Creature (23)
Land (21)
Sorcery (7)
Instant (9)
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Maybeboard
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Enchantment (1)
Sorcery (1)
Legend has it someone once built a deck wherein all card names only contained the letter ‘a’ as the vowel. Legend has it that it was rather appropriately entitled The Legend of A. To this day, I still consider it the most unique, brilliantly imaginative deck on Tappedout. Once I saw how a deck could be more than just ‘Assemble cardage to compete against other assembled cardage’, I promptly stepped through that doorway leading to unbridled creativity and never looked back.
This decklist is a tribute to that mythical cardpile.
My mission statement?
To construct a coherent, genuinely playable deck using only cards which do not contain the letter ‘f’ anywhere on them. This includes the card name, the super type/sub type, the rules text, the italicized text beneath it (see what I did there ;) as well as the expansion abbreviation and even the artist’s name.
As you might expect, this will in no way measure up to any real competitive standard. The build’s restrictive nature truncates the available cardpool, and concessions will be made regarding less appealing artworks, limited edition printings etc. in a bid to broaden what scant options we have remaining. When all is said and done, should the deck resemble anything remotely playable (i.e. a decent mana curve, cards which compliment one another, a basic overall strategy and a tangible wincon) then I’ll consider it a success.
Elephant in the room: Adhering to a true ‘No ‘F’ Policy’ is technically impossible, as every single Magic: the Gathering card is inked with Trademark & Copyright legalese in the bottom right corner citing the parent company, one Wizards of the Coast. Despite that, this deckbuilding challenge was too enticing to abandon so I have decreed this lone ‘f’ shall be exempt.
Lest you erroneously assume ’Putting this together couldn’t have been that hard’, I urge you: Try to build your own variation. I’m not suggesting this is the only possible iteration, simply that it was astonishingly tougher than I imagined.
•Entire mechanics are rendered unplayable. Flying? Out. Flashback? Gone. Fortify? Nope. Foretell? No way José. Firststrike, Fear, Flash, Fading? No, No, No, No!
•Entire creature types are summarily blackballed. As an example, consider Elves or Dwarves. Current nomenclature tags individual specimens as “Creature—Elf” and “Creature—Dwarf”. How about Merfolk? Nope. Artifact creatures? Negative. There’s always Faeries—oh wait, nevermind. Ah, but what about Shapeshif…you get the picture.
•Perhaps nothing is impacted worse than mana production. is not traditionally reliant on mana dorks, so realistically all our mana was always going to be land-sourced. The problem is that under these strict guidelines most Modern staples are rendered inaccessible.
Shocklands are a complete no-go. They used to be authored in proper English: “As [card name] enters the battlefield”, but that’s since been retconned into the horrendously lazy and linguistically disgusting shorthand “As this land enters”. You might think that solves our issue, but one is still given the choice whether to “pay 2 life.”, then warned “If you don’t, it enters tapped.”
Also, cards like Bloodstained Mire are out—not because they’re colloquially known as ‘Fetchlands’, but because their modus operandi is to ‘, Pay 1 life, Sacrifice Bloodstained Mire: Search your library for a Swamp or Mountain card and put it into play. Then shuffle your library.’
•Support magic is also largely torpedoed. Good luck locating a spell which isn’t merely a temporary boon, increasing our creatures’ attributes only “until end of turn”!
Beyond this point you will not see the letter ‘F’ again, either on the cards or lurking within my deck description.
Abandon All F’s, Ye Who Enter Here
There are basic Mountains and Swamps aplenty, but…what’s this? Do my eyes deceive me? Lo and behold, honest to goodness dual lands (or close enough) that aren’t stained with a prohibited letter!
•No, we aren’t actually going to play Wastes or attempt to utilize any mana. It’s just a proxy representing Blightstep Pathway .
Why the ‘bait and switch’, why not just list it above among the other lands? To accentuate the Pathway land cycle’s modal nature, they present on the website in such a way as to clearly communicate the card can be turned over. It’s a QoL thing and very handy when deckbuilding or perusing, but it would mean a certain letter-non-grata would appear in the decklist. Don’t like how I handled that?
•Lantern-Lit Graveyard isn’t exactly ideal, but it’ll have to do. Honestly it’s not that bad here, as many spells require a generic , and when we’re pressured or ready to close out the game we can absolutely utilize the land’s secondary option.
•Stromkirk Noble is a decent Turn 1 play. Humans can’t block him, and since Modern is practically bubbling over with regularly played human creatures this makes our vampire actually not a bad choice. Don’t have a memory lapse and skip attaching any counters he earns, it helps a lot as things progress.
•Blisterspit Gremlin isn’t quite the most envious combo engine to have up and running, but we’ll cast enough non-creature spells to make him worthwhile. He’s weak, but that damage builds up over time.
•Raptor Hatchling is here to help keep the pressure on, and with any luck he’ll push a damage point though prior to keeling over dead. Ah, but once he does we get a 3/3 token with Trample on the house, so not bad overall.
•Ahn-Crop Crasher is a highly potent card, perhaps the best we run. Exert him to manipulate the boardstate to our advantage as we press the attack.
•Guttersnipe channels the many Instant and Sorcery spells we’ll be slinging into pure bonus damage directed at the opposing player.
•Blood Cultist is here on a trial basis, an experiment revolving around a combo I will detail later below. In the meantime, just know the deck contains ample means to terminate a creature’s existence, so as long as we remember to this gothic babe she can grow considerably stronger as the game continues.
•I stumbled upon Imodane, the Pyrohammer and recognized her immense value immediately. I relish the prospect wherein a Lightning Bolt destroys an opponent’s creature, which prompts Guttersnipe to dispense a subsequent 2 damage, which chains into Imodane nailing the opponent with yet another 3.
•Realistically, Charging Monstrosaur will be our game ending bomb. A 5/5 with Haste and Trample is no joke, and the opponent will likely be whittled down health-wise to the point where a battle phase or two might just be enough to close things out.
Selecting the appropriate support spells was the most arduous task while designing this.
Picking out lands took us back to basics and hunting down the best creatures wasn’t terribly troublesome, but trying to assemble the supporting ligature to tie everything together proved to be a nightmare. The pile containing great-but-unplayable cards grew quickly, and in the end these were the ones that proved their worth.
•Dreadbore almost didn’t make the cut, but then I happened upon the Secret Lair Drop printing. No anathematic letter in sight! Alas, while Dreadbore and Imodane aren’t on speaking terms (removal ≠ damage), it will play nice with Guttersnipe. Having the option to deport Planeswalkers to the graveyard is the cherry on top, and Dreadbore replaced the mediocre Eliminate I had as a placeholder in an earlier revision.
•Lightning Bolt needs no introduction, and it’s nice we can include at least one Tournament caliber card. We’ll be leaning on this one quite a bit, both as targeted removal and as a coup-de-grâce.
•Shock is the previous card’s baby brother. Not as strong, but just as quick to cast. Once either Guttersnipe or Imodane, the Pyrohammer (or both) have hit the table, a well cast Shock creates a nice chain reaction turning 2 damage points into another 2 or possibly 4.
•Strangle can target Planeswalkers directly, but really shines when coupled with Guttersnipe and Imodane just like the previous card. I settled on a 3-3 split between Shock and Strangle owing to each card’s strengths/weaknesses. One punches harder but is more restricted in what it can target, while the other is more versatile. One plays at Instant speed, the other at Sorcery speed.
•Searing Blood is an…interesting inclusion, so please allow me to explain why it’s here. The allure hinges on the possible damage output when coupled with Blood Cultist, Guttersnipe and Imodane, the Pyrohammer. There is a scenario where we Blood Cultist to ping a creature and chain that into Searing Blood to destroy said creature. This will tally 3 damage points on our opponent’s tab and also trigger Guttersnipe and Imodane (2 additional bonus damage points apiece), bringing the grand total to a whopping 7 damage and a dead creature. Oh, and also a +1/+1 counter on Blood Cultist. It’s very enticing. It might be that my head is in the clouds and that’s too big an ask, but depending on how reliable it proves to execute Blood Cultist + Searing Blood will either stay or get removed and replaced with something more stable.
•Turn 1, drop a Blisterspit Gremlin, Stromkirk Noble or go with an old-school Bolt. Be sure to utilize Blisterspit Gremlin as much as possible across subsequent turns!
•Turn 2, deploy Raptor Hatchling or obliterate an opponent’s piece with Dreadbore or a well timed burn spell.
•Turn up the heat on Turn 3 and cast (and Exert) an Ahn-Crop Crasher, or lay down a Guttersnipe to begin the barrage.
•Turn 4’s ideal play is to plop down Imodane, the Pyrohammer to bolster our damage output.
•Turn 5, unload a Charging Monstrosaur to crash into whatever the opposing player has remaining on the table. End the game with some spot removal cleanup, or a couple Bolts and Shocks to their health pool.
Oh, just a reminder: Should your vanquished opponent utter a certain swear word in a bitter parting salvo, that doesn’t count as violating the deck’s theme :D
Currently incomplete, suggestions welcome!
•Dead / Gone because more bounce/removal is always a good thing, and it keeps the Guttersnipe+Imodane embers kindled.
•Carnival / Carnage is yet another means to capitalize on the Guttersnipe+Imodane combo engine, but it didn’t appear to be worthwhile compared to what we already run. Seemed to be a better sideboard inclusion.
•I debated running 4x Darkness and 4x Blood Moon, but that would really ramp up the build price. Should you own them, I’d say run them. Otherwise, this isn’t necessarily a deck you’d want to invest serious cash in. Hence, I didn’t add either to the decklist, but I wanted to mention them anyway.
•There aren’t many draw spells when our stringent deckbuilding criteria is taken into consideration, so Epiphany Storm is here to remind me it’s an option.
•I contemplated adding Dreadhorde Butcher but in the end I wasn’t sold on it. Present a compelling case why it should be in the maindeck and maybe you’ll change my mind.
•Boom / Bust was included in an earlier working prototype with a land-destruction sub-theme (which I’ve obviously scrapped), so I’m not married to it.
•Cult Guildmage used to be included but I removed it early on. The discard related ability had me intrigued and I tried to build around that, but ultimately this card is pretty much trash.
•Sun-Crowned Hunters used to hold a prominent place in the build, a secondary game-ending bomb. Sadly, playtesting revealed it was just too expensive to reliably see play. The idea was to ping it repeatedly with low damage pot shots, but yeah. A shame, really. Oh well.
•I’m listing Zhao, the Moon Slayer just to let everyone know I’m aware it exists. I’d really rather not include cards based on properties that have nothing to do with this game, so unless someone presents a compelling reason it should absolutely be added, I don’t intend to.
I would greatly appreciate any and all critiques to help improve the deck’s playability, but all suggestions must strictly adhere to the rules detailed at the outset. Anything in violation will be summarily rejected, with extreme prejudice. In other words, don’t suggest a card with a certain letter anywhere on it.
I’m sure there’s room to upgrade this collection since I really didn’t spend much time sorting through everything in Magic’s 30~ year history, so I’m eagerly awaiting any tips, ideas or card proposals you all may have.
”I do not want you to think I am trying to scare you with my letters.”
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| Top Ranked |
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| Date added | 5 days |
| Last updated | 1 hour |
| Key combos | |
| Legality | This deck is Modern legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 13 - 0 Rares 18 - 6 Uncommons 10 - 4 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.03 |
| Tokens | Dinosaur 3/3 G |
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