One big card in Modern is: Blood Moon.
Before Pro Tour Born of the Gods Mr. Woo had been joking about playing a Living End with 4 Simian Spirit Guide and 4 Blood Moon in the main.
Simian Spirit Guide is an established great card and decent Living End card. It makes for fast land destruction, fast sweepers, and surprise Violent Outbursts.
Blood Moon pairs great with Simian Spirit Guide. The earlier, the deadlier. Its also a card that fits into Living End nicely. Living End plays fetch lands and land cyclers. It only takes a single Forest to cast Violent Outburst or a single Swamp to cast Demonic Dread.
And then we have Avalanche Riders. Avalanche Riders is another decent Living End card that has generally had to hide in Fulminator Mages shadow. But Avalanche Riders does something Fulminator Mage cant, and thats blow up basic lands. Yes, Avalanche Riders can be our Spreading Seas.
Simian Spirit Guide, Blood Moon, and Avalanche Riders make for a deadly package together, all in a deck that can take advantage of all of these cards individually AND is very good at sweeping whatever was already on the board.
Welcome to Living Moon.
Now to our sideboard:
The next thing that might jump out at you are these
Ethersworn CanonistKataki, War's WageRest in PeaceStony Silence
But what if we cascade into them?? Exactly.
Flash back to the night before the Pro Tour. The thought of Stony Silence getting hit by a Spell Pierce or a Thoughtseize was giving me anxiety, so the card had to be cut to clear my head.
But it was tested, and it was in my sideboard until that moment. Its really hard for Affinity to beat a fast Stony Silence. And this deck can produce a fast Stony Silence game after game, with 8 cascade spells and 4 Simian Spirit Guides. Play or draw, Thoughtseize or Spell Pierce, its a winning play.
The same goes for Rest in Peace and Ethersworn Canonist versus Storm. Storm needs to have the right cards to answer it or they might never do anything. Those cards might not even be in the deck.
I think its worth it. You could play nothing or you could play the mulligan-to-Leyline plan. But if youre in the mood for going all-in, I think this is a perfect sideboard.
There was a time when I was playing 4 Simian Spirit Guide and 4 Damping Matrix main in Living End. An early Damping Matrix can do a lot of damage against a lot of decksTwin, Pod, Affinity, Tron, and even Jund sometimes.
It's not a shutdown card most of the time, but it works to counter some of the harder things for the deck to beat. Its also mostly impossible to remove, as what deck is going to leave in Abrupt Decay against us?
So I think Damping Matrix goes great in a deck like this, especially if were not going to play Leyline of the Void.
Slaughter Games is totally optional but Im continuing to run the full set right now. I like the card because it gives us game in the most unwinnable matchups. Decks like Ad Nauseam and Scapeshift are traditionally nearly impossible to beat, and while this deck has different angles of attack the card is still huge there.
If you dont expect combo decks like that in your meta I could get behind cutting the card, but even if the slice of target decks is tiny, the card is really high impact. Perhaps most importantly the idea of just having it is very soothing to me, because it gives us a plan. It makes me fear pairings less.
Shriekmaw and Ingot Chewer are cards Ive almost always run 4 of each. Ive mained each of them at various tournaments. They are just the most efficient at what they do in a deck that is so strict in being unable to play cards that cost 1 or 2.
The cards are also great as late-game bodies that contribute to the beatdown plan of the deck. So why only 2 here?
Well, its possible we want more, but it seems like we dont necessarily need that many copies in a version like this.
For instance, lets take a look at the Zoo matchup. Traditionally Shriekmaw has been our best card, but with this version our game plan is a quick Blood Moon followed by a Riders. There really might not be that much room to fit Shriekmaws in because there arent as many cards we want to cut.
The same goes for Ingot Chewer. Against Affinity we have the cascade hate cards and Damping Matrix, and against Pod, again we have Damping Matrix.
So I think in general a Living End deck would want to play 4 of these but in a version like ours, we want them way less.
All-in End
Im not sure that this is the best version of Living End but it feels so much more exciting and more explosive. Turn 2 Blood Moons are vicious and Avalanche Riders followups are such a shut out.
The sideboard plan is so fun too. Theres nothing greater than seeing the opponents face when theyre all ready for your Living End and its instead a brutal and unbeatable hate card.
That sideboarding strategy is actually one I used years ago in Living End with Yixlid Jailer against Dredge, and it won me several matches in my first season. Ive been waiting for an opportunity to abuse the same strategy and the time is finally right.
So should you build this version or stick with a stock version?
Well, I think it really depends. It depends on meta. It depends on play style. It depends on preference.
The point is that I think there are lots of options. Theres lots of room for diversity in a format like Modern, and theres lots of room for diversity with a deck like Living End.
We have options!
Oh Fulminator Mage
One aspect of deckbuilding Im particularly aware of is budget. Now, I have a pretty easy time getting cards, but I know that a lot of people dont, and I am definitely brewing for you.
One of the draws to Living End has always been the budget aspect. It plays so many commons and so few rares. I know that draws people in.
But theres Fulminator Mage. Over the past couple years the card has climbed from zero to hero. Thats definitely a restricting factor on buying into Modern with Living End.
But this deck doesnt play Fulminator Mage! And its not for budget reasons either. Normally 3 mana is much better than 4 and Avalanche Riders cant hang with the chase rare.
But Avalanche Riders can do one thing that Fulminator cant. And thats blow up basics. It turns out blowing up basics is really, really important if you are playing Blood Moon, and that makes Riders way better than Fulminator Mage in this deck.
That also makes this version of Living End cheaper. Cheaperand potentially better.
