dknight27

I'm not exactly sure what's going on with this one. I see the Melira combo, but don't see the purpose of the cycling creatures you basically can't play or some of the choices of support cards. Beast Within is bad removal in modern, especially when you have access to black, so you could just run [[Abrupt Decay]], Assassin's Trophy, [[Bitter Triumph]], or [[Feed the Cycle]]. Same logic with Dismember, which is largely used by decks that don't have access to spot removal. Are the cycling cards meant to thin the deck and get you to your combo pieces faster?

I haven't seen one of these in a while. A few things that could be shifted around a bit to maybe help the build.

Running 19 lands in this build is almost certainly not feasible, especially when one of them is colorless, 4 of them enter tapped, and 2 others are either colorless or enter tapped (the fetch lands). You're going to be eating mulligans for days, and playing out hands when you get stuck on 2 mana and 2 colors, unable to cast your 3-drops and third color. I know you want to rely on Guardian and Caretaker to round out the mana and colors, but both are super conditional and slow. Guardian needs 3 mana and a turn to become available, and Caretaker needs another fielded critter, so you'll need your second land down and then probably won't be able to tap out for advantage turn 2 (when you put down the second land and critter) because you're stuck with Caretaker putting out only 1 mana. The good news is, this is pretty easy to solve in a way that won't hurt too much.

I wholeheartedly advocate for adding your 4 Overgrown Battlements over 2 Guardians and 2 other cards. They're guaranteed to tap for G, but will most likely net you at least GG, and will help the build snowball because of the synergy of letting you play more critters quickly which lets you add more mana, rinse and repeat. Combined with the draw abilities of other defender dudes and your topdeck casting and Battlements will become a mana fountain. I'd also advise upping the land count to 21 and cutting out Access Tunnel, as you REALLY need to hit your land drops turns 1-3, or this deck goes nowhere quickly. It also wouldn't hurt to cut down on the 3-drops in favor of more 1 and 2-drops. Ghostaway is a pain to hold onto, as you'll hamstring yourself by waiting to be able to cast it which won't let you cast anything else for many turns till you build up to at least 5 (more like 6) lands in play. Drift of Phantasms lets you fetch one of your combo pieces, but it eats a turn doing it (at sorcery speed), then you burn another turn fielding the combo piece, so I don't like the full 4 copies when you could be running [[Wall of Omens]] that speeds things up, replaces itself, and synergizes with everything.

Brave the Sands just isn't worth it. You won't need to block and attack in the same cycle because you'll be overwhelming opponent with damage they can't mitigate. Same idea with Skeleton Key. The draw/discard is nice, but the high equip cost is a major pain that'll stop your development cold for a turn, so you're better off with something more cost effective.

Another thing you could consider if you've got the money is Green Sun's Zenith, as it fits into this deck perfectly. You get to run the old [[Dryad Arbor]] trick, where you Zenith turn 1 for just G, fetch the Arbor, and effectively just got a land accelerant with a double deck thing (land pulled out, Zenith back in). Zenith also fetches your important pieces (Arcades, Wall of Blossoms for the refill if you need it, Overgrown Battlement if you need the mana). It's basically never a dead draw and does exactly what this deck wants, plus it combos with Battlement like a dream (more mana = faster search + even more mana the next turn). It costs close to 20 bucks a pop though, and Arbor goes for 2 bucks, so you're looking at an investment if you want to go that way. I very much think it would be worth it if you've got the money, but it is what it is.

Just some thoughts.

A good ol classic build.

The best part about this decktype is that the mana curve is so low to the ground that you don't really need that many lands. You can comfortably cut this down to 20 and be perfectly ok, which I'd advise doing. Ramunap Ruins is a good idea, as you don't want to be topdecking too many lands, but you're better off running [[Fiery Islet]], which goes for a buck or so. Sacking a land for 2 damage but needing 4 other mana to do it is a longshot. Sacking a land for 1 mana to draw a card is reliable. So, I'd advise cutting the 2 Ruins and 6 mountains, then adding in 4 Fiery Islets. That way you're really only running 16 dead draw lands and 4 lands that let you basically cycle them, freeing up 4 slots and cutting down the necessary mana to utilize those tech lands.

Lava Coil is just a worse version of [[Flame Slash]], which you can get 4 of for a dollar. If you need removal, that's a much better way to go.

Skewer the Critics is actually hampered a little in here, as you want to cast it before you attack to trigger your prowess, but to get the spectacle deduction, you need opponent to have lost life already (one way to do so is to have attacked already), which is anti-synergy. So, to get the discount, you'd need to cast a burn spell to opponent's face, which actually means you're going to run into situations quite a bit where you won't be able to get the deduction and cash in on the prowess at the same time because you don't have a burn spell you can throw at opponent right away. Instead, upping the Lava Spike would work, as would running [[Manamorphose]] though it costs 5 bucks a pop (but it triggers your boys and replaces itself without costing you a turn), or [[Renegade Tactics]], which trips all your boys and lets you get some easy combat damage while replacing itself.

Shock and Light up the Stage are a good idea, but you're better off just using the bolt effects with cards like Lava Spike and [[Bolt Wave]], as you're more concerned with smacking opponent in the face while triggering your fast critters than swatting away pesky critters in a one for one exchange. If opponent can block your little guys and you've got to trade them off to a blocker with a damage spell on top, you're already sunk (as you're down 2 cards vs 1 card with tempo). Better to get the extra damage in the long run.

Just some thoughts.

Now that I think about it, what this deck really needs more than any other card is [[Lightning Greaves]]. Lets Zur hit the ground running and protects him, all for 0, which lets you get Zur out turn 4 and get to work instead of getting him out and having to wait a full turn cycle and having him get neutralized before you can do anything. It's going for 5 bucks nowadays, but it will be well worth the investment.

Couple different things you can do with Zur in EDH, but the main line is to make him a pillow fort tax deck that squeezes everyone out either with a combo you can fetch in 2 turns or with slowly growing choke cards. The classic build uses [[Phyrexian Unlife]] and [[Solemnity]] to lock you out of damage completely, then either giving yourself hexproof so you can't be combod out and then slowly building to a win con. You want to dump a protection enchantment first of course, but that's a pretty good thing to throw in. Other than that, focus on tax cards and a few win cons you can rely on once you've got things locked up.

Here are some cheap cards to think about:

[[Grasp of Fate]]- great removal
[[Imprisoned in the Moon]]- nerfs commanders
[[Rest in Peace]]- shuts down grave builds completely
[[Eidolon of Rhetoric]]/[[Rule of Law]]//[[Arcane Laboratory]]- cripple everyone else, still lets you abuse Zur
[[Spirit of the Labyrinth]]- cripples opponents and doesn't hurt you much
[[Energy Flux]]- horrific tax on many commander builds
[[Mana Breach]]- hurts everyone else much more than you cause you can keep abusing Zur

Zur is such a fun little fella. I wish there was a way he could see play more easily

Are you going for budget casual or pauper here?

Let me know how it goes

I don't like the 4th Blood Moon because it's more useful in the side games 2 and 3 than against every deck game 1, and especially because every slot you're running mainboarded that doesn't deal noncombat damage hurts your spectacle mechanic and slows down your prowess/Cutter rig. Plus it's a 3-drop hard cast, which this deck very much doesn't enjoy anyway.

I'd get rid of one of the Skewer the Critics for the extra land, but that's me. Spectacle is a nuisance if you can't get it, and you're running enough nondamage stuff (6 critters, 4 Morphose (sort of), 4 Cutters, 3 Moons) that it has a good chance of being a terrible topdeck and clogging up an opening hand, so cutting down the necessity of a second spell by dropping it to 1 copy makes sense to me, even if the ability to bolt a critter with it is nice compared to the bolt to the face only option of Lava Spike, etc.

I love a good shakeup of an old architype.

A few things i noticed that might be relevant:

18 lands seems mighty light, even though burn decks traditionally run fewer for obvious reasons. You've got 5 cards that need spectacle, a healthy amount of 2-drops, Blood Moon, and your fatty that needs 3 available mana in a turn, so you really need 2 lands to run the deck without it stalling out and getting overrun. Maybe up the land count to 19 by running [[Sunbaked Canyon]]? Keeps the dead draws down, helps keep things moving, cuts down on mulligans, etc. Plus the landfall on Searing Blaze REALLY hates low land counts, which is some bad nonbo action since you REALLY want to only use it for the landfall but also might need it to stack with other spells for spectacle/Incinerator/Steel/etc.

The Incinerator has a few nonbo elements lining up for the build. I know you want to stack damage in a turn for spectacle and Steel-Cutter, but you also want to dump damage for Swiftspear and your prowess tokens, so you've got good reasons to hoard and dump cards as well as reasons to dump cards every turn, which means you're less likely to have the 2 damage spells you need to play Incinerator for R in a turn. On top of that, you've got a good portion of the deck that doesn't deal noncombat damage, so you've got some nonbo forces at work. Plus, it's an abysmal topdeck that you'll never have a hope of hardcasting, and its burn ability only helps against critters/walkers (which is admittedly great but further makes its benefits conditional). I absolutely love running similar cards with this exact idea in mind, but the synergy seems a bit counterintuitive as the build is for my taste. Maybe consider running [[Hearth Elemental // Stoke Genius]] or [[Bedlam Reveler]] instead? Both have hand refill kickers, both are pretty easy to cast, both are fantastic topdecks, and both are basically immune to half the spot removal and easy nuke options in modern. I actually think the Elemental is one of the overlooked cards in magic, but that's me. Running 2 copies in a deck that hits heavy on the instants/sorceries means you're really only going to topdeck into it, probably while you have 3 mana available, so you can draw 2 and drop a 4/5 beater for 3 mana, and bam you're right back into the fight.

Just some thoughts.

Are you looking to upgrade a bit? You could sink 10 bucks into the build and kick it up a couple levels of output easily. Right now you're running a sort of generic 'good stuff' red build, which you could improve by shifting toward a specific theme a bit.

Your best bet to make a rig like this work is to try to focus on 4-drop dragons that you can put out turn 3 with some cheat acceleration. Namely, by running cards like Dragonlord's Servant and [[Mind Stone]], both of which speed you up a turn and aren't useless draws on their own. I'd advise swapping out your mana rocks for the above, primarily because you can't use them to ramp your turn 3 into a turn 4, which will make all the difference in a build like this.

The idea being that 4-drop dragons are immune to quite a bit of popular removal, so if you can field one it will be a reliable clock that can bulldoze through opponent's defenses for the W. This is especially true for your dragons that give you instant advantage, such as Nicol Bolas (ETB discard), which I'd recommend running at least 3 copies of. I'd suggest running more 4-drop advantage dragons, such as [[Atsushi, the Blazing Sky]], [[Ebondeath, Dracolich]], [[Thunderbreak Regent]], etc.

Are you going for budget modern here?

Are you going for competitive modern here? I notice that some of your decks are essentially from much older blocks/editions, so I wanted to check before sharing feedback.

Right off the bat, [[Liquimetal Coating]] helps this deck quite a lot, as it's cheaper and can be tapped the turn it hits.

Are you going for budget casual here? If so, there's lots of nifty little artifact things you can use to potentially augment the build.

I love a little red/blue burn action.

I know this is casual, but I see a few possible tweaks that could help the build out that you could implement cheaply.

Tzaangor Shaman is pretty slow and since it's useless on it's own (beyond being a 3/3 flyer), you could most likely get more value out of something faster/more reliable. Same problem with Rootha really. Even something as simple as [[Electrostatic Field]] would probably have a better impact, as it's cheaper, has no maintenance cost, and can double as a blocker to slow opponent down if needed. Personally, I'd think about [[Bonecrusher Giant // Stomp]] and/or [[Scalding Viper // Steam Clean]] in their place(s), as both are cheaper value engines that work on their own and that synergize with your tap damage fellas.

Some other cheap and high synergy cards to consider would be [[Needle Drop]], [[Preordain]], and [[Gitaxian Probe]] (though it's about 4 bucks), as they all draw you cards on the cheap (which helps you tactically tremendously as you get through your deck) while triggering your damage boy.

Divination is a little too slow and clunky without mana acceleration, even with two copies, as you're going to burn (ha) a turn using it and probably not be able to do very much for the rest of the turn, so you're giving opponent the tempo advantage while you take the material advantage, which is sort of the opposite of what burn does. Same problem with running 2 copies of Treasure Cruise (which works much better with fetch lands and high turnover builds that dump spells like crazy), so I'd generally recommend cutting Divination entirely and cutting down Treasure Cruise to 1 copy so you're basically guaranteed to only topdeck it while you have a full grave and can actually use it. You can actually duplicate the material gain aspect of these cards in a better way by running [[Hearth Elemental // Stoke Genius]], which lets you burn through your hand then cast its draw ability without having to discard anything (netting you a +1 in material), then cast its critter half the same turn for cheap (probably only 1 red) or save it for later (netting you a +2 in material with a 4/5 beater).

[[Fiery Islet]] would also be perfect for your lands, as you're gunna be topdecking useless lands and running some Islets will help mitigate that while helping with your colors as well as not being too heavy a tax on you, as you can run the build on little mana if necessary.

Just some general thoughts.

Looks pretty solid to me. How are the 4 Tamiyos working? Obviously it's a stellar card that's sort of a win condition with a card engine on top, but 4 seems like a lot since it eats up mana to scarf clues (which this deck will struggle with), and it doesn't do damage. I know it's perfectly synergized in legacy with Brainstorm and Ponder, I'd just generally expect to see fewer of them in a build with the extra 1 or 2 slots used up by a Bowmaster so you get more ping and field presence.

Just a line of inquiry, concept still looks pretty solid to me.

This looks slick wicked sharp. The only potential thing I see is that Stubborn Denial only has 11 critters that can make it worthwhile, all of which are conditional, and I imagine you very much want to use it to protect your Frog anyway, so why not just run [[Turn Aside]]?

This deck is practically crying out for [[Strangleroot Geist]]. Speed, advantage, self-countering, delightful hammer to throw at opponent's face. I'd personally pull out Vorinclex, as it's so expensive and can't protect itself from spot removal, and run Geist instead (4 copies actually), but that's me.

There are a few lands you could utilize as well. [[Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx]] is always a consideration in builds like this, but it costs an arm and a leg and only hits viability when your devotion is 4 or higher, so it's not really worth it in my opinion. [[Waterlogged Grove]] helps fix the topdeck land problem, as you can sac it off for a draw. It fits extremely well in the build anyway, as your curve is low and you are racing opponent for damage anyway, so your life total doesn't matter that much. [[Lair of the Hydra]] also helps with the same problem, and the deck can pretty easily run on only 3 lands, so you don't really need to worry about the tapped part if it comes in later.

If you've got the budget for it, I'd recommend running Green Sun's Zenith and a copy of [[Dryad Arbor]] over Llanowar, as you can tutor up the Arbor turn 1 (which is essentially a copy of Llanowar in this build) and after that (when you don't need a 1-drop dork) you can tutor up your good material instead. The only real tradeoff is 1 fewer green devotion, but having the Zenith in the build to fetch out your baddies once you're off the ground is absolutely worth the tradeoff.

Running 4 copies of Inspiring call seems risky, as it's a fantastic topdeck (cause if you topdeck it with an empty field you've already lost the game, but in every other circumstance it probably gives you great advantage), but you don't want it in the opening hand or for the first few turns, as it has no value to you unless you've got multiple critters with counters AND the mana to use it, which is usually impossible on turns 1-3. 2 or 3 copies would help you draw into it in the mid game rather than have to worry about it clogging up a hand in the opening.

Just some thoughts.

It just seems like running [[Crop Rotation]] over 4 of the lands would go a hell of a long way to getting this deck where it wants to go faster and with more efficiency. The Rotation gets around Wasteland, gets you the Cradle when you're ready for it, and gives you a turn of 3 land drops if you fetch a fetch.

And I'm not quite seeing the point of running 2 Arbors, since you basically never ever want to play one from your hand and burning a Zenith on one just for the landfall would almost certainly be outclassed by fetching one of the deck's engines.