problem with using Borborygmos Enraged is that you need land in hand to push for that extra damage. he only draws you 3 cards when you hit opposing player, and if theres no land or Fury of the Horde in hand, pretty much only swung for 7, which is not crippling at all. Griselbrand works so well because he draws you into multiple Fury of the Horde for the win.

I have a grisel cannon form of deck, and it consistently kills turn 2-3. turn 1 wins have happened, but they are not that consistent. Here is the decklist if you want to compare: Grisel Cannon (turn 1 win)

welcome to modern :)

khanye, Thanks lol.

Secret reveal: Your decklist was actually the gateway to this. I saw your deck first, then I saw the more popular version, that I have linked, which made me decide to make this.

Although that IS a problem while using him he is still a source to reanimate, and can still be a win con turn 1. Borborygmos Enraged IS the consistency in this deck, he's also a budget card (for now). He works with Fury of the Horde , and is a card that I can throw for it, he kills the top 3 cards of my deck, which at works more cards for me to possibly hit a Griselbrand if I haven't already.

All of the playtesting, your comments on the updates to your deck, and the other deck all pointed to him and 2 more lands. If the deck whiffs... it whiffs, and hard. Borbor creates a situation where if it whiffs there is much more recovery room, more turn 2 consistency, and more pressure on the opponent. There are so many things that if the deck is crippled turn 1 or 2... thats it.... This helps relieve that as well. Just.... HNNNNNGGGG.

Thank you very much for your concern, and thanks for the welcome :D I guarentee there are some small revisions I'll eventually make.

Nicol Bolas is $1 at most LGS, and I used to run him in mine. you will like more than bory :)

Hmm.... I definitely could. Maybe I'll be goofy and run 2 of each (probably not though).

I think you're missing in your explanation that Lightning Axe can only target creatures, not players. So it works if you always choose to draw and if your opponent has a creature on turn one, otherwise not. Also, when you're talking about Borby "On average, thats only 16 damage.Its still 16 on turn one. One Lighting Axe to victory.", unfortunately it doesn't work that way.

Whoops. Yea.. thats an old goof. Thanks for pointing it out.

I've seen a deck like this win before in turn 2 next to me plating standard. I didn't even finish shuffling my deck by the end of that game

Playing IN standard, or against a standard deck?

My local shop had a standard and a modern tournament both going and one of the modern matches was seated next to me.

I need to completely rewrite this description, its too long... and need pics lol

Nice list! +1

Would you consider Ghostly Prison ? Not that you necessarily need it, just throwing the card out there!

Proooobably not, if only because I don't ever like to see a game with this deck hit turn 3 much less go past turn 3.

No worries, it looks fun.

Loved Glass Cannon Vengeance, and any other creation of this kind of deck. Well done +1

After a bunch more playtesting and analysis, I've come to two conclusions, I keep this deck as is, or I move to Living End , with many similar aspects except more creature and land heavy.

regardless of what I end up deciding, I need to rework the sideboard Stony Silence shuts off Relic of Progenitus and other control combos that deal with artifacts, as well as equip costs.

Move to Living End. The reason why Reanimator works well in Legacy is because of the extra card support around Griselbrand. This doesn't work because Modern's card pool is quite frankly shit.

Modern probably has more diversity in its pool at the moment than Legacy, and I say that because at least 2/3 of legacy decks run similar sets of Daze , Force of Will , Brainstorm , and Ponder , and the rest run Swords to Plowshares .

Necrotic Ooze

Dorotheus and Reanimator can fight through that to consistently Day 2. And it's not even that popular of a deck for those reasons you mentioned. That's because Reanimator can run counterspells for back up. This deck can't.

This deck sees no Day 2 action not because no one plays it but because there's so much grave hate in Modern that its just not well positioned. Scavenging Ooze, Grafdigger's Cage, and counter magic all stop this deck.

Sorry meke Necrotic Ooze is just too slow, I've played with it before and it could very easily be in a type of Griselbrand deck, but not this one.


This deck does run counterspells for back up though. Spell Pierce has done SO much work for me, and Thoughtseize compliments it so very much. Game 1: Win, Game 2: 40% chance to win, not favored, Game 3: 55% to win.

Its very much that you need to know what to side, and when. After your opponent knows what you're playing there is an immense amount of pressure on them to disrupt you. If I can make someone play the game differently, then I'm ok with that. I've been able to play the deck before as if it were nearly a control deck.

I've never been afraid of a Scooze with this deck (or Deathrite Shaman), but I understand it and it could position itself to win. Cage, Rest in Peace , and Relic are all devastating to me, but I still have answers for them. People always seem to forget about Izzet Charm as counterspell. Two cards that people never seem to really mention that are MORE threatening are Thalia and Surgical Extraction . And I haven't seen very many winning decks run Surgical these days.

It's definitely a neat deck to run at an FNM/LGS tournament but it will never do well at anything more competitive than a side event at an SCG Open.

I played this deck in a Legacy tourney with just a slightly altered list and if I wouldn't have misplayed I would have gotten at least top 4.
The deck wants to win, its designed to want to win. If it doesn't then its either because of a misplay or the 3% margin of error when you combo off.


I'm currently busy with other non-magic things. As soon as those are done, I'm going to go to the next Open, IQ, or whatever other event will be available.

I should reinclude Footsteps of the Goryo , to be able to beat fastly you depend too heavily on drawing Goryo's Vengeance but great deck!

Well since I've added Narset, Enlightened Master on premise that she is red, can be renaimated, and can allow a safe reanimation win-con, and removed Borborygmos Enraged for those reasons. Although, I have another win-con that is less disruptable, but only as reliant as Bobo was overall, aka it fizzles and doesn't win me the game. It also forced some other internal changes in the deck.
I still need another target that isn't Griselbrand, and is preferably Red and gives the core of the deck consistency as well.
I've been playing a lot and my consistent turn twos on game one, have steadily been on decline, while my game two wins have been on a slight increase.
It could be that I'm sideboarding more properly or my opponent's have a lacking sideboard against me, or even that just because I've been losing game one of matches, that because I go second on game two, that has increased, hell, even all three of those reasons could be contributing.

I need to take a step back, go to the roots of the deck, and figure out how to get back to it while having a strong sideboard. I've also considered Woodfall Primus several times along with Footsteps of the Goryo, but I'm unsure of that direction.

I actually played against this deck at my first modern FNM. Very Fragile but Great deck. Went 2-1 . Lost game 2 because of Necrotic Ooze landing on board with Grizz and Borbo in grave.