Rain of Tears

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planechase Legal
Premodern Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Rain of Tears

Sorcery

Destroy target land.

Kazierts on Algae Blanket Budget

1 year ago

Love the idea, but I don't think the leeches are particularly good. I think it would be better to include proper land destruction such as Icequake, Rain of Tears and Rancid Earth. I'd say even Befoul would be better, since it can also kill a creature.

Aside from this small criticism, I loved the idea. It's unfortunate Blanket of Night isn't Modern legal :(((

sylvannos on *{[Budget Gifts Control]}*

3 years ago

I have to agree with JKRice and matti_4_4. You need more Gifts piles, the most obvious one being Languish/Ritual of Soot/Day of Judgment/Supreme Verdict/Damnation/AEtherize. I think 4x Path to Exile and Lingering Souls is perfectly fine, but you may want to supplement them with more removal. Especially with removal that helps make more Gift piles and has lifegain. Unfortunately, since this is a budget deck, you're not playing a fourth/fifth color for stuff like Lightning Helix. You may have to use something like Oath of Kaya.

Your hardest matchups are Burn and Tron. Other decks you can just 1-for-1 them and then bamboozle their deck with a single Gifts Ungiven. Burn eats away quickly at your life total, while Tron is the same speed as you but it has much better cards. The easiest way to deal with both of these decks game one is Inquisition of Kozilek. You take away those Goblin Guides and Expedition Maps before things get too out of control. You also need a sideboard to further help deal with these two archetypes. Kor Firewalker dumpsters Burn, while you'll need stuff like Disenchant and Rain of Tears to deal with Tron.

Blood Baron of Vizkopa is super-secret tech. It can't die against most of the decks in Modern and helps you play around graveyard hate when they can eat your Unburial Rites. It's not a card you need in game one, though. You don't want to have too many win conditions between your maindeck creatures and manlands. You probably don't need 2x Grave Titan for similar reasons. I'd suggest cutting at least one of them.

Lastly, if you're having trouble deciding what removal to use, go with silver-bullet hard counterspells. Stuff like Dispel, Spell Snare, Absorb, and Essence Scatter can go a long way. The only issue is that you're already really strong against other control decks, which is where these cards usually shine. They do, however, make Mystical Teachings more appealing as a "fifth" copy of Gifts Ungiven.

Balaam__ on

3 years ago

There’s not much targeted land distraction here, surprisingly. Both black and red have access to a plethora of spells that specifically target lands; you may want to focus more on these in particular. Crack the Earth could be satisfied by any permanent, and is giving your opponent the choice. Consider cards like Rain of Tears, Befoul, Molten Rain, Roiling Terrain or Boom / Bust—-they give you the advantage of choosing which land to sunder.

RNR_Gaming on

3 years ago

I actually dont like Rain of Tears main. I'm guessing it's for the tron matchup

kamarupa on Orzhov lifedrain - Your life is mine

4 years ago

Declaration in Stone is pretty decent, but it is also a Sorcery. I think people have a misconception that Instants are better strictly because they allow for more immediate response. While speed is an undeniable advantage, in a deck without ramp, making use of mana on opponent's turns can also be more efficient. For example, with an Instant in hand, you can use untapped mana to remove a threat on an opponent's turn, then untap those lands on your turn, whereas a with a Sorcery, you have to wait until your turn and then choose between casting a removal spell or a creature spell. And then there's range - not all removal spells are equally useful, and in my humble opinion, Generous Gift is pretty solid - not only is it an Instant, but it works on everything. Of course, it also comes at the top of realistic CMC, vs stuff like Fatal Push and Path to Exile that are much narrower, but also allow versatility in casting more spells. I usually run 1-2x of a couple different removal spells that overlap, but also give me range. The added upside to singleton removals is that spells like Surgical Extraction etc that consider additional copies in hand/deck/graveyard, etc fizzle. The downside is against spells like Duress that reveal your hand, as singletons will make it easier for opponents to count your cards (as is true with land art). That's not something I usually care about, but I understand why other people do. I usually prefer white removal to black, so I might run something like 1x Blessed Alliance (versatile and works against hexproof/indestructivble), 1x Generous Gift (works against everything at Instant-speed), 1x Declaration in Stone (very strong against tokens and it exiles), 1x Cast Down (value of speed and application). I don't think this approach is favored in competitive play. Indeed, part of the reason for it is budget-related. If I could afford 16 copies of Path to Exile, it would be in a lot of my decks. And certainly, some of the same logic is generally reserved for Sideboards, which I also use to pad out my top removal spells along with other utilities like Pithing Needle , Ratchet Bomb , Nevermore , Celestial Purge , etc.

Yes, I think you should still try to lower the CMC. In a fast format like Modern, 5 mana on T5 isn't a lot! That's a total possible casting power of 15 over the course of your target game, and that's assuming you play a land each turn. (That also means you'll only be looking at a maximum pool of 12 cards, and 5 of those must be lands! So what 7 spells can you cast for 15 mana? That's only 2.14 mana on average!) If you consider the likely possibility that at least 2 of that 15 must be spent in preventing an opponent from winning, that leaves a maximum of 13 mana to cast other spells. If at least 1 of those other spells is going to be a wincon that costs 4 or more, that leaves 9. This is why spells like Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord are so difficult to use. If you cast him, you're left with only 5 mana total over the course of 5 turns to cast other creatures and spells. That's only 2x 2CMC creatures. Having 20x 2cmc creatures guarantees you'll get a couple, but it doesn't offset the price of trying to play bigger spells. If Sorin gets removed, or hit via evasion, trample, etc, you can lose a lot of limited resources, and because of spells like Generous Gift and Beast Within , opponents can remove any big threat for less than you can cast them. This can easily slippery slope into getting a combo and protecting it at all costs, which I think, while sometimes fun, is also not as good as a deck without a central/obvious threat. I'm big on value and synergy. Like, I think 30x Champion of the Parish and 10x Brave the Elements would beat just about anything. This all applies to your report on trouble with heavy counterspell/removal. Without a lot of disruption, you've got to be able to play creatures for less than opponents spend to remove them. That usually means no more than 4 spells at 3CMC and only 1-2 at 4+CMC. It also usually means at least 6 1CMC spells. Of course, you're constrained by the theme of the deck, which is all about life-drain, and I think you're way out in front of foolhardy decks trying to play Exquisite Blood+Sanguine Bond among a smattering of other 3CMC+ spells. That said, you still want to make your deck as competitive as possible within your budget, so anywhere you can make the deck faster, more efficient, and more consistent, you want to trade power all the way down to the minimum. Most games, you only need to get opponents from 20 life to 0.

To address Tron, I think it's worth going back to removal options briefly to point out that Generous Gift works on lands, which can be used to shut down Tron decks or at least slow them down. The great thing about GG is that it works on other stuff, too, making it considerably better than something like Rain of Tears , which is so specific and narrow, it's hard to justify even in a sideboard. Other stuff that's great against Tron: Ghost Quarter and less budget friendly, Field of Ruin . Damping Sphere is solid, too, and will favor your heavy-ish use of limited mana, as it's very possible you'll only have enough to cast 1 spell on many turns. To some degree, all this also depends a bit on what sort of threats the Tron decks you're facing are putting down, as it's a pretty broad archetype. Sometimes more removal or board wipes can be useful, but given the mana Tron produces, it's usually difficult to keep up with it once it's assembled. Oh. I got really carried away. Sorry about that. I hope some of this is useful.

SakuraStorm on PETTY EXTORTION [PRIMER|DUEL|1vs1] BRAIDS

4 years ago

@Senomar Thanks, glad you like it! Guess i'm not the only one that found his way to duel for these reasons :)

Good point on the number of lands. I was hesitating to cut them to 32, but during my last games i was fine. I'll keep an eye out and put them back up to 34, if i should get the feeling of having to mulligan too often.

I was really struggling to find a spot for the tutors. Also a bit afraid they might be deadcards early on, as turn 2 is usually rock or ramp and turn 3 Braids. Thing is, Icequake , Rain of Tears and Rancid Earth are usually in line for turn 4, together with a random 1 or 2CMC Spell. It's also the turn after Braids hits, when they are a great tool to put pressure on the opponent(or cripple colorhungry decks).

So idon't want to cut them, but:

Provided everything went as usual, i should have 5 Mana by Turn 4. That's enough to cast Demonic Tutor or Tainted Pact and follow up by Icequake which i can search for then. Depending on the Situation searching for one of the two Lilianas or other <=3CMC drops might be another nice option.

So i'll be replacing Rain of Tears and Rancid Earth with Demonic Tutor and Tainted Pact . Leaves me still with the option to search for the Icequake and alternatives. Awesome!

Mind Twist is something i considered too, but i went with Hymn to Tourach . Is cheaper and allows for more plays during later turns. Both are amazing cards though.

Senomar on PETTY EXTORTION [PRIMER|DUEL|1vs1] BRAIDS

4 years ago

Hey my friend, sweet deck !

politics, groupdynamic, false threat assessement (especially since my friends play like dicks...) or the "social contract", you listed all the tings that annoyed me in the multiplayer format :)

My 2CP on your decklist is that you need 1 or 2 more lands. I saw you got 14 rocks and 4 rituals to accelerate your mana in the deck but the amount of time you need to mulligan in order you get the 2 lands you should at least have in your opening hand to start throwing your rocks seems to be too high.

Sinkhole is a must have especially in mono black but do Icequake , Rain of Tears or Rancid Earth really worth it ? I'd replace them for lands but if you want to keep the same amount of lands Tainted Pact , Demonic Tutor or Mind Twist are some cool black stapples of the format you should have a try on.

Akromathia on Hervaiser 4.0 (Black Control)

4 years ago

Hello Icbrgr, thank you for your compliments, I am glad you like the deck.

  • Sangromancer is quite powerful, and just like you said, not quite popular. She will never disappoint you.
  • Lashwrithe is an amazing artefact, and I am running tests with it. Based on your suggestion I found Dread Shade . This new creature is somewhat similar to the artifact and gives both; a much-needed punch to the deck, and a great target for the insane mana produced by Cabal Stronghold , that was wasted sometimes.
  • Rain of Tears is also a great suggestion, and I am currently testing it as well. However, it is a mixed bag. It is indeed more reliable than Contaminated Ground , but I deeply miss the extra damage cause by it.
  • Sorcerous Spyglass and Pithing Needle are pretty good against Planeswalker, just like you stated. But I think I have a pretty decent anti walker spell density in 4x Ruinous Path and 2x The Eldest Reborn . And we can factor in the 4x Duress and 4x Memoricide as well for game 2 and 3.
  • Ratchet Bomb is excellent! In all honesty I had forgotten the thing. I will try to buy some and find a spot in the deck for them.
Thank you very much.

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