Modern Four Horsemen

Modern

Owlteeth

Creature (19)

• 4x Drift of Phantasms
• 4x Grand Architect
• 4x Judge's Familiar
• 3x Narcomoeba
• 4x Pili-Pala

Enchantment (4)

• 4x Hedron Alignment

Land (22)

• 3x Breeding Pool
• 4x Flooded Strand
• 15x Island

Artifact (3)

• 1x Blasting Station
• 2x Mesmeric Orb

Sorcery (8)

• 3x Fabricate
• 1x Gaea's Blessing
• 4x Serum Visions

Instant (4)

• 4x Remand

---

Sideboard

Instant (9)

• 3x Downsize
• 4x Mana Leak
• 2x Mizzium Skin

Creature (3)

• 3x Fog Bank

Sorcery (3)

• 3x Gleeful Sabotage

---

so basically I recently learned about the "four horsemen" legacy combo, and why it is inherently illegal in modern. I have decided I REALLY want this to be modern legal, so I am gonna try. if I do, its gonna be a terrible deck from a competitive standpoint, but who really cares?

before I continue, I do have to give a HUGE thanks to the people over at this link:

Yes, this one

for explaining the combo and legality. there is a very good eplanation in the 17th comment, and an explanation of how to make it modern legal. I don't expect this deck to get a lot of views, but if it does, the only reason I could make it is because of that thread.

I may have also kinda borrowed their decklist for a LOT of insspiration. so, this is basically a shoutout of their decklist, too.

The Archetype

This deck relies on the good ol' Grand Architect + Pili-Pala combo. it generates infinite mana and then lets us infinitely scry with Hedron Alignment. it also has the added side effect of being a good mill engine.

Their Deck

basically it focuses on getting the combo in play. duh. however, the deck here focuses on getting the combo in play with the Crown of Convergence by using Skill Borrower to copy Blasting Station. the crown cycles it to the top.

My Deck

My deck is using Hedron Alignment for putting Gaea's Blessing to the bottom. this has a few benefits. first, it keeps us in 2 colors, making the combo more consistent. second, Hedron Alignment is an enchantment, so it dodges creature removal, unlike Stormcaller of Keranos, the other replacement option. third, Hedron Alignment has hexproof, so it dodges almost any removal that our opponent can bring. And alst, but DEFINITELY not least, Hedron Alignment has CMC of 3, so we can tutor for it with Drift of Phantasms. there is an explanation for why this gets around the slow play ruling on the site I linked earlier. basically, put Gaea's Blessing on the bottom of the library and every Narcomoeba is guaranteed to be above blessing. mill 1 less than your library and you will be guaranteed to hit every Narcomoeba. mill one more to shuffle. then just use the crown until the Blasting Station is on top again, sac the Narcomoebas and mill till you hit blessing again, using the aforementioned method of guaranteeing the location of the blessing. this allows you to replace the unknown number of mills with "N" and rewrite the arguments above in terms of n. its all very math focused, which is what makes it so COOL.

the only problem is speed. the deck is very slow, as it requires a large number of combo pieces, so I want to try and get the win turn lower. I think that maybe adding some ramp for the mana and then adding more card draw will help. I also want to add more control, as this plan requires a lot of pieces to all be in place.

Sideboard

Mana Leak: for those times when you just need more control. generally I wouldd bring these is against a conbo deck or any deck that just wants to spend all their mana every turn.

Downsize: good against tokens or any small creature strategy. I could have used Electrickery, but that not only fails to deal with any non-token things, but it fails to deal with buffed tokens, and it would require ne to go into a third color again.

Mizzium Skin: not really using it for the buff, it just gives all my stuff hexproof. it is good for the control matchup that wants to kill your stuff. I think this is probably the weakest card, so I may cut it later. any opinion is appreciated.

Gleeful Sabotage: I can cast this off of my Breeding Pool, and it can kill an artifact or enchantment I dont like. its pretty good.

Fog Bank: its just good. throw it in against anything that likes big creatures and watch them become very sad if they can't kill it.

I use Drift of Phantasms as it can tutor for Grand Architect, Skill Borrower, Fabricate, Hedron Alignment, or Blasting Station, all of which are key combo pieces, or can tutor for key combo pieces.

another neat thing: Serum Visions or really any other draw card is pretty much something to be kept for after you get Hedron Alignment. you need to draw into the card on top, and you dont have any ways of doing that other than draw step and cantrips.

One final note: you might have realized that in order to pull this off, you have to assemble the Pili-Pala combo, so why not just make the Pili-Pala combo deck? well, I mostly just wanted to see if this deck could be made in modern, but the answer is because this deck is cool. there is really no advantage to this deck over the pili-pala deck, it is just more interesting.

clearly this is all hypothetical at the moment, so I will definitely need help. ANY comments at all are helpful.

Date added	8 years
Last updated	6 years
Key combos	Grand Architect + Pili-Pala
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	20 - 0 Rares 17 - 3 Uncommons 8 - 12 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.21