I currently love playing
Burning Vengeance
in Standard, and have been looking for a way to play it in Modern. Unfortunately flashback doesn't have much of a presence, and retrace didn't particularly appear to me. But then I came across a Haakon Rock deck from a year ago or so. I love the idea, but wanted to move the deck away from being focused on Haakon, Stromgald Scourge. I knew he was still important, but I needed other ways to trigger
Burning Vengeance
. Gravecrawler! Combining the crawler with Haakon,
Stillmoon Cavalier
, which is a zombie knight, and Zombie Infestation, I have another reliable method to trigger vengeance.
The basic game plan is to use control and dig spells to find
Burning Vengeance
. Then, pitch Haakon, Stromgald Scourge into the graveyard, and recur him and our other zombies and knights as often as possible. Gravecrawler gives us a bit of an early game offensive, and a reliable recursion engine in the late game.
Card Breakdown:
Burning Vengeance
- One of the main cards in the deck. It makes my creature recursion even more powerful by killing off blockers or dealing direct damage.
Go for the Throat - Pretty simple control card.
Dreadbore - Kills creatures and planeswalkers alike.
Faithless Looting - One of the major engines of this deck. Helps you dig for the key cards and get Haakon into the grave.
Gravecrawler - Gives the deck some early game offensive power and adds another reliable recursion engine.
Haakon, Stromgald Scourge - Another key card in the deck. He can always recur himself, triggering
Burning Vengeance
, but he also allows recursion of the other creatures in this deck.
Lightning Bolt - Kill creatures and enemies, pretty straight forward.
Liliana of the Veil - An absolute powerhouse in this deck. Allows me to pitch cards to the graveyard for recursion while also shredding the opponents hand. Making the opponent sacrifice stuff can go a long way too.
Blood Scrivener - Gives this deck a small amount of card advantage, but can pull double duty and serve as a recursion point for Gravecrawler as well.
Stillmoon Cavalier
- A pretty solid card for this deck. He can be recurred by Haakon, and allows Gravecrawler to recur. The ability to pump and add evasion is nice as well.
Past in Flames - A phenomenal finisher in this deck. It gives all of my early game control spells flashback, allowing for a big damage chains. With two
Burning Vengeance
out in the late game, a flashed back Past in Flames into two flashbacked Lightning Bolts!s is 18 damage for 7 mana...
Zombie Infesation - Serves as a method to get Haakon into the graveyard, and gives you a token to chump with or to recur Gravecrawler with.
Cavern of Souls - It's always nice for all of your creatures to be uncounterable.
Sideboard Cards:
Pithing Needle - Comes in against any deck reliant on planeswalkers or activated abilities in general.
Slaughter Games - This will get sided in almost all the time. Let's you remove any key cards in the opponent's deck. This will always come in against combo as I have no other way to deal with it.
Slagstorm - Comes in against aggro decks to wipe the board.
Tormod's Crypt - Comes in against any graveyard reliant strategy.
Lord of the Undead and Geralf's Messenger - These come in if your opponent sides in graveyard hate during game two. We can make the deck go from a recursion deck to a zombie beatdown/midrange deck.
Anyway, I'd love to make this deck competitive, but don't know a ton about Modern. Please comment away and let me know what you think!
