[History]
This is my take on a deck I played against at a modern event in 2019. The printing of Lightning Skelemental + Thunderkin Awakener
is what gave birth to this archetype. The basic goal of this deck is to use Thunderkin Awakeners to reanimate Ball Lightnings or Skelementals to do a lot of reccurring damage quickly, representing lethal by turn 4.
[8Ball Core Components]
4x Lightning Skelemental
4x Ball Lightning
4x Thunderkin Awakener
4x Unearth
4x Flamekin Harbinger
In this package, we rule of 8 both our threats and our reanimation effects. And if that’s not enough, Flamekin Harbinger acts as 4 extra copies of any of our elementals with a couple extra hoops to jump through. These 20 cards are necessary to execute our primary game plan. I would advise not to tamper with this 20 at all. Some lists I’ve seen without Harbinger, but it can really dig you out of games that are otherwise unwinnable.
[Interaction]
4x Thoughtseize
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Fatal Push
The best thing we can do on turn one is to thoughtseize our opponent’s removal/combo piece/threat or to bolt/push their turn one play. Ragavan, mana dorks, Esper Sentinel represent ways our opponent could outpace us; our best turn ones are to stop or delay that. Push and bolt can be substituted for terminate/dread bore if more relevant for meta game.
[Support]
4x Thrill of Possibility
2x Corpse Churn
This is where the deck becomes more open to interpretation and flexible to preference of playstyle. In the deck’s inception, this spot was taken by Faithless Looting. We no longer have access to that amazing card in modern, so we are trying to do our best Faithless Looting impression, and none of them are great. I have chosen Thrill and Churn so that I can try to bin a ball Lightning Skelemental Ball Lightning on turn two at instant speed on my opponent’s turn, holding up removal or just to be sneaky, not letting our opponents tell what we are doing. You can run 1 drops Insolent Neonates and Merchant of the Vale to set up for a turn 3 kill, but these cards scale worse if the game drags on. You sacrifice some grindy-ness for potential speed. And to go the other direction, you could run 3 drops Fable of the Mirror-Breaker
, Cathartic Reunion and Seasoned Pyromancer to gain late-game grind, but losing your turn 4 threat and clogging up your 3 cmc slot. On turn 3 we would rather be casting a Skelemental 9 out of ten times. The choices for this slot is not clear, but I have been enjoying the 2 drops.
[flex slot/alt win con]
2x Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger
Originally this spot was a Gurmag Angler. But we have better options now. My first upgrade was Dreadhorde Arcanist. We run 16 one drops that Dreadhorde can utilize to help clear the way for our elemental package by sniping blockers with our removal, or hitting their hand with our thoughtseize and inquisition. We can even unearth our Awakener to combo the next turn (sadly, this trigger happens after declared attackers, so you can’t do the other ball elementals really).
Even though Arcanist was great, overall I am happier with Kroxa. Kroxa is an amazing backup when the ball combo has been disrupted. Usually by the time we are escaping him, our opponent is low enough that a couple of his ETB/attack triggers can close out the game. He is also also very flexible; he is not only a 4 mana finisher, but he is a 2 drop. It’s never optimal to cast him turn 2 for his ETB, but it’s an option and it makes us have more keepable hands. Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger + Unearth
turns our Unearth into either a Ravens Crime or Bolt with his ETB. We would rather save an Unearth for our combo if we have the choice, but I have won games by unearthing Kroxa just for his ETB to get the last bit of damage in. It’s an extra line we have access to.
I have considered Tourach, Seasoned Pyro, Fable Of the Mirror Breaker and any of the other support cards I mentioned. Use these slots however you best prefer, but I am currently most drawn to Kroxa.
[Lands]
We are running 6 fetches, 4 shocks, 2 buddy lands, a Shizo for Kroxa and basics.
Even though this is a 2-color deck, the mana is quite intense and requires a lot of thought. We are usually casting B turn one, but on turn 3 need to be able to BRR or RRR and BBRR for Kroxa after that. I have screwed myself many a time for fetching a swamp instead of a shock and top decking a Ball Lightning for lethal if only I could cast it.
[Sideboarding]
Sideboards are never absolute; they are metagame dependent. We are a graveyard deck, but I don’t see a lot of hate right now. Also we are not full blown reanimator. We are cheating a 3 drop into play, not an 8 or 15 drop. If someone plays a Rest in Piece we can just continue to dig for and play elementals while disrupting them and that is often enough on it’s own to close out a game. We are slowed down by a few turns but they took turn 2 off to cast their hate so we are not that far behind. You can run Abrade, Koligans Command for artifacts, and feed the swarm for enchantments if graveyard hate is part of your meta, but I am just planning on playing through it for now.
Running Flamekin Harbinger main is great for packing elementals in our sideboard. Fulminator Mage
+
Fury
can be tutored up by our Harbinger meaning we can run fewer copies in our sideboard.
Main board, our removal is only good for 4 cmc or 3 toughness creatures. Swap those out for Dreadbore and or Terminate when needed.
[Keep or Mulligan?]
Our dream hand looks like 2-3 lands,
T1 Thoughtseize
T2 Thrill discarding ball
T3 Awakener Reanimating Ball 7 damage
T4 hard cast ball, awakener reanimates ball. 13 damage.
If you are missing one of these pieces especially a ball, that’s ok. We will draw 5-6 cards by turn 4 depending if we are on the play or the draw, if we play harbinger on 3 with the awakener we can tutor a Skelemental for our turn 4 and if we hit our second Ball by 4 we have lethal in hand.
In a format where a Grief can take two cards out of hand turn 1, I try to keep almost any playable hand as mulliganing to 5 can often lead to a blowout. We have so much redundancy that we will draw out combo eventually. If you have a couple lands and cards you can play I will usually keep. Sometimes we are aggro combo, sometimes we are Rakdos control with Kroxa as our win con, which isn’t bad.
[Tips]
Remember ABCB (Always.Be.Casting.Balls) if you have 3 mana open and a 3 drop elemental in hand, it’s usually correct to just keep casting them. Sometimes you want to wait, but they are hard cards to answer. Doesn’t feel great to Counterspell, doesn’t feel great to use removal on, and doesn’t feel great to Leyline or Solitude. And our opponents ignoring them adds up quick.
Unless your opening hand has 3 lands, do not play Flamekin Harbinger turn 1. You put the tutored card on top of your library, and we are a 20 land deck. You will miss your land drops. It is best to combine harbinger with a draw spell on turn 3 so you he can get those cards in hand. Turns one’s are for our instants and sorceries 90 percent of the time.
Feel free to leave any feedback or suggestions in the comments. Thank you.
