Introduction to: Electric Slide
Welcome to the exciting world of Grixis Ensoul Pummeler, a fresh take on the Ensoul Artifact archetype with a splash of Energy fun. This deck seeks to capitalize on the synergy between high-impact artifacts, quick burst damage, and a resilient, multi-angle attack strategy. By combining traditional artifact threats with the explosive potential of Electrostatic Pummeler, this deck is capable of packing a serious punch and offers a unique, challenging play experience for those looking to shake up the Modern meta.
Deck Philosophy
The Grixis Ensoul Pummeler strategy builds upon the proven strategy of Ensoul Artifact decks, combining resilient and aggressive artifact threats with powerful enhancements to apply consistent pressure. What sets this deck apart, however, is the inclusion of Electrostatic Pummeler, a card historically tied to the Energy mechanic, as a primary win condition. Armed with pump spells and our titular card Ensoul Artifact, Pummeler has the potential to close games in a single, dramatic swing, or with the unexpected use of Fling.
The deck walks a fine line between aggressive strategies and carefully crafted sequences of plays, making it a rewarding choice for players who enjoy thinking on their feet. With strong control elements like Thoughtseize and versatile removal options, it is capable of holding its own against a wide range of popular Modern strategies.
Key Mechanics and Interactions
The deck utilizes various synergies and intricate interactions to maximum effect:
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Ensoul Artifact: This is our key power-enhancer. Ensoul Artifact can transform any of our artifact targets into a significant threat early in the game, including the lands. Darksteel Citadel is a favorite target, becoming a resilient 5/5 indestructible creature.
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Electrostatic Pummeler: This card acts as our secret weapon. Coupled with pump spells like Mutagenic Growth and doubled by its energy ability, the Pummeler can quickly become an insurmountable threat for our opponents. The inclusion of Fling gives us the opportunity to deliver a lethal blow even in the face of imminent removal or blockers.
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Protecting our Assets: Our deck comes equipped with cards like Spellskite and Welding Jar to protect our key pieces. Spellskite can divert removal aimed at other creatures, while Welding Jar provides resilience against artifact destruction.
Navigating the Modern Landscape
With a careful balance between aggressive creatures, resilient threats, and strategic disruption, this Grixis Ensoul Pummeler deck is built to hold its own in the diverse world of Modern Magic. It's a deck that rewards careful piloting and strategic planning, offering depth of gameplay and multiple angles of attack.
Whether you're smashing in with a massive Electrostatic Pummeler, applying consistent pressure with Ensoul Artifact-enhanced creatures, or controlling the game's tempo with selective removal and hand disruption, the deck is versatile enough to adapt to a wide array of matchups, making every game a thrilling, unique experience.
With this Grixis Ensoul Pummeler, we're embracing the chaos of the battlefield, presenting a dynamic and unconventional strategy in Modern that's not only competitive but immensely fun to pilot. Join the energy revolution and electrify your opponents with the raw power of this unique artifact deck.
Grixis Ensoul Pummeler vs. Traditional Ensoul Artifact
The traditional Ensoul Artifact archetype in Modern has always presented an aggressive game plan with resilient threats in the form of artifacts that become creatures, primarily leveraging Ensoul Artifact itself. However, the deck can struggle against highly interactive strategies, which can dismantle its key components before they become relevant threats. Also, the deck’s traditional build often relies on a single path to victory: attacking with large, Ensoul Artifact-empowered creatures. This can make the deck somewhat predictable, offering opponents clear lines of play to counter the deck’s strategy.
Here’s where Grixis Ensoul Pummeler significantly innovates and improves upon the traditional framework:
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A New Threat Dimension: With the addition of Electrostatic Pummeler, the deck introduces a fresh angle of attack. Pummeler has a built-in exponential growth factor that allows it to become a massive threat with just a single activation and a pump spell. This not only adds an additional layer of threat that opponents have to address but also significantly diversifies the deck’s win conditions.
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Increased Unpredictability: Fling introduces an entirely new dimension of gameplay into the deck. No longer does the deck purely rely on combat damage to secure victory; Fling allows the deck to bypass potential blockers and even deliver lethal damage outside of the combat phase. This increased unpredictability forces opponents to reconsider the use of their interaction, possibly leading them to make suboptimal plays out of caution.
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Adaptive Mana Base: By including a splash of red and green, the mana base becomes more flexible, allowing for a broader range of responses and threats. Access to cards like Terminate and Dismember, not usually seen in traditional Ensoul Artifact builds, gives the deck more flexibility to adapt to various board states.
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Energy Synergies: While subtle, the deck does incorporate a new Energy subtheme centered around Electrostatic Pummeler. This not only provides additional utility and strategic depth but also adds an extra level of fun and complexity to the deck’s playstyle.
All of these elements come together to create a deck that feels distinctly fresh, challenging, and rewarding to pilot. Grixis Ensoul Pummeler manages to maintain the core principles of the Ensoul Artifact archetype while also taking it to new heights, providing additional win conditions, greater flexibility, and an overall more diverse and unpredictable gameplay experience.
Typical Sequence
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Turn 1: Land, ideally play a 0 and/or 1 cost artifact (Welding Jar or Vault Skirge).
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Turn 2: Land, depending on your hand and the board state, you might Ensoul Artifact on an available target, Thoughtseize to disrupt your opponent, or set up more of your board with a Spellskite or more artifacts.
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Turn 3: Land, this could be the turn you play Electrostatic Pummeler if the way is clear, or you might need to deal with your opponent's threats with Terminate or Thoughtseize.
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Turns 4+: From here, the game could go in many directions. You might be enhancing your Pummeler and swinging for big damage, protecting your threats with Welding Jar and Spellskite, disrupting your opponent with Thoughtseize, drawing cards with Thoughtcast or Relic of Progenitus, and preparing for your win with Fling. The key is to adapt to the game state and work toward executing your win condition.
Pummeler Sequencing
Understanding how to properly pump Electrostatic Pummeler is a key aspect of piloting this deck effectively, as it involves intricate usage of the stack, a central element of gameplay in Magic: The Gathering.
To maximize the effect of your pump spells and abilities and increase Electrostatic Pummeler's power as much as possible, follow this sequence:
- Activate Electrostatic Pummeler's energy ability. This ability doesn't give Pummeler +X/+X where X is its power when the ability is activated, it considers its power when the ability resolves.
- Before the ability resolves, cast a pump spell like Mutagenic Growth. By doing this, you're increasing Pummeler's power before the ability resolves.
- When the ability resolves, it will see Pummeler's increased power and give it a bigger boost than it would have received otherwise.
This sequence also has strategic implications. If your opponent has removal, they might be tempted to use it in response to the initial ability activation, before you've cast your pump spell. If they do, you can respond by casting your pump spell and possibly saving your Pummeler. By understanding how the stack works and carefully considering the sequence in which you play your spells and abilities, you can optimize your gameplay and potentially get more out of your cards.
All that being said this deck is far from tested properly or tuned yet. So if you play test it and find things that work better I’m open to suggestions.
I could see it potentially needing more interaction. Or it could focus more on a pummeler fling finish. Perhaps the mana base could be better tuned etc.
This is the core deck in my opinion with many possible variations and certainly more changes as it is tested more.
This deck belongs to the community now so get to it! Haha :)
