A Primer on RUG Scapeshift

Features

GlistenerAgent

1 April 2015

9414 views

Introduction

Control decks in Modern have the inherent weakness of having too many threats to answer while also winning the game within a reasonable time frame. Having an explosive way to end the game in even the most dire board states can be an incredible asset. Scapeshift is a RUG control deck that utilizes ramp spells and delaying effects such as counterspells, removal and Cryptic Command *list* to work its way to seven or eight mana. At this point, casting Scapeshift with appropriate counterspell backup for opposing interaction allows the pilot to search for many Mountain cards (including Steam Vents and Stomping Ground) alongside Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle to deal the opponent lethal damage in one shot.

As I write this primer, the top three deck in Modern percentage-wise (according to MtGGoldfish.com) are Abzan Midrange, RWg Burn and UR Splinter Twin. When approaching the format from a competitive standpoint, any given deck is likely to be strong against one or two of these archetypes and very poor against another. Many decks try to shore up this bad matchup in their sideboard so as to have a fighting chance against any opponent.

It’s very important in the Modern format to have access to game-breaking sideboard cards in addition to a powerful, proactive plan against the three above decks, because they all have a powerful strategy of their own that will win them the game if you do not have appropriate answers. One of the many draws to playing Scapeshift in Modern is it’s access to a bevy of powerhouse sideboard cards, the least of which are Inferno Titan, Wurmcoil Engine and Shatterstorm.

Scapeshift also boasts a very good matchup against UR Splinter Twin. While the Abzan matchup is slightly better than 50-50 and the Burn matchup is abysmal, aforementioned sideboard additions make these decks very beatable postboard.

The strengths of Scapeshift start with a powerful, proactive strategy that can win games in its own right. In addition, the deck offers many tools to continue to dig through the deck to find the win condition while also keeping opposing aggression at bay. Finally, mana acceleration allow Scapeshift decks to beat up on opposing blue decks through mana advantage while also allowing for a much wider range of sideboard cards.

Please note that all deckbuilding and gameplay strategies below apply specifically to the RUG Cryptic Command *list* version of the deck rather than Primeval Titan or Summoning Trap versions. Jund Scapeshift is also an interesting deck worth exploration, but will not be covered in this primer.

Deck Construction

Below is a sample RUG Scapeshift deck:

There are many identifying characteristics of the Scapeshift deck, the most noticeable of which is the land base. Let’s start there.

Landbase

I highly advise playing 25 lands in your Scapeshift deck, and a total of 33-35 mana sources. Versions with additional 1-2 mana cantrips may want to play 24, but it’s very important to hit all of your land drops. The following are mandatory:

4 Steam Vents, 4 Stomping Ground, 2 Mountain, 2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle - These lands comprise your win condition. Playing less than or more than 2 Valakuts is either unsafe or overkill, and ten Mountain cards is the appropriate number to ensure having enough Mountains left in your deck to win the game while also ensuring access to proper colors of mana when they are needed.

2 Forest, 3 Island - At least this many of each of the basics is necessary to search for with the ramp spells. 3 Islands are particularly important, as against decks with access to Blood Moon you want to be able to cast Cryptic Command *list* to counter spells or bounce the enchantment. Two Forests allow you to cast ramp spells without fetching for shock lands against aggressive decks, and also allow you to have targets for additional ramp spells you may draw. A third is played in many lists that play more than eight ramp spells.

1 Breeding Pool, 1 Flooded Grove - The bare minimum of each of these. Scapeshift is a base-UG deck, and as such Breeding Pool is the primary target for fetch lands and Farseek. I highly suggest playing a second copy. Flooded Grove is the best land in the deck, letting you cast Cryptic Command *list* even with multiple non-blue basic lands in play.

Beyond this, options vary. Halimar Depths, Misty Rainforest, additional Breeding Pool and Flooded Grove, Cascade Bluffs, Temple of Mystery and Desolate Lighthouse are all viable options depending on mana requirements from flex slots in the deck, and all serve different purposes.

I advise Halimar Depths if you choose to play 24 lands, as it allows you to filter draws more. Temple of Mystery is for slower metagames, while Misty Rainforest and the filter lands are for quicker ones. Cascade Bluffs in particular was more common at a time when Anger of the Gods came in from the sideboard to deal with Birthing Pod decks, and since Firespout does the same job nowadays I suggest avoiding the UR filter.

The ramp spells of choice in Scapeshift are Sakura-Tribe Elder, Search for Tomorrow, Farseek and Explore. The Tribe-Elder is a Rampant Growth that allows you to either gain some amount of life by chump-blocking attackers, or can itself attack for a couple of points of damage before finding you another land. Search for Tomorrow can be “cast” on turn 1, allowing you to have four mana on turn 3 while still having turn 2 to potentially interact or cast additional ramp spells. Beyond four of each of these cards, Farseek allows the deck more goldfish capability against faster decks alongside Peer Through Depths while Explore provides a better grind game for when the matchup is all about drawing cards.

When using ramp spells, blue mana should be prioritized. In a video for ChannelFireball, Luis Scott-Vargas said that “you want to search for as much blue as possible, and get double green at some point,” and this statement is more or less correct. You only need one red mana source at any given point (unless you choose to play a higher number of red cards), and should avoid searching for them unless absolutely necessary so as to have access to a safe combo kill.

Card Draw

Scapeshift, while many call it a one-card combo deck, actually requires eight or nine cards to win the game: seven to eight lands in addition to Scapeshift. As such, each spell you cast needs to somehow net a card so that you can continue to hit land drops and make it to Scapeshift and any necessary protection. If you cast a Lightning Bolt, that’s one more card you need to draw to find your win condition. What follows is a list of the cantrips normally played in Scapeshift as well as the benefits/drawbacks of each:

Serum Visions - You’ve seen this before. At one mana, it outdoes the other cantrips, but at sorcery speed can sometimes cause awkwardness. Pair this with the quantity of shuffle effects in the average Scapeshift deck, and Serum Visions isn’t the auto-4 of it is in decks like Splinter Twin. Still, it provides a very powerful effect and if you sequence your plays properly you can squeeze a great deal of value out of it.

Telling Time - This cantrip sees play in Scapeshift specifically because of all the shuffle effects. The main drawback of Telling Time is finding multiple bad cards, but the access to shufflers lets you keep the one card you want and put the others on the bottom, while still leaving you the option of holding on to the ones you want.

Anticipate - The new card from Dragons of Tarkir competes with Telling Time. It’s disadvantage is that if you see multiple strong cards, you are obligated to bottom at least one of them. It’s a matter of preference as to which card you will play, but I choose Telling Time because in many situations, especially after sideboarding, your deck is so full of power plays that it’s unlikely you will find two cards that are totally dead.

Peer Through Depths - Alongside Farseek, Peer allows for a much faster kill. It is appropriate in very quick metagames, as finding sweepers against aggressive decks in addition to extra Cryptic Command *list* allow you to effectively Fog your way up to seven mana for the kill. It is rather poor after sideboarding, as this deck likes to bring in a transformative creature suite for some low-impact instants and sorceries.

Quicken - Very strong in a blue-heavy metagame, rather weak otherwise. Quicken at the end of a blue player’s turn requires them to invest mana, where you can then untap and go for your kill with less opposition.

Monastery Siege - An interesting recent addition. Siege provides a means of buying time against Burn, but otherwise it provides a Desolate Lighthouse effect that lets you filter to the win condition. It’s strong against Abzan if it can avoid an Abrupt Decay, as when you inevitably reach a topdecking phase of the game you get to see more cards.

Interaction

Interacting, as in any deck, is very important to Scapeshift. The catch with this deck is that as much as possible, your interaction spells also need to draw a card. Here are the most commonly played removal spells and counterspies in RUG Scapeshift:

Lightning Bolt - Doesn’t draw a card, but still very powerful. When aggressive decks are prominent, you’ll want these to get threats off the table as quickly as possible.

Izzet Charm - Very versatile. It allows you to loot for answers or a kill in a pinch, and can kill creatures or counter early spells as well. I highly advise always having at least one in your deck, because it’s an excellent utility spell that provides one more of whatever you may need.

Shadow of Doubt - I only rarely play this card, and it’s almost always just for kicks. Even though you do a lot of searching, casting this at opportune times to snipe an opposing fetchland or even to “counter” an opposing Scapeshift is very useful.

Electrolyze - An incredibly powerful card. At worst it cycles while getting your opponent to a crucial 18 (as will be explained later), but at best it can kill two creatures while also drawing a card. I can’t recommend playing this card enough, as it fits perfectly into your plan of “interact with the game state, draw a card”.

Repeal - Another very powerful choice. Repeal lets you deal with Blood Moon in a less color-intensive way, but can also buy multiple turns against single creatures or troublesome permanents. In a metagame of aggressive and midrange decks, this is exactly where you want to be.

Firespout - While most pilots will keep these in the sideboard, highly aggressive metagames may warrant main deck Firespout. Pretty simple here: Kill what needs to die while not having to fetch multiple red lands (which can often be very painful to get into play untapped).

Remand - Remand is the counterspies of choice here over Mana Leak or others because it draws a card. Your goal is not to permanently deal with threats, but rather to push the opponent back a bit so that you can build up your manabase to permanently deal with their threats later on in the game. I would never play less than four Remands, as it remains live well into the lategame. Note that Remanding flashback spells will not return them to their controller’s hand, and that Remanding your own spells is an excellent way to two-for-one an opponent who attempted to counter whatever you played. Also note that Remand can be cast on uncounterable spells such as Cavern of Souls creatures or Loxodon Smiter. You will draw a card but the spell will not be countered.

Cryptic Command *list* - The most versatile spell in Modern, and the best spell in this deck. Scapeshift is the best Cryptic Command *list* deck because it is able to cast it on turn 3, and utilizes it most abusively. I have cast Cryptic Command *list* eight times in a single game by virtue of Snapcaster Mage, allowing me to buy all the time I needed to find my kill conditions. Cryptic can totally stop opposing plans while also delaying attacks or bouncing annoying cards to the opponent’s hand. As you play with the card more and more, you will begin to notice all of the interesting things you can do with it. Tapping their creatures and bouncing a spell that they cannot recast after combat effectively double-Time Walks the opponent. Snapcaster Mage into Cryptic Command *list* and bouncing your own Snapcaster Mage allows you to recycle additional Cryptic Command *list*s or other spells in your graveyard when the Snapcaster Mage is better than a random card off the top. Play four, and never less. Hell, try and play five if you can sneak it past the judges.

Snapcaster Mage - Your swiss-army knife. Snapcaster is worse in this deck than in others by virtue of the higher concentration of three and four-mana spells, and as such is often relegated to 3 or less copies in the main deck. However, it still allows you to buy tons of time by flashing back all of the spells you used to Time Walk early in the game.

Win Condition Explained

Scapeshift has among the more complicated combo-kills in the format, and the actual execution of this kill can vary wildly based on what cards you have drawn and your opponent’s resources. Finding the right way to go about killing the opponent can be difficult, and as such it is imperative if you are a beginner with the deck to keep as many Mountain cards in your deck as possible to make going off a bit easier.

The most basic combo is as follows: With seven lands in play, resolve Scapeshift. Sacrificing all of these lands allows you to search your library for a Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle in addition to a selection of Steam Vents, Stomping Ground and Mountain. When those seven cards enter the battlefield, Valakut will trigger six times because each land entered simultaneously, thus seeing five other Mountains in play for a trigger. Pointing these six triggers at your opponent’s head should be enough to win the game given that they have activated fetchlands or played shocklands untapped over the course of the game.

However, the game won’t always be that simple. I’d like to review some of the more common scenarios you will face when combing with Scapeshift.

Scenario 1: Opponent is at 19+ or Spellskite is in play

I have grouped these together because they have the same solution: Get an extra land into play. Scapeshifting with eight lands lets you search your library for a second copy of Valakut, triggering each of the six Mountains again for 36 total damage. Spellskite can turn each of the three damage triggers into two damage triggers, but your opponent will still take 24 damage. NOTE that if your opponent has untapped blue mana, the activation of Spellskite will cost no life at all. For example, if your opponent has 4 untapped Islands, they can redirect four of the twelve Valakut triggers free of charge, and use 2 life for each of the other eight triggers to only take 16 damage. Be wary of this, as it comes up frequently against Splinter Twin.

Scenario 2: Land destruction or land bounce

Tectonic Edge, Ghost Quarter and Fulminator Mage are the most common forms of LD, while Cryptic Command *list* and Boomerang are really the only ways your opponent will be bouncing your lands. Playing around these cards requires some thought.

Were you to search for a Valakut and six Mountains, Tectonic Edge can remove one of your non-Valakut lands to stifle the other triggers. The Valakut trigger checks twice, including at the resolution of the trigger. If you don’t have 5 or more other Mountains in play, that trigger will fizzle and deal no damage. Note that the trigger from the land that was destroyed will still resolve, as that particular land still has five other Mountains in play. The way to play around this is to leave some Mountains in play when you sacrifice lands or to wait for extra lands so that you can search out a seventh Mountain. This is the same solution for bounce spells, as they effectively perform the same role as destroying a land when you are trying to combo off.

Ghost Quarter is a bit different. GQ lets you search out a basic land when it kills one of your lands, making it very useful to have an extra basic Mountain left in your library when you cast Scapeshift. When they GQ one of your lands, you can search for that last Mountain to still let all the other Valakut triggers resolve while adding another trigger to the stack. Note that, like Tectonic Edge, if they GQ your land and you don’t have a Mountain to search for, the trigger from the land they destroyed will still resolve.

Scenario 3: Drawing many Mountain cards

In this particular scenario, use this rule of thumb: The amount of damage you can deal your opponent is equal to the number of Mountains left in your deck * the number of Valakuts in your deck or in play (factor in potential land destruction in response to your Scapeshift) * 3. If I’ve drawn seven of my ten Mountains, I can still deal you 18 damage by getting the other three and having a couple of Valakuts in play. This problem can be solved by not sacrificing all of your lands, leaving a couple of Mountains in play to ensure that the ones that enter the battlefield will have friends to get their triggers off.

If you feel that I explained something poorly in this section or want clarification, ask me and I will do my best to assist you.

Sideboarding

In this section, I will discuss both the theory for constructing a Scapeshift sideboard and some of the strategies I use when side boarding in matches.

Building Your Sideboard

I like to split my sideboard into four major categories: transformational/alternate win conditions, control suite, targeted removal and hate cards.

Transformational Sideboard Plan: Any Scapeshift deck will have a sideboard full of some assortment of Obstinate Baloth, Wurmcoil Engine, Inferno Titan and friends. These creatures serve to provide an alternate plan to the somewhat linear and easily-hated Scapeshift plan, and also provide strong utility against various archetypes. Batterskull and the Baloth help tremendously against Burn and other aggro-oriented archetypes, while Inferno Titan and Wurmcoil Engine are stone-cold killers against midrange decks and many aggressive decks. Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, Keranos, God of Storms and the infrequently played Surrak Dragonclaw all pose serious problems to blue opponents. One of the many advantages of playing Scapeshift is having access to these incredibly powerful and dominating spells and being able to cast them a turn (sometimes two turns!) ahead of the curve. I highly recommend playing at least four of these creatures, chosen to suit the collection of the decks you expect to be paired against.

Control Suite: These cards include counterspells and other means of pushing your Scapeshift through opposing blue decks. Counterflux, Dispel, Swan Song and Negate are the best options available for cheaply dealing with opposing combo cards as well as allowing for mana efficiency when fighting a counter war over Scapeshift. Boseiju, Who Shelters All fights decks with access to Counterflux (Twin and UR-based control decks), while Gigadrowse and Vendilion Clique serve the important purpose of removing your opponent’s access to their counter magic. Gigadrowse can tap a lot of their lands to push through your win condition, while Clique can take the counterspell that you can’t beat. I recommend including at least four of these cards, decreasing or increasing their number as you see fit. Negate and Dispel are especially potent at dealing with Burn, and I recommend always having access to a healthy number of those two in particular.

Targeted Removal: Whatever the flavor-of-the-week aggro deck is, you’ve gotta kill it. Engineered Explosives comes in against a wide range of decks (including Twin), Firespout is a very powerful spell, and Anger of the Gods can help beat Kitchen Finks and Voice of Resurgence if those are a problem. Two or three of this package should be plenty.

Hate Cards: Again, the prominent linear deck of the format needs to be dealt with here. Ancient Grudge, Shatterstorm, Nature's Claim, Unravel the Aether and Krosan Grip all help slow down Affinity, with the last three providing outs to Blood Moon and Unravel killing Keranos, God of Storms. Combust is very powerful against Splinter Twin and Siege Rhino decks (yes, you need to bring it in for that card). [[Relic of Progenitus] can see some play if you play against graveyard-based decks frequently. Depending on how heavy with linear decks your metagame is, the rest of your sideboard should contain these cards.

Sideboard “Guide”

Aggro: Bring in your Baloths, Batterskulls and sweepers if they are a more traditional, Zoo-style aggro deck. Affinity warrants your hate cards instead of the big creatures, and Burn warrants Negate and Dispel rather than your sweepers (Engineered Explosives is still very strong). Generally, Remand needs to leave the deck, as these aggro decks play a high saturation of one-drops, which are not optimal for your Remands. After that, removing Cryptic Command *list* can be strong since the card can often be too clunky to do what you want.

Midrange: The alternate win plan is very good here. You want as many live topdecks as possible in the face of a Liliana of the Veil, so cutting Izzet Charm, excess counterspells and some ramp is good. Bring in your large creatures as well some amount of cheap countermagic to handle random hate.

Combo: Counterspells, counterspells, counterspells. Some of your hate cards could be good here as well, so bring those in if you have them. Removal is almost always bad against the combo decks (save for Ascendancy or other creature-based combos), so your Bolts and Charms can generally leave. Against Twin, you want your Engineered Explosives, Clique(s) and Teferi if you have access to those cards.

Control: We sideboard a lot here, even though it’s a very good matchup. All the creatures and all the counterspells come in here. You want to overload their answers while having plenty of your own to protect a Scapeshift or creature.

Despite these guidelines, there really is no hard and fast rule to sideboarding. I sideboard in slightly different ways depending on what cards I see from my opponent, often changing my plan after game 2 to address a problematic card. For example, if they have a Batterskull in their deck postboard you want access to an Ancient Grudge to answer it.

Gameplay

Playing Scapeshift varies depending on the matchup. If you are faced with an aggressive deck, your goal will be to use your spells defensively to stall the game to the point where your only goal is to find the win condition. Cryptic Command *list* can Time Walk a creature deck, while removal spells can slow down their assault just enough for you to get to the seventh land. Ramp is very important against aggro, as it allows you to beat their nut draws by goldfishing a win as early as turn 4.

Control and midrange decks obligate you to squeeze as much value out of your spells as you can. Remanding your own spells after drawing out an opposing counterspell lets you gain card advantage in the control mirror, while your card-drawers are all stars against any black midrange deck to beat their discard and other disruptive tools. Mana advantage matters a lot against blue, and making sure you can cast any spell you topdeck is crucial against the midrange decks to ensure that you can win the game even when Liliana is about to go ultimate or you’re staring down two 5/6 Tarmogoyfs.

Against combo decks, you want to delay their kill with Remand into Cryptic Command *list*, building your mana as you go. Snapcaster Mage is particularly powerful here, generally allowing you to buy one more turn while continuing to keep the card velocity flowing. Know how your opponent’s deck normally wins the game, and play accordingly to beat their common lines to victory.

Did I miss anything? Let me know about any questions or comments you may have regarding deck construction, comboing off and sideboarding with RUG Scapeshift. My experience with other variations of the deck is a bit weaker, so I might not be able to answer all of those questions. I hope you enjoy playing one of the most interesting, exciting decks the Modern format has to offer!