We're never going to play, are we?

Modern* WU (Azorius)

Red_X

Land (20)

• 1x Field of Ruin
• 4x Flooded Strand
• 4x Ghost Quarter
• 2x Hallowed Fountain
• 4x Island
• 2x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Plains
• 2x Scalding Tarn

Creature (3)

• 3x Tribute Mage

Artifact (19)

• 3x Azorius Signet
• 3x Coldsteel Heart
• 2x Crucible of Worlds
• 4x Isochron Scepter
• 4x Mind Stone
• 2x Ojutai Monument
• 1x Razortip Whip

Sorcery (3)

• 3x Merchant Scroll

Instant (15)

• 2x Blue Sun's Zenith
• 2x Downpour
• 3x Dramatic Reversal
• 2x Gigadrowse
• 4x Remand
• 2x Silence

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Maybeboard

Creature (2)

• 2x Geist of Saint Traft

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Silence inevitably leads to madness. The only question is when.

This deck wants to not let anyone do anything until you want to. This deck is filled with small combos and ways to slow your opponent down until you can finally win. It isn't lantern control levels of durdle, but it can feel similarly

Combos Show

Lock them down

Isochron Scepter+Silence: locks your opponent out of playing anything not at instant speed. This is how you win against things like storm and tron if you don't combo off early. Instant speed artifact hate like Ancient Grudge is their one out. Angel's Grace may be a better fit, but won't stop planeswalkers from hitting the board from control or tron.

Isochron Scepter+Downpour: Your plan for creature based matches. Won't stop all damage, especially if they go wide, but 2 goyfs and a death's shadow gets shut down every turn unless they get something like a Kolaghan's Command to deal with it.

Isochron Scepter+Gigadrowse: A combination between the two other lockdown plans. Against combo decks you can lock down their mana in upkeep, against creature decks you can tap down their team during combat. The downside to the flexibility is that you need to pay more mana, since it's an extra for each extra permanent you want to tap down.

Isochron Scepter+Remand: Better than using silence against some decks. Lets you counter 1 spell a turn and cantrip off it, which is really useful for finding more combo pieces. Other counterspells like Mana Leak might be better depending on the meta (lot of burn and delver decks, for example)

Crucible of Worlds+Ghost Quarter/Field of Ruin: This is to punish greedy mana bases and give a decent matchup vs. tron. Basic light mana bases can pretty quickly get strip mined each turn, which builds with the other lock pieces.

Going infinite

Isochron Scepter+Dramatic Reversal+at least 3 mana from non-land sources: This is the infinite mana combo that will result in a lot of your wins. Fairly straight forward, just get to 3 mana and go off, earliest it can go off is turn 4.

Winning the game

Blue Sun's Zenith: Useful if you're ramping with nowhere to go, searchable with merchant's scroll, and wins the game with infinite mana. If you can't force your opponent to deck themselves (they have lab man on board for some reason), you can target yourself for less than infinite amount and draw into another win condition.

Razortip Whip: deals 1 damage per tap, meaning it will win through direct damage on combo turns. The only reason it's here is because it's searchable by Tribute Mage, but something like Millstone may be better. It isn't useless when on lockdown mode though, as it lets you deal 1 damage a turn while your opponent does nothing, and could potentially win the game faster in combination with Tribute Mage attacking.

Ojutai Monument: This is plan c, after winning through the combo or causing your opponent to scoop from a scepter lock. It's a 5 turn clock, you're generally only going for it if you're mana flooded with nothing to do or your opponent has used something like a Pithing Needle on scepter, but it is a 4/4 flyer that survives wraths.

Improvements Show

Potentially a lot. This is just an idea I had that I wanted to try out, but there's 4 main things I want to try/need to fix

First, the engine. This deck uses an artifact mana engine, which has ups and downs. It does improve consistency and survive removal better, but it doesn't really win on its own unless you count ojutai. A 2 mana mana rock that said "pay 5 mana: deal 2 damage to target opponent" would be great, but that doesn't exist right now. That means you can still easily draw the wrong half of your deck when trying to play.

Second, the precise style of the lock. I was originally going to have a Fog effect in addition to Silence, but I chose to go for Downpour+Gigadrowse to allow me to run a merchant scroll package. That may be wrong, and just running a higher number of fogs that are just useless in certain matchups is better. Right now, having remand is a great option, but even more counterspells to play more draw-go may be better for this type of deck.

Third, the win condition (I know, I just said all of the deck). Razortip Whip is not a great win condition, since it doesn't do much outside of the combo turn, but it is tutorable by Tribute Mage if you already have a scepter in hand. Millstone also fits that requirement and gets around something like Angel's Grace, doesn't build with incidental damage, is dangerous to use outside of the combo, and doesn't work if your opponent is running an emrakul. Blue sun's zenith is great because of the flexibility, but it does compound the problem that this deck can't easily win through a resolved Leyline of Sanctity. Ojutai Monument beats is technically a way to win, but again, it's slow and fragile.

Finally, I need to reassess the mana base. I've got the lock pieces with ghost quarter and some fetchlands to thin the deck. I run a couple white sources for silence too. The essential question is how many utlity lands can I fit into the deck and still be able to consistently cast reasonable gigadrowses, zeniths, and have multi-spell turns.

Any and all suggestions are appreciated, as are more ways to make my opponent miserable.

Additionally, I am also looking at a mana dork version of this deck. That version is here: https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/were-never-going-to-play-are-we/?cb=1601698545

Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	2 - 0 Mythic Rares 18 - 0 Rares 27 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.12
Based on	We're never going to play, are we? Red_X MDN