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MY TOOF HURTS! (Tooth and nail with primer)

Modern

ajd777


Sideboard


Maybeboard


100% COMPETITIVE AND 100% FUN! Tooth and nail is fantastically fun, and I think it's well positioned in the meta to do well if you learn the ins and outs of the deck.

Do you like the nonsense combo decks like grisalbrand or KCI that just win if the opponent doesn't have an answer? Do you like the unfairness and inevitability of mono green tron? Do you like swinging with a 30/30 Emrakul on turn 3? Then read on. (note some of the card descriptions may have changed vs what shows on the list as I experiment.)

Basic game plan is to ramp into an entwined tooth and nail to fetch xenagos and Emrakul. Then trigger xenago's ability on Emmrakul to make him a 30/30 with haste and swing for the fences. You mana ramp by casing enchantments on your lands and using untap land abilities to make big mana fast. Think about the sequencing of playing out your enchantments and untapping to maximize your mana. It takes some thought and practice.
A lot of people look at the deck and think it's too slow or gets wrecked by bolting elfs and the like. Not so. It's much like tron in that sense. If an opponent spends a lot of their resources trying kill elfs and planswalkers to stop our early ramp then we end up staying alive long enough where we have 7 lands/mana anyways and drop our really powerful spells that turn the game. The one thing I've seen that really wrecks this deck is one mana black spells. So if they are running a lot of discard and a lot of cheap removal it can be a tough slog, but not unwinable. going against main board ghost quarter can be rough though.
The deck also can tempo and stay alive to start hitting it's big drops with primal command / eternal witness combo. Primal is crazy good in the meta. life gain really hurts aggro decks and keeps you alive at least another turn to drop something that changes the game. shuffling a graveyard is crazy good in the format right now. bouncing a permanent to the top and then shuffling the graveyard shuffles the permanent back in completely (bye Karn). If you bounce a man land to the top they are down a creature, a mana, and a draw. Obviously fetching a creature with Primal is amazing too as it lets you get E witness to get back primal, or a silver bullet creature such as elderscale, hornet queen, etc.
Eternal witness can be very good against discard and control because it's essentially another copy of whatever they really don't want you to land.

Hornet queen is amazing against targeted removal and decks that look to win via creatures like affinity. Elderscale is amazing against any deck that isn't running path. The titans are self explanatory I think. Walking ballista can blow up an entire board with the amount of mana we can create.

The deck runs 4 colors, but it's very manageable. Utopia sprawl can easily fix, and we can fetch for the one of shock lands to fix also. Red is our usual second color followed by blue. White is only for the sideboard hate, and then becomes the second color we usually want post board.

Remember Sayter untaps any land. So you can untap nyxthos for example.

Kessig wolf run can activate on an arbor elf or garruk beast for a lot of damage. Don't be afraid to win outside of the tooth and nail combo. The deck can straight beat down the opponent.

Boseiju is a god send against certain match ups. I think it's 100% worth main boarding as a one of. Especially since primeval titan can fetch it. I've stolen multiple game one's against jeski control and the like just because of it.

Don't be afraid to tooth and nail with no entwine if you have gas in your hand. A lot of games I've cast Tooth and nail on 7 to just put two fatties sitting in my hand into play, or just emrakul. Remember it's not through the breach. They stay on the field.

Sideboard is dependent on your meta, but here's mine: - Ruric Thar, the Unbowed great against spells matter decks, control decks, or anything that runs a lot of cheap none creature spells. - bonfire is for go wide and aggro decks. It doesn't hit our dorks which is important. - ancient grudge, creeping corrosion, and stony silence are obvious artifact hate. Don't forget to board out walking ballista before putting in stony. - Rest in peace for more grave hate. Usually take out at least one of the E witnesses before putting this in. - Crumble to dust wrecks tron, but also can mess up other decks that run a 4 copy nonbasic. Don't forget it exiles the land, and also lets you look at their hand and library. Knowledge is power people. - Leyline is for discard and burn decks. Discard hurts this deck pretty bad, so we need an answer to it in the side. - Dragonlord is for control match ups and aggro decks. Lifelink can keep us alive another turn or two so we can swing the game our direction.

In the end this deck rewards players that can make intelligent choices based on the matchup and their meta. There are a lot of lines you can take with the deck and it's rarely boring.

Some of the highlights of this deck: - turn 3 win racing against affinity. - hard casting emrakul off one land (land tapped for 6 mana with 2 untap dorks.) Then losing to a deflecting palm the next turn after my opponent hadn't played a single card all game. - The look on a players face when they're about to win and you drop elderscale wurm. - Going 4-0 and taking first place at a fairly competitive LGS tourny.

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Played another LGS modern tournament. Beat dredge 2-1, then played dredge again and lost 1-2 because of a huge misplay I made where I attacked into a dredge creature that died and let them start dredging when they were just spinning their wheels (So I don't count that loss against the deck because it was just my incompetence) then played through the breach and lost 1-2. Through the breach got us fair and square. They were the better deck in that round. I also played a few casual rounds with izzet phonix and went 3-2. So I still maintain the deck has legs in the format.

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Casual

95% Competitive

Date added 6 years
Last updated 5 years
Legality

This deck is Modern legal.

Rarity (main - side)

10 - 5 Mythic Rares

22 - 7 Rares

2 - 3 Uncommons

16 - 0 Commons

Cards 60
Avg. CMC 4.13
Tokens Beast 3/3 G, Emblem Kiora, Master of the Depths, Insect 1/1 G w/ Flying, Deathtouch, Octopus 8/8 U, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Deathtouch, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Lifelink
Folders to build, Cool decks, decks
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