Undying Retribution
Modern
SCORE: 50 | 22 COMMENTS | 5859 VIEWS | IN 20 FOLDERS
Further Streamlining the Deck and Sideboard —July 30, 2020
At this point I have played a bunch of games with the deck and have made some changes according to these games that I think help to streamline the deck. In the beginning, I would say that I built some of the slots for the mainboard toolbox and sideboard to have answers to situations that are not likely to come up. This ended up being rather clunky, and certain sideboard cards just went completely un-utilized even against the decks that I predicted I would be siding these cards in for. These sideboard slots definitely got put to better use as I identified the decks the this deck seems to have the most trouble with, such as burn.
These are the changes that I have made to the deck as of recently:
In the Sideboard:
Lots of changes here
-1 Assassin's Trophy, -1 Obstinate Baloth, -1 Reclamation Sage, -1 Silent Gravestone, -1 Plaguecrafter, -1 Vraska, Golgari Queen, +1 Nihil Spellbomb, +2 Life Goes On, +1 Evolutionary Leap, +1 Gemrazer, +1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den
while making these changes to the sideboard, I think that I have been able to define the purpose of Eldritch Evolution in the deck. This card is a toolbox card, but it does not provide card advantage or raw power as efficiently as the rest of the deck offers. when you see that the card in this way, you can identify what match-ups you want to have the toolbox strategy in and what match-ups do not really call for this card. When applying this logic to the sideboard, why play toolbox cards for the matchups where you sideboard out Eldritch Evolution? This is why you can see the disappearance of cards like Obstinate Baloth, Reclamation Sage, and Plaguecrafter.
As for the second Nihil Spellbomb over Silent Gravestone, I mostly played a split to get a sense of which card fits the deck better. While Surgical Extraction is still a potent sideboard card against this deck, playing Silent Gravestone is more of a guessing game, and does not do enough in the matchups where the deck really needs graveyard hate, such as dredge.
On Gemrazer, This card has consistently impressed me. You can mutate on almost all of your creatures, and for three mana, this card is honestly comparable to Reality Smasher for this deck, which is really good even when you are not using the card for its expressed purpose or dealing with graveyard hate and other artifacts and enchantments. adding the third copy was more of a hedge against artifacts and enchantments in light of the removal of Reclamation Sage, adding more redundancy to the sideboard, but I am glad to fit as many of this card into the 75 as possible because it is just so good.
Evolutionary Leap over Vraska, Golgari Queen. I tried swithing these cards around because of Vraska's lifegain and ability to remove an opponent's threats, but Evolutionary Leap just suits the deck better. Being able to activate at instant speed means you trade up in the face of removal regardless of you having an undying creature or not, and being able to activate multiple times a turn gives this card a real ability to help in the face of Anger of the Gods. This card also plays a lot better with the deck because it likes to leave up at least one mana for interaction such as a Retribution of the Ancients activation or cast of Village Rites. This card is also especially helpful in the control matchup because of it's expressed purpose, but also the fact that it is two mana makes it very easy to bait out a counter spell with one of the decks very potent one mana cards and ensure a resolution of this card, which has been almost always game ending.
as for Life Goes On, I have been finding that Collective Brutality, though very good for not just the burn matchup, often doesn't do enough. This card is a great card to deal with burn because it is very potent in being able to gain eight life off of just one card, setting burn back up to three burn spells. This card plays very well in the deck because it plays well with the deck's want to leave up one mana for interaction, letting you pick the optimal lines against burn even though your life total may be pressured, and giving you a lot more choice as for when you actually want to play it.
Lurrus of the Dream-Den is an include that is surprisingly good. Much like Unearth, this card acts a lot like a card that adds a lot of redundancy, helping to get the needed pieces that may have been destroyed or discarded in the fray while also just being a two-for-one that just keeps giving value. This card also plays a role against dredge (as an example), where you can search for it with Eldritch Evolution and just constantly loop Nihil Spellbomb if you are able (if not you would either get a Scavenging Ooze or Yixlid Jailer, which conveniently lurrus helps to bring back as well). With all that being said, another expressed purpose of this card is its ability to help in the burn matchup. With this card having lifelink, you can just secure games against burn when in a topdeck war, which I feel has really warranted the inclusion of this card.
As for removing Assassin's Trophy, I just moved it into the mainboard, giving the deck a greater ability to interact with whatever opponents can throw at it in game one. This also provided for more slots in the sideboard.
In the Mainboard:
-1 Zulaport Cutthroat, -1 Viscera Seer, +1 Blood Artist, +1 Assassin's Trophy
I would say that going from Zulaport Cutthroat to Blood Artist was an easy change after a few games with the card. The deck benefits a lot from having one of these effects for the additional reach and lifegain that these cards provide. I feel that early draws with this type of card generally makes for awkward draws, so having the one power on cutthroat is really negligible compared to being able to have more power to gain life and deal damage by triggering on an opponent's creature's death.
As for changing from Viscera Seer to the third Assassin's Trophy out of the sideboard, I generally felt that I needed more interaction for the matchups where it was about taking out early threats than I needed another sac outlet. While this card is still very good, and I may include it in the future, I can say that this change has helped the deck to include more cards in the sideboard as well as have a greater ability to deal with a greater variety of decks in game one.
With all of that said, those are the changes I have for the deck. It is feeling more and more streamlined as I play it with these changes!
ArchonBlue says... #2
Sorry link didn't post for some reason. https://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=15665
July 18, 2020 12:45 p.m.
ArchonBlue says... #3
This site is dumb, just Google Seth Manfield Golgari Yawgmoth and it will pop up.
July 18, 2020 12:46 p.m.
ArchonBlue, I am aware of this decks existence. I would encourage you to read the primer. I have a section written about the difference between both of these decks in there.
I am not going to say that my list is better or worse than the yawgmoth decks, or that that the yawgmoth combo deck is bad (which it obviously isn't). I research all sorts of cards and decks to try to make the best deck possible, and yawgmoth combo served as a reference for refining this one. Unfortunately, because both of these decks appear to be similar, this deck is overshadowed by yawgmoth combo whenever I try to get opinions on the deck (as in no one would even talk about the cards in this deck, but rather just suggest I look at yawgmoth combo). I am perfectly fine with debating the differences between these decks and working out the issues this deck has, but in my opinion, to just say "this deck is better, just play this one" isn't really productive and doesnt facilitate discussion or debate. Much like those who work on the yawgmoth deck, taking this deck seriously would be greatly appreciated.
As for my post on the modern forum, I will be editing it in an attempt to make it more clear. My intentions for the post were to say that no one seemed to be actively working on a Retribution of the Ancients deck. I am at fault for not trying to guide the conversation for this deck as much as I should, not acknowledging the decks existence within my post, and for failing to mention that these decks, though similar, are not the same thing. I do not want to be actively distancing this deck from yawgmoth combo, but based on the direction of interactions with others about this deck has been going, I should be more vigilant about this.
As for the link you tried to add, I think that tappedout suppresses links to other websites like tcgplayer. I tried adding a link to the yawgmoth combo like you did when talking about the deck in my primer, but that didn't work either. I did find that a link to a stock list on tappedout, which does work.
In any event, Thank you for the comment. I know everyone who comments only have good intentions and want to help. If you want to discuss this deck further, I am more than glad too!
ArchonBlue says... #1
So you mentioned in your post that no one else had built a deck like this, but that's not the case. It looks like you are trying to built Golgari Yawgmoth combo, and you almost got there, but came up with a suboptimal version of an already established archetype. Here is the deck for reference:
The deck stopped seeing play after Once Upon a Time was banned in Modern, but it still pops up occasionally without it. You still have 8 tutoring effects without OUaT, so the deck still works its just slower and less consistent.
July 18, 2020 12:44 p.m.