Following a series of Regional Championships this past weekend, it’s become crystal clear that Modern is a rather hostile environment. Breach is incredibly dominant and holds a lot of other strategies back.
What’s interesting, though, is this hasn’t stopped some players from having success with unique archetypes. From Colorless Eldrazi to Gruul Bogles, we’ve seen a number of different decks post good results in the past few days.
Today, we have yet another sweet decklist to share. This Golgari control shell abuses a two-card combination of lands to get ahead on mana, all while keeping the opponent off-balance with tons of interaction. A Companion that sees almost no competitive play makes an appearance here, too. Let’s see what this deck is all about.
A Two-Card Synergy
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Card Type: Land
- MTG Sets: Torment, Planechase, Modern Horizons 2, Tales of Middle-earth Commander
- Card Text: 2, Tap: Add B for each Swamp you control.
In order for this strategy to gain a mana advantage, you need to find two specific lands: Urborg Tomb of Yawgmoth and Cabal Coffers. These two lands synergize perfectly with each other.
Urborg turns all of your lands into Swamps, including Cabal Coffers itself. So, once you have three lands total lands in play, activating Cabal Coffers will keep you even on mana. Each land you play beyond the third will net you additional black mana per activation that, as we will see later, can be used to cast some pretty gnarly sorceries.
Given this deck’s reliance on Urborg and Cabal Coffers, you’ll find multiple ways to tutor up your missing piece. Sylvan Scrying is a perfect land tutor that can be cast on the cheap.
Profane Tutor is a bit delayed, but gets the job done, nonetheless. Of course, once you have your lands online, Profane Tutor can grab one of many potent one-ofs to swing the game in your favor.
Pillage the Bog isn’t quite as reliable but still digs for your most important tools. Even Dark Petition shows up here, though chances are, you’ll want to have Urborg and Cabal Coffers lined up already and use Dark Petition to grab something else.
Interaction
- Mana Value: B
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Card Type: Sorcery
- MTG Sets: The Brother’s War
- Card Text: Target opponent reveals their hand. You choose an artifact or creature card from it, then choose an artifact or creature card from their graveyard. Exile the chosen cards.
To help stave off early pressure and disrupt your opponent’s combos, you need to make impactful plays during the first few turns of the game. Modern is fast enough that spending three turns assembling your mana won’t go over well.
So, this deck has three primary interactive elements to play for one mana. First, we have Inquisition of Kozilek. Inquisition may be a bit restrictive in what it can take, but usually you’ll be able to nab something important. Inquisition takes pretty much every card you care about versus Grinding Breach and Boros Energy.
Next, we have Dreams of Steel and Oil. Dreams can’t select Underworld Breach or Counterspells, but it makes up for that by getting rid of big threats like Primeval Titan. The exile effect comes in handy versus Unearth decks or decks with Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury. Beyond exiling a card from your opponent’s hand, you also get to exile any relevant creatures in your opponent’s graveyard as a bonus.
Lastly, we have Bloodchief’s Thirst. Bloodchief’s Thirst is a fine but rather unexciting removal spell. At first, you might be confused as to why Fatal Push doesn’t take this spot. However, if you’ve noticed, every spell in the deck is a sorcery. This enables you to play Umori, the Collector as your Companion! Seeing Umori succeed is a rarity, but the big body and sorcery discount can come in handy in long games.
One-Ofs
- Mana Value: XBB
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Type: Sorcery
- MTG Sets: Hour of Devestation
- Card Text: Repeat the following process X times. Each opponent loses 3 life unless that player sacrifices a nonland permanent or discards a card.
One of the nice things about playing a deck with so many tutors is that you can play a multitude of one-ofs that are good in different situations. As you continue to develop your mana, a range of different cards become appealing.
Versus Boros Energy, board wipes like Damnation work wonders. Path of Peril is nice in the matchup as well, especially because it’s a board wipe you can tutor for with Dark Petition and cast right away, assuming spell mastery is online.
Against Orzhov blink, Shadow’s Verdict answers sticky threats like Ketramose, the New Dawn that typical board wipes don’t hit. Against artifact decks, Gaze of Granite can blow up a ton of permanents at once.
Outside of board wipes, mass discard spells like Mind Sludge have appeal when facing ramp decks. If you can land Mind Sludge before your opponent is able to stick a big threat, you get a huge advantage.
As you continue to hit your land drops, at some point, Torment of Hailfire can end the game by itself. For a deck with nothing but sorceries, it’s nice to have a one-card win condition.
Once you gain access to sideboard cards, some silver bullet hate pieces become available as well. Break the Ice as well as Shatter Assumptions have the potential to send Eldrazi decks back to the Stone Age. Gaea’s Blessing makes beating Mill much more realistic, while Necromentia does the same in the Belcher matchup.
With all these unique tools, it’s hard to feel like you don’t at least have a shot against Modern’s top decks. Golgari Coffers is certainly slow, and land destruction is difficult to fight through. As long as you keep your head above water, your tutors and extra mana do give you inevitability, though. This deck looks really cool, and we’re excited to see if it continues to succeed.