How to use Living End
Modern Deck Help forum
Posted on July 8, 2015, 8:12 p.m. by 8vomit
I just got a Living End deck together, and I understand how the combo works, but im still a little confused on how to pilot it. Do you basically just cycle until you have enough in the yard to just win? How do the first...say 5 turns go for the deck?
So please help me out, you living end pros out there. Im really not much of a combo player, but the deck seems interesting so I wanted yo build it.
Thanks for looking!
That's basically it. Nothing is below CMC besides LE, so when you just cycle until you get a massive and a Cascade card in your hand, and then it until you hit LE. Bam.
There might be more to it, but that's basically it.
July 8, 2015 8:26 p.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #4
There's play to it. You want to make sure that your opponent will have a hard time disrupting your plan via counterspells, and so look for a window where you can overload their counterspells or catch them tapped out.
Don't just mindlessly cycle everything. Sometimes hardcasting a creature can be good to get some pressure going if you haven't found your cascade card yet.
Suspending Living End is totally fine. If you draw one, consider suspending it if you don't have much else going on.
July 8, 2015 8:29 p.m.
Dont you have to suspend it? isnt that the only way to cast the card?
July 8, 2015 8:33 p.m.
I forgot to add the 3 after CMC, but the rest is the same.
July 8, 2015 8:58 p.m.
MADMatt7777 says... #9
try to always cycle at the end of your opponents turn unless you are trying to dig for a land to play during your tun. This helps leave mana open so that you can cast your kill spells like Beast Within and Dismember.
July 8, 2015 9:56 p.m.
I recently Top 8'd with it, so I can say I know how to play the deck. I'll offer up what I can :).
Basically, you go turn 1 cycle, turn 2 cycle and cycle. Turn 3, you can honestly just slam a Violent Outburst or Demonic Dread and assemble a board presence. Remember to only cycle at end of turn, to represent removal mana. When you cast the cascade card, depends on what you cycled and what deck your opponent is playing. You can just go turn 3 cascade against control to keep putting on as much pressure as you can. Against decks like... Zoo or Jund, maybe wait a while until your opponent assembles a board presence, so you can just go and wipe their board while adding a few creatures of your own to the board.
There are some cute things people usually don't realize when playing the deck. For one, playing a cascade card just to wipe the opponent's board isn't the worst thing to be doing. Like, if they played Rest in Peace and your graveyard does basically nothing, then its okay to just wipe their board.
Another thing, don't just concede if you see a Rest in Peace or some other kind of graveyard hate. You usually don't want to be playing 4/4's for 5 mana and the like, but remember, It is a 4/4. It blocks a lot in the format, doesn't die to Lightning Bolt, and can put up a fight.
This doesn't come up often, but the spells you use to cascade into Living End have actual abilities. Crazy right? And cascade says "you may cast this spell". May is the key word. Like I said, it doesn't come up often but you can use Demonic Dread to say a creature cant block to push through and deliver the killing blow. You can play Violent Outburst and buff all your dudes and push through a lot of damage. Just keep in mind, you still have to trigger cascade.
Something people don't realize at first glance, is that cascade happens no matter what. Counter the Violent Outburst/Demonic Dread? You still trigger cascade.
Lastly, keep in mind that cascade ignores sorcery/instant. Violent Outburst is instant speed, while Living End is sorcery. Who cares? Let the opponent over extend or end of turn tap out. Just instant speed play the cascade card.
So yeah... I rambled on way longer than I needed to, and I bet a lot of this you guys already knew. But I thought I would give you information about what I knew about the deck and all the mechanics. Sorry this is so long, and I gave way more information than I needed to. Hope this helps!
July 9, 2015 12:43 a.m.
JexInfinite says... #11
If you watch LSV's videos on it, you should get a good enough idea of how to play it. It's hard to explain exactly how to play a deck, but the best advise I can give is: don't get greedy, and always play it out. The deck is pretty quick, and you'll either win quick, or lose quick, however, there are many times when you'll find yourself using Living End as a 3 mana Wrath, and hard casting Deadshot Minotaurs.
July 9, 2015 4:48 a.m.
ModernCentralPublic says... #12
I've been playing living end for over 2 years now, I've played over 150 games with it in live tournaments and even placed top 100 at a GP. In otherwords, I am a fairly credible source.
The number one piece of advice I can give you is never keep a 1 land hand unless you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO! Especially against aggro. If you are facing jund on the draw, then sure, keep a 1 land hand, but NEVER against affinity. 2 lands and a land cycler is optimal, 1 land + 1 spirit guide + 1 land cycler is also acceptable.
Aside from that, just practice. There are a lot of things you can do with the deck and its best to figure them out. Beast withinning your own land to get a 3/3 is a great combat trick, and at least 20% of my games are won off of surprise Violent Outburst without casting living end, the added boost to damage is very important and people never take it into account.
July 9, 2015 2:16 p.m.
ModernCentralPublic says... #13
Oh yeah, I forgot something really important. If you find yourself facing down the barrel of some serious graveyard hate, sometimes its better to just abandon the graveyard plan and use your creatures as they were intended via hard casting. A 3 mana instant speed wrath effect is very powerful from the standpoint of controller aggro/midrange.
Additionally, bringing in 1 ingot chewer vs almost any matchup is probably a good idea because almost every deck has at least 1 artifact you don't want them to have, and it really isn't much of a dead draw considering you can evoke it for the same cost as a cycler. For living end, you don't need to worry at all about card advantage. It has the best card advantage of any deck in the format, you are literally 6-for-1'ing your opponent minimum whenever you cast living end, thats why BGx has a problem dealing with it.
wakawakawaka says... #2
I dont really have any experience with living end but here's my two cents.
think of living end not as a combo deck but as a deck that has access to 8 3cmc uber-boardwipes (4 of which are instant speed) that puts a bunch of beefy creatures onto the battlefield.
in other words you dont need lethal in your yard. Crack living end if things are getting hairy or you need to put your opponent on a clock, aka use living end when its smart.
July 8, 2015 8:25 p.m.