Kiora's Resurgence

Modern* WU (Azorius)

AmbientGoat

Land (21)

• 2x Adarkar Wastes
• 4x Flooded Strand
• 2x Irrigated Farmland
• 4x Island
• 3x Plains
• 2x Prismatic Vista
• 2x Seachrome Coast
• 2x Tolaria West

Enchantment (15)

• 3x Cast Out
• 4x Kiora Bests the Sea God
• 2x Lay Claim
• 1x Overwhelming Splendor
• 1x Search for Azcanta  ^Flip
• 4x Shark Typhoon

Creature (2)

• 2x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip

Instant (14)

• 4x Consider
• 4x Dovin's Veto
• 4x Faithful Mending
• 2x Mission Briefing

Sorcery (8)

• 4x Resurgent Belief
• 2x Strategic Planning
• 2x Supreme Verdict

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Sideboard

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Leyline of Sanctity
• 4x Seal of Cleansing
• 2x Starfield of Nyx

Land (2)

• 2x Boseiju, Who Shelters All

Planeswalker (3)

• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils
• 2x Teferi, Time Raveler

Creature (3)

• 3x Malevolent Hermit  ^Flip

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Maybeboard

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Dance of the Manse
• 2x Ideas Unbound
• 1x Idyllic Tutor
• 1x Nagging Thoughts
• 1x Sunset Revelry

Land (1)

• 1x Hallowed Fountain

Creature (4)

• 1x Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
• 1x Murktide Regent
• 1x Thassa, God of the Sea
• 1x Thing in the Ice  ^Flip

Instant (1)

• 1x Muddle the Mixture

Enchantment (2)

• 1x As Foretold
• 1x History of Benalia

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

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Intro

After coming out of a long hiatus when I saw the card Curse of Unbinding, I set about to build a legacy deck with the theme of getting the enchantment in play as quickly as possible. The deck and write up:
https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/16-09-21-boundless/

While going through it, the Timmy in me wanted to see how much of the deck archetype could be moved into other formats. The limiting card to keep the theme ended up being Resurgent Belief, so with the intent of using as much of the same mana base as possible, this non-meta UW control/combo deck was born.

Goal

The intent of the deck is to get our major enchantments (Kiora Bests the Sea God and Shark Typhoon) on the battlefield ahead of their normal curve, hopefully even the same turn and as quickly as T4. Enchantment recurrence is a pretty unique mechanic and our Resurgent Belief ends up being the crux to the puzzle. In an ideal situation, we will have an 8/8 Hexproof minion, with our opponent’s minions tapped out turn 4.

Card Choices

Preperation

Burning through the library quickly and efficiently is going to be important.

• New additions Consider and Faithful Mending from the new Innistrad block gives us a lot of gas to dig and yard cards. Both at instant speed is fantastic, the non-keyword Surveil at 1cmc ends up being our strongest T1 play. Faithful Mending pulls double duty with the life gain and repeatable looting effect. Dumping this card in the yard almost always feels good.

• Strategic Planning and Mission Briefing fill a similar role in different ways. They will both generally help us put 2 additional cards in the yard, but the second part differs.. Ideas Unbound was/is considered for this spot; it give us more flexibility to move cards out of hand, but ends up being a net -1 card. Strategic Planning reduces our deck by the same 3 cards, and the cantrip gives us more from hand options. The deck operates on a very low mana curve and often having two additional choices in hand, does not provide meaningful decision making the same turn the card is played.
  Mission Briefing adds a similar role, but also gives us Snapcaster Mage effect that is more situationally relevant to this deck, and far more cost-effective ($$$ vs. ¢). Allowing us to hit a Resurgent Belief, Supreme Verdict, Strategic Planning, Consider from the yard and allow plays in an otherwise dead hand. Should be noted, that like Snapcaster, spells can still only be played during their intended timing (ie. sorc or instant speed)
  Between these two additions, they both have relevancy at different points, I am undecided if one is worth a playset.
  Nagging Thoughts also feels like it may have a relevant home with the intended card filter. But in testing, it felt like it was more often just a weaker version of Strategic Planning

• Card filter will help us move through our relevant cards while putting our targets in the yard. card Search for azcanta, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  , and our cycle cards (Cast Out, Lay Claim, and Shark Typhoon) will give us access to our deck. The nature of cycling is such that it is considered an ability, rather than a spell. This lets us put sharks into play and dodge counterspell.

Combo pieces

• Once we have our yard put together, Resurgent Belief will pull all our enchantments and hopefully lead to a rapid victory state. Suspend cards have several interesting timing triggers that can make it challenging for our opponent to interact with. Since it is not cast when it comes out of our hand, it cannot be countered the turn we play it. This gives us the safety to play it early game and dodge a lot of early counters. Because counters are removed “at the beginning of your upkeep” we get to untap our lands prior to the trigger, thus giving us access to mana to defend the spell.

• Kiora Bests the Sea God is our primary bomb. It’s an interesting enchantment in that when it hits the battlefield, it immediately has value with the 8/8 hexproof body. Additionally, if we are able to cheat it into play with Resurgent Belief the saga progresses to level 2 the same turn it comes it the battlefield, allowing us to tap out our opponents blockers for two turns. On top of all that, the nature of sagas results in their self-sac mechanic. Giving us additional value for any other Resurgent Belief that we may have to follow up as soon as turn T6

• Cast Out, Lay Claim, Overwhelming Splendor also provide huge utility if allowed to come out before intended. Cast Out can realistically be played from our hand if the game state requires flash removal.

Utility

• Dovin's Veto is hands down our strongest counterspell. Our major intent should be to protect Resurgent Belief, and because of the upkeep timing, we should always have access to the mana needed to cast this as Resurgent Belief resolves. The denial of other counters can negate a second Force of Negation.

• Supreme Verdict gives us room to breathe if our combo is slow to come online. Again, our ability to ensure this spell goes off can make or break our game.

Sideboard

A few things can tank this deck: graveyard hate, Chalice of the Void, and highly aggressive decks.

• Boseiju, Who Shelters All provides good coverage. Expensive card, but does the job well.

• Malevolent Hermit   is perhaps the most interesting Disturb card. Given its low CMC and interesting front & back effects. The counterspell ability is nice, but we’re are primarily chasing the backside effect to prevent counterspell. challice of the void hoses us hard at the 2cmc slot, but because the Hermit comes back as 3cmc, we can get around that board lock up. While Grand Abolisher is a generally better card, the fact that it shares the same CC with the cards we’re trying to protect, we may never have any way back on the board. The 2/2 flyer that comes out as is a nice bonus as well.

• Seal of Cleansing gives us the ability to remove cards like Grafdigger's Cage and Leyline of the Void.

• Teferi, Time Raveler follows the above in denying our opponent’s ability to interact with our combo. The 3cmc is exceedingly relevant.

• Leyline of Sanctity helps us dodge targeted graveyard hate. One of and mulligan aggressively.

• Starfield of Nyx can give this deck legs and acts as an additional way to pull cards out of the graveyard

Date added	3 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 2 Mythic Rares 25 - 9 Rares 15 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 4 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	3.66
Tokens	Emblem Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Kraken 8/8 U w/ Hexproof, Shark X/X U