Good luck running this sort of deck at FNM. Hope my suggestions will help. Leyline of Vitality, I ran this in a gruul varient of this deck from awhile ago, helps offset aggro life loss especially if its in your opening hand. Lumithread Field not anything special for your deck, however just a consideration. Shape the Sands tower defense is strictly better, but this is a single target, single mana +5 Tower Defense all +5 however 2 mana Slagwurm Armor this was a fun way to up the pressure in mine, however 3 to equip can be detrimental to your mana curve. Skinshifter while its ability costs one mana each turn, a 0/8 is awsome turn 3 when Assault Formation is out.

Thinking about tweaking the landbase to have just a few more basics. Going to playtest dropping 1x Overgrown Tomb and 1x Temple Garden for a basic Forest and basic Plains. That way I can cast almost my whole deck (no red, but I don't think I can afford to run a basic mountain).

1x Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive out for a Collective Brutality, and also decided to do a basic Mountain instead of a second basic Forest afterall. We'll see how it goes!

Found a sideboard replacement (meta depending) for Gaddock Teeg in Athreos, God of Passage. Teeg was there predominantly for boardwipe resistance, but Athreos does a different (better?) job for boardwipes, spot removal, sac effects (Fulminator Mage!), and could be a big body if all the stars aligned.

Could Collective Brutality replace Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive?

Zealous Persecution out for Golgari Charm. This effectively does the same thing, but gives me a lot more options. It also hits Blood Moon which I have very little answers to.

swagfrog: I ended up trying it with a Collective Brutality and didn't really like it. I think if I had a more traditional Jund deck where I want things in the GY it would have been a lot better, but in this deck it just ended up hurting too much.

I definitely want a bit more interaction, and modal discard is a great one, I just don't think Brutality is the right fit for this deck.

Found Eldritch Evolution and I think it is a perfect fit with this deck! Trading a Harbinger, manadork, or even a BBE for a Doran, Spellskite, or Tetsuko is fantastic. It also opens up options for a few (1-3) higher CMC utility creatures, like one of my all-time favorites Rhox Faithmender.

Cutting a Tetsuko and Sylvan Caryatid to fit in a 2x of Eldritch Evolution and see how that plays.

Experiment: Sylvan Caryatid out for Runic Armasaur. This was a suggestion from the guy I go to FNM Modern events with.

Initially I thought "I can't get rid of Caryatid, how am I gonna cast X?!". Well it turns out I don't actually use Caryatid that often, especially now that I added Eldritch Evolution and cut Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive down to a one-of.

Getting some extra draw would be great, but having another 5/5 on the field is amazing. Whenever I had to block with Caryatid it was almost always a chump block where I lost the Caryatid after. With the Armasaur I can deal that 2 damage regardless of my boardstate, block even bigger creatures, and still be doing 5 damage whenever Doran, the Siege Tower or Assault Formation comes out.

Let me know what you think!

Runic Armasaur out for Obelisk Spider. The spider has been an absolute house in playtesting, and I wasn't getting as many procs off of Armasaur to warrant the include out of something more useful in combat. The spider, and an extra Eldritch Evolution, have really allowed me to go toe-to-toe with Humans in my local meta.

Courser of Kruphix in! I've gone back and forth on this a lot, but I think as a 1-of is the perfect spot for him in this deck. Jund/junk have had decent success with him alongside Bob, and I think I can get a good amount of work out of him with that little bit of healing, as well as knowing what I could Cascade into prior to casting Bloodbraid Elf.

Testing out a Dryad Arbor in place of a Verdant Catacombs. I have been considering dropping a fetch for a while, and even after the cut I still technically have 10 ways to fetch, even if they are a little convoluted. What I like is that not only he is a surprise blocker/attacker, he can also be Eldritch Evolutioned into a lot of strong creatures in the MB and SB. He also procs Mardu Ascendancy, and is hit by Tower Defense (when I run it).

All and all, I think it's definitely a card I can work around, and the more targets for Eldritch the better. If I end up liking the Dryad but not the loss of the fetch, I can swap the Dryad for one of the Obelisk Spider instead, which is currently my only flex slot.

Let me know what you think!

I'm not sure what to say, this is just...wow. It. Hits. Anything.

Gonna find a way to run 4x of this.

+1! Do you think Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive is really worth it? I'd imagine more Ascendancies would be better.

SynergyBuild: Tetsuko as a one-of has really been valuable in my meta, as there are a lot of aggro and token decks that have a lot cheaper chump blockers than I do. He can sit in the deck as long as I want, and if I ever need him I can Eldritch Evolution him off a Dryad Arbor, Birds of Paradise, Treefolk Harbinger, or even a Bloodbraid Elf if I need, and he immediately has an effect even if I'm not swinging with him. It can often make a 2-turn difference on my swings for lethal, with is huge if I am up against flying creatures or tons of tokens.

Now whether or not he needs to be Mainboarded is a different story. I honestly can't say for sure.

That being said, I agree that I need another Mardu Ascendancy, as having multiple out just makes gets better and better, and I drastically increase the chance to hit one during a draw or Cascade.

As much as I love the cards perhaps a Kolaghan's Command or Lightning Greaves is the drop.

Honestly I think it might be Kolaghan's Command. The recursion I never used, the discard was only okay, the artifact destruction I used some of the time, and the 2 damage to creature or player was the only thing of any significance that I ever got out of it, and it is weak.

With the spoiling of Assassin's Trophy I think it will be pretty easy to cut both of the Kolaghan's, 1x of the Maelstrom Pulse, some sideboard cards, and get 4x of the trophy in there. Then I will have more flexibility with Tetsuko and my MB flex slots (Courser of Kruphix/Obelisk Spider) to bring in another Mardu as well.

-- Playtesting for October set release --

Out:

MB

2x Kolaghan's Command

2x Lightning Greaves (Sideboard)

1x Maelstrom Pulse (Sideboard)

SB

2x Fulminator Mage

1x Kataki, War's Wage

In:

4x Assassin's Trophy

1x Mardu Ascendancy

Still unsure about how the Vexing Shusher and Sylvok Replica will play out. The Shusher may be turned into another set of Lightning Greaves for the SB, and the Sylvok might be redundant with the Trophys. Maybe a 4th Leyline to improve the mulligans?

Ended up moving all the Maelstrom Pulses to the SB, and gonna keep one Kolaghan's Command MB and see how it plays out. I don't like not having the Lightning Greaves in the MB, they performed very well while they were in, but I don't see where they fit anymore.

Id rather a leyline to the replica.

Going to playtest Beast Whisperer in place of Courser of Kruphix. This is the closest thing I've seen to a workable draw engine. It makes Ensnaring Bridge a little harder to set up, but has the potential to turn a Bloodbraid Elf cast into Cascade + Draw 2.

Also going to be trying out Heartwood Storyteller. Not sure how it will turn out, but if I draw 4 or 5 extra cards and give my opponent 1 or 2, it may be worth sideboarding against control/storm.

Also considering Pegasus Courser for the mainboard in place of Courser of Kruphix potentially. Having the ability to block more flyers, while also giving more evasion redundancy to my creatures without overlapping with Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive seems like a solid Game 1 strat.

Rather than 2x Mardu Ascendancy I am going to swap one out for 1x Raid Bombardment and test it that way instead. I tried this a long time ago with decent performance, but I had just added red to the deck and it wasn't running smoothly at all, and I didn't have the consistency in my creatures that I do now. I also ran it in place of Ascendancy, and as a 3-of, and I think all of those were bad ideas.

The thought is that, even with lots of chump blockers on the opponent's side, I'm still getting a good amount of damage through. It is non-combat damage so a lot of Fogs don't effect it at all, and Leyline of Sanctity doesn't matter because the effect isn't targetting. It's also much, much easier to hardcast than Ascendancy is. Hopefully the playtesting goes well!

I'm still relatively new to Modern, I've only been playing for about 5 months, so I have a lot to learn about maximizing my Game 1 setup, instead of having my G1 mainboard be a mix of answers to a bunch of different decks. Obelisk Spider for instance I run in the MB, but it could probably be in the SB instead for the Humans and Spirit matchups. That being said, is there a better MB creature for that spot? Maybe Lightning Greaves even? It may even get people to mistakenly sideboard in artifact hate on G2, where I can SB it out and only have Spellskite left for it to hit.

Let me know what you think!

1xTime of Need seems worth considering in place of 1xEldritch Evolution. I imagine running 1xShalai, Voice of Plenty in the sideboard over 1xLeyline of Sanctity would warrant running even more ToN.

Slaughter the Strong fits the theme well.

1xThrone of the God-Pharaoh seems as good or better than 1xRaid Bombardment.