Steady accumulation of value for you + Steady loss of value for your opponent = Won games
No matter what deck is played in Modern, almost all of them have one thing in common: they all need mana produced by lands to function.
I was inspired to make a land denial/value creature deck after seeing Todd Stevens use is G/W Valuetown deck to lock an opponent out of the game using Crucible of Worlds and Ghost Quarter. However, he only ran one copy of Crucible, due to it not having the potential of being a threat by itself. Thus, my hopes of making a value deck based primarily around land destruction were dashed.
Enter,
Ramunap Excavator
. Being the lover of Hatebear/Death & Taxes archetypes that I am, I immediately fell in love with this card and got to brewing. The result is a deck that seeks to play recursive threats to their land, and play creatures that gain us value while they suffer incremental and impactful loss.
List Breakdown
The Creatures
Ramunap Excavator
: My muse, my inspiration, my core concept. This guy makes the deck work, and generates us value by allowing us to repeatedly play Ghost Quarter, Tectonic Edge, and Horizon Canopy. Also, an okay beater. Dies to a lot of removal, but we end up getting value out of him if they spend any removal to get rid of him, as we have many other threats in the deck that warrant removal.
Leonin Arbiter: Anyone who's ever played against Hatebears or Death & Taxes knows about the Arbiter Ghost Quarter interaction. This guy helps our mana denial strategies going even before we get Excavator or Crucible Down. Even if we don't drop a ghost quarter, with fetchlands being rampant in Modern, he ends up gaining us value by wasting our opponent's mana.
Azusa, Lost but Seeking: Idea stolen directly from Todd Stevens. Can put us insanely ahead and our opponents insanely behind by allowing us to play 2 land-based threats, or just allows us to go wider with creatures.
Thalia, Heretic Cathar: Not only does she have the potential to deny our opponent value from their lands and creatures, but she's also a 3/2 with First Strike. Couldn't pass her up.
Noble Hierarch: So much value. Aside from Deathrite Shaman, the best mana dork ever printed. Provides us both of our colors, gives exalted, and allows us to jam Ramunap on turn two, and allows us to make the hope-crushing turn two play of playing Arbiter and then Quartering their land if we land a Hierarch turn one. Also helps us still have mana if we end up spending our Quarters without an Excavator or Crucible.
Kitchen Finks: Incredible value. 3/2, recursive, and it slows down any damage clock our opponent may have on us.
Voice of Resurgence: The best Modern-legal G/W value creature ever printed. This guy can close out games, and is a recursive threat that can sometimes discourage our opponent from blocking it, or spending removal to kill it.
Scavenging Ooze: Another great value card. Excellent against Delve, Reanimator, Living End, Dredge, or any deck than runs Tarmogoyf. Only one mainboard due to it being situational.
Renegade Rallier: Also situational, but allows us to usually get a 2 for 1 effect if any of our creatures have died.
Lands
Ghost Quarter: Our best land threat. Synergizes with Excavator, Arbiter, Azusa, and Crucible.
Tectonic Edge: Not as solid as a Quarter, but it can keep our opponent off lands, and if we stick an Excavator, then we can keep them on 3-4 lands while we continue to draw threats.
Horizon Canopy: Okay, there's a reason this card is ~$80, when it becomes superfluous as a mana source, you can just cash it in for a draw. With cards like Excavator, Crucible, and Asuza, this card becomes borderline broken. Being able to crack a Canopy for a draw, replay it, and possibly crack it again if you don't want to hold up mana is just plain nuts. Works perfectly in this shell.
The rest of the lands are just G/W nonfetch mana sources that provide us both colors.
The Noncreature Spells (Here's where stuff gets interesting.)
Glittering Wish: This is the deck's most unique mechanic. One of my favorite features of any Magic deck is diversity of answers and adaptability of play. This card allows us to tutor up answers and threats from our sideboard. This is insanely powerful because it allows us to utilize our sideboard during game one, and also allows us to access any cards that we may have boarded out post-game one. It is sorcery-speed, but it fortifies the Hatebear strat we have going.
Collected Company: What can I say about Collected Company that hasn't already been said? Generates a ton of value, especially since we are effectively running a Hatebear deck. Will occasionally whiff, due to us running 13 noncreature spells, but is effective enough to warrant a full playset because it very often closes out games.
Path to Exile: An obvious 4-of. Second-best removal spell in modern. Also helps us to drain our opponent's deck of basic land so our Ghost Quarters can potentiall turn into Strip Mines.
Crucible of Worlds: You get the point.
Sideboard
(The sideboard should be thought of as part of the mainboard, as we seek to tutor answers for varying threats with Glittering Wish.)
Creatures
Burrenton Forge-Tender: For Ad Nauseam and occasionally burn. Not tutorable with Wish.
Gaddock Teeg: For matchups when large CMC or X cost spells are a problem.
Renegade Rallier: Kept as a 1-of in the sideboard because it allows us 4 instances of running into it mainboard (Glittering Wish can functionally count as a way to get it out, albeit a more expensive way.) Allows all of our threats to be recursive by at least turn five.
Judge's Familiar: For combo-based matchups.
Scavenging Ooze: If you want more graveyard hate. Not tutorable with Wish.
Noncreature Spells
Heroes' Reunion: This card is amazing because not only does it completely hose death's shadow, it can massively delay an opponent's damage clock and be tutored by Wish. Deceptively powerful in this shell and in this meta.
Rest in Peace: For graveyard-based matchups. Not tutorable with Wish.
Stony Silence: For Affinity and Krark-Clan Ironworks decks.
Testing Must Be Done!
This may be a slightly janky brew, but I feel it could be well-positioned in the current Death's Shadow-dominated meta. Let me know what you think in the comments section, below. And feel free to leave a +1 up there at the top left of the page, if ya like the deck! As soon as I get the chance, I am going to start testing this deck, to see if it's worth building at all. Will post updates as they come!
