I ran Halimar Depths for a time but with only 16 lands it turns up in my opening hand so much when what I need is an island. I think it can work well it just sets your quest back a turn.

As far as Serum Powder goes, the deck is terrible without it and waaaay more fun with it. (See what I did there?) Mull to 2 and win will make you excited to play again, and that's the kind if deck I want. I hope others really like it as well, it really does win a fair amount.

Incoming weird suggestion: Thrummingbird? Turn one quest, turn two (counter) Thrummingbird, turn three (counter) swing, proliferate (counter) end step (leviathan). Gets you a fatty a turn early, and gets them swinging sooner. Also helpful if you miss a creature reveal for some reason.

I do like that suggestion.. Will have to try it out!

You asked about defense against Merfolk aggro. Well, I'm playing my leviathans against merfolk aggro-controll at least once a week (it is made on all the thing like Master of Waves, Lord of Atlantis, Master of the Pearl Trident and so on). Usually it's kind of a race - will his merfolks kill me before i put him down, or will I manage to activate Ula and destroy him with 3-4 life left :)

Since you didn't like things like AEtherize, I'd suggest Silent Arbiter or Voyage's End. OR Scourge of Fleets. Especially good ideas against Master of Waves army.

Thanks for the continued support. I've been running this at FNM at least once a month and having better than 80% wins game one... Games 2 and 3 still a crap shoot to see if they draw enchantment hate. Spellskite or Turn Aside or bust those games. But people are so scared of the speed they mulligan more to get the hate cards and it's fun.

As for your suggestions, arbiter is too much cmc, though I have not seen that card before and I love it for my edh deck. And scourge might be the answer I need vs merfolk... Depends on whether I get to 3 islands or not.

Yeah, I've played my version on Legacy once and everything was fine - in one game I've redirected 24 damage from black spell to the opponent and putted more Ula's pets than he could remove with my own sacrifise deck (this one, if you like: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/infinite-agony/ )BUT in the second game, after mulligan to 2, to reach one Island (one of those epic mana screw, if you know what I mean :P ) with Ula on the battlefield I still had the chance to kill him. And then he removed first Ula, then he putted an artifact with X in cmc, that prevents spells with cost equal to X from being played and when I finally get rid of this... He destroyed that only one Island I had xD

Getting back to the point - I know this is even more expensive than Arbiter, but idea is always an idea. Godhead of Awe.

Or, to defend yourself at least once or twice and make your opponent waste his removal on something else than Ula's pets - Plumeveil

Hey Blizzicane, thanks for the continued input. I never get out more than 2 islands with this deck, as anything extra I am always scrying away. I have yet to mull to 1 and win, but I have won from several mull to 2s, and thats a great feeling indeed. I have theorized about Thrummingbird and don't really like it as I rarely have problems populating the quest with counters, but rather in protecting the quest.

On turn 2 of any game I would rather have anything that manipulates the top deck for the next few turns, as a turn 2 Thrummingbird could easily miss the trigger for the next few turns due to lands or artifacts/enchantments on the top of the deck turn 3 and 4.

IMHO the Thrummingbird is most useful in games 2 and 3, when you know more enchantment hate will come out and you will likely have to draw into a second quest to win. Having a way to speed the top decks that do put counters on the quest could maybe pull you back from disaster -- though the deck plays very much like affinity in that regard... either they have hate or they lose the majority of the games against me.

Currently, If I were going to replace a card in the main it might be Phyrexian Revoker in for the Omenspeaker as he can adapt to my needs on the fly even in game one (though on turn 2 it might just be a shot in the dark for a tournament, I do know most of the local players and what they like to run).

For games 2 and 3, if I were to take the route of more resiliency over speed, I would probably want to run 4x Thrummingbirds and perhaps something like 4x Vedalken Masterminds at the expense of Omenspeaker and Judge's Familiar. This could allow me to be hit by lots of enchantment hate and still recover.

Another card I am mulling over in my head is the Merfolk Assassin. I am just losing that badly to the local guy who runs fish.

Please let me know your thoughts, and keep playing the Leviathans!

The Omenspeaker comes out first usually, as it is the weakest of the top deck manipulators. Qasali Pridemage and Seal of Primordium are both cards that get around spell countering abilities, so Phyrexian Revoker comes in against decks that run them (zoo and hate bears in my meta) but it is also useful against any planeswalkers, and there were 3 from decks at FNM last time. Turn Aside comes in against blue decks, as any permanent bounce effects like Echoing Truth and destroy effects like Wear / Tear just ruin my day. One guy runs both seal and wear tear in his deck against me. Lol.

3 TRON decks last FNM, spell check kills me.

Ok, here are some other issues i found during playtesting and meditating :P Forgive me that kind of forced critisism, but I'm running the very same idea, so I'm trying to prepare for next modern tournament best I could ;)

1st - discard. If you didn't win the roll, Thoughtsieze, Inquisition of Kozilek or Duress mean you have lost the game, especially after - let's say - two mulligans and cards exiled with Serum in order to get Ula.

2nd - Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver ruins everything. Whole effort of scrying and patient selecting next cards for the Quest goes for nothing and you can do nothing about it in this deck.

3rd - Jace, the Mind Sculptor - if you didn't win the roll, moment of getting third counter on Ula may come too late for your win with a single gamebraker like Inkwell... Or it can never come at all, if you have enough badluck (I've tasted it once, it extremely devastating for one's psychics :P )

4th - Grozoth itself is useless. You'll probably never get enough mana to get rid of his defender and even if you do, that will be in the latest of the late game. As for card fixer, it also ruins whole concept of scrying. You scryed mobs after 3rd counter on Ula to get what you want after putting first Kraken on the table and... You're shuffling your library. That makes all later draws kinda random.

5th - second game. You wont the first one and you know that your opponent is now putting all Erase, Boomerang, Force of Will, Naturalize, Back to Nature, Abrupt Decay and other things you don't wanna see into his deck. What is your strategy then? It's no good to hope he won't get it after - at best - second mulligan. Let's assume he will get one or two of those at his starting hand - what then? Are you trying to get 2 Ula's at the opening? Or you're using Serum and mulligan until you get both Ula and Turn Aside?

6th - how about leaving Grozoth and rearraging main synergy between Stormtide Leviathan, Wrexial, the Risen Deep and Inkwell Leviathan or Harbor Serpent? Beside Merfolk aggro we spoked of before, there is no other aggro deck that could be a threat to you after playing Stormtide in 4th turn. Thassa, God of the Sea could be also a great addition here - scry every turn and with Stormtide in play she become indestructible attacker i 4th turn.

Hey Wiktul!

Those issues are all legitimate issues for sure, but first of all, I really like 1-2 Thassa, God of the Sea in the board against control. Stormtide Leviathan was in the deck vs. zoo and goblin aggro, as the card really shines at shutting down fast and wide decks. It can be swapped in for Simic Sky Swallower or one of the scry creatures -- don't remove the 9-drops. More on that later.

As to the concerns you bring up:

Discard: I spoke of Chancellor of the Annex in the description. It is really only there for the matchups against hand disruption decks. I used to run it main deck, then sideboard, then maybe board just because it was so uncommon to see in my local meta. This is the only answer I can come up with. It will never get played outside turn 0, but it does trigger the quest afterwards, which is a pretty good trade-off. Hand disruption only hurts us turn 1. After that, we just play what we draw (and hope they don't have instant speed discard).

Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver yea, he is a pain. Fortunately for me, I have yet to see him in my modern meta. The only answer I can give right now is fight through it. If you come up with anything, let me know!

Jace, the Mind Sculptor is banned in modern. No worries there.

Grozoth is far from useless. He searches out a grip full of 9 drops. The quest triggers on EACH end step, so having a hand full of fatties = killing the opponent twice as fast. I wouldn't take this out as I am never sad to see it in my hand. I tutor up a hand full of Inkwell Leviathan, drop one on my opponents turn, and then on my turn I have two fatties instead of only one, Trust me, the way the quest works, you want this card.

Finally, the second game (and third game -- because you have less than good odds second game, let's be honest). Mulligan until you get a land and the quest, just like game 1. Game two I normally side in 4 Turn Aside (or Swan Song if I am unsure if they have specific enchantment hate) and sometimes don't play the quest turn 1 if I have a hand with quest, protection spell, and 2 lands in hand -- being able to protect the quest once is normally enough to get a fatty into play. Remember, the more side board hate they bring in, the slower their attack will be. This is the situation where Thrummingbird can be amazing as well. This little dude can pull you back into games where your first quest is destroyed, and you end up scrying into a second.

Abrupt Decay is probably the biggest single threat we have outside of turn 1 Thoughtsieze on the draw. It hasn't been a problem yet, but if it were I would look into playing Vedalken Mastermind. He lets you at least save your quest and try again, although to be honest, picking up your quest usually means game over. Like I said, the deck wins when your opponent doesn't have the right hate. If they do you have little chance to recover. I think that's just the nature of the deck. :)

As always, thanks for the input, and keep me up to date on your exploits with the Quest for Ula's Temple!

Another thing I forgot to mention: Phyrexian Revoker is the creature based answer to planeswalkers. So I would put it in vs. Ashiok for sure.

Quicksilver Amulet is a thing...

Costs 4. I won't play 4 lands and win. ,

Ok, here I am, after a tournament, and:

During 5 matches I've made something about... 20 mulligans? (Including "mulligans" with Serum). I've lost two rounds only due to lack of Ula untill mulligan to 3 and no hope of getting it. If the deck is based on two main combos, like Megrim and Liliana's Caress like in here http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/lil-lil/ then Serum makes you almost sure of getting your win-con. Here it's still great, but still not enough (or maybe it's just my badluck and unability to shuffle cards properly).

There is no way to play it without controll. Whole W will kill you without any problem, even by accident, because it's nearly impossible to find a white deck without instant exile for ridiculous costs. In first round against WG tokken aggro my 1st round Ula was removed in 2nd turn, so no - it's not true that nobody has enchantment-hate cards in the mainboard or he won't get them after first round ;)

Spellskite is something I defnitly must get if I wish to protect myself against that kind of trouble, but still, that won't be enough against merfolk controll - aggro without counterspells or removal. Whelming Wave and Scourge of Fleets saved me two or three times. I've lost to discard deck based on previously mentioned combo with Megrim and Liliana's Caress because I didn't have my own blink and two or even four counterspells putted inside from sideboard didn't make a deal.

I'll also repeat my statement - synergy between Grozoth and Inkwell Leviathan is really nice and Inkwell himself is a great deal of trouble, but the real killer is Stormtide Leviathan and that what really needs to be in 4 copies here.

Thrummingbird - not a way to judge him, I didn't had a chance to use him properly, but when it came to choose: putting him with Ula on table in 2nd turn or put Augury Owl for scry, I always choosed the second option.

Glad to hear you are still running the leviathans! I agree, Spellskite is a must. And as to what leviathans you run... Stormtide Leviathan will hose red decks but it doesn't have shroud so it dies to removal in white green or black. Blue can run through it or bounce it. I just prefer to stick a threat and not worry about it.

On that point though, Living End is a nightmare. It will destroy this deck. And turbo fog based decks will destroy us too -- namely Isochron Scepter + Fog. I am being a u/w deck that has answers in white for these matchups... Will keep you posted.

Ok, I guess I found another solution to our quest to get Quest :)

Dizzy Spell - I know, not a perfect solution, but definitely good enough after mulligan to 5 without Ula or Serum and with 3 Island instead. Or even for a draw in 3-4 round, when our Ula on the table can be removed. What is more, opponent with some brains usualy waits for us to put 3rd counter on Ula and he is likely to remove it "at the end of our mainphase", what most of the times means that we have more than 1 island in controll. What do you think about it? :)

You know, I actually have been using Dizzy Spell in testing for that exact purpose! I will let you know how it goes.

FInally, I found the name of an artifact that made me surrender in the first turn - Chalice of the Void :)

Yup. I have to side in bounce spells game two. Lol.

Here's some feedback after yesterday's modern tournament I've played.

1st game: I've lost to Splinter Twin, but I can only blame myself for that. I had my opponent on single strike twice and I didn't choose right kraken properly - Stormtide Leviathan would do the deal in second turn, but after loosing to flying copies in 1st, I decided to put Inkwell Leviathan and that decided my fate. Conclusion - Stormtide is really great card against anything but merfolks.

2nd game: I've won to U/W controll splashed with red, based on Isochron Scepter. Opponent tried to burn me with it. Altrough, not even Silence imprinted under it and repeated each turn was enough to stop me. In first round he heven bounced my Ula, but 34 creatures was enough to get it back on table and put 3 counters on it again. I couldn't care less about his Silence or his Ajani Vengeant destroying my lands. Since Ula is on the table, if opponent has nothing to remove it, he can do whatever he likes.

3rd game: Merfolks. This deck really can't stand against that, I'm trying to figure it out since over a year. Especially in this version - combined with AEther Vial. In second round I had 2 Ulas with 3 counters, but... Then I've draw 2x Serum Powder, 3x Island and 1x Dispel... -_-Maybe Daze is an option, to let our scryers block merfolks, but I'm not sure if it plays in modern.

4th game: I've lost to deck based on Grim Lavamancer. I feel ashamed by loosing to burn deck... But here it is. After I've putted 3rd Inkwell he just threw 6 burns in my face - that's what it is. In second round I tried to respond with Redirect with quite good effect, but then threw Deflecting Palm at Stormtide. That was after mulligan to 3, with no Serum, Ula or Dizzy Spell.

All in all - deck's competitive, definitely, but it still missing something. Changes I'm going to apply:

4x Scourge of Fleets - that's the real merfolk killer, dealing with most of all annoying things.4x Simic Sky Swallower - because of reasons.4x Halimar Depths - more and more deck insight!

I'm still looking for improvements (I still can't get Spellskite anywhere around). Here's my actual version of the deck: Quest to break Modern

I have been messing around with Mystic Snake and Coiling Oracle in another deck idea and stumbled upon the Nulltread Gargantuan as a way to bounce them around and get value... started reading old threads mentioning Nulltread Gargantuan and realized people were trying him in a deck based on the Quest for Ula's Temple! A 5/6 for three seems like a great plan B for us, if our quest is destroyed we still have a way to drop a creature for only 3cmc. Best part is, we don't sacrifice creature count, or land count. I don't know the right number or even if it will help at all, but I added 3 of them and removed 2x Grozoth and 1x Omenspeaker to make room as these are the least impactfull cards imo.