The core of the deck consists of
Street Wraith
,
Desert Cerodon
,
Horror of the Broken Lands
and
Monstrous Carabid
as creatures you will usually use to kill your opponents with and cycle to find the combo, so get used to these Silent Hill looking assholes. I'll personally give you a gold star if you can break a board stall using
Street Wraith + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
. Naturally,
Living End
,
Violent Outburst
and
Demonic Dread
are cards that are also core to the deck functioning. None of these cards should be boarded out except maybe a
Demonic Dread
or two against a match up like Storm or KCI where creatures likely won't be on the field in a meaningful manner.
Beast Within
almost makes the cut as a core card due to the fact that it is a catch-all answer to every permanent in Modern, but is a bit too slow and the 3/3 Beast drawback can be significant if we don't follow up with a
Living End + Violent Outburst
the following turn. Because of this, while it may be justifiable to board it out I typically only do so in very rare circumstances such as in games against 8-Whack or Infect where a 3 mana kill spell may not be relevant. The cards where actual choices are made in deck building are
Archfiend of Ifnir
,
Faerie Macabre
,
Fulminator Mage
and
Simian Spirit Guide
. The
Archfiend of Ifnir
is fantastic against creature aggro decks which Living End in the past has struggled with and provides extra value out of our cycling synergy, and while the cycling cost is a bit slow comparatively getting one down against Humans or Spirits almost guarantees a win. However, against decks not trying to go wide this card can be lackluster and is boarded out as a result. In the same vein,
Faerie Macabre
is one of the strongest cards in the deck due to the fact that it is main deck graveyard hate that synergizes with
Archfiend of Ifnir
and
Horror of the Broken Lands
while at worst being a free 2/2 Flier we can pitch at any time without our opponent being able to respond.
Faerie Macabre
is in a similar category to the previously discussed
Beast Within
in that I rarely side them out even against decks not using the graveyard, as it can make the 2nd or 3rd Living End stronger by removing creatures already in the graveyard and it allows us to play against graveyard hate better by providing a creature we can cast in the face of a
Rest in Peace
, exiling a card from our own graveyard to fizzle a
Surgical Extraction
or can still provide value by discarding after a
Relic of Progenitus
resolves.
Fulminator Mage
and
Simian Spirit Guide
are the weakest cards in the deck, and while the Spirit Guide is still valuable most of the time as a way to Cascade early if needed (Those Hollow Ones ain't going to remove themselves), cycle an extra creature or post board cast a surprise Ricochet Traps Fulminator is lackluster in my play experience. While the double
Stone Rain
effect
Fulminator Mage
provides is pretty good against midrange decks, Tron and Valakut it is incredibly bad against aggro decks that don't care about their lands such as Humans, Spirits, Death's Shadow, Dredge, and Phoenix just to name a few. Because of that, I like it at 2 simply because it makes sideboarding it out easy in those match ups and the cyclers in the deck help us find them in the slower match ups. Fulminator Mage is typically the first card I cut when sideboarding, followed by Archfiend of Ifnirs and possibly some Spirit Guides if the match up is a slow deck that isn't Blue.
