Welcome to the new meta!!
This deck draws inspiration from a relatively recent top 8 that took advantage of the interaction between
Liquimetal Coating
and cards like
Reclamation Sage
. With the rise of Tron decks utilizing
Karn, the Great Creator
and the implementation of the new London Mulligan rule, I decided to take the old Liquimetal Control deck and integrate some of these new elements in hopes of creating a viable modern deck. Allow me to breakdown the deck:
The Core:
Liquimetal Coating
+
Karn, the Great Creator
/
Serum Powder
/
Manglehorn
Liqumetal Coating is run as a 3-of so that 1 copy can remain in the sideboard/"wishboard". After running 4 Karns, you effectivelly run 7 cards that either are or can reliably find a Liquimetal Coating. For those unaware of the interaction: After resolving a
Karn, the Great Creator
, you can minus him to get your Liquimetal Coating from the sideboard, cast it, and then on your next turn you can tap Liquimetal Coating to make an opponent's land an artifact, then plus Karn to turn that land into a 0/0, effectively destroying it. You can repeat this process every turn, destroying a land every turn, and this is the basis for the now-infamous Liquimetal Tron deck.
Serum Powder
makes this deck a lot more consistent. Your goal is to have a Liquimetal Coating in your opening hand. After testing, I've had openers with 2 coatings, a powder, and dead cards, but the good thing about Powder is that you can use it to draw a fresh hand, and use
Karn, the Great Creator
's minus ability to retrieve a Liquimetal Coating from exile in case you ditched it to a Serum Powder (for whatever reason).
With access to green and only green, you can use mana dorks to ramp and play aggressive creatures like
Manglehorn
,
Reclamation Sage
,
Conclave Naturalists
, and
Wickerbough Elder
to effectively destroy any permanent on the field (with the help of
Liquimetal Coating
). This is the basis of the deck: Controlling the boardstate with Karn, destroying opponents' permanents with value 2-for-1 creatures, and using those creatures to swing aggressively, with the help of
Noble Hierarch
's exalted. You can even use Karn to make your Liquimetal Coating a bear and swing with it.
Mana Base: 22 lands is sufficient, considering you are on 12 dorks, you should have plenty of mana to ramp into Karn or an aggressive 5-drop creature. Having 2
Field of Ruin
s allows you to stop opposing
Blast Zone
s that would otherwise wreck your 1-drops.
The sideboard/wishboard can use some work, but essentially the goal is to run a vast number of different artifacts that can be targets for Karn.
Unravel the Aether
/
Deglamer
can be used for any permanents that are indestructible, such as (some) gods.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this deck. This was just a quick write-up, but if you have any advice or feedback, I'd be happy to hear it.
Other card includes:
Ancient Stirrings
is way too good a card to give up.
Wall of Blossoms
is a new/old? card that was printed into Modern as of Horizons. It's very good at protecting Karn by offering a blocker while cantripping. Glissa and Nullmage enable recurring engines for permanent destruction. Rather than running 5 mana 4/4's that get blocked for days, I decided to run Vivien because she is also 5 mana, destroys an artifact/permanent, and just offers so much more value than a creature ever could. I decided to cut a Harmonize to make room, but Harmonize during my testing has been somewhat disappointing. Will need further testing.
I'm also adding
Bond of Flourishing
in the Maybeboard (and have since added a couple in the main) as it does something similar to Stirrings, but can find any permanent and gains us incidental life against burn (an actual terrible matchup for us).
This deck draws inspiration from a lot of previous deck ideas, including Mono G Tron, "Splinter Tin", Pyro Prison, MLD, and Mono Green Aggro. I don't think anything I am doing here is necessarily original, but I do believe this deck and its overall archetype is unique and worth trying out! Feedback welcome.
