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4C Delvolution: The Breakdown

Modern* BUG (Sultai) Reanimator

NoirSuede

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Lands (20)

Disruption (12)

Experiment Results (4)

Mill 3s (8)

Evolves (8)

Experiment Subjects (8)

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War of the Spark is on it's way and so are our brews. This is a companion deck to Greenshoalbrand (WAR Spoiler, New Deck Breakdown) built for the kind of people who'd trade raw power for resiliency in their decks.

Among the cards recently spoiled in War of the Spark, there was a spicy Sorcery that inspired a lot of brewing among the magic community, Neoform . Its partner in crime, Eldritch Evolution has already had a good deal of success in creature toolbox decks such as those featuring the Devoted Druid + Vizier of Remedies combo. We aim to do something very different.
  1. Mill 3 cards to the graveyard with either Thought Scour or Faithless Looting and then add 2 more cards, whether from fetchlands or disruption.
  2. Cast either Tasigur, the Golden Fang or a Hooting Mandrills .
  3. Evolve them with either Neoform or Eldritch Evolution into either Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite against creature decks or card: Nezahal, the Primal Tide against non-creature decks!

A good hand with a mill 3 card, the experiment subjects, and the Evos can pull this off as soon as turn 3, with a turn 4 average. The first concern that comes up is how can this deck hold against graveyard hate, especially since some decks maindeck graveyard hate. Aside from the fact that the deck can sometimes race the graveyard hate by simply Delving before they can play the graveyard hate, the deck plays 8 discard spells to be able to snag them away from their hands.

- Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Hooting Mandrills : After hearing about this deck's premise, some people would ask why don't I play Gurmag Angler to evolve into Griselbrand . Well, I would if there was another cheap "7-drop", but the only other cheap "7-drops" in Modern are Myr Enforcer and Allosaurus Rider (Which Greenshoalbrand plays as their key card), and those two require a lot of deck space dedicated to them which really inhibits the amount of disruption you can play.

  • Neoform : The whole reason why this deck exists as of now and also the second reason why Gurmag Angler can't be played, the fact that Neoform can only evolve a creature up to exactly 1 more from their original converted mana cost means that if Gurmag Angler is to be played then there would be two separate pools of creatures, one that only Tasigur/Mandrills can evolve into and one that only Gurmag Angler can evolve into, and being locked into 1 pool at an inopportune time (like for example needing an Elesh Norn to destroy a x/2 army but only having an Angler and Neoform in hand) will cause you to lose.

  • Faithless Looting : The whole reason this deck is splashing red, there's no other 1 mana mill 3 cantrip in Modern right now other than Thought Scour

  • Metric ton of Fetchlands: in order to have a 1 mana Tasigur/Mandrills in turn 2, you must have 5 cards in your graveyard. 3 of those cards are coming from the mill 3 spells, while the other 2 are from turn 1 and turn 2 fetchlands, which is why it is so important to have a constant supply of fetchlands at all times.

All evolve targets are played as a 2x as a security measure just in case they get accidentally milled by the mill 3 cards, except for one... - Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite : The Queen! If you even smell that your opponent is playing a creature based deck, pull her out as fast as you can! Elesh Norn also nearly wrecks both Phoenix decks and Dredge decks, because she stops Arclight Phoenix and Young Pyromancer in Phoenix and Narcomoeba and Bloodghast in Dredge from ever existing.
  • card:Nezahal, the Primal Tide: He can draw cards, he can run away from even Terminus and card Oblivion Stone, and he's a very fast clock, a control beater he is.

Sideboard Targets - 2x Rune-Scarred Demon : Bring him out for when a match-up requires you to find a sideboard card in order to win, like an Assassin's Trophy against Ensnaring Bridge .

  • Chancellor of the Annex : Bring this thing out against decks that want to cast lots of things at once... like Greenshoalbrand. Chancellor is a 4-of because you want to also be able to take advantage of the opening reveal effect, which is very crucial against those kinds of decks in slowing them down right out of the gate.
The sideboard is designed to be as broad as possible, in order to be able to actually draw them in time, which in some matchups is not very much time indeed.

  • 4x Nihil Spellbomb : The most consistent graveyard hate a graveyard deck in Modern can use, because it's one-sided. There's 4 of them because most of the time just 1 isn't enough against graveyard decks.

  • 3x Assassin's Trophy : A catch-all removal, can't go wrong with that.

  • 2x Collective Brutality : Another piece of removal against creature heavy decks before Elesh Norn comes down, and also the classic Burn slayer card.

- If you have a discard spell and a mill 3 spell in turn 1, ALWAYS ALWAYS play the discard spell first so that the opponent can't ruin your graveyard out of nowhere.

  • If you have a Nezahal/Elesh Norn stuck under a Ensnaring Bridge or a Worship , you can Eldritch Evolution them to grab a Rune-Scarred Demon so that you can tutor an Assassin's Trophy to blow it up.

  • If you manage to cast Tasigur/Hooting Mandrills and then see that the opponent left some mana open, you may not want to evolve them right away, just beat them down with the Tasigur/monkey and leave their counterspell rotting in their hand!

That's all I got for now since the deck is very new, the whole goal of this article here is for an interested community to grow around the deck and contribute to putting up real results and additional tricks here.

The good thing about a toolbox deck like this, is that in a local LGS setting where you can scout out who plays what decks in advance, you can tailormade your silver bullets against specific opponents:

  • Sheoldred, Whispering One : She totals decks that rely on 1 big creature to win like Bogles, while also being able to reanimate the creature that you just evolved to get her.

  • Elderscale Wurm : A budget Platinum Emperion in every way possible, it is actually better against the decks Platinum Emperion is good against like mono-red Burn or Affinity, because it can't be hit by artifact removal while also having evasion.

  • Hornet Queen : There's not much niche Hornet Queen covers that Elesh Norn doesn't also cover, but useful if you're up against a deck with lots and lots of x/3 fliers like Spirits and Humans.

  • Omnath, Locus of Rage : If you're up against grindy non-white decks like GB Rock, he is the undisputed champion of grind, as every subsequent land-drop is another dangerous clock they have to deal with, and even if Omnath eats a Terminate the second he hits the board he's still taking something down with him.

And then we gotta talk about Careful Study . If this card gets to Modern (after a Looting ban of course), this would make the deck leaps better, as now the manabase goes from a shaky 4c manabase with only 2 basics into a rock-solid Sultai one that can play 4 basics. Let's just hope that Modern Horizon brings something good to the table (and Careful Study).

If you want to contact me or talk to others about the deck, join our Dino Evolution Community Discord https://discord.gg/YyacGmY and tag me @ NoirSuede.

I'm super super thankful if you spent the time reading all that I wrote, and look forward to seeing a Greenshoalbrand community grow!

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Top Ranked
  • Achieved #22 position overall 5 years ago
  • Achieved #2 position in Modern 5 years ago
Date added 5 years
Last updated 5 years
Splash colors R
Key combos
Legality

This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)

2 - 0 Mythic Rares

32 - 11 Rares

12 - 0 Uncommons

12 - 4 Commons
Cards 60
Avg. CMC 2.90
Folders inspirational brew folder
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