Living Lore in Cruel Control
Modern forum
Posted on April 3, 2015, 10:04 p.m. by square711
First of all, I apologize if this has already been suggested/discussed before.
So, all the talk about the current state of Grixis control in Modern made me think of this. We all know Cruel Ultimatum is the bread and butter of any BUR deck, but it's also notorious for the ridiculous mana cost that makes it nearly unplayable in a format that's known for its fast pace and prevalence of <= 3 CMC spells.
Now, let's look at Living Lore. It costs 
to play, which is no big deal for any control deck that's worth a damn. It exiles a spell in your graveyard and makes its CMC its power / toughness, meaning if you exile a Cruel Ultimatum with it, you're looking at a 7/7 creature for 4 mana! And assuming you can get it to land a clean hit at any given time, you get a free Cruel Ultimatum! I repeat, it's a 7/7 AND a potential free Cruel Ultimatum for 4 mana!
Getting Cruel Ultimatum into the graveyard should be easy, between Liliana of the Veil and all the R/B loot spells such as Izzet Charm and Faithless Looting. The hardest part is landing a hit with Living Lore so you can sacrifice it, but some flashbacked Artful Dodges and/or Distortion Strikes should do the job. And hell, even if you don't want to waste precious space with these cards and someone chump blocks you all day, this is still an un-Lightning Bolt-able, un-Abrupt Decay-able, un-Dismember-able, un-Combust-able 4-drop that hits for 7! That can't be bad, can it?
(I know, I know, it dies to Path to Exile. But counterspell backup exists for that. Abrupt Decay and Combust are what really worries me.)
So... thoughts? Could this be the final push needed to bring Cruel Control back to relevance? Or am I the only one who's excited as hell about this card?
You are not the only one. In fact Travis Woo had a very similar idea. Link can be found Here
April 3, 2015 10:11 p.m.
EridanWwins says... #4
Also Travis Woo wrote an article about this: Brewing With Living Lore
April 3, 2015 10:11 p.m.
Wait... I just noticed the text doesn't even say "deals combat damage to a player", just "deals combat damage". So, you can sacrifice it even if it gets chump blocked. YOU DON'T EVEN NEED ARTFUL DODGE!
April 3, 2015 10:12 p.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #6
Firstly, doesn't die to Abrupt Decay or Combust if you're exiling a Cruel Ultimatum.
Secondly, the amount of build-around you suggested is why it shouldn't be in the deck. If you have to play Faithless Looting and Izzet Charm in your control deck, you're missing out on counterspells, removal and card advantage tools just to play a fragile card that may or may not pay off. The unblockable cards are nowhere near what a control deck wants.
On the other hand, if you build your deck around this card, it could be fun. Try it out. You may also want some discard spells or protection effects to take away any removal/counterspells from your opponents.
April 3, 2015 10:13 p.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #7
Oh, yeah, you have to sacrifice it so you only get to cast Cruel Ultimatum once. It's far from game winning.
April 3, 2015 10:14 p.m.
You don't need to worry about Abrupt Decay since it only hits cmc or lower. You don't have to Artful Dodge it, but why pass up smashing in for 7?
April 3, 2015 10:17 p.m.
I was actually playing around with this as a build around idea (focused on making sure I had cards worth exiling to living lore) and it's a pretty fun time. I haven't made the deck public, but I'll toss it on my profile in case you're interested. Definitely not a finished product, but...
April 3, 2015 10:19 p.m.
Eh, I think I didn't express myself properly. I said the paragraph before that it's "un-Abrupt Decay-able and un-Combust-able". When I said these two cards "worry me", I meant that they would be good reasons to maybe not want to run Living Lore, but since they can't hit it, Path to Exile alone isn't enough for me to give up on the idea.
April 3, 2015 10:20 p.m.
GlistenerAgent I won't argue for its game winningness, especially in a competitive realm, but you do get multiple casts... You swing in, then sac Living Lore, cast Cruel Ultimatum, return Living Lore to your hand as part of the ultimatum and then recast, exiling ultimatum again... You get to cast it once per turn until you can't do combat damage with Living Lore and have it survive to be sacrificed...
April 3, 2015 10:25 p.m.
GlistenerAgent: well, for what it's worth, I always ran Izzet Charm on my Cruel Control decks anyway. It won't be there just for the looting, it's a versatile card that does a lot of work in any control deck thanks to its versatility. And since I just realized Living Lore is even MORE broken than I initially thought, I won't have to waste any deck space with Distortion Strikes and stuff.
Also, as Travis Woo explains on the article tooTimid linked, you can get Living Lore back into your hand with Cruel Ultimatum - yeah, the same one you sacrificed, because it hits the graveyard before the Ultimatum resolves.
April 3, 2015 10:26 p.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #13
Yeah, noticed that. Doesn't have haste though, and if your opponent is doing anything at all you might be in trouble. :)
April 3, 2015 10:26 p.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #14
Izzet Charm shouldn't be in your control deck. There are too many better cards.
April 3, 2015 10:27 p.m.
Definitely fragile, GlistenerAgent. You'll get no argument from me there.
April 3, 2015 10:30 p.m.
Izzet Charm isn't particularly great at anything it does, but it does a whole lot of stuff for one card. The versatility of the RTR charms is terribly underrated.
April 3, 2015 10:30 p.m.
And while I won't disagree that it's not the strongest card ever printed or that it's not a guaranteed win once it hits the board, I do believe it's far from fragile. I mean, so what if it doesn't have haste? Tarmogoyf doesn't either, and this is much harder to kill than Goyf. When a creature doesn't die to 90% of the relevant killspells in a format, "fragile" isn't exactly the word I'd use to describe it.
Again, it may not be something that defines the format for years to come, but the "dies to removal" argument holds a lot less value here than it usually does.
April 3, 2015 10:34 p.m.
Why not just exile a Searing Wind? Because that would be just ridiculous... like living in Magical Christmas Land.
April 4, 2015 12:31 a.m.
Oh my god I just realized that Living Lore looks like something straight out of Journey. That's so cool.
April 4, 2015 12:32 a.m.
CharlesMandore says... #20
That point before last is good. However, this is a combo that requires quite a few things to happen. I think that's what people are hesitant about (Has this been addressed already?). Under- standably it'll probably work the first time, but they'll find a way to work around it the next time, or side in for games two and three. At this point trying to protect it sounds like an investment that could be easily dealt with games two and three. Why would anyone want to create a scenario like that in a competitive sense? From a casual standpoint you make a great argument, in my opinion. From a competitive view... I guess this is why it's in the forums. It needs to be tested out against the meta. The best steel is forged under the hottest fire. It'll work... or it won't. You don't want a "maybe" like this in your deck, that's "fragile" in an odd sort of way. Before this debate should continue I think the card needs to be tested because it's so fringy.
April 4, 2015 3:25 a.m.
Meh. It relies on another card being present in your graveyard. No graveyard ant it's a dead card. Don't gve your deck that vulnerability.
EridanWwins says... #2
Note: Living Lore reads "Whenever it deals combat damage" it doesn't have to be to a player. If they chump it, you can still sac it for a free whatever spell you've got.
April 3, 2015 10:09 p.m.