So right now, I'd say my weakest cards are:


Main
2x Ancient Stirrings
1x Force of Vigor (won't be as needed thanks to Boseiju, Who Endures)


Side
2x Hokori, Dust Drinker (not going to lie to myself - aggro heavy meta isn't the place for it)
1x Firespout

So if anyone does have any good suggestions, I do have the wiggle room to fit them in.

Abundant Harvest has been dope if you're looking for a similar effect

Yeah, I’ve considered it, but I tend to like Ancient Stirrings a little more in this shell. The main reason is I have diverse land and nonland categories which could be broken into further subcategories, of which I’m usually looking for something specific (Bounce land, finisher creature, extra land creature, amulet, answer/hate).

For example, with the stirrings I can pick a bounce land if that’s what I need. With Abundant Harvest, I’m stuck with whatever land I turn up first. It feels more like gambling, and I’m not much of a gambler.

There's always Elvish Reclaimer

I’m not really tied to the idea of the slot being a tutor, it can literally be anything that someone thinks will fit/help.

I’d like it to be a decent early play and not completely irrelevant lategame if possible. It doesn’t need to do that, I’m open to anything honestly.

That’s a decent idea, but I think it’s slightly worse late game for me, since it takes a turn to do anything relevant. If I had a consistent way to make it get the +2/+2, like for example Lotus Field it would be a better inclusion. Going to think about how I feel about it with that land as well.

I think I like the concept of The Gitrog Monster + Lotus Field + Elvish Reclaimer as a resource engine to convert my lands into cards. Just trying to figure out if it is better than what I already have. I'm probably going to include Elvish Reclaimer into my prison version of this deck though, as I already run The Gitrog Monster and Lotus Field in there.

A New Type of Amulet

Modern nbarry223

SCORE: 11 | 10 COMMENTS | 841 VIEWS | IN 2 FOLDERS

I decided to go a totally different route and give the deck another avenue of explosiveness, through Heartless Summoning. I had to change around my creatures a bit, and it surprisingly makes the control matches a lot better, so I was able to remove some of the fluff related to those.

I still need to go through and update the deck's description fully, as a lot of the references have changed (sideboarding section in particular). I can also have a lot more explosive opening hands now, and Amulet of Vigor is not nearly as necessary for my hand to be a "good" hand.

It's obviously a bad card late game, but the trade-off seems to be well worth it. I'm also looking at some wish options with "drawbacks" as a way to get rid of the Heartless Summoning, for example, things like Final Payment or Rite of Oblivion. I'm more interested in something actually playable without Heartless Summoning out, like Final Payment, but 5 life is a bit much for a conditional upside.

I think my weakest cards are now:

Main
Wayward Swordtooth (doesn't do much early)
Mosswort Bridge (significantly worse because of Heartless Summoning)
Wooded Bastion (sort of unneeded most of the time)

Side
Hokori, Dust Drinker


Also, surprisingly enough, my 5 card wish package of:

Abrupt Decay
Anguished Unmaking
Unmoored Ego
Culling Ritual
The Gitrog Monster

covers just about everything I need it to, so I can actually use the other slots to improve various matchups by siding things in.

I don't particularly need Slayers' Stronghold + Boros Garrison if I cut Mosswort Bridge either, since it is mainly there for an enabler of the bridge (vigilance is nice though) - so there's quite a few slots to play with and enough space to manafix for just about anything.

There's still plenty of room for potential improvements, and honestly I'd like to double up on an Unmoored Ego type of effect (Necromentia) and maybe run 2x Culling Ritual. However, targeted discard is just so brutal to face without the leylines. Veil of Summer could be an option I guess, but I generally prefer the leylines since I don't need the and they are still good going second instead of first, since they go into play immediately.

With Turntimber Symbiosis  ^Flip being a thing to artificially inflate CMC, Judge Unworthy may finally be worth it. I’ll have to revisit clash cards etc as well, because Pollen Lullaby was great even before I had 7 CMC lands.

Finally finished updating the deck’s description with all my recent swaps. I think the deck is a lot more consistent now as well (finding I mulligan less). I may do a few more land swaps, since there’s a few I find myself not needing.

So I did some math on Judge Unworthy in here, to see if it is worthy (if it wasn't only during the combat phase, I would probably include it simply for the scry 3 with conditional upside).

~39.1% chance to do 5+ damage within the scry 3
~63.9% chance to do 3+ damage within the scry 3

Then, ignoring what's in the scry and revealing whatever was after yields us:

~15% chance to do 5+ damage ~28.3% chance to do 3+ damage ~50% to do no damage

so that is not generally suggested. I think it could be considered for a slot, but it would basically be up against Pollen Lullaby or Dismember, which I think are both better respectively, due to either the flexible casting cost, or ability to stop swarms instead of just one creature.

I did swap out Nurturing Peatland for another Turntimber Symbiosis  ^Flip to help with Pollen Lullaby since I barely needed the card draw aspect and mainly used it for a green mana source. Most of the time, when I did use it for card draw, I was looking for a threat, which Turntimber Symbiosis  ^Flip has tacked onto the back when bounced with any bounceland, so that was a good upgrade.

I am so looking forward to Raffine's Tower to replace Zagoth Triome. It'll be super nice to be able to fetch all of my support colors with one land.

Should hopefully see some exciting multi-colored cards in the cycle as well, fingers crossed.

Yeah im thinking the same haha. It looks like the "gangs" in the new plane will be like the "schools" of strixhaven. Hopefully we will have all 10 color pairs, and it'll be more action than the multicolored cards kamigawa had to offer haha

How are you liking the Steppe? And I notice the big boys are back on your side, were they only changed out during the build experiments, like with Summoning?

I like Sejiri Steppe a lot, it works as instant speed protection with Sakura-Tribe Scout and can be bounced or copied for re-usability. It is a nice thing to make Primeval Titan unblockable, but it does more than that for the deck.

I usually have either Dragonlord Dromoka or Sigarda, Host of Herons in the side, but I had The Gitrog Monster in the side as a second copy as well for a bit, but found I really wanted a white cost instead of black, since I didn't always have the access to both colors - this was when I completely cut the other 2. So I added back Dragonlord Dromoka since he does more for me overall.

I really only need 1 multi colored creature in the side, but I found having a choice of abilities was nice, so I now have 2 options, thanks to trading out the Leyline of Sanctity for Veil of Summer gaving me the space to play with the sideboard slots a bit more.

I've also found that having a lower CMC creature which impacts the gamestate in some way (The Gitrog Monster) really helps when I don't have enough mana for a Primeval Titan, so I've also liked that change.

That makes sense on both counts, and I'm a little jealous haha. Why Quicksand over Eiganjo?

And no Sunhome? But what about the double strike?

I don't like how much mana investment it is for Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion. It is essentially 5 mana for it (sunhome+the activation cost), which means I could just cast another big threat or something. Sejiri Steppe and Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion fight for the same slot in my opinion, because the main use of Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion is to deter blockers, because you can pump so your Primeval Titan survives.

I like Quicksand more so far in playtesting mainly because it is less initial mana investment, and I don't need to keep it in hand to be useful. It can also be copied with Vesuva if I need the 4 "damage" that much. I don't think I am going to include either yet permanently, but it works well enough to be a viable option (they both are relatively fine). It's a useful utility land, but I'm trying to keep my colorless lands down. A lot of the threatening aggro creatures are 3 toughness or more, so it's not the greatest answer.

It's more for when I don't have any type of payoff fast enough and am getting swarmed, at which point setting myself back a land (whether in hand or on the field) is usually not ideal. It's a cute fetch and all, but I just feel there's better options currently. Honestly, if I am relying on fetching them, Arena is a removal option as well, which wouldn't be limited to the combat phase (better to wait to use it until after I've declared attacks obviously, but it doesn't require the target to be declared as a blocker).

Arena + Sejiri Steppe would have some nice synergy as well, so I guess I'll add it to my testing queue, although the fact that it doesn't produce mana on its own is probably a deal breaker, which is why I've never seriously considered it before.

Also - Sunhome is vulnerable to removal. I've had more than a few situations over the years where they wait for you to invest the mana to double strike, then just remove your Primeval Titan anyway. It's generally better to go for something conservative like Tolaria West instead of investing 5 mana into double strike and no protection/insurance. With that amount of mana, you can usually cast another titan in your second main (get a bounce instead of sunhome, making your theoretical 5 mana cost into 6 mana).

Actually, I could look at arena as more of a fetchable and conditional Dismember instead of a land, I think that makes more sense. I still like Dismember much better in theory since it isn't conditional and doesn't completely waste a land drop (without dryad or something similar), but I'll have to actually see how it fairs through playtesting.

Yeah I feel like that's the same reason I don't run the Gavony Township, 5 mana does seem a little bonkers.

And what? Arena is a card? That thing is crazy! I've never seen that card. I want it

Yeah, Arena saw some play with Phyrexian Obliterator and urborg to let it tap for black.

It was short lived, but was a solid line of play honestly.

Well I liked Arena enough to add it for now, with Lotus Field and Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth as support for it (one to make it fetchable removal, and the other to cover its liability of not tapping for mana on its own).

It's made my land slots super tight though, so any further swaps will probably lead to it getting cut.

Maybe Witherbloom Command to go with Lotus Field and The Gitrog Monster? Can work in main or side

Yeah, I've seen that card and thought it could possibly fit in here when I added The Gitrog Monster, I'm just not sure where I could possibly fit it. I compare it to Abrupt Decay which is better because it's wider, and an instant (actually really important).

Closest things I could see myself cutting on the side is Anguished Unmaking or Doomskar (maybe even Necromentia) as those are my most unused sideboard cards. I can't see it getting a mainboard slot, as I already struggled to fit in Arena. I'm not sure if it is better than any of those options. I don't see it being particularly useful against any specific decks either, so the way I would use it would be more of a maindeck flexslot probably, which I personally don't see the space for.

My biggest concern with it is that I can't really target myself with the first ability reliably, because if I mill at least one vital land it could potentially backfire if I don't have the land drop left for the turn. On that same note, it can be used as a way to dig for lands, which adds some potential lines of play.

I'll consider it and try to see if I can make room somewhere.

So Witherbloom Command just didn't feel right, it didn't do enough mainboard, and just couldn't fit side. I also ended up cutting Arena because it felt win-more and I ended up siding it out in a lot of matches. Instead of adding back Lotus Cobra, I went with another fetch, because I found they did a whole lot for me actually.

I still think Arena is a solid choice, it just needs a decent amount of support and doesn't do anything on its own. It's fairly comparable to Mosswort Bridge, but if I had to pick one (ignoring support cards) I'd definitely go with Mosswort Bridge because it does so much more for me.

I could see Arena as a sideboard card if I ran Lotus Field as that was enough support for it.

I'm also considering Mind Bend/Spectral Shift as some sneaky tech to change Blood Moon into forest moon, or even change Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle to work with Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth. If I go with Spectral Shift, I could combo it with Summoner's Pact to tutor for basically any creature (not sure if any non-green are that back-breaking). Veil of Summer would technically be a target as well, but I don't see that being worth it.

There's not much in the way of protection from green being played, because that would be the one coincidental upside, messing with opponents protections.

They probably aren't worth it, just figured I'd share in case it inspires anyone.