Instant (18)
Creature (3)
Sorcery (16)
Land (18)
Enchantment (5)
Sideboard
Sorcery (5)
Creature (3)
Instant (7)
Maybeboard
Sorcery (2)
Instant (1)
Imagine you're playing in the finals of a Modern Pro Tour (because the Pro Tour is back, baby!). It's game 1 and you're playing all manner of cantrips and scry spells. Pyromancer Ascension has two counters on it and you're really churning through your deck. Your opponent is nervously watching the storm count tick higher, knowing they are powerless to stop whatever finisher you have in store...
As you play Barren Glory, Oblivion Ring, then Worldfire, the look on your opponent's face fades from terror, to confusion, to resigned understanding as they acknowledge you as the victor and supreme ruler of this desolate landscape you've created.
Sure, you lose games 2, 3, and 4, and your opponent wins the Pro Tour. People seriously question how you even qualified let alone made it to the finals... but you'll always have game 1.
The deck is basically storm from 2015 with Opt instead of Gitaxian Probe, but better because Barren Glory is the win condition. Yes, Grapeshot and Empty the Warrens are in the sideboard, but ignore that for now.
You'll ideally want an opening hand with a couple of lands and some draw/scry spells, maybe a Pyromancer Ascension. (In reality, you'll probably get a hand of 4 lands and 3 Goblin Electromancers and you'll be on the Electromancer beatdown plan, but that's fun too.)
If you get a good opener, use the draw/scry spells to start digging through the deck and get a couple of counters on a Pyromancer Ascension or two. When you're ready to win, keep digging until your hand has Barren Glory, Oblivion Ring, and Worldfire, and enough rituals and Manamorphoses to generate , , and . Be sure to keep track of storm count as a decoy (definitely not for the emergency Grapeshot).
When you have everything in hand, play any rituals and Manamorphoses you need to get the required mana for the combo. At this point the storm count should be somewhere around 20, which will be a nice misdirection since it's actually irrelevant. Play Barren Glory and cast Oblivion Ring to exile Barren Glory. Then, cast Worldfire. This will exile all graveyards, all hands, and all permanents, including Oblivion Ring, bringing Barren Glory back to the battlefield. Pass the turn and cross your fingers your opponent doesn't top deck a zero-cost source of damage. If they can't, you win!
If you see a combo piece early with Serum Visions, Opt, or Sleight of Hand go ahead and drop it to the bottom of your library. You're probably going to need to cycle through your whole deck anyway, because one of the combo pieces will naturally always be on the bottom. Plus, you'll scry enough lands, extra Pyromancer Ascensions, and Goblin Electromancers to the bottom it'll push those combo pieces right back to the top.
If you mill Worldfire with Thought Scour, don't panic! We've got Past in Flames
! If you mill Oblivion Ring or Barren Glory, you can scoop, there's no way back. The best game I've had with this deck was turn 1 Snow-Covered Island, Thought Scour, mill Oblivion Ring, scoop. But hey, what's life without a little risk?
The sideboard is from 2015 as well, so it's less likely to be helpful these days. The primary goal of the deck is to race to the finish line, but it isn't actually that fast so there are a few instances where we could use some help from the sideboard.
Vexing Shusher and Negate come in against control matchups. Lightning Bolt is good in general, so why not bring it in? Magus of the Moon isn't likely to hurt our mana base and will slow down most decks at the very least, plus it's another body for the Goblin Electromancer beatdown plan.
Anger of the Gods is great if you run into one of the few Tokens modern event decks still floating around out there. Shatterstorm is ready and waiting for Affinity to make a comeback. Spellskite and Echoing Truth are going to look like genius inclusions when they unban Splinter Twin.
If you want to play mind games with your opponent you can board out the Barren Glory combo and go all in on actual storm. The purpose of this plan is not to have a better deck with a simple win condition, but to completely confuse your opponent and gain the upper hand for game 3 (you didn't win game 1).
The maybeboard has Ideas Unbound and Reach Through Mists, which I'm considering even though they weren't really played in 2015. The ability to Splice Onto Arcane from Desperate Ritual is kind of neat and the discard 3 at end of turn from Ideas Unbound isn't likely to matter because we'll either have plenty of extra lands to discard, or we'll have played Worldfire and no longer have or need a hand. Rift Bolt is another possible win condition by suspending it before casting Worldfire. It's effective, but much less flashy than Barren Glory, and this deck is all about flash (you know, style not the keyword ability).
Q: Does it work?
A: Yes! The deck can actually reliably go off on turn 4 or 5 if it doesn't face disruption.
Q: So, isn't this just a worse version of storm?
A: Yes.
Q: Why wouldn't you just play storm?
A: Because winning with style points infrequently is better than winning consistently.
Q: Can you make storm any worse?
A: Yes! Check this out: Chattering Ordeal.
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Casual
91% Competitive
| Top Ranked |
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| Date added | 2 years |
| Last updated | 3 months |
| Legality | This deck is Modern legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 4 - 0 Mythic Rares 6 - 5 Rares 14 - 4 Uncommons 20 - 6 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 1.98 |
| Tokens | Goblin 1/1 R |
| Folders | Modern Brews, Modern, Deck Inspiration, Crazy decks that work |
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