Sideboard

Artifact (3)

Sorcery (2)

Creature (2)


Maybeboard


Welcome to my version of Crabshift!

The deck is actually pretty simple: play crabs, then lands, and mill your opponent out. Being able to stick at least one Hedron Crab or Ruin Crab is essential, so a good opener will have at least one (usually two) of them. With the crabs down, just play lands to trigger landfall, using Explore, Growth Spiral, Scapeshift, and Primeval Titan to abuse the ability. Even with just one crab going unchecked the deck can reliably win on turn 4.

The other creatures help if the game goes longer, or the primary mill strategy isn't viable.

Ruin Crab and Hedron Crab are what this deck is built around. Getting even one crab to stick around can easily end the game pretty quickly. Having more than one in play is just silly.

Scute Swarm can come in handy when you need to create endless chump blockers. It can also be a 'go wide' strategy if the crab mill and tracker beatdown plans fail. It can get out of hand with 6 lands in play, but I'm not completely sold on it's inclusion.

Primeval Titan is great in the mid and late game, adding a big body and creating plenty of landfall triggers. It's only a 2 of because in most games a Scapeshift is preferable, but sometimes having a 6/6 is what you need.

Phantasmal Image is there to copy whatever you have in play (obviously). Typically it winds up copying a crab and providing a little redundancy for quick wins.

Sakura-Tribe Elder provides a little protection and an additional land drop.

Explore and Growth Spiral do pretty much the same thing, drawing cards and getting extra land drops. Having 4 of each can lead to getting too many in your hand, but I haven't found this to be an issue. Either the card draw alone is good to have if you need to find action, or you already have what you need so the extra copies don't hurt (or help).

Harrow can be really unfortunate if it gets countered, but it has a high upside. It's in the deck until I get burned by control and lose my land too many times.

Scapeshift is my favourite card in modern and the reason I built this deck. With a couple of crabs out even Scapeshifting with 4 lands can end the game. As long as your life total is high enough grabbing fetches can ensure you have even more landfall next turn (if there is a next turn, and if your opponent can't turn off your fetches).

Life from the Loam was a card I went back and forth on, but it has proven valuable. It's great to be able to get your fetches back from the graveyard and double up on landfall triggers. The dredge aspect doesn't come up often, but it's nice to know it's there in a pinch.

Crucible of Worlds is great for making sure I never miss land drops, and being able to bring back fetches can stack landfall triggers quickly.

Khalni Heart Expedition is in a bit of a flex spot. I almost always expect it to be a dead card, yet it almost always proves to be valuable. With extra land drops and fetches it doesn't take long to get the three counters, and with a couple of crabs out it can fuel early wins.

Misty Rainforest, Verdant Catacombs, and Prismatic Vista help fix mana, but more importantly provide extra landfall triggers.

The 4 Misty Rainforest are an autoinclude in the deck.

Prismatic Vista could probably be a 4 of, but I haven't yet found that only having 3 is an issue.

Verdant Catacombs takes the final fetch spot because I like the art, but it could easily be any other green/blue fetch.

9 fetches total feels about right, but I'm open to suggestions. I don't feel like I ever find myself in a situation where I need a fetch and don't have one (although there have been some close calls and top decks).

Forest and Island are at 7 each right now. With so many lands in the deck, and only playing two colours, I never really feel like it's a struggle to get the mana I need. Certainly this number can be adjusted and may change as I dontinue to test and update the deck. I also have the basic count a little higher because Harrow, Sakura-Tribe Elder, and Prismatic Vista can only get basics.

27 lands so far seems like the right number to make sure I never miss land drops. Flooding happens occasionally, but I usually have at least one creature to take advantage of the lands, and Explore and Growth Spiral turn flooding into a good thing.

Tireless Tracker basically has landfall, even though it isn't technically printed on the card. It's great if the game gets grindy, providing plenty of card draw, but weirdly I'm never excited to see it, so I've dropped it for now.

Courser of Kruphix really seems like it was made for this deck, but my experience so far has been that getting lands off the top of the library and the life gain aren't that critical. Plus, having Tireless Tracker and Scute Swarm as 3 drops means the Courser is kind of clunky. For now I'm happy with the Jaddi Offshootss in the sideboard for burn matchups, but I'm not counting the Coursers out entirely.

Blighted Woodland... Does it look good and is it on theme? Yes. Is it really necessary? Probably not. Usually getting extra landfall triggers is less of an issue than getting the crabs to stick around long enough to make the landfall matter.

Druid Class was recommended for damage mitigation. I have Jaddi Offshoot in the sideboard for damage matters matchups, but I do likt that Druid Class is somewhat harder to remove as an enchantment and the level 2 could be useful.

Khalni Heart Expedition used to be in the main but I dropped it for Harrow. They both get two land drops and harrow has the upside of being an instant and not needing any additional setup. It also has the down side of sacrificing a land (which hurts if it gets countered) and costing more. I'm still not sure which I prefer.

World Shaper was suggested to me as a deterrent to creatrure-based strategies and a potential for a flood of landfall when it dies. Without a way to reliably kill it myself, I think it would mainly be a sideboard card, but I really like the concept. Testing is in progress.

Counterspell and other control cards are something I've tried to avoid because I'm not a fan of control and I feel like I always use it as a crutch when I'm in . However, the lack of interaction in this deck can leave it vulnerable and the right balance of crabs to counters would likely make it much more resilient.

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Casual

92% Competitive

Top Ranked
Date added 2 years
Last updated 10 months
Legality

This deck is Modern legal.

Rarity (main - side)

6 - 1 Mythic Rares

20 - 4 Rares

8 - 4 Uncommons

13 - 6 Commons

Cards 60
Avg. CMC 2.36
Tokens Copy Clone, Insect 1/1 G
Folders Modern, Inspiration, Cool Decks I Wish I Could Try, Deck Inspiration, Great Modern Decks, Modern Brews
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