Pre Apology
I am a very long winded individual so I apologize in advance for the following droning sentences and over sharing of minuscule/unnecessary details I provide. I just try to fully flesh out my ideas and reasonings for things and I know I go overboard. That being said I hope you enjoy the deck and my attempt to fully explain it's workings.
Intro
This is a deck i'm very proud of. As far as I know i've never seen a similar deck before so I think I made a spicy original brew. I've been playing MTG since Gate Crash release, and after mulling around for about a year not really advancing my ability or decks I got tired of always losing. Why were all my friends better? Turns out pre-cons modified with whatever cards were the same colors from the packs don't fare well really anywhere. I wanted a deck to call my own, something exciting and original. I tried mono blue mill, all counter spells, defenders, and mill cards, it was 110 cards. Yeah you can figure out how this moment in my MTG evolution went, but I was GROWING. After I made the game changing realization that 60 card decks are the most consistent and reliable I started to also understand the importance of redundancy in certain effects.
My next deck was a U/B humans tribal, also made with whatever cards I had that said human and were blue or white, and of course counter spells (I just thought they were so gosh darned powerful!!!) But this one, well it was winning! My friends/play group were not top level players, just to be clear, but they were still better than me and here I was making progress! I suspect that anyone reading this had a similar experience. I finally made measurable progress and it ignited a passion in me that has not yet wavered in the 6 years since.
Around the time Theros block was in action I had graduated from high school and moved a few towns over for work. I was in the midst of a very exciting and scary time in my life as I waded into the throes of adulthood! After settling into my modest 1 bed room apartment I went exploring and OMG THIS TOWN HAS AN LGS!!! I was nervous at first, because I knew I wasn't very good and none of my cards were very powerful. I knew I needed to work up the courage to enter eventually and submerge myself into a hobby that I loved. I was a year into my life as a Magic enthusiast and I had never participated in a sanctioned event, and really had no desire to at that point so none of my decks were made for any format in particular. I brought my couple of decks and looked around for a bit marveling at the wide variety of dice and accessories. I was a bit overwhelmed and so I took a seat and just started flipping through my modest binder nervously. I told this guy sitting near me sorting cards that I played casually. Nothing fancy and none of those annoying rules and restrictions of constructed play. He lit up and asked me if I wanted to play a few games. This was my moment to play with someone other than my home town play group of casuals! Finally a chance to prove my growing prowess at the game I love! (really if you're still reading we're almost done, again i'm sorry i'm just very enthusiastic about this brew and hoping everyone loves it)
I WAS DEMOLISHED
I sat down across from my opponent and pulled out my best deck. A more updated U/B Human tribal deck. I was certain the synergy between my Champions of the Parish, Mikaeus the Lunarch, and Gideon's Avengers would win, and my secret ace in the hole, a new addition, Venser the Sojourner to flicker my humans and pump up Champs would certainly win!!! My opponent pulls out a vintage legal deck. I'm on the play, my hands are shaking and i'm nervous. I don't want to over think and misplay. I draw my hand. TURN 1 CHAMP OH THIS IS TOO GOOD. I pass the turn, my opponent plays a forbidden orchard and passes the turn back. I ask to read the card because it was new to me. "wow" I think in my head, "this is a bad card. Give me free creatures? Surely the beats will just come quicker at this rate!". Turn 2, island, no play this turn, but next turn I get to play attended knight (2 creatures for 1!), I pass the turn. My opponent plays a forest and casts
Oath of Druids
. WAIT WHAT??? He passes the turn. I cast my attended knight as planned and attack for 2 with champ. He smiles as I pass the turn. Untap. Upkeep. He taps his oath with his index finger, "Triggers" he says. I nod slowly. He reveals a few cards off the top of his deck. Finally there it is.
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
. I look in disbelief. That's not even fair. To cut the story time short and save whoever is reading this the headache of my continued blabbering I lost, badly but that deck piqued my interest and the ever growing brewer inside me began to think...
I made an early list similar to this one weeks after my crushing defeat that ran many of the same cards, but this is the modern legal and completely updated list that i've brewed recently as a homage to my past self and his will to grow and learn the game of magic. So without further ado I present...
4-color Orchard
4-Color Orchard is an exciting grindy deck that seeks to kill your opponents over time with a combination of janky cards not often seen in the format! The power of
Forbidden Orchard
cannot be understated in this deck. Having at least one on the field is going to greatly increase your odds of winning (that's why it's the name sake!) Remember earlier when I mentioned how important redundancy is? This deck is all about stacking similar effects that drown the opponent out of the game, they can't answer all of it! (yes they can but darn if we aren't gonna hope they don't!)
Deck Tech
The main card as stated before is
Forbidden Orchard
. Everything in the deck is built around this land, and it's powerful ability of creating a mana of any color at the cost of providing our opponent with a colorless 1/1 spirit token, and so we are main boarding a play set. In addition to this play set we're also main boarding a play set of
Sylvan Scrying
to increase our odds of finding one. to negate the downside of playing Forbidden Orchard we're running 3 cards that protect us from the army of tokens we're providing to our opponent.
Ensnaring Bridge
Amulet of Safekeeping
and
Illness in the Ranks
. Let's talk about each card individually for a moment here so I can explain the benefits of each
Ensnaring Bridge
is a fantastic card for the deck. We're not really wanting to block with any of the creatures in our deck, we favor their triggered abilities to meet our goal of winning the game. Ensnaring Bridge is excellent protection from all the tokens you're going to be handing the opponent with forbidden orchard, and if the opponent is taking the creature route for their own deck, Ensnaring Bridge shuts out those deadly alpha swings!
Amulet of Safekeeping
Almost nobody you play against is going to know this one! Amulet is a powerful card for shutting out token based approaches like a fully stormed out Empty the Warrens. This protects you from orchard tokens and as an added plus it puts a tax on any spells your opponent might want to sling at your face, Burn eat your heart out!
Illness in the Ranks
This is the best of the three in my humble opinion. Illness in the Ranks is a sleeper card from RTR block that gives all creature tokens -1/-1. An ideal turn one in this deck is a forbidden orchard into Illness in the ranks. Now you can tap your orchards comfortably and this turns on your blood artists >:) and now that I mention blood artist...
Creatures, Enchantments, and their combos
Blood Artist
is a commander favorite with a very powerful ability attached to it. It's frail 0/1 body is a fair trade for the absurd power that lies within its text box. Combining your Forbidden Orchard/Illness in the ranks combo with blood artist allows you to continue casting spells and now whenever you tap your orchard they lose a life and you gain a life!
Suture Priest
this one is pure value for us. Tapping our orchards now punishes our opponent and any future creatures we play feed us sweet sweet life energy to stay in the game. a bonus if they're going the creature route themselves!
Trespasser's Curse
This is arguably the most important card in the deck after forbidden orchard. I would venture to say that most decks in the format do not have a main boarded answer for enchantments and this bad boy is going to be generating value for the rest of the game most times that you stick it. Also a tasty bonus if they are playing a creature based deck
All of these triggered effects are how we're typically going to win the game, and the best part is that if the game boils down to top decking, just tapping our orchards is going to finish our opponent, no extra spells needed!
Hunted Phantasm
this is the only beater in the deck. a sturdy 4/6 frame ensures we won't succumb to any pesky dismembers, and the 3 CMC makes it an awkward target for those wishing to fatally push our spooky spirit boi (though we often enable revolt for them), in addition to being a 3 mana 4/6 our hefty buddy here is also UNBLOCKABLE . Oh yeah, you read that right. Of course these things don't come for free, unfortunately (lol) we have to give our opponent five 1/1 goblin tokens, oh gosh if only we had an entire deck built around punishing them for that. If you stick this absolute unit of an illusion with even a single copy of suture priest, trespassers curse, or the illness in the ranks/blood artist combo your opponent will truly know fear. It's not uncommon for us to win by resolving one after assembling one of our mini combos, and late game it is almost always a kill on resolution thanks to our many triggered abilities.
The Suite of Answers and Other Things We Main Board
Because almost all of our creatures are wimps and we rely on their powerful abilities to carry their weight, we will almost never be blocking with them unless we're protecting ourselves from losing. This is problematic because an unchecked goblin guide or a gurmag angler or an army of humans or spirits will knock us right out of our chucks. Sure we gain a ton of life over time but once they have a modest board presence the beats will out pace what we're trying to achieve. I tried to get a few good "catch all" answers into the main board so we're semi-prepared for a slew of scenarios
Fatal Push
this is a two of, while it does catch most creatures in the format it feels really bad to be facing down a tasigur, gurmag angler, or Bane Slayer Angel. This is for those turn 1 birds or hierarchs. We're too slow and rely on building up a solid board presence of effects, the early ramp will trample us in advantage.
Abrupt Decay
This is a two of, I know what you're thinking. "But Evit, isn't Assassin's Trophy just better?" I hear your concern friend, and it is not unwarranted. If you closely examine our deck list you'll notice we have a staggering amount of 2 drops. 28 to be in fact! This is mostly to avoid getting janked out by a
Chalice of the Void
but it also hits most creatures, and most importantly
Blood Moon
which can and HAS locked me out of winning games with Forbidden Orchard before. We rely far too heavily on Forbidden orchard and our 2 drops to not be careful about this nightmare scenario.
Assassin's Trophy
another two of that we keep as a catch all for those unpredictable threats or our decks worst enemy - a resolved planeswalker. Because our only beater is Hunted Phantasm (papa bless) we really struggle against a Jace or Teferi, and
Liliana, the Last Hope
? GG nerd! OR IS IT?! Assassin's Trophy is our bread and butter against non creature threats that shut us out of the game.
Dark Confidant
This guy is very pricey and if you want a budget version of this deck, he's the first to go. I suggest replacing him with a play set of
Blood Seeker
just to really ramp up on that dank redundancy factor. We play four Dark Confidant simply because well, we can. Because the Average CMC of our deck is 2 we can comfortably take the hits from bob. And because both Trespassers curse and our blood artist/illness in the ranks combo gain us life, as well as our suture priests we will often just roll with the punches and bask in the titillating presence of one the greatest card advantage engine in Modern today.
Other Lands
I won't be explaining the basics in the deck because I feel they are pretty self explanatory so let's just move onto the other ones :)
Exotic Orchard
we have two Exotic Orchards! Mostly to add to the orchard flavor of the deck, but also because our 4 color deck is almost never going to face an opponent that isn't running at least one of our colors. The value of these cards only go up if they have 2, or even 3 of our colors!
City of Brass
or
Mana Confluence
Another two of, this is mostly to help alleviate the stress of having a 4 colored deck because often times we'll be needing to cast two spells in the same turn that are different colors. Additionally this helps with the awkward color requirement of
Hunted Phantasm
and again, the loss of life is negated by our many instances of life gain.
Overgrown Tomb
yeah we're running this as a one of just because black and green are our two most important colors
Godless Shrine
a one of just to add a little bit more to the consistency of our mana base :)
Blooming Marsh
a playset because our two most important colors absolutely need to be present. So much of the deck is black and a lot of our answer cards are requirements
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
this is a tasty one of that helps us because about half of our deck is black. Just a nice inclusion instead of a second swamp.
Side Board
Damnation
Sometimes we just really need a board wipe. Zoo decks and humans can often swarm us before we event get the ball rolling, and while Damnation is a little slow, when it resolves it's a hard reset.
Path to Exile
a one of in the sideboard that helps against troublesome creatures that our fatal pushes can't answer.
Assassin's Trophy
an extra one of for opponents who take the non creature approach.
Maelstrom Pulse
Another one of, this one serves a similar function to Assassin's Trophy, but it also comes in clutch if we can't find an illness in the ranks to deal with the army of tokens we give our opponents.
Eternal Witness
This one is a two of. Field of Ruin is a fairly ubiquitous inclusion in most two color decks we see in modern these days. I was torn between E-wit and
Crucible of Worlds
, but E-wit is also going to grab back our answer cards if we really need them, but Crucible is a more than acceptable replacement for this slot in the sideboard.
Nature's Claim
Have you ever been playing a perfectly fair and not at all janky or abusive game of magic and suddenly you lost to a torpor orb? I have. Nature's Claim is the premier answer to artifact/enchantments that we have in Modern. As a two of, not only is this magnificent card effective against cards that really put us out of the game like Blood Moon, or walking ballista, but it is also just ridiculously handy for format favorites like Detention Sphere.
Pithing Needle
A two of that is in my opinion seeing a resurgence as of late, what with the unbanning of daddy Jace and the powerhouse that is all-father god emperor Teferi. This card may look like it came straight out of gam gam's sewing kit, but it's literally the difference between life and death when you're staring across the table at the smug grin of an opponent who top decked Liliana the Last Hope. More like Liliana the LOST Hope amirite?
Nihil Spellbomb
Okay let's not beat around the bush, format menaces Dredge and Izzet Phoenix are going to be an issue. Unfortunately the unique nature of our win cons means we can't side board
Rest in Peace
or
Leyline of the Void
without shutting off our blood artists. To avoid this i've decided on Nihil Spellbombs mostly for the card draw. This slot could easily be taken by
Relic of Progenitus
or
Tormod's Crypt
Maybe board
Beast Within
This is a tough one. I like the catch all ability of destroying anything, but I hesitate to give our opponent a creature we might not be able to deal with in the absence of multiple Amulets and Illness's
Conclusion/Final Words
I know what you're thinking. Oh jeez this wind bag is still talking. Someone tutor up a
Silence
. I know I know, I apologize. I've been typing for like 4 hours now so i'm not even going to include which match ups we are favored in and which we aren't. So this is it. 4-Color Orchard, my own spin on a fun little jank deck that can steal wins and catch meta decks off guard. Have fun, cross your fingers that your opponent doesn't have engineered explosives, and thanks for reading :)
