It's raining Wurms. All the Wurms.
So when pondering how to help a fellow TappedOut user atomicstbernard refine their Big Green Deck, I had one of those "ah ha!" moments that inspired me to create a Tribal Wurm deck for Modern that says to hell with those insane casting costs. I've always enjoyed Wurms like Penumbra Wurm, but haven't had a deck that used one since like 2001. They are just obnoxiously expensive to cast, and rightly so because they are freaking massive.
The two cards that got me thinking were Evolutionary Leap and Deathrender. Cards I've had but never thought to use them together.
If you have Leap on the board and Deathrender attached to an elf, sacrificing the elf for one mana with Leap will allow you to place a creature of any size from your hand onto the battlefield for free and equipped with Deathrender, and then it replaces that creature from your hand by revealing cards until you get another creature to hold onto. Amazing to do with a Pelakka Wurm, which would come down as a 9/9 Trample that grants you 7 life and all you paid was one green. The cool thing is that you can do this at any time you want, like before declaring a blocker or at the end of your opponents turn. You will still get to reveal cards until you get a creature and put it into your hand, so it fuels itself. The other even cooler thing is that you aren't actually casting a spell you are using an activated ability, so those pesky counter spells are completely useless.
That's an amazing trick.
Leap only costs one mana to activate and your elves can just tap themselves for that mana and be sacrificed in the same move, so you don't even need to waste forests to make it rain juicy creatures.
Best case scenario (5 turns to win): Play a Forest and Elvish Mystic on turn one. Play another Forest and Evolutionary Leap along with another Elf on turn two. Turn three you can already cast Deathrender along with another Forest and possibly a third Elf. Now on turn four you can equip the Deathrender and either attack or pass turn. If your creature dies while attacking you can upgrade it to Worldspine Wurm and have a 17/17 Trample (because Deathrender will equip automatically), or really just any other Wurm you might have in hand. Passing your turn and activating the combo either just before combat or at the end of your opponents turn would just be the best. Turn five all you have to do is attack and hopefully throw on Aspect of Hydra for the kill.
The table just got flipped over.
Now, let's say you don't have a creature in hand which is your worst case scenario. Start the combo and repeat as needed until you end up with a Wurm in hand. If you draw an elf, just play it, equip it, and try again. You should have plenty of mana to do this 1-3 times a turn if you had to (it only costs 4 mana to try). If it fails at least you have a 3/3 body that can just die while blocking and trigger the effect again anyway. This is pretty much the only time you should do this on your turn since ideally you would already have a Wurm or two in hand and can do this at the end of your opponents turn so you can attack right away without them knowing what is coming. Since every Wurm in the deck has 3 devotion to green each, Aspect of Hydra seemed like the best option as a means of taking almost enough damage to kill someone in one hit and turning into plenty of damage to get the job done. All of the Wurms already have Trample, so no matter what stuff is going to hurt. At its worst it is just a Giant Growth or Titanic Growth, but should be as good or better than Might of Oaks and it only costs one mana.
There should be plenty of Elves to keep the combo viable throughout the game, and even if Leap or Deathrender get destroyed or countered, eventually you will just have enough land and elves to play the Wurms anyway. Llanowar Mentor allows you to just keep spawning more tappable elves to get there faster, and creates a lot of fuel for Evolutionary Leap. If you are in this boat, then you are probably fighting an uphill battle against control or burn, but Plated Slagwurm should eventually put the brakes on that. The life gain from Pelakka Wurm occurs as soon as it hits the battlefield, and since you aren't actually casting it (unless you absolutely have to) that effect can't be countered and 7 life can get you back in the game pretty quickly. Gladecover Scout is great anti-control to ensure that your opponent can't just easily remove all of your Wurm food. Evolution Charm has three great abilities to choose from for Ramp, Reanimation, and Evasion. All solid choices.
This is the kind of green deck that I've always wanted. You can even play with creatures like Novablast Wurm or Massacre Wurm without even splashing white or black because you wouldn't actually be paying it's mana cost. Elderscale Wurm is another option that shouldn't be necessary, but against a deck that can actually kill you even faster it should make things interesting. I don't have an answer for a mill deck (or do I? Worldspine Wurm makes me unmillable, doesn't it?), however there are plenty of Wurms that do a lot of damage and you really only need to get one or two ready to attack.
So in conclusion, never ever play any of the Wurms with real mana, just recycle elves and tapped Wurms with Leap and Deathrender to keep making it rain. It is so much more satisfying this way...
And there you have it, a bunch of elves dancing around a ceremonial fire to bring down a rainfall of enormous Wurms. Or, you could think of it as Wurms erupting from an Elf's chest cavity like on Alien. That would be cool too.
Thanks for reading, and let me know what you think! This was a very exciting deck to put together :)
UPDATE(S)
I like everything the way it is. However, I don't think that the Llanowar Mentor is needed at all. I'm thinking of what to update him to in the sideboard and I'm strongly considering Nourishing Shoal since I can discard say a Worldspine Wurm and gain 11 life and the Wurm just gets shuffled back into my Library. Even if it is any other Wurm I would gain back at least 7 life and could always just return the Wurm back to my hand with Evolution Charm. Wurmcoil Engine also seems like a solid pick, especially since it replicates and I can do that on purpose as needed. I'm going to add both for now and keep looking for other possibilities.
I also like Descendants' Path over Abundance because of it's similar effect but it puts the creature directly onto the field. I'm going to try two less elves in favor of Lurking Predators, I really like how much this deck is doing on the opponents turn. It really seems to carry a lot of mystique and makes it more difficult to handle. Even though Lurking Predators has a hefty cost, it can still be put down in as early as 4 turns, but more likely by turn 5 or 6. It might end up in the sideboard, but I'm going to give it a try.
Well, no. Lol. I need those elves to speed up the process. I will make room in the sideboard though.
Descendants' Path is a much better fit. I went back up to 4x each elf, moved the Lurking Predators to sideboard along with one each Evolution Charm and Aspect of Hydra, and then put two Descendants' Path in mainboard. This is working even more efficiently. I'm loving it. I do need to remember to wait and play Descendants' Path after I already have a Wurm on the field. When I played it too early on turn 3 I actually kept burying Wurms instead of getting to use them. Whoops.
Ok, that playtest was hilarious... I had two elves down and both had Deathrender attached. I had one on the board waiting to block and drop a Worldspine Wurm on turn 5, but turn 7 I had the second Deathrender and had drawn a second Worldspine. Basically what that added up to is that if I was attacked and blocked with both and my elves dying, I would gain two 17/17's with Trample that I could swing out with the next turn. No Evolutionary Leap required :)
Well, Caravan Vigil is out. Land has been the least of my concerns. A few times I've been stuck without a way to activate Deathrender on an elf to get the Wurms falling, and Beast Within would be perfect. Not only do I get a Wurm, but I'd also get a 3/3. I could also use it to pick off an opposing creature, but I'd say it is best suited to activate the combo.
Removed the Plated Slagwurms and replaced with Doomgape. Way more synergy since I'm not worried about being defensive. Doomgape is a bigger body with a free sac engine to keep things going, and the bonus of Lifegain is nice between him and Pelakka Wurm. It just works so much better. I also replaced Descendants' Path with Cream of the Crop. Both cards work great, however Path has elements of luck and unknown draw making it harder to predict and less reliable. A free Worldspine Wurm is nice, but I can still get one for a single green and Crop allows me to go looking for it 7-15 cards at a time. I'm digging the increased consistancy. I did go down one of each elf in favor of Sakura-Tribe Elders. I like the free sac ability, but replacing him with a Forest and another creature is a better tradeoff than just losing a mana elf. I don't want to remove too many elves though since it isn't a first turn drop and it might slow me down more that it helps me. Once I get the engine started I'm really not hurting for mana even if I only have 3 forests (enough to move the Deathrender and pay for a Leap).
