At this point, it’s no surprise that Monument to Endurance is making a big impact on multiple formats. From Jeskai discard decks in Standard to Esper Greasefang shells in Pioneer, Monument to Endurance has opened the door for some sweet innovative archetypes to make a splash.
Monument is even strong enough to show up in Modern. One particular forgotten archetype is now starting to put up solid results again with Monument in the picture. If you’re a fan of Asmo Food strategies, now’s your chance to sleeve the deck back up and give it a whirl.
An Old Idea
- Rarity: Rare
- Stats: 3/3
- Card Type: Legendary Creature- Human Wizard
- MTG Sets: Modern Horizons 2
- Card Text: As long as you’ve discarded a card this turn, you may pay B/R to cast this spell. When Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar enters the battlefield, you may search your library for a card named The Underworld Cookbook, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle. Sacrifice two Foods: Target creatures deals 6 damage to itself.
The main basis for this deck still revolves around a powerful set of cards that have largely fallen by the wayside. The goal is to maximize the power of Asmo, shown above. Asmo is a neat card that synergizes perfectly with The Underworld Cookbook, which Asmo conveniently searches up when it enters. However, in order to cast Asmo in the first place, you need a way to discard a card on the cheap.
Obviously, naturally drawing The Underworld Cookbook is a solid way to get started. Beyond that, Street Wraith gives you the opportunity to play Asmo as early as turn one. Faithless Looting is a strong discard outlet that you now have access to as well.
Once you get Asmo and The Underworld Cookbook in play, discarding cards to The Underworld Cookbook will net you Food tokens that you can use to remove opposing creatures thanks to Asmo’s final ability. Generally, discarding a card to make a Food is costly in resource battles. Fortunately, that’s where Ovalchase Daredevil works its way into the equation.
Anytime you discard Ovalchase Daredevil to The Underworld Cookbook, you get a Food for your efforts. Well, that Food entering triggers Ovalchase Daredevil, allowing you to return it from your graveyard back to your hand.
Unfortunately, as powerful as these synergies are, they are somewhat easy to disrupt. Asmo is a pretty easy card to kill with traditional removal. At the same time, The Underworld Cookbook’s Food generation isn’t all that exciting without Asmo in play. It’s super important for you to have other solid synergies lined up when Asmo isn’t running away with the game.
New Toys
- Mana Value: 3
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Type: Artifact
- MTG Sets: Aetherdrift
- Card Text: Whenever you discard a card, choose one that hasn’t been chosen this turn-
- Draw a card.
- Create a Treasure token.
- Each opponent loses 3 life.
The good news is that there are now a bunch of different ways to reward you for discarding cards. At the top of the list, we have the aforementioned Monument to Endurance.
Monument is an insane engine alongside The Underworld Cookbook and Ovalchase Daredevil. Every turn cycle, you get to generate card advantage or start forcing your opponent to lose life. The Underworld Cookbook works great in multiples in this scenario, too.
Another Aetherdrift addition that pairs perfectly with The Underworld Cookbook is Marauding Mako. Marauding Mako threatens to grow out of control rather quickly, so your opponent better have removal at the ready.
Inti, Seneschal of the Sun is another card that demands removal. Inti does everything you want. It’s a discard outlet to set up Asmo and fuel Monument. It generates card advantage itself alongside other discard outlets. Then, it can even give trample to your large Marauding Makos or Construct tokens created by Urza’s Saga.
Speaking of Urza’s Saga, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the artifact portion of the deck. All the Food production enables Urza’s Saga, Mox Opal, and Galvanic Blast quite nicely. Even if the opponent can answer your Marauding Makos and Intis on the spot, they still have to contend with huge Urza’s Saga tokens.
Versatility
- Mana Value: R
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Card Type: Creature – Shark Pirate
- MTG Sets: Aetherdrift
- Stats: 1/1
- Card Text: Whenever you discard one or more cards, put that many +1/+1 counters on this creature.
Cycling 2 (2, Discard this card: Draw a card.)
This versatility is really what gives the Asmo Food archetype hope moving forward. On the one hand, this deck is quite capable of aggressive starts. Marauding Mako, Asmo, and Inti can all pile on damage quickly, especially if you have Street Wraith in your opening hand. Add in Galvanic Blast as the ultimate burn spell and Mox Opal as an elite accelerant, and you’re in business.
However, unlike previous iterations of red Asmo Food decks, you have a much more robust long game with Monument and Urza’s Saga. Monument to Endurance can singlehandedly close games, even if you never connect in combat. In the face of Counterspells, Urza’s Saga can spit out enormous tokens.
Against combo decks, you’ll definitely want to lean on your ability to go fast. Asmo is capable of killing even Primeval Titan-sized creatures, which is a nice luxury to have. On the flip side, if you can contain Psychic Frog and sneak Monument past counter magic in the Dimir matchup, your opponent is in a world of trouble.
Monument continues to impress, even in a format as powerful as Modern. It may be a bit clunky, but it gives you inevitability, something previous versions of this deck lacked. Seeing decks like Assault Loam and Asmo Food make noise once again in such a hostile environment is awesome, and there’s still plenty of room for exploration with the elite artifact.