Modern Front Page Feature #4

Features

ChiefBell

4 August 2016

1096 views

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#4 - This Company is Breaking all the Ground

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I’m bringing you a fresh deck semi-regularly from our homepage that caught my eye as it floated down on a deckcycle. I’ll show you the list, provide you with insights directly from the creator, and offer improvements. Join me as we celebrate our community’s creativity and get the lowdown on a sweet brew!

When am I most likely to see your deckcycles? I’m always taking peeks at TappedOut throughout the day (and night), so there’s not one specific time each week I’m looking for new lists. It’s the luck of the draw, but deckcycling more often can’t hurt you.

This week’s deck belongs to YoungQuakerBoy, who presents his own take on the surprisingly effective mono-green aggro archetype

This Company is Breaking all the Ground

4x Aspect of Hydra 3x Avatar of the Resolute 3x Birds of Paradise 4x Boggart Ram-Gang 4x Collected Company 2x Eternal Witness 20x Forest 4x Groundbreaker 3x Leatherback Baloth 4x Noble Hierarch 1x Scavenging Ooze 4x Strangleroot Geist 4x Vines of Vastwood Sideboard: 1x Act of Aggression 2x Back to Nature 2x Creeping Corrosion 3x Dismember 2x Natural State 1x Reclamation Sage 2x Scavenging Ooze 2x Spellskite

This is a mono-green deck with a very heavy emphasis on explosive games. The key driving force of the deck is the immense speed at which cards like Groundbreaker and Collected Company can deplete the life total of the opponent and also provide more board presence to maintain the pressure. Vines of Vastwood and Eternal Witness provide some solid defensive capabilities by attempting to lessen the effects of removal spells, whilst the 1-of Scavenging Ooze is a nod towards long grindy games in which its ability can turn it from a humble 2/2 into immense amounts of lifegain and one very big creature. In order to further increase the efficacy of the deck there are 3 Birds of Paradise and 4 Noble Hierarch to provide turn 1 ramp which it is hoped will allow a 3 mana threat to be played on turn 2 and then a Collected Company on turn 3.

        Strengths

Speed, speed, speed. Groundbreaker, Strangleroot Geist, and Boggart Ram-Gang get the job done exceedingly quickly. With ramp it is possible to produce a turn 2 Groundbreaker for 6 damage, or 7 with exalted, into a turn 3 Collected Company which could potentially find another 2 Groundbreakers for an extra 12 damage. This allows up to 19 damage by turn 3. Sure that’s not going to happen often, if ever, but the potential is there and you quickly get the idea that this deck means business.
The second strength I see here is the surprising amount of resilience this deck has. Eternal Witness allows you to reclaim lost cards. Collected Company allows you to quickly find more threats, and Vines of Vastwood helps to block removal. It is true that these cards somewhat detract from the main aggressive plan but on the other hand they present very good outs against decks like Nahiri Jeskai or Jund that will attempt to killspell or counterspell their way to victory. Having this as an option ensures that even against very control-heavy decks you have some way to recover and proceed into the later stages of the game.

        Weaknesses

Modern is fairly heavy on creatures, which is a problem for this deck because it means that plenty of opponents can simply chump block the threats you throw at them. In some cases this is great because they lose their creature and you keep yours, but in other cases it is terrible because you waste time. The more time you waste the closer the opponent comes to casting their Damnation or winning the game. Groundbreaker in particular does not appreciate being blocked because even if their creature dies you still have to sacrifice yours at the end of turn. Paying for 3 or 4 damage is not very resource effective. Many of the top decks at the moment play cards such as Death's Shadow, Tarmogoyf, or Etched Champion which can all present challenges when blocking.
Finally, as with all creature decks, there is a problem with how easy you are to counter. Throwing multiple creatures at your opponent is not at all an exotic or strange strategy, and because of this, many players are ready for it. Whether it be Damnation, Anger of the Gods, Oblivion Stone, or Supreme Verdict there are ways to give this deck a very tough time - and unfortunately the cards that do so are relatively prevalent in the meta.

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        Creator Insights

What inspired you to build the deck? What’s the motivation there?
"First off I love green. I love playing decks with green in them and am not an overly big fan of slow, grindy decks. When I first was first toying with playing some Modern I had decided to build a budget modern deck and so started with the basic Mono-green stompy deck. It was fine and I liked it but then I saw someone (user Flaat) on MTGSalvation.com talking about using Collected Company and Groundbreaker in a version of this deck, so I had to check it out. When I saw his list and read what he was saying about it, that it was heavier and potentially more explosive and resilient than the original, I loved the idea and had to try it. So, I put together my version of the deck and have been loving it ever since."

How do you feel about the balance between the late-game elements such as Collected Company or Scavenging Ooze and the focus on turn 2 and turn 3 aggression? Do you ever experience poor draws?
"I think that the balance is rather good. For what is truly an aggro deck the late game is rather strong. It may seem to be a bit slow as there are not any actual 1-drop attacking creatures but this deck is all about turns 2, 3, and 4 with the ability to continue later and have a strong chance. We want to start with a mana dork in hand as they are the real speed to the deck (I love playing a Boggart Ram-Gang on turn 2) and help us get out big beaters earlier than normal to pour in the damage as quickly as possible. When it gets to the late game the deck still has some strength, where other aggro decks may have run out of steam. It has card advantage with Collected Company and Eternal Witness, for example. It can be fairly resilient to sweepers as you can hold the Collected Companys to use at your opponent’s end step, as well as the fact that many of the creatures have haste. Therefore getting in damage is possible, whether the creature survives or not when you pass to the opponent. If you get into a board stall the pump spells can get a win off of a single unblocked creature from an all in.
As you know, everyone experiences poor draws at some point, but the balance here seems fairly good most of the time. Sure, I can get a hand of all mana dorks or all 3 drops or all pump spells or all lands, but it is definitely not the norm. I can fairly consistently get a mana dork into three drop on turn 2. The probability is about 60% that I will get a mana dork in my opening hand with the 7 I currently run and would be increased to about 65% if I stuck in a 4th Birds of Paradise. I seemed to see just a little too many dorks in games when I had that 4th Bird in though, thus why I am at my current count of 7 dorks."

How do you feel about playing creature aggro in Modern? Have you experienced any particular challenges? I’d be interested in particular in talking about your matchup with Affinity. Obviously their deck is more explosive but you also present a solid clock yourself. How does that usually turn out?
"In my meta it has been well enough positioned. You had mentioned sweepers against us and that is a good point. However, I feel that this deck is fairly strong, as far as creature aggro decks go, against board clear due to having the ability to burst out damage exceedingly quickly with haste and boost spells and Collected Company (being an instant is a really big deal). One of the decks bigger weaknesses are jund-like decks with other efficient creatures and strong removal. Mostly in those match-ups I have to try to be faster and then hit them with a pump spell when they can’t respond. Tron can be tough with turn 3 Ugin, the Spirit Dragons but I have won through it before due to haste. Their Wurmcoil Engines are the worst for us, which is why I sideboard Act of Aggression and am considering bringing back a Deglamer type card. I just need to go for very fast hands against tron.
As for Affinity, it’s not too big of an issue as I think that they are pretty poorly situated in modern overall right now. There is so much hate for them that the few decks that were in my meta have pretty much disappeared. However, I have played against it before and I believe that I am 2-1 against it in person. They can be quick for sure. Game 1 can be very tough against them especially on the draw. I feel that I have a very strong sideboard against Affinity though, and it has carried me before, as I do have the trump card; Creeping Corrosion. Creeping Corrosion almost always just wins the game, if it resolves. I have won 2-3 games off it alone. Having mana dorks give the ability to play it on turn 3 instead of 4 is HUGE! All of the 2x Creeping Corrosion, 2x Natural State, 1x Reclamation Sage come in, and sometimes some number of the 3x Dismember depending on which version I am against and how I am feeling on the matchup. If I don’t get Corrosion in my opening hand, I hope to have some sort of artifact destruction or may mulligan to search for it. The one card that we cannot let them keep is Vault Skirge as lifelink + flying is the end of us. If I can keep them from gaining life I can sometimes stay in the race and slip massive damage around them if they are not willing to chump block. The flying can be rough as well, as I have a decent chance to block or cause some issues with their ground-based creatures. My 3x Avatar of the Resolutes help there as well as the Birds of Paradises. I have cast Collected Company during their attack phase to grab a birds and block some flyer to live another turn before. It can be a rough match-up at times but is winnable with the main deck and can be rather strong with the sideboard."

In playing and/or designing the deck have you spotted any particular problems or all-stars? Have any cards turned out to be much worse or better than you initially expected?
"The problems are generally the same with most creature aggro decks. Removal can wreck us if the opponent has the time. Sweepers are tough. Getting 2 for 1d by targeted removal when using a pump spell is rough (which is why I ultimately cut Rancor). If they kill a dork early it can be hard to hit some heavier cards early. The one card that I have seen singlehandedly destroy the deck is Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet in build with lots of removal, like Jund or such. It seems like I just lose to that card if I cannot finish the opponent or kill it immediately. That is why I started sideboarding Dismember.
As far as worse or better there were a few things. As mentioned above, I originally had 4x Rancor in the deck but the prevalence of targeted removal in my meta ultimately caused me to switch to 4x Vines of Vastwood. So that card is a total meta call but it was disappointing for me. I also tried a x1 Reverent Hunter. It was fine but not amazing. It ran into lots of problems when I was playing from behind. On the flipside there are a few cards that are certainly all-stars and/or better than I originally expected. Everyone knows how good Collected Company is by now, so I will not go into that one but look at some others. First, one of the most important cards in the deck: Aspect of Hydra. I felt I needed to address it as you had not mentioned it yet but it is just about the biggest finisher that we have. Anyone who has run any version of green stompy with this card or who has been on the receiving end of it knows its strength. It gives us the ability to finish opponents off out of nowhere, especially in this haste creature heavy deck. Most times it seems that I am casting it to add about +7/+7 after having cast a creature with haste for some massive damage. I am just about always happy to see it in my hand. Next, I have loved the Boggart Ram-Gangs. Haste is just so good in this deck and playing a Ram-Gang on turn 2 with a dork can put on some serious pressure. On top of that, no one really wants to block it as the wither keyword is very annoying. The final card I want to highlight is Noble Hierarch. As a mana dork it seems to be an important but not exciting piece of the deck, which is rather true. However, the strength of the exalted ability cannot be understated. It may not seem like much but it makes a world of difference between any other mana dork and itself. I would easily run 7 of them if I could instead of Birds of Paradise. I always want a Noble Hierarch in my opening hand. Not quite incidentally the three cards that I mentioned are required for the turn three kill (assuming no life lost by opponent due to lands). Turn 1 - play land and then Noble Hierarch. Turn 2 - play land and Boggart Ram-Gang. Swing for 4 damage. Turn 3 - Play land and then Groundbreaker and Aspect of Hydra for +7/+7 to swing for 16 damage and lethal. Of course it almost never works this way but I have done it."

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        Potential Improvements

Firstly I’m going to concede that I’m not sure what should be cut in this deck. It seems awfully close to perfect and just remarkably solid, however I would be happy to look at some other potential additions and directions the deck could go in.

-1 Scavenging Ooze or Eternal Witness, +1 Apostle's Blessing

YoungQuakerBoy mentioned previously that it was sometimes hard for this deck to play around removal, and I had previously highlighted that this deck could suffer to creatures blocking your aggression. Apostle's Blessing essentially costs 1 mana to cast and in a variety of cases it allows you to block a removal spell or swing a creature at the opponent without it being blockable. I’m unsure about the Scavenging Ooze or Eternal Witness cut. I love both of those cards but I think it’s probably better to stick to the aggressive plan game one rather than have to rely on the slower plan. It’s also worth noting that Apostle's Blessing blocks removal so in some ways it sort of does the job that an Eternal Witness would do anyway (i.e saving a creature) but it has the added advantage of allowing your creatures to become unblockable too.

- Creatures without haste, + Primal Forcemage, Uktabi Drake etc.

Forcemage Green is a deck that various players have experimented with that is a similar shell to this. It starts with multiple mana dorks and the aim from there is to land an early Primal Forcemage. Once this is done it capitalises on the buff that Forcemage provides by playing haste threats like Uktabi Drake, Groundbreaker or Strangleroot Geist. The upside of this deck is the explosiveness and simplicity. It has a very streamlined plan. The downside is that it is a little more delicate because it includes fewer elements that allow it to recover from a poor start.

- Mana dorks, + Kalonian Tusker, Experiment One

A more traditional build sees the initial one drops cut to make way for more threats that are lower to the ground. You trade away the ability to land a 3 mana creature on turn 2 but you gain more consistent draws (no more drawing a Birds of Paradise when you need a beefier creature), and you also gain a higher saturation of creatures on the board that are threats. Whereas before you might have ended up with 2 or maybe 3 threats on the board, if you add more low cost creatures it becomes more easy to up that number to 3 or 4. This lessens the blow of removal because each individual creature is worth a bit less.

- Forests, - mono- creatures, + Horizon Canopy, Temple Garden, Razorverge Thicket, Path to Exile, Qasali Pridemage, Loxodon Smiter, Dryad Militant

I guess this is the walletbreaker suggestion but what you gain from it is certainly worthwhile. The downside is losing the purity of a mono-green aggro deck but the upside is getting to play seriously strong removal in Path to Exile which answers the Wurmcoil Engine problem, card draw stapled to a good land in Horizon Canopy, and creatures that not only hit very hard but also shut down tricky opponents. Examples include Dryad Militant for control, Voice of Resurgence for most decks running removal or counterspells, and Loxodon Smiter for any deck playing Liliana of the Veil. You retain most of your aggression but do lose a little speed. The main advantage is the ability to not only hit your opponent hard but also play creatures that actively disrupt their strategy, in the same way a hatebears deck plays in a very aggressive fashion but still stops the opponent carrying out their main plan in some way.

Overall

So the changes I’ve gone for here are pretty radical actually, which is a change. Aside from the suggestion of Apostle's Blessing I also wanted to highlight a few more directions that could be taken so I tried to describe different version of green aggro in the low to the ground version, the Primal Forcemage version, and the utility-creature led version. Hopefully these ideas are food for thought and can lead to some kind of interesting developments.

I’m not going to publish a new decklist this time simply because I’d have to display about three of them, which is obviously not possible in the realms of this column. I will link to this which is an article about Primal Forcemage green, including a decklist. And this which is a somewhat old but still very good discussion on mono-green stompy lists including tips for splashing a second colour. The space I have here is limited but hopefully those two links can answer any further questions about further tweaks to any of the 3 different radical changes I suggested.

Sideboard
Sideboards are very meta specific so it would be impossible to suggest something that is fully formed. This deck already has a fairly well developed sideboard here, but I would perhaps suggest some kind of resilient threat such as Thrun, the Last Troll in order to dodge those removal heavy decks and perhaps a single Relic of Progenitus to help out against control / Jund / Dredge by not only smoothing draws but also allowing you to reduce the size of Tarmogoyf, remove spells that Snapcaster Mage could target, or just stopping Dredge dredge-ing.

Do you have anything else to add? What would you do differently? What do you think? Let me know down below!

Keep deckcycling out there! You never know when I could be eyeballing your list.

Happy tapping, players!
ChiefBell

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This article is a follow-up to Modern Front Page Feature #3