Sideboard

Creature (8)

Enchantment (1)

Instant (3)


We're going to get you. We're going to get you. Not another peep. Time to go to sleep.

Oh hey! Do you have a crush on your local judge at the Modern FNM, but are too socially awkward to speak to them outside of Magic and need to make judge calls as an excuse to talk to them? Then fear not Romeo, this is the deck for you! Living End is an incredibly unintuitive deck to explain, as it revolves around the two card interaction of Demonic Dread / Violent Outburst to Cascade into the deck’s namesake Living End and cast the spell completely ignoring all of the Suspend or even Sorcery speed restrictions on the card. This will make your opponents feel more cheated than the time their girlfriend went to co-ed church camp for a week, and watching them sacrifice their board while you put a bunch of Amonkhet draft chaff onto the field for free at Instant speed is part of the fun of the deck. Speaking of, this deck requires certain deck building restrictions, as to use this combo consistently no cards in the deck can have a CMC under 3. This is luckily circumvented however, as Cycling creatures typically possess a high CMC, put themselves into the graveyard to be brought back with Living End , and allows the deck to make use of mana Turns 1 and 2 and provides so many drawing effects that the deck becomes scarily consistent. However, even though Living End’s game plan revolves around casting these cards at least once per game and dumping a hoard of 5-6 mana creatures for free while wiping the board, I wouldn’t be inclined to call it a Combo deck as it does attempt to interact with the opponent and board state even if done unfairly. Futhermore, the deck still needs to go to the Combat Step to win so the “combo” doesn’t even guarantee a win on the spot like a traditional combo deck would. I would consider Living End more of a gimmicky Control deck, looking to wipe the opponent’s board while amassing our own threatening board at the same time. Aggressively casting Living End isn’t typically a good play, and usually you want your opponent to have a board full of creatures attacking you to get ridiculous card and tempo advantage. This is the basic overview of the deck, and now I will delve into reasons why you might want to consider playing Living End.

1. Changes the Inherent Game of Magic: Living End as a deck switches the entire game on it’s axis, forcing both you and your opponent into making unique decisions. Living End inherently punishes your opponent for over extending on their board, and provides incentive the opponent to have creatures in their own graveyard. Futhermore, Beast Within adds a great depth to plays as well by turning extra lands into surprise blockers, or making our Demonic Dread live against non-creature based match ups and also just being able to destroy troublesome permanents. The Beast Token typically doesn’t matter, as it gets sacrificed by a Living End but more importantly can’t be returned.
2. Ability to Fight Through Hate: Living End is undoubtably a graveyard deck, and while decks like Dredge or Bridgevine instantly lose to Sideboard hate cards Living End doesn’t see hate as quite as much of a death sentence. Free Cyclers and Discard effects like Street Wraith and Faerie Macabre let us still get value even if our opponent activates a Relic of Progenitus or Nihil Spellbomb in response to Living End by being able to be discarded for free after the exile effect resolves but before Living End resolves. Rest in Peace turns Living End into 3 mana Wrath of God and we can start hard casting threats a few turns later. Leyline of the Void is toughest to fight through, but also is inherently a high variance card and Living End still possesses value in being a 3 mana board wipe potentially at Instant speed.
3. Consistency: I mentioned this before, but it’s worth saying again, this deck is extremely consistent and contains a stupid amount of redundancy. While drawing into all 3 Living Ends can happen, having 8 spells which can cast Living End as well as a critical mass of Cycling creatures means that the deck can easily make your opponent’s hand attack spells and removal useless. This deck digs and digs deep, also meaning you can find sideboard options much more easily than other decks.
The core of the deck consists of Street Wraith , Desert Cerodon , Horror of the Broken Lands and Monstrous Carabid as creatures you will usually use to kill your opponents with and cycle to find the combo, so get used to these Silent Hill looking assholes. I'll personally give you a gold star if you can break a board stall using Street Wraith + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth . Naturally, Living End , Violent Outburst and Demonic Dread are cards that are also core to the deck functioning. None of these cards should be boarded out except maybe a Demonic Dread or two against a match up like Storm or KCI where creatures likely won't be on the field in a meaningful manner. Beast Within almost makes the cut as a core card due to the fact that it is a catch-all answer to every permanent in Modern, but is a bit too slow and the 3/3 Beast drawback can be significant if we don't follow up with a Living End + Violent Outburst the following turn. Because of this, while it may be justifiable to board it out I typically only do so in very rare circumstances such as in games against 8-Whack or Infect where a 3 mana kill spell may not be relevant. The cards where actual choices are made in deck building are Archfiend of Ifnir , Faerie Macabre , Fulminator Mage and Simian Spirit Guide . The Archfiend of Ifnir is fantastic against creature aggro decks which Living End in the past has struggled with and provides extra value out of our cycling synergy, and while the cycling cost is a bit slow comparatively getting one down against Humans or Spirits almost guarantees a win. However, against decks not trying to go wide this card can be lackluster and is boarded out as a result. In the same vein, Faerie Macabre is one of the strongest cards in the deck due to the fact that it is main deck graveyard hate that synergizes with Archfiend of Ifnir and Horror of the Broken Lands while at worst being a free 2/2 Flier we can pitch at any time without our opponent being able to respond. Faerie Macabre is in a similar category to the previously discussed Beast Within in that I rarely side them out even against decks not using the graveyard, as it can make the 2nd or 3rd Living End stronger by removing creatures already in the graveyard and it allows us to play against graveyard hate better by providing a creature we can cast in the face of a Rest in Peace , exiling a card from our own graveyard to fizzle a Surgical Extraction or can still provide value by discarding after a Relic of Progenitus resolves. Fulminator Mage and Simian Spirit Guide are the weakest cards in the deck, and while the Spirit Guide is still valuable most of the time as a way to Cascade early if needed (Those Hollow Ones ain't going to remove themselves), cycle an extra creature or post board cast a surprise Ricochet Traps Fulminator is lackluster in my play experience. While the double Stone Rain effect Fulminator Mage provides is pretty good against midrange decks, Tron and Valakut it is incredibly bad against aggro decks that don't care about their lands such as Humans, Spirits, Death's Shadow, Dredge, and Phoenix just to name a few. Because of that, I like it at 2 simply because it makes sideboarding it out easy in those match ups and the cyclers in the deck help us find them in the slower match ups. Fulminator Mage is typically the first card I cut when sideboarding, followed by Archfiend of Ifnirs and possibly some Spirit Guides if the match up is a slow deck that isn't Blue.

As far as the sideboard is concerned Anger of the Gods is for aggro strategies like Humans or Dredge thanks to the exile effect not allowing them to be returned later. Brindle Boar gets sided in against Burn and other aggro decks because unlike Gnaw to the Bone it can gain us 8 life and provide a body to return later without needing 4 other creatures in the graveyard or 3 additional mana. Rhythm of the Wild is a spicy new sideboard tech card I’m testing for the control match up, as it not only makes our creatures uncounterable if we can’t resolve a Living End but it also gives our creatures haste or a +1/+1 counter buff to kill the opponent quickly. Affinity can be a rough match along with Ensnaring Bridge decks so Ingot Chewer is extremely necessary to destroy key pieces Lost Legacy can help hedge against Combo decks as well as remove planeswalker threats or Cryptic Command from control decks. As suggested earlier, Blue based Control is Living End’s worst match up, so Ricochet Trap helps in redirecting potential counter spells. Finally, in aggressive match ups or match ups relying on specific creatures to beat us like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben , Meddling Mage or Scavenging Ooze Shriekmaw proves to be a valuable addition.

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Casual

90% Competitive

Date added 5 years
Last updated 5 years
Key combos
Legality

This deck is not Modern legal.

Rarity (main - side)

23 - 3 Rares

7 - 6 Uncommons

27 - 6 Commons

Cards 60
Avg. CMC 4.05
Tokens Beast 3/3 G
Folders Modern
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