Returning player, returning deck.
Modern Deck Help forum
Posted on Oct. 14, 2016, 4:20 a.m. by coldjin
Hey everybody, returning player here. I've been on a long hiatus since the Mirrodin days and then, years after, a friend of mine sucked me back in because he wanted to learn how to play. I'm a little lost at the moment, to be honest. I had to read through years of countless new expansions and rules and I still do not have everything clear in my mind. Anyhow, let's cut to the chase. I used to play Magic as a kid, and the only deck I have right now is a deck - you guessed it right - built by a kid with poor to no understanding of the circumstantial answers to controls and whatnot. It was (and still is) built thematically around my favourite cards at the time, the Leonins. The goal was to play flying creatures, equip them and do as much damage as possible in a short time. I acknowledge that the power of such deck can be countered in infinite ways, but I still like the aggro core of it and the underlying Leonin theme. So, my question is: is there a way to update this deck, make it more playable in the Modern format while retaining the theme and let the aggro strategy stand out with a few more tools to help it accomplish a succesful endgame? Do you have any suggestions, criticism? Any little bit of help would be useful, I realized I missed Magic and I'd like to have a functioning deck to be a little bit more competitive. I'm gonna write the decklist down below. In the meanwhile, thanks for checking my thread!
LANDS
- 16x Plains
- 4x Ancient Den
CREATURES
- 4x Leonin Elder
- 4x Leonin Den-Guard
- 4x Leonin Squire
- 4x Leonin Skyhunter
- 4x Skyhunter Cub
- 3x Skyhunter Skirmisher
- 1x Raksha Golden Cub
ENCHANTMENTS
ARTIFACTS
EpicFreddi says... #3
Regardless of how you build the deck: If it's modern, you need to take out Ancient Den because it'S banned.
October 14, 2016 7:04 a.m.
sergiodelrio says... #4
Ancient Den is banned in modern. Darksteel Citadel is the only artifact land that remained legal. Instead, you might want to use Cavern of Souls though. Path to Exile is the prime removal spell in modern.
October 14, 2016 7:10 a.m.
I'm a big fan of Grafted Wargear and Cranial Plating in equipment decks. Stoneforge Masterwork and Bone Saw are other options. However you like it, I'd suggest swapping out the 4x Leonin Scimitar for some combination of this. I also like the above suggestion to lean on Leonin Elder's ability and get some Ornithopters in there.
October 14, 2016 10:09 a.m.
TheVectornaut says... #6
While perhaps not highly competitive in modern, there were some cool cat cards released between original Mirrodin and now. Kemba, Kha Regent, Ajani, Caller of the Pride, White Sun's Zenith, Sunspear Shikari, and Brimaz, King of Oreskos. For equipment, I'm a sucker for Godsend.
October 14, 2016 11:10 a.m.
Uh, guys... Ornithopter and Memnite don't trigger Cloudstone Curio.
October 14, 2016 7:28 p.m.
Metroid_Hybrid says... #9
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Leonin Arbiter yet..
October 14, 2016 8:40 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #10
If you're going the equipment route, Puresteel Paladin may be a card to look into.
shaftdiggity says... #2
It comes down to how competitive you want this deck to be. It looks like a fair deck. The problem is, if you want to play against good modern decks, they all break the game and are unfair in one or more ways. I don't see a way of taking this deck to the top tiers of modern, but you could build around Leonin Elder, add some Ornithopter some Memnite, some Cloudstone Curio with an Aetherflux Reservoir as your win condition. You could add Soul Warden and Soul's Attendant as pseudo leonin elders. So by bouncing the free artifacts with the curio and an elder in play you gain infinite life to fuel a win whenever you cast the aetherflux.
If, on the other hand, you simply wish to have fun games against your friend, this may be a perfectly reasonable deck depending on the power level of that person's deck.
One thing to consider is a white soul-sisters deck. While not tier 1, it does have Ajani's Pridemate as the featured card (a cat instead of a leonin), is heavily aggro (depending on the build), and is very resilient. I personally play this and highly recommend it.
October 14, 2016 6:21 a.m.