Jacques, ideally: Chancellor of the Tangle , Faithless Looting /Lightning Axe , a land that produces black and preferably black/red, Simian Spirit Guide , Goryo's Vengeance , Griselbrand .

Tangle gives you one mana, Spirit Guide gives you another, you use the red from guide to drop Looting or Lightning Axe, putting Griselbrand into the yard. Then use the land that produces black mana, and the mana from Tangle to play Goryo's reanimating Gbrand. Activate ability and attack in any combination to draw enough red cards for Fury of the Horde and win. Or black for Soul Spike as a finisher.

Having multiples of Simian Spirit Guide and Chancellor of the Tangle allows you to Faithless Looting and Goryo's Vengeance on turn one. Let's see if I get my math right. To do that you would need a total of 3 mana so any combination of the following...

2x Simian Spirit Guide 1x Swamp 1x Faithless Looting /Lightning Axe 1x Griselbrand and 1x Goryo's Vengeance .

Allow me to go all old and nostalgic on you. Just recently started playing Magic again (stopped in the middle of the Masques Block coming out). For me, this deck brings back memories of the Rector-Bargain-decks (Academy Rector & Yawgmoth's Bargain ) from back then - they kinda had the same glass cannon-feel as this, they of course also relied on massive draw power (also paying life), some mana ramp (usually in the form of artifact acceleration) and then the almighty reanimator Yawgmoth's Will would allow you to Soul Feast all the way to victory in turn 2 or 3 - 4 if you had a bad/slow start. A quick Google search actually got me to the version that I built off of myself back then (Sabre) - here it is (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=256560), and the cool thing is that the original creator of the deck as well as the mysterious name appears about 10-15 comments down in the thread to explain himself.

So, in conclusion: Thanks for building an awesome, awesome deck and thanks for reminding me of the good old days and one of my personal all-time favourite decks!

And of course mana without needing land with Skirge Familiar , forgot to put that in there :-)

Wouldn't a Reliquary Tower be good to sideboard incase somebody counter your Griselbrand and you don't get a Pact of Negation and you need to end your turn? Otherwise, great deck! 1+

if someone were to counter my Griselbrand I wouldn't have the ability to draw my deck, Reliquary Tower is a bit of a dead card for this deck in anycase. I need the ability to produce Black and red mana within the first few turns and it's no help.

I can count the times on one hand where I've managed to draw most of my deck and lost the steam to win, chances are most of those were misplays on my part and no fault of the deck itself. Even if it were to happen again while I ran a few Reliquary Tower I'd still have no way to play the extra land to get the effect.

True dat.

So... I hate the block minus a couple cards..

But why are we NOT using Tainted Strike ??

cause its not really necessary and the decklist is tight enough as it is, what would you take out for it?

It just makes my combo cost 1 more black mana which really isn't worth it

Time of Need , take them out for 2x Manamorphose and 1x Tainted Strike (or just screw tainted strike because you're right).

I've been finding Manamorphose for Red/Black to be that one piece to get me over the hump and just secure the deck. Time of need just always felt like a dead draw. In an even tighter spot, you can use it for Fury of the Horde and Nourishing Shoal .

As I used this deck I loved everything about it but I couldn't find enough ditchs for Griselbrand . You have the Gemstone Mine s and City of Brass s. Why not use Izzet Charm ?

@Kyuwrath, Ditches that this deck uses are Funeral Charm , Lava Axe , and Faithless Looting , if you want more you can test just adding more in number.

You can also do what you said and try Izzet Charm . If you still don't think you have enough, or what some other alternatives, LotLeth troll gives a good stick to ditch things on and gives some backup power. Or you can try to, Land -->Simian Spirit Guide --> Manamorphose -->Ideas Unbound .

Lotleth Troll

I decided to write this after drooling all over myself while playtesting it. This is incredible. I found myself screwed a couple times just cause i didnt draw ANYTHING for the combo. But found that as long as I had Faithless Looting I won by turn 2 or 3. This is my next deck. Hands down. +1 for sure

Go figure this deck became just that much more secure with the recent banning of Deathrite Shaman ..

How competitive is this deck at tournaments? Like places top 4 a lot? Been interested in making a Modern deck.

it has potential to be a quick combo, but is pretty fragile. Many popular top modern decks have maindeck ways of dealing with the combo. however maybe your meta can't keep up you might win some games, however it wouldn't take much for your meta to adjust.

Seems weak to any type of disruption, like a hammer to the glass cannon if i dare

Damn... was really looking at this Black competitive deck :(

this is kind of already a deck, it needs emrakul, that way u draw fourteen discard emrakul to say lava axe emrakul, trigger on the stack goryo's vegeance then fury of the horde draw seven etc

The deck that uses Emrakul is NOT the same deck as this.

This is intended to be able to to win turn one, and relies heavily on that draw, Emrakul is more timing dependent and does not allow the mass draw to combo.