I play a very heavy focus on Land Destruction, I'm thinking of replacing demonic dread with Throes of Chaos ill either hit LE or beast within or fulmination mage and push them back a turn, and I have another chance to trigger in my back pocket. I'm playing a modern event in two weeks and want to know if 1. is this a good idea, and 2. what non-land cards do i need to buy to get ready for the post-horizons meta
Like many of my builds, this one showcases the power of a particular card. Here, that card is Crashing Footfalls.
The problem with Living End as a deck is it's hit by all the graveyard hate people are packing for decks like Dredge, the Hogaak Dredgevine deck, Phoenix decks, and a slew of others. The solution is to have a way to transform into something that does not use the graveyard and still has a ton of power. The card that allows that is Crashing Footfalls, giving you two 4/4 rhinos for only 3 mana, while also giving you something respectable to do on turn 1.
This build has a land destruction component to give you free wins against decks that would normally give you trouble, especially game 1. This includes other graveyard decks, control, and superfriends. Keeping them off a color and killing them quickly can win you games you otherwise couldn't.
After game 1, they will hopefully side in a bunch of graveyard hate to discover that you don't use the graveyard anymore, and will hilariously lose in short order to stampeding rhinos with a bunch of dead cards.
As a side note, the mana base is affordable, and isn't weak to fetchland hate, which is on the rise. The entire deck can be built on a budget and I recommend it for anyone who is just getting into Modern.
I dont know, one of the appeals of Living end is that it is actually a wrath for opponent. While Crashing Footfalls seems fine as a tech against GY hate, im not sure if 2 4/4s would be enough against field of phoenixes flying over them and unkillable 8/8s. But maybe Im wrong...
Moreover, my last 2 tries to play modern sadly left me with impression that our deck is unplayble right now. My last FNM with 3 rounds:
Round 1 Tron - Maindeck Chalice? Check. Sideboard Leyline? Check. Put up a fight but still lost 1:2
Round 2 UW control - Not only this is my hated matchup with counterspells, terminus and wraths, but now it also has T3feri, which turns off cascade and also Narset, which makes cycling very sad. 0:2
Round 3 Burn - As always, turn 3 living end and potencial turn 4 kill wasnt enough, second game he even played only 2 lands and exactly 7 bolts. GG 0:2
While this was only extremely bad luck (as there only 4 players to attend for no chance for my to have better matchup), other day I played 5 round to finish 2:3, but still, the meta still felt extremely hostile to our little pet deck So until they ban the hoGAG, i will stay out of modern
Hey Guys, been away from the game and thread for a long time but I'm returning! These bans and unbans seem huge for us. Our land destruction and access to ingot chewer makes us arguably one of the decks most ambivalent about stoneforge mystic coming back. Hogaak and faithless looting being banned help us both because they'll presumably result in fewer decks running four copies of leyline mainboard, but also because looting will result in fewer decks trying to abuse the yard even harder than us, a situation living end traditionally struggles to deal with.
The major predator I see still troubling us is the tron matchup with four chalice, although that may just mean its time to mainboard 4 ingot chewers.
All those things are good for us, but the problem is that some of our worst match ups also just got better. Tron flavors, humans, "Rock" decks are all decks that just got better from the announcement, and are all decks we can stumble against. Decks like UWx Control, burn, storm have recently gotten new toys and are also difficult match ups.
The core of a LE deck is pretty solid, but I think it may take a little time/luck to figure out the flex spots. Faerie Macabre main? How many shriekmaw? Once we can answer these questions I feel like LE has a place and opportunity to prize effectively, but it may take a little bit to figure out exactly what that looks like.
I’m actually a Bridgevine player...but without my beloved BfB or Faithless Looting to keep my deck alive, I’ve had to turn to some pretty weird strategies to continue playing my Vengevines.
I know usually Living End likes to Cascade into stuff...but with Dreadhorde Arcanist, it’s possible to play a mill version of the deck.
I know this isn’t the place for Bridgevine jank...but here’s a list I was working on trying to replace BfB with a Living End combo. Once Living End resolves, my deck gets a bunch of mill triggers and refills the graveyard to Living End more than once in a game. Maybe you guys could get some ideas from it?
Another reason I’m posting in Living End, is because I need some help finding a good topper for my deck. Seeing as you guys know all about getting value out of your Living End resolving, what are some good instant value creatures to bring back from GY? I chose Tyrant of Discord solely because it makes the opponent sacrifice a bunch of permanents on etb...but I haven’t really looked very hard for a better option. Suggestions?
You might have more success looking for the as foretold living end thread, since that is a play style that already foregoes the cascade mechanic. Of the options, it is usually still cyclers, or ditching cards to kiki-resto/exarch in a single turn.
Dreadhorde is for sure, but a 2 mana creature that needs to attack to generate any value in modern is a tall order. It dies to all of the main removal spells, and as a 1/3 does not attack effectively. Attacking isn't too much of an issue because in your list arcanist only casts LE from a practical point, which isn't the worst, but doesn't really play well with the rest of your game plan. If you have a stocked graveyard, and just a LE off of arcanist, you wipe the board, put back a bunch of creatures and pass the turn since you've already declared attackers. This just opens you to board wipes, in an awkward way. The primary gameplan of vengevine might be ok, but it is a bit worse.
If you want to build the deck up, my suggestions are to try:
Play unearth over claim//fame
Carrion Feeder and bloodghast are still probably better than memnite, pit keeper, and tyrant.
Get minimal interaction like thoughtseize, maybe?
Claim//Fame was more important in the list because it can give Dreadhorde haste in order to go off the same turn. I do agree that the deck has no interaction and probably could use Fatal Push or Thoughtseize in order to prevent faster decks from winning.
I found the topper that I needed as well. Purphoros, God of the Forge just kills the opponent when it comes into play with a bunch of creatures from Living End resolving. Alternatively we might mill more than 1 Purphoros and when LE resolves it will overkill the opponent.
As far as the memnites...they enable Vengevines on turn 1. Carrion Feeder and Bloodghast just served to slow the deck down sadly, which is why I switched them out for speed instead of synergy.
On a good day...the deck can win on turn 3...which makes it a pretty fair level of power at the cost of having no interaction.
Without having tried your list, I immediately think that claim is better in the purphorous deck since you now win on the spot. I can see an argument for bloodghast, but carrion feeder does a lot in terms of the plan a of the deck. It is a low drop creature for vengevine and a zombie for gravecrawler. It can also put your whole board into the grave right before you living end again, that is pretty sweet. The only place memnite is better looks to be on turn 2, if you turn 1 stitchers supplier a vengevine in the grave, and you cast 1 of your 2 2cmc creatures on turn 2.
Either way, it looks sweet. Keep us posted with how the games play out.
The thing is, the main way we gain value with our living end is by returning a bunch of things. The structure of the deck is not friendly to using the living end as a looping mechanic.
However, as two point of inspiration: there is labratory maniac, if you really just want to burn through the whole deck and then win on the same turn. You're gonna need to focus mainly on a win through the actual living end itself in this version. The other potential kill is with flame-kin zealot, a card once used in an earlier, delirium skeins focused version of the deck.
However, the main problem you'll run into is sctructural, not single card based: living end as a just doesn't lend itself to decks that build up the board progressively. Living end on a stick... kills the stick. You're more likely to keep playing with your dredgvines in some sort of jumanji or zoo deck--perhaps using it with Liliana of the Veil as free discard or Pyromancers to get tokens.
Today I discovered Finale of Promise. Instead of playing 3 Claim//Fame, I’ve opted to put in 2 copies of Finale of Promise to speed up the chances of resolving Living End by a large margin. It even doubles as a 2 mana board wipe in the worst case scenario of having Living End in the GY...even without any creatures to enter with it.
This adds some interaction to the deck, without subtracting from the OTK game plan.
It makes the matchup vs. other creature decks much less stressful, since we aren’t all in on Dreadhorde and if it gets removed, we still have a way to cast Living End at sorcery speed which is much less likely to get Path to Exiled or Fatal Pushed.
I am very excited by this card. It allows us cheap, instant speed cycling which allows us to put Eldrazi, Grizzy B, or any other number of game enders in the yard, or enables us to trade in a dead Living end from hand for something else.
If the Adventrture gets countered, we get a creature in the yard, if not we can cast it for a chumper later on. All in all I think this card may have legs and totally will if we get something else similar at any point that works well with our cascades.
The best eldrazi would be ulamog, right? Otherwise, the creatures are just really big--which seems like a low reward for dedicating somewhere between 7 and 8 cards. In all, if we're desperate for more interaction with the things that stop us from casting Living End, then the haggle package seems like the wrong direction.
Are there other fatties you have in mind to discard? And if we wanna go down that route, why not be U/R with As Foretold and cathartic reunion?
I has both the rhino and the Living end plan, with Simian Spirit Guide to speed things up.
What is your opinion on this deck? Is this the way to go forward?
I have a really hard time seeing why the rhino is better than more ancestral visions, and why you wouldn't want to play chalice mainboard in this particular list. I do think the As Foretold lists have closed a lot of the gap between them and the traditional jund-based living end builds, but it's a pretty fundamentally different deck. I think if stoneforge continues pushing to modern meta towards fair countermagic decks and non-board combo, it will probably be the better deck. However, if modern moves towards a world where a lot of eldrazi, elves, and stoneforge taxes are running around--i.e. if recent bannings push the format back to being about board battles instead of stack battles--then I think the jund version's ability to cast VO at instant speed and cycle more quickly is going to be far more powerful.
I've been running a 1 of skelemental in my mainboard with one more in the sideboard for the UW control matchup and planeswalkers, and have to say, been fairly impressed in limited sample size (12 rounds, 7-3-1 overall record across 3 local tournaments). Sometimes it can be dead (tron or whirza) but I generally find the deck to perform well enough already against those kinds of decks for it to not matter, particularly with 2 mainboard K command (which has also been doing serious work for me). Even if humans dumps a couple creatures in the bin I care more about resolving a living end with enough board state to close the game in 1-2 turns and their creatures are smaller anyway.
I've been debating Skelemental vs. Sandsprinter, as both would serve a similar purpose for me (pressure planewalkers and control decks), with sandsprinter as a more versatile option and less one shot. But skelemental is too sweet for me to pull it right now.
Saw a couple spicy-ish lists recently, one running mainboard seasoned pyromancer and one running mainboard jund charm(?). I assume the pyromancer is to give the deck somewhat of a grindy midrange plan while still advancing your combo game plan, and jund charm is i guess anti-dredge tech and a pyroclasm against humans and thopter tokens? Any thoughts on these two cards? Both seem a little clunky, but im just a jank local combo player.
Also - thoughts on Rotting regisuar for extra pressure / clock when facing counter decks or grave hate? Love it in standard lol.
I've been running a 1 of skelemental in my mainboard with one more in the sideboard for the UW control matchup and planeswalkers, and have to say, been fairly impressed in limited sample size (12 rounds, 7-3-1 overall record across 3 local tournaments). Sometimes it can be dead (tron or whirza) but I generally find the deck to perform well enough already against those kinds of decks for it to not matter, particularly with 2 mainboard K command (which has also been doing serious work for me). Even if humans dumps a couple creatures in the bin I care more about resolving a living end with enough board state to close the game in 1-2 turns and their creatures are smaller anyway.
I've been debating Skelemental vs. Sandsprinter, as both would serve a similar purpose for me (pressure planewalkers and control decks), with sandsprinter as a more versatile option and less one shot. But skelemental is too sweet for me to pull it right now.
Saw a couple spicy-ish lists recently, one running mainboard seasoned pyromancer and one running mainboard jund charm(?). I assume the pyromancer is to give the deck somewhat of a grindy midrange plan while still advancing your combo game plan, and jund charm is i guess anti-dredge tech and a pyroclasm against humans and thopter tokens? Any thoughts on these two cards? Both seem a little clunky, but im just a jank local combo player.
Also - thoughts on Rotting regisuar for extra pressure / clock when facing counter decks or grave hate? Love it in standard lol.
Rotting regisaur seems too gimmicky--fatal push hits it really well and it puts you down instead of up on cards.
I actually really love the skelemental idea though (because neither stays on the board permanently, I think it's *probably* strictly better than the viashino). It seems like a powerful way to kill the Teferi's that UW Stoneblade tries to control us with and just generally put the screws on them--especially with Kommands to recur it with. According to mtggoldfish, this is about 10% of the meta so that's pretty nice--and it certainly doesn't seem bad to dedicate one slot to it against, say, tron. Could actually be good against Burn too.
As for Jund Charm, it is an ancient include in the deck (the cmc restriction really makes you a sucker for clunky cards) and was for a long time considered a must have for metas with a lot of weenie decks. If memory serves, it became less prominent as more specific answers were printed (anger of the gods was a big deal for us, and if you primarily wanted 2 damage mode, it was typically better to use the theros card) and the weenie decks got a bit bigger to where 2 was often not enough.
Has anyone dabbled with Fires of Invention? It feels like it could be a solid enabler because it would allow you for turns where you play a fulminator, sac it, cycle a thing or 2, and then living end from hand. Im not sure it actually works with cascade thought so it may be a nonbo there, but it feels like as the game drags on you get turns where you can just play 2 spiders or whatever.
Has anyone dabbled with Fires of Invention? It feels like it could be a solid enabler because it would allow you for turns where you play a fulminator, sac it, cycle a thing or 2, and then living end from hand. Im not sure it actually works with cascade thought so it may be a nonbo there, but it feels like as the game drags on you get turns where you can just play 2 spiders or whatever.
I think it's a good fit for the Kari Zev's Expertise slot, but I was mainly thinking about casting 2 fatties in a single turn and casting Living End from hand. Cascade works with Fires of Invention as long as the Cascade spell is the 1st spell you cast this turn, but that doesn't take advantage of Fires of Invention very well.
I dont know, one of the appeals of Living end is that it is actually a wrath for opponent. While Crashing Footfalls seems fine as a tech against GY hate, im not sure if 2 4/4s would be enough against field of phoenixes flying over them and unkillable 8/8s. But maybe Im wrong...
Moreover, my last 2 tries to play modern sadly left me with impression that our deck is unplayble right now. My last FNM with 3 rounds:
Round 1 Tron - Maindeck Chalice? Check. Sideboard Leyline? Check. Put up a fight but still lost 1:2
Round 2 UW control - Not only this is my hated matchup with counterspells, terminus and wraths, but now it also has T3feri, which turns off cascade and also Narset, which makes cycling very sad. 0:2
Round 3 Burn - As always, turn 3 living end and potencial turn 4 kill wasnt enough, second game he even played only 2 lands and exactly 7 bolts. GG 0:2
While this was only extremely bad luck (as there only 4 players to attend for no chance for my to have better matchup), other day I played 5 round to finish 2:3, but still, the meta still felt extremely hostile to our little pet deck So until they ban the hoGAG, i will stay out of modern
The major predator I see still troubling us is the tron matchup with four chalice, although that may just mean its time to mainboard 4 ingot chewers.
What do the other pilots here say?
All those things are good for us, but the problem is that some of our worst match ups also just got better. Tron flavors, humans, "Rock" decks are all decks that just got better from the announcement, and are all decks we can stumble against. Decks like UWx Control, burn, storm have recently gotten new toys and are also difficult match ups.
The core of a LE deck is pretty solid, but I think it may take a little time/luck to figure out the flex spots. Faerie Macabre main? How many shriekmaw? Once we can answer these questions I feel like LE has a place and opportunity to prize effectively, but it may take a little bit to figure out exactly what that looks like.
Dreadhorde Arcanist = Living End on a stick.
I’m actually a Bridgevine player...but without my beloved BfB or Faithless Looting to keep my deck alive, I’ve had to turn to some pretty weird strategies to continue playing my Vengevines.
I know usually Living End likes to Cascade into stuff...but with Dreadhorde Arcanist, it’s possible to play a mill version of the deck.
I know this isn’t the place for Bridgevine jank...but here’s a list I was working on trying to replace BfB with a Living End combo. Once Living End resolves, my deck gets a bunch of mill triggers and refills the graveyard to Living End more than once in a game. Maybe you guys could get some ideas from it?
EndVine:
3 Memnite
4 Gravecrawler
4 Insolent Neonate
4 Stitcher's Supplier
4 Dreadhorde Arcanist
3 Golgari Thug
1 Pit Keeper
3 Satyr Wayfinder
4 Vengevine
2 Tyrant of Discord
3 Claim // Fame
4 Memory Sluice
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Cabal Therapist
2 Plague Engineer
2 Nature's Claim
1 Thoughtseize
3 Assassin's Trophy
1 Collective Brutality
1 Force of Vigor
4 Leyline of the Void
Another reason I’m posting in Living End, is because I need some help finding a good topper for my deck. Seeing as you guys know all about getting value out of your Living End resolving, what are some good instant value creatures to bring back from GY? I chose Tyrant of Discord solely because it makes the opponent sacrifice a bunch of permanents on etb...but I haven’t really looked very hard for a better option. Suggestions?
Dreadhorde is for sure, but a 2 mana creature that needs to attack to generate any value in modern is a tall order. It dies to all of the main removal spells, and as a 1/3 does not attack effectively. Attacking isn't too much of an issue because in your list arcanist only casts LE from a practical point, which isn't the worst, but doesn't really play well with the rest of your game plan. If you have a stocked graveyard, and just a LE off of arcanist, you wipe the board, put back a bunch of creatures and pass the turn since you've already declared attackers. This just opens you to board wipes, in an awkward way. The primary gameplan of vengevine might be ok, but it is a bit worse.
If you want to build the deck up, my suggestions are to try:
Play unearth over claim//fame
Carrion Feeder and bloodghast are still probably better than memnite, pit keeper, and tyrant.
Get minimal interaction like thoughtseize, maybe?
I found the topper that I needed as well. Purphoros, God of the Forge just kills the opponent when it comes into play with a bunch of creatures from Living End resolving. Alternatively we might mill more than 1 Purphoros and when LE resolves it will overkill the opponent.
As far as the memnites...they enable Vengevines on turn 1. Carrion Feeder and Bloodghast just served to slow the deck down sadly, which is why I switched them out for speed instead of synergy.
On a good day...the deck can win on turn 3...which makes it a pretty fair level of power at the cost of having no interaction.
Either way, it looks sweet. Keep us posted with how the games play out.
However, as two point of inspiration: there is labratory maniac, if you really just want to burn through the whole deck and then win on the same turn. You're gonna need to focus mainly on a win through the actual living end itself in this version. The other potential kill is with flame-kin zealot, a card once used in an earlier, delirium skeins focused version of the deck.
However, the main problem you'll run into is sctructural, not single card based: living end as a just doesn't lend itself to decks that build up the board progressively. Living end on a stick... kills the stick. You're more likely to keep playing with your dredgvines in some sort of jumanji or zoo deck--perhaps using it with Liliana of the Veil as free discard or Pyromancers to get tokens.
This adds some interaction to the deck, without subtracting from the OTK game plan.
It makes the matchup vs. other creature decks much less stressful, since we aren’t all in on Dreadhorde and if it gets removed, we still have a way to cast Living End at sorcery speed which is much less likely to get Path to Exiled or Fatal Pushed.
I am very excited by this card. It allows us cheap, instant speed cycling which allows us to put Eldrazi, Grizzy B, or any other number of game enders in the yard, or enables us to trade in a dead Living end from hand for something else.
If the Adventrture gets countered, we get a creature in the yard, if not we can cast it for a chumper later on. All in all I think this card may have legs and totally will if we get something else similar at any point that works well with our cascades.
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Comedy gaming podcast. Listening to it makes you cool.
Are there other fatties you have in mind to discard? And if we wanna go down that route, why not be U/R with As Foretold and cathartic reunion?
I just came across the following decklist: http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=22944&d=357107&f=MO
I has both the rhino and the Living end plan, with Simian Spirit Guide to speed things up.
What is your opinion on this deck? Is this the way to go forward?
I've been debating Skelemental vs. Sandsprinter, as both would serve a similar purpose for me (pressure planewalkers and control decks), with sandsprinter as a more versatile option and less one shot. But skelemental is too sweet for me to pull it right now.
Saw a couple spicy-ish lists recently, one running mainboard seasoned pyromancer and one running mainboard jund charm(?). I assume the pyromancer is to give the deck somewhat of a grindy midrange plan while still advancing your combo game plan, and jund charm is i guess anti-dredge tech and a pyroclasm against humans and thopter tokens? Any thoughts on these two cards? Both seem a little clunky, but im just a jank local combo player.
Also - thoughts on Rotting regisuar for extra pressure / clock when facing counter decks or grave hate? Love it in standard lol.
Rotting regisaur seems too gimmicky--fatal push hits it really well and it puts you down instead of up on cards.
I actually really love the skelemental idea though (because neither stays on the board permanently, I think it's *probably* strictly better than the viashino). It seems like a powerful way to kill the Teferi's that UW Stoneblade tries to control us with and just generally put the screws on them--especially with Kommands to recur it with. According to mtggoldfish, this is about 10% of the meta so that's pretty nice--and it certainly doesn't seem bad to dedicate one slot to it against, say, tron. Could actually be good against Burn too.
As for Jund Charm, it is an ancient include in the deck (the cmc restriction really makes you a sucker for clunky cards) and was for a long time considered a must have for metas with a lot of weenie decks. If memory serves, it became less prominent as more specific answers were printed (anger of the gods was a big deal for us, and if you primarily wanted 2 damage mode, it was typically better to use the theros card) and the weenie decks got a bit bigger to where 2 was often not enough.
Http://www.fantasticneighborhood.com/
Comedy gaming podcast. Listening to it makes you cool.
I think it's a good fit for the Kari Zev's Expertise slot, but I was mainly thinking about casting 2 fatties in a single turn and casting Living End from hand. Cascade works with Fires of Invention as long as the Cascade spell is the 1st spell you cast this turn, but that doesn't take advantage of Fires of Invention very well.
Http://www.fantasticneighborhood.com/
Comedy gaming podcast. Listening to it makes you cool.
On the other hand, 1-mana cyclers are just so much more efficient, though...we did get another one of those, but it's a 2/2.