A Self-Imposed Challenge
This deck, alongside another I am building that also mainboards a playset of Venerated Rotpriest, is meant to be tested against it's partner in a best of three, to determine which playstyle is better suited in a competitive setting. Both decks are determined to win via their own individual tactics, and although they share some mentalities in regards to how-to-play, Tempo-Priest and Shadow Clone Jutsu are both very dynamic, unique concepts.
What the Hell.. is Modern?
The state of modern has disintegrated and remolded itself like a tub of Play-Doh crammed into a Six-Year-Old's Easy Bake Oven; it has been recrafted, reshaped, and is damn near unrecognizable from what it was before.. but an uncanny resemblance still remains. I've watched Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis rise to fame and then fall, alongside beings like Oko, Thief of Crowns. I've watched several iterations of Colossus Hammer driven decks dubbed "Hammer-Time" take the cake at local events. A long time ago, when I had just started playing (2011), I was introduced to the format when at the time Splinter Twin was causing a lot of uproar with Deceiver Exarch, and my companion NoobNoob275 was running this combo.. in Grixis () colors. This was where I cut my teeth on what Modern's play-style should be modeled after. To put it simply, the more things change.. the more they stay the same. Modern is and has been for the longest time, a Win-Your-Game format by turn 4 at the latest.
Simic Infect Strikes Back
Most of the time when you would see a "UG" deck amongst your local store (and I say this with the perspective of the last.. 5 to 6 years) you would more than likely be facing an infect build that was revolving around Glistener Elf and Blighted Agent. With the release of Phyrexia: All Will Be One, we saw plenty of cards within both Green and Blue that hold up the blessed words "proliferate" plus some other nonsense. My intention with this build is to remember how that deck functioned so well by avoiding fights (unblockable) and protecting ourselves when most needed. A little bit of countermagic on the heels of a strong foundation in poison counters could win you the game, but we're revisiting this shell with a much different archetype.
The intention is to have your Venerated Rotpriest hit the field on turn 1, as most of these decks would want that. The next step is providing us with a copycat body in Artisan of Forms. From here, you want to target your Artisan with things like Cackling Counterpart and Quasiduplicate, so that on the trigger it becomes a copy of Venerated Rotpriest, activating the first one, triggering itself upon becoming a priest, and lastly making a third priest upon resolution of the spell.
The aesthetic of the name is reflected in the fact that the priest is essentially using magic to make duplicates of themselves.
