I'm currently working on "streamlining' the deck...a few of the issues I've been thinking about are:

1. Should Nissa, Worldwaker should just be another Xenagos, the Reveler.

Nissa is a great card in grindier games; but (a) she costs more (at 5-CMC) than the other two combo walkers, (b) she is less likely to combo off immediately (as you have to have a Utopia Sprawl or just have the other walker make up for their cost +1

2. Should I run only two Genesis Hydra?

I seem to hit them off of Genesis Wave quite a bit; and you don't want one before turn two at the earliest...may be worth looking into. They are spectacular though; so it would take a replacement that really worked well in the deck and/or helped smooth things out even more.

3.Do I play Joraga Treespeaker or Fertile Ground

This is pretty dependent on if I'm running Nissa or a third Xenagos.

There are a few other little things; but I'm too a point now where all I really need to do is make sure the game one deck is as streamlined as possible and then have a great sideboard!

Let's keep our fingers crossed we get some cool green stuff in BFZ :) Love to hear your guys/gals thoughts .

Great great thoughts, and it makes sense! And thanks so much for sharing it here!!

Regarding the issues you mentioned, it's very interesting, because I had similar thoughts, and I have been testplaying without Nissa, Worldwaker, with 2x Genesis Hydra, and 1x Primeval Titan. I also tried to sub 1x Birds of Paradise out with one or two Courser of Kruphix.

The reason for Primeval Titan is that it can guarantee us out Kessig Wolf Run and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx immediately. As you mentioned many times, Kessig Wolf Run may just help us to win the game right there.

Also, my issue with Genesis Hydra is that it can only bring up one card, and it can't be a land. Sometimes, we need that Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx to get the flow going.

Courser of Kruphix, as you mentioned before, is a bit slow, but I found out it may just help us hit Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx with luck, and it makes sure our draws are always non-land cards each time we loop Elvish Visionary and Abundant Growth. This makes our draws so much more effective.

Joraga Treespeaker is a really interesting card. It can level up and don't waste our mana before combo goes off and set up for later. I would say it's worth a try.

However, I sometimes have elves, birds, Garruk, and even Nykthos on the board. It gives us lots of mana, but I would need another turn or two to get things going. These two additional turns may cost us the game. I am not sure if it's just a very bad draw, or there is something we can do to improve this. Any thoughts?

I also came across a different awkward scenario. On turn 3 or 4, I get 8-10 mana to cast Genesis Wave. Lots of cards are loaded with all of our combo piece. However, I don't have mana left, and has to wait for the next turn to kick off. Am I playing this wrong? Should I cautiously save 1-2 mana when casting Genesis Wave, just in case we need it to play the Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx devotion ability? This leaves me thinking, would it make sense to put Sarkhan Vol to give elves haste so that they can tap on the same turn, and the possibility to do infinite +1/+1 and grab all opponent's creatures if we have the combo going. Not sure if it helps, but just a thought. :)

Thanks again for sharing all your great thoughts and of course making this wonderful deck. Apologies for my endless questions. I am just starting to get back into Magic, and it's been a fun and great learning experience. Thank you!

After having Sarkon used against me yesterday, I started thinking of him as well (I died to Birds of Paradise)!

I've been leaving mana open when using Wave, but I don't know if that's better than getting the 2 additional cards. So my thinking is if I'm waving for at least 5, keep 2 open. When I only wave for 4, I've missed Nissa. Another reason to run another Xenagos, perhaps?

I've mostly been gold fishing, so I've got little actual experience with it, but those issues are still cropping up.

ksong/grandpappy - I don't know if you guys are just reading the card wrong or if you are getting unlucky but Genesis Wave hits land as well. So if X=7 you are probably going to get a few untapped lands and hopefully a planeswalker, which will be able to add mana as well.

kchedges, I understand that Genesis Wave hits lands, but sometimes you get two lands, a forest and a Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, then others are birds, elves or some random creatures. This leaves us two mana, but can't continue to follow, because you need one more to active the devotion ability from Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx.

On the other hand, as grandpappy mentioned, if we save 2 lands, this can guarantee us to keep the flow going if we hit Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. Even if we don't hit, with some more additional mana available, it can help us continue to rotating Elvish Visionary, or Abundant Growth. However, the cost is to see 2 less cards. That's the trade off I am not sure of, and hoping to get some justifications for one way or the other.

Hey guys! Sorry for delay. Was in Chicago for the weekend (played up there) and the. Had both work and tested the deck with a few changes (wanted to get at least 100 games in before I wrote up anything). Finishing my little "write up" now and will answer all your questions/discuss the changes this evening.

Thanks for the help making this deck great!!

fantastic deck upvote from me

Hello Again guys...so I have done a LOT of testing and wanted to bring up a few weaknesses and strengths I found with the deck; and then discuss some changes (some relatively large) I've made to the deck.

First, the weaknesses....during testing I found a couple things that seemed like I could improve upon:

1. Xenagos, the Reveler is kind of a dud by himself (i.e. outside of the combo). The deck runs a lot of enchantments, so often he doesn't tap for a ton of mana (although there are many occasions where he taps for his own cost).

2. I felt like I had "diluted" the deck with more "midrange" cards than when it started. The deck is suppose to be explosive and overwhelming...and I had put in a lot of tutors, etc. that slowed things down in game one. They are great game 2 and game 3 cards; but the main board needed to be explosive.

3. I was in between my two win-conditions. I could make more of the ramp creatures and utilize Xenagos, the Reveler and Sarkhan Vol; or I could make a little more of the ramp enchantments and focus on Nissa, Worldwaker and the "big guys" (Karn Liberated and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon)

4. As ksong pointed out; a large Wave should end the game. You should be comfortable that (a) you hit an infinite combo, (b) you hit a large enough drop like Ugin or Karn to really hurt the opponent, and/or (c) you hit one or both of Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and enough lands and/or a walker to untap lands to re-trigger a Nykthos for huge sums of mana to ramp and draw into a finish (as you nearly always will hit a few draw triggers and/or have "draw a card" permanents in hand. The best way to ensure this is to have plenty of "untap" effects to hit off of your waves.

Given this, I made some somewhat substantial changes to the deck. I would be GREATLY appreciative if the community on here (ksong, grandpappy, kchedges, hark, etc.) tested/goldfished it out as well to let me know what you think.

Here are the bigger changes:

Removed 2x Xenagos, the Reveler for an additional 2x Nissa, Worldwaker'sRemoved 3x Genesis Hydra for 2x Nylea's Presence and 1x Fertile GroundRemoved 2x Primal Command and 1x Eternal Witness for another Genesis Wave and a main-board Ugin, the Spirit Dragon.

A lot of the cards "removed" were just moved to the sideboard for games 2 and 3...the only significant changes was simply choosing which set of planeswalkers to use (as all are amazing with an infinite combo).

The Pros of these changes are:

1. The planeswalkers are all better by themselves...Garruk and Nissa create powerful creatures and/or ramp by HUGE amounts while Karn and Ugin essentially end the game on their own.

2. The main deck is more explosive and more consistent.

3. You are a little less weak to creature removal.

The Cons of the changes are:

1. You lose the cool "create infinite 2/2 haste tokens" win-condition. There were occasions where you could have just a Garruk, Xenagos, and Cloudstone Curio and you could combo off (of course you had to have some help from either creatures or enchantments on board...but you get the point).

2. The main deck is a little less resilient. You don't get the "recur" effects in game one (not super important as Primal Commands are available in the board.

3. We are a little weaker to land hate.

I focused on Garruk and Nissa this time around because (a) they both ramp the most (and in the deck the way it is formatted this way, you hit a lot more Waves and card-draw loops), and (b) they are both relatively strong on their own. One thing that is nice about Nissa is that she puts a 4/4 on board AND goes up to 4 loyalty (out of bolt range).

The deck is more explosive this way, but you do trade off a little resiliency (but both versions are extremely resilient to begin with). I put the decklist on a separate page (so this deck didn't change immediately). From my testing thus far, the deck is just more explosive and more consistent

Please let me know how it plays/tests for you. I've found this iteration fixes a few of the smaller issues with the deck and makes it far more explosive and consistent. It doesn't seem to "putter out" ever.

At this point it is literally just a matter of exactly how many of each card should be played. We have a pretty good grasp on the set of cards for the deck...it's just getting the numbers perfected.

P.S. I'm also a HUGE fan of Sarkhan Vol (especially if you keep Genesis Hydra in the deck)...worst case scenario you cast a Hydra for X=6, grab Sarkhan, and then attack with a 7/7 hasty hydra! This is definitely something we should test. You could certainly run a version of this deck where you don't play more creatures...then you can replace the Nissa, Worldwaker's with Xenagos, the Reveler and Ugin or Karn with Sarkhan Vol....It would be a little more weak to removal; but it may be a little faster on average (with the deck "topping out" at 4-CMC.)

Great work to make the deck extremely "explosive"! I can also feel the consistency! The game always have a good flow of momentum, and the combo usually goes off on turn 4 or 5.

Since the main board is mono green, I am wondering if Overgrowth can be replacing Fertile Ground. This will make the tap/untap more effective and casting this on turn 2 will set up huge on turn 3 and 4.

Also, have you tried enough test play for running 3x Cloudstone Curio? The ability doesn't stack, and it's terrible if draw two at the beginning hand. I have been trying to test play with 3, but not enough games to see the difference.

Again, great work, and nice modification!!

I actually like the idea of playing only 3 Cloudstone Curio ksong. The deck draws so much, and you really don't want to see a Curio until turn 3 on average...so that is definitely a good idea. I spent the night testing the deck with one less Cloudstone Curio and one more Karn Liberated...and at least for the time being it seems pretty darn good! I've only got about 50 games in thus far; but I haven't felt like I needed a Curio and didn't have it in any game yet. I'm sure it will happen; but if it is extremely few and far between; it is worth it.

The deck feels FAR more smooth, consistent, and even feels a little faster now. I'm excited about the changes. I'll let you know how things are testing; and please anyone else fell free to do the same!

Going back up to 20 lands (hitting land drops just seems super important in my current testing.). Probly just remove 1x Genesis Wave (as 3 is realistically enough). I thought about running 2x Horizon Canopy as "flood insurance"...but that may dilute the mana base too much in a Nissa-Arbor Elf deck...Kessig Wilf run works well as a way to use up Mana too though.

Also added an Elderscale Wurm to the board because it's amazing in a lot of matches (most importantly burn).

Switched the Karn and Ugin Counts (2x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and 1x Karn Liberated). Ugin seems to end games much more than Karn. Karn Liberated is great removal, of course is perfect for the infinite combo kill, and is just great to "bounce" and remove anythinging and still is extremely powerful in his own right....I've just found that Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is more of a "sure thing" to end the game.

Just curious, when we don't combo off with infinite mana, what ability is helpful from Ugin, the Spirit Dragon? won't the "-X" ability remove your own creatures, enchantments, and walkers? Or, we are relying mainly on the "+1" ability for 3 damage?

ksong his -x will exile your own permanents but not your lands and also not your Cloudstone Curio, neither does he exile himself. So you'd still have all the pieces to keep your combo going :)

I had the same reservations about Ugin initially ksong....he kills a lot of our early cards (enchantments, mana dorks, etc.). This also really hurts your devotion....

My brother, however, made a good point (just as BigBy93 did)...he said, "yeah, but you still have Ugin (and typically another walker, my lands, and/Cloudstone) and they have nothing...." :)

Ugin just often acts as a better finisher. 90% of the games he hits the board the game is over. Karn is amazing removal and value, and often will put the opponent too far back to Come back; but there are situations where it removes a permanent and is killed the next turn. It's much harder to do this to Ugin.

Seems like a lot of cards and a lot of high cmc to be that competitive honestly. 4 cards to combo with Nyx, like 6+ to combo without it? Combined with the fact that you need to resolve a 4 cost and 5 cost walker to go infinite and the need to run inherently useless cards as part of the combo(curio), make me have some serious reservations on the viability of the deck in modern. But it is still a really cool idea, and I give you props for that!

Neat, I am going to build this deck, for casual play.

Thanks for the props RoarMaster...in terms of your concerns for viability; my first response would be to say sleeve up the deck and play it. You'll get a better sense of the following:

1. You don't NEED to hit the combo to win. I literally (like 30 seconds before writing this response :) ) just won attacking with a 25/1 flying, trample Birds of Paradise on turn 4.

2. A turn 3-4 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and/or Karn Liberated will also generally win the game. This is not hard to do.

3. The deck draws a TON of cards. Between the Abundant Growths, Nylea's Presence, Elvish Visionary, and Genesis Wave's; you will often times see a large portion of your deck. This is especially true when you take into account an on-board Cloudstone Curio...Curio is far from useless in the grindy match ups; where you can spend your excess mana on "loops".

Also, Genesis Wave pretty much acts as a win-con at X=5 or greater. A majority of the time at this point you will "draw" into either Garruk or Nissa, a high devotion and have the ability to "string" from there. Half the time, you just hit the combo off the Wave. At X=10 or more; you pretty much are a guarantee to hit the combo (or have enough mana and card draw to work your way into it on the same turn).

In the end though, It's really up to me to start posting some daily results and other results to strengthen the "reputation" of the deck. I've got the deck online; so it's just a matter of taking the time to play some dailies.

The easiest way, however, to decide for yourself on the actual "viability" of the deck is to do what we do...run decks through the "gambit" of the top 12-15 decks in the meta. I've found the deck to be very competitive; but I'm a little biased too :)

The Cloudstone Curio can make for some interesting decisions, but the majority of the deck is played at sorcery speed; so while somewhat complex (with all of the untapping, drawing, re-trapping, triggering, etc.) you can get relatively proficient with the deck in about 60-80 games I think (less if you've played Green Devotion and/or Cloudstone Curio in the past).

Thanks again for the props! Hopefully I can get some results posted ASAP to help other see how competitive the deck is.

P.S. Hope you enjoy playing the deck kizer5. Let me know if you see any areas that can be improved upon.

Greetings, CurdBrosBrewingCo! Nice work to re-organize and the page and summarize everything in clean details. The current deck is indeed in its top and consistent form. Great work!!

I have been test playing and tried to add some of my own flavor in this deck. During this process, I had some observations:

• This deck runs lots of enchantments for both drawing and ramping

• Elvish Visionary only draws a card. Creatures in this deck doesn't utilize much, since we are not running Xenagos, the Reveler. So, maybe this card doesn't have the amount of synergy as much as other cards.

So, based on the above observation, I think we could utilize the big number of enchantment that we have. Maybe Courser of Kruphix + Eidolon of Blossoms are worth a try to replace Elvish Visionary. Both cards help with drawing cards, and Courser of Kruphix is bolt proof and can somewhat protect our walkers. Also the top of library lands can help with ramping and make our draws more efficient. Eidolon of Blossoms will make all the enchantments draw cards for you, including itself and Courser of Kruphix. It helps the loop with Cloudstone Curio to draw cards so much easier too. Also, any enchantment can loop for draws, and Abundant Growth and Nylea's Presence will help us to draw 2 cards each time.

Any thoughts on this? I test played the change: OUT: 4x Elvish Visionary, IN: 2x Courser of Kruphix, 2x Eidolon of Blossoms. It feels as consistent as before, and turn 2 Courser of Kruphix with some lucky flips can set up turn 3 really nicely.

Also, some quick questions regarding playing this deck:

1. Do we mulligan with one land?
2. Do we mulligan with 4 lands and no ramp (bird, sprawl or elf)?
3. If we play lands with Courser of Kruphix ability, can we play the other land in hand for the turn?

Thanks again for all the help for my previous questions! I have been learning so much from you guys!!

Hey ksong!

Courser of Kruphix in place of Elvish Visionary is a GREAT idea! I am testing it out immediately. You are absolutely right that the 4-toughness and life-gain are extremely helpful. It's on curve, and often will draw multiple cards per turn. I honestly think it is most likely an improvement! I'm testing it now; and will let you know how it tests for me too. I already tried it against burn; and it is hands down the reason the match up was won (with relative ease).

I ended up adding 3x Courser of Kruphix and one more Fertile Ground. I will let you know how it continues to test; but so far it has been great. Good idea!

To answer your questions:

1. It depends. If the hand has one land, but also has 2 or more 1-drop ramp cards (like a Bird, Arbor Elf, etc.) than often I will keep. It also depends on what other cards are in hand. If it is one land and a bunch of walkers; then no; I don't keep. Basically, a good rule to go by for 1-land hands is if the hand has a turn 1, and turn 2 play with just the 1 land, you can probably get away with it.

2. Again, it depends. Do we have Abundant Growth or Courser of Kruphix? If the hand is just 4 lands and a few walkers, you're probably going to be too slow; BUT most likely you are going to draw into a ramping card (or draw card, etc.) I would generally keep the hand against an unknown opponent (as you'll probably draw into lower-CMC gas). Against a hyper aggressive deck, I would mulligan and try to get some itms out early.

3. Unfortunately, no. You can still only play one land that turn. Where cards like Oracle of Mul Daya will let you play another land; Courser doesn't. You can play the land off the top and keep the other land in hand for the next turn, however. This is still pretty strong card advantage (as you are basically "drawing" the land cards every time and getting to gas much more quickly.

I am very optimistic that Courser is going to be a mainstay in this deck. I've added it to the list just based on my initial testing results. Thanks for posting and for your ideas ksong!

Is the drawn card from Nylea's Presence that important because if it isn't, Prismatic Omen seems like it would be better for mana fixing when it's needed.