Force of negation/rage
Modern Deck Help forum
Posted on June 22, 2020, 5:41 a.m. by dichia
I'm building a deck based on Force of Negation and Force of Rage. Basically I exile Misthollow Griffin and Squee, the Immortal from hand to play the forces, play them from exile and when they die I either exile them with Grim Lavamancer and Scavenging Ooze or take them back in hand with Eternal Witness to play other forces. The deck is URG, and I'd like to keep it that way. The deck has two problems:
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when I run out of forces, I run out of options and I don't know how to defend.
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once I exile griffin or squee, it takes a long time before I can return them in hand, find another one, or find another force.
Maybe I should give up the forces and play more on the graveyards. Any suggests?
antacidbrn thanks, I was thinking of using some cards to sacrifice griffin and squee, so that I can use them from everywhere they are. Also, I probably need some more counters or defensive options. I didn't use lightning bolt because I already have Grim Lavamancer that also have a synergy with the deck. I don't know if it was the right choice though.
June 22, 2020 5:52 a.m.
antacidbrn says... #4
To be fair, Lightning Bolt is usually the right choice. You might want the extra removal, though I like synergy with Grim Lavamancer!
June 22, 2020 6:08 a.m.
lagotripha says... #5
Have you considered building around Leyline of the Void in concert with Altar of Dementia? That said, the deck would need to be making more value from exile effects for me to be comfortable with it. It'd be less green and more black, likely running Wasteland Strangler style effects.
Exiling squee/griffin as a card advantage engine is neat, but more 'meat' for turns 1-3 seems essential- since you are sitting on '0 cost' spells, cheap creatures with good activated abilities so you can keep mana up seems good- lavamancer and ooze go a way to this, but I'd run more stuff like Spectral Sailor alongside sweepers to play like a control deck.
Another option is delve spells and stuff like Thought Scour- Logic Knot is a spectacular spell when you want to exile cards, and although it competes with escape costs, there are enough self-mill options out there to power the deck.
June 22, 2020 7:39 a.m.
sergiodelrio says... #6
Force of Rage is really not worth it imho. All it does is give you 2 blockers for 1 turn.
June 22, 2020 8:23 a.m.
lagotripha, I was already thinking of adding a black splash honestly, but I don't feel comfortable with 4 colors. If they didn't ban Deathrite Shaman it would have been great, but.. I already tried some self milling strategies, and I actually run Tamiyo, Collector of Tales which basically is there for that. Self mill is very good to find Griffin and Squee faster, but on the other hand if you mill a force, and you don't have Eternal Witness to return it in hand, it will burn a key card. Thought Scour and Logic Knot seem really good though and I will try them out for sure, so I can get rid of Sinister Sabotage that never convinced me.
June 22, 2020 8:33 a.m.
sergiodelrio, well yeah it can give two blockers or it can give two attackers, but it does it for free, that's the point. Moreover rather than use just Force of Negation I would make another deck, cause the whole deck strategy wouldn't be that strong anymore if it was based only on that card.
June 22, 2020 8:36 a.m.
sergiodelrio says... #9
dichia Well, it does in fact never give you 2 attackers for free, that was my point. You can only cast it 'for free' when "it's not your turn" and then you obviously can't attack. I assumed you'd missed that part.
June 22, 2020 9:46 a.m. Edited.
sergiodelrio you've got a point. I did miss that. It can still be valid against aggro (I think). Anyway, two 3/1 creatures can block most of the creatures for what I've been able to see (I don't have a physical copy of the deck for now, only played online).
June 22, 2020 10:22 a.m.
TriusMalarky says... #11
Been thinking about this sort of strategy for a while. Here's what I've come up with:
First, Eternal Scourge. You'll want 12 copies of "cast from exile" creatures.
Second, Serum Powder. You effectively get Companion pre-nerf, but the creatures are slightly worse with the upside the you might start with 9, 10 or even 11 cards in hand. Might be worth mulliganing once or twice to try and get in some matchups.
Third, early game engines are key. While you probably could use Serum Visions, I really recommend that you use Relic of Progenitus and Pyxis of Pandemonium as turn one plays. Relic is good to control other people's GY, and Pyxis will effectively draw you a card every few turns.
Fourth, consider creature cost reduction effects. Marauding Raptor, is probably the best here, but any way to shave a mana or two off the cost is great. This is because your engine is likely based on having effectively immortal creatures while screwing with your opponent using GY hate and exile-based removal.
Fifth, you should be slpashing white. Your deck should be , because Rest in Peace, Path to Exile are great here. You might consider Perilous Vault as a sort of stored wrath effect. Declaration in Stone is actually solid here, as you can exile a couple of your Scourges and get Clues, effectively being a weird 2 mana Paradoxical Outcome. Of course, don't run too many mediocre removal spells. It doesn't help.
Other random tech that might be interesting:
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Induced Amnesia, while only good when you have a lot of your creatures in hand, can act as a weird Divination.
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Detention Sphere is fun with Pyxis. If you ever plan on cracking Pyxis for value, you should have Spheres. Of course, you probably don't want to crack Pyxis anyways because your opponent will get all the real value.
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Some processor effects, like Processor Assault might be valuable here Especially if you have RIP out.
All in all, it's a weird gimmick that has the ability to randomly beat Dredge while generating value in the form of 'you never gonna get rid of my creatures'. If you get enough cost reduction, you can be playing all of your creatures for only , , or or in the case of Scourge. Remember the cost reduction.
Also, Simian Spirit Guide for the theme. And it also helps you power out some of your cost reductions and engine pieces, so it's good. And yes, FoNe is best here. FoRa? Meh, it's like a bad removal spell, which is okay, but not the greatest.
June 22, 2020 10:44 a.m.
sergiodelrio says... #12
TriusMalarky I know I sound like the fun police at this point, but I have a feeling you're misreading Pyxis of Pandemonium
June 22, 2020 11:26 a.m.
TriusMalarky says... #13
Oh maybe I missed the 'face down' part of Pyxis, sergiodelrio.
Eh, it wasn't all that good anyways, there's probably some better enabler that I haven't had time to find.
June 22, 2020 12:39 p.m.
I never actually thought of using white, but it look interesting for what you've shown. I also found another white card that could work: Seance. What do you think? I wasn't using Eternal Scourge because it doesn't work with the forces, but since Force of Rage is not that good apparently, I could slide it into the list. Processor Assault was already in my maybe list but I eventually discarded it cause I switched my plan to focus on exiling cards mainly from my graveyard, which is also why I'm definitely going to use Relic of Progenitus. Speaking of which, do you think it should be in the main deck or sideboard?
June 22, 2020 1:23 p.m.
psionictemplar says... #15
I'm intrigued by this idea but I don't have a current idea on how to help you. I will suggest that if you do try to be more graveyard focused in the rug colors, try Genesis.
June 22, 2020 8:41 p.m.
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #16
I really like the general idea. If you're actually going white, Path to Exile can easily become a cheap ramp-spell in addition to being premium removal.
June 23, 2020 4:50 a.m.
seshiro_of_the_orochi: I received a lot of opinions and suggestions, so I trying to consider all the options. It's going to take a while, I don't know if I'm gonna keep the deck RUG, if I'm going to add Black or White, I will have to test everything and see what works better. But yes, if I add white, Path to Exile would be great.
June 23, 2020 7:56 a.m.
Funkydiscogod I missed your last comment. Eon Hub is actually very interesting but I think it costs too much, and I couldn't find anything else that makes me skip the upkeep.
Skipping a whole turn doesn't really sounds good, but if I played more instants maybe...
June 23, 2020 9:27 a.m.
TriusMalarky says... #19
I would say that Green is a lot too slow for this sort of thing. This is Modern -- your 3 drop should be winning the game. Maybe a slight exaggeration, but you should remember that.
Here's a quick decklist:
Prototype Decklist Show
That list needs some trimming, but it should function. Please note that you CAN NOT use a fetch-shock manabase, at least not a traditional one. You could exile your one copy of Hallowed Fountain with Serum Visions, and then if you need white and all you have is a Scalding Tarn.... you're screwed. You'll probably want a Fastland heavy manabase -- Spirebluff Canal, Seachrome Coast, Inspiring Vantage. Additionally, you might even consider Arcum's Astrolabe, but that's preference.
June 23, 2020 10:54 a.m.
TriusMalarky, wow, thanks for all of that work. I like this list. I'm building two other versions of the deck following all the advice I received these days, one running black instead of green, and one running white instead of green. I will try them out and then maybe I will post them. Anyway, I don't understand what you said about Semblance Anvil. Why shouldn't I be able to use Squee, the Immortal again if I imprint him on the anvil? English is not my mother language, sometimes I misinterpret what I read.
June 23, 2020 11:12 a.m.
psionictemplar says... #21
If you imprinted squee and then got that same squee back from exile you wouldn't have anything imprinted on anvil anymore. Therefore you wouldn't get any discounts.
June 23, 2020 11:27 a.m.
psionictemplar, oh I see how it works now. Well, since Squee it's legendary, keeping one in exile for imprint shouldn't be much of a problem..
June 23, 2020 12:07 p.m.
Funkydiscogod, yeah it's pretty limiting. But since I run green with this version, I could use some Birds of Paradise or something similar to ramp a little bit, so that using Eon Hub wouldn't be that difficult.
June 23, 2020 12:10 p.m.
TriusMalarky says... #24
The one problem is that it needs a much better wincon.
Great value engine that, I believe, should be fairly consistent. Ability to actually kill? Unfortunately, WotC hasn't given us one of those.
Considering it's a good idea to run Mesmeric Orb as an Engine, I could see adding Altar of Dementia and trying to go weird grindy Jeskai Mill.
You could also be Grixis w/Heartless Summoning and death triggers. Black is good enough at exiling their yard, and there should be enough death triggers that dodge Summoning that you can have fun. Grim Haruspex should be amazing.
I don't really see Green outside a couple weird sac outlets, but you could make it work.
All in all, it's an unfortunately slow deck. The strat is mostly here -- but we're missing one or two little pieces to push it over the edge. I don't know about you, but I'll be watching for that one piece.
June 23, 2020 12:26 p.m.
TriusMalarky, I'm gonna keep this version RUG and make other two versions with Black and White, so that we can compare all the different lists.
It would be really cool if there were some other cards like the forces and for all colors, since I didn't find the Green, Black and White forces helpful for this kind of deck. In the end, the Red one wasn't that good either.
Maybe future expansions will give this deck what it needs.
June 23, 2020 2 p.m.
Flooremoji says... #26
Selective Memory could be funny, probably not good though because the creatures are expensive and not very powerful.
June 23, 2020 4 p.m.
A little update if anyone is interested. I tried to make other 2 versions of the deck, one URB like lagotripha suggested, and one URW like TriusMalarky suggested.
Unfortunately, neither of them seemed to work (probably also because of me being a noob), so I will not post them here on TappedOut for now.
The problem was that once I removed Force of Rage, Squee, the Immortal didn't really had a purpose. Same goes for Eternal Scourge. Yes, I can exile them with Serum Powder at the beginning of the game to gain some card advantage, but that's the only way to synergize with them, and I was able to cast like one of them per turn.
As someone pointed out already, what I miss is a valid Win Condition. Or at least some card that helps on the offensive side. Force of Rage in the end wasn't what I thought, but if used with Simian Spirit Guide maybe could help with that. And it gives Squee, the Immortal a meaning.
I don't know if I didn't fully understand the suggestions I received, but I think that probably my idea for the deck wasn't that good in the end, or just there aren't enough cards that synergize with the strategy I wanted to play yet.
I'll be waiting for next expansions to see if some more cards like the forces come out.
June 25, 2020 11:32 a.m.
TriusMalarky says... #28
The real problem is that, while we have a lot of the synergistic pieces, it's an archetype using weird cards that nobody intended to be used together. There's just not going to be enough support for it.
Now, it's entirely possible that some of the absurdities that WotC is deciding to print will eventually help this deck, but we may have to wait a year or two. I mean, the last two pieces(Squee and Scourge) were years apart, and that's not mentioning that the distance between Scourge and the next newest card is RtR where we got RiP, if you even consider that necessary.
Unfortunately, we need to wait. But y'all better be ready, 'cos the second we get the right card to take this from barely a deck to a dominant force, I'm jumping on the train and taking this everywhere.
June 25, 2020 11:44 a.m.
Yes we'll have to wait. Anyway, it was good receiving so much support.
It was the first time I had comments on one of my decks and I really appreciated it.
antacidbrn says... #2
This is a neat concept, I have never seen a deck like it before. My concern are the threats that can finish the game. I do not know what to suggest here but will monitor your progress as I love innovation!
June 22, 2020 5:47 a.m.