Back in the day I played the Reveillark combo deck in standard. It's always been one of my favorite decks to play. I've built a modern version of the deck that I will be taking to FNMs starting in September. This deck has been played many many times against all of the current tier 1 modern decks in the kitchen, and it holds it's own.
Blink + ETB might be my favorite mechanic combination.
It is soooooo versatile.
Target one of my creatures? Blink it out of play and you just fizzled a spell.
Amazing ETB effect on a creature? Milk the effect over and over with a Blink.
Drawing 4 cards for 4 mana with Mulldrifter and Cloudshift or Essence Flux? Yes Please.
Cast Stonehorn Dignitary and opponent skips his next combat phase. Immediately blink him, and now opponent will be skipping the next 2 combat phases. Get a reoccurring blink each turn from Conjurer's Closet, or Venser, the Sojourner targeting the Stonehorn Dignitary and now opponent skips combat phases every turn until he can deal with it.
-Playing the Deck-
Early on, we want to stall the game and find our land. This deck really shines once we get to 5 mana.
For the first 4 turns, we are playing Wall of Omens (cantrip) or Remand (cantrip) or Path to Exile threats. By turn four if we haven't missed a land drop, we are going to wipe the board without resistance with Supreme Verdict, or maybe draw 2 cards with Mulldrifter (or 4 if we blink), or maybe deal with a threat with Venser, Shaper Savant on their turn?
By turn 5 we are gassed up. Dropping a Stonehorn Dignitary + Cloudshift or Essence Flux will, in effect, give of us a 2 turn combat phase timewalks. Or maybe drop the Stonehorn Dignitary and hold a Cloudshift to evade their attempt at removing rhino. (I typically have a dice counter keeping track of how many of my opponents upcoming combat phases he will be skipping)
From this point on we are attempting to get a Stonehorn Dignitary + Conjurer's Closet, or Venser, the Sojourner lock in place. All the while blinking Mulldrifter over and over to fill our hands with answers, or blinking Venser, Shaper Savant over and over bouncing threats from the board, or bouncing Rhino to have our opponent skip their attack phases.
By this time our opponent will have made us discard creature threats or killed or countered them.
We will be looking to cast Reveillark to bring back 2 eligible creatures with sweet ETB effects from the graveyard. (All the creatures are eligible with sweet ETB effects except herself) :)
While not needed to win, there is a good chance that Venser, the Sojourner is ticking up to ultimate because the opponent isn't attacking, we are drawing a shitload of cards, and we are bouncing any permanents that are a problem. (I ultimate Sojourner about 30% of my games or so). Once this happens, we will slowly start bouncing every permanent in our opponents control. It's not uncommon for opponents to scoop once they start seeing their lands back in their hand so late in the game.
Eventually, we expect to have the game effectively locked and under our control and will swing over their heads with the flying creatures including late game hero Celestial Colonnade.
A couple points of interest:
There are 0 three drops, 11 four drops, and 9 five drops in this deck. I expect critics to say, "Whats up with the mana curve?" For modern, these threats have a pretty high CMC. But in my experience, it works well in the current meta, because my opponent often wastes his IOK only to find I'm holding nothing that is CMC 3 or less. Or he can't use his fatal pushes on my Mulldrifter or Reveillark. Or the Rhino is out of bolt range. Also, while the Mulldrifter is a 5 drop, he evokes for 3, so in a pinch he ends up being "draw 2 cards on turn 3", or again draw 4 for 4 with blink. Yes, the mana curve is weird for a Modern deck, but actually stalling the early game is usually easy and once we have 4-5 mana we are in great shape.
We get to run multiple cards that have the same effect to avoid running 4 ofs, and thus we are more resilient to extraction.Conjurer's Closet, = Venser, the Sojourner. Essence Flux = Cloudshift
The sideboard is currently set for my current meta, but I am open to suggestions. Leyline of Sanctity for Burn/discardAven Riftwatcher for aggro/burnPithing Needle (Liliana of the Veil causing us to sac our creatures is a problem) Stony Silence for artifact decks Engineered Explosives for stuff.
I'd like your thoughts. In my opinion, every slot is pretty darn synergistic so I'm not sure what improvements I would make. Although, I pretty much always side out wall for answers in game 2. If I were to replace it, it's replacement would have to cantrip because ensuring lands drops early is fairly vital.
Anyway, thanks for reviewing and offering suggestions.
