For quite a long time, Modern was one of the most balanced formats that MTG had to offer. With a massive card pool, players could bring dozens of different strategies to a tournament and have a decent chance of doing well. Heck, brews even put up respectable results semi-regularly, even converting to Pro Tour invites.
Unfortunately, this era of mass diversity may be approaching its end. For the first time in quite a while, a Modern deck just absolutely dominated a massive event. With 1494 players in attendance, Basking Broodscale combo just took up half of Regional Championship Baltimore‘s top eight and took down the event over its worst matchup.
MTG Basking Broodscale Combo
Basking Broodscale
Basking Broodscale
Devoid (This card has no color.)
{1}{G}: Adapt 1. (If this creature has no +1/+1 counters on it, put a +1/+1 counter on it.)
Whenever one or more +1/+1 counters are put on this creature, you may create a 0/1 colorless Eldrazi Spawn creature token with "Sacrifice this token: Add {C}."
combo is by no means a new deck, but it’s now quite clear that the Eldrazi Lizard is the best thing to be doing in Modern. To recap how the combo works, all you need to do is equip a
Blade of the Bloodchief
Blade of the Bloodchief
Whenever a creature dies, put a +1/+1 counter on equipped creature. If equipped creature is a Vampire, put two +1/+1 counters on it instead.
Equip {1}
to a Basking Broodscale and have a creature die. The Blade will put a +1/+1 counter on Broodscale, who in turn creates an Eldrazi Scion. Since you can sacrifice the Scion for a colorless mana, this combo creates infinite mana, death triggers, and an infinitely large Broodscale.
Once you have the combo online, winning is rather trivial for this deck.
Glaring Fleshraker
Glaring Fleshraker
Whenever you cast a colorless spell, create a 0/1 colorless Eldrazi Spawn creature token with "Sacrifice this token: Add {C}."
Whenever another colorless creature you control enters, this creature deals 1 damage to each opponent.
leads to infinite damage, while
Kozilek’s Command
Kozilek’s Command
Choose two —
• Target player creates X 0/1 colorless Eldrazi Spawn creature tokens with "Sacrifice this token: Add {C}."
• Target player scries X, then draws a card.
• Exile target creature with mana value X or less.
• Exile up to X target cards from graveyards.
creates infinite tokens, tutors a card, and organizes your library. If all else fails, attacking with an infinitely large Broodscale, or casting an
Emrakul, the Promised End
Emrakul, the Promised End
This spell costs {1} less to cast for each card type among cards in your graveyard.
When you cast this spell, you gain control of target opponent during that player's next turn. After that turn, that player takes an extra turn.
Flying, trample, protection from instants
is also commonly good enough.
If this were just a combo deck, however, this Modern Broodscale deck wouldn’t be a huge issue. By focusing on an Eldrazi theme, this deck also has an incredible grindy game, leveraging mainstays like
Sowing Mycospawn
Sowing Mycospawn
Devoid (This card has no color.)
Kicker {1}{C} (You may pay an additional {1}{C} as you cast this spell.)
When you cast this spell, search your library for a land card, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle.
When you cast this spell, if it was kicked, exile target land.
, Kozilek’s Command, and Emrakul as a second angle of attack.
Urza’s Saga
Urza’s Saga
(As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after III.)
I — This Saga gains "{T}: Add {C}."
II — This Saga gains "{2}, {T}: Create a 0/0 colorless Construct artifact creature token with 'This token gets +1/+1 for each artifact you control.'"
III — Search your library for an artifact card with mana cost {0} or {1}, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle.
and
Malevolent Rumble
Malevolent Rumble
Reveal the top four cards of your library. You may put a permanent card from among them into your hand. Put the rest into your graveyard. Create a 0/1 colorless Eldrazi Spawn creature token with "Sacrifice this token: Add {C}."
knit everything together, finding combo pieces, ramping to Emrakul, and creating even more threats to deal with.
Throw in a suite of artifact-related hatepieces, like
Trinisphere
Trinisphere
As long as this artifact is untapped, each spell that would cost less than three mana to cast costs three mana to cast. (Additional mana in the cost may be paid with any color of mana or colorless mana. For example, a spell that would cost {1}{B} to cast costs {2}{B} to cast instead.)
,
Vexing Bauble
Vexing Bauble
Whenever a player casts a spell, if no mana was spent to cast it, counter that spell.
{1}, {T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.
, and
Grafdigger’s Cage
Grafdigger’s Cage
Creature cards in graveyards and libraries can't enter the battlefield.
Players can't cast spells from graveyards or libraries.
, and Basking Broodscale combo has a game plan in any Modern matchup. Regional Championship Baltimore this past weekend demonstrates this, but Broodscale has quietly posted the best results at the last few major events.
Emerging Dominance
Despite winning the tournament, taking down half the top eight, and taking up 11 of the 32 Pro Tour invites over the weekend, Basking Broodscale has been on the precipice of a breakout before this. Putting up excellent results since Pro Tour Marvel Super Heroes, this has been one of, if not, the best deck by the numbers for some time now.
Taking up four slots among the 16 best-performing Modern decks at the last Pro Tour, Broodscale Combo also put on a fantastic performance between The Hobbit’s two Modern Spotlight Series events. While far less of an outlier than it was in Baltimore, Broodscale put up three top-eight finishes between the two events, had seven top-32 finishes, and went undefeated on day one of both events.
Looking at the deck’s matchup results from Regional Championship Baltimore, the deck might be rather difficult to answer, too. With a positive matchup against most of the field, the only truly bad matchup for Basking Broodscale combo appears to be
Devoted Druid
Devoted Druid
{T}: Add {G}.
Put a -1/-1 counter on this creature: Untap this creature.
combo. Yet, as demonstrated by Baltimore’s Grand Finals, Basking Broodscale is capable of beating that deck in a pinch.
With this in mind, players are once again starting to ask for bans to the deck, mostly pointing the blame at the overwhelmingly strong Modern Eldrazi package. With multiple powerful decks, like Mono-Green Trudge and Green Tron using similar shells, Kozilek’s Command has been considered a power outlier for some time now. That said, even though these complaints are nothing new, they may still be premature.
More Information Needed
While Modern Basking Broodscale combo certainly looks like a problem, it may be a little too soon to say that bans are needed. Thanks to repeat performances, Basking Broodscale combo has had a target on its back coming into this weekend, but Baltimore’s result is a far bigger outlier than we’ve seen so far. With that in mind, MTG competitors should focus even more on beating this strategy than before.
With an even bigger target on its back, we could see Basking Broodscale combo’s win rate normalize over the next few Regional Championship events. Should this be the case, this deck will likely garner more respect from here on out, but it may not be a power outlier. That said, should the deck continue to dominate future events, bans may be needed to stop Modern from revolving around the Eldrazi Lizard.
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