Wild Growth is still possible according to the number crunch. I'm not saying we're definitely getting Wild Growth, but we're definitely getting Wild Growth.
This 5-0 list ran a single Slaughter Pact, which could be grabbed with Mausoleum Secrets. Obviously bad in the early game, but it makes Secrets into a late-game toolbox: grab a Shadow for a threat, or a Pact/Push/Thoughtseize if you need interaction.
On the spicier/fun side of things, you could grab a single Deviant Glee to push damage through blockers, or Tainted Strike to end things against no blockers.
(I'm not saying this is competitive at all, please don't make that inference. Rather, I'm kind of bored with Modern, and am looking for fun new ways to play the decks I have.)
To that end, I wonder if there's a Bauble build that takes advantage of Architects of Will, Mausoleum Secrets, and Whispers of Emrakul. Much like Jund Shadow but with Secrets to get Shadows (instead of Traverse), and Whispers to take advantage of delirium. Against UW Control, Whispers may not even be bad in the mid-game, if RiP can be kept off the board.
I really like the idea of tutoring a Death's Shadow, FuneralOfGod. Maybe not in this deck, but in general it seems powerful. One cute interaction is that when you're at > 13 life, you can play Death's Shadow to put it directly in the yard, increasing the creature count for your undergrowth spells.
Necrotic Wound may be okay in game 1, but every deck has grave hate for game 2, which they'll bring in to mess with your main strategy. The decks you want Necrotic Wound against will be bringing in the grave hate game 2 anyways. So e.g. Leyline of the Void hurts even worse then, because it shuts off your removal AND makes your Living End plan worse. It's still probably playable game 1, but you sideboard plan has to take into account that you'll likely be siding them out every match.
Some other interesting spells to get with Secrets are Darkness (to buy time against fast aggro decks, same idea as Sidisi's Faithful), and Infernal Reckoning (if colourless Eldrazi ever becomes a part of the meta again).
Using Secrets of the Mausoleum to get a 1-of Yahenni's Expertise could be reasonable sometimes, even if the side effect kills your opponent's creatures. It's better against creature-light decks, such as UW Control or Storm, but those aren't the decks where casting Expertise seems realistic.
Like TyrantRevolver said, it's most likely only 1-2 copies, which helps get access to Surgical and Brutalities post-board as well.
Generally, Spell Snare is getting more valuable with the addition of Assassin's Trophy, at least for a while. I'm not certain that Jund/Abzan/Rock will wind up being strong in the current meta, since Trophy isn't an answer to the decks that GBx had problems with. But for a while, Snare will probably be more playable.
Thought-Knot Seer is good because you get to pick the card. This card is not as good. As a comparison, look at how many decks play Thoughtseize compared to Raven's Crime or Funeral Charm.
This version of Bolas seems like the type of card that R&D thinks will be powerful enough to affect Modern, but doesn't fit in the deck it would naturally fit into (Grixis Control). I don't say that to be a cynical prick, because they've gotten significantly better at printing cards that actually work in Modern. If he had flash or hexproof and the flip wasn't restricted to sorcery speed, then he'd playable, but he'd also potentially dominate Standard (a traditionally slower format where the 7 mana flip at sorcery speed is fair and balanced).
And his planeswalker side is sweet! I really want to play him. +2 to draw two cards? That would feel so f***ing good. I'll never get to do it in Modern, but I appreciate that whoever does is going to have a good time.
It just really hurts that Jeskai got Teferi and we keep getting 7+ mana planeswalkers in Grixis Colours.
It is absolutely lovely to see this deck perform well in the current meta. I think it was a great meta call by Zeekery for a few reasons:
1) As GDS and Storm have become smaller portions of the meta, graveyard hate isn't as prominent in sideboard. There are more Anger of the Gods than Surgical Extractions or Nihil Spellbombs right now.
2) Chalice of the Void is on the downswing as well. It was more common during the Colourless Eldrazi / GDS meta, pre-unbans. While Chalice is still around, it's not as powerful against Humans (Vial and diverse mana costs), or Jeskai (Cryptic and Teferi deal with it late game, although it can still be disruptive early).
3) Tron is not highly represented in the current meta. If it was, there would be way more Damping Spheres in sideboards, hurting this deck too.
Specifically with this list, dropping 2 Remands for 2 Bedlam Revelers seems solid.
There's actually not much else to say, I'm just really excited to give this deck a whirl again.
If I'm commited to playing blue, I want a plan versus Tron and midrange 3-colour decks. Blood Moon provides that. And Blue Moon is the only reasonable way to build a blue deck with maindeck Blood Moon right now. Field of Ruin gives Grixis and Jeskai a better tool versus Tron, but the matches are still quite challenging.
Generally Modern requires doing unfair things in order to win against the field. And Blue Moon also enables the "unfair" combos of Through the Breach+Emrakul, Kiki+Exarch, and Madcap+Emperion.
Jeskai Control and Grixis Control are more fair decks. They can't effectively run Blood Moon or Kiki+Exarch (although they could perhaps run Madcap Experiment, they usually have other things to do).
To be fair, Jeskai Control and Grixis Control have moderately unfair things they can do, but they're not necessarily mana efficient. So they require stabilizing before they can do shenanigans (e.g. Snapcaster + Kommand for Grixis. Nahiri, Torrential Gearhulk, or Secure the Wastes for Jeskai.) This is made possible by their cheap powerful creature kill spells (Fatal Push + Terminate, Path to Exile), and/or their sweepers (Damnation, Supreme Verdict.)
And with UR there are many different ways the deck can be built, so there's lots of variations to try. Jeskai also has a seemingly large variety of builds, and even Grixis has ways it can be tweaked to fit a specific meta.
But I think UR has, over the past several months, repeatedly produced the best results with the greatest variety of builds, from Pascal Vieren's (Moonless) UR Pyromancer in the top 8 at PT RIX, to Breach Moon in 10th at GP Hartford. There was also a good showing for Kiki Moon in the top8 of the most recent SCG Open.
Jeskai has put up results recently as well, but it's not unfair enough for my tastes. That's ultimately what you asked about, our subjective choice for sticking with pure UR. And for me it boils down to a feeling of "I'm presenting unfair bulls*** to my opponent almost as much as they're presenting it to me."
And if you play against KCI one round, Burn the next, then BR Hollow One, and top it off with some Tron or 5c Humans, it's nice to be able to do something unfair, rather than trading 1-for-1 for 10 turns until you can pull ahead on card advantage. Blood Moon itself does that, in one card. It is unfair bulls*** the card (versus some decks). On top of that we get access to our unfair combo of choice.
If Jeskai or Grixis had either one of those elements, they'd be more enticing to me in the current meta.
Pre-board it has the grindy value plan of cycling creatures and bringing them back with Living End, cast either via As Foretold or Bring to Light.
Post-board against fast decks, remove the Remands and Ancestral Visions for 4 Violent Outburst and 3 Anger of the Gods (for Humans, Affinity, Dredge, anything with small bodies) or 3 Pulse of Murasa (Burn, Mardu Pyromancer, anything grindy). This allows you to cascade into Living End reliably, with the backup plans of As Foretold -> Living End, and Bring to Light -> Living End.
Against Tron and Valakut decks there's turn 2-3 Blood Moon. Search for Tomorrow helps find basic Islands, which is also the reason there are 6 fetches. I haven't played against much Tron, so the plan against these decks is very much up for debate. I haven't tried Damping Sphere yet. I would assume that it's not that good in this deck, but I try to base my choices on playtesting rather than assumptions.
The two worst cards are Valley Rannet and Search for Tomorrow. They're good in certain situations, like against control where you want to hit your land drops reliably and can start hardcasting your creatures. I think maindeck Anger of the Gods over Search for Tomorrow is also totally reasonable.
Simian Spirit Guide is really good for casting Violent Outburst, Cryptic Command, or Bring to Light a turn early. Turn 2 As Foretold also feels strong. It also helps manafix for Anger of the Gods. (As do Valley Rannet and Search for Tomorrow.)
Ultimately it's the instant speed Living End that makes the deck tick. So one option is to play Violent Outburst main, with Ancestral Vision in the side for grindy matchups. I haven't tested that configuration yet.
Speaking of instant speed Living End, we can also cast it off of As Foretold using Alchemist's Refuge on our opponent's turn, for instance. Refuge also lets us suspend Search for Tomorrow on our opponent's turn, cast Ancestral Vision on our opponent's turn, cast creatures on our opponent's turn, etc. This is huge against control. This makes Refuge a huge Field of Ruin target, which makes Pulse of Murasa feel so good versus grindy decks. You can also get back a cycler with Pulse for extra value.
But it does feel like this overall shell, somewhere between control and combo, feels like the right style of control for the current format. Gotta go fast. You really want to have access to turn 2 Living End, or turn 3 at the latest.
Oh, I should mention that I initially played around with leaving Remand in with Violent Outburst. Then you cascade into Remand, return the Outburst to hand and draw a card. It was just too cute and inconsistent. The strength of the deck lies in the many ways to cast Living End, from turns 2-5, some being instant speed.
One other shortcoming that I'm trying to fix is the inability to play Relic of Progenitus or Tormod's Crypt to eat our opponent's graveyard. We're totally reliant on Bojuka Bog for that. Thankfully the Tolaria West's are less pressured to grab Living End or AV, and can be used to grab Bog or Refuge more often. As the games go long, casting Living End to wipe your opponent's board, eating their yard, then casting another Living End to get back your own board becomes more important.
I implore people to test this deck out, please. There are lots of matchups that I haven't been able to test (Modern is a huge format now). And while it feels like a powerful deck, I'm completely open to suggestions.
It also takes a while to get into the right mindspace for the deck, similar to the original deck. I've been testing this Temur version for weeks with friends, and I still make sequencing errors. It really has a tremendous number of decision trees to account for once you get past turn 4. For example:
Do I use this Spirit Guide to cast As Foretold on turn 2, or save it so I can Cryptic on turn 3?
Do I play Tolaria West tapped on turn 1 so I can wipe my opponent's board with SSG+Violent Outburst on turn 2, or suspend Search for Tomorrow so I can Cryptic on turn 3?
It may have been mentioned above, but BBE cascading into Utopia Sprawl is also ramp if you have an untapped Forest to put it on. There's actually a lot of subtle interactions there.
For instance, if you have 4 lands and an Arbor Elf in play, you can cast BBE off the lands, and if you cascade into Utopia Sprawl you can untap the targeted Forest with the Elf and get an additional 2 mana on that turn. That 2 mana can be pumped in to Scavenging Ooze or Clue tokens, for instance.
i.e. Utopia Sprawl doesn't have summoning sickness, unlike Elf and BoP.
Overall I think BoP gets worse with BBE, compared to Arbor Elf and Utopia Sprawl. But you still really want that 9th or 10th 1-mana ramp spell for the turn 2 Blood Moon.
I think if anything it pushes the deck more into UW for the Jace + Terminus interaction. Terminus also being the perfect board clear to precede Living End. Plus we can put Terminus on top, and draw it at instant speed on our opponent's turn with a cycler.
Search for Azcanta is at least a 2-of, because it ramps into Jace and helps dig for Terminus.
The question is, what do you cut to fit all that stuff? And why not just play a straight UW deck instead? Why would we need Terminus when we already have Living End as a board wipe? They're both fairly slow to setup and luck dependent.
Jund is also a very tough matchup in my experience. This deck was in a sweet spot where Jund was at an all-time low, but BBE unban may (or may not!) increase it's prevalence.
It's too early to tell, but I'm not seeing these unbans as being good for Blue Living End. The format will actually get more aggressive because of this. I dislike this unban already.
Ardent Plea out of the sideboard (taking out Remands and some AV) make the fast Living End more reliable in games 2 and 3 versus fast decks. The painful part is splashing white but having to side out Path to Exile. Timely Reinforcements can buy a turn or two and doesn't get hit by Plea, so it's a decent sideboard card for aggro matchups.
The Ardent Plea sb plan is cute, but it makes running other 1-2cmc interaction problematic. Silence plus some Snapcasters or JVP seem like one path for getting to the late game that's relatively unexplored for combo decks in Modern. But we're getting into turbo fog territory here.
I'm playing around with a green splash as well. Beast Within helps deal with all the problem permanents (RiP, Leylines, Relics), Pulse of Murasa in the sb helps against Burn, but also works well in grindy matchups. I think Moment's Peace would be fantastic in this deck, but we'll probably never see it in Modern.
Alchemist's Refuge is f***ing amazing when it works. Yes, instant speed Ancestral Vision, just as Richard Garfield intended. I'd play more than 1 if the mana could support it.
Refuge also potentially synergizes with the Eternal Command style, which I'm surprised hasn't been talked about more. Traditionally people use Aether Vial to get free Eternal Witnesses, returning the Cryptic, and bouncing the Ewit again, ad nauseum. We have As Foretold instead of Vial, which is at least two turns slower, but has other benefits. It really is slow and durdly, we have more powerful things to be doing, but that extreme durdliness appeals to some people.
I gave up on Utopia Sprawl as acceleration. Having turn 1 Forest consistently required playing too many fetches and shocks. Botanical Sanctum is a necessity for keeping the deck alive long enough to start tapping down with Cryptics or assembling AF+LE, and you can't put Sprawl on Sanctums.
Bring to Light makes casting LE more consistent. It's slow at 5 mana but increasing threat density is important against control, in addition to finding sideboard cards (e.g. Scavenging Ooze).
It really is a control deck that uses the combo for board control versus creature decks, with the side benefit of getting lots of bodies on board sometimes. (i.e. the combo win)
In principal Lotus Bloom could be interesting with Bring to Light (and even ramping into Baral's Expertise), but Bloom is too durdly at that point.
Finally I'm curious about incorporating Wheel of Fate if only the drawback (opponent gets to draw 7 too) could be mitigated somehow. Notion Thief is cute, but too slow.
That's the least promising direction that I'm exploring right now, but I'm pretty keen on green right now.
Alright. I think this deck isn't degenerate enough yet. I agree that it works well as a control deck with a combo finish. But I'm interested in exploring options for making it more combo-centric.
The times you get to cycle 2-3 creatures in the first two turns, and cast As Foretold on curve (i.e. turn 3) AND Living End on the same turn DO feel degenerate. We'll call that the Optimal Line. (Yes, with the current incarnation of the deck you don't always want or need to do that, even given the choice. I understand this, it's irrelevant to the exploration of the deck being more combo-centric because we're assuming we want to combo ASAP. This is all a thought experiment, put on your combo hats please.)
Either the deck needs to speed up the Optimal Line by a full turn, or greatly increase the consistency of hitting it on turn 3.
Options for speeding up the Optimal Line (turn 3 As Foretold + Living End with creatures in the yard):
* Turn 1 Utopia Sprawl on a Forest. This gets us to As Foretold on turn 2. It can be cast when As Foretold has one counter on it, in which case it's pure ramp, because it doesn't have summoning sickness. It also doesn't die to Living End, and can help colour fix for a third colour.
* Birds of Paradise. It dies to removal and your own Living End. But it is a speedbump that can very seldom buy a turn. It also colour-fixes for a potential third colour.
* Simian Spirit Guide. This is played in Jund Living End for extra speed. It also gives them a creature they can hard-cast, so they have a Demonic Dread target versus a non-creature deck. We don't have that requirement. He does create the opportunity for turn 1 Remand or Search for Azcanta however, which Utopia Sprawl does not.
Let me know if you have any more options for speeding up the As Foretold -> Living End turn, which is constrained by mana. Hitting 3 mana on turn 2 seems especially important because it allows you to spend that turn casting As Foretold OR transmuting Tolaria West/Drift of Phantasms.
Options for making the Optimal Line more probable:
* Faithless Looting. It essentially halves the cycling cost for the 1 mana cyclers. And it also helps you dig for whichever piece of the combo you need. If there was an additional synergy with Faithless Looting, such as enabling Delirium (which we don't need) or Delve (which we can't use effectively), then it would be a resounding success. As it stands, it feels bad, honestly, because we don't have a high enough density of cyclers. So it's often "draw two, discard a land and Remand".
* Commune with the Gods. Turn 2 play or turn 1 with SSG. It can find As Foretold but not Living End. Fills the yard for Living End and Search for Azcanta.
Then there are a bunch of cards that don't fit our criteria for various reasons. Nagging Thoughts doesn't dig deep enough. Strategic Planning is not bad, but it's either this or Remand. Glimpse the Future is too slow + a sorcery. Forbidden Alchemy is an instant, but too expensive for our explicit purpose of getting the turn 3 As Foretold + Living End.
Another angle for increasing consistency is adding redundant ways of casting Living End. This can be achieved two ways in Modern that are fast enough for our purposes.
* Cascade cards, such as Demonic Dread (making the deck Grixis), Ardent Plea (making it UW), or Violent Outburst (making it Temur). The trouble is that you have to cut Remand and anything else with cmc <= 2. That may or may not include Ancestral Vision.
* Kari Zev's Expertise. This is likely a sideboard card. Sram's Expertise and Yahenni's Expertise cost 1 more than Kari Zev's, and are not terrible cards in their own right, but don't fit the goal of turn 3 As Foretold -> Living End.
* (The third way that I can think of is Bring to Light, but that's very slow at 5 mana. I'd be interested in hearing about more, besides Hideaway lands.)
So, given all these approaches, what are some directions that could be fruitful?
Personally the UR direction with Simian Spirit Guide and Kari Zev's Expertise sounds promising. Unfortunately Faithless Looting doesn't work with either Demonic Dread or Violent Outburst, but I think removing Remand to make the cascaders work seems like a decent angle of attack.
Another nice benefit of turn 1 Utopia Sprawl or BoP is that you get access to turn 2 Beast Within, Fulminator Mage (Temur), OR play + activate Field of Ruin and use your new untapped basic land to cycle. So it ramps up the mana denial angle of the deck substantially. BoP also gives you another target for Kari Zev's Expertise, if needed.
I'd love to hear any thoughts you have about moving in the combo direction. Based on the assumption that combo is what we want to do, how can we do the most degenerate s*** possible?
Have you tried Spontaneous Mutation as a SB option against fast aggro decks ?
I did try Spontaneous Mutation. That was what led me to Vapor Snag. I found the mutation to be not impactful enough in the matchups where you really need fast creature disruption. It doesn't do anything to some of the most troublesome creatures (i.e. Thalia, Meddling Mage, and Kitesail Freebooter) and you rarely have enough cards in your graveyard to prevent Goblin Guide from getting in a 4 points of damage or so. Honestly, a card that I haven't tested yet that may work well out of the board is Gigadrowse. It does just about everything that Spontaneous Mutation does while also being very useful later in the game to give you additional turns. It also happens to be just about the best card against pure control decks.
Sidisi's Faithful is an option. Buys time versus small creature decks, and can bounce Gurmag Angler while avoiding Stubborn Denial. Then it comes back post-Living End to bounce any opposing creatures that also came back.
Considering that Burn and GDS are both bad matchups, it may be worth trying, even if it appears to be a weak card. Wall of Omens saw play in UW Control for quite a while, so the 0/4 body may be more useful than it seems at first.
If I'm wrong, I'll eat an orange.
Especially compared to the 3cmc Teferi (bottom center): https://i.redd.it/blymvh153ip21.jpg
On the spicier/fun side of things, you could grab a single Deviant Glee to push damage through blockers, or Tainted Strike to end things against no blockers.
(I'm not saying this is competitive at all, please don't make that inference. Rather, I'm kind of bored with Modern, and am looking for fun new ways to play the decks I have.)
To that end, I wonder if there's a Bauble build that takes advantage of Architects of Will, Mausoleum Secrets, and Whispers of Emrakul. Much like Jund Shadow but with Secrets to get Shadows (instead of Traverse), and Whispers to take advantage of delirium. Against UW Control, Whispers may not even be bad in the mid-game, if RiP can be kept off the board.
Necrotic Wound may be okay in game 1, but every deck has grave hate for game 2, which they'll bring in to mess with your main strategy. The decks you want Necrotic Wound against will be bringing in the grave hate game 2 anyways. So e.g. Leyline of the Void hurts even worse then, because it shuts off your removal AND makes your Living End plan worse. It's still probably playable game 1, but you sideboard plan has to take into account that you'll likely be siding them out every match.
Some other interesting spells to get with Secrets are Darkness (to buy time against fast aggro decks, same idea as Sidisi's Faithful), and Infernal Reckoning (if colourless Eldrazi ever becomes a part of the meta again).
Like TyrantRevolver said, it's most likely only 1-2 copies, which helps get access to Surgical and Brutalities post-board as well.
Generally, Spell Snare is getting more valuable with the addition of Assassin's Trophy, at least for a while. I'm not certain that Jund/Abzan/Rock will wind up being strong in the current meta, since Trophy isn't an answer to the decks that GBx had problems with. But for a while, Snare will probably be more playable.
This version of Bolas seems like the type of card that R&D thinks will be powerful enough to affect Modern, but doesn't fit in the deck it would naturally fit into (Grixis Control). I don't say that to be a cynical prick, because they've gotten significantly better at printing cards that actually work in Modern. If he had flash or hexproof and the flip wasn't restricted to sorcery speed, then he'd playable, but he'd also potentially dominate Standard (a traditionally slower format where the 7 mana flip at sorcery speed is fair and balanced).
And his planeswalker side is sweet! I really want to play him. +2 to draw two cards? That would feel so f***ing good. I'll never get to do it in Modern, but I appreciate that whoever does is going to have a good time.
It just really hurts that Jeskai got Teferi and we keep getting 7+ mana planeswalkers in Grixis Colours.
4 Thing in the Ice
2 Bedlam Reveler
Enchantments (4)
4 Pyromancer Ascension
Spells (32)
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Opt
2 Path to Exile
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Thought Scour
4 Lightning Helix
4 Manamorphose
2 Remand
4 Flooded Strand
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Spirebluff Canal
2 Steam Vents
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Dispel
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Abrade
1 Blessed Alliance
2 Negate
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Molten Rain
2 Monastery Mentor
1 Wear // Tear
It is absolutely lovely to see this deck perform well in the current meta. I think it was a great meta call by Zeekery for a few reasons:
1) As GDS and Storm have become smaller portions of the meta, graveyard hate isn't as prominent in sideboard. There are more Anger of the Gods than Surgical Extractions or Nihil Spellbombs right now.
2) Chalice of the Void is on the downswing as well. It was more common during the Colourless Eldrazi / GDS meta, pre-unbans. While Chalice is still around, it's not as powerful against Humans (Vial and diverse mana costs), or Jeskai (Cryptic and Teferi deal with it late game, although it can still be disruptive early).
3) Tron is not highly represented in the current meta. If it was, there would be way more Damping Spheres in sideboards, hurting this deck too.
Specifically with this list, dropping 2 Remands for 2 Bedlam Revelers seems solid.
There's actually not much else to say, I'm just really excited to give this deck a whirl again.
Generally Modern requires doing unfair things in order to win against the field. And Blue Moon also enables the "unfair" combos of Through the Breach+Emrakul, Kiki+Exarch, and Madcap+Emperion.
Jeskai Control and Grixis Control are more fair decks. They can't effectively run Blood Moon or Kiki+Exarch (although they could perhaps run Madcap Experiment, they usually have other things to do).
To be fair, Jeskai Control and Grixis Control have moderately unfair things they can do, but they're not necessarily mana efficient. So they require stabilizing before they can do shenanigans (e.g. Snapcaster + Kommand for Grixis. Nahiri, Torrential Gearhulk, or Secure the Wastes for Jeskai.) This is made possible by their cheap powerful creature kill spells (Fatal Push + Terminate, Path to Exile), and/or their sweepers (Damnation, Supreme Verdict.)
And with UR there are many different ways the deck can be built, so there's lots of variations to try. Jeskai also has a seemingly large variety of builds, and even Grixis has ways it can be tweaked to fit a specific meta.
But I think UR has, over the past several months, repeatedly produced the best results with the greatest variety of builds, from Pascal Vieren's (Moonless) UR Pyromancer in the top 8 at PT RIX, to Breach Moon in 10th at GP Hartford. There was also a good showing for Kiki Moon in the top8 of the most recent SCG Open.
Jeskai has put up results recently as well, but it's not unfair enough for my tastes. That's ultimately what you asked about, our subjective choice for sticking with pure UR. And for me it boils down to a feeling of "I'm presenting unfair bulls*** to my opponent almost as much as they're presenting it to me."
And if you play against KCI one round, Burn the next, then BR Hollow One, and top it off with some Tron or 5c Humans, it's nice to be able to do something unfair, rather than trading 1-for-1 for 10 turns until you can pull ahead on card advantage. Blood Moon itself does that, in one card. It is unfair bulls*** the card (versus some decks). On top of that we get access to our unfair combo of choice.
If Jeskai or Grixis had either one of those elements, they'd be more enticing to me in the current meta.
4 Cryptic Command
4 As Foretold
3 Living End
3 Ancestral Vision
4 Simian Spirit Guide
2 Search for Tomorrow
4 Curator of Mysteries
4 Striped Riverwinder
4 Street Wraith
2 Valley Rannet
2 Bring to Light
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Alchemist's Refuge
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Grounds
2 Sulfur Falls
2 Botanical Sanctum
3 Island
1 Mountain
1 Forest
4 Violent Outburst
3 Pulse of Murasa
3 Anger of the Gods
3 Blood Moon
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Pre-board it has the grindy value plan of cycling creatures and bringing them back with Living End, cast either via As Foretold or Bring to Light.
Post-board against fast decks, remove the Remands and Ancestral Visions for 4 Violent Outburst and 3 Anger of the Gods (for Humans, Affinity, Dredge, anything with small bodies) or 3 Pulse of Murasa (Burn, Mardu Pyromancer, anything grindy). This allows you to cascade into Living End reliably, with the backup plans of As Foretold -> Living End, and Bring to Light -> Living End.
Against Tron and Valakut decks there's turn 2-3 Blood Moon. Search for Tomorrow helps find basic Islands, which is also the reason there are 6 fetches. I haven't played against much Tron, so the plan against these decks is very much up for debate. I haven't tried Damping Sphere yet. I would assume that it's not that good in this deck, but I try to base my choices on playtesting rather than assumptions.
The two worst cards are Valley Rannet and Search for Tomorrow. They're good in certain situations, like against control where you want to hit your land drops reliably and can start hardcasting your creatures. I think maindeck Anger of the Gods over Search for Tomorrow is also totally reasonable.
Simian Spirit Guide is really good for casting Violent Outburst, Cryptic Command, or Bring to Light a turn early. Turn 2 As Foretold also feels strong. It also helps manafix for Anger of the Gods. (As do Valley Rannet and Search for Tomorrow.)
Ultimately it's the instant speed Living End that makes the deck tick. So one option is to play Violent Outburst main, with Ancestral Vision in the side for grindy matchups. I haven't tested that configuration yet.
Speaking of instant speed Living End, we can also cast it off of As Foretold using Alchemist's Refuge on our opponent's turn, for instance. Refuge also lets us suspend Search for Tomorrow on our opponent's turn, cast Ancestral Vision on our opponent's turn, cast creatures on our opponent's turn, etc. This is huge against control. This makes Refuge a huge Field of Ruin target, which makes Pulse of Murasa feel so good versus grindy decks. You can also get back a cycler with Pulse for extra value.
But it does feel like this overall shell, somewhere between control and combo, feels like the right style of control for the current format. Gotta go fast. You really want to have access to turn 2 Living End, or turn 3 at the latest.
Oh, I should mention that I initially played around with leaving Remand in with Violent Outburst. Then you cascade into Remand, return the Outburst to hand and draw a card. It was just too cute and inconsistent. The strength of the deck lies in the many ways to cast Living End, from turns 2-5, some being instant speed.
One other shortcoming that I'm trying to fix is the inability to play Relic of Progenitus or Tormod's Crypt to eat our opponent's graveyard. We're totally reliant on Bojuka Bog for that. Thankfully the Tolaria West's are less pressured to grab Living End or AV, and can be used to grab Bog or Refuge more often. As the games go long, casting Living End to wipe your opponent's board, eating their yard, then casting another Living End to get back your own board becomes more important.
I implore people to test this deck out, please. There are lots of matchups that I haven't been able to test (Modern is a huge format now). And while it feels like a powerful deck, I'm completely open to suggestions.
It also takes a while to get into the right mindspace for the deck, similar to the original deck. I've been testing this Temur version for weeks with friends, and I still make sequencing errors. It really has a tremendous number of decision trees to account for once you get past turn 4. For example:
Do I use this Spirit Guide to cast As Foretold on turn 2, or save it so I can Cryptic on turn 3?
Do I play Tolaria West tapped on turn 1 so I can wipe my opponent's board with SSG+Violent Outburst on turn 2, or suspend Search for Tomorrow so I can Cryptic on turn 3?
I've been skeptical of the 4 Bauble versions lately, but I might give this version a try for a while. Thanks for sharing.
For instance, if you have 4 lands and an Arbor Elf in play, you can cast BBE off the lands, and if you cascade into Utopia Sprawl you can untap the targeted Forest with the Elf and get an additional 2 mana on that turn. That 2 mana can be pumped in to Scavenging Ooze or Clue tokens, for instance.
i.e. Utopia Sprawl doesn't have summoning sickness, unlike Elf and BoP.
Overall I think BoP gets worse with BBE, compared to Arbor Elf and Utopia Sprawl. But you still really want that 9th or 10th 1-mana ramp spell for the turn 2 Blood Moon.
Search for Azcanta is at least a 2-of, because it ramps into Jace and helps dig for Terminus.
The question is, what do you cut to fit all that stuff? And why not just play a straight UW deck instead? Why would we need Terminus when we already have Living End as a board wipe? They're both fairly slow to setup and luck dependent.
Jund is also a very tough matchup in my experience. This deck was in a sweet spot where Jund was at an all-time low, but BBE unban may (or may not!) increase it's prevalence.
It's too early to tell, but I'm not seeing these unbans as being good for Blue Living End. The format will actually get more aggressive because of this. I dislike this unban already.
(Edited out some negative comments.)
The Ardent Plea sb plan is cute, but it makes running other 1-2cmc interaction problematic. Silence plus some Snapcasters or JVP seem like one path for getting to the late game that's relatively unexplored for combo decks in Modern. But we're getting into turbo fog territory here.
I'm playing around with a green splash as well. Beast Within helps deal with all the problem permanents (RiP, Leylines, Relics), Pulse of Murasa in the sb helps against Burn, but also works well in grindy matchups. I think Moment's Peace would be fantastic in this deck, but we'll probably never see it in Modern.
Jaddi Offshoot, Brindle Boar, Gnaw to the Bone, Wall of Roots, Sakura-tribe Elder and even Embodiment of Spring are all reasonable green cards that help with aggro matchups, and synergize with the decks main plan. Note that ramping to 4 mana is actually very useful as we can start buying time with Cryptics, bridging from 3 to 5 mana for BtL.
Alchemist's Refuge is f***ing amazing when it works. Yes, instant speed Ancestral Vision, just as Richard Garfield intended. I'd play more than 1 if the mana could support it.
Refuge also potentially synergizes with the Eternal Command style, which I'm surprised hasn't been talked about more. Traditionally people use Aether Vial to get free Eternal Witnesses, returning the Cryptic, and bouncing the Ewit again, ad nauseum. We have As Foretold instead of Vial, which is at least two turns slower, but has other benefits. It really is slow and durdly, we have more powerful things to be doing, but that extreme durdliness appeals to some people.
I gave up on Utopia Sprawl as acceleration. Having turn 1 Forest consistently required playing too many fetches and shocks. Botanical Sanctum is a necessity for keeping the deck alive long enough to start tapping down with Cryptics or assembling AF+LE, and you can't put Sprawl on Sanctums.
Bring to Light makes casting LE more consistent. It's slow at 5 mana but increasing threat density is important against control, in addition to finding sideboard cards (e.g. Scavenging Ooze).
It really is a control deck that uses the combo for board control versus creature decks, with the side benefit of getting lots of bodies on board sometimes. (i.e. the combo win)
In principal Lotus Bloom could be interesting with Bring to Light (and even ramping into Baral's Expertise), but Bloom is too durdly at that point.
Finally I'm curious about incorporating Wheel of Fate if only the drawback (opponent gets to draw 7 too) could be mitigated somehow. Notion Thief is cute, but too slow.
That's the least promising direction that I'm exploring right now, but I'm pretty keen on green right now.
The times you get to cycle 2-3 creatures in the first two turns, and cast As Foretold on curve (i.e. turn 3) AND Living End on the same turn DO feel degenerate. We'll call that the Optimal Line. (Yes, with the current incarnation of the deck you don't always want or need to do that, even given the choice. I understand this, it's irrelevant to the exploration of the deck being more combo-centric because we're assuming we want to combo ASAP. This is all a thought experiment, put on your combo hats please.)
Either the deck needs to speed up the Optimal Line by a full turn, or greatly increase the consistency of hitting it on turn 3.
Options for speeding up the Optimal Line (turn 3 As Foretold + Living End with creatures in the yard):
* Turn 1 Utopia Sprawl on a Forest. This gets us to As Foretold on turn 2. It can be cast when As Foretold has one counter on it, in which case it's pure ramp, because it doesn't have summoning sickness. It also doesn't die to Living End, and can help colour fix for a third colour.
* Birds of Paradise. It dies to removal and your own Living End. But it is a speedbump that can very seldom buy a turn. It also colour-fixes for a potential third colour.
* Simian Spirit Guide. This is played in Jund Living End for extra speed. It also gives them a creature they can hard-cast, so they have a Demonic Dread target versus a non-creature deck. We don't have that requirement. He does create the opportunity for turn 1 Remand or Search for Azcanta however, which Utopia Sprawl does not.
Let me know if you have any more options for speeding up the As Foretold -> Living End turn, which is constrained by mana. Hitting 3 mana on turn 2 seems especially important because it allows you to spend that turn casting As Foretold OR transmuting Tolaria West/Drift of Phantasms.
Options for making the Optimal Line more probable:
* Faithless Looting. It essentially halves the cycling cost for the 1 mana cyclers. And it also helps you dig for whichever piece of the combo you need. If there was an additional synergy with Faithless Looting, such as enabling Delirium (which we don't need) or Delve (which we can't use effectively), then it would be a resounding success. As it stands, it feels bad, honestly, because we don't have a high enough density of cyclers. So it's often "draw two, discard a land and Remand".
* Commune with the Gods. Turn 2 play or turn 1 with SSG. It can find As Foretold but not Living End. Fills the yard for Living End and Search for Azcanta.
Then there are a bunch of cards that don't fit our criteria for various reasons. Nagging Thoughts doesn't dig deep enough. Strategic Planning is not bad, but it's either this or Remand. Glimpse the Future is too slow + a sorcery. Forbidden Alchemy is an instant, but too expensive for our explicit purpose of getting the turn 3 As Foretold + Living End.
Another angle for increasing consistency is adding redundant ways of casting Living End. This can be achieved two ways in Modern that are fast enough for our purposes.
* Cascade cards, such as Demonic Dread (making the deck Grixis), Ardent Plea (making it UW), or Violent Outburst (making it Temur). The trouble is that you have to cut Remand and anything else with cmc <= 2. That may or may not include Ancestral Vision.
* Kari Zev's Expertise. This is likely a sideboard card. Sram's Expertise and Yahenni's Expertise cost 1 more than Kari Zev's, and are not terrible cards in their own right, but don't fit the goal of turn 3 As Foretold -> Living End.
* (The third way that I can think of is Bring to Light, but that's very slow at 5 mana. I'd be interested in hearing about more, besides Hideaway lands.)
So, given all these approaches, what are some directions that could be fruitful?
Personally the UR direction with Simian Spirit Guide and Kari Zev's Expertise sounds promising. Unfortunately Faithless Looting doesn't work with either Demonic Dread or Violent Outburst, but I think removing Remand to make the cascaders work seems like a decent angle of attack.
Another nice benefit of turn 1 Utopia Sprawl or BoP is that you get access to turn 2 Beast Within, Fulminator Mage (Temur), OR play + activate Field of Ruin and use your new untapped basic land to cycle. So it ramps up the mana denial angle of the deck substantially. BoP also gives you another target for Kari Zev's Expertise, if needed.
I'd love to hear any thoughts you have about moving in the combo direction. Based on the assumption that combo is what we want to do, how can we do the most degenerate s*** possible?
Sidisi's Faithful is an option. Buys time versus small creature decks, and can bounce Gurmag Angler while avoiding Stubborn Denial. Then it comes back post-Living End to bounce any opposing creatures that also came back.
Considering that Burn and GDS are both bad matchups, it may be worth trying, even if it appears to be a weak card. Wall of Omens saw play in UW Control for quite a while, so the 0/4 body may be more useful than it seems at first.