Edge of Autumn might be a fun card to consider for ramp. as far as counterspell protection, maybe Savage Summoning ?

also, Ley Druid and Stone-Seeder Hierophant serve the same function as Arbor Elf if you find you aren't drawing them enough.

Thanks for the tips man, Savage Summoning is a great suggestion and I can't believe I missed it. As for the others, I don't think I'll go for it because my main backup for Arbor Elf right now is Magus of the Candelabra , so if I feel I need more I'll up him from 2x to 3 or 4.

Hey so I found something that may help with the land destruction. Timber Protector can save your Forests from dying so maybe put a couple in the sideboard?

Also, Reknit is a good way to protect your lands from destruction, not to mention a key creature.

with all that mana floating around; Worldspine Wurm actually seems pretty viable to me here. Also; besides being a big fat fatty blocker; not sure what purpose Leatherback Baloth servers. there a MUCH better green creatures at 3 mana. A LOT of better ones. I like the Johnny Combo nature of the deck. I'll be monitoring it for updates.

very fun deck! i like it, but i would replace Magus of the Candelabra for a more consistent 1 mana ramp, ex. Llanowar Elves

@Grimgrinner, to answer your question, Leatherback Baloth serves to pump up Primalcrux as much as possible. He's also a beefy blocker while I'm ramping, and a beefy attacker during a race. But I'd love to hear what other suggestions you have for 2-4cmc? As for Worldspine Wurm , getting it on the field certainly wouldn't be a problem, but for that kind of mana I'd rather cast Primal Surge or even Craterhoof Behemoth .

@skrech I actually tried that. It's true you can get more consistency in the early game, but when you have a forest enchanted with (for example) 2x Overgrowth , the Magus essentially produces 4 mana, which can bring me from 6 to 10 putting me in Primal Surge range. I also like the extra toughness.

Thanks for the suggestions!

I actually decided you were right and replaced 4x Leatherback Baloth with a 2-2 split with Thrun, the Last Troll . It evens out my curve a bit and gives me more options against control. Thanks!

I like a lot Leatherback Baloth because a 4/5 on turn 2 is simply amazing and force your opponent to decide if kill him, Arbor Elf or the bigger one the turn later... however Thrun, the Last Troll is very good!Unfortunatly this deck is going far away from budget.

I ended up dropping Leatherback Baloth in favor of a 2-2 split with Thrun, the Last Troll and Wolfbriar Elemental .

Also, I still consider this deck budget because most Modern decks, especially competitive ones, run $500+, mostly due to fetch lands.

If you want more budget, replace Thrun with the Baloths, and replace Khalni Hydra with Terra Stomper . That should cut the costs by about $30-40.

Magus of the Candelabra would work better in a Tron or 12 Post list, as it allows to untap lands that produce lots of mana. I get you have enchantments that net you a few extra mana here and there, but I would suggest a replacement like Joraga Treespeaker .

Tooth and Nail ? for those moments when your draws suck. pretty damn explosive with 2x Primalcrux or a Primalcrux and Khalni Hydra .

also tossing around the idea of if Dryad Arbor would be good here.

Also; keep an eye out for theros, as the new "devotion" mechanic is going to be a "fixed" chroma. I already see some cards that would be nice in here, including nylea, god of the hunt. http://mythicspoiler.com/ths/g.html (the green cards spoiled)

May want to sideboard instead of Terra Stomper , try out Gaea's Revenge . sorry for the double comment btw.

If you want some anti-control suggestions, Vexing Shusher is really useful, along with these ones: Autumn's Veil and Ranger's Guile .

For the land protection ... the cards that I can think of mainly contain white in them. Terra Eternal and Trace of Abundance are the cheapest ones in mana cost and price. Privileged Position is your best bet for mono-green, though pricey for mana cost. Crucible of Worlds is the only other option I have, though monetarily, it's expensive.

Thanks for the tips guys!

@Grimgrinner - I actually was using Tooth and Nail in an earlier iteration of this deck, but I replaced it with Primal Surge because I figured for 1 more mana I'd rather have that bigger effect. Plus, with Akroma's Memorial , Primal Surge enables that turn 3 win that Tooth and Nail just couldn't.

I don't think I'll be going for Dryad Arbor because it's too easily removable, and I can't afford to enchant it and then get 2-for-1ed. Plus, I don't really see that extra 1 power helping very much. As for the Devotion mechanic in Theros, I'm definitely keeping a lookout for it! Not sure if Nylea herself is a fit, but I'm sure lots of other cool cards will come out. Right now I'm most interested by Karametra's Acolyte.

@Femme_Fatale - thanks for the land protection tips! I actually decided that I'm not too worried about it because my forests are safe against Tectonic Edge . That said, if I do want to save my forests I think Timber Protector is a better choice than Privileged Position , and as for the others I'd rather not leave mono-green. Privileged Position is still interesting though; it could help in other ways and be a more flexible sideboard spot, so I'll consider it. Crucible of Worlds doesn't solve my problem at all because my goal is to save my Auras, and they'll already be gone by the time I bring the Forests back.

As for the control tips, I think I prefer Vines of Vastwood over Ranger's Guile and Savage Summoning over Autumn's Veil . But Vexing Shusher is really interesting. I'm a little worried at how easily he can be Doom Blade ed or Lightning Bolt ed, but I'll have to try him out.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

All fair points, but I think it's a little hopeful to count a one-of Akroma's Memorial as a "win condition". Especially when you have no tutoring or draw power. A 1-of in a deck usually means you don't have much reason to run it in the first place. If it truly is that good, then it deserves more slots. food for thought.

Sure, fair points. But the purpose of Akroma's Memorial isn't for me to draw it, it's for me to find it with Primal Surge , which happens about 50% of the time. And even if I don't find it, I will probably find Craterhoof Behemoth . You see, the downside to Primal Surge is that everything still has summoning sickness so your opponent has time to respond. Finding one of those two cards lets me win same-turn. And when you're dropping over half of your deck on the battlefield (on average), your chances of finding one of those two is very high. And even if you don't, you end up in a very dominant board state.

Furthermore, as far as digging through the deck goes, Mosswort Bridge also goes a pretty long way. But that's sort of just a side bonus; I'm not relying on it.

So that's the reasoning behind that. You're also welcome to playtest the deck if you want to see this effect in action for yourself. Do you still think I should drop Akroma's Memorial ?

If anything, I'd consider going up to 2x Craterhoof Behemoth , but so far the Surges have been pretty consistent so I don't feel like I need it. What do you think about that?

So I play tested our decks together and this was the result: Game 1: T1: For your deck I had a Forest and Utopia Sprawl For me I ended up with a Forest and a Joraga Treespeaker T2: For you I had another Forest and Overgrowth For me I laid down another Forest leveled up Joraga Treespeaker and put down two Arbor Elf T3: For you I ended up getting out Fertile Ground and an Arbor Elf For me I played a Primalcrux and then swung for 3T4: For you I was able to play Khalni Hydra For me I played my Khalni Hydra and was able to swing with my Primalcrux for 17 which was blocked by your Khalni Hydra and I trampled for 9.T5: For you I didnt have much to play so I had to go with Omnath, Locus of Mana and added 5 more to your mana pool making Omnath a 6/6For me I was able to play a Primeval Titan and I swung for the kill with Primalcrux at 19 and Khalni Hydra at 8

Game 2:I had to muligan down to 5 with your deck because I couldn't get a good mana base in the hand. T1: Forest for you and a Forest and Joraga Treespeaker for meT2: Another Forest for you but was able to also topdeck a Fertile Ground for youFor me it was drawing another land to be able to level-up Joraga Treespeaker and tap for a Llanowar Elves and a Elvish Mystic T3: For you I was able to play Omnath, Locus of Mana and was able to add some mana for 1/1s For me I was able to play a Primeval Titan and score some more landsT4: For you I was able to cast a Khalni Hydra For me I was able to get out a Forest and then play Primal Surge and I got 10 lands 6 elves and my Khalni Hydra but the game wasnt over yetT5: For you I top-decked an Elderscale Wurm and played thatFor me I had had Emrakul, the Aeons Torn in my opening hand and was able to hard cast it from my land base only, also I had gotten an Elvish Archdruid as one of the many elves I acquired from Primal Surge and was also able to cast It That Betrays from the elves. T5b: I then was able to swing with Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and It That Betrays which did nothing except get me some of you less important permanents. It left you with Khalni Hydra , Arbor Elf , and Elderscale Wurm T6: For you I couldn't do anything since I didn't draw any lands so I passedFor me all I had to was swing with Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and It That Betrays and it won me the game.

Over all you have a very good deck for Budget, but you need more ramp, and ramp elves are very cheap so you might want to add more ramp elves like Arbor Elf , Llanowar Elves , and Elvish Mystic , and full play sets of each. Keep up the work on this deck though it looks good!P.S. Add more Sorcerys so you have more stopping spells for Primal Surge

why...why would you want more stopping spells for Primal Surge ? you'd rather just have more permanents o.o

interesting playtest. Usually when I playtest I mulligan for free past 6 so that it's a fair playtest. When I did it our dezcks were muzch zcloser, with eazch one winning about half the time; looks like in your playtest your dezck one out a little more. Maybe I'll think about moving to mana elves instead of auras + untap.

And as far as Primal Surge , I agree with CogMonocle. The point of Primal Surge is to get as much as you can; if I had my way I'd only play 1 and play my whole deck, but then I'd never draw it. Vines of Vastwood , for example, is a card I had in the deck at first but took out just for Primal Surge .

It looks like unfortunately in your playtest you never came across a situation where you cast Primal Surge with my deck. If you had you would see that almost always it results in the game ending immediately.

So I tested this against my deck: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/aggro-tired-of-your-plans/

My deck is built to be rather aggro and turn lock the player. Game one I had your health down to about 8 before being killed by a massive amount of biggies. Game two I lasted to about round 6 before once again being murdered by biggies. Fantastic aggro ramp deck, usually when I test my modern deck against other's I play as fairly as possible and usually come on at top. Not in this case. Great deck man +1

Replace Privileged Position with Asceticism . It gives regenerate to all your creatures just in case of stuff like Ambush Viper and also synergizes better with Primalcrux .

Cancel

@Shoug - Thanks for the tip. The reason I prefer Privileged Position is that it protects my forests and enchantments as well, not just creatures. This deck gets hosed by anything that can destroy or bounce my lands, such as Flickerwisp targetting a Forest. Additionally, Privileged Position actually synergizes better than Asceticism with Primalcrux because the dual mana symbols count.

@randomguy123 - thanks for your eloquent and well-worded comment. My response is three-fold:

• Saying "dies to Cancel " is like saying "dies to Doom Blade ". It's true, but we can't all be playing control decks now can we? Are you telling me you've never built a non-control deck because it died to Cancel ?
• Cancel itself isn't used in Modern. Mana Leak is played much more, which this deck is actually quite resilient against thanks to all the extra mana. Cryptic Command is still a problem, but it's a 4cmc and triple-blue spell, so it's easy to see it coming.
• At the end of the day, you're right. Control is this deck's biggest weakness. But that's why I have 2x Thrun, the Last Troll and 1x Privileged Position in the deck. And if you look at my sideboard, you may also notice 2x Terra Stomper , 2x Oversoul of Dusk , another Privileged Position , and most importantly, 2x Vexing Shusher .

So, long story short, I appreciate your comment and I'm doing what I can to fight control decks. If you have any CONSTRUCTIVE criticism for me on how to do that better, I'd love to hear it.