Discussion Forum

Have you even tried playing this deck? I can't imagine this deck doing anything. You can play test it all day long and it will play a few very small creatures that you will need to block with until you run out of creatures and you'll die.

With 17 enchantments + 4 enchantment tutors you'll have mostly enchantments in your starting 7 and you'll draw more of them turn after turn instead of creatures.
Of those enchantments only Oblivion Ring and Spirit Mantle are playable on your 20 land mana base. That's 7 playable enchantments out of 21 (counting the tutors).

Windbrisk Heights requires you to attack with 3 creatures. Your deck isn't aggresive enough to attack with 3 creatures. Not when you're under pressure and you will be most of the games you play.

20 land can't support casting cost 4 and up spells in a competitive game, you will start missing land drops as of turn 3. Having 4 mana on turn 4 will not be likely and getting to 5 mana before the game ends is very unlikely.

Why do you play 3 creatures of each? Is't it better to play a full playset of those creatures you will be able to cast early on, the ones you want to be in your starting 7 and include lesser numbers of creatures as their mana cost goes up. As the mana cost goes up you'll have more time to draw into them. For instance a mana cost 3 creature can't be played by your deck before turn 3 so you only need it in your 10 first cards, the probability of having it should be maximized for your first 10 cards and not for your first 7.
Bruna, Light of Alabaster can't be played by your deck so you could actually dropping the count to 0 unless you add ways to accelerate your landbase so you can play Bruna, Light of Alabaster faster.

Also realize that mid game is the playground of control decks. There's nothing worse then a slow aggro deck. Control takes over the game once it has enough mana to do so and that means your spells will get countered or shot down turn after turn until they can play their win condition. You don't want to go there. You want to win fast or be a control deck yourself or have some sort of unbreakable combo.

I hope these insights help you improve your deck

I appreciate the insight. Do you see any other way that i could use to get Eldrazi Conscription up? I am definitely considering removing Bruna, Light of Alabaster and my big field enchantments. Also considering making it a 22 mana base, possibly 24. I also considered putting Ajani Goldmane in to help out my Serra Ascendant. I will post updates to my deck list as I work on it. Sorry for being such a noob. I only started at the end of SCARS block. Thanks again!

sovereigns of lost alara is probably your best bet. I won a modern tournament when the modern format was just created and Green sun's zenith wasn't banned yet.

It played Knight of the Reliquary + Lotus Cobra + fetchland and Noble Hierarch to accelerate into Sovereigns real fast. A typical game went like this

Forest + Noble hierarch turn 1
Cobra turn 2, play fetchland, crack, fetch, generate 3 mana play knight of the reliquary

turn 3: play fetchland or land or use knight to sac land, get another fetchland fetch, crack, generate 6 mana and play sovereigns, attack with Lotus Cobra, attach Eldrazi Conscription and go in with a 13/12 trampling cobra.

Green sun's zenith made in consistent, it was very broken.

There are many ways you can play an aura deck that actually works but you need an aggresive strategy. If you don't have the experience of building complex decks start of easy. Keep it simple with spells ranging from casting cost 1 to 3, you can play a few CC4 spells, the 2 elspeth for instance are great, but keep them to a minimum. Learn to build a fast deck and see how that performs before moving on.
Learning to build on a mana curve is what you need to do.

I took all of my creatures out and put in the guys you recommended. I put in Giltspire Avenger too, so i can get rid of creatures and get more +1/+1's when i have one guy attack. Took out the Windbrisk heights too. I'm considering taking out a few enchantments and/or temporal mastery for a little ramp. Thanks again for the advice! Time to playtest the new build.

Windbrisk heights has seen tournament play in it's standard days but as far as I can recall it was used in aggro decks to just get another free guy in. I'm not against the card but it does come in play tapped so if it's in your starting 7 it will slow you down a bit which is something to concider when building.

Leyline of Sanctity is a sideboard card and one you only include as a full playset. It sees play in legacy combo decks where it's crucial to stop duress like discard effects. I don't see a place for it in this kind of deck.

You only need 1 Eldrazi Conscription, 2 to be save (in case you draw into it) but 3 is to much.

Daybreak Coronet is bad, it's dead to often, play it as a 1 off.

Shield of the Oversoul might be cute to play but you would need more :manag::manaw: creatures. A set of watchwolf might be strong or Qasali Pridemage. something like 4xQasali Pridemage and 4xNoble Hierarch gives you a lot of exalted power.

Temporal Mastery as a 2 off seems ok, it reduces the chance of having it in your starting 7 and the more aggro your deck is the better it becomes. It's basically a tempo card, you need to be able to use the extra turn by attacking or it's just a very tricky explore

As mainboard denial I would only play 4xSpell Pierce. Flashfreeze is to narrow to play mainboard and mana leak forces you to keep 2 mana open. I'm ok with mana leak but it's strain on the deck build especially since you don't play real fetchland and duals.

If you can make the deck real fast (which means more creatures and less clutter) you could play tempo cards like bounce (what is that 1 mana spell that bounces a creature and deals a damage). This is the kind of spells I usually don't recommend to new players but in a fast deck that puts a lot of pressure it's very strong.

You have 4 oblivion rings which is already quite good in terms of control. I would recommend 2 additional removal main board and 2 in side, not more. What you currently play is quite bad but the alternatives in modern are limited. Maybe a 3xJourney to Nowhere and 3xOblivion ring split. There is always

Revoke existence becomes obsolete if you play Qasali pridemage.
Smite the Monstrous is to much mana and to narrow to play. Rebuke isn't all that either.


What do you think of this:

4 Noble Hierarch
3 Qasali Pridemage
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Sovereigns of Lost Alara
4 Lotus Cobra
1 Birds of Paradise
2 Geist of Saint Traft

2 Temporal Mastery

3 Spirit Mantle
3 Shield of the Oversoul
2 Eldrazi Conscription
4 Oblivion Ring

2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

4 Misty Rainforest
1 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
3 Hinterland Harbor
1 Horizon Canopy
2 Wooded Bastion
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Forest
1 Island
1 Plains

//Sideboard
4 Spell Piercce
3 Mana Leak
3 Day of Judgment
2 Journey to Nowhere
1 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Champion of Lambholt

You can see the deck here with mana curve: http://deck.tk/8nmN8n9l

I really like the decision to put in Qasali Pridemage over Watchwolf, even though Watchwolf is a 2-drop 3/3, i would prefer the removal over a 3/3. I also really like the addition of Champion of Lambholt, although i feel that the odds of drawing into it are rather low if switched in. I also love Birds of Paradise. That was another creature that i wanted to put it, but i didn't feel that i needed it if i used 24 land. 22 seems suitable though. And with Lotus Cobra and all of the fetch lands, Sovereigns seems appropriate as a play set. I tried to stray away from the pay life dual lands and fetch lands, but life doesn't seem like it will be much of an issue, unless i'm playing against a really fast burn deck, so i like those. Shield of the Oversoul was another card that i wanted to put in, but i wasn't using and G/W creatures to take advantage of the effect. As you said, Vapor Snag does look like it would work well in this deck, but i don't see where i would put it, if i put it in. Overall, it looks like it would play quite well against almost everything. But who am i to judge? I only started playing when New Phyrexia came out.

actually I should have put in about 10 fetchland in order to really take advatage of Knight of the Reliquary and Lotus Cobra but I didn't know your budget. If you can affort more fetchland I would suggest 10 fetch and a 4 color mana base to include red. This opens the option of playing Lightning Helix and lighting Bolt which really pushes the deck.
Playing 4 colors is tricky though and like you said the deck is overpacked as it is so freeing up space is difficult.

If you can add some more fetch, maybe 4 Verdant Catacombs. If you play more fetch It's a good idea to play more ravnica duals as well.

Champion of Lambholt seems like a good card, you could play up to 2 in sideboard but I would not go over that, you mainly want them against token decks I think.

pridemage is pretty broken, there's just nothing like it.

I would go with 10 fetch and move to a four color base with red, because i love lightning helix, but i'm not sure that 4 colors would work out too well, because i would have to sacrifice some great cards to put in lightning helix and lightning bolt, and plus i've never been comfortable playing four colors. i can't say that it wouldn't work though, because of all of the mana that lotus cobra would produce for me. it sounds like a good idea, just not something that im comfortable doing.

yeah I wouldn't advice it either. I did play 4 colors when I won that modern tournament but like you said, the deck has a certain theme going and you would loose that if you would go for a blue zoo deck.

I think it's on it's way to becomming a great deck as is, needs testing of course. Do not count to hard on lotus cobra though, it's a bomb but you need to design a deck that can win with and without it. Half of the time it'll just get shot down or you won't have it when you need it.