere in your 75. It hits half their deck and is still relevant in almost every other matchup at some point. Aside from that, always be ear of a possible Vendilion Clique hitting you on your draw step. Take this into account when using things like Serum Visions and maybe put the cards you want second from top so you don't draw them until the turn after. Same ting goes for Think Twice. If you have the mana to spend, use it in response and then leave the card you want on top, that way you don't draw it and have it taken away. My last tip is that they are not so great with using all of their mana. Don't be afraid to run out a Dictate and have it sit around for a couple of turns. All they will benefit from it is activating their Celestial Colonnade and then having too much left over. This will open you up to Snapcaster Mage -> Cryptic Command but you should be able to counter it on your own with all of your mana. Plus it will give you a really big head start when you start to combo off.
Affinity: Another bad matchup. The speed and different angles of attack that come out of this deck can be a real problem. Their threats are so cheap that we can't Remand any of them and come out ahead which leaves us with trying to combo off before we die. One really effective card that I have found is Repeal. It can be brought in from the sideboard to give big tempo swings on things such as Archbound Ravager or anything equipped with Cranial Plating. The biggest downside is not being able to hit Inkmoth Nexus, which is protected from everything in our mainboard except for Cryptic Command. Another personal favourite to deal with this, and about half of the entire deck is Squelch (or Voidslime, whichever you prefer really). It will stop the three aforementioned cards as well as Steel Overseer, Springleaf Drum, Mox Opal, and Blinkmoth Nexus; all while replacing itself. Sometimes that single turn worth of stalling is enough to get a Dictate down and combo off. One thing to be careful of in games 2 and 3 is the threat of Thoughtseize being sided in. If they get a early one on us it can take away a crucial piece of the combo, so all we can hope for is being able to recover from it really.
RUG Scapeshift: Oh hey it looks like we are playing a Scapeshift mirror! This is a pretty even matchup, and like any deck with blue in it, it will come down to who can win a big counterwar to resolve their game-winning spell. We are at a disadvantage here I feel because playing a Dictate with 5 mana and then holding up mana for a counter will put us at 7 lands. Conveniently the same amount that the other player will be trying to get to. The games usually come down to who can get a better ramp going and be ahead on lands since it's sort of the high ground advantage in a way. What I have found to work is trying to bait a counter out with an Early Harvest, and then flashing it back with a Snapcaster. This will also leave them vulnerable if they use what they had to protect their Scapeshift. Lastly the thing to remember is that they have more counterspalls than us. With Remand, Cryptic Command, and Izzet Charm there will be a lot more disruption coming from their end of the table. Use what you have wisely to out think them in the long run. A couple of tricks that can be done include Remanding a Search For Tomorrow when it comes off of suspend to make them cast it from their hand. You can also Voidslime a [card-Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle]Valakut[/card] trigger and be left with 3+ life while they have no followup.
- Before 02/08/2014 the thread up to page 8 will serve as an archive for what has been discussed card-wise. All changes that have been made to the primer before this date have since been lost.
- 02/08/2014: Archived original deck that started the thread in the spoiler below. Updated cards: Mirror Sheen, Electrolyze, Praetor's Counsel, and Cerebral Vortex.
4x Misty Rainforest
8x Forest
6x Island
Instants & Sorceries
4x Serum Visions
4x Telling Time
4x Merchant Scroll
4x Search for Tomorrow
4x Remand
1x Cyclonic Rift
4x Early Harvest
2x Urban Evolution
2x Time Reversal
2x Reality Spasm
1x Blue Sun's Zenith
2x Snapcaster Mage
4x Sakura-Tribe Elder
Enchantments
4x Dictate of Karametra
4x Leyline of Sanctity
4x Terminus
1x Plains
2x Nature's Claim
2x Autumn's Veil
2x Snapback
- 17/08/2014: Added Plasm Capture, Sphinx's Revelation, and Fertile Ground to card choices. Updated sample decklists. Fixed some formatting and spelling.
- 21/09/2014: Updated decklists, added some of the KTK cards with it.
- 28/09/2014: Moved the sections around. Added Tier 1 matchup comments to the Matchup section. Added some cards, and rearranged/edited the sample decklists.
- 09/10/2014: Edited the sections to list cards by cmc. Added cards. Changed UG Combo list and put up new lists for White and Red splashes.
- 01/12/2014: Redid all of the sample decklists, added a black splash list, and removed some redundant and outdated cards in the primer.
Green Sun's Zenith? But that's banned in Modern! This is the response that you will probably get after being asked what deck you are playing at FNM this week. You also might want to bring your opponent a book of Sudoku games to do during the match. The namesake of the deck comes from the green cards that are played in order to amass copious amounts of mana before winning by forcing the opponent to draw more than their deck with a Blue Sun's Zenith.
Although this type of deck has been played before in the Kamigawa-Ravnica standard era, it is more well known for it's Legacy counterpart High Tide, which it is what it is modeled after.
If this idea intrigues you then read on and happy brewing!
"Green Sun's Zenith...? But that's banned in Modern!" is the response that you will probably get after your friend asks you what deck you'll be playing at FNM this week. You might also want to bring along a book for your opponent to read, that is assuming they aren't entertained by your ability to sling spells at an impressively fast rate while you churn through your deck, working to cast a Blue Sun's Zenith and forcing them to draw too many cards and lose the game.
As you may have guessed by now, the confusing name of the deck comes from the green cards that are played in order to ramp your lands and amass copious amounts of mana before winning by forcing the opponent to draw more cards than they have in their deck with a Blue Sun's Zenith.
Although this type of deck has been played before in the Kamigawa-Ravnica standard era and can be found all the way back to the days of Alpha with Mana Flare, it is more well known for it's counterpart Legacy deck named after its signature card High Tide.
Trying to replicate these decks in Modern is a challenge, but it leads to the clever deck building required to turn a pile of commons and rares that you wouldn't even want to last pick in a draft into something playable in Modern. If brewing up rouge decks that attacks from and angle unseen by the rest of the format intrigues you then read on and happy brewing!
I saw on here not too long ago people talking about how Twin is almost unwinnable for them once you know the matchup. What sort of things should I know to make this matchup better? Right now it seems as thought they need less resources than us to win, and they have easier threats to play (mainly Tarmogoyf). I just run out of cards to delay them and by that time they can drop their Pestermite/Deciever end of turn and then play a Splinter Twin under the cover of a Remand and Dispell.
Any advice is appreciated.
Something that I think you should watch is that Abrupt Decay is way too valuable in Modern to not include maindecking them. They nit almost anything, so I'd suggest dropping the Bolts and Anger of the Gods for them. You will probably want to get a Ravens Crime more than a Glame Jab, so cutting 1 for the fourth Ravens Crime could be beneficial. Other than that it is pretty stock and close to what I was running when I was testing out Commune. The only thing is the lack of targets and the waste of a turn when you cast it in the creatureless version.
I also ran Commune with just Pyromancer and it flopped hard. There is too few targets, and as someone said earlier, just filling the yard for a turn wasn't good enough. The creatureless version was ok with it, but I found it to be rather underwhelming when not interacting with the opponent for a turn (aka playing discard or removing creatures).
Overall I would say that Commune with the Gods looks good on paper, but it doesn't preform as good as it possibly could. It did help me find Assualts from time to time, but not as much as you would think. Also being a sorcery hurt it because we already have so many cards competing for things to do on our turn such as Loam, Ravens Crime, casting Assualt and Lily's, that jamming another in there really stretched its focus. I think that it can be god in the right setting, but overall it wasn't what I had hoped it to be.
Yes, but there are very few things that Burn will want to remove. If they are not trying to get to 20 as fast as possible then they are doing something wrong. That is why Black is played for the Bump in the Night. It is essentially another Lava Spike in another color. If you are wasting a card in order to remove a creature or something else, then in most cases you will be loosing the game.
There are other burn spells, such as Skullcrack that are used to get past any life gain that the opponent tries, and Smash to Smithereens is sometimes played to get past artifacts that could be a problem (Platinum Angel etc...)
Ah, I was surprised to see Blue in there. Guess I should have looked at your sig... Thanks for the explanation, and have you tried the Goblin in a Jund shell before? I guess I can try it out to see if it works about the same, but my guess is that we would rather be Looting or using some discard turn 1 instead.
You have weigh whether or not Akroma is worth it though. She dies to 2 Bolts, and dies to ANY black removal spell. If you draw her you will basically never be able to cast her because of the triple red cost. You should only have a couple of threats that are searched up with T&N. The more you have, the more redundant draws you will have and more dead cards in hand. Things like Primeval Titan are fine because they are castabe, and once you play them they help your game plan.
Think about it, would there ever be a reason to search for Akroma rather than Emrakul with T&N?