Creature (29)
Land (22)
Planeswalker (3)
Artifact (4)
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Sideboard
Rainbow Pop
Deck Type: Aggro-Control-Combo
Playstyle: Tempo (Fish)
Gameplan: Synergy (deck manipulation & cheating permanents into play)
Opening Thoughts
Some thoughts on key cards
Designing the deck
The relentless search for 3-CMC
Building the Mana Base
Contemporary Planeswalker Theory
A novel Planeswalker taxonomy
Nissa, Steward of Elements, the ultimate Tempo Walker
Back to 3-CMC
The Mana Curve
Card Choices
Wishlist
End Game
Opening Thoughts
Some thoughts on key cards
Spellsite, a most-versatile utility creature
Wolfbriar Elemental, an unlikely house against Aggro
Designing the deck
The relentless search for 3-CMC
Building the Mana Base
Contemporary Planeswalker Theory
A novel Planeswalker taxonomy
Nissa, Steward of Elements, the ultimate Tempo Walker
Back to 3-CMC
The Mana Curve
Card Choices
Newest Additions
On Cantrips, Risen Reef, and Harbinger Locks
Living Twister
Vigor, mature and wise
Cloudthresher
Spellskite and Unsettled Mariner
Horde Swapping
Singleton Forest
Wishlist
End Game
A Historical Accounting of my Tribal Elementals Journey
Opening Thoughts
Elementals has always been my favorite tribe. This deck started many years ago in Lorwyn-Shadowmoor Standard. During this time, I brewed a very explosive Elementals deck I now call Crop Raid (back then I'd just call it Elementals) based on Cream of the Crop and Impromptu Raid .
The idea was to use Birds of Paradise and Smokebraider to ramp into Incandescent Soulstoke and Impromptu Raid in order to cheat Nova Chaser and other fat Elementals with Trample into play such as Spectral Force , Horde of Notions , and even Force of Savagery . Because of Cream of the Crop , you essentially got to "Scry 10" with a Nova Chaser or "Scry 5" with a Horde of Notions. Since you knew the top of your deck at almost all times, you could virtually guarantee that Impromptu Raid would hit and in fact set up the next Raid. Furthermore, since it is easy to get to six lands in Standard, you usually got to Raid twice per turn. This was quite a fun strategy, though people did not figure it out until Standard (Type 2 then) was close to rotation, so it never got the attention it deserved. I can tell you from personal experience, a 10/2 Trample, Haste Nova Chaser which has Championed a Flamekin Harbinger that searches up another Nova Chaser and another and another is very fun!
I took a break from Magic for several years and started up again a week after Dragon's Maze was released. I wanted to try my hand at creating a Modern interpretation of my old Type 2 deck with my favorite multi-colored and versatile tribe. Voice of Resurgence showed a lot of promise and I spent weeks upon weeks scouring every single Modern legal Elemental, assessing the pros and cons, and thinking about which cards did not yet exist. I would find that some of my favorites such as Incandescent Soulstoke and Nova Chaser were no longer efficient enough for Modern. The strategy had to evolve.
I experimented with Athreos, God of Passage with the idea that the Elementals were too fragile, so I needed to get value in other ways. It turned out, however, that they were more resilient than I had thought and were not dying often enough to make Athreos useful. Though, Rainbow Pop still needed more power. Eventually, I decided that Modern was too fast, so I needed to slow my opponents down while speeding myself up. At this juncture, Rainbow Pop was turning into more of a Tempo deck. Cards like Flamekin Harbinger and Smokebraider would speed me up while cards like Voice of Resurgence and Fulminator Mage would slow the opponent down. Playing with the tempo in this way bought this deck enough time to set up its middle and end game.
Eventually, this deck could go 50/50 with the King of 50/50 decks—Jund in its prime.
With the addition of some choice tech such as Engineered Explosives and Chalice of the Void , I was able to take down popular decks like Burn (Chalice on 1 hurts), Merfolk (Explosives on 2 was devastating), and even infamous Gx Tron (Fulminator plus Chalice on 1 to turn off rocks + a clock consisting of 3x Thunderblust and some Horde of Notions , all tutorable with Flamekin Harbinger ). The deck was fine, yet it did not fit my play style. With all of the artifact hate such as Chalice, Explosives, Relic of Progenitus , etc., the deck was playing more like a Midrange Stompy deck than a relatively carefree and fluid Tempo deck. I didn't want to drop game-ending bombs; rather, I wanted strong synergies that created a competitive overall strategy.
In this process of tuning and evolving a strategy from the ground up, I have learned a lot about building decks, evaluating cards, and truly understanding a meta not by deck names, but by what decks actually do. When brewing a deck in solitude, one must be aware of which strategies are naturally favored against others regardless of the cards chosen in a given deck. This allows for incorporation of learnings from all formats throughout the entire history of the game rather than from just a specific strategy in a specific meta and format. For instance, a Tempo deck will always be favored against Control. This is true in all formats. If a given Tempo deck consistently loses to Control, then one must go to one's Tempo list, identify which elements are counter to the Tempo plan, and adjust accordingly. Additionally, Tempo should beat Combo. This is not automatic. The deck builder does have to put the right cards in the deck, but there is always a configuration that allows for Tempo to do this. As such, they should not lose matches against Combo.
Where all Tempo decks struggle is versus Aggro. The question was How do I stabilize versus Aggro? As a disruptive Aggro deck, I cannot be more aggressive than pure Aggro or even Aggro-Combo off the bat as their creatures usually cost 1-2 mana max while many of my own start at 2 mana and more. This question would lead me to some interesting card choices that actually influence to this day how I build all of my decks.
Some thoughts on key cards
Spellsite, a most-versatile utility creature
Spellskite . This is one of the most underplayed and underutilized cards in the entire Modern format. I run a full playset in every deck I build because of the sheer versatility of it.
Against Jund, it eats removal spells meant for actual threats like Horde of Notions while protecting delicate enablers such as Smokebraider . Taking the time off to play a Spellskite before the Smokebraider leads to a turn 4 Thunderblust instead of turn 3, yet it virtually guarantees that the Thunderblust actually gets cast at all and even has a chance to shine. This is the key to Tempo that many do not understand. Tempo is not about raw power of individual cards. That is what Midrange is about. Tempo is about synergy. The parts are different from the whole. But I digress.
In addition to stopping removal, Spellskite is an excellent blocker against Aggro decks, walling off Monastery Swiftspear , Goblin Guide , Wild Nacatl , and more while eating many burn spells meant for the face. The side bonus of never dropping a match against Bogles decks was quite relevant in the past and is still fringe relevant now. Along the same vein, defending against both Splinter Twin and Infect was a big factor that could not be ignored in this deck's history.
We find that many decks have evolutionary history based on the pressures faced over time. Based on my experience playing Modern from Dragon's Maze on with this deck and having to find crafty ways to deal with threats with my unorthodox strategy, I have gained insights that I still carry, part of which is a healthy respect for the power of Spellskite , one of my favorite cards in the game. Combined with cards like Voice of Resurgence , Stompy Rocks like Chalice of the Void, and Engineered Explosives, and even the amazing Wolfbriar Elemental , I had created a team that could stabilize against Aggro, Midrange, and Control strategies.
Wolfbriar Elemental, an unlikely house against Aggro
Another unexpected all-star has been Wolfbriar Elemental . As stated before, Tempo is always weak to Aggro. Midrange and even Control decks always have the option of including board wipes if they so desire, though Midrange typically opts for spot removal or removing a couple threats at once. With a fully creature-based deck, however, board wipes are not a viable option as you hurt yourself as much as the opponent.
Here I went back to the fundamentals and asked What is the purpose of a board wipe? As a first approximation, one could say that the board wipe's purpose is to remove all creatures from the battle field a la Wrath of God . A second approximation takes into account that one will follow their board wipe up with a threat. Thus the purpose of a board wipe is to get to a state where you have more threats than the opponent immediately after. And here was my solution. I had found a way to "wipe the board" without losing a single creature. If I can have more creatures than the opponent, then I have achieved nearly the same result as simply destroying all creatures indiscriminately. And here comes the one-man army Wolfbriar Elemental bringing some Wolves with him into the fray.
Wolfbriar lets one take advantage of the mana advantage that stalling with blockers, ramping with Smokebraider (tutorable, remember), and embracing a higher CMC curve brings. By swarming the board with even one or two wolves, Wolfbriar can usually buy time to set up such a clogged board against Aggro that they run out of steam, allowing for you to turn the tables. When I clogged up Affinity's board (at its heyday), I immediately went up to 4x copies and never looked back. It is that good. Rainbow Pop in its current form is now making use of cantrips, Planeswalkers, and other tech. Yet I still have found as much room as possible for him because I have seen Wolfbriar stabilize not only against extremely aggressive Aggro like Affinity and Dredge in their prime, but also against Control decks even going into the Terminus and Miracles stage of Modern's history. Wolfbriar Elemental has definitely earned its place in the list.
Designing the deck
The relentless search for 3-CMC
This has always been a list that wants to curve out and "count to five" as fast as possible. A challenge in the history of this deck has been filling in the 3-drop slot. There have been many great contenders over the years such as Mulldrifter , Fulminator Mage , Ball Lightning , Groundbreaker , Hell's Thunder , Flickerwisp and even Mirror Entity . The challenge is that most of the creatures just mentioned are built to die. Perhaps a Hell's Thunder can get in 4 guaranteed damage to the opponent while passing the "Bolt Test", yet it still must be sacrificed at the end of turn. And even though it has Unearth to try again at 5 mana, Smokebraider mana cannot be used to pay for Unearth, so you need five unconstrained mana to recur it. Evoking Mulldrifter or sacrificing Fulminator Mage do no better with regard to building a board presence. Yet with no board presence, a deck that wins and stabilizes via creatures on the board cannot do its job.
Flickerwisp has always been a wonderful card, though without Aether Vial (or being able to play it at instant speed), it is only okay over many games. Furthermore, without having other good 3-CMC creatures to pair with it, Aether Vial is not worth running. Thus, for most of this deck's history there was not a good enough 3-CMC companion for Flickerwisp to warrant including Aether Vial to enable Flickerwisp to shine, until recently. In the interim, Rainbow Pop has had to contend with an awkward curve that goes 1,2,5—Horde of Notions, Thunderblust—with fallbacks for if the ramp plan were to fail. This lead to the exploration of Planeswalkers in the colors and is an excellent time to explore the evolution of the mana base.
Building the Mana Base
Building the mana base of a five-color deck is quite a challenge, especially when the deck is not fast aggro. Fast aggro decks like "Death's Shadow Zoo" can afford to lose lots of life if they will win before the opponent can stabilize. A Tempo deck is a couple of turns too slow to pull this off consistently. There are many options available to fix colors such as Reflecting Pool , Primal Beyond , Cavern of Souls , Pillar of the Paruns , Ancient Ziggurat , Gemstone Mine , as well as the tried and true fetches, basics, shocklands, filter lands, etc.
The lands one plays affect the strategy itself and the other cards that are available as options. For instance, Ancient Ziggurat allows only creature spells to be played with its mana. This means we are one mana short for trying to cast powerful sideboard cards such as Rest in Peace . The restriction on this mana also means that we cannot use it to pay for Horde of Notions reanimation ability. Gemstone Mine risks running out of counters at a critical moment in the game, taking you down a land when you need it most. Pillar of the Paruns restricts to multi-colored spells, which means it can't cast most of the creatures in the deck. And so on.
Yet, even if one looks at the remaining options of Primal Beyond, Reflecting Pool, and Cavern of Souls which together have sufficient versatility, we are several lands short of a complete set. When considering the ancillary cards that I have used in the main and side such as Chalice of the Void , Engineered Explosives , Damping Sphere , Rest in Peace , Stony Silence , and so on as well as creatures that cannot be cast off of Elemental mana such as Kataki, War's Wage , Collector Ouphe , and so on, it has made sense to have some fetch lands and shock lands that provide pure and unrestricted colored mana. A side benefit of fetches, of course, is breaking Brainstorm Locks with Jace, the Mind Sculptor 's 0-ability. The challenge has been to balance the amount of fetches and shocks to lessen the damage taken when facing Aggro decks while maximizing the ability to hit colors on curve and when needed to make key plays, especially in the early game.
Contemporary Planeswalker Theory
A novel Planeswalker taxonomy
Since this deck has historically been short on 3-drop Elementals of note inevitably Planeswalkers were explored and Nissa, Steward of Elements not only shines, but turns out to be one of the most underplayed Planeswalkers in the game. To understand why we must take a brief aside into the history of Planeswalkers.
The first Planeswalkers were introduced in Lorwyn and they were relatively tame by today's standards. Over the years, we have had so many Planeswalkers be introduced to the game that there are now clearly different varieties of Planeswalkers. Most of the early Planeswalkers fit into Midrange and Control strategies and set the stage for how Planeswalkers should be evaluated. But with Walkers like Saheeli Rai we have Combo Walkers that encourage combining, not grinding. We also have Walkers like The Royal Scions and Nissa, Steward of Elements which are Tempo Walkers which synergize with a Tempo strategy. We even have Control Walkers such as Karn, the Great Creator which encourages tutoring Prison pieces to lock out the opponent or Ugin, the Spirit Dragon which literally has a board wipe as one of its abilities.
There is now such a diversity of Planeswalkers to fit any play style that they must be classified and evaluated based on the role they are meant to fill rather than on the folk statement that "Planeswalkers must protect themselves when they enter the battlefield in order to be playable". Such statements only apply to Midrange and Control Walkers. For Tempo, Combo, and Aggro (e.g. Big Zoo), these Walkers must serve a different role in order to prove their worth. The notable feature of Planeswalkers in these strategies is that they go into decks which complement their lack of being able to protect themselves while providing a missing contribution for the deck. Aggro and Tempo decks clear the way for the Walker with creatures while the Walker itself might provide card advantage (Nissa, Steward of Elements), removal spells Domri Rade 's fight ability, and so forth.
Thinking of Planeswalkers in this manner reveals why Jace, the Mind Sculptor is one of the most powerful Planeswalkers in the entire game. Jace has creature protection with the bounce ability, provides card advantage via the brainstorm, allows for bouncing one's own creatures to provide advantage from ETB effects, and has a wincon in his ultimate that is often paired with the ability to create a soft prison with the Fateseal plus ability. Jace is one of the most versatile Walkers in the game being able to play the Tempo, Midrange, and Control games seamlessly. A comparison with and a deep-dive into Nissa, Steward of Elements will reveal why she is also nearly as powerful a Walker and how she has earned a permanent spot in this deck (and many other competitive decks I run).
Nissa, Steward of Elements, the ultimate Tempo Walker
Now we are prepared to discuss Nissa, Steward of Elements , one of the most powerful yet overlooked Planeswalkers in the game. Looking at her abilities, we see deck manipulation, card advantage via cheating permanents into play, and an ult that allows for an alpha strike. There are a few types of decks where she could be played—a Grow-style UGx tempo deck, a Fish-style Tempo deck (this one), or a ramp deck. I argue that she is not actually very great in a ramp deck precisely because she doesn't do much that these decks cannot already do—they are already tutoring for lands and cheating multiple into play at once. Nissa actual shines in a Tempo deck because she does things that they cannot do and as such plays a complementary role. Keeping in mind that Tempo decks are about synergy, it is not unreasonable to expect a scenario where a Voice of Resurgence, for instance, is played the turn before a Nissa for 3 mana, buying time to Scry or reveal a card. Blind flipping is not something that is recommended even if over half of the deck is a hit simply because there are more elegant ways to use Nissa.
As we can see, even the turn after she has been played, Nissa gets up to 5 loyalty, which is enough to play many of Rainbow Pop's beefiest creatures in Horde of Notions , Thunderblust , or even cards like Reveillark . Cloudthresher or Vigor , one of my favorite cards, arrive soon after. We see here Nissa playing the role of a sorcery speed Aether Vial . When combined with cards like Flamekin Harbinger , Jace, the Mind Sculptor 's brainstorm, or even Nissa's own Scry from the previous turn, it is easy to start using her 0-ability to accrue significant advantage fast. Once she comes down with a creature or two on your side, she consistently slows the game down considerably. Her Scry 2 when combined with the cantrips and draw effects in this deck play a reasonable Sensei's Divining Top impersonation. Sensei's Divining Top is quite an efficient card and having a repeatable psuedo-Top that pressures via "drawing" cards, cheats creatures and lands into play, and threatens to deal 10 damage to the opponent at once is a powerful combination of effects to have on one card.
Just like with Top, such effects seem innocuous at first, but over time people realize how powerful they are in conjunction. Thus we see that Nissa is an Aether Vial, "card draw", Sensei's-Top-like card selection, and a burn spell all in one card on top of everything else that the deck she is in is already doing. It is the synergy she has with the tutors, draw effects, and herself that makes her powerful, yet it is the subtleness of the abilities in isolation that makes it difficult to see how powerful her abilities are in conjunction.
Another deck that I run plays Dark Confidant , Grim Flayer , and Nissa, Steward of Elements as a powerful trio. Any one of them is excellent on its own, yet any two are incredibly powerful through their synergy. For instance, Nissa could set up a painless Bob flip, or Flayer can "brainstorm" upon dealing damage and Nissa can use her 0-ability to flip a creature into play. Having all three in play at once is virtually unstoppable as the game is definitely in end-game status at such a point and the combined card advantage is tremendous. Painlessly drawing multiple cards per turn, stacking the top of the deck, filling the graveyard for Snapcaster Mage , and cheating creatures and lands into play every single turn is quite a lot. I am excited to see what people do when they fully realize the powerful synergistic utility of Nissa, Steward of Elements .
Back to 3-CMC
We have seen the utility of Nissa over time and the fact that she can be cast for 3 mana, which has been critical for the curve of this deck. So for the past few years, my iterations of Rainbow Pop have run 4x of her. Eventually, I went with a 3/1 split of Nissa, Steward of Elements and Jace, the Mind Sculptor as I find Jace's bounce ability to be highly relevant with all the ETB creatures. Imagine bouncing and recasting a Shriekmaw, Harbinger, or even Flickerwisp every turn. This deck uses all four of Jace's abilities to the max, though there is actually an overall preference for Nissa over Jace due to what she does in this strategy, resulting in this split.
With the M20 set, Rainbow Pop has finally after years gotten a sticky 3-drop in Risen Reef which solves many problems. Simply by existing as a sticky alternative to Mulldrifter that actually gets to block for 3 mana, Risen Reef solves the problem of lacking resilient 3-drops that do not have to be sacrificed during the turn they are played. Because of this, Flickerwisp and Aether Vial can be played. Why could Flickerwisp and Vial not be played before? Thinking of the other available threats, Ball Lightning , Groundbreaker , and Hell's Thunder have haste and it is faster to just spam Smokebraiders and lands to play them than ticking up Vials. Cards like Fulminator Mage and Mulldrifter do not demand vial. The latter because of costing 5 and not benefiting from Vial in the early game and the former because in a game where Fulminator Mage matters, it is not desirable to wait 4 turns to play it for free. Tron, for instance, goes live in 3 turns, so it is too late by then. This is the argument for not playing Vial. But why not Flickerwisp? Flickerwisp without Vial is not efficient enough. While it does not always need to be cast at instant speed, there does need to be good odds of flashing it in over the course of many games for it to pull its weight. So there has been this holding pattern with Rainbow Pop where the lack of a second Vial-friendly 3-drop Elemental caused the first good one to be unplayable. Now, everything is much better!
Flickerwisp , Risen Reef , and Nissa, Steward of Elements all provide a suite of 3-CMC card advantage engines to fill out the curve for the first time in the history of Modern!
A very honorable mention goes to Lightning Skelemental . This is also an excellent card and the Hymn to Tourach value effect is exactly what has been needed to make Ball Lightning -style cards playable in a contemporary game of Magic. Because of the lack of sticky 3-drops, such a deck with Skelemental should also have efficient (cheap) ways to recur it to get multiple value out of it, which is precisely where Thunderkin Awakener comes in. Focusing on this duo is where contemporary builds of Elementals have taken other approaches to tribal Elementals and it is a valid approach.
We actually see here a key difference between the more socialized Skelemental-focused strategy and Rainbow Pop's strategy—the fact that the Skelemental list is actually a Tempo deck (Aggro-Control) while Rainbow Pop is actually Aggro-Combo-Control. All of the decks that I actually build in paper tend towards this Aggro-Combo-Control style which leverages the high synergy of Aggro-Combo, the long-game synergy of Combo-Control, and the aggressive disruption of Aggro-Control. The end result is that they have the same short game as Tempo but can grind almost as well as a pure Control strategy, though they want to and typically should try to end the game much sooner than Control.
The Mana Curve
Looking at the mana curve now, we see a very nice distribution with plenty of things to do at 0-3 CMC while organically taking advantage of all the mana that is accrued over the game from the ramp, alternative casting methods, and card draw. This is all done in a way that does not force one to be all-in on ramp. Cards that cost more are less numerous with higher payoffs and every single card synergizes with the rest.
We see here that the curve looks a bit different from what is shown by TappedOut. The 0-CMC and 1-CMC have been combined as turn 1 plays. Evoke creatures are placed where they will most likely be cast, so Shriekmaw is a 2 CMC card here, for instance. Normally, we would want more 2 drops than 3 drops to get a nice bell curve, but since there are cantrips, mana dorks, and ramp, this is fine. Overall the deck has a solid curve that makes maximum use of mana during each turn.
Card Choices
Newest Additions
Risen Reef , Living Twister , and Healer of the Glade are new additions of note to me. While I love Omnath, Locus of the Roil , I do not think it is critical that the card exists, though I am happy that it does. The former three absolutely need to exist for this strategy to be sufficiently competitive. Risen Reef turning every single Elemental into a cantrip/ramptrip when many of them have other ETBs already is amazing. I will get into more on Living Twister below.
Additionally, above we had discussed shoring up Aggro matchups. Between Voice of Resurgence , Spellskite , and Wolfbriar Elemental , the addition of Healer of the Glade makes Aggro such a better matchup and takes a lot of pressure off as these strategies become more efficient over time. In the past, Chalice of the Void on 1 would have been the answer for aggressive strategies, but with the addition of Aether Vial and Oath of Nissa , the one-drop slot is important enough to the game plan that Healer of the Glade is a most welcome addition. As stated earlier, I'd rather play a creature than a Stompy Rock anyway in this deck and have been looking for an alternative to Chalice of the Void here for years. In the ideal world, a playset of each of Voice of Resurgence , Spellskite , Healer of the Glade , and Wolfbriar Elemental would be included in the list for the Aggro matchup.
On Cantrips, Risen Reef, and Harbinger Locks
Flamekin Harbinger does not draw the card it tutors. Rather it is a harbinger forecasting that the card is coming next turn. In the past, Harbinger Locks were real. There was a strong chance that you would be a half a turn to a turn behind because you had to wait for the card to come. Or you had the card but then needed to wait for the land to come. With all the cantrips, we can more immediately access the card from Harbinger or at least dig through for other useful cards while we wait.
For example, even though Mishra's Bauble is a "slowtrip" (delayed cantrip), if it draws us a land before our next turn, we can still make land drops on curve. Then perhaps a tutored creature can come whenever it needs to. Furthermore, with the addition of Vial, a card drawn in the opponent's turn with Bauble might actually be castable at instant speed. This explains the Bauble as well as Oath of Nissa , which help to break Harbinger Locks as well as add a bit of Turbo Xerox to the list, which is only running 17 lands. Because of Turbo Xerox, which states that "for every four 1-mana cantrips, you may shave one land", and because of the fact that we only need to rush to 3 lands, which requires 17 land for approximately a 70% chance of hitting them on curve (before cantrips), we are fine. Another rule of thumb is that for every color one should add a land. So even then, we should be at 19 or so. Xerox is powerful. The cantrips plus Harbinger plus Risen Reef turning every Elemental (even Harbinger) into a cantrip and potential ramp is powerful. Risen Reef protected from spot removal by Spellskite is powerful. I love Risen Reef !
Living Twister
Historically, this deck has always struggled against creature combo such as Vizier Druid mostly because the answer to such decks is spot removal and grave hate. The grave hate is easy to include with options like Grafdigger's Cage , Relic of Progenitus , or Leyline of the Void . The challenge has been on the spot removal side and staying on theme.
Dismember has always been an option. Due to not having consistent access to any specific color of unrestricted colored mana, cards like Lightning Bolt are not consistent enough. Regardless, with mainboard and sideboard space so tight, can the deck afford to run 3+ copies of Dismember to combat these strategies? If they are rampant, yes, but in reality it would be nice to have 1-2 copies of a tutorable Elemental. Crib Swap and Nameless Inversion are also options and tutorable, though they are quite expensive for what they do.
I've settled on Living Twister as a pragmatic answer to this that repeatedly removes threats such as Vizier of Remedies and Devoted Druid while also getting rid of other problematic cards such as Dark Confidant , Thalia, Guardian of Thraben (her first strike is a problem rather than her tax), etc. Additionally, being able to go to the face or target Planeswalkers is a bonus and the synergy with Vigor via targeting your own creatures is quite nice. All around, this card is a welcome addition to the toolbox that has been needed for years.
Vigor, mature and wise
Vigor is my favorite Elemental and has always been one of my favorite cards in the game. Vigor represents that old tribal wisdom that comes out when times are tough, and that's precisely when one should expect this card to show up—at the End Game. Vigor is a card that has seen enough battle to have strength and tactics, yet knows enough of war to know when not to fight. Never attack with Vigor. Not even on the final alpha strike. It is never worth it to risk Vigor in combat. Think of Vigor as an enchantment.
Cloudthresher
Cloudthresher is a wonderful card that destroys Lingering Souls tokens, Bitterblossom tokens, flipped Delver of Secrets , and more. In any meta where people try to fly over you, this is a welcome addition. As a bonus, with a Vigor out, this buffs any Flickerwisp that are on the battlefield. Furthermore, against Control decks, the Flash allows you to cast this on their turn, giving it a "pseudo-Haste" and making them fight with resources on their turn. I've come back from games against both Teferi, Time Raveler and Jace, the Mind Sculptor with a flashed in Cloudthresher after a board wipe. I always try to keep 1x in the 75.
Spellskite and Unsettled Mariner
I like both of these cards, but vastly prefer Spellskite over Unsettled Mariner as a more versatile option. Spellskite often causes the opponent to need an extra removal spell rather than extra mana, which I find to be more taxing on their resources, especially with how efficient removal in Modern is. Also, Spellskite can do things like eat a Karn Liberated minus, eat a pump spell on a Blighted Agent , eat virtually any Aura as it's attempting to enchant a creature, as well as block most Aggro creatures (which tend to max out at 3 power) and live.
A benefit of Mariner is that it is an Elemental and can be tutored, however; I advocate running a full four Spellskite, which will naturally be drawn over the course of the game. I do see a scenario that is so combo and removal heavy that both Spellskite and Mariner are run as four-ofs in the mainboard. Thus, Mariner is definitely in my toolbox. Yet Spellskite is equally useful the longer the game happens to go (which sometimes happens) while the tax from Mariner(s) can be worked around.
Horde Swapping
If you run two Horde of Notions , you can Horde Swap. When one is about to die, reanimate the other from the graveyard and let the Legend rule get rid of the one that was about to be removed. I guess the plural would be "Hordes of Notions". Say that ten times fast!
Singleton Forest
There is a singleton basic Forest for being ramped by an opposing Path to Exile and fetched by fetch lands. Additionally, that Forest can be used to cast Oath of Nissa , which allows Planeswalkers to be cast with Mountains versus Blood Moon . Furthermore, Oath of Nissa , Smokebraider , and Aether Vial are great ways to cast creatures and Walkers around Blood Moon. If there is a Blood Moon heavy meta, run more Smokebraider s and Thunderblust s.
Wishlist
I have always found it great to think about the cards that exist and try to determine what is missing. A while back, I had envisioned a card that costs 2 mana, but the more colors you paid the more abilities it would get based on the color (green gives Trample, blue gives Flying, etc.) Then you could have a card that could be cast for cheap or a lot depending on which stage in the game you were in. Shortly after this thought experiment, Wizards released Woodland Wanderer . While always costing 4 mana, in a five-color deck, it is always a 6/6 Vigilance Trample.
I envision Elemental tribal decks as Tempo decks closer to Humans and Merfolk. Without Elementals with the appropriate effects, the lists have to be augmented with Stompy Rocks such as Chalice of the Void , Relic of Progenitus , Damping Sphere , and so forth, bringing it closer to Eldrazi decks. Cards like Fulminator Mage and Unsettled Mariner do an excellent job vs. land-based combo decks like Tron and Amulet Titan as well as combo decks like Storm, respectively. Yet Fulminator Mage can sometimes be too slow against Tron depending on when you draw it, which is why it can be nice to have a full set of Damping Sphere in addition to the 1x tutorable copy of Fulminator Mage itself.
More powerful graveyard hate in Elemental form would be welcome. The more creatures that can perform these tasks, the more ideal it is to run this strategy.
End Game
The above is a possible end game state for extremely grindy games that involves Vigor , one or both of Nissa, Steward of Elements & Jace, the Mind Sculptor , as well as one or two copies of Spellskite to prevent spot removal of any of them. This would be accompanied by a board of some amount of other creatures. Nissa and/or Jace accrue value by either cheating creatures into play, bouncing and replaying value ETB effects, Fatesealing, or simply Scrying/Brainstorming (sometimes Scrying away so as to not get Brainstorm Locked). Meanwhile, Vigor strongly dissuades anyone from attacking lest they buff your team. The game will end via a Planeswalker ultimate or from attacking with a few safe creatures at a time until the opponent has no choice but to start blocking and making your team big enough that they lose all of their blockers and cannot keep up with your resources.
This is not a desired end state as it requires the game to go for 12+ of your turns, which means the game has been incredibly grindy. With that being stated, this state is nothing more than a combination of many efficient pieces that we do want to see earlier in the game working together synergistically to ensure that we do not lose in the off chance that the game goes long against a grindy opponent. In short, it is a hidden mode of Rainbow Pop that most games will never reach. Yet this key set of synergies strongly increases the odds of winning a game no matter how long the game goes. A pure Tempo deck would run out of steam long before here. Yet the early and mid-game of Rainbow Pop is absolutely a Fish-Style Tempo deck's strategy. This is further evidence of this archetype being Aggro-Combo-Control.
For more information on Archetype Theory, I highly encourage a look at Jordan Boisvert's analysis of Modern archetypes in the articles [1] Pigeonholing Prevails: Modern Archetypes and [2] Clarifying Convention: Deck Names and Archetype Levels. I use both of these articles as a starting point for analyzing and classifying my own strategies as well as strategies for the meta and have found it to be an invaluable pragmatic philosophical tool for meta analysis (even against decks and lists one has not yet played with or against).
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Revision 43 See all
(4 years ago)
| +4 | Chalice of the Void | main |
| -2 | Flickerwisp | main |
| +1 | Fulminator Mage | main |
| -2 | Lightning Skelemental | main |
| -4 | Misty Rainforest | main |
| -1 | Nissa, Steward of Elements | main |
| +1 | Noxious Revival | main |
| +2 | Omnath, Locus of Creation | main |
| -1 | Omnath, Locus of the Roil | main |
| -1 | Risen Reef | main |
| +1 |
Sacred Foundry
|
main |
| +2 | Shriekmaw | main |
| +3 | Smokebraider | main |
| -1 | Spitebellows | main |
| +1 |
Steam Vents
|
main |
| +1 | Thunderblust | main |
| -1 | Vigor | main |
| +4 | Wooded Foothills | main |
| Date added | 9 years |
| Last updated | 4 years |
| Legality | This deck is Modern legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 9 - 0 Mythic Rares 35 - 1 Rares 11 - 8 Uncommons 4 - 0 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.45 |
| Tokens | Elemental */* GW, Human 2/2 G, Wolf 2/2 G |
| Votes | |
| Ignored suggestions | |
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