Primal Permutations

Modern Deck Help forum

Posted on June 24, 2020, 4:17 p.m. by Riveyn

Looking to get some feedback on this deck. Perhaps some ramp or dork ideas that would work well. I was thinking of Leyline Prowler. But any thoughts would be appreciated. Primal Permutations

lagotripha says... #2

Mutate is a really interesting mechanic that I expect to find a place in modern, even if it never reaches tier 1. Modern already has some wild 1 drops, and attaching, say Parcelbeast to a Steppe Lynx can start looking cool- its just a question of the right combination being found to power the deck.

I'd focus on low cost mutate cards, 1 drops to mutate them on that either protect a powerful mutate effect or multiply it, and mana dorks as backup mutate targets.

Auspicious Starrix will likely win you the game if your opponent cannot remove it. Gemrazer to back that up will offer a lot of blowout potential. Most of the lower tier mutate creatures could work with the right synergy picks in the rest of the list.

In terms of 1 drops to examine, Glistener Elf and Slippery Bogle for efficient voltron, as well as less conventional voltron like Spikeshot Elder or Vector Asp, Young Wolf returns all its creatures seperated to the battlefield with +1+1 counters, Blistercoil Weird and legendary spell recursion point to a jeskai spellslinger, Signal Pest+ a white go wide list, Arcbound Worker/Servant of the Scale/Simic Initiate/Hardened Scales and +1+1 counters could get pretty out of hand.

Hedron Crab land drop mill is a cute option, Permeating Mass will make people call for the judge, but isn't actually any good. Some +1+1 counter synergies will likely let you abuse some mechanics like Devoted Druid's untap, if you can find the combination.

Keyword piles like Banehound Healer's Hawk, abilities like Figure of Destiny or 'conditional' P/T boosts like Scute Mob could make for a decent beatstick if you can spend two cards on it - Gnarlwood Dryad, Toolcraft Exemplar Wild Nacatl, Loam Lion could all find places in some lists,as they are already efficient and pushing them out of kill range for lightning bolt/anger of the gods may be relevant.

Mortician Beetle with the bat strapped to it is a great casual clock.

None of these are crazy effecient, but building a list of sixty cards that all sorta work together is the heart of brews like this.

All told though, its a bit of a mess where the best bet is to pick two colours with 2/3 mana mutates, and throw them on creatures which protect them while hunting for stirix. Trying to stretch into more colours will pressure a budget manabase very hard. Keeping to mostly green with basic searching to fix for a second colour will ease that process a lot- especially with dorks like Avacyn's Pilgrim or Elves of Deep Shadow.

June 24, 2020 5:56 p.m.

aholder7 says... #3

at least in terms of modern you need to be prepared for removal. most decks don't build one big creature because Path to Exile and Fatal Push exist. you plan on mutating that Dark Confidant? Lightning Bolt! you lost your base creature and your mutate card. buffs leave you open to 2-for-1s. so you need to find a way to mitigate that risk. anything with persist, undying or hexproof should all be good targets. note that in the case of undying/persist you can still lose some value if they kill your creature in response to casting the mutate card. you will get your creature on the field back but the mutate card will fizzle due to losing it's target. it's a 1-for-1 instead of a 2-for-1 so it's not as bad but something you should consider.

most of the mutate cards are pretty bad if cast for their normal cost because they are seldom worth their stat lines and they don't have any of the abilities i mentioned to make them good targets to mutate. so you will want to look at the cards with low mutate costs or at least cards that if they have a higher mutate cost do something incredibly powerful such as starrix.

if you want you can play cards like Kira, Great Glass-Spinner as a way of giving psuedo hexproof to your creatures.

June 25, 2020 10:33 a.m.

Xica says... #4

aholder7
"note that in the case of undying/persist you can still lose some value if they kill your creature in response to casting the mutate card. you will get your creature on the field back but the mutate card will fizzle due to losing it's target."

Except thats not how mutate works.
If its mutate target becomes illegal it will ETB as its creature version.

Thus the dark confidant + bolt example you citeds is inaccurate - if the mutated creature after resolution is x/4 or greater.

July 5, 2020 9:13 p.m.

aholder7 says... #5

Xica is correct, i forgot that removing the target during casting isn't an issue. And yes the bolt wasn't a great example as many of the mutated creatures can have toughness above 4 but the point still stands that a less conditional removal spell can still get rid of your mutated creature meaning you still spent 2+ cards when they only spent 1. so you will still want something that gives you value on removal, or prevents common removal in some form.

July 6, 2020 12:26 a.m.

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