Sneaky Snek (A Troller’s Guide to Scapeshift)

Modern Competitive GWU (Bant) Primer Ramp RGWU Scapeshift

JKRice

Land (26)

• 6x Forest
• 1x Island
• 4x Misty Rainforest
• 4x Mountain
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 2x Steam Vents
• 2x Stomping Ground
• 1x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
• 1x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
• 4x Wooded Foothills

Instant (12)

• 4x Faith's Reward
• 4x Growth Spiral
• 4x Harrow

Creature (8)

• 4x Lotus Cobra
• 4x Sakura-Tribe Elder

Sorcery (10)

• 2x Bring to Light
• 4x Explore
• 4x Scapeshift

Enchantment (4)

• 4x Khalni Heart Expedition

---

Sideboard

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Anger of the Gods
• 2x Bring to Light
• 2x Farseek
• 1x Shatterstorm
• 1x Supreme Verdict

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Ashiok, Dream Render
• 1x Teferi, Time Raveler

Instant (2)

• 2x Izzet Charm

Enchantment (2)

• 2x Prismatic Omen

Creature (2)

• 1x Knight of Autumn
• 1x Thrun, the Last Troll

---

Credit: Blard’s snakeshift deck. I haven’t found any other version of this deck, so I’m pretty sure this is Blard’s original idea, and it’s a good one.

Bant Scapeshift?

Most scapeshift decks (actually all of them that I know of) play red. Since you need a ton of mountains to get valakut online, red is a natural color to play. Not in this deck. The dual lands essentially function as basics, since we use only half of their capacity to cast our spells. The reason for this is that I just didn’t have enough room for red spells. This deck is already relatively low on lands when compared to other shift decks, so adding in red wouldn’t help much. This deck is based around the snek , basically a storm enabler. Lotus cobra lets you cast your ramp spells for no mana, since they end up paying for themselves. This is the card that lets you win on turn four. The swiftness of this deck is the reason it works. Trying to go the slow route won’t work here since we don’t have the interaction that a normal scapeshift deck comes with. Our general strategy is to blindside them game one, then with the sideboard we transition to a more traditional scapeshift style that is impervious to all the spot removal they just brought in to deal with cobra.

Card Choices

1: Lotus Cobra is what makes the deck function. Obviously you can win without it, but you can’t do that on turn four unless you have the snake.

2: Sakura-Tribe Elder , Bring to Light , and Scapeshift are all part of the usual scapeshift shell.

3: Growth Spiral / Explore play the same role that Manamorphose does in a storm deck; ramping and drawing into wincons.

4: Harrow and Khalni Heart Expedition are both there to ramp quickly on the turn you want to win, and are the main land generators for the final Scapeshift .

5: Faith's Reward is where is gets interesting. You can scapeshift with six lands and a cobra (sacrificing six dual lands that are mountains), grab valakut and five random lands (gaining mana off of cobra) then play faiths reward to get back the mountains and deal 24 damage. This usually happens by turn 4. Faiths reward also lets you do extended comboing where you can scapeshift twice with like 30 mana.

Sideboard

I know this is just a general rule, but it is vital that you do not flash your sideboard cards when you are boarding for game two. We are hoping that they bring in small removal and earl turn counterspells to kill cobra and stop you turn four. Your strategy, however, will be entirely changed to a more traditional scapeshift deck. We have two extra copies of BTL , two Prismatic Omen , two Farseek s, and two Izzet Charm s, all of which fit within the normal scapeshift shell. You will be bringing these in almost every game. Then there are seven situational cards that can all be grabbed with BTL. We have artifact hate, graveyard hate, two boardwipes, a resilient whacked for harder matchups, and some combo protection.

Gameplay

Starting Hands

There are always going to be two hand types; those with cobra and those without. If you have cobra, a couple lands, and scapeshift, you are probably already set. If you also have khalni hearth expedition or Harrow , you can definitely win turn four. If you don’t have cobra, it’s gets trickier. You want to have one or more Khalni Heart Expedition , which can act as your backup megaramper in tandem with Harrow or some other ramp card. If you don’t have cobra or expedition, you want a hand with multiple copies of either Explore or Growth Spiral or both, so you can try to draw into bigger rampers.

Early Game (T1-T2/3)

Rule number one: save your fetchlands. They give you mana off of cobra, trigger khalni heart expedition an extra time, and can grab lands situationally if you topdeck something and don’t have the right mana to play it. Always lead with basics and shocks, even if they are mountains, unless you need to get a forest for your turn two play. Turn two ideally you should be playing either Lotus Cobra or Khalni Heart Expedition in order to set up for your turn three megaramping. This is all assuming that they don’t kill cobra. The reasoning is that they won’t think that cobra is part of a combo. Modern players are trained to kill Birds of Paradise and Noble Hierarch on sight, but when they see a lotus cobra, they will just wait for a bigger threat to come along. They won’t waste a three damage bolt or a path to exile on something with one measly health. Anyway, your ideal turn three would look like this. You already have cobra down. Before playing any lands, you play khalni heart expedition. Now you play and crack a fetch, going for an untapped land, then tapping it. With cobra, you should now have three mana. With this mana, play Harrow , Explore , or Growth Spiral into another land, which will trigger khalni heart expedition. You should have six lands and three or four floating mana, which you can use to ramp some more. You should end the turn with seven or eight lands. At this point, it’s good late for them to kill cobra, because you already have your lands. Now let’s go through that scenario again without cobra. Let’s say you start turn three out with a khalni heart on the field already. Depending on their deck, you can go for the turn five kill instead. For the turn four, you would just do the same thing as before, but you won’t have as much floating mana, so you will end with max seven lands. If you want to go for the turn five kill, you would play another khalni heart expedition, then play and crack a fetchland, getting two counters on both of them, setting up for megaramping on turn four.

At some point in the first few turns you want to find Sacred Foundry so you can cast BTL on four if you need to.

Mid/Late Game (T3/4-T5/6)

This is your win turn, or in the case of the slow hand, your ramp turn. Let’s say you ended last turn with seven lands and a cobra, and you have a wincondition in hand (bring to light or scapeshift), as well as Faith's Reward . You can just win right now.

Alternate Playstyle

Into control

Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	4 - 1 Mythic Rares 25 - 8 Rares 0 - 4 Uncommons 20 - 2 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.76
Folders	Somewhat Original Deck Primers