Started brewing up a list last night as soon as I saw the lonely sandbar in the spoilers. The draw of Astral drift is that, in combination with cycle lands and Life from the loam, you have repeatable blinking to either stall your opponents attacks and remove their tokens/counters, save your own creatures from removal and blink various creatures for profit. Loam + cycle lands is in itself a strong card advantage engine that can take over the game unchecked, and surprisingly resilient against Surgical Extraction. To power out Drift and other cards fast enough to survive, I've started with the mana dork package, along with a general value package of cards like Eternal Witness and Kitchen Finks to profit from blinking. Finally, since we have the green dude shell and the deck is inherently weak against combo and tron, I figure the most effective answer (outside of splashing a third color) to be Eldritch Evolution fetching bullets and bombs.
The general gameplan against aggro/midrange is to stay alive long enough to get Drift + Loam going, taking over the game with more cards. All the lifegain the deck plays really gives you some padding to work with, and the MD Gearhulk is specifically there as a bomb to be tutored up against go-wide strategies. Against Control the plan is to apply pressure and take out the walkers at all cost; Drift can play against the removal and generate cards when possible. Side out Evos agaisnt control. Against combo try to Evo into a hatebear. Against Tron, pray for the disruption.
The land count seems outrageous, but remember that there are only 18 "real" lands and that the cyclers will hopefully be cycled. The deck needs at least 13 sources of green on t1, and even that may be too low. The creature base and toolbox is theorycrafting. Color splashes could be explored. Thoughts or ideas on where this could go? Am I going completely in the wrong direction with how Astral Drift should look? I don't expect Drift to be a tier 1 deck, but there is design space to be explored.
Does this deck want Panharmonicon in any number? Like, I get that it is a 4 Mana do-nothing the turn it comes down, but man if you have that and a drift you can cycle every turn to flicker witness and get back the card you cycled and another card, and I don't really know how you lose a lot of games once that starts.
Edit: I can also see an argument for some number of Restoration Angel for more blink synergies. Also, the deck could lean harder into a mana-denial strategy by running more creatures like Avalanche Riders.
Edit 2: Also, I had completely forgotten about the card Cast Out until right now as a way to answer problematic permanents while still being a one mana cycler.
A friend of mine started theorycrafting exactly this kind of deck with me last night. These are the conclusions we reached:
Astral Drift looks like it has potential, and while some of the other cycling payoff cards like Drake Haven don't look too terrible, almost all of the available cards with the cycling mechanic themselves look downright atrocious. Granted, there are some exceptions, notably the lands, but most of the available spells look way too poor for Modern. This led us to the conclusion that the cycling lands would need to make up the bulk of what we cycle, and that in turn makes Life from the Loam really good as a 2nd cycling payoff card, putting the deck in at least GW.
Because the deck is going to want to play a significant number of Secluded Steppe, Tranquil Thicket, and probably Scattered Groves, it's going to be difficult to reliably cast mana dorks on turn 1. Too many lands come into play tapped, and it's likely that some that don't still won't always produce green because they're either colorless utility lands or because they're something like basic Plains or Flagstones of Trokair. This, combined with the fact that there isn't any intrinsic value in blinking a card like Noble Hierarch, led us to avoid mana dorks in general. Fortunately, there is a valuable ramp spell available to us in Edge of Autumn. Aside from Street Wraith, it's the only other "free" cycler, and playing tapland on 1 -> Edge of Autumn on 2 is a reasonable curve. It also helps fuel Life from the Loam in the midgame, and being able to tap out on turn 3 to cast Astral Drift while simultaneously being able to cycle a card if need be is nothing to slouch at.
Another observation we made is that, because Astral Drift comes down on turn 3 at the earliest and because almost no cards cycle for free, you're almost never going to blink something before turn 4. And if what you want to blink is a creature of your own, it would help tremendously if that card only cost 2 or 3. That way, if you curve into tapland -> 2-drop -> Astral Drift, you have both mana and a target to blink when you cycle a card turn 4. And that works even if you don't make your 4th land drop (or if your 4th land enters the battlefield tapped). Alternatively, if you curve into tapland -> anything -> 3-drop, then a 4th untapped land on turn 4 also allows you to play Astral Drift and still have 1 available with which to cycle a card and blink whatever 3-drop you played.
From that point, my friend and I took a look at what creatures we could blink to get good value out of. While there are plenty of good 3-drops in this category, good blinkable 2-drops are a little more scarce. Here are the most notable 2-drops we found (sorted by color):
Unfortunately, while there were a handful of blue cards that would be okay to blink, there weren't that many 2-drops that we were all that happy to proactively play. (Cards like Omenspeaker, Augur of Bolas, and Fblthp just don't look that great in comparison to something like Wall of Omens.) We also knew we wouldn't be red from the start (to sort of differentiate this deck from a Hollow One deck), so we didn't pursue that direction at all.
Of the cards listed above, the ones we were most excited about were Wall of Omens and Nest Invader. Wall of Omens provides card advantage in addition to a solid body with which to block, something a slower deck like this one might find valuable. Nest Invader provides multiple bodies, and allows the deck to ramp into Astral Drift on turn 3 while simultaneously having both a blink target and a mana available with which to cycle a card. Lone Missionary was also quite tantalizing, but because we foresaw there being a plethora of other GW cards that gain life higher up on the curve that we might also want to play (things like Knight of Autumn, Thragtusk) we decided to omit the Missionary. Satyr Wayfinder is another card we're curious about. It doesn't provide cards as reliably as Wall of Omens, and its body isn't as valuable, but it may potentially synergize with other cards in the deck beyond Life from the Loam, so we're keeping our eyes on it.
The sweetest thing we found about black is that it grants access to repeatable discard in the form of cards like Ravenous Rats, but because Astral Drift is a long blink, the discard loses a lot of its value since there's no way to get the creature to return on the opponent's draw step. (This is also why blinking Frilled Mystic is unhelpful.) Despite this fact, a card like Tidehollow Sculler may be a direction worth taking the deck, and things like Sin Collector or Chittering Rats might also be worth pursuing.
We don't know if those numbers are right, especially on the cycling lands. Hell, I guess we don't even know if those cards are right, but we do feel pretty good about where we're starting.
From this point, we decided to include a few of the remaining cyclers that I haven't talked about yet.
This knocks the cycling count up a smidge while giving us a versatile removal spell in Cast Out. (Again, we're not exactly sure what the right number of cycling cards should be. We just know that it needs to be relatively high to ensure Astral Drift can activate reliably enough, and that what cyclers we do have likely need to cost 1 if they aren't altogether free. That, or they need to do something else aside from drawing a card when you decide to cycle them.)
Because we knew the deck would be primarily if not entirely GW, we knew what little removal the deck did have ought to be flexible. Cast Out does that by exiling a smattering of card types while also being an instant. That's especially useful once Astral Drift is in play since it allows us to play the game either proactively or reactively depending upon the situation. If there's a card that has to be answered, we can use the 4 we held up to cast Cast Out. If they don't force us to react, we can just cycle a few cards, and eke value out of whatever we have in play. And because Restoration Angel both has flash and synergizes with everything else we're blinking, we thought it would also make a good addition seeing as it would mean our opponents wouldn't always know exactly what we're doing with 4 open mana and would give us another kind of proactive play.
So, that's pretty much where we're at right now. Of the GW cycling cards, the only ones we thought stood any chance (apart from the lands and Astral Drift anyway) were Edge of Autumn, Dissenter's Deliverance, Cast Out, Renewed Faith, and maybe Street Wraith. Dissenter's Deliverance and Renewed Faith both suffer from the fact that it just might be better to play some kind of creature with an ETB effect that does either of those things than it is to play the actual cycler. Street Wraith is also kind of a gamble since, while it is a free cycler, I'm not sure if this deck will want something like Traverse the Ulvenwald (it might), and there really isn't any use for Street Wraith beyond being Astral Drift fodder, so there's a real opportunity cost to playing it.
Anywho, I guess we're now just going to fill out the deck with other miscellaneous cards, Eternal Witness, Kitchen Finks, etc., and make adjustments from there once we playtest it.
Hi arrogantAxolotl! I appreciate the detailed post on you and your friend's brainstorming. A few things need to be addressed though before we can make much progress on this deck:
-Path to Exile is an absolute must here. This is a midrange/control deck in all iterations and we need the outs Goblin Guide/Meddling Mage/Death's Shadow.
-Astral Drift can be a versatile stall piece and value engine, but it isn't gamebreaking in any sense and at the end of the day is a 3-mana do nothing in many cases; Drift is also weak against most creature-light decks and combo. Combined with the fact that we are GW and don't have access to counters or discard, we will most likely get trashed by Tron and combo without a speed boost and dedicated disruption. Even against a deck like humans, your plan of "t1 tapland, t2 wall/invader, t3 Drift" just isn't doing much to stop their gameplan of beating you to death.
-Because of this, I'm currently banking on mana dorks to HELP bridge the gap in speed. Speeding the deck up a full turn allows us to actually play magic and deploy defenders/disruption. Turn 2 Kitchen Finks buys time against aggro, Turn 2 Eldritch Evolution buys time against control/combo. Turn 2 Magus of the Moon can win the game. Untapping on Turn 3 with Drift in play can stall. While they are bad top-decks in the lategame, this deck already has a great late-game plan of drawing boatloads of cards and generating value with Drift. Furthermore, extra mana heading into the mid-late game can be sunk into cycling and Loam payments.
-The issue with having enough Turn 1 green sources to cast a dork needs to be addressed. I'm playing 26 lands currently as I would like to avoid playing cycle lands when possible, and it is also a good idea to monitor the number of hands that have to be mulliganed due to Field of Ruins not producing G. I like the idea of FoR because of its utility, especially against Tron and Amulet, but if the lack of green is a problem then they should be turned into green sources.
-Speaking on lands, I'm not keen on Scattered Grove, primarily because the cycling cost of 2 is likely just too much and the deck is already stocked with tapped lands. If the deck heads in a direction with out dorks and the need for T1 green then I can see them being more useful.
-Dissenter's Deliverance and Cast Out are two cards that are on my watch list. Deliverance could be a solid SB card, but is too narrow to include MD. Cast Out is a verstatile answer to a lot of problems, but 3W is a chunk of mana. If planeswalkers become an apparent problem, Cast Outs value increases. Besides these two and maybe cycling duals, I don't know of any cycling cards that are really up to par, with a notable exception of Censor. But that may be too blue for this.
-Edge of Autumn's cycling cost is very real. Sacrificing a land in the first 4 turns of the game is a significant setback. By the time the game progresses to the point that I am willing to sac a land to cycle, I would much rather instead just pay a mana instead. I can see it being necessary without mana dorks, but this just makes me want to play dorks even more to avoid having to play a rampant growth analog.
Restoration Angel is definitely on my watch list; she plays better with more value creatures like Wall of Omens than the bullets and hatebears I'm playing with Evo. I'm also trying to keep the curve as low as possible right now.
@Pants_On_Head: Avalanche Riders is a definite possibility for the board. I started with one initially until realizing that at 4 mana and with a lack of two drops to sac to Eldritch Evo, its usually only going to come out after sacrificing a three drop. At that point, Acidic Slime just does the job better while being useful in matchups where the LD isn't valuable. Riders is better to actually draw against decks like Tron though as you can possibly ramp it out turn 3 on the play, and it gets better when you start playing more two drops to sac to Evo like Wall of Omens or Voice of Resurgence.
...although what's stopping you at that point from really turning this into a Loam deck, reducing the cycling lands, trimming Astral Drift down to a 1-of that you can cycle early and still play with Hall once you get enough cycling lands, and playing Ayula's Influence? From my experience playing As Foretold Living End, reliably cycling 3 cards by Turn 5 in a deck with 14 cyclers can be a stretch, which is what this deck can easily turn into if LftL is hosed.
@Lectrys: I am 100% sure that Loam + cycling lands will be the core of a modern deck, but I'm not sure that Astral Drift is in that deck. As soon as you want to play Ayula's Influence, why not just remove white and play the real Seismic Assault, Countryside Crusher, etc.?
What I do think Drift has going for it is that it is less dependent on Loam or its namesake card compared to a deck like GR Lands. This deck, at least running on the ideas that I presented in the first post, is trying to play multiple angles so that you don't just lose against Rest In Peace or Surgical. You won't just lose when you don't draw one of your 4 Seismic Assualt/Bearassault. You also won't just lose against combo and Tron like every standard green value deck does. Loam, Drift, and cycling are part of the deck, not the only way to wins.
The cycler count could absolutely increase, but we're quickly running out of decent cards that cycle. I'm thinking that I would rather just play good cards that don't cycle instead of bad cards that do. You're probably more concerned with staying alive for the first several turns compared to getting Loam online. Hall of Heliod's Generosity is a possibility, but in the dork version, I need more results on whether or not colorless lands affect the probability of a turn 1 dork. If colorless lands are acceptable, I doubt we're going to find any more important than Field of Ruins.
That sounds like it's probably true. The problem with a card like Path to Exile is that the deck has a lot of needs. It needs a lot of cyclers; it needs a lot of valuable creatures to blink; and Path to Exile isn't any of that. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be played per se. At a distance, I just don't know where it fits.
-Astral Drift can be a versatile stall piece and value engine, but it isn't gamebreaking in any sense and at the end of the day is a 3-mana do nothing in many cases; Drift is also weak against most creature-light decks and combo. Combined with the fact that we are GW and don't have access to counters or discard, we will most likely get trashed by Tron and combo without a speed boost and dedicated disruption. Even against a deck like humans, your plan of "t1 tapland, t2 wall/invader, t3 Drift" just isn't doing much to stop their gameplan of beating you to death.
I think that's a concession you'll just probably have to make if you want to play a deck like this. A GW deck like this is just the epitome of fair. It's just trying to win a game of attrition. Undeniably, there are going to be matchups where this sort of deck just can't compete, and I'm not convinced warping the deck in such a way to make it less focused on its premise just so it can stand a better chance against these sorts of decks is productive. I mean, if you're not happy with the vision, that's fine, but I don't see much point in building a deck with Astral Drift in it instead of an Astral Drift deck.
-Because of this, I'm currently banking on mana dorks to HELP bridge the gap in speed. Speeding the deck up a full turn allows us to actually play magic and deploy defenders/disruption. Turn 2 Kitchen Finks buys time against aggro, Turn 2 Eldritch Evolution buys time against control/combo. Turn 2 Magus of the Moon can win the game. Untapping on Turn 3 with Drift in play can stall. While they are bad top-decks in the lategame, this deck already has a great late-game plan of drawing boatloads of cards and generating value with Drift. Furthermore, extra mana heading into the mid-late game can be sunk into cycling and Loam payments.
I highly value mana ramp, and it's entirely possible that a deck like this wants Noble Hierarch as well as something else. My only concern is the logistics. Right now, I'm just not seeing how you can play those sorts of cards and still make the deck work. They take up a lot of slots, slots that are probably needed to support other themes, and with so few untapped green sources, I don't think mana elves will be that reliable. Not to mention, unless you fill the deck to the brim with them, it isn't terribly likely you're going to always start with them anyway. To me, it seems more reasonable to cut my losses and accept that a deck playing this many ETB tapped lands probably ought to bank on playing one of them turn 1. They're going to mess with the curve somewhere, and turn 1 is the best place for that to happen.
-The issue with having enough Turn 1 green sources to cast a dork needs to be addressed. I'm playing 26 lands currently as I would like to avoid playing cycle lands when possible, and it is also a good idea to monitor the number of hands that have to be mulliganed due to Field of Ruins not producing G. I like the idea of FoR because of its utility, especially against Tron and Amulet, but if the lack of green is a problem then they should be turned into green sources.
Playing 26ish lands sounds like a great observation. I'm not convinced that alone is going to give you the number of untapped green sources you want turn 1 though. At least, not without making sacrifices elsewhere in the landbase anyway. I like the idea of playing Field of Ruin too. If you decide to include Knight of the Reliquary, even more so.
-Speaking on lands, I'm not keen on Scattered Grove, primarily because the cycling cost of 2 is likely just too much and the deck is already stocked with tapped lands. If the deck heads in a direction with out dorks and the need for T1 green then I can see them being more useful.
I'm not keen on it either. Like you said, cards that cost 2 to cycle aren't sexy at all, but I think this might still might be worth it despite that fact. Maybe not as a 4 of though. I don't think I can tell without actually playing some games with it.
-Dissenter's Deliverance and Cast Out are two cards that are on my watch list. Deliverance could be a solid SB card, but is too narrow to include MD. Cast Out is a verstatile answer to a lot of problems, but 3W is a chunk of mana. If planeswalkers become an apparent problem, Cast Outs value increases. Besides these two and maybe cycling duals, I don't know of any cycling cards that are really up to par, with a notable exception of Censor. But that may be too blue for this.
I like Censor, Curator of Mysteries, and Nimble Obstructionist in blue. I agree that Dissenter's Deliverance might be too narrow, but I'm inclined to give it a chance because the deck is light on removal already, and hey, it cycles! My thoughts on Cast Out are pretty much the same as I wrote before. 4 mana is certainly a bit steep, but I think having a catch all like Cast Out is a good idea for decks already light on removal, and it looks like it creates good play patterns between it, Restoration Angel, cycling cards, and other instants.
-Edge of Autumn's cycling cost is very real. Sacrificing a land in the first 4 turns of the game is a significant setback. By the time the game progresses to the point that I am willing to sac a land to cycle, I would much rather instead just pay a mana instead. I can see it being necessary without mana dorks, but this just makes me want to play dorks even more to avoid having to play a rampant growth analog.
I think the only reason you would cycle Edge of Autumn with fewer than four lands in play is because you landed an early Astral Drift and because the value you would get from cycling it would exceed the value of having an additional land. That's going to be heavily influenced by what exactly you're blinking. I agree that in the late game, you'd prefer to pay 1 than to sacrifice a land, but in that stage of the game, you may have a surplus of lands anyway to the point that losing one of them isn't even relevant. And when mana is relevant and you're operating on a strict mana budget, losing another land entirely obviously sucks, but having the option to trigger Astral Drift and to dig for one more card in those situations seems incredibly valuable to me nonetheless. Essentially, if it isn't valuable to do, you won't do it, but I predict situations arising often enough where I'd be thrilled to have that option.
Restoration Angel is definitely on my watch list; she plays better with more value creatures like Wall of Omens than the bullets and hatebears I'm playing with Evo. I'm also trying to keep the curve as low as possible right now.
I think a low curve is smart. Cycling costs mana, so you either need cheap things in play to blink prior to casting Astral Drift or cheap creatures to play once Astral Drift is in play so you can afford to pay the cycling costs to blink them in the same turn. Maybe Restoration Angel isn't cut for the deck, but it certainly seems like it overlaps in all the right places.
@Lectrys: I am 100% sure that Loam + cycling lands will be the core of a modern deck, but I'm not sure that Astral Drift is in that deck. As soon as you want to play Ayula's Influence, why not just remove white and play the real Seismic Assault, Countryside Crusher, etc.?
This. I think you have to look at this as a cycling deck first, and as a Loam deck second. Once you start making Life from the Loam the focus of the deck, I don't think you even want to play Astral Drift anymore, and you end up with a completely different deck. Granted, that deck is probably a lot better than this one, but it's a different deck nonetheless.
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@Lectrys: I am 100% sure that Loam + cycling lands will be the core of a modern deck, but I'm not sure that Astral Drift is in that deck. As soon as you want to play Ayula's Influence, why not just remove white and play the real Seismic Assault, Countryside Crusher, etc.?
What I do think Drift has going for it is that it is less dependent on Loam or its namesake card compared to a deck like GR Lands. This deck, at least running on the ideas that I presented in the first post, is trying to play multiple angles so that you don't just lose against Rest In Peace or Surgical. You won't just lose when you don't draw one of your 4 Seismic Assualt/Bearassault. You also won't just lose against combo and Tron like every standard green value deck does. Loam, Drift, and cycling are part of the deck, not the only way to wins.
The cycler count could absolutely increase, but we're quickly running out of decent cards that cycle. I'm thinking that I would rather just play good cards that don't cycle instead of bad cards that do. You're probably more concerned with staying alive for the first several turns compared to getting Loam online. Hall of Heliod's Generosity is a possibility, but in the dork version, I need more results on whether or not colorless lands affect the probability of a turn 1 dork. If colorless lands are acceptable, I doubt we're going to find any more important than Field of Ruins.
I don't want to remove white from any Loam deck running enchantments because I want the inevitability of still being able to play any enchantment I want even if I'm stuck spamming Life from the Loam. The only way I can do so is by playing Hall of Heliod's Generosity, at least as a 1-of; ergo, I cannot drop white, and I may as well play other white enchantments that fit the game plan.
Ayula's Influence is green, the same colour as LftL, and the resulting increased mana consistency or ability to splash other colours is why I'm not so inclined to stick red cards in a Loam deck anymore.
If your only cards that cycle are cycling lands, this deck will lean somewhat heavily on LftL for CA and abusing Astral Drift unless you get Eternal Witness active. While this deck (and even Aggro Loam like I tried last night) can win without LftL, Astral Drift is going to be denuded in those games with your current decklist, to the point where I'd be inclined to cycle the first one, especially if I end up with no cycling lands in hand at that point. ...To be fair, Astral Drift might actually be Modern-playable for its cycling mode alone.
There's a couple deck ideas I can see in this sort of archetype. It's getting late, so I'll lay down the fundamentals I'm looking at because it's too late for me to actually piece things together right now.
Idea #1:
I'm not sure there are enough cards with the right mix of abilities to make this work, but it could be interesting. Underworld Coinsmith kicked off the idea with Eidolon of Blossoms and Grim Guardian as other potentials. Going in on enchantment based ramp and interaction would add to the ETB triggers. The deck probably needs too many moving parts to function well but there's potential value here.
Idea #4:
I didn't really play much during this standard season, so I forget what the wincon was but things like Rogue Refiner and Whirler Virtuoso are solid cards and work with Decoction Module to potentially do something degenerate. But again, that may require too many moving parts to be worthwhile.
Idea #5:
Basically trying to play a similar game to the old standard deck. Again, didn't play during this standard, so I don't know a ton about it. Basically, looking to ramp to 6 and start comboing off to draw your whole deck, gain excess mana with Vizier of Tumbling Sands and enchanted lands, Shadow of the Grave to restart comboing, and then casting a couple Approach of the Second Sun.
Random other cards I was looking at (Strong ETB/LTB effects, beneficial interactions):
I'll work on some deck lists when I can think a bit better about them. Stonehorn Dignitary blinking in a Turbo Fog deck is where I'll be starting though.
I took theorycrafting for Astral Drift down a very different path than anything I've seen in this thread, though you all might have the right of it. I don't have much experience in modern, but what I do have has mostly been playing black devotion and Eldrazi and Taxes, and Astral Drift got me excited by maybe being an inclusion in an '"whatever" and taxes'-style deck.
Starting with the existing Eldrazi and Taxes list, after a few iterations I had gutted most of the cards that make it a taxes deck, notably Aether Vial felt like it was a card that promoted a different style of deck- the deck would either be a vial deck or a drift deck but both was too much. However, the basic plan of strip mining our opponent with Cat Jesus (Leonin Arbiter) and Ghost Quarters felt like it meshed with Drift quite well. Since Loam is a natural inclusion, you end up with many, many opportunities to infinitely strip mine your opponent while drawing cards and working towards beating down your opponent at the same time, either through Drift value or Knight of the Reliquary, which also loves the Loam package and even helps it by chucking Scattered Grove into the graveyard and tutoring more Ghost Quarters if you want them.
Something which I find very important about the card is that it triggers on cycle. This means that if you have a minion which benefits from the flicker already out, or if your opponent only has one blocker, Drift isn't a 3 mana do nothing if you don't want it to be. Thinking this way makes sense- sure getting Drift activations when you cycle your lands is cool and all, but with Loam in the deck also, you really don't need Drift out to win. Continuing that line of thinking, playing cards with cycle that *aren't* lands becomes much less of a priority. In fact the only one I'm running in my list is Pale Recluse-- stay with me here-- Recluse as a 2 or 1 of really helps with consistency by allowing you to tutor for your Scattered Groves. This guarantees you another cycling card and it makes sure you can chuck a cycle land in your graveyard to start the Loam value train. ...and I guess it can help with color fixing or basic fetching if you're in a blood moon lockout.
Another card new to Modern that I think has a place in this deck is Eladamri's Call. It lets the deck tutor for Drift payoffs, Cat Jesus, or Pale Recluse-- being able to tutor into a cycling card that tutors into another cycling card is pretty neat. Since we're running Cat Jesus already and aren't keen on non-land cyclers, Path is a definite include over Cast Out.
When I built the deck I was left with 2 card slots I wasn't sure what to do about... I picked Cream of the Crop as a weird way to guarantee that flickering anything with Drift generates value, and to help filter through the deck. Those slots could easily be 2 more lands or a bomb minion or whatever.
My list:
3 Scattered Groves
3 Secluded Steppe
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Forest
1 Plains
4 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
3 Tranquil Thicket
4 Leonin Arbiter
2 Pale Recluse
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Blade Splicer
4 Thraben Inspector
4 Astral Slide
2 Cream of the Crop
4 Path to Exile
4 Eladamri's Call
4 Life from the Loam
Splashing black was something I seriously considered due to Unearth, which is a huge payoff. That would completely change the deck though. Wasteland Strangler would become a janky way to turn Drift activations into removal (flicker an opponent's creature, flicker/play/reanimate Strangler and move the creature into the graveyard) which can two-for-one your opponent. It would also open up other fringe options like Siege Rhino for the value; Tidehollow Sculler, which I saw mentioned here; and Vile Manifestations, which could be a replacement beat-stick for Knight of the Reliquary, since Knight would make a lot less sense in Abzan. Obviously that deck wouldn't run Pale Recluse either, and I don't think Eladamri's Call/Cream of the Crop would fit either- Unearth is kind of a Eladamri's Call replacement, and the flex slot is much better served with more lands to help the mana situation.
I'm not sure Thraben Inspector is better than Wall of Omens btw-- I personally would pick it over Wall because I don't like how useless 0 power minions feel, but the argument can be made that the instant draw is much better than the Clue.
Incidentally, Soulherder's reveal got me thinking about a Drift deck that *doesn't* use the Loam package, either in Azorious or Esper. I'm not sure how I'd go about that though, either following the outline of Spirit and Taxes decks (which makes Unsettled Mariner another cool include) or dumping the 'and taxes' concept to focus on tribal payoff or pure etb triggers, and I'm fairly sure any variant therein would be far less viable.
I like the direction this is heading in. So far, no one's mentioned Wall of Blossoms as a Wall of Omens replacement for mana consistency. I feel like Fiend Hunter might deserve a slot, at least as a one-of. Being able to cycle-blink it with the trigger on the stack is quite powerful, especially if repeated once a turn cycle (no pun intended).
just going to post a concept idea for a slide list i've been thinking about, maybe not good, but might help people find a direction to go. also a creature we might have forgotten. https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1967765#paper
It's going to be very interesting to brew around Astral drift, I'm surprised to see no street wraiths in the above lists. Those "free" activations that can be played the turn you drop the Drift seem like it could be quite strong, and you should be able to recoup the life through ETB triggers from things like Kitchen Finks or Knight of Autumn.
I didn't include wraith because of three reasons: my list has no black (yes I know in 95% of cases wraith is just an instant with 'pay 2 life to cycle this card' written on it, but the edge-case where you play it as a creature *does* exist), my list has no maindeck lifegain, and the deck prefers to have all of its cycle cards be lands so that the creature slots stay open. That being said, replacing the Recluse for Wraith, and even going down 2 Knight of the Reliquary for a full playset of Wraith, does feel perfectly viable. I haven't play tested the list much so you may be right and it may be better.
One of my fantasies in modern is to play a competitive deck with blink. I've tested many versions but I never get anything better than Death & Taxes. When I saw the spoiler of Astral Drift, it reminded me of the Astral Slide in legacy. A deck that consisted of blink with cycling the Eternal Witness to recover continuously the removals. The deck also uses Living Wish to access the different responses it has on the sideboard. The list: (source: https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2017/05/astral-slide-updated/)
I not sure about the ramp: Birds of Paradise is very lonely and is not a consistent ramp for initial hand in addition to the above, does nothing with the blink. We could opt for Aether Vial, but in the end it's more of the same. The other is to add disruption or some C1 with good ETB.
For a 1 drop ramp, arboreal grazer seems like a good blink target. As an 0/3 grazer can also block well in the early game, and you are guaranteed to get the ramp. A bolted bird feels bad when you realllllly need to get to three mana. Is renewed faith the best cycle card available when there is already so much life gain in your list. There had got to be better cyclers out there, I am just not familiar enough with the archetype to know.
I really want this deck to be a thing, great mechanic.
As alternatives to Renewed Faith we have Edge of Autumn or Street Wraith as free cyclers, although I don't like the option of losing lives on the actual meta. It might also be interesting to include Scarab Feast, it has a cheap cycle and gives main answer to many decks.
The old astral slide had lightning rift and I think that this deck will be missing a card like that. So I was thinking about a bant version of this deck, to se how Drake heaven will perform, but the black cards are so good that I will just splash blue for the heaven.
What about morph creatures? Akroma, Angel of fury looks good, only that it can't be hardcasted...
Any astral drift deck is going to suffer from two rough match ups-
Big mana (Tron, Shift, Titan)
Pure Combo (Storm, Infect)
I am unsure on the dredge matchup, might not be too bad. I think in building a drift deck you will need to decide what you want to attack and assume the nature of the deck gives you grinding power against mid-range/control. The big mana matchups seem like a real problem.
My rough draft follows:
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Astral Drift
4 Path to Exile
2 Eternal Witness
3 Eldritch Evolution
3 Life from the Loam
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Gaddock Teeg
3 Kitchen Finks
1 Acidic Slime
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Thragtusk
1 Cataclysmic Gearhulk
4 Secluded Steppe
4 Tranquil Thicket
4 Windswept Heath
3 Forest
2 Plains
2 Temple Garden
1 Stomping Ground
1 Wooded Foothills
2 Arid Mesa
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Spellskite
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Loaming Shaman
2 Tireless Tracker
2 Damping Sphere
1 Collector Ouphe
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Fiery Justice
The general gameplan against aggro/midrange is to stay alive long enough to get Drift + Loam going, taking over the game with more cards. All the lifegain the deck plays really gives you some padding to work with, and the MD Gearhulk is specifically there as a bomb to be tutored up against go-wide strategies. Against Control the plan is to apply pressure and take out the walkers at all cost; Drift can play against the removal and generate cards when possible. Side out Evos agaisnt control. Against combo try to Evo into a hatebear. Against Tron, pray for the disruption.
The land count seems outrageous, but remember that there are only 18 "real" lands and that the cyclers will hopefully be cycled. The deck needs at least 13 sources of green on t1, and even that may be too low. The creature base and toolbox is theorycrafting. Color splashes could be explored. Thoughts or ideas on where this could go? Am I going completely in the wrong direction with how Astral Drift should look? I don't expect Drift to be a tier 1 deck, but there is design space to be explored.
Edit: I can also see an argument for some number of Restoration Angel for more blink synergies. Also, the deck could lean harder into a mana-denial strategy by running more creatures like Avalanche Riders.
Edit 2: Also, I had completely forgotten about the card Cast Out until right now as a way to answer problematic permanents while still being a one mana cycler.
Astral Drift looks like it has potential, and while some of the other cycling payoff cards like Drake Haven don't look too terrible, almost all of the available cards with the cycling mechanic themselves look downright atrocious. Granted, there are some exceptions, notably the lands, but most of the available spells look way too poor for Modern. This led us to the conclusion that the cycling lands would need to make up the bulk of what we cycle, and that in turn makes Life from the Loam really good as a 2nd cycling payoff card, putting the deck in at least GW.
Because the deck is going to want to play a significant number of Secluded Steppe, Tranquil Thicket, and probably Scattered Groves, it's going to be difficult to reliably cast mana dorks on turn 1. Too many lands come into play tapped, and it's likely that some that don't still won't always produce green because they're either colorless utility lands or because they're something like basic Plains or Flagstones of Trokair. This, combined with the fact that there isn't any intrinsic value in blinking a card like Noble Hierarch, led us to avoid mana dorks in general. Fortunately, there is a valuable ramp spell available to us in Edge of Autumn. Aside from Street Wraith, it's the only other "free" cycler, and playing tapland on 1 -> Edge of Autumn on 2 is a reasonable curve. It also helps fuel Life from the Loam in the midgame, and being able to tap out on turn 3 to cast Astral Drift while simultaneously being able to cycle a card if need be is nothing to slouch at.
Another observation we made is that, because Astral Drift comes down on turn 3 at the earliest and because almost no cards cycle for free, you're almost never going to blink something before turn 4. And if what you want to blink is a creature of your own, it would help tremendously if that card only cost 2 or 3. That way, if you curve into tapland -> 2-drop -> Astral Drift, you have both mana and a target to blink when you cycle a card turn 4. And that works even if you don't make your 4th land drop (or if your 4th land enters the battlefield tapped). Alternatively, if you curve into tapland -> anything -> 3-drop, then a 4th untapped land on turn 4 also allows you to play Astral Drift and still have 1 available with which to cycle a card and blink whatever 3-drop you played.
From that point, my friend and I took a look at what creatures we could blink to get good value out of. While there are plenty of good 3-drops in this category, good blinkable 2-drops are a little more scarce. Here are the most notable 2-drops we found (sorted by color):
Knight of the White Orchid
Lone Missionary
Wall of Omens
Dusk Legion Zealot
Ravenous Rats
Stitcher's Supplier
Arboreal Grazer
Elvish Visionary
Nest Invader
Satyr Wayfinder
Coiling Oracle
Glowspore Shaman
Meddling Mage
Tidehollow Sculler
Phyrexian Revoker
Unfortunately, while there were a handful of blue cards that would be okay to blink, there weren't that many 2-drops that we were all that happy to proactively play. (Cards like Omenspeaker, Augur of Bolas, and Fblthp just don't look that great in comparison to something like Wall of Omens.) We also knew we wouldn't be red from the start (to sort of differentiate this deck from a Hollow One deck), so we didn't pursue that direction at all.
Of the cards listed above, the ones we were most excited about were Wall of Omens and Nest Invader. Wall of Omens provides card advantage in addition to a solid body with which to block, something a slower deck like this one might find valuable. Nest Invader provides multiple bodies, and allows the deck to ramp into Astral Drift on turn 3 while simultaneously having both a blink target and a mana available with which to cycle a card. Lone Missionary was also quite tantalizing, but because we foresaw there being a plethora of other GW cards that gain life higher up on the curve that we might also want to play (things like Knight of Autumn, Thragtusk) we decided to omit the Missionary. Satyr Wayfinder is another card we're curious about. It doesn't provide cards as reliably as Wall of Omens, and its body isn't as valuable, but it may potentially synergize with other cards in the deck beyond Life from the Loam, so we're keeping our eyes on it.
The sweetest thing we found about black is that it grants access to repeatable discard in the form of cards like Ravenous Rats, but because Astral Drift is a long blink, the discard loses a lot of its value since there's no way to get the creature to return on the opponent's draw step. (This is also why blinking Frilled Mystic is unhelpful.) Despite this fact, a card like Tidehollow Sculler may be a direction worth taking the deck, and things like Sin Collector or Chittering Rats might also be worth pursuing.
So far, we now have a deck that looks like this:
4 Secluded Steppe
4 Scattered Groves
2 Forest
1 Plains
4 Nest Invader
4 Wall of Omens
3 Life from the Loam
From this point, we decided to include a few of the remaining cyclers that I haven't talked about yet.
4 Secluded Steppe
4 Scattered Groves
2 Forest
1 Plains
4 Nest Invader
4 Wall of Omens
3 Life from the Loam
1 Dissenter's Deliverance
2 Cast Out
2 Restoration Angel
Because we knew the deck would be primarily if not entirely GW, we knew what little removal the deck did have ought to be flexible. Cast Out does that by exiling a smattering of card types while also being an instant. That's especially useful once Astral Drift is in play since it allows us to play the game either proactively or reactively depending upon the situation. If there's a card that has to be answered, we can use the 4 we held up to cast Cast Out. If they don't force us to react, we can just cycle a few cards, and eke value out of whatever we have in play. And because Restoration Angel both has flash and synergizes with everything else we're blinking, we thought it would also make a good addition seeing as it would mean our opponents wouldn't always know exactly what we're doing with 4 open mana and would give us another kind of proactive play.
So, that's pretty much where we're at right now. Of the GW cycling cards, the only ones we thought stood any chance (apart from the lands and Astral Drift anyway) were Edge of Autumn, Dissenter's Deliverance, Cast Out, Renewed Faith, and maybe Street Wraith. Dissenter's Deliverance and Renewed Faith both suffer from the fact that it just might be better to play some kind of creature with an ETB effect that does either of those things than it is to play the actual cycler. Street Wraith is also kind of a gamble since, while it is a free cycler, I'm not sure if this deck will want something like Traverse the Ulvenwald (it might), and there really isn't any use for Street Wraith beyond being Astral Drift fodder, so there's a real opportunity cost to playing it.
Anywho, I guess we're now just going to fill out the deck with other miscellaneous cards, Eternal Witness, Kitchen Finks, etc., and make adjustments from there once we playtest it.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
-Path to Exile is an absolute must here. This is a midrange/control deck in all iterations and we need the outs Goblin Guide/Meddling Mage/Death's Shadow.
-Astral Drift can be a versatile stall piece and value engine, but it isn't gamebreaking in any sense and at the end of the day is a 3-mana do nothing in many cases; Drift is also weak against most creature-light decks and combo. Combined with the fact that we are GW and don't have access to counters or discard, we will most likely get trashed by Tron and combo without a speed boost and dedicated disruption. Even against a deck like humans, your plan of "t1 tapland, t2 wall/invader, t3 Drift" just isn't doing much to stop their gameplan of beating you to death.
-Because of this, I'm currently banking on mana dorks to HELP bridge the gap in speed. Speeding the deck up a full turn allows us to actually play magic and deploy defenders/disruption. Turn 2 Kitchen Finks buys time against aggro, Turn 2 Eldritch Evolution buys time against control/combo. Turn 2 Magus of the Moon can win the game. Untapping on Turn 3 with Drift in play can stall. While they are bad top-decks in the lategame, this deck already has a great late-game plan of drawing boatloads of cards and generating value with Drift. Furthermore, extra mana heading into the mid-late game can be sunk into cycling and Loam payments.
-The issue with having enough Turn 1 green sources to cast a dork needs to be addressed. I'm playing 26 lands currently as I would like to avoid playing cycle lands when possible, and it is also a good idea to monitor the number of hands that have to be mulliganed due to Field of Ruins not producing G. I like the idea of FoR because of its utility, especially against Tron and Amulet, but if the lack of green is a problem then they should be turned into green sources.
-Speaking on lands, I'm not keen on Scattered Grove, primarily because the cycling cost of 2 is likely just too much and the deck is already stocked with tapped lands. If the deck heads in a direction with out dorks and the need for T1 green then I can see them being more useful.
-Dissenter's Deliverance and Cast Out are two cards that are on my watch list. Deliverance could be a solid SB card, but is too narrow to include MD. Cast Out is a verstatile answer to a lot of problems, but 3W is a chunk of mana. If planeswalkers become an apparent problem, Cast Outs value increases. Besides these two and maybe cycling duals, I don't know of any cycling cards that are really up to par, with a notable exception of Censor. But that may be too blue for this.
-Edge of Autumn's cycling cost is very real. Sacrificing a land in the first 4 turns of the game is a significant setback. By the time the game progresses to the point that I am willing to sac a land to cycle, I would much rather instead just pay a mana instead. I can see it being necessary without mana dorks, but this just makes me want to play dorks even more to avoid having to play a rampant growth analog.
Restoration Angel is definitely on my watch list; she plays better with more value creatures like Wall of Omens than the bullets and hatebears I'm playing with Evo. I'm also trying to keep the curve as low as possible right now.
@Pants_On_Head: Avalanche Riders is a definite possibility for the board. I started with one initially until realizing that at 4 mana and with a lack of two drops to sac to Eldritch Evo, its usually only going to come out after sacrificing a three drop. At that point, Acidic Slime just does the job better while being useful in matchups where the LD isn't valuable. Riders is better to actually draw against decks like Tron though as you can possibly ramp it out turn 3 on the play, and it gets better when you start playing more two drops to sac to Evo like Wall of Omens or Voice of Resurgence.
...although what's stopping you at that point from really turning this into a Loam deck, reducing the cycling lands, trimming Astral Drift down to a 1-of that you can cycle early and still play with Hall once you get enough cycling lands, and playing Ayula's Influence? From my experience playing As Foretold Living End, reliably cycling 3 cards by Turn 5 in a deck with 14 cyclers can be a stretch, which is what this deck can easily turn into if LftL is hosed.
What I do think Drift has going for it is that it is less dependent on Loam or its namesake card compared to a deck like GR Lands. This deck, at least running on the ideas that I presented in the first post, is trying to play multiple angles so that you don't just lose against Rest In Peace or Surgical. You won't just lose when you don't draw one of your 4 Seismic Assualt/Bearassault. You also won't just lose against combo and Tron like every standard green value deck does. Loam, Drift, and cycling are part of the deck, not the only way to wins.
The cycler count could absolutely increase, but we're quickly running out of decent cards that cycle. I'm thinking that I would rather just play good cards that don't cycle instead of bad cards that do. You're probably more concerned with staying alive for the first several turns compared to getting Loam online. Hall of Heliod's Generosity is a possibility, but in the dork version, I need more results on whether or not colorless lands affect the probability of a turn 1 dork. If colorless lands are acceptable, I doubt we're going to find any more important than Field of Ruins.
That sounds like it's probably true. The problem with a card like Path to Exile is that the deck has a lot of needs. It needs a lot of cyclers; it needs a lot of valuable creatures to blink; and Path to Exile isn't any of that. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be played per se. At a distance, I just don't know where it fits.
I think that's a concession you'll just probably have to make if you want to play a deck like this. A GW deck like this is just the epitome of fair. It's just trying to win a game of attrition. Undeniably, there are going to be matchups where this sort of deck just can't compete, and I'm not convinced warping the deck in such a way to make it less focused on its premise just so it can stand a better chance against these sorts of decks is productive. I mean, if you're not happy with the vision, that's fine, but I don't see much point in building a deck with Astral Drift in it instead of an Astral Drift deck.
I highly value mana ramp, and it's entirely possible that a deck like this wants Noble Hierarch as well as something else. My only concern is the logistics. Right now, I'm just not seeing how you can play those sorts of cards and still make the deck work. They take up a lot of slots, slots that are probably needed to support other themes, and with so few untapped green sources, I don't think mana elves will be that reliable. Not to mention, unless you fill the deck to the brim with them, it isn't terribly likely you're going to always start with them anyway. To me, it seems more reasonable to cut my losses and accept that a deck playing this many ETB tapped lands probably ought to bank on playing one of them turn 1. They're going to mess with the curve somewhere, and turn 1 is the best place for that to happen.
Playing 26ish lands sounds like a great observation. I'm not convinced that alone is going to give you the number of untapped green sources you want turn 1 though. At least, not without making sacrifices elsewhere in the landbase anyway. I like the idea of playing Field of Ruin too. If you decide to include Knight of the Reliquary, even more so.
I'm not keen on it either. Like you said, cards that cost 2 to cycle aren't sexy at all, but I think this might still might be worth it despite that fact. Maybe not as a 4 of though. I don't think I can tell without actually playing some games with it.
I like Censor, Curator of Mysteries, and Nimble Obstructionist in blue. I agree that Dissenter's Deliverance might be too narrow, but I'm inclined to give it a chance because the deck is light on removal already, and hey, it cycles! My thoughts on Cast Out are pretty much the same as I wrote before. 4 mana is certainly a bit steep, but I think having a catch all like Cast Out is a good idea for decks already light on removal, and it looks like it creates good play patterns between it, Restoration Angel, cycling cards, and other instants.
I think the only reason you would cycle Edge of Autumn with fewer than four lands in play is because you landed an early Astral Drift and because the value you would get from cycling it would exceed the value of having an additional land. That's going to be heavily influenced by what exactly you're blinking. I agree that in the late game, you'd prefer to pay 1 than to sacrifice a land, but in that stage of the game, you may have a surplus of lands anyway to the point that losing one of them isn't even relevant. And when mana is relevant and you're operating on a strict mana budget, losing another land entirely obviously sucks, but having the option to trigger Astral Drift and to dig for one more card in those situations seems incredibly valuable to me nonetheless. Essentially, if it isn't valuable to do, you won't do it, but I predict situations arising often enough where I'd be thrilled to have that option.
I think a low curve is smart. Cycling costs mana, so you either need cheap things in play to blink prior to casting Astral Drift or cheap creatures to play once Astral Drift is in play so you can afford to pay the cycling costs to blink them in the same turn. Maybe Restoration Angel isn't cut for the deck, but it certainly seems like it overlaps in all the right places.
This. I think you have to look at this as a cycling deck first, and as a Loam deck second. Once you start making Life from the Loam the focus of the deck, I don't think you even want to play Astral Drift anymore, and you end up with a completely different deck. Granted, that deck is probably a lot better than this one, but it's a different deck nonetheless.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
"Well, then we will at least fight in the shadow"
"There is no glory to be gained in the kingdom of the dead!"
Post by Narah about unbanning Mind Twist in legacy and that this would be evil:
If you want to play on MTGO add me I'm HeskatetAS, playing Modern and Legacy
I don't want to remove white from any Loam deck running enchantments because I want the inevitability of still being able to play any enchantment I want even if I'm stuck spamming Life from the Loam. The only way I can do so is by playing Hall of Heliod's Generosity, at least as a 1-of; ergo, I cannot drop white, and I may as well play other white enchantments that fit the game plan.
Ayula's Influence is green, the same colour as LftL, and the resulting increased mana consistency or ability to splash other colours is why I'm not so inclined to stick red cards in a Loam deck anymore.
If your only cards that cycle are cycling lands, this deck will lean somewhat heavily on LftL for CA and abusing Astral Drift unless you get Eternal Witness active. While this deck (and even Aggro Loam like I tried last night) can win without LftL, Astral Drift is going to be denuded in those games with your current decklist, to the point where I'd be inclined to cycle the first one, especially if I end up with no cycling lands in hand at that point. ...To be fair, Astral Drift might actually be Modern-playable for its cycling mode alone.
Idea #1:
Probably the most straightforward of the ideas. Stonehorn Dignitary with various ways to blink him. The main plan would be with Astral Drift but going UWx and adding in Venser, the Sojourner could be interesting. This also pushes towards a Turbo Fog style deck with something like Approach of the Second Sun as a wincon. Reflector Mage and Spell Queller are good UW includes. Angelsong and Haze of Pollen are cycling Fogs to keep in mind.
Unearth is the main driving force here for me. You can play a lot of value cards like Eternal Witness, Blade Splicer, Sin Collector Renegade Rallier, Knight of Autumn, and Militia Bugler. The deck would probably want Collected Company though and probably just be better off being that sort of a deck. I can't shake Unearth being good here though.
I'm not sure there are enough cards with the right mix of abilities to make this work, but it could be interesting. Underworld Coinsmith kicked off the idea with Eidolon of Blossoms and Grim Guardian as other potentials. Going in on enchantment based ramp and interaction would add to the ETB triggers. The deck probably needs too many moving parts to function well but there's potential value here.
I didn't really play much during this standard season, so I forget what the wincon was but things like Rogue Refiner and Whirler Virtuoso are solid cards and work with Decoction Module to potentially do something degenerate. But again, that may require too many moving parts to be worthwhile.
Basically trying to play a similar game to the old standard deck. Again, didn't play during this standard, so I don't know a ton about it. Basically, looking to ramp to 6 and start comboing off to draw your whole deck, gain excess mana with Vizier of Tumbling Sands and enchanted lands, Shadow of the Grave to restart comboing, and then casting a couple Approach of the Second Sun.
Random other cards I was looking at (Strong ETB/LTB effects, beneficial interactions):
And there should probably be a nod towards Norin the Wary and Genesis Chamber in here somewhere.
I'll work on some deck lists when I can think a bit better about them. Stonehorn Dignitary blinking in a Turbo Fog deck is where I'll be starting though.
Starting with the existing Eldrazi and Taxes list, after a few iterations I had gutted most of the cards that make it a taxes deck, notably Aether Vial felt like it was a card that promoted a different style of deck- the deck would either be a vial deck or a drift deck but both was too much. However, the basic plan of strip mining our opponent with Cat Jesus (Leonin Arbiter) and Ghost Quarters felt like it meshed with Drift quite well. Since Loam is a natural inclusion, you end up with many, many opportunities to infinitely strip mine your opponent while drawing cards and working towards beating down your opponent at the same time, either through Drift value or Knight of the Reliquary, which also loves the Loam package and even helps it by chucking Scattered Grove into the graveyard and tutoring more Ghost Quarters if you want them.
Something which I find very important about the card is that it triggers on cycle. This means that if you have a minion which benefits from the flicker already out, or if your opponent only has one blocker, Drift isn't a 3 mana do nothing if you don't want it to be. Thinking this way makes sense- sure getting Drift activations when you cycle your lands is cool and all, but with Loam in the deck also, you really don't need Drift out to win. Continuing that line of thinking, playing cards with cycle that *aren't* lands becomes much less of a priority. In fact the only one I'm running in my list is Pale Recluse-- stay with me here-- Recluse as a 2 or 1 of really helps with consistency by allowing you to tutor for your Scattered Groves. This guarantees you another cycling card and it makes sure you can chuck a cycle land in your graveyard to start the Loam value train. ...and I guess it can help with color fixing or basic fetching if you're in a blood moon lockout.
Another card new to Modern that I think has a place in this deck is Eladamri's Call. It lets the deck tutor for Drift payoffs, Cat Jesus, or Pale Recluse-- being able to tutor into a cycling card that tutors into another cycling card is pretty neat. Since we're running Cat Jesus already and aren't keen on non-land cyclers, Path is a definite include over Cast Out.
When I built the deck I was left with 2 card slots I wasn't sure what to do about... I picked Cream of the Crop as a weird way to guarantee that flickering anything with Drift generates value, and to help filter through the deck. Those slots could easily be 2 more lands or a bomb minion or whatever.
My list:
3 Scattered Groves
3 Secluded Steppe
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Forest
1 Plains
4 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
3 Tranquil Thicket
4 Leonin Arbiter
2 Pale Recluse
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Blade Splicer
4 Thraben Inspector
4 Astral Slide
2 Cream of the Crop
4 Path to Exile
4 Eladamri's Call
4 Life from the Loam
Splashing black was something I seriously considered due to Unearth, which is a huge payoff. That would completely change the deck though. Wasteland Strangler would become a janky way to turn Drift activations into removal (flicker an opponent's creature, flicker/play/reanimate Strangler and move the creature into the graveyard) which can two-for-one your opponent. It would also open up other fringe options like Siege Rhino for the value; Tidehollow Sculler, which I saw mentioned here; and Vile Manifestations, which could be a replacement beat-stick for Knight of the Reliquary, since Knight would make a lot less sense in Abzan. Obviously that deck wouldn't run Pale Recluse either, and I don't think Eladamri's Call/Cream of the Crop would fit either- Unearth is kind of a Eladamri's Call replacement, and the flex slot is much better served with more lands to help the mana situation.
I'm not sure Thraben Inspector is better than Wall of Omens btw-- I personally would pick it over Wall because I don't like how useless 0 power minions feel, but the argument can be made that the instant draw is much better than the Clue.
Incidentally, Soulherder's reveal got me thinking about a Drift deck that *doesn't* use the Loam package, either in Azorious or Esper. I'm not sure how I'd go about that though, either following the outline of Spirit and Taxes decks (which makes Unsettled Mariner another cool include) or dumping the 'and taxes' concept to focus on tribal payoff or pure etb triggers, and I'm fairly sure any variant therein would be far less viable.
"Well, then we will at least fight in the shadow"
"There is no glory to be gained in the kingdom of the dead!"
Post by Narah about unbanning Mind Twist in legacy and that this would be evil:
If you want to play on MTGO add me I'm HeskatetAS, playing Modern and Legacy
4 Eternal Witness
1 Archfiend of Ifnir
Enchantment
3 Astral Slide
Land
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
3 Windswept Heath
3 Wasteland
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Tranquil Thicket
2 Barren Moor
3 Secluded Steppe
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Mox Diamond
Instant
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Swords to Plowshares
Sorcery
4 Living Wish
3 Vindicate
3 Unearth
4 Life from the Loam
Planeswalker
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Peacekeeper
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Loaming Shaman
1 Siege Rhino
1 Archfiend of Ifnir
1 Thragtusk
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Karakas
1 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Duress
I think in modern we can mount something similar, although we would have to add some answers to the main deck. Something like this:
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Knight of Autumn
4 Eternal Witness
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Siege Rhino
1 Archfiend of Ifnir
Enchantment
3 Astral Slide
Land
4 Windswept Heath
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Ghost Quarter
3 Tranquil Thicket
2 Barren Moor
3 Secluded Steppe
2 Temple Garden
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Forest
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Path to Exile
3 Renewed Faith
4 Assassin's Trophy
Sorcery
1 Eldritch Evolution
3 Unearth
3 Life from the Loam
I not sure about the ramp: Birds of Paradise is very lonely and is not a consistent ramp for initial hand in addition to the above, does nothing with the blink. We could opt for Aether Vial, but in the end it's more of the same. The other is to add disruption or some C1 with good ETB.
I really want this deck to be a thing, great mechanic.
As alternatives to Renewed Faith we have Edge of Autumn or Street Wraith as free cyclers, although I don't like the option of losing lives on the actual meta. It might also be interesting to include Scarab Feast, it has a cheap cycle and gives main answer to many decks.
What about morph creatures? Akroma, Angel of fury looks good, only that it can't be hardcasted...
"Well, then we will at least fight in the shadow"
"There is no glory to be gained in the kingdom of the dead!"
Post by Narah about unbanning Mind Twist in legacy and that this would be evil:
If you want to play on MTGO add me I'm HeskatetAS, playing Modern and Legacy
That's it, I don't need blue
It also gets around Leyline of sanctity
"Well, then we will at least fight in the shadow"
"There is no glory to be gained in the kingdom of the dead!"
Post by Narah about unbanning Mind Twist in legacy and that this would be evil:
If you want to play on MTGO add me I'm HeskatetAS, playing Modern and Legacy
Big mana (Tron, Shift, Titan)
Pure Combo (Storm, Infect)
I am unsure on the dredge matchup, might not be too bad. I think in building a drift deck you will need to decide what you want to attack and assume the nature of the deck gives you grinding power against mid-range/control. The big mana matchups seem like a real problem.