Undying Retribution

Modern Snowmen1

SCORE: 50 | 22 COMMENTS | 5859 VIEWS | IN 20 FOLDERS

New Addition with Strixhaven and a big change —May 1, 2021

With after a string of matches where flooding, it felt like the deck needed a change. In response to this, I had reevaluate the deck, and think about exactly how many lands the deck wants to play.

While the deck can make great use of lands, given the number of one drops and one cost spells, not many lands are needed in the opening hand, with keeping 2 lands often being preferred. Also, running out of gas can be easy without Retribution of the Ancients out with one or two poorly timed land draws in a row (and hitting 2 lands off of village rites is a real feels bad). With this idea in mind, I decided that on average, you want at a minimum of two lands in play, and the deck can happily operate there. In the early game is where this deck needs to establish itself, and in the first 2 to 3 turns of the game, drawing into action is most important (or after viewing 9 to 12 cards between draws for turn, scrys, and casting village rites). With this, in the top 7 cards, we want 2 or 3 lands, and in the top 9 to 12, 3 to 4 is most ideal. In the mid game (turns 4-5+), 4 to 5 lands are ideal, while 5 is on the high side for lands, with 6 and even 7 lands being rather high.

Given this, here is what we are looking for generally:

Top 7 cards: ~2 lands, Top 9 to 12 cards: 3 to 4 lands, Top 11 to 16 cards: 4 to 5 lands.

In looking at the good old hyper geometric calculator, between 22 and 20 lands, the chance of drawing 2 or more lands in your opening hand is roughly 5% different, between 81% and 75.3%. in the top 12 cards however, the likelihood of drawing 5 or more lands is almost 11% greater for 22 lands vs 20 lands, between 35% and 46.6%. in this deck, where mana requirements are demanding, and almost no utility can be drawn from lands, having a 47% chance of drawing more than 5 lands in the first 2 to 3 turns is just too high. For a slightly smaller chance of of drawing under 2 lands in the opening hand, mitigating mid game flooding by 10% seems like a no brainer.

With the change of going down to 20 lands from 22, this leaves a little bit if space in the main deck. With some additional cards being slotted out, the cards added should really help in making the deck more consistent. This change also needs to compensate for the lower land count.

First of all, here's the cuts:

Going down on an unearth is rather bitter sweet. The card is very efficient and helps the deck to be more redundant. This card is also an all star against targeted discard. That being said, having three is just too high, especially when the deck is oriented around utilizing the graveyard and this card's only purpose is to play from there. With other cards such as deadly brew being able to play part of the role that this card did, trimming down on copies seems acceptable to do.

Cutting one yawgmoth is something that I have wanted to do for a while. The card just isnt the best in this deck. While it has its moments, with the combo back door and ability to let you draw a lot of cards, casting a 4 drop just isnt apart of this deck's plan. Unless there is absolutely nothing to do or it is the late game and you have a lot of mana up anyways, yawgmoth just is hard to cast, and very risky to cast anyways. The card is still a one of to dig for if needed and as an additional high impact sac outlet, but this is not a card you want to see regularly or draw multiples of.

Here's what was added:

After some testing, Ive determined that the deck really likes having additional 1 mana sac outlets. Viscera seer really smooths out the draws by helping you find the gas you are looking for, while also being able to be a piece if the engine by turn 3 and allowing turn 4 kills. This card also helps dig a lot, so if you need a land or a specific answer, this card has you covered. After finding how much this deck has been missing the card, viscera seer quickly found itself as a 3 of.

Additionally, 2 of a new card from strixhaven have found its way into the deck, deadly brew. This card, in my opinion, is extremely powerful and very underrated. For a while now, I have felt as though this deck needed an edict effect, as cards such as Mirran Crusader and Auriok Champion are both challenging cards to deal with. While cards like liliana's triumph and liliana of the veil were all tested, and are respectable cards in their own right, running a higher number of purely interactive spells will just dilute the deck. This is where deadly brew comes in. This card is maindeckable. It is removal that also serves the deck by potentially getting back any part of the engine. This spell really helps with making the deck more redundant and resistant to removal, while also adding to the number of kill spells in the deck and providing an answer to so many problematic cards. While the ceiling for this card is high, so is the floor. Either edicting a creature away or turning a redundant carrion feeder into a retribution of the ancients is good enough if its what you need. In my limited testing with the card, it looks very solid, and I may end up playing more in the future, but for now, this card is a very solid 2-of.

So anyways those are the changes for now. I cant wait to see how the new version preforms, and what MH2 will do for this deck in the future!