"I'm a ninja, I'm not scared of death" -- Watkin Tudor Jones
Welcome to my brew of a Sultai self-mill
Aether Vial
deck, now with 100% more
Lazav, the Multifarious
!
This deck's curve is incredibly low, with a high population of creatures to support both
Lazav, the Multifarious
and
Aether Vial
, with various tricks to interact with our opponent in interesting ways.
Firstly we'll mention the Modern all-star
Aether Vial
, quickly acknowledging it's power, letting us cheat mana costs and flash in threats and answers!
Lazav, the Multifarious
however, is a new unique legendary creature all his own, that can -- if given the mana and graveyard settup -- take over the game as a wiley shapechanger. How exactly? Well let's unpack the rest of the deck!
Responsible homeowners take good care of their (grave)yard!
For (X) mana at instant speed, our little Lazav can turn into any cmc X creature that is in our graveyard. That is insanely powerful. Sultai can fill it's yard at lightning-speed with
Hedron Crab
,
Cryptbreaker
,
Life from the Loam
,
Nephalia Drownyard
,
Lotleth Troll
and even
Splinterfright
-- the last two being excellent targets for Lazav to turn into when going for the kill!
For any creature-based strategy, removal is pretty tough to deal with... Luckily we can turn Lazav into
Invisible Stalker
in response to targetted removal (along with being unblockable), or
Strangleroot Geist
/
Kitchen Finks
/
Kefnet the Mindful
/
Bontu the Glorified
/
Lotleth Troll
when there's a boardwipe / sacrifice effect! If nothing else, you can turn into a 0/0 ala
Phantasmal Image
(our 5th and 6th clone) in order to dodge a
Path to Exile
or
Settle the Wreckage
.
Otherwise, the last few card slots are for the sweet new tech
Mausoleum Secrets
and
Assassin's Trophy
; 2 cmc tutors are craaaaaaazy strong, as the lower the cmc of the tutor, the more likely you are to cast what you tutor on that turn. Waiting an entire turn cycle is a no-go in modern.
Assassin's Trophy
is a $1,000,000,000 card for a reason. Full-stop.
Mulch the land
Aether Vial
decks are pretty well known to take advantage of their landbase in cool ways, seeing as using spell-like effects from said lands boosts your deck's potency, and
Aether Vial
's drawback is GOING INTO TOPDECK MODE WAY TOO QUICKLY.
Cryptbreaker
is our only source of card advantage, so you'll likely run out of stuff to do (if your opponent just lets you make a butt-tonne of zambies, and tap a em all for cards, they deserve to lose), so having lands that do stuff increases your topdeck relevancy. White Vial decks run the sweet
Leonin Arbiter
/
Ghost Quarter
combo, effectively playing a modern-legal
Strip Mine
. We can't do that, but we'll still run Ghosty bois,
Tectonic Edge
and
Nephalia Drownyard
.
Killing me Softly
Although we're running 29 (jesus christ, half our deck) creatures and an average cmc of 1.93, this deck tends toward a more plotting, almost mid-rangy game, and we don't suffer too much from having the games go long. Most Midrange / Control decks that have made a home in Top 8 are built around spells that 1-for-1 or 2-for-1 their opponents like
Bloodbraid Elf
,
Snapcaster Mage
,
Thoughtseize
and
Siege Rhino
, or are inherent value engines like
Dark Confidant
,
Tireless Tracker
,
Liliana of the Veil
or
Scavenging Ooze
(so basically Jund.deck). It's a tried-and-true strategy for deckbuilding, and it lives up to it's pedigree.
Our deck DOESN'T EVEN TRY to out-value a deck like Jund / Humans , or out control Azorius / Jeskai, but instead plays out threats that don't necessary give two craps about their 1-for-1. Not only are we running low-cmc dudes like
Cryptbreaker
that HAVE TO DIE but can still replace themselves by drawing a card, as well as PERSISTant dudes such as
Kitchen Finks
(heh) and
Lotleth Troll
, but in the case of
Lazav, the Multifarious
, we can tailor our threat for X mana to sneak around their removal / boardwipe.
Against more controlling matchups like Mono-blue, we can rest on our
Cryptbreaker
s, and even turn our mill spells like
Hedron Crab
toward our opponents instead, should we find ourselves staring down an
Ensnaring Bridge
(though Lazav can STILL get in for damage, if we attack as a
Hedron Crab
, then turn into a bigger dude during declare blockers).
Kefnet the Mindful
is a sweet beefy boi and can draw us cards (along with returning lands to our hand for Mr.Crabs),
Ramunap Excavator
can sit on the battlefield and hurl Ghost Quarters at our opponent until they run out of lands, and
Glen Elendra Archmage
and stop any shenanigans.
Onto Game 2!
So among our 60 card mainboard,
Aether Vial
has the highest chance of being hated out in game two; we have no protection for it in the 75 and
Ancient Grudge
s
Stony Silence
s and
Reclamation Sage
s are definitely coming in to keep it off the board. fortunately the deck isn't so dependant on it, it is just a nice thing to have to hedge against getting mana-screwed. If our opponent is playing a relatively fair deck, I'd personaly just run it back without any changes -- maybe if you want to be a #spicelord you can board out the vials and bring in our 1x
Tireless Tracker
s, 1x
Mausoleum Secrets
and 1x
Ramunap Excavator
just to make their vial-killing cards dead draws.
On top of this, with
Aether Vial
just getting hated out, it gives us more incentive to add in
Chromanticore
s and soul flayers, two creatures that we'd likely never vial in in a million years! With a playset of Lazav, 2 Phantasmal Images and 2 Flayers our deck's consistency goes up, and soul flayer
has the unique advantage of not getting completely screwed over by a
Surgical Extraction
being used in response -- Because he gains his keywords from the creature cards you Delved away to cast him, you can't remove the graveyard in response to him being put on the stack, those cards would already be gone due to state-based effects. By delving away
Invisible Stalker
+
Strangleroot Geist
+
Bontu the Glorified
+
Chromanticore
, you get a 4/4 Flying, First Strike, Vigilance, Trample, Hexproof, Haste, Menace, Indestructible, Lifelink for 2 black mana. He's a Big Chongus. Keep in mind that if you have a #ripped soul flayer in play and you clone it with
Phantasmal Image
, the Image with just be a vanilla 4/4.
Another thing our opponents may board in is Graveyard hate cards, and in much the same way we have absolutely no way of dealing with this in the 75 outside of
Crypt Incursion
ing OURSELVES IN RESPONSE to at least get some lifegain out of that
Tormod's Crypt
or
Rest in Peace
, though this is unlikely to do any good as 90% of graveyard hate cards can come down and screw us over before we have access to 3 mana. Womp Womp.
Against Burn or other aggressive strategies / decks that will hate out your graveyard, point
Hedron Crab
's mill 3 at them, and only use
Lotleth Troll
's discard effect as a means of effecting combat, and otherwise play out your threats to bait removal / boardwipe. Along with this, board in
Crypt Incursion
,
Scavenging Ooze
and
Surgical Extraction
so you can net back some life and have a look at their deck while you're dismantling their strategy. Tron has a hard time standing up to
Ghost Quarter
/
Assassin's Trophy
+
Surgical Extraction
exiling their playset of a tronland. These cards can also come in against that pesky
Goryo's Vengeance
deck, and the 3rd copy of
Mausoleum Secrets
can make sure we're more likely to have an instant-speed answer to a
Griselbrand
or
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
.