[MODERN] "I want to get off the Ink-Treader"

Modern

Sybilcut

Basic Lands (7)

• 3x Forest
• 1x Island
• 1x Mountain
• 2x Plains

Bring to Light Toolbox (3)

• 1x Act of Treason
• 1x Fiery Gambit
• 1x Rite of Replication

Creatures (13)

• 4x Birds of Paradise
• 2x Monastery Mentor
• 4x Nivmagus Elemental
• 3x Young Pyromancer

Five Color Nonbasics (13)

• 1x City of Brass
• 4x Forbidden Orchard
• 4x Mana Confluence
• 4x Reflecting Pool

I am lucky to own this otherwise it is another city of brass (1)

• 1x Arid Mesa

Spells (19)

• 3x Bring to Light
• 4x Expedite
• 2x Gods Willing
• 4x Path to Exile
• 4x Slip Through Space
• 2x Swell of Growth

The Man Himself (4)

• 4x Ink-Treader Nephilim

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Sideboard

Other (15)

• 3x Boros Charm
• 2x Glaring Spotlight
• 3x Natural State
• 4x Simic Charm
• 3x Sudden Shock

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INK-TREADER: OVERVIEW Show

The original Ink-Treader deck gets a huge overhaul. This thing is actually very powerful now, and has been reformatted for Modern rather than being a casual deck, and retooled for maximum efficiency with some recent prints that have sent its power level higher than I could have imagined. Many of the original descriptions remain relevant here, but let's just go back over them. Before I do so however, let me just give you an idea of your game plan.

You want to try and get some stuff on the board, let Ink-Treader Nephilim go a turn without dying, and gain absolutely bonkers advantage, usually winning you the game. How exactly do you do that?

Previously I was using general 1 mana cantrips. Thanks to Oath printing Expedite (an easier to acquire Crimson Wisps ) and Slip Through Space (finally; a modern U evasion cantrip to replace Shadow Rift), you can have great utility in your cantrips as well as as many cards as you can hold. Once Ink is safe, you draw a bunch of cards depending on how the board states look. You generally draw into another cantrip, or you draw into a blowout, namingly Path to Exile and sometimes Act of Treason . Occasionally that will be enough to win you the game.

The best part about Battle for Zendikar was the printing of Swell of Growth . Now, when you draw a dozen cards, you can spend a couple mana, dump the lands you drew, and keep going. Suddenly, Ink Treader has a consistent draw engine that allows you to often close out a game.

Another great tool was Bring to Light. Aside from being effectively copies 5 through 7 of Ink Treader (possibly 8 although I dont think it's necessary), it also allows you some great fun. Now, you can have a few one-off toolboxable late-game cards to close out a win how you like. If you want to copy everything on the board, you can. If you want to Insurrection, do it up. And more recently, I found my personal favourite: Fiery Gambit.

This card targets on cast, causing it to spread to every other creature, and then you flip coins for resolution for each one. If you don't win the game outright from a few times doming your opponent for 6, you always have the shot of untapping your lands, drawing 9, and keeping going. It's just a little splash of chaos into an already fun deck.

THE CREATURES Show

Ink-Treader Nephilim : What is there to say? He spreads everything everywhere. He's why the deck exists. He abuses cantrips, turns spot removal into a board wipe, and any number of great interactions. Need I say more?

Birds of Paradise: They replaced my ramp spell, give me any color mana, and give me extra targets. They let me get out Ink Treader faster than before. Personally, I love them.

Monastery Mentor/Young Pyromancer: Both of them drop extra targets from all the spell slinging you'll be doing. You get to target the new token with Ink Treader's copy of the spell you spawned it with; what's not to love? Monastery Mentor is a bigger version. His tokens are brutal and he can give you a nice board state on his own. I recently cut a Pyromancer for a Birds.

Nivmagus Elemental: A cornerstone of the deck. If there are any copies of anything that you don't like, get rid of them. Your opponent thinks they're gonna be sneaky and spread something they like? Eat the copies if you want; you own all of them. If you want to swing for lethal, pump him for 30 with a couple one drop spells and swing away. Path to Exile becomes a one sided wipe. Act of Treason becomes an insurrection PLUS a bunch of pump. Don't have any more lands? Eat your extra copies of Swell of Growth . Not only that, but he can get big really quick early game if you need a board state. Generally Ink Treader doesn't care about counterspells because his cast trigger goes through anyways, but he can get you value out of countered spells either way.

THE SPELLS Show

Expedite/Slip Through Space: Both of these spells serve as utility cantrips, and draw you enough cards to make Ancestral Recall blush. You run two playsets of cantrips, because you REALLY like cards. Did I mention they allow you to swing in when you need to?

Gods Willing: I haven't really talked about it, but a protection spell is very important with a target this big. Generally Ink Treader is pretty safe from modern removal as many players are reluctant to wipe the board to deal with it (and with Nivmagus on board, come out at a HEAVY loss) but Doom Blade absolutely DEMOLISHES you and you NEED to have an answer to it and other, non-standard removal. I've also used it without Nivmagus to give my creatures pro-white after targetting Ink Treader with Path, force-wiping my opponent's board and leaving mine untouched. The scry isn't as good as straight draw, but it does its job when you get several.

Path to Exile: Your blowout. A one mana board wipe. Protection against early game aggro (aka Infect), even without Ink-Treader. In conjunction with any other cards you have, just gets more and more powerful. Draw it, hold it, play it, live it, love it, eat it.

Bring to Light: The all important toolbox card. I've already gone into enough detail here. If you don't have Ink Treader, you do now. If you have Ink Treader, you basically win. And to top it off, Pyromancer and Mentor get two triggers.

THE TOOLBOX Show

Enabled by Bring to Light, these cards are ran as one-offs, but are completely usable if you draw into them in normal play.

Rite of Replication: Not much to say here. You copy the board. If you've been lucky with your Swell of Growth s, you might REALLY copy the board.

Act of Treason : Insurrection. Effectively a game closer against most decks.

Fiery Gambit: I jumped the gun and went over this one in the overview, because I was so hype about it. Who doesn't love flipping a bunch of coins and probably winning the game off it? You also don't have much risk; you don't have to worry about hitting your creatures for 4, because if you win the first flip and lose the second, nothing happens. If you win the second flip, your creature was well worth it (except perhaps ink treader, but his activation comes last, so you'll be able to tell if it was because the game will be over). If you win the third flip, they never stood a chance.

THE LANDS Show

Mana Confluence/City of Brass: These cards are 5 color. You like colored mana. You play your spells with colored mana. You care more about being able to play spells than 1 life. End of discussion.

Forbidden Orchard: This has such great synergy with the deck. Sure, you clock yourself if you're struggling with your board state, but under most circumstances it's an extra few cards once you get Ink on board AND gives you colored mana. And we both know, you like colored mana.

Reflecting Pool: In fact, you like colored mana so much, you can consistently get it. And now, you get it with no downside. It sucks if your opening hand has say, two Forest, a Reflecting Pool, and no Birds. But the odds of that are pretty low. And at least Reflecting Pool future-proofs your mana base for when you draw any of those sweet, sweet 5 color lands.

Arid Mesa: If I didn't pull this randomly one day, it wouldn't be in here. It'd be another City of Brass. That's all.

MATCHUPS Show

You looooove aggro decks. Aggro is your friend, because their board lines your hand with cards and your day with wins. You hardly need a sideboard here.

As far as I know, you can't REALLY deal with T1 decks, unfortunately. Infect gives you a run for your money unless you've got a Path in opening hand. You might not have that bad of a time with Tron, but I don't have enough experience with many Modern archetypes to speak on them.

You REALLY don't like Living End. It sits passively without a board state. It goes off just as you're building your own. It kills your dudes with Shriekmaw without triggering Ink Treader. It kills your nonbasics with Fulminator Mages, and then it kills them again. If you've been paying attention you know you direly need those colors.

I haven't faced Blood Moon, but I can imagine it would give you a run for your money also. Cheap enchant removal that you pay for with basic forests ftw.

Otherwise, this deck needs far more testing for my local meta and your own.

SIDEBOARDING Show

Against non-creature decks, don't be afraid to take out Path and Act of Treason. Path doesn't help you unless you really wanted to use it on your tokens to ramp yourself. Act is just a global haste which you get better with Expedite.

Boros Charm or Simic Charm are good sideboard utility cards, because they can save you against land hate and creature based destruction, and give you access to other Ink-Treader utility when you don't need to hold them quite so hard. Izzet Charm can give you a nice counter to slow down their deck for those few vital turns you need pre-4, although it isn't in the sideboard right now.

Nature's Claim/Natural State can more or less solve problems with those pesky Blood Moons.

Glaring Spotlight can do great for you against Hexproof decks. Those Slippery Bogles aren't so slippery now, are they?

Sudden Shock only becomes a Sudden Pyroclasm when on Ink Treader (and can't be eaten by Nivmagus) but it does good work vs Infect by killing their lowbies, and STILL preventing their answers like Vines of Vastwood and Spellskite. It also kills Fulminator Mage if they didn't crack it right away, so it has some multi matchup utility.

IN CLOSING Show

Thanks for reading. I love this deck; I explain in my old description that it's basically my M:tG brainchild, a culmination of everything I like in the game. Janky mechanics, fun combo-y interactions all over the place, a bit of chaos, and a fair power level. I originally wanted to build a budget deck and although it ended up a lot more expensive than I wanted (but not nearly as expensive as it could be, with the land base as it is), it also ended up a lot more powerful than I had expected. Great deck. Super fun. If you ever play multiplayer games with friends, they might make you put it away. If you decide to build it, I hope you have as much fun with it as I have had. Although I feel that it's getting pretty close to optimized, I heavily look forward to any future optimizations that other players make for it; any interactions I might have missed, any cuts for more efficient cards, and anything else.

Good luck!

OLD DESCRIPTION; LONG OUTDATED Show

My long awaited (for me, anyways) Ink-Treader casual deck. Carefully constructed for efficiency, interaction and (most importantly) fun, it makes ordinary games very exciting.

I wanted to build a deck around Ink-Treader since I first found him, and I wanted to build a deck that included Nivmagus Elemental since I pulled him as well. Realizing that they both interacted well made the deck practically build itself.

Ink-Treader Nephilim is self explanatory. He spreads single-target spells, which is what this deck hinges on. Without him, it's PLAYABLE but far less effective. With him, it's a nightmare to face and you're lucky if you have two turns to survive once he's out on the field.

Young Pyromancer and Talrand, Sky Summoner are ways to get extra targets for my spells. Talrand used to be Spawnwrithex3, but I took them out. He now serves as an alternate 4-drop. He doesn't always do a lot, so I'd be willing to replace him.

Nivmagus Elemental allows me to exile any spells that I don't want affecting everybody. He can eat those extra Act of Treason targetting my own creatures for example. Hell, maybe just everything. He gets big. Fast.

Peer Through Depths is just a digging card. It digs for spells, which this deck direly needs.

Shadow Rift serves a dual purpose: Make my creatures unblockable with Nivmagus out, and/or draw me a shitton of cards. The cards are more important. I just recently replaced Leap with it.

Act of Treason is a win condition. Basically a three mana Insurrection and a huge pump for my friend Nivmagus Elemental.

Path to Exile not only helps protect me until I can get out my Inky, but can also serve as a one-sided board exile. If you want to be REALLY cruel, if they're not dead after an Act of Treason, feel free to exile all of their creatures AND reap the benefits of the lands.

Gods Willing and Turn to Mist both serve the same essential purpose: protect Ink-Treader. Turn to Mist can protect him from ANYTHING, where God's Willing protects against almost anything and scrys for only one mana. Having the second mana open for Turn to Mist isn't always guaranteed, but having the option is good. Turn to Mist can also serve as a one sided, one-turn board wipe with Nivmagus out.

Rite of Replication is just an extreme late game bomb. If you get to a point where you have 9 lands out, drop it and you win. 5 copies of every creature on the board is a pretty big deal.

Kodama's Reach , now the only green card in the deck aside from Ink-Treader himself, allows me to have a guaranteed 5 lands on turn 4; meaning that I have enough mana to drop Ink-Treader and protect him with a God's Willing until my turn rolls around again for something nice.

I use Vivid lands over other nonbasics because I have a relatively small need for green mana, and they allow me to fix to the small extent that this deck needs. Certainly it could be improved, but I wasn't willing to make my lands the most expensive section of this deck (I had one Arid Mesa in my collection already, so it's technically in the deck, but not in the decklist for the sake of accurate pricing. I replaced it in the decklist with another Vivid Crag)

As it stands, Shadow Rift/ Leap is the only card preventing this deck from being Modern legal. It's a very important part of the deck though, and I haven't found a viable modern one-mana evasion+cantrip replacement.

I used to have Mask of the Mimic in this deck, and it had an interesting interaction with Spawnwrithe tokens (allowing me to find legitimate copies from the tokens) and grabbed an extra copy of everything I had on the board for only one sacrifice. I opted to remove it after taking out Spawnwrithe to streamline the deck a bit more.

All in all, an inexpensive and incredibly fun deck to play that just gets stronger the more your opponents have on the board. As my friend likes to say, "I don't want to ride the Ink-Treader anymore."

EDIT: Ink Treader gets a big update. I replaced all of my Vivid lands in the deck with some any color lands. In addition, I've refocused the deck with the printing of a new cards from Battle for Zendikar.

Date added	10 years
Last updated	8 years
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 0 Mythic Rares 27 - 2 Rares 9 - 10 Uncommons 11 - 3 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.03
Tokens	Copy Clone, Elemental 1/1 R, Monk 1/1 W, Spirit 1/1 C
Folders	Cool decks