Now that TMNT is out in the MTG wilds, we’re starting to get a sense of the impact the set will have on constructed Magic. For the most part it’s slow going so far, with no fully new archetypes emerging as we saw with Avatar and Lorwyn Eclipsed. That said, one humble common from the set, Sewer-veillance Cam, is actually seeing testing in some spicy combo brews in Modern. While these decks are far from dominant right now, the potential here is off the charts.
Sewer-veillance Cam Combo In MTG Modern
To pull off the new Sewer-veillance Cam combo in Modern, you’ll need four things. These are Cam itself, Emry, Lurker of the Loch, Grinding Station, and either Mox Amber or Mox Opal.
With all the pieces in play, you can start things off by sacrificing Sewer-veillance Cam to Grinding Station, milling your opponent for three. Next, tap Emry to re-cast it from the ‘yard, tapping your Mox to pay the one blue cost. When Cam re-enters, use it to untap Emry, and untap Grinding Station with its own effect.
From here, you can tap Grinding Station to sacrifice your Mox, then tap Emry to immediately re-cast it, untapping Station. You can then tap Station to sacrifice Cam, untapping Emry with the leaves trigger, and repeat the entire process again from the start. This will let you mill out your opponent’s entire deck, resulting in an immediate win.
While this is a four-card combo, you can pull it off incredibly early in the game. With Mox Opal and a couple of cheap artifacts, you can get Emry down on turn one. This will get you to the three mana required to drop Sewer-veillance Cam and Grinding Station on two, at which point you can combo off immediately.
At this rate, this new combo is similar to the old Grinding Breach lines that ultimately got Underworld Breach banned in Modern. While the combo does need more pieces to work, many of the cards are already decent in a vacuum. Emry is a remove-on-sight value engine, and Sewer-veillance Cam can tap crucial cards like Primeval Titan while using extra Mox mana to draw cards.
Decklists And Drawbacks
While the new Sewer-veillance Cam combo is powerful in theory, so far it hasn’t put on the strongest showing in Modern. It has seen scattered play in the format, but its best result is a top 32 Challenge finish from DemonicTutors, in an Izzet Artifacts shell.
This list supports the core combo pieces with a classic Urza’s Saga shell. Saga can tutor up a Mox or Sewer-veillance Cam if you need them for the combo, but it can also nab a bunch of other tech cards, like Pithing Needle and Shadowspear. It can also grab fellow TMNT newcomer Skateboard, which gives Emry Haste if you need to combo off from hand on a later turn.
Saga package aside, this deck is all about grinding out value. Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student is as powerful as ever here, and it’s joined by Quantum Riddler and Urza, High Lord Artificer as higher-end value threats. If your combo plan fails, you can lean on these creatures, and the Karnstructs from Urza and Saga, to push for an on-board win.
Unfortunately, this is where the major weakness of this deck comes in. While this backup plan is solid, it’s not especially exciting in Modern. It likely loses out to other grindy decks like Jeskai Blink, and even other combo decks like Amulet Titan. This means you’ll want to pursue the combo most of the time, and the combo is, regrettably, quite fragile.
For a start, your opponent can shut the combo down pretty easily by simply removing Emry from the board. Any red removal spell can handle that, and you can’t win in response since you need to re-cast your Moxen from the ‘yard at sorcery speed. The deck also folds pretty hard to Vexing Bauble, and instant-speed graveyard hate like Thraben Charm.
Future Tech?
Just because the current shell for the Sewer-veillance Cam combo isn’t ideal, however, doesn’t mean we should write it off entirely. Any combo that can end games this quickly is worth pursuing, and there are some interesting alternate directions to take this one.
First and foremost, this combo could easily slot into the established Kethis Combo decks in Modern. These lists run all the combo pieces bar Sewer-veillance Cam already, so it isn’t much of a stretch to slot it in. The card even has some nice incidental synergy with Kethis staple Rona, Herald of Invasion, giving you extra digging power to find your combos.
The big advantage to running the Sewer-veillance Cam combo in Kethis decks is the extra resilience it offers. Kethis, the Hidden Hand can easily recur Emry if it gets removed, and the other combo lines in the deck provide more competitive game plans than grindy creature beatdown. You can even use Agatha’s Soul Cauldron, putting Emry under it, to go infinite with any creature.
While Kethis decks are a great fit for Sewer-veillance Cam in theory, so far, no one has tried the concept out. That could quickly change, however, and I think this particular combo is worth watching closely as the TMNT dust settles in the weeks to come.
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