Marduu Butcher

Modern Competitive Control RBW (Mardu)

Omeros

Land (23)

• 2x Arid Mesa
• 2x Blood Crypt
• 4x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 4x Marsh Flats
• 2x Mountain
• 2x Plains
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 2x Swamp
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Westvale Abbey  ^Flip

Instant (15)

• 2x Fatal Push
• 3x Kolaghan's Command
• 4x Lightning Bolt
• 4x Path to Exile
• 1x Secure the Wastes
• 1x Terminate

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
• 1x Liliana, the Last Hope

Sorcery (10)

• 2x Collective Brutality
• 4x Lingering Souls
• 2x Night's Whisper
• 2x Thoughtseize

Creature (10)

• 4x Butcher of the Horde
• 2x Kitchen Finks
• 4x Snapcaster Mage

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Sideboard

Instant (5)

• 2x Celestial Purge
• 2x Rakdos Charm
• 1x Terminate

Creature (3)

• 3x Fulminator Mage

Sorcery (5)

• 2x Anger of the Gods
• 1x Damnation
• 2x Thoughtseize

Enchantment (2)

• 2x Rest in Peace

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This deck is a revision of my previous Mardu + U splash deck that still used the Nahiri+Emrakul combo:

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Marduu

Modern Omeros

SCORE: 2 | 346 VIEWS

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I moved away from the combo for several reasons. While it is powerful, the deck is designed to make games go long and that means there's a pretty good chance you're going to draw Emmy along the way. Every time you do, you've effectively lost a draw step. Furthermore, there was a strict divide between the "protect the queen" strategy centered around Nahiri and the combat damage Plan B of Lingering Souls and Snapcaster+Bolt. While it was highly effective when it worked, it was awkward whenever I couldn't sculpt the game state in its favor. I wanted my Plan A and Plan B to have more synergy.

And so I ended up cutting Nahiri in favor of Monastery Mentor and a flex slot, then swapping Mentor out for Butcher. This change has led to several rounds of revision to the list and I may not be done even now, although it feels very good at this point. None of the cards are bad on their own and there are several ways of creating 2-1's and looping threats that few decks can handle. The density of the answers in the deck guarantees that against almost anyone you're going to be able to survive into the long game.

Advice on playing Marduu

This is not Mardu Midrange, nor a Mardu Tokens list. It functions best if you act as if you are stuck on the back foot through the first 3-6 turns of any game while you hit land drops and answer threats. At that point your powerful late game engine of Kolaghan's Command, Snapcaster, Liliana, Chandra, and GDD takes over. Depending on how you're using to playing Mardu or its sisters Abzan and Jund, you may find yourself misplaying with this deck by being too aggressive early on dropping threats. You may also feel like it's weak because of its lack of an early clock. Against Tron or Valakut decks, I would actually agree with you that (Game 1) this is a weakness but against other matchups it represents more a mistake in how the deck is being piloted than a flaw in the list. Here are a few points to keep in mind during games to make the most of the deck:

• You're the Control in basically every matchup except Tron and non-creature combo decks, so don't worry about going into beatdown mode early. Trade resources, use Snapcaster and Kommand to get ahead on value, and then look for openings to start beatdown.

• I keep going back and forth on whether to have Timely Reinforcements/Kitchen Finks in the main. A lot of people seem to be switching to Burn already (post-bannings/AER) in anticipation of Tron, so maindecking Burn hate that has value in Midrange matchups feels right. Note that even if you're not being pressured early on you can afford to aggressively fetch untapped shocklands to drop below your opponent's life total before casting Timely if you run it.

• The inclusion of Night's Whisper might seem odd when Painful Truths and Read the Bones are far more commonly played in Modern. If you look at the mana curve, though, you'll see half of the reason why I'm on NW instead: the 3-drops are already clogged. As an added benefit, it's easier to find the mana to flashback NW off Snapcaster.

• Don't feel like you're wasting mana if you play no spells turns 1 and 2 if your opponent isn't putting down threats either. You're under no obligation to make the first move in most matchups.

• The longer you expect the game to go, the better off you are if you can afford to fetch for tapped Shocklands. With so many removal spells, anyone trying to win through combat damage is going to have difficulty before they've exhausted your hand. And with the variety of ways you have of gaining card advantage, this is harder to accomplish than they would expect if they place you as a generic Mardu (Tokens) Midrange deck. The presence of Snapcaster, among other things, means that you're easily able to grind them down until they can't answer one of your threats.

• Westvale Abbey is a fun-of that I'm testing out. The deck can afford 1-2 utility land slots, so with Souls and Secure the Wastes it's a reasonable card to try. It's not likely to prevent you from color fixing as a one of, and its best case scenario quite literally wins games since Path to Exile is just about the only card played with any frequency in Modern that can stop Ormendahl. I don't think I'd play a second copy but if you want to try a version of the deck with a stronger tokens theme, try cutting a Plains for the 2nd and add another Secure, Souls, or Timely Reinforcements.

• Saccing Finks to Butcher for haste or lifelink is a great value play against aggro and Burn.

Card choices

Parts of this may become out of date as the list evolves if I don't update the commentary at the same time.

There are several cards you might consider including in the deck that I have not. Here is my reasoning for the current choices but also why you might shift the deck based on your local meta or what's expected at the next tournament.

• Why isn't there Fatal Push?

Now there is!

An earlier version eschewed Push for 2 Terminate main and third Thoughtseize. After some careful consideration of matchups (using Zvi Mowshowitz's "Elephanting" method against 11 of the most common archetypes) I realized that overall Push should benefit me more than hedging against a few specific cases of relatively rarer decks. As a nonblue Control/Midrange deck you're going to have trouble against the trifecta of Tron, Valakut decks, and Ad Nauseam while you've got reasonable chances against Grixis Control and Bant Eldrazi (the latter two's major threats don't die to Bolt or Push). Finding the right balance between these two types of tough to slightly unfavorable matchups without hurting your good pairings of aggro and most other midrange decks is a balancing act.

I'm currently inclined toward Push being the right trade of with a playset of Thoughtseize between main and board.

• Why isn't there Inquisition of Kozilek?

The deck runs a wide range of answers to early and late creatures between Bolt, Path, Terminate, and so on. From the board you have hate against mostly artifacts and lands. This means your biggest blind spot is planeswalkers, be they Nahiri, LotV, Ugin, or other. IoK misses most of these threats while TS hits them as well as late game creature bombs or combo spells like Scapeshift and Ad Nauseam.

• How do you deal with Blood Moon and land destruction?

The deck has 2 basics for each color except the Blue splash. With 10 fetchlands, this should suffice for dodging Blood Moon decks. You also have 2 Celestial Purge out of the board. You're going to be locked out of Snapcaster if you face a Blood Moon or targeted land destruction to Hallowed Fountain/Watery Grave but unless you draw multiples of Snap this isn't that devastating. That said, it's impossible to build a Modern deck that is strong against every angle of attack and one of the weaknesses of this deck is a grindy build paired with Blood Moon or land destruction to deny us some of our ability to recur answers.

More card commentary to be added in the future.

Sideboarding (To Be Written)

Fill in later.

Flex Slots (To Be Written)

Fill in later.

Date added	7 years
Last updated	7 years
Splash colors	U
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 2 Mythic Rares 34 - 9 Rares 8 - 4 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.19
Tokens	Emblem Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Emblem Liliana, the Last Hope, Human Cleric 1/1 BW, Spirit 1/1 W, Warrior 1/1 W, Zombie 2/2 B