It’s no secret that combo decks have been excelling in Modern lately. Ever since Mox Opal has been unbanned, the metagame has sped up significantly. Underworld Breach used to rule the roost, but since the card has been banned, MTG players have been rushing to find a replacement to Breach’s lofty mantle.
Ruby Storm, various Goblin Charbelcher Strategies, Basking Broodscale combo, and even some Jeskai Ascendancy decks using the same 8-Mox shell that propelled Breach to infamy. Now, yet another historic combo deck joins their ranks using a ritual that hasn’t seen the light of day in Modern for 7 years. Twiddlestorm is back, but is it here for good?
Channel the Suns Returns
Channel the Suns hasn’t seen Modern play since 2018, and has seen very little play in any format since then. According to MTGtop8, Channel the Suns has only appeared in 3 top eight lists since 2018, and all of those lists were competitive singleton formats like Duel Commander and cEDH.
Now, Channel the Suns is seeing play in a bizarre Twiddlestorm utilizing Bring to Light as a Storm engine. Twiddlestorm is an archetype that wants to use untap effects like Twiddle and Dream’s Grip to untap mana sources that generate more than one mana. Since its release, Lotus Field has been the go-to card in this regard.
Notably, while it’s now using some new, or rather old, cards, Twiddlestorm is nothing new in MTG. For a long while, this deck was considered a legitimate competition in Modern thanks to its synergy with The One Ring. When this card was banned, however, the archetype fell off the radar. That all changed recently, however.
Thanks to the new tech of using Channel the Suns, this deck is back in fashion. When played alongside Bring to Light, you’ll always be able to tutor five mana, or less, card from your deck. This gives you a near-guaranteed way to find your win condition or to further your Storm count.
Unfortunately, while the core of this deck is now a simple two-card synergy, this is still Twiddlestorm. Due to this, you’ll still need to find your Lotus Field to start, and then use cards like Twiddle, Dream’s Grip, and Vizier of Tumbling Sands to generate mana. Thankfully, cards like Sylvan Scrying and Preordain help to find the land you need, but this deck definitely isn’t unbeatable.
Winning With Bring to Light
After Twiddling your Lotus Field enough to cast Bring to Light off Channel the Suns, you’ve got a couple of options. To start, this deck is easily able to boost its Storm count by tasting Gaea’s Will. Doing this avoids waiting for Suspend and allows you to recast all your rituals before hitting Channel the Suns and Bring to Light again.
From this point, once you’ve got your Storm count high enough, Bring to Light can cast one of two game-ending threats. You can either cast Aeve, Progenitor Ooze to flood the board with Oozes, or Ignite Memories for some slightly situational, but potentially massive, burn damage. Alternatively, you can also use Tarkir: Dragonstorm’s Stormscale Scion, but you need to have that in your hand and cast it off Irencrag Feat.
Boiling it down, the core Twiddlestorm can seem like a rather simple deck. All you need to do is get Lotus Field into play, Twiddle, cast Bring to Light, Twiddle some more, then Storm out. While this sounds all well and good, this five-step plan is admittedly simplifying things a great deal. So, if you want to play this deck yourself, here’s a more detailed game-winning line to follow.
The Line
- Start with two untapped lands in play. (Mana: 0 | Storm Count: 0)
- Tap both lands for blue mana and then play Lotus Field. (Mana: UU | Storm Count: 0)
- Use the floating mana to cast Twiddle or Dream’s Grip, untapping Lotus Field (Mana: U (untapped Lotus Field) | Storm Count: 1)
- Tap Lotus Field again for green and cast another Twiddle or Dream’s Grip to untap it (Mana: GGG (untapped Lotus Field) | Storm Count: 2)
- Repeat steps 3/4 as many times as needed to amass six mana, one of which is green and one of which is blue.
- Tap Lotus Field for blue and Cast Channel the Suns (Mana: WUUUBRG | Storm Count: 3)
- Cast Bring to Light to find Bring to Light, which finds Gaea’s Will. (Mana: UU | Storm Count: 6)
- Recast Twiddle or Dream’s Grip from the graveyard to untap Lotus Field. (Mana: U (untapped Lotus Field) | Storm Count: 7)
- Tap Lotus Field for blue to recast your other Twiddle or Dream’s Grip from your graveyard to untap Lotus Field (Mana: UUU (untapped Lotus Field) | Storm Count: 8)
- Tap Lotus Field for green to recast Channel the Suns from your graveyard. (Mana: WUUBRG | Storm Count: 9)
- Recast Bring to Light from your graveyard (Mana: U | Storm Count 10)
- Cast either Aeve, Progenitor Ooze or Ignite Memories, depending on what your opponent has in hand. (Mana: U | Storm Count 11)
Even when this five-card combo goes completely to plan, you’re not guaranteed a completely instant win. For starters, the deck doesn’t have any way to give your army of Oozes or Stormscale Scions Haste. This means you’ve got to wait and hope that your opponent doesn’t have a board wipe to keep themselves safe. To make matters worse, Ignite Memories is inherently random and can deal no damage at all if it finds a land in your opponent’s hand.
Thankfully, even if the win isn’t guaranteed, there is some slight redundancy to this combo. Vizier of Tumbling Sands can be Cycled, for instance, to help untap Lotus Field. Notably, however, you can’t cycle this card from the graveyard, but it’s still better than nothing. In any case, this new line using Channel the Suns and Bring to Light definitely offers more stability compared to past Twiddlestorm lists. Thanks to this, players are starting to try out this archetype once again; however, it’s not exactly a meta breaker.
At the moment, Twiddlestorm is still very much a fringe deck within the Modern metagame. Looking at recent results, the deck hasn’t managed to reach beyond the top 16 in recent tournaments.
Weaknesses
As powerful as this archetype is once it gets going, there are some common issues that Twiddlestorm will face in Modern.
The biggest issue is that you need Lotus Field to win the game, as without the land, this deck doesn’t work. This does make the deck extra susceptible to hand disruption like Thoughtseize. If your Sylvan Scrying gets discarded, you could fail to find your necessary land. Veil of Summer in the sideboard does help fight against this, alongside counterspells, but there’s definitely still risk.
To make matters worse for Twiddlestorm, regular Storm is already a popular archetype within Modern. Thanks to this, many players are already coming equipped with sideboard hate, ready to be swapped in at a moment’s notice. Thankfully, Twiddlestorm’s Force of Vigor can be used to fight back against cards like Damping Sphere and Soulless Jailer.
Ultimately, if you’re looking to try a new, unique list that plays with cards that haven’t seen the light of day for years, it’s hard to have more fun than this.