Eight Knack

Modern* Budget Combo

Tempeszt

Creature (11)

• 4x Battered Golem
• 4x Kozilek's Sentinel
• 3x Zephyr Scribe

Land (25)

• 7x Island
• 10x Mountain
• 4x Shivan Reef
• 4x Swiftwater Cliffs

Enchantment (2)

• 2x Molten Nursery

Artifact (11)

• 3x Altar of the Brood
• 4x Herbal Poultice
• 4x Welding Jar

Instant (7)

• 4x Banishing Knack
• 1x Dispel
• 2x Retraction Helix

Sorcery (4)

• 4x Sleight of Hand

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Eight Knack Combo

So, this deck was mostly inspired by An article from the Mothership. It started fairly budget, and is still somewhat, but I'll be un-budgeting it as my actual budget allows. The idea here is to create an infinite loop:

Banishing Knack plus an untapper, plus a zero cost artifact, plus a win con equals fun!

Eight Knacks

Eight Knacks:

The namesake of the deck is the Banishing Knack and its doppelganger Retraction Helix. Running 4 of each gives us the requisite 8.

Untappers

Untappers

There are a few choices here. Pick any combination for a total of 8 of these:

• Zephyr Scribe is good because he will let us loot if we need to find a combo piece or are flooding out. Also, he untaps on non-colorless and non-artifact spells. Currently running 4.

• Battered Golem doubles as a combo piece, a blocker, or an attacker if you've got the artifacts in-hand to untap him. I've got a full 4 in the main currently

• Nettle Drone His tap-to-ping ability and his 1 toughness make him my least favorite untapper here. However, if I know I'm going to be attacking, I'll bring these in. Currently on zero in the main.

Zero-cost Artifacts

These have 2 main purposes: be easy to cast, and keep your combo pieces alive. I've got plans to experiment with this slot, but currently I'm just running playlets of:

Herbal Poultice I rarely actually use this one's -mana regeneration. The number of situations where I have three mana up and a creature in peril and this on the board are few and far between. Currently running 4.

Welding Jar has the advantage of having no mana cost for its regeneration, but the restriction that it can only regenerate artifacts. Fortunately, that means it can help save the Golem or the Altar (more on this later.) Currently running 4.

Spidersilk Net Considering this, as it gives some much-needed toughness to some of the more fragile creatures, but costs to equip. Being able to block pesky fliers with Sentinels would be nice, too. Considered for the sideboard, currently.

WinCons

WinCons

Gotta close the game out somehow, right? We've got a few different ways to do it:

• Kozilek's Sentinel Getting a Lightning Bolt-proof creature that gets bigger with colorless spells for seems really good. It can be pumped arbitrarily high with a Knacked Untapper bouncing an artifact. And it wards off early aggression on the opponent's turn. Running 4.

• Molten Nursery is another way to close things out, by triggering every time you cast a colorless spell. I like the flexibility of targeting the trigger. "Molten the Birds" works well, as does throwing down an artifact post-combat to get an extra point in. Don't want too many, though, so only running 2.

• Altar of the Brood My favorite way to win. The incidental milling of just playing this early and looking for combo pieces can often disrupt the opponent's plans. It does take more cycles through the loop to mill an opponent out, but it's still fun. Running 4.

• Nettle Drone is also a potential win-con, since you an tap him for damage if you have another untapper to Knack.

The mana-base could use work, as could the support slots, which are currently occupied by 4x Sleight of Hand for digging and 1 Dispel for a bit of combo protection.

All suggestions welcome, I'm pretty new to Modern, and love this kind of high-variance deck.

Date added	8 years
Last updated	8 years
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 0 Rares 6 - 0 Uncommons 26 - 0 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	1.40