Parable of the Bird and the Frog (Swan Assault)
Land (40)
- 1x Arid Mesa
- 2x Blood Crypt
- 4x Bloodstained Mire
- 1x Breeding Pool
- 3x Dakmor Salvage
-
1x
Drownyard Temple
- 1x Halimar Depths
- 2x Island
- 3x Mountain
- 1x Overgrown Tomb
- 1x Polluted Delta
- 2x Reliquary Tower
- 3x Steam Vents
- 2x Stomping Ground
- 1x Sulfur Falls
- 1x Swamp
- 1x Temple of Abandon
- 4x Temple of Epiphany
- 2x Tolaria West
- 4x Wooded Foothills
Creature (6)
Instant (4)
Sideboard
Sorcery (6)
Instant (5)
Maybeboard
Sorcery (1)
In the middle of the afternoon on a particular sunny day, the ground shook.
A man in the meadow that had stumbled, stood back up and wonder what caused this tumultuous feeling. So he went to the lake to try and find an explanation. He asked a Frog with powerful legs if they knew anything, the Frog said that he had been swimming all day and a large wave on the lake pushed him to shore, but he did not feel the ground shake. He asked a Swan with graceful wings if they knew anything, the Swan said that he had been flying all morning and a swarm of insects flew up from the meadow and caused him to stop briefly at this lake, but he did not feel the ground shake. Perplexed, he had no one else to go to. He asked the Frog and Swan to meet and help him learn of what the cause was and if it could happen again. The Frog said no, the Swan will surely eat me. The Swan said no the Frog will surely poison me. The man told the Frog that your legs are much more powerful than the Swan could handle, you can surely kick your way free if he tries to eat you. The man told the Swan that your wings are very graceful and he could surely fly and flee if the Frog tried to poison you. Convincing them both to meet to understand the tremor, upon meeting the Swan ate the Frog, and fly away, then soon after fell from the sky. The ground shook. The man went to search for the Swan. When he found it he asked the Swan why it at the Frog, the swan replied that it didn't know what else to do, it's entire life it has only known to eat and fly. It then passed away from poisoning.
The man still did not know where the shaking was coming from. So he went to find a Frog with the most powerful legs, and a Swan with the most graceful wings he could find.
Original writing by Dorotheus.
The idea of the deck is extremely simple Seismic Assault while you control Swans of Bryn Argoll at Swans until you can get 10 lands in hand and then at your opponent. Or The Gitrog Monster with Dakmor Salvage and at least 20 cards in your library.
Card choices:
Laboratory Maniac - Alternate win-condition to the deck when drawing out the deck, it's here as an out, but is not to usually be focused on, but it is to not be discarded if you can ever help it.
Swans of Bryn Argoll - This is the popular combo piece of the deck, it's protective to your life total, and is how the deck draws it's cards to win. by targeting Swans with Seismic Assault, or
Molten Vortex
we can 'cycle' a land and draw an extra card per cycle. When there are 10 other lands in hand when you stack these effects, you should win.
The Gitrog Monster - ALL HAIL THE GITROG - The most difficult idea about including this card was that it makes the deck a 4 color one, where it was not before (but I think Swans with at least Grixis colors is correct) While not technically as safe as Swans, Frog lets us basically use Seismic Assault as a way to do 2 damage per cycle guarenteed, and if there is at least the number of cards in the deck equal to your opponent's life total, Gitrog, Assault, and Dakmor Salvage is a win. Potentially extremely important to note is that when you activate ANY ability that puts a land in your yard (Fetch land, Vortex, Assault) you WILL draw a card from Gitrog before that ability has a chance to resolve, this is not stackable. The reason this is important is because the person playing the deck CAN benefit more if they try to resolve a fetch first before the draw, do not let a person playing this deck get that advantage, it's incorrect, and call judge if neccessary, even in a casual LGS. Likewise, the person playing this deck DOES draw the card first before Vortex's and Assault's damage can resolve, meaning they could throw a lot of damage on the stack before any of it even resolves, and this is allowed.
Day's Undoing - This could just be a simple restart button to refill your hand, keep things from your opponent out of their yard, put your yard back into your deck. Used aggressively if you have Seismic Assault (but not Vortex) out and throw all the lands from your hand directly at your opponent or wipe a board, you could potentially just refill your hand of maybe more lands, and end the game on your opponent's upkeep. I could see a reason to run another, or two.
Molten Vortex
- This is the back-up to Seismic Assault, while we have to pay red to activate it, instead of no mana, and it's obviously slower, it can still slowly win the game, but does back-up Assault and the plan of the deck, just redundancy.
Flame Jab
- Simply should be another Molten Vortex, but I currently only have the one. You CAN still win with this, Gitrog, and Dakmor Salvage if you have 2 times the amount of cards in your deck than your opponent's life total, the upside is, it doesn't have to stay in play like Molten Vortex, but doesn't do 2 damage, only 1, and is susceptible graveyard hate.
Reliquary Tower - makes it so you don't have to discard while on the Hunt + Lightning Storm plan or just to keep more cards in hand at any point.
Treasure Hunt - at worst it cycles itself, at it's best it's an over-full hand of ammunition, that finds a piece of the deck. Having a Reliquary Tower out or ready to play after a Hunt is optimal, we don't want ot discard cards at the endstep to hand size.
Lightning Bolt - Bolt is Bolt is Bolt. Here it's removal, potential damage to the opponent for lethal, but most importantly it's 1 mana draw 3 cards when targeting Swans, so we have more of a reason technically to run Bolt over Fatal Push, or Path to Exile.
Lightning Storm - This card is extremely important, as we can have the deck be purely on this mode, most of the time for backup if need be. This is our real 5th Seismic Assault, the card has more potential to win the game, it also takes more set-up, but does also do just 3 damage for 3 mana, by itself (not that you want to). "When you cast Lightning Storm, you immediately have a chance to activate its ability since youll have priority. If you dont, and all other players pass, the spell will resolve. You wont receive priority again -- and thus wont get another chance to activate its ability -- unless someone else activates Lightning Storms activated ability, casts some other spell, or activates some other ability."
Halimar Depths - Blue tapping 'spell' land that gives information, better in grindy match ups, but does what it says and that's it.
Kessig Wolf Run - A colorless tapping 'spell' land that only gives an out if we can keep playing lands without comboing, but also having a creature, makes Gitrog's deathtouch more relevant, but not a land we usually want to play because of the lack of color. Not required.
Temple of Epiphany and Scry Lands - I believe the deck needs at least 3 but 4 of these in total is enough, they are best on turns 1 and 2, but that simple scry can give a lot of information while fixing mana colors.
Tolaria West - A tapped blue tapping 'spell' land. This can go and get one of the spell lands we might want, while being a blue land tapped on turn 3 if we need to set up Swans' blue mana requirement by turn 4. You can use it as a fetch, or sorts, or get a 1-of Pact of Negation from the deck also
Adding SB explanations soon.
Some things to consider:
An increase in Lightning Storm over
Molten Vortex
or other non-combo pieces.
An increase in Day's Undoing for the same considerations.
Goryo's Vengeace and Boborygmos Enraged as tie-ins to the Seismic Assault and The Gitrog Monster side of the deck.
Treasure Hunt and Reliquary Tower are POWERFUL together and easily underestimated, but still easily succumb to variance (I think there is a modern Lands deck because of this that no one has explored, still unsure).
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| Top Ranked |
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| Date added | 7 years |
| Last updated | 7 years |
| Exclude colors | W |
| Splash colors | BG |
| Legality | This deck is Modern legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 2 - 0 Mythic Rares 37 - 10 Rares 10 - 3 Uncommons 5 - 2 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.95 |
| Tokens | Worm 1/1 BG, Zombie 2/2 B |
| Folders | Dorotheus's Modern, Extraplanar Bibliography, Kewl |
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