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Spaghetti and Beatdowns

Modern Combo Counters Creature Cheat GW (Selesnya) Hexproof Indestructible

Balaam__

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Creature (18)

Instant (20)

Land (22)

Sideboard

Creature (14)

Sorcery (1)

One of the earliest decks I posted to this site was a Vintage build centered around infinite combos, Eldrazi wishboarding and far too many of the Power 9 called “A White Pebble”. Needless to say, it was far too expensive for any normal person to pay it much attention. Besides, all the kids are busy playing what amounts to the ‘open mouth surprise YouTube video thumbnail’ of M:tG formats, Commander.

I’ve decided to port that Vintage variant into Modern and it went far, far smoother than expected. The core structure is nearly identical, and what’s here is stronger than ever and quite affordable. Most serious Modern players will already possess many of the key cards, and the Eldrazi themselves are largely interchangeable with whatever you may have on hand.

Head on over to the local Italian restaurant, seat yourself in front of that red-and-white checkered tablecloth and enjoy a nice plate of Spaghetti and Beatdowns.

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The splits are actually more important than the utility here. More speed make go go faster, yes, but we run oodles of protection and pseudo evasion buffs to keep things alive. I’ve included what I think are the most optimal lands to get the job done, but if you don’t have access to the Fetches or Duals then reasonable equivalents will suffice.

•Razorverge Thicket makes for an ideal Turn 1 play, with Temple Garden coughing up the same .

•Use Windswept Heath to grab whatever remaining basic Forests and Plains you need.

•Birds of Paradise outshines other mana dorks here in that it will allow you to better custom tailor the deck to your personal card pool. There is a variation of this deck that forgoes the fancy sideboard chicanery we’ll discuss later on in favor of mainboard focused mayhem. A little retooling of the mana base will enable any overpowered monster of any color to be played, and Birds of Paradise already taps for one mana of any color making things that much simpler.

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I discovered a brand new combo in Magic, an interaction between Devoted Druid + Vizier of Remedies . Nobody knows about it, I’m totally the first person to ever think of pairing these two cards together—so keep it under your hat, ok?

Anyway, together these two ladies make infinite mana—and that’s about as much as we’re going to need when you catch a glimpse of the eye watering costs a particular card requires. But all in good time. For now, let’s focus on how we can keep these mana making maidens alive and well.

Remember, don’t tell anyone about this super secret combo.

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Everything revolves around the mana generated by Devoted Druid + Vizier of Remedies so protecting them is our top priority. Thankfully, has us more than covered and we will unquestionably be able to provide a protective paling, a holy palisade to ward off all evils.

•Snakeskin Veil, Tamiyo's Safekeeping and Heroic Intervention all essentially do the same thing, so keep your eyes open as to which card best suits each individual circumstance. Heroic Intervention in particular is supremely effective, but also very expensive. There are other, more affordable substitutes like Tyvar's Stand or Blossoming Defense at your disposal.

•Mana Tithe is stupidly good early game at derailing all sorts of archetypes and strategies. No one runs it, no one expects it, and in the opening turns when mana is scarce and each play counts—no one has an answer for it.

•Evolution Charm acts as a safeguard against countermagic, stuff like Thoughtseize or any targeted removal that bypassed your defenses, though sadly it can’t grab anything from exile. Still, having a way to pull one of the combo pieces or a Spawnsire of Ulamog you were forced to discard back from the grave is not trivial.

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The deck mainboards some threats easily strong enough to close out most games by themselves, but where’s the fun in that? We’re looking for something more.

Once you’ve located Spawnsire of Ulamog (use Eladamri's Call or Fauna Shaman if you haven’t drawn into him yet) he basically lets us use our sideboard as an extension of the maindeck, instantaneously and on command—provided we’re able to pay the hefty costs of for him and for his relatives from out of town. Fortunately any old mana will do, and our friends can make that much without breaking a sweat. All that’s left to do is fill our sideboard with Eldrazi of our choosing and then watch the chaos unfold!

I went full on nuclear annihilation with the selection of sideboard creatures, but it actually isn’t truly necessary. A lot of these noodle armed guys are really cost prohibitive (not talking mana here, I mean dollars and cents) so few people own them all. The good news is as long as they’re Elzdrazi type creatures any of them will work, even ones from the quarter bin like Ulamog's Crusher.

You don’t even need to have them suck up the full 15 sideboard slots; a handful of well chosen Eldrazi stompers can accomplish the win while you round out the remaining slots with a more carefully balanced sideboard for games two and three.

“Aah, you were at my side all along.”

•Bring the Devoted Druid + Vizier of Remedies combo online, locating key pieces with Eladamri's Call or Fauna Shaman and preserving each card with a suite of protection spells.

•Back a dump truck full of mana up to the table and hardcast Spawnsire of Ulamog as well as paying the whopping for his ultimate ability.

•Thank your opponent for playing, then wish them better luck next time. Seriously, you just purged the plane of all existence to make room for the 14 ludicrously overpowered cosmic freaks you pulled in from outside the boundaries of reality. The game is over, bro.

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•Control is far and away the worst possible matchup for this deck. Protecting our important plays is rather trivial and there are surprisingly few cards that can sneak around our defenses. But our Achilles’ Heel is that in order to protect our cards, they must actually see play.

That which fizzles on the stack does us no good, and short of sideboarding more recursive options like Nature's Spiral there isn’t much we can do about it. Even so, this scenario puts us further and further behind schedule and it just plain stinks. And that isn’t even mentioning the dread one-two punch of Counterspell into Surgical Extraction. The original Vintage draft handily sidestepped this exact issue by holding a copy of Devoted Druid + Vizier of Remedies and Spawnsire of Ulamog in the sideboard, but unfortunately that won’t work in Modern. Living Wish isn’t legal, and Glittering Wish only retrieves multi-colored cards.

•Direct Burn is another potentially rough game. We can shield our stuff just fine, but taking bolt after bolt to the face leaves us in a dire condition. The original Vintage build ran Dawnglow Infusion which proved invaluable at keeping us afloat prior to getting the combo up and running, and it’s obviously infinite life after that point, so lifegain spells may warrant a closer look if you want to have a more balanced sideboard.

“But calamity will come upon you, And none of your charms will stop it. Adversity will befall you; you will not be able to avert it. Sudden ruin will come upon you like you have never known.”

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Casual

91% Competitive

Revision 1 See all

(1 month ago)

-2 Dawnglow Infusion main
+2 Evolution Charm main
+1 Kozilek, the Broken Reality side
+1 Thought-Knot Seer side
+1 Ulamog, the Defiler side