Over the past couple months, Modern has felt relatively stale. The format is dominated by Boros Energy, to the point where a ban later in the year would not be surprising. It’s not super often you see a cool, innovative strategy put up an excellent result in a major event.
However, over the past few days, multiple archetypes actually fit the bill. Yesterday, we discussed the emergence of a sweet Jund Delirium deck meant to abuse the power of Omnivorous Flytrap. Today, we’re going to focus on a unique combo deck that managed to win a Magic Online Modern Challenge.
This deck perfectly utilizes Shifting Woodland to its advantage. While we’ve seen Shifting Woodland strategies pop up from time to time, even on Arena, this deck has a lot going on. Plus, its kill condition is very interesting. Let’s take a closer look at how the combo works.
Shifting Woodland and Infinite Spells
- Rarity: Rare
- MTG Sets: Modern Horizons 3
- Card Text: Shifting Woodland enters the battlefield tapped unless you control a Forest. Tap: Add G. Delirium– 2GG: Shifting Woodland becomes a copy of target permanent card in our graveyard until end of turn. Activate only if there are four or more card types among cards in your graveyard.
Your main goal for this deck is to use Shifting Woodland to copy Omniscience. As we will see later, there are plenty of ways to get Omniscience into your graveyard along with enough card types to activate Shifting Woodland.
From there, you need to dig for one of your copies of Karn, the Great Creator. From Preordain to The One Ring, there are tons of cards present that help you churn through your library. You can even use Traverse the Ulvenwald to tutor up a one-of Griselbrand to let you draw a boatload of cards at once (of course, Traverse also doubles as a way to find Shifting Woodland).
Once you have access to Karn, winning the game becomes trivial. You’ll start by grabbing Ancestral Statue. Ancestral Statue is a weird card, but it’s ability to bounce itself back to your hand when it enters is important here.
Thanks to Omniscience, you can keep replaying and bouncing Ancestral Statue repeatedly, building up your Storm count. After you’ve cast Ancestral Statue upwards of 50 times, you’ll play it one last time to bounce Karn. Now, replay Karn, grab Aetheflux Reservoir and cast it. Any spell you play from here on out will gain you 50+ life, allowing you to activate Aetherflux Reservoir and kill the opponent.
This is certainly a bit convoluted, but these cards present a way to win that’s reliable.
Supporting Cast
- Mana Value: 1UU
- Rarity: Rare
- MTG Sets: Modern Horizons 3
- Card Text: You may sacrifice a nontoken blue creature rather than pay this spell’s mana cost. Counter target spell.
Most of the rest of the deck is comprised of cards that help you reach your goal of getting Omniscience into the graveyard. At the top of the list, we have Malevolent Rumble.
Malevolent Rumble does everything you want. It puts a bunch of cards into the graveyard at once to fuel Delirium. It digs for Shifting Woodland. You even get an Eldrazi Spawn out of the deal, which can be sacrificed for mana to activate Shifting Woodland’s ability or slam The One Ring a turn early.
In addition to Malevolent Rumble, we have Fallaji Archaeologist and Oracle of Tragedy. Fallaji Archaeologist is definitely worse than Malevolent Rumble, as you can’t select Shifting Woodland with its ability. Still, both it and Oracle of Tragedy can clog up the ground while letting you set up Delirium all the same.
Most importantly, these cards also make Flare of Denial an excellent piece of disruption. Having access to a free Counterspell is obviously great against combo decks, but as a combo player yourself, you can use Flare of Denial proactively to push through The One Ring or Karn.
Even without free tools like Mishra’s Bauble in the mix, this deck plays enough different card types that you’re bound to get Delirium naturally. Omniscience is an enchantment. The One Ring is an artifact. You have two blue two-drop creatures, multiple instants and sorceries, and some Fetchlands to round things out. This deck may look just like a pile of cards, but the deck is surprisingly well-crafted.
An Impressive Win
- Mana Value: 4
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- MTG Sets: The Lorde of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth
- Card Text: Indestructible. When The One Ring enters the battlefield, if you cast it, you gain protection from everything until your next turn. At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life for each burden counter on The One Ring. Tap: Put a burden counter on The One Ring, then draw a card for each burden counter on The One Ring.
It’s really cool to see such an off-the-wall strategy spike a big Modern event. This deck has the tools to compete in a variety of matchups. Flare helps protect you versus Ruby Storm’s fast starts. At the same time, your combo is decently fast and rather difficult to disrupt.
Shifting Woodland lines up perfectly against decks with lots of counter magic. Sure, the opponent can counter a payoff once you copy Omniscience, but with so many card draw spells at your disposal, one piece of interaction often isn’t enough.
What this deck does not want to see across the table is graveyard hate. Shifting Woodland is this deck’s main avenue to victory, and winning without being able to activate it is very difficult. There’s a reason Haywire Mite and Into the Flood Maw appear in the sideboard.
Beyond that, Surgical Extraction effects are devastating. Luckily, there isn’t much Dimir Mill running around these days. If you’re a fan of unusual combo decks, this Simic Shifting Woodland shell could be right up your alley.