Despite metagames being shaped with frivolous hours of testing, there are still decks that triumphantly break the mold and make appearances in larger events. Whether these are one-hit wonders or sleeping monsters is a different argument but, either way, a really interesting Modern deck has recently appeared in an online challenge.
Song of Creation has created mischief before. The $1 card has appeared in Legacy Storm and is capable of drawing your entire deck in one turn. It appears that the card has also now appeared in Modern, and threatens to do the exact same thing.
Amulet Ascending Infinitely
Amulet of Vigor decks aren’t an uncommon sight in the Modern format. Before the ban of Nadu, Winged Wisdom, they were nonexistent for a while. There was not really a point in playing Amulet when Nadu was strictly better. Now that Nadu is gone, Amulet of Vigor decks are starting to reappear. This one didn’t have the best result, but it looks incredibly fun to play!
This deck wants to do exactly three things: play lands, untap them, and draw cards. Your entire deck is card draw, extra land drops, and Amulet of Vigor to untap the lands you play. Play your Song of Creation with an Amulet of Vigor, draw your entire deck, and then Wish for Thassa’s Oracle to win the game.
Explore, Escape to the Wilds, and Growth Spiral draw cards and play more lands. With an Amulet of Vigor in play, all of these cards basically become free draw spells. Song of Creation turns one draw into three draws. Suddenly, you’ll keep drawing into more free cards that draw more cards.
There is a major benefit to bringing a deck like this to an event: it’s unusual. Creature removal does nothing against your deck, which means that more traditional strategies will have a lot of dead cards against your deck. This also allows you to bypass board stalls that traditional decks are more used to fighting.
While the engine is powerful and incredibly explosive, it’s also very fragile. Should your Amulet of Vigors get dealt with, or your Song of Creation fails to resolve, your other cards will simply keep drawing cards and playing lands. That said, you won’t get close to winning the game until your library is empty. The potential is definitely there, but some adjustments need to be made.
Combating Interaction
Assuming you can outspeed your opponent’s threats, which is a requirement for a deck like this, the next step is to focus on what can stop you. Counterspells and effects that interact with your win conditions are the things that stop your deck. Storm hate, like Damping Sphere and Deafening Silence, alongside nonbasic land hate, like Blood Moon and Harbinger of the Seas, will give you some issues.
This list has a lot of answers to counterspells. Between Veil of Summer, Pact of Negation, and Swan Song in your sideboard, this deck is very well prepared to deal with that form of interaction. Two Force of Vigor are also fantastic options to deal with enchantment and artifact-based hate. While there are good plans for these pieces of interaction, it can be tough to deal with resolved pieces of interaction that stop your plans that aren’t artifacts or enchantments.
Magebane Lizard, for example, is a common piece of interaction for Ruby Storm that could cause this deck problems. Should that card resolve, you only have four total pieces of interaction that can deal with it, and two of them are Otawara, Soaring City, which are rather expensive for four mana. Into the Flood Maw and Echoing Truth are your other two options for bouncing resolved hate pieces.
What do We Think?
This deck’s viability is almost entirely based on how fast it can do its thing. We doubt that this is a faster and more consistent option than established decks like Ruby Storm and Twiddlestorm. This deck does get Force of Negation to try and interact with those decks, but unless you only need to buy one turn to do your thing, that is probably a losing battle.
This deck also seems pretty one-dimensional, and needing to resolve a four-mana enchantment to win the game is a risky gambit. Not only that, but you need immediate follow-up, or else Song of Creation will decimate your hand.
This is definitely a fun option, and Storm enjoyers who want to take massive turns should give this a try. There could be some real potential here if the deck is more consistent than other Amulet of Vigor decks.
Read More: New Five Color Duskmourn Legend Baffles MTG Players
