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War of the Spark was…definitely not one of the more appealing expansions, but a few standout cards caught my eye. Ilharg, the Raze-Boar has all the earmarks of a great central card to build a combo deck around. It’s low costed enough to reliably see play (especially with ramp and cmc-reducing effects), is stout enough to tank most single-source traditional damage, and has one brutal ability. This was what I’ve managed to come up with, and it was quite a lot of fun to design.
After assembling the key cards and getting most of the supporting ligature together, I was loathe to sit down and begin calculating land and color counts. To my surprise, this is one of those times when everything simply worked out. There wasn’t much to worry about as far as odds&probability was concerned, so a 50/50 split between and was the end result, and it doesn’t get any easier than that.
•Wooded Foothills will fetch anything except our Pathway land. Unless a Blood Moon is expected, it’ll usually be best to acquire our dual land; otherwise locate the desired basic of choice.
•Stomping Ground is ideal in the opening hand, and will rarely prove problematic as far as the impact on our life total is concerned.
•Cragcrown Pathway and its inverse represent the sum total of what I enjoyed in that particular expansion. What it lacked in flavor it more than made up for with these MDFC lands. Never a bad draw.
•A playset of Forests and a playset of Mountains populate the remainder of our mana base.
Not getting shot down in the opening turns will undoubtedly be the most difficult segment of the match, for a few reasons.
•We aren’t in colors traditionally equipped to handle Tempo/Control, so countermeasures are sparse.
•We aren’t set up to soft lock our opponent and are weak against the same tactic.
•We aren’t fast enough to overwhelm the opponent; aggro is out of the question.
If we are to survive, a carefully curated toolbox is imperative. Using the Swiss Army knife approach, we’ll be relying on spells that buy time, remove threats and help accelerate things on our end in hopes of seeing our strategy come to fruition.
Buying Time
•Fog puts a damper on attack happy aggro decks; even those slippery Bogles bearing enchantments stacked a mile high with will start spinning their wheels.
•Lightning Bolt makes short work of the bulk of what we can usually expect Turns 1-3, and is particularly potent in slowing down aggro/ramp builds that try to maximize mana production early.
The Hunt Is On
•Cathartic Reunion is here as a safeguard to ensure we have what we need when we’re finally able to play it. We need to see 2-3 key cards per game, and this spell lets us dig for them if luck of the draw is not on our side.
•Fierce Empath likewise tutors up one of our finishers directly to our hand, so we have it at the ready when we commence our attack run.
Ramp
•Ignoble Hierarch will die if you look at him funny, but is great at early game mana fixing and boasts a sneaky little secret: Exalted will trigger when our little piggy is declared as an attacker, regardless of whatever may join him from our hand.
•Goblin Anarchomancer is sort of reverse ramp in that he doesn’t add mana but rather reduces the cost of any / spells we cast by . Sticking a Turn 2 goblin has great benefits, and keep in mind they stack; it’ll reduce the cost of Rhythm of the Wild, Fierce Empath and Ilharg, the Raze-Boar—all of which we want to play on successive turns. This creature can also turn pinch-hitters like our draw spells into far more efficient plays.
•Manamorphose smooths out any potential rough spots in our mana curve, replaces itself with a draw and really shines when the card mentioned above reduces its cost to just .
•Atarka's Command can really even the playing field and boasts value in both stages of the game, pre- and post-combo. Choose to drop an extra land Turns 2-3 and bolster our defenses with +1/+1 for each creature, or select the first two options toward the latter half of the game to help bring the curtain down.
…H for Haste, of course. In the interests of streamlining for efficiency and presenting less of an opportunity for interference, we run a full playset of Rhythm of the Wild. Once cast it’ll safely pave the way for Mr. Piggy, and with Haste we can capitalize on his unique ability without delay.
Worthy of note is that when making use of Ilharg’s unique ability, anything played from our hand counts as ‘entering the battlefield’, even if only temporarily, and thus Rhythm of the Wild will see additional value by granting +1/+1 to said creature.
With Rhythm of the Wild lighting up the runway, it’s time to bring our Porco Rosso in for a landing. Cast a discounted Ilharg, the Raze-Boar, and after he resolves immediately declare him as the only attacker (ignore any other garbage on our side of the board). Our Deific Swine will reap the benefits of triggering Exalted (if Ignoble Hierarch is still alive) granting an additional +1/+1.
Better still, take whichever overpowered, overcosted behemoth that was burning a hole in your hand and lay it down tapped and attacking right next to Ilharg. It won’t interfere with the Exalted trigger (it was never declared as an attacker), but a 15/15 Trampler or an 8/8 that turns all your lands into 8/8’s for the remainder of the game doesn’t really need it. I’d say it’s already Exalted enough and probably isn’t getting any more Exalteded.
Oh and if your opponent was being particularly annoying, plop down an attacking Sundering Titan
—you’ll nuke half their mana base coming in, and the other half going out. Whether it returns to your hand or not doesn’t even matter!
This is the area of deck design that offers the most opportunity for self expression. I chose 3 creatures I particularly liked; feel free to go wild and pick whatever you think might be fun or give you the edge. You’re only limited by your imagination!
•Acquire Worldspine Wurm, Liege of the Tangle or Sundering Titan with permission from our elf, and then focus on getting Ilharg, the Raze-Boar into play.
•Attack with a haste-enabled Ilharg and immediately lay down one of three wincons, tapped and attacking. Repeat until victory.
•When inevitably lashes out with some well timed counter magic, pull some Kung Fu of our own with Guttural Response and counter the counter.
•A prudently played Veil of Summer opens the way for Rhythm of the Wild to hit the table uncontested, offers some temporary breathing room, and with luck we’ll draw into something useful.
•Choke will make the tempo/control game quite difficult for anyone reliant on those strategies.
•Natural State trips up Tron decks and Enchantment heavy builds, and is fast and cheap.
•Apostle's Blessing can protect key cards just long enough to see them become profitable.
•Pithing Needle nullifies key abilities the opponent may have built around.
•Tormod's Crypt combats the stratagem of graveyard centric decks. Relic of Progenitus is probably the better choice, but I don’t currently own any and so the mausoleum it is.
”…neither throw your pearls before swine, that they may never trample them under their feet and turn around and rip you open.”
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Casual
97% Competitive
| Top Ranked |
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| Date added | 2 years |
| Last updated | 2 years |
| Legality | This deck is Modern legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 7 - 0 Mythic Rares 19 - 1 Rares 14 - 9 Uncommons 12 - 5 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.73 |
| Tokens | Wurm 5/5 G w/ Trample |
| Folders | Modern, decks I like hehe, Cool, Awesome Decks, Modern, Modern Decks |
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