For those who play standard, Kethis, the Hidden Hand combo is not something new. The deck got piloted to several great finishes. The power of the deck almost exceeded what one would expect form any standard deck, realy. Kethis in modern is not something I made up myself.There have been several lists circling the web, although it hasn’t been hyped as much a Twiddle Storm for example.
Anyway, the deck looked so much fun that I put some work into making this primer with detailed explanation on the list that I think is a strong and fun list featuring Kethis, the Hidden Hand. My goal is to get this out there so more people can give feedback, try the deck and make the deck better. This is also the reason there isn't a sideboard guide included. There hans't been enough testing to provide solid advice on how to sideboard.
1.1 Translating Kethis to Modern
Modern has a much bigger cardpool than standard, so modern provides a lot more cards to make the deck more streamlined and faster than you could ever dream it could be in standard. Of course modern has a much higher amount of effective hate cards which would pose a serious problem to this deck, since it uses the graveyard and artifacts to effectively go off. That means the sideboard is very important, together with the resilience to hate all together. I think the resilience is not too bad with cards like Teferi, Time Raveler, Hope of Ghirapur and Unearth.
This is the reason that this deck might not be super viable in a modern meta with too much focus on artifact and graveyard decks. It is however ridiculously fun to play. It has amazing lines you can use to combo and I guarantee that the opponent will be amazed by what you are actually doing. Also it doesn't happen every day that you can play EIGHT Moxen in a modern deck, it's crazy. The focus of this primer is not to present you the new KCI, because it is not, but just another cool that that is a blast to play.
The strong points of the deck are that the deck can combo as early as turn two, but turn three or four is probably average. Also the deck plays maindeck cards that both protect the combo and are used in the combo itself. this is not always the case in combo decks, so this is a huge plus. (if you're wondering about the turn 2 combo, it involves a turn 1 Emry, Lurker of the Loch, a turn 2 Kethis, the Hidden Hand and a great deal of lucky hits ) This baseline of a turn 3 combo, would make it modern viable, although it remains to be seen if this deck can effectively counter the hate cards and still win. All together: a two card combo (with some extra cards, yes I know, it isn't technically a two card combo) is often very strong. Also the fact that the synergy of this deck is through the roof, make it a very consistent deck as well.
To sum up some aspects of the deck:
- The deck has a very elegant balance between artifacts and legendary cards in a very sweet synergy with each other. Mox Amber is turned on by Legendary Creatures/Planeswalkers, Mox Opal is turned on by Artifacts including Mox Amber, Emry uses artifacts and is Legendary. Everything fits together so perfectly.
- you play 8 moxen, which makes the deck very fast.
- Grinding Station, Emry, Lurker of the Loch and Diligent Excavator make Unearth basically a tutor for 1 mana.
- Because you mill yourself a lot, Unearth can almost be seen as a 5t-8th Kethis, the Hidden Hand and is just an amazing card on its own when having a way to fill the graveyard.
- Emry, Lurker of the Loch is not only a mill card, she also lets you recast Grinding Station when the artifact gets removed, discarded or milled. Emry can be seen as a 5th-8th Grinding Station.
- Lazav, the Multifarious turns on Mox Amber on turn 2 (This is a good way to produce mana for Kethis. It is also an Unearth on a stick!
- the deck plays 29 legendary cards, which is almost half of the deck! This means you can try to combo off with very little cards in the graveyard and still be able to succeed.
* A sideboard should always be tailored to the meta you are expecting. It's okay to play a different sideboard on each different event. This is just a take on what might be okay, but this can be different from your local meta or even big event you are preparing for.
Play any amount of historic spells from your hand, using Diligent Excavator to target yourself.
Use Kethis, the Hidden Hand to play the Moxen and Hope of Ghirapurs from the graveyard, milling yourself with Diligent Excavator.
Once you have enough historic cards in the graveyard you can now mill the opponent.
Use Grinding Station to mill yourself with any artifacts you have in play.
Use Kethis to play the Moxen and Hope of Ghirapurs from the graveyard.
With each artifact Grinding Station will untap and you can directly sacrifice the artifact to mill yourself
Play any useful Legendaries, like Teferi, Time Raveler from the graveyard to get rid of any obstacles.
Once you have enough zero costing artifacts in the graveyard you can now mill the opponent
Use Kethis to loop two or more Emry, Lurker of the Loch to mill yourself.
Meanwhile make mana with the Mox Opals and Mox Ambers that you can play out of the GY as well
Play Lazav from your Graveyard
Copy a Diligent Excavator with the Lazav
Keep playing Moxen and Hope of Ghirapurs from the graveyard to now mill the opponent.
This last line is much more prone to fizzing, because you need to mill enough legendaries to be able to loop Emry's. With three Emry's this might actually work well, since you will be milling 8 cards every time, which makes the chance on two fodder legendaries a lot higher.
5. Of course there are variations of card combination's which load to one of these standard situations. Because of the overlap between cards, comboing with this deck can be a real puzzle.
Modern offers a lot of legendary lands. However most of them are single color or even colorless, which poses a problem for a four-colored mana base. Here is a list of all the lands that might be good in the deck.
All the lands that consistently produce colored mana and come into play untapped could be in the deck. This gives us quite some cards to work with. Additionally, there are some colorless lands that might have a good synergy with the deck. After some testing the colorless lands seemed too unreliable for the deck. Making colorless mana is really not what the deck wants to do and you can completely be shut down with a colorless land in play and not being able to play your colored spells.
The choice to include 2 of each color might seem a bit strange. Maybe it is correct to cut a Pendelhaven for a Tomb of Urami, since green and white are the least played colors in the deck.
Gemstone Caverns proved to be too unreliable in making colored mana. Exiling a card is a great cost and on the play this land is nothing more than a Waste. Untaidake, the Cloud Keeper comes into play tapped, which is a huge disadvantage for a combo deck. Also the most important Legendary creatures have no colorless mana in their manacost, so its ability is hardly useful.
Because the legendary lands only create a single colored mana, you need other lands that make up for this handicap. It's understandable that it's tempting to play snow-covered basic lands and support one of the best artifacts in the format: Acrum's Astrolabe, but it's impossible to run a 4 colored deck without a manabase that can support a deck that plays so many multicolored spells in four different colors. A solution would be to play fetch lands and shock lands, but there simply isn't room for that if you want to include enough legendary lands. The only solution here is to play rainbow lands. This would normally a painful endeavor, were it not that this deck plays roughly 20-24 artifacts. I think the best lands to play are Glimmervoid and Spire of Industry. The Last spot goes to City of Brass/Mana Confluence.
With cards like Path to Exile, Field of Ruin and Assassin's Trophy in the format, it would be very unwise to not play basic lands. Since blue and black are the most played colors, I think an Island and a Swamp are the obvious choice here.
In conclusion: this manabase provide at least 10 mana sources of the 4 single colors with the important upside that the other 9 out of 19 lands can adapt their color to the single-colored lands you already have in play. I am not a mathematician, but this makes the probability of playing a Kethis on turn 3 very reasonable.
Mox Opal is one of the strongest ramp spells in the format. Most importantly it can create mana of any color, which is crucial in this 4 colored deck. Opal needs enough cheap artifacts to become active, though. This means the deck needs a significant amount of artifacts costing 0 and 1 to make this a reliable source of mana. Because it is legendary you can play this from the graveyard for free with a Kethis activation, and therefor fulfilling a key role in the combo.
Mox amber is used in the Standard version of the deck and is one of the centerpieces of this deck as well. Unlike Mox Opal it isn't a reliable source of colored mana, since it can only be used when you control a legendary creature or planeswalker and can only make a colored mana from the colors among those legendary creatures/planeswalkers. This means that it will most likely only make in the first 2 turns. Once Kethis is out, it can tap for at least 3 colors, which is great to play legendary cards from the graveyard, once Kethis is activated, or to play spells from your hand. Note that Mox Amber can NOT make colorless mana when there is a Hope of Ghirapur in play.
Hope of Ghirapur Might remind some of the old veterans ofXantid Swarm. This card was used to protect combo players against counterspells when comboing off. Hope of Ghirapur is a bit like this card, although you have to sacrifice it to gain its effect. Also it needs to have dealt damage to the opponent in order to activate its ability (Note that you can NOT sacrifice Hope of Ghirapur when the card itself did not deal damage to the opponent. It needs a legal target).
Activating it will clear the way to cast important spells like Grinding Station and Kethis, the Hidden Hand and protect them from removal spells and counterspells.
Hope of Ghirapur can also be used as a Time Walk against decks that rely on casting non creature spells in their own turn. Activating it at the right time will prevent the opponent from playing cards like Karn, the Great Creator, or timewalks decks like Storm and Whirza. Together with Emry, Lurker of the Loch,Hope of Ghirapur can be a repeatable soft lock against those opponents.
Grinding Station is the most effective way to get cards in your own graveyard. It uses artifacts as fuel, which fits perfectly with the whole idea of playing 8 Moxes and 4 hope of Ghirapurs. I have played many decks featuring Grinding Station and the strength of the card is not to be underestimated. Because it untaps with every artifact hitting the battlefield (Both your own and the opponent's! AND it triggers on itself entering as well), for as long as you can play artifacts, this is both your enabler and your win condition.
As said earlier, the decks needs a significant amount of cheap artifacts to make Mox Opal a reliable source of mana. Also these artifacts need to support the game plan a much as possible by drawing cards, or fixing mana. When looking at the artifacts that fulfill these requirement, this is the list of Artifacts that might fit in the deck.
Mishra's Bauble is an auto include. It costs which in incredible and it basically replaces itself for free. It makes Emry, Lurker of the Lake cheaper and turns her into a one sided Howling Mine.
Of the others I find Chromatic Star to be the best one. it can be activated immediately and the "draw a card" trigger also happens when it is sacrificed to a Grinding Station. At this time I only play 2 Chromatic Stars. It is very important to keep a high enough artifact count for both the Mox Opal, Emry, Lurker of the Loch and Grinding Station, but too many 'eggs' may cause too much redundancy in the deck, so you should be very cautious when adding these artifacts and not overdo it.
There is one card that benefits by a high amount of artifacts which is Sai, Master Thopterist. Sai is a great buffer against aggro decks, and in the more grindy matches it is a great tool to draw extra cards, but it isn't a win condition and I doubt that relying heavily on this card plus a high amount of artifacts is something you want to do in this deck.
Lastly I think all two drops are out of the question in this deck.
3.5 Creatures
Kethis, the Hidden Hand is the centerpiece of this deck. It doesn't need much explaining. An important note is that it makes all legendary cards cost less to cast. This on its own let's you negate the effect of Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, which is an amazing upside as a combo deck. Normally her effect will right out win against a combo like this using cheap cards.
Emry, Lurker of the Loch is already mentioned to be a jack of all trades. She's a card advantage engine, she protects against removal and discard, she helps milling your graveyard and can even function as a combo piece, and she costs only one mana. I wouldn't know if this deck would be any good without her. Providing resilience against very basic interaction like discard and removal is key in a modern format.
Lazav, the Multifarious is a bit of a strange duck in the pond. In Standard this is without doubt an auto include, but in modern, it seems like a mediocre two drop. However, he provides some important synergy with this deck. First of all the manacost. One of the problems of Mox Amber is that it isn't easily turned on before turn 3. There is of course Emry, Lurker of the Loch, but making mana doesn't help you cast a Kethis, the Hidden Hand. Lazav, the Multifarious has black in the cost and is really the only useful legendary creature for two mana that could fill this role. You might say, if you can cast Lazav, the Multifarious with black, you don't need a black Mox anymore. Well, the rainbow land you tapped for Black, can now tap for green to cast Kethis, so it does have its usefulness. Lazav also has a surveil trigger. Decks like Ad Naueam use Scry lands for card selection. Lazav, can make your draws a littlebit better, while filling the graveyard as well! Lastly he is an Unearth on a stick which is very important in this deck!
Reki, the History of Kamigawa is really something special. I think this is a forgotten gem in a time when people cast more legendary spells than they are actually aware of. I think this card is great against decks that attack your hand. Imagine having only a Kethis and a average big graveyard. Use Kethis to reanimate Reki and start casting some Moxen drawing a card every time you do, until you find your other combo piece. Also when Reki the History of Kamigawa hits the board, your opponent has to use valuable removal spells immediately if they do not want to fall behind. At this point it is a one-off and I think it is correct, but it might be a god sideboard card as well against GBx strategies.
Diligent Excavator is a leftover from the standard deck. It's basically a 5th Grinding station which can also be copied by Lazav, the Multifarious in case your Grinding Stations get removed. It needs a little more, but it also triggers on more than just artifacts, making it a very reliable mill card. If only wish it was legendary...
3.6 Sorceries/Instants
Unearth is not a card i would easily put in a modern deck, but in Kethis Combo it steals the show. In your hand it is great against discard. It makes it impossible for the opponent to discard a key piece if you can just play it the next turn for just one mana. I't's also a great answer to counters. Play your key creature and it it get's countered, you just Unearth it and win the game. This card makes the deck super versatile and resilient and has great synergies with both Grinding Station, Diligent Excavator and Emry, Lurker of the Loch.
Time of Need is something I'm trying at the moment. I chose this card over Eladamri's Call because of the manacost being easier to pay in this deck than a multicolored spell. The downside is of course that it doesn't find Diligent Excavator and it's on sorcery speed. I think the mana cost makes up for these little downsides in the long run, although I may be wrong. I might be wrong to include this card all together. I just haven't found a strong replacement for it yet, so until you prove me wrong for using this card, I think it's great to have a tutor in the deck.
3.7 Planeswalkers
Teferi, Time Raveler is many things in one card. It provides protection against removal, counterspells and other interaction. This is key in a deck that can be attacked on so many different angles. It also removes any obstacles that prevents you from winning the game. Think about cards like Leyline of Sanctity, Kambal, consul of Allocation, or other cards that hinder your combo. You can even use Teferi to bounce on of your own permanents to get an extra trigger on Diligent Excavator, or make mana by bouncing a mox. You can even loop 2 Teferi's during the combo if the situation asks for it.Teferi, Time Raveler fulfills a very important role in the deck, and should never be played without at least 2 in the main deck.
3.8 Cards that don’t make the cut and cards that might be good
Any Legendary Creature with mana cost more than 4 The only time this deck is able to play any big legendary is when the combo is actually happening and you can create enough moxes to cast it. At this point you are winning anyway, so there is really no point to play any such big creature.
Oath of Nissa Oath of Nissa legendary, but it only fixes mana for Planeswalkers.
Ancient Stirrings The deck uses very different card types to win, so spells that only find a specific card type seem not good enough te reliable find the cards you need.
Board the Weatherlight Board the Weatherlight is two mana, which would make it inferior to any 2 mana tutor spell like Eledamri's Call or Time of Need.
Goryo's Vengeance] is perfect to reanimate creatures with a high mana cost, but every creature has a mana cost of 3 or less, so Unearth is clearly the better card in this slot. The only thing Goryo's Vengeance has over Unearth, is that you can immediately activate Emry, but that seems pretty much irrelevant.
Urza, Lord High Artificer. There is really nothing that Urza does for this deck. The only reason why this card should be included in a deck is that making artifacts into Mox Saphires to circumvent cards like Stony Silence. However even then you couldn't win without black mana for Lazav, the Multifarious if you want to combo without activating any artifact abilities.
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant How much I would love to have Erayo flipped on the battlefield, the chance that this actually happens pre-combo is almost impossible, which makes this card a very sloppy Teferi, Time Raveler.
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy Looting once each turn is much worse than Diligent Excavater. Also a flipped Jace accomplishes nothing in this deck since it doesn't play any spells worth flashbacking.
Liliana, the Last Hopeis maybe a good alternative win condition. It has some synergy with the deck and it provides some sort of interaction with the opponent's creatures. Maybe this should be in the deck...
Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle This is a great card to counter removal and such. I think, however that the bigger issue is graveyard removal, and Teshar uses he graveyard which means: more of the same strategy without actually fixing the problem.
Gaddock Teeg is a card i have a thing for. I loved it in Lantern Control, but I think it kinda misses the point nowadays. The deck uses creatures, so people will not board out their creature removal against this deck. Also Gaddock Teeg isn't a strong lock anymore since decks rely on a wider variaty of answers. Buying time is nice, but using a turn to cast Teeg, kinda cancels out the tempo gain.
Anafenza, the Foremost Would work against graveyard decks. I think however that this deck can be faster when it is not interacted with. Also Jace, Wielder of Mysteries proves a solid answer against graveyard decks already
4. Sideboard
Again an important note on the sideboard: The sideboard can be different from event to event. This sideboard is just a general idea of how to counter the hate cards of different matchups. Also be aware that the deck has a very fragile balance in the amount or artifacts and legendary cards. Boarding out too many artifacts may cripple the deck immensely. So be careful not to overboard with this deck.
So let’s go through them real quick.
Leyline of Sanctity I think this card is very important. A combo deck is very vulnerable to discard. A hand can very easily turn into a very bad hand when one key card is picked out. Besides that it also protects you from cards like Nihil Spellbomb, which is a nice addition to the effect.
Thoughtseize I am not sure if this is the right approach. It's a great all round card, but Fatal Push might be more effective to battle cards like Collector Ouphe or other hate bears
Oath of Kaya is basically a Lightning Heelix when Kethis is in play, that is very good against burn decks on its own, or you can use two to loop them for enough damage to kill the opponent. Maybe removing some obstacles in the process before winning
Jace, Wielder of Mysteries This card is specifically for matchups that benefit from a filled graveyard. If you end up on less than 12 life against dredge, you can't win anymore because of Creeping Chill, so a way to win without milling the opponent is very good. There are not many ways to remove a Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, so it is a fairly safe way to win. It also protects you from Ancient Grudge and bypasses Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.
Assassin's Trophy is mostly there to fight off planeswalkers and big threats like Karn, the Great Creator. It's also just an amazing all round removal for match ups that rely on big bombs.
Linvala, Keeper of Silence is actually something I'm trying out at this moment. It seems the best card against faster combo decks like Vizier of Remedies, and Whirza decks. Although the deck has limited tutor options, it might be worthwhile to play some bullets in the sideboard.
5. Conclusion
Alright, so this is my take on Kethis, the Hidden Hand in modern. I hope my explanation makes sense. Please feel free to give constructive feedback and discuss innovations with me. That's the whole reason I wrote this 'primer': to work on the deck and make it better and more streamlined.
Thank you for reading and thank you for your feedback, I am looking forward to it!
I tried the decklist in the OP and found it slow and clunky. Maybe it's my mulligan rate, but I had a hard time consistently casting the coloured cards, especially on curve. The mana felt worse than 4c Snowheeli, and that was the previous frontrunner for worst mana base in my experience (e.g. that deck needed Arcum's Astrolabe to mana fix all the time, and I still couldn't consistently curve into stuff like Wrenn and Six into SFM into Saheeli Rai). The lack of cantrips compared to UR Storm/Ad Nauseam and the lack of control elements compared to Whirza/Paradoxical Urza didn't help.
At this point, I think the horrific mana base required is the main obstacle to Kethis Combo's viability; I think shaving some of the legendary lands is a wise idea, especially since I often didn't need to activate Kethis that many times in order to mill myself and my opponent completely (a la Altar of Hogaak before both pieces got banned).
As an aside, I anticipate that Oko, Thief of Crowns will be a good sideboard pick; like Whirza, this deck is weak to both graveyard hate and Stony Silence effects, and Oko is an alt win con at worst and anti-hate in droves at his best.
Meanwhile I have made quite some adjustments. Also the deck made an appearance on the screen at SCG Tour Indy this weekend. Round 3 and 6 of day one, if I am not mistaken.
1. Introduction
Hello my dear brewer friends,
For those who play standard, Kethis, the Hidden Hand combo is not something new. The deck got piloted to several great finishes. The power of the deck almost exceeded what one would expect form any standard deck, realy. Kethis in modern is not something I made up myself.There have been several lists circling the web, although it hasn’t been hyped as much a Twiddle Storm for example.
Anyway, the deck looked so much fun that I put some work into making this primer with detailed explanation on the list that I think is a strong and fun list featuring Kethis, the Hidden Hand. My goal is to get this out there so more people can give feedback, try the deck and make the deck better. This is also the reason there isn't a sideboard guide included. There hans't been enough testing to provide solid advice on how to sideboard.
1.1 Translating Kethis to Modern
Modern has a much bigger cardpool than standard, so modern provides a lot more cards to make the deck more streamlined and faster than you could ever dream it could be in standard. Of course modern has a much higher amount of effective hate cards which would pose a serious problem to this deck, since it uses the graveyard and artifacts to effectively go off. That means the sideboard is very important, together with the resilience to hate all together. I think the resilience is not too bad with cards like Teferi, Time Raveler, Hope of Ghirapur and Unearth.
This is the reason that this deck might not be super viable in a modern meta with too much focus on artifact and graveyard decks. It is however ridiculously fun to play. It has amazing lines you can use to combo and I guarantee that the opponent will be amazed by what you are actually doing. Also it doesn't happen every day that you can play EIGHT Moxen in a modern deck, it's crazy. The focus of this primer is not to present you the new KCI, because it is not, but just another cool that that is a blast to play.
The strong points of the deck are that the deck can combo as early as turn two, but turn three or four is probably average. Also the deck plays maindeck cards that both protect the combo and are used in the combo itself. this is not always the case in combo decks, so this is a huge plus. (if you're wondering about the turn 2 combo, it involves a turn 1 Emry, Lurker of the Loch, a turn 2 Kethis, the Hidden Hand and a great deal of lucky hits ) This baseline of a turn 3 combo, would make it modern viable, although it remains to be seen if this deck can effectively counter the hate cards and still win. All together: a two card combo (with some extra cards, yes I know, it isn't technically a two card combo) is often very strong. Also the fact that the synergy of this deck is through the roof, make it a very consistent deck as well.
To sum up some aspects of the deck:
- The deck has a very elegant balance between artifacts and legendary cards in a very sweet synergy with each other. Mox Amber is turned on by Legendary Creatures/Planeswalkers, Mox Opal is turned on by Artifacts including Mox Amber, Emry uses artifacts and is Legendary. Everything fits together so perfectly.
- you play 8 moxen, which makes the deck very fast.
- Grinding Station, Emry, Lurker of the Loch and Diligent Excavator make Unearth basically a tutor for 1 mana.
- Because you mill yourself a lot, Unearth can almost be seen as a 5t-8th Kethis, the Hidden Hand and is just an amazing card on its own when having a way to fill the graveyard.
- Emry, Lurker of the Loch is not only a mill card, she also lets you recast Grinding Station when the artifact gets removed, discarded or milled. Emry can be seen as a 5th-8th Grinding Station.
- Lazav, the Multifarious turns on Mox Amber on turn 2 (This is a good way to produce mana for Kethis. It is also an Unearth on a stick!
- the deck plays 29 legendary cards, which is almost half of the deck! This means you can try to combo off with very little cards in the graveyard and still be able to succeed.
4 Spire of Industry
4 Glimmervoid
1 Eiganjo Castle
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
1 Pendelhaven
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Shizo, Death's storehouse
1 City of Brass
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Chromatic Star
4 Grinding Station
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Mox Amber
4 Mox Opal
Artifact Creatures
4 Hope of Ghirapur
Creatures
4 Emry, Lurker of the Loch
4 Kethis, the Hidden Hand
2 Lazav, the Multifarious
1 Reki, the History of Kamigawa
1 Diligent Excavator
Planeswalkers
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
Sorcery
4 Unearth
1 Time of Need
3 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Nature's Claim
3 Thoughtseize
2 Assassin's Trophy
2 Oath of Kaya
1 Jace, Wielder of Mysteries
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
* A sideboard should always be tailored to the meta you are expecting. It's okay to play a different sideboard on each different event. This is just a take on what might be okay, but this can be different from your local meta or even big event you are preparing for.
2. The Combo
1. The most known combo is the combo from standard using Diligent Excavator, Kethis, the Hidden Hand and an amount of historic spells.
Play any amount of historic spells from your hand, using Diligent Excavator to target yourself.
Use Kethis, the Hidden Hand to play the Moxen and Hope of Ghirapurs from the graveyard, milling yourself with Diligent Excavator.
Once you have enough historic cards in the graveyard you can now mill the opponent.
2. Another straight forward way is to use Grinding Station plus Kethis, the Hidden Hand.
Use Grinding Station to mill yourself with any artifacts you have in play.
Use Kethis to play the Moxen and Hope of Ghirapurs from the graveyard.
With each artifact Grinding Station will untap and you can directly sacrifice the artifact to mill yourself
Play any useful Legendaries, like Teferi, Time Raveler from the graveyard to get rid of any obstacles.
Once you have enough zero costing artifacts in the graveyard you can now mill the opponent
3. There is another line that is a little more difficult using 2+ Emry, Lurker of the Loch and a Kethis, the Hidden hand.
Use Kethis to loop two or more Emry, Lurker of the Loch to mill yourself.
Meanwhile make mana with the Mox Opals and Mox Ambers that you can play out of the GY as well
Play Lazav from your Graveyard
Copy a Diligent Excavator with the Lazav
Keep playing Moxen and Hope of Ghirapurs from the graveyard to now mill the opponent.
This last line is much more prone to fizzing, because you need to mill enough legendaries to be able to loop Emry's. With three Emry's this might actually work well, since you will be milling 8 cards every time, which makes the chance on two fodder legendaries a lot higher.
5. Of course there are variations of card combination's which load to one of these standard situations. Because of the overlap between cards, comboing with this deck can be a real puzzle.
4. Lastly there is a soft lock in the deck using Teferi, Time Raveler and Hope of Ghirapur and Emry, Lurker of the Loch.
Attack the opponent with Hope of Ghirapur and sacrifice it.
Use Emry, Lurker of the Loch to cast Hope of Ghirapur from the graveyard.
Together with Teferi, Time Raveler you now have a soft lock in which the opponent is never able to cast non-creature spells.
3. Card Choices
3.1 Legendary lands
1 Eiganjo Castle
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
1 Pendelhaven
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Modern offers a lot of legendary lands. However most of them are single color or even colorless, which poses a problem for a four-colored mana base. Here is a list of all the lands that might be good in the deck.
Untaidake, the Cloud Keeper
Academy Ruins
Geier Reach Sanitarium
Gemstone Caverns
Inventors' Fair
Eiganjo Castle
Flagstones of Trokair
Minamo, School at Water's Edge
Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
Pendelhaven
Shizo, Death's Storehouse
Tomb of Urami
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
All the lands that consistently produce colored mana and come into play untapped could be in the deck. This gives us quite some cards to work with. Additionally, there are some colorless lands that might have a good synergy with the deck. After some testing the colorless lands seemed too unreliable for the deck. Making colorless mana is really not what the deck wants to do and you can completely be shut down with a colorless land in play and not being able to play your colored spells.
The choice to include 2 of each color might seem a bit strange. Maybe it is correct to cut a Pendelhaven for a Tomb of Urami, since green and white are the least played colors in the deck.
Gemstone Caverns proved to be too unreliable in making colored mana. Exiling a card is a great cost and on the play this land is nothing more than a Waste. Untaidake, the Cloud Keeper comes into play tapped, which is a huge disadvantage for a combo deck. Also the most important Legendary creatures have no colorless mana in their manacost, so its ability is hardly useful.
Besides of being legendary, all these lands provide great utility for the deck. Using Hope of Ghirapur as a blocker? Make it a 2/3 with Pendelhaven. Want to use Emry, Lurker of the Loch multiple times in a turn? Unap her with Minamo, School at Water's Edge. Want to save Lazav, the Multifarious from a Lightning Bolt? Prevent 2 damage with Eiganjo Castle. Need to push that damage through for the win? Give something fear with Shizo, Death's Storehouse. There are countless small interactions that might just give you that small egde to win!
3.2 Lands
4 Glimmervoid
4 Spire of Industry
1 City of Brass
1 Island
1 Swamp
Because the legendary lands only create a single colored mana, you need other lands that make up for this handicap. It's understandable that it's tempting to play snow-covered basic lands and support one of the best artifacts in the format: Acrum's Astrolabe, but it's impossible to run a 4 colored deck without a manabase that can support a deck that plays so many multicolored spells in four different colors. A solution would be to play fetch lands and shock lands, but there simply isn't room for that if you want to include enough legendary lands. The only solution here is to play rainbow lands. This would normally a painful endeavor, were it not that this deck plays roughly 20-24 artifacts. I think the best lands to play are Glimmervoid and Spire of Industry. The Last spot goes to City of Brass/Mana Confluence.
With cards like Path to Exile, Field of Ruin and Assassin's Trophy in the format, it would be very unwise to not play basic lands. Since blue and black are the most played colors, I think an Island and a Swamp are the obvious choice here.
In conclusion: this manabase provide at least 10 mana sources of the 4 single colors with the important upside that the other 9 out of 19 lands can adapt their color to the single-colored lands you already have in play. I am not a mathematician, but this makes the probability of playing a Kethis on turn 3 very reasonable.
3.3 Legendary Artifacts
4 Mox Opal
4 Mox Amber
4 Hope of Ghirapur
Mox Opal is one of the strongest ramp spells in the format. Most importantly it can create mana of any color, which is crucial in this 4 colored deck. Opal needs enough cheap artifacts to become active, though. This means the deck needs a significant amount of artifacts costing 0 and 1 to make this a reliable source of mana. Because it is legendary you can play this from the graveyard for free with a Kethis activation, and therefor fulfilling a key role in the combo.
Mox amber is used in the Standard version of the deck and is one of the centerpieces of this deck as well. Unlike Mox Opal it isn't a reliable source of colored mana, since it can only be used when you control a legendary creature or planeswalker and can only make a colored mana from the colors among those legendary creatures/planeswalkers. This means that it will most likely only make in the first 2 turns. Once Kethis is out, it can tap for at least 3 colors, which is great to play legendary cards from the graveyard, once Kethis is activated, or to play spells from your hand. Note that Mox Amber can NOT make colorless mana when there is a Hope of Ghirapur in play.
Hope of Ghirapur Might remind some of the old veterans ofXantid Swarm. This card was used to protect combo players against counterspells when comboing off. Hope of Ghirapur is a bit like this card, although you have to sacrifice it to gain its effect. Also it needs to have dealt damage to the opponent in order to activate its ability (Note that you can NOT sacrifice Hope of Ghirapur when the card itself did not deal damage to the opponent. It needs a legal target).
Activating it will clear the way to cast important spells like Grinding Station and Kethis, the Hidden Hand and protect them from removal spells and counterspells.
Hope of Ghirapur can also be used as a Time Walk against decks that rely on casting non creature spells in their own turn. Activating it at the right time will prevent the opponent from playing cards like Karn, the Great Creator, or timewalks decks like Storm and Whirza. Together with Emry, Lurker of the Loch,Hope of Ghirapur can be a repeatable soft lock against those opponents.
3.4 Artifacts
4 Grinding Station
4 Mishra's Bauble
2 Chromatic Star
Grinding Station is the most effective way to get cards in your own graveyard. It uses artifacts as fuel, which fits perfectly with the whole idea of playing 8 Moxes and 4 hope of Ghirapurs. I have played many decks featuring Grinding Station and the strength of the card is not to be underestimated. Because it untaps with every artifact hitting the battlefield (Both your own and the opponent's! AND it triggers on itself entering as well), for as long as you can play artifacts, this is both your enabler and your win condition.
As said earlier, the decks needs a significant amount of cheap artifacts to make Mox Opal a reliable source of mana. Also these artifacts need to support the game plan a much as possible by drawing cards, or fixing mana. When looking at the artifacts that fulfill these requirement, this is the list of Artifacts that might fit in the deck.
Mishra's Bauble
Chromatic Star
Chromatic Sphere
Terrarion
Ichor Wellspring
Mind Stone
Mishra's Bauble is an auto include. It costs which in incredible and it basically replaces itself for free. It makes Emry, Lurker of the Lake cheaper and turns her into a one sided Howling Mine.
Of the others I find Chromatic Star to be the best one. it can be activated immediately and the "draw a card" trigger also happens when it is sacrificed to a Grinding Station. At this time I only play 2 Chromatic Stars. It is very important to keep a high enough artifact count for both the Mox Opal, Emry, Lurker of the Loch and Grinding Station, but too many 'eggs' may cause too much redundancy in the deck, so you should be very cautious when adding these artifacts and not overdo it.
There is one card that benefits by a high amount of artifacts which is Sai, Master Thopterist. Sai is a great buffer against aggro decks, and in the more grindy matches it is a great tool to draw extra cards, but it isn't a win condition and I doubt that relying heavily on this card plus a high amount of artifacts is something you want to do in this deck.
Lastly I think all two drops are out of the question in this deck.
3.5 Creatures
Kethis, the Hidden Hand is the centerpiece of this deck. It doesn't need much explaining. An important note is that it makes all legendary cards cost less to cast. This on its own let's you negate the effect of Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, which is an amazing upside as a combo deck. Normally her effect will right out win against a combo like this using cheap cards.
Emry, Lurker of the Loch is already mentioned to be a jack of all trades. She's a card advantage engine, she protects against removal and discard, she helps milling your graveyard and can even function as a combo piece, and she costs only one mana. I wouldn't know if this deck would be any good without her. Providing resilience against very basic interaction like discard and removal is key in a modern format.
Lazav, the Multifarious is a bit of a strange duck in the pond. In Standard this is without doubt an auto include, but in modern, it seems like a mediocre two drop. However, he provides some important synergy with this deck. First of all the manacost. One of the problems of Mox Amber is that it isn't easily turned on before turn 3. There is of course Emry, Lurker of the Loch, but making mana doesn't help you cast a Kethis, the Hidden Hand. Lazav, the Multifarious has black in the cost and is really the only useful legendary creature for two mana that could fill this role. You might say, if you can cast Lazav, the Multifarious with black, you don't need a black Mox anymore. Well, the rainbow land you tapped for Black, can now tap for green to cast Kethis, so it does have its usefulness. Lazav also has a surveil trigger. Decks like Ad Naueam use Scry lands for card selection. Lazav, can make your draws a littlebit better, while filling the graveyard as well! Lastly he is an Unearth on a stick which is very important in this deck!
Reki, the History of Kamigawa is really something special. I think this is a forgotten gem in a time when people cast more legendary spells than they are actually aware of. I think this card is great against decks that attack your hand. Imagine having only a Kethis and a average big graveyard. Use Kethis to reanimate Reki and start casting some Moxen drawing a card every time you do, until you find your other combo piece. Also when Reki the History of Kamigawa hits the board, your opponent has to use valuable removal spells immediately if they do not want to fall behind. At this point it is a one-off and I think it is correct, but it might be a god sideboard card as well against GBx strategies.
Diligent Excavator is a leftover from the standard deck. It's basically a 5th Grinding station which can also be copied by Lazav, the Multifarious in case your Grinding Stations get removed. It needs a little more, but it also triggers on more than just artifacts, making it a very reliable mill card. If only wish it was legendary...
3.6 Sorceries/Instants
Unearth is not a card i would easily put in a modern deck, but in Kethis Combo it steals the show. In your hand it is great against discard. It makes it impossible for the opponent to discard a key piece if you can just play it the next turn for just one mana. I't's also a great answer to counters. Play your key creature and it it get's countered, you just Unearth it and win the game. This card makes the deck super versatile and resilient and has great synergies with both Grinding Station, Diligent Excavator and Emry, Lurker of the Loch.
Time of Need is something I'm trying at the moment. I chose this card over Eladamri's Call because of the manacost being easier to pay in this deck than a multicolored spell. The downside is of course that it doesn't find Diligent Excavator and it's on sorcery speed. I think the mana cost makes up for these little downsides in the long run, although I may be wrong. I might be wrong to include this card all together. I just haven't found a strong replacement for it yet, so until you prove me wrong for using this card, I think it's great to have a tutor in the deck.
3.7 Planeswalkers
Teferi, Time Raveler is many things in one card. It provides protection against removal, counterspells and other interaction. This is key in a deck that can be attacked on so many different angles. It also removes any obstacles that prevents you from winning the game. Think about cards like Leyline of Sanctity, Kambal, consul of Allocation, or other cards that hinder your combo. You can even use Teferi to bounce on of your own permanents to get an extra trigger on Diligent Excavator, or make mana by bouncing a mox. You can even loop 2 Teferi's during the combo if the situation asks for it.Teferi, Time Raveler fulfills a very important role in the deck, and should never be played without at least 2 in the main deck.
3.8 Cards that don’t make the cut and cards that might be good
Any Legendary Creature with mana cost more than 4 The only time this deck is able to play any big legendary is when the combo is actually happening and you can create enough moxes to cast it. At this point you are winning anyway, so there is really no point to play any such big creature.
Oath of Nissa Oath of Nissa legendary, but it only fixes mana for Planeswalkers.
Ancient Stirrings The deck uses very different card types to win, so spells that only find a specific card type seem not good enough te reliable find the cards you need.
Board the Weatherlight Board the Weatherlight is two mana, which would make it inferior to any 2 mana tutor spell like Eledamri's Call or Time of Need.
Goryo's Vengeance] is perfect to reanimate creatures with a high mana cost, but every creature has a mana cost of 3 or less, so Unearth is clearly the better card in this slot. The only thing Goryo's Vengeance has over Unearth, is that you can immediately activate Emry, but that seems pretty much irrelevant.
Urza, Lord High Artificer. There is really nothing that Urza does for this deck. The only reason why this card should be included in a deck is that making artifacts into Mox Saphires to circumvent cards like Stony Silence. However even then you couldn't win without black mana for Lazav, the Multifarious if you want to combo without activating any artifact abilities.
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant How much I would love to have Erayo flipped on the battlefield, the chance that this actually happens pre-combo is almost impossible, which makes this card a very sloppy Teferi, Time Raveler.
Fblthp, the Lost is a great Mox Amber enabler, but so is Emry and I don;'t think this deck wants a Elvish Visionary really.
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy Looting once each turn is much worse than Diligent Excavater. Also a flipped Jace accomplishes nothing in this deck since it doesn't play any spells worth flashbacking.
Liliana, the Last Hopeis maybe a good alternative win condition. It has some synergy with the deck and it provides some sort of interaction with the opponent's creatures. Maybe this should be in the deck...
Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle This is a great card to counter removal and such. I think, however that the bigger issue is graveyard removal, and Teshar uses he graveyard which means: more of the same strategy without actually fixing the problem.
Gaddock Teeg is a card i have a thing for. I loved it in Lantern Control, but I think it kinda misses the point nowadays. The deck uses creatures, so people will not board out their creature removal against this deck. Also Gaddock Teeg isn't a strong lock anymore since decks rely on a wider variaty of answers. Buying time is nice, but using a turn to cast Teeg, kinda cancels out the tempo gain.
Anafenza, the Foremost Would work against graveyard decks. I think however that this deck can be faster when it is not interacted with. Also Jace, Wielder of Mysteries proves a solid answer against graveyard decks already
4. Sideboard
Again an important note on the sideboard: The sideboard can be different from event to event. This sideboard is just a general idea of how to counter the hate cards of different matchups. Also be aware that the deck has a very fragile balance in the amount or artifacts and legendary cards. Boarding out too many artifacts may cripple the deck immensely. So be careful not to overboard with this deck.
So let’s go through them real quick.
Leyline of Sanctity I think this card is very important. A combo deck is very vulnerable to discard. A hand can very easily turn into a very bad hand when one key card is picked out. Besides that it also protects you from cards like Nihil Spellbomb, which is a nice addition to the effect.
Nature's Claim Of course the most hurtful cards are Damping Sphere, Stony Silence, Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void. Nature's Claim is a good way to fight these cards. It also works on Chalice of the Void on zero if the opponent decides to battle you on that angel.
Thoughtseize I am not sure if this is the right approach. It's a great all round card, but Fatal Push might be more effective to battle cards like Collector Ouphe or other hate bears
Oath of Kaya is basically a Lightning Heelix when Kethis is in play, that is very good against burn decks on its own, or you can use two to loop them for enough damage to kill the opponent. Maybe removing some obstacles in the process before winning
Jace, Wielder of Mysteries This card is specifically for matchups that benefit from a filled graveyard. If you end up on less than 12 life against dredge, you can't win anymore because of Creeping Chill, so a way to win without milling the opponent is very good. There are not many ways to remove a Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, so it is a fairly safe way to win. It also protects you from Ancient Grudge and bypasses Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.
Assassin's Trophy is mostly there to fight off planeswalkers and big threats like Karn, the Great Creator. It's also just an amazing all round removal for match ups that rely on big bombs.
Linvala, Keeper of Silence is actually something I'm trying out at this moment. It seems the best card against faster combo decks like Vizier of Remedies, and Whirza decks. Although the deck has limited tutor options, it might be worthwhile to play some bullets in the sideboard.
5. Conclusion
Alright, so this is my take on Kethis, the Hidden Hand in modern. I hope my explanation makes sense. Please feel free to give constructive feedback and discuss innovations with me. That's the whole reason I wrote this 'primer': to work on the deck and make it better and more streamlined.
Thank you for reading and thank you for your feedback, I am looking forward to it!
Love,
Selene
At this point, I think the horrific mana base required is the main obstacle to Kethis Combo's viability; I think shaving some of the legendary lands is a wise idea, especially since I often didn't need to activate Kethis that many times in order to mill myself and my opponent completely (a la Altar of Hogaak before both pieces got banned).
As an aside, I anticipate that Oko, Thief of Crowns will be a good sideboard pick; like Whirza, this deck is weak to both graveyard hate and Stony Silence effects, and Oko is an alt win con at worst and anti-hate in droves at his best.
The following video is quite cool.
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/kethis_combo_with_collins_mull.html
Im sure this deck can become something serious.
I don't have time to go into full detail now, but I hope this gives more to talm about