Hey Tappedout! If there is an ability that you don't recognize I'll leave a definition at the end of the description/primer.
For those of you familiar with the modern format you'll probably see this and already pretty much know what this deck is and what it is trying to do. However, for the rest of you wonderful people I'll break down this very fun and explosive modern archetype.
Living End, both the linchpin of this deck and what this deck is commonly called. Living End as a deck is a combo archetype that aims to use creatures that have a cheap cost to use an ability called cycling to loot through your deck at a fast pace while filling your yard with creatures and then use either Violent Outburst or
Demonic Dread
to cascade into our Living End to clear our opponents board and reanimate all our cycle dudes.
Terms and abilities to understand:
Cycling, allows you to discard a card by paying the listed cost then you draw a card.
Cascade, when you cast the spell with cascade you then reveal cards from the top of your library until you find a spell that costs X or less where X = CMC of spell with cascade -1. You may then cast that spell without paying its mana cost and put all the other cards revealed in any order on the bottom of your library.
Now with that in mind lets get into the deck tech!
Creatures:
Street Wraith - Cycles for 2 life, 'nuff said.
Architects of Will
- Cycles for a , the ETB is nice enough, it allows us to set up for another Living End to go off JUST in case things go awry, or to find our sideboard cards to answer issues on board that keep us from swinging.
Deadshot Minotaur
- Cycles for a , ETB is mostly not needed.
Monstrous Carabid - Cheap cycling creatures, nothing special.
Pale Recluse
- A one of, finds us another land to try and be sure we have the mana to go off when we need to.
Fulminator Mage - He can sudo-fog by blocking and then using the activated ability before damage. He basically just allows us to take away resources from our opponent and then he comes back off Living End and swings or just does it again to keep our opponent shut out.
Simian Spirit Guide - Makes manas to go off quicker and cycle more stuff in a turn. Just adds more speed to the list.
Jungle Weaver
- Cycles for , thats really all we need to say here.
Non-Creature Spells:
Beast Within - Removal, usually hits a land to tax the opponents resources since we don't care about a 3/3. It just gets nuked by Living End anyways.
Demonic Dread
- Cascades into our win condition.
Violent Outburst - Cascades into our win condition, but it can do it at end of turn so we untap and just kill them.
Living End - The deck is named after it, I think thats enough description as to why its here.
Sideboard Tech:
Now that we've covered our main board I'd like to discuss our sideboard options. Do note that while I LIKE the current sideboard I'd love to hear suggestions from those that either play or play against this deck to know how to improve my bad match-ups.
Ingot Chewer - Evokes for a , messes with affinity and helps me deal with 8Rack which is actually prevalent in my local meta.
Shriekmaw - Evokes for a and acts as removal for the aggro match-ups. Also really helps against // since it can nugg off a Tarmogoyf and then do it again when my Living End goes off.
Krosan Grip - Hits most any relevant yard hate in the format, and it even hits a Splinter Twin on occasion.
Boil
- *** off // control? and Screw you too Twin, and I'm looking your way too Storm.
Ricochet Trap
- Again, screw you //. You try and Cryptic Command my Living End, you do that sir. You'll just have to settle for hitting the Violent Outburst instead. :]
