Impact Pillow!

Modern ArchFline

SCORE: 111 | 77 COMMENTS | 9053 VIEWS | IN 28 FOLDERS


Neko069 says... #1

hey ArchFline! I've been playing this strategy in last Standard legal set, with quite good results! I took an abusive advantage of Purphoros, God of the Forge and Impact Tremors with creatures that required little to no attention.

I'm not so into Modern, so I'm not sure my feedback will be good, but it looks like you could take some ideas from my old deck! Here it is!

The best I could recommend is Goblin Rabblemaster: He triggers twice Impact Tremors the same turn he comes in, he creates tokens alone without mana effort, and becomes a 6/2 if his minions didn't die the first turn he can attack. and it's exponentially more violent if not dealt with ASAP.

Hope it helps!

April 25, 2016 11:41 a.m.

aholder7 says... #2

i actually have a different take on the norin + impact strategy. heres me list Trampoline.

but as for suggestions for you deck, why Enganjo? the only legendary creature it protects if purph. norin dodges everything anyway. 1 is fine because it can still act as a normal plains for the most part, but i wouldn't suggest 2 unless you have a really good reason. maybe replace 1 with a Temple of Triumph, Needle Spires, Battlefield Forge, Rugged Prairie, Sejiri Steppe, Windbrisk Heights or even just another Plains

im not a big fan of Elspeth Tirel. her +1 is only ok if you have a good board presence already (in which case you probably are not hurting for life), and its not helpful when you are out of creautes (probably the time when you need life). her -2 is good pretty solid and can help you when youre in trouble. her ult is fairly poor though. unless you already have Genesis Chamber and norin out, you probably won't have much survive the blast. neither will the opponent, but they may have more myr tokens from genesis. also 5 drop is a bit high, although its not as bad in a defensive deck like this.

el-knight im unsure about. her +1 is pretty slow, but you can do it every turn without worrying about killing her. you don't have a lot of creatures to use it on, so it would probably have to be used on the token she makes, which somewhat limits her.

Ethereal Haze is a white Fog, but i think you have enough protection. if you removed these and the planeswalkers you'd have enough room for the soul sisters.

the reason i suggest the soul sisters, is because it gives you more to do during the early turns of the game. it also helps give you a bit more life to make sure you make it to your higher costed protection cards. they also provide long term rewards over cards like haze that are one time uses. and i don't think i need to tell you how crazy it gets with norin or a genesis chamber + the sisters. it also gives you more creatures to trigger impact/purph. i mean while norin is the real mvp of the deck, you can't always assume you'll draw one. these guys give you a bit more wiggle room.

Sphere of Safety looks great, but is over costed in my opinion. if you have a ghostly prison, out when you play it. its an overcosted ghostly prison. if its just out by itself its a bad Archangel of Tithes. if you have a prison and impact or 2 impacts out when you play it, then it becomes better than prison. but thats a lot of set up to make a 5 mana card good. if you really need more protection Thunderstaff is a 3 drop that can significantly reduce the amount of damage you take. or you could play Wall of Omens which gives you a body to defend with. comes down early, and serves as a creature to trigger all your etb effects. it also replaces itself. personally i think it should replace safety here.

ill be honest i'm not sure what you'd cut, but a red deck with no Lightning Bolts feels really off. its a one mana spell that can kill problematic creatures, kill a planes walker or at least prevent them from getting the counters to ult/use a minus ability, or it can be used to get those last few points of damage in. i can't really think of a reason not to put four in here.

Terminus seems great to top deck when you need it. and with the current number of creatures you run it probably won't ever hurt you too much to play it as soon as you see it. but if you were to take any of my suggestions up to this point you may want to consider switching this to Wrath of God or Anger of the Gods so that you can be sure that you can play it when the time is right. Again this suggestion is only if you take my creature suggestions, because terminus gets really bad if you have to pay 6 for it. and you probably wouldn't want to cast it right away if you draw it while you're only a little behind on board state, but not terribly so.

TL;DR

why eganjo?

-2 Elspeth Tirel

-2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

-3 haze

-2 Sphere of Safety

+4 Soul's Attendant

+3 Soul Warden

+2 Wall of Omens

if you take the above suggestions also consider

-2 Terminus

+2 Wrath of God/Anger of the Gods



-4 ???

+4 Lightning Bolts.

June 12, 2016 4:43 p.m.

ArchFline says... #3

I run Eiganjo Castle because Norin the Wary dose not dodge all removal as creature abilities in the form of 1 damage pings (looking at Grim Lavamancer and it's like) easily kill norin thus the castles.

June 12, 2016 6:37 p.m. Edited.

aholder7 says... #4

its just that in all the testing i did with my version, i only ever had norin die once, and it was to a Ajani Vengeant. But i guess if your meta has a lot of 1-2 damage pingers it could make more sense.

June 12, 2016 10:48 p.m.

ArchFline says... #5

The way I see it is that the potential risk of not having them greatly out-weighs the benefits of replacing them as my mana base is very stable.

June 12, 2016 10:56 p.m.

aholder7 says... #6

the main thing i'd be worried about it having the second one in hand because of the legendary rule. i feel like drawing both comes up more than norin getting hurt does. But metas differ. if you have a lot of players who run lavamance, then its good to have 2.

June 12, 2016 11 p.m.

ArchFline says... #7

I have by the 10th turn only around a 9% chance of drawing a second castle assuming good I had one in my first hand, in general I feel that regardless of the meta the act of running 2 castles will always outway the risks. Perhaps more so given that this deck is a rather mid-range, non-interactive strategy resulting mana problems being at best highly localized events. Either way I appreciate your concern and have taken note of your suggestions.

June 13, 2016 10:36 a.m. Edited.
June 13, 2016 12:06 p.m.

Angry_Potatoes says... #9

This is just an idea, but I might try adding black to this deck for the addition of Blood Artist and Illness in the Ranks. The best way to do this would be to put in a playset of Forbidden Orchard; this gives you access to any color, and gives your opponent more tokens. With Illness in the Ranks, these tokens would insta-die (as would any Myr from Genesis Chamber), and lo and behold, Blood Artist triggers all over the dang place! Adding Forbidden Orchard (and therefore black) would also give you access to Batwing Brume, which could easily replace Ethereal Haze and bounce the damage right back in their face. If you WERE to add Illness in the Ranks and Batwing Brume, this would lower your need for pillow fort cards, as the tokens from Genesis Chamber would die and therefore leave you with no worry of them attacking you, and Batwing Brume would simply bounce the damage back if your opponent does go for an alpha strike. As such, I would remove some of the Lightmine Fields and/or Archangel of Tithes to make way for Blood Artist and Illness in the Ranks.

June 13, 2016 1:10 p.m.

aholder7 says... #10

@Angry_Potatoes, that style of deck is nothing like what he is trying to do with this though. and those suggestions are so far reaching that it sounds essentially like a different deck entirely. if you want that kind of deck look at my Salt Sisters deck or You and this army! copy(older version of salt sisters). but i think for this deck it would be better to go for suggestions that further the flicker fort theme. such as -1 haze, -1 archangel -1 lightmine for +3 Wall of Omens with the reasoning that it provides a more permanent defense than haze, but comes down sooner than the later 2 cards. or maybe to have them replace mentor, because they don't require anything else to synergize with, while mentor needs norin or a chamber out. (mentor isn't a bad keep, just wanted to use it for the argument).

@evermoistcorndog. why? i can sort of see finks as a life gain double ETB trigger. but this deck isnt green and can't support melira. nor does it have access to a sac outlet to abuse the combo which i think is what youre trying to have him include. but to do that effectively hed need both green and black. neither of which are in here. Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit would work and then hed only need to splash black, but again i don't think thats the deck he wants to build.

June 13, 2016 1:48 p.m.

well you wouldn't need to splash black because it's split mana so you can just pay red or white but honestly i take back my recomendation for murderous red cap and melira but kitchen finks and anafenza would work well

June 13, 2016 1:52 p.m.

ArchFline says... #12

Thankyou aholder7 you explained that brilliantly :D

June 13, 2016 2:03 p.m.

but main point of kitchen finks would be the double etb

June 13, 2016 2:11 p.m.

aholder7 says... #14

Finks by itself actually could be a good addition. i think kin tree would suffer as it there aren't enough creatures to proc it's effect and it doesn't really provide much defense when it does. It's only synergy would be with finks unless you have both norin and a chamber out, at which point it does get really good. but that's a lot of set up for a 2 drop that is otherwise unimpressive.

Finks i like because it provides lifegain, can scare smaller creatures into not attacking, but still chump some larger guys later on. but i don't think its quite right, because in most situations i think he'd want to play Ghostly Prison or something purely defensive.

but i could be wrong. lets see what archfline thinks.

June 13, 2016 2:16 p.m.

n4pesto says... #15

Hiya. I've been playtesting your deck as is. It's absolutely hilarious to play. How have you been faring with it? I've found tron matchups very harsh for this deck, any suggestions for sideboard cards for that?

August 15, 2016 12:46 p.m.

ArchFline says... #16

Vs a meta heavy in tron shinanigans, I would recommend adding Ghost Quarter and Fulminator Mage to the deck and sideboard respectively. Of course if you have money to spare Blood Moon rarely disappoints vs the usual tron variants.

August 17, 2016 1:10 a.m. Edited.

BenMonte says... #17

Hanweir Garrison, Hero of Bladehold, and Brimaz, King of Oreskos all add a steady stream of tokens each time they attack. I'd much rather run one of them than Mentor of the Meek.

September 11, 2016 3:56 a.m.

ArchFline says... #18

Mentor exists for consistent card draw as in this deck we rarely ever have a lack of creatures on board given the Norin the Wary combo.

September 11, 2016 10:18 a.m.

Have you considered main-decking the Leyline of Sanctitys? They beat most of the fast combo decks in Modern game 1 single-handedly. Both storm and Ad Nauseum will scoop to it game 1, and it helps against black discard and burn. It seems like you have plenty of answers to creatures/attacking, so maybe you could move the Terminuss and an archangel to the SB to make space for them. Winning game 1's seems more important when you're playing under-the-radar decks. Just my thoughts.

September 29, 2016 9:06 a.m.

ArchFline says... #20

I believe that their is little to no reason to ever play Leyline of Sanctity mainboard game one as while it may defeat some combo decks it comes up dead more times than not against more prevalent and frankly better decks like, affinity and infect to name a couple. In the end it comes down to what your local meta looks like.

September 29, 2016 11:15 a.m.

I've played plenty of pillow-fort/prison decks in modern, and you'd be surprised at how often Leyline is good against multiple archtypes. However if you know your meta, then by all means build your deck to anticipate it. I'm just sharing some of my experiences.

September 29, 2016 11:24 a.m.

bradc1988 says... #22

Have you thought about Boros Charm over Ethereal Haze?

Can protect your enchantments as well as provide prevent damage with chumps, plus the extra 4 damage could close games.

February 16, 2017 4:48 a.m.

ArchFline says... #23

I like the concept and will will play test the inclusion as it has merit, my only concern is for the games in which the opponent fields a larger creature base than me which would lead to them flooding over my defenses... in particular if they are removing my pillow fort components. I do however find the stated issue to be a minor concern so for now I will add your suggestion to the deck.

February 16, 2017 8:28 a.m.

DeckHopper says... #24

I have no idea why Eiganjo Castle is in your deck. you have 2 legendary creatures in the deck. Purphoros, God of the Forge which is indestructible and is never going to be a creature, and Norin the Wary which flickers whenever an opponent does basically anything. You're most likely going to try and avoid sacrifice effects as opposed to damage effects.

October 3, 2017 11:36 a.m. Edited.

ArchFline says... #25

:/ So I can tell that you haven't read through the past comments or the archived section of comments where I and other players have explained and better constructed this strategy to the point that it is now. Feel free to believe that Purphoros or for that matter Norin are unkillable and that haveing more than 1 legendary creature is baseless. This strategy is relativly simple, yet powerful, and the combos and core synergy are straightforward such that I can not understand where your concern or notion is pulled from.

October 3, 2017 6:31 p.m. Edited.

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