Summoning Trap is hilarious against control!

Oh my god aeon, i didn't know about that card. That is so freaking karmic. I love it.

oh my god... aeonstoremyliver that is amazing. The conflict I'm having here is that it's an Instant which means it breaks my Primal Surge chain. Yet at the same time, it's so awesome... I don't know what I'm gonna do.

Lol!!! Summoning Trap is worth 3-4 slots in the sideboard at least. You can also hard cast it easily, if need be. It works best with Sylvan Library / Brainstorm /Sensei's Divining Top type effects, but it's still good without.

As far as breaking the chain goes look at it this way:

T1- forest, Arbor Elf ... OPP - Force of Will ... Summoning Trap into a big beastie

T2 - whopp a$$!!!

Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx x1

@APPLE01DOJ I've thought about Nykthos but I'm not so sure about it. Decided to add one as you suggested to see how it performs. It's certainly awesome with a Primalcrux out but then it's kind of a win-more... and I don't want to get stuck with it Turn 1. But we'll see how it playtests!

I like your deck :D +1. I cant think of much that may help your deck, sadly.
I have a deck sort of like it, its a legacy deck that uses Chancellor of the Tangle + Grim Monolith to get out giant creatures quickly, and i would like your opinion on it :D.
Roaming Beasts

Great deck, yuval, +1!

instead of running Wolfbriar Elemental , you should run Worldspine Wurm .the reasons why you shouldnt even have him: 1. wolfbriar only has 2 devotion to green, and the tokens that he makes dont have any mana cost or devotion. whereas, worldspine wurm has 3 devotion to green 2. even though wolfbriar synergizes well with your hydra, thats the only thing he works really well for. and you run so much mana ramp that the hydra doesnt even need to cost that much less. in synergy with your hydra, worldspine isnt as great as wolfbriar, but still.. when worldspine dies, it splits into 3 green creatures at least (which all have trample), and all of them are at least a semi threat, being a 5/5 each. 3. lastly, even if you can successfully cast wolfbriar with a bunch of wolves to make him effective for your hydra, those wolves only provide so much defense and they are really easy to deal with. even if you get 6 to 7 woves out, its still not that crazy to deal with. for around 11 mana to finally make him useful, you could have hard casted primal surge instead, or some other huge threat plus more.

tearing it down to its roots:11 drop wolfbriar = 8 vanilla green creatures. total p/t = 18/18 11 drop worldspine= 1 15/15 green creature with trample that splits into 3 5/5 green creatures with trample when it dies. also, it shuffles itself and your GY back into your library when it dies. total p/t = 30/30 tramplealso it has sort of a protection to kill spells and board wipes because of its abillity. wheras all i would need to do to kill your wolves is just Whipflare , or any spells like it.

my last tip of advise would be to take out Thrun, the Last Troll , because even though he is a really good card and he's really hard to deal with. he's in no way one of your main win cons, and he doesnt at all add to the mana ramp/aggro biggies feel to your deck. maybe just try putting in a little more mana ramp or more biggies or some more cards to protect your creatures from being mauled by burn/kill/counter cards (mainly arbor elf and voyaging satyr). some more mana ramp cards being Verdant Haven , and Wild Growth . more biggies being mostly just worldspine and maybe Primeval Titan for more mana ramp. let me know if this helped at all :)

Hi chrisco666, thank you for taking the time to give me some advice for my deck. Your advice isn't far off, but it's something I've considered and playtested in the past.

It's not that Worldspine Wurm is no good; it's great. But I can't afford to lose the other cards for the simple reason that my early game is weak. I need some defense and I need some blockers, and to accomplish that I need creatures in the 4-drop slot, and I decided on Thrun and Wolfbriar. Thrun simply because he's a resilient blocker that is hard to kill, helps against control, and has devotion of 2. But Wolfbriar was a much more involved choice.

You see, many of the things you said about Wolfbriar are true. I don't need him for the Hydra, although I guess it's nice if it works out. And if I have 10 mana I'd much rather cast Primal Surge or any other bomb. But the property of Wolfbriar that you seemed to ignore is his most valuable one: flexibility.

You see, when I have 10 mana, I'm not always gonna have that Primal Surge in my hand. I'd like to have a huge bomb, but it just doesn't always happen. Similarly, in the early game, I might be stuck with not enough ramp while drawing huge bombs. Such is the problem with ramp decks, you need to draw enough ramp and enough bombs for it to work. If you falter on either, you fail.

This is where Wolfbriar comes in. When I'm stuck on 4-5 mana and I need to stall, he is a welcome draw. When I'm flooded and need to draw a bomb, he's also a welcome draw. I'm almost never unhappy to see him. I even like him in my opening hand. The Wurm on the other hand, would suck to have in my opening hand.

So, to cut a long story short: I prefer Wolfbriar over Worldspine Wurm because I enjoy the fact that I can play him when I have less than 11 mana. You're right, if I do have 11 mana, I prefer the Wurm. But is a 4/4 and 7 2/2s really that bad? No, not really. At that point, I would say that having the Wurm would be a win-more. So I'd rather have the more flexible card.

To address the devotion thing, I think it's a non-issue. A difference of 2 and 3 devotion is negligible when my Primalcrux are usually 20/20+.

As for more ramp, I used to have more and I used to have less and I think this is the sweet spot. I would like to point out that Wild Growth is not Modern legal or else you bet your ass I'd be playing it. As for Verdant Haven , I'd rather play Fertile Ground and in fact I used to have two of them in the deck but took them out after Voyaging Satyr was spoiled. And Primeval Titan is kind of a win-more; if I have 6 mana I'm feeling pretty good already. In total, right now I have 18 ramp cards in the deck; 19 if you count Nykthos. So I think that's solid.

So hopefully that explains to you where I'm coming from. However, I do take your advice seriously, especially about Thrun. I guess he can kind of be hit-or-miss against non-control decks. What do you think of taking one out in favor of a second Privileged Position ? and maybe taking them both out to also add a 4th Wolfbriar? Do you think that's a good idea?

Thanks again!

yuval, I have a question: how would you deal with a control deck packed with mass removal?

Because that's pretty much what I was thinking about when I was packing Terra Stomper , Vorapede , Wurmcoil Engine and Great Sable Stag main deck. Of course turn 3 Primalcrux is a bomb, but playing competitively it WILL get easily removed, and that should be a concern, don't you think?

@arthurxisde it sure is a concern. My answer to you has a few parts:

1) In general, this deck is more resilient against creature removal than other ramp decks for one simple reason: It uses lots of enchantments for ramp. I still have Arbor Elf and Voyaging Satyr but this gives the opponent a choice: remove my ramp, or wait for the bomb and then remove that? The correct answer is remove my ramp, but interestingly many opponents make the wrong decision. And then, even if a bomb does get removed, it won't be long till I have another.

2) That said, you're right that it is indeed a weakness. You will find that in my mainboard I have 1x Privileged Position , 2x Thrun, the Last Troll , and 3x Wolfbriar Elemental which should all help (the Wolfbriar is strong against spot removal; still dies to board wipes of course). Also, many of my fatties are out of burn range, making cards like Doom Blade and Path to Exile my main concerns. And those cards still won't stop a Primal Surge of course. But a counterspell will, which brings us to:

3) The key to mending any weakness is a deck's sideboard. You will see 2x Terra Stomper and 2x Vexing Shusher in there to help against counter control decks. You will also find 2x Oversoul of Dusk and one more Privileged Position to help against removal. Wurmcoil Engine is strong but I tried to keep this deck on a budget; plus it doesn't help with devotion / chroma.

4) At the end of the day, this is a budget deck. I want to make it as good as possible but I don't expect it to win the next Pro Tour. Also, it's still a work in progress. Dealing with removal is an issue and I'd love to hear your opinion about it. I'm considering mainboarding more Privileged Position , maybe instead of Thrun. what do you think?

@arthurxisde I got rid of Thrun and added a Privileged Position and another Elderscale Wurm . What do you think?

Well, I've spent all morning going through modern meta and, as much as it's possible within green constraints, I think you have managed a very solid list. With that being said, that's why I lost white and splashed red for Domri Rade and Spellbreaker Behemoth . Jund can't deal with Domri properly and he is a pretty good creature accelerator, specially after being disrupted during the entire early game (and he also gives us the late game bomb that we lack so often -> haste to finish the job).

I lost Thrun, the Last Troll too and sided 3x Quagnoth , which is grossly underrated and pretty much leaves UWR Control with a useless hand (and it can kick some planeswalker ass too!).

All this to say: in your build, I would sideboard the Quag along with 3x Great Sable Stag , Leyline of Lifeforce and Witchstalker . There's always Guttural Response , but I find it pretty situational considering the modern meta is filled with 2+ colors decks.

Oh, this is very useful: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/modern

@arthurxisde thanks for the tips man, that website will be a huge help for building my sideboard.

I think splashing red is a great idea if you can afford it; I'm avoiding it because I want to stay on budget. As for the other stuff, I don't think they're bad choices, but it's simply that me and you have found different ways to deal with threats. You prefer Leyline of Lifeforce and that's fine but I still prefer Vexing Shusher I think. I'm not as impressed with Quagnoth as you are; I think Terra Stomper is gonna be stronger usually, and as for the Stag and the Witchstalker, they underwhelm me. But that is a personal opinion.

Thanks for all you tips!

Autumn's Veil is also an answer to both counter spells and black spot removal, tho' I'm not entirely sure how effective it is in the long run. Still worth considering maybe?

still leaves him open to Lightning Bolt , (any red burn actually), as well as Path to Exile . Autumn's veil MIGHT be worthy for sideboard, but I'm not really sure.

Thanks for the tip Infral but I'm not gonna use Autumn's Veil because it breaks the Primal Surge chain. In general, I'm not totally opposed to instants and sorceries, for example I think Creeping Corrosion is worth sideboarding against affinity, but Autumn's Veil isn't really in the same league. I'd much rather use Privileged Position , Oversoul of Dusk , Vexing Shusher , etc.

Thank you!

That's ok yuval, in the end it's really a matter of preference. One last possibility: Summoning Trap .

I have a friend who splashes blue control into every deck he makes, and me being a fan of green, found this card; Eyes of the Wisent .

Nice!

There's a bunch of ways to deal with blue, but since you made this into a permanent only deck, those answers weaken it a bit... Guttural Response and Summoning Trap are the two most obvious answers that come to mind, but they of course make primal surge that much weaker. The one possibility is that you can side out the surges and most of the really high cost creatures for a more aggro build, and one that has a bunch of uncounterable and untargetable creatures (Vexing Shusher + Thrun, the Last Troll ), giving you virtual card advantage, making all their removal useless. You'd essentially play a totally different deck after sideboard, they wouldn't know what hit them.

@nbarry223 Thanks for the tips. The truth is, I wouldn't mind sideboarding out Primal Surge in exchange for some instants like Vines of Vastwood or Guttural Response . I like your idea of having a mutating sideboard that completely changes my deck, and Thrun, the Last Troll actually used to be a mainboard of 2 in here before I replaced him with Wolfbriar Elemental .

Could you please tell me what you think I should take out from my sideboard in exchange for the cards you suggested?

I'm not sure, it is all meta dependent. I would say it's a safe bet to remove some of the fatties though, Oversoul of Dusk and Deus of Calamity . If you are already a good match up against some of the decks your side board has hate against, you can remove them too. You need to prioritize your side board to address the decks that give you the biggest problems first, and work your way from there. You shouldn't devote all of your slots to a control match-up; but if you only need like 5 or 6 slots for your other matches, then a totally new deck is quite possible for control matches.

Your side board should really only have cards that you need for certain match ups, not extras that didn't fit into the deck. That's about all the advice I can give you, sorry.