dknight27

Whoops. As you can no doubt tell, i dont play much EDH

I'm all about trying new things and trying to get away from existing decktypes. Keep working at it and see where it goes

Hey, i get it. Riding the lightning with a rainbow deck can be fun for sure. Getting access to whatever you want is a hell of a fun idea.

I'm still processing what exactly I think about how to maximize this one

I've never seen a zoo try for 16 lands before, even with the birds. I like the idea, but I would make some suggestions based on it.

In general, even with the birds, your curve seems a bit too high to me. There will be plenty of hands where you won't have a bird, and will be stuck with 1 land for a couple slow turns, so its essential that you have a high saturation of 1 drops or all the tempo this deck needs will fall away and you will be sunk. In addition, your turn 1 bird is gunna get lightning bolted as often as possible, so you have to be able to survive the games where the bird gets burned away.

Harmonize isn't cost effective enough in this build, and its going to eat a tempo that you desperately need (you won't be able to play anything you draw that turn). I would advise running adventurous impulse which ups the 1 drops (if this deck doesn't drop a 1 drop turn 1 it will lose), helps fix land problems, is fast food for goyf, and will almost never be a dead draw.

Fist of ironwood and hyena umbra are bad fits as they are conditional (need creatures to be on the field already), and don't necessarily give enough advantage to justify their spots. The goal of this deck isn't to max out a critter with extra material committed (critter and enchantment), but to field fast critters and clear the field so they can do what they do as fast as possible. You are better off running removal in those spots so you can field the critter turn 1, and just remove anything in its way and not worry about buffing it up. I know the enchantment count helps with goyf too, but neither will splash directly into the grave, and with only 4 in the deck they arn't reliable as food anyway.

Browbeat is very interesting in here. I'd never considered it for Zoo before. Even though it gives opponent the option to rob you of topdeck tempo, the 5 damage they will have to eat basically guarantees that they will be within a killzone range for your little guys. Plus its more food for goyf.

I would consider dropping 1 woolly thoctar (3 total) because they have such a pain in the ass casting cost in a deck with 16 lands, and because its is extremely unlikely that you will be able to drop it turn 3 unless you have a bird survive. Better in my mind to up the saturation of 1 drops (maybe vexing devil?).


Just my thoughts, not trying to put the deck down.

Are you going for legacy legal?

I see a couple areas of redundancy in here that could really help the deck if they are fixed.

Honor of the pure is redundant because you are playing around with big flyers, so making them bigger, while nice, isn't necessary and realistically isn't worth the loss of card advantage.

Wall of reverence is an excellent blocker, and is decent with the lifegain, but this deck doesn't need to stall out when it has 4 mana, 4 mana is the jumping off point to cast a 4-drop angel and go to work. A nice slap of 4 drop angels (of which there are TONS to choose from) would be a much better fit.

Gift of estates seems a little iffy to me, as its conditonal, slow, and worthless once you get out of the early middle game. Plus it is extra worthless when paired with endless horizons.


I would consider looking at 4 copies of mindstone, as what this deck desperately needs is a turn 2 acceleration that gives you the ability to play a 4 drop turn 3. Mindstone does that, and is basically never a dead draw as it can replace itself once you don't need it anymore. That combined with your 4 white orchids and 3 omens (i would consider taking this up to 4), will basically ensure that you have a turn 2 play that does what this deck needs to do.

Running a few tactical lands and bringing the total land count up to 23 would be helpful too

I've always been afraid of running 4 cryptics with blood moon and 4 fields of ruin, too much potential for a brick in the hand either way for me. Other than that this looks deadly.

The curve in this one seems a little lopsided to me. A little too heavy on 3 drops, even with the birds and 23 lands.

Commune with nature seems like an excellent way to solve this, as it speeds things up (lowers the curve), provides excellent tactical control, and can get you to your combo pieces pretty easily.

Seems like Prophet of Kruphix would be a perfect fit.

The main problem I see in here is that you are 2-choked, and some excellent 1-drop options exist that would help speed this deck up, mainly the 1-drop blue tactical cards like serum visions, opt, sleight of hand, etc. I know this deck wants a turn 1 aether vial, but you aren't guaranteed to start with one, and an excellent alternative is a 1 drop tactics card that helps you rearrange what you have/will have so that you can drop your second land turn 2 and have something to play that same turn.

I can see you justifying the lack of 1 drops with a turn 2 chalice, but I'm not sure its consistent enough/damaging enough to all decktypes to justify the lack of speed.


Do you run into that problem at all? Just my thoughts, I know people have tooled around with this archtype for a long time.

This one will take some processing. Are you attached to the idea of a 5 color?

I've been tinkering with a couple ideas for builds like this. Jace, vryn's prodigy seems a natural fit, and perhaps a copy or 2 of trinket mage. Any thoughts?

Lantern Control is one of the most interesting concepts in magic I've seen in years. Such a creative idea right?
Personally I would like to see some mainboarded interaction like abrupt decay or fatal push, but other than that this looks solid.

I agree with everything everyone is saying, which is a shame. I was hoping the little guy would be able to make a push into modern play, but there seem to be more viable options in his slot in most circumstances.

Maybe a deck that doesn't use blue but still want's the etb damage and field presence? It's a hope

The big problems I see in here are: the lopsided curve, the land choices and amount, and a couple unnecessary decision spots.

66% of this deck are 2 drops, so you will absolutely be choked on that number between the 3rd and 4th land drop, and will eat mulligans all day with a single land in the opener.

What this deck basically wants to do is

turn 1- drop a land and a critter
turn 2- drop a land and a critter or removal option and swing
turn 3- stop worrying about lands for a while and repeat step 2

There are some wonderful 1 drops that would fit in here anyway, such as monastery swiftspear, rift bolt, vexing devil, goblin guide, etc. If you drop the massive 2 drop problem into some more 1 drops, you will have a much faster and more consistent deck.




The land choices are pretty basic (I assume this deck is on a budget, so no fetch lands or fast lands), but wind-scarred crag has absolutely got to go as it will stall you out either turn 1 or 2, denying this deck the tempo it needs to live. I like the idea of sunhome fortress, but unfortunately its going to be useless until the late middle/end game, and eats a TON of land mana (5 including itself), and as it doesn't help you get the white/red you need I would consider dropping it altogether. If this deck gets to the late middle/end game and needs that land to win, its sort of already failed at its job. Better to have some non-land options that are cheap and good when topdecked.

In general I would consider dropping the lands to 21 total, as this deck hits full function at 3 lands and everything after that is just tempo.





The couple underpowered choices I see are dangerous wager and fiend hunter.

Dangerous wager is an extremely conditional card (has to be topdecked to be of any use) that only nets you +1 card advantage under optimal conditions. What's worse, its a brick in the opening hand, which this deck can't afford as the first few turns are vital (this deck needs tempo to survive). My advice would be to drop both of them in favor of more predictable and less conditional advantage.

Fiend hunter is semi-conditional removal that realistically doesn't net you enough benefit as its can only swing for 1 per turn and is pretty easy to remove (dies to 3 damage). A better fit for this deck would be viashino pyromancer, which SORT OF does the same thing as fiend hunter, but cheaper, with better damage output and optional face damage on entry for a bleeding effect. I would consider maxing those suckers out.





My last consideration would be to splash 1 or 2 copies of something decently large like goblin dark-dwellers which you would more than likely topdeck, blast it in and copy a bolt to the face or to remove a problem, then go to work with the 4/4 menace.





Just my thoughts friend, not trying to put you or the deck down.

Am I the only one out there that thinks arcades is way too strong of a new card to be making? 4 mana 3/5 flyer with vigilance is good on its own, so lets give it a crazy card advantage gobbler and a way for 2 drop 4/4 to smash your face off.

I love the idea you've got going here, but the 18 lands, especially with 4 tapped ones and 2 colorless producers, seems like it could draw into quite a few mulligans and hurt the development of the build more than it does turbocharge the card advantage.

In order to field and equip either of your ping-er-facts, you need either 3 or 4 mana plus the critter in play, for a spread between 4 to 6 mana. With 18 lands and no acceleration, that's decently hard to pull off in a timely manner. I know you have some late/middle game accel for mana (stronghold, cryptghast), but both of those are conditional on other lands (namely swamps (of which you are currently only running 12)), and neither will help you get off the ground.

Ideally this deck wants the do the following:

turn 1- drop a swamp, hit a 1-drop discard that says "no to opponent's interaction or production"

turn 2- drop a swamp, drop a critter and/or a ping-er-fact.

turn 3- drop a swamp, equip and go to work



That's the most efficient and safe method this deck want's to hit, and it almost never will see anything like this with the way you've structured the lands and how much mana the rest of the decks needs to keep rolling.

I would consider upping the lands to 21 total with some fetch lands (bloodstained mire, etc) so you have a flush chance of no mulligans, good acceleration, and the deck will still be thinned out once you exit the middle so you won't be topdecking lands.

Also, maybe consider some alternate sources of tap guys, just to kick around the idea. Indulgent aristocrat, pharika's chosen, sanitarium skeleton, vempire cutthroat, vampire neonate, stuff like that. Might take away the necessity for running basilisk collar which is a hassle as you can't use it to generate tap damage, but just to augment tap damage, so its SUPER conditional (needs a critter, ping-er-fact, and itself (so at least 7 mana between 3 cards).

I know this deck wants opponent to bleed all day long, but ive never had much success with dash hopes, even in a build like this. I would trade 5 life all day to be at +1 card advantage and +1 tempo on opponent, especially since this deck has only conditional mainboarded field interaction.



Just my thoughts, not trying to put the deck down. I love the synergy you get with cards like lookout and confidant in here.

This looks fantastic. Grixis control might end up being my favorite build in modern. I only see a couple potential problems in here.

4 cryptics with 24 lands (4 of which are field of ruin) seems like it could be a problem, as you have a decent chance of grabbing 1 in the opening hand and watching it sit like a brick for 10 turns before you grab your 3 blue producers. Personally I would prefer to run 1 jace, vryns prodigy and 3 cryptics over 4 cryptics in this build, but that's me.

You have 13 mainboarded creature hate spells, which is good enough to not worry about some of the "go either way" counters like mana leak or spell snare, both of which do much better when in higher concentration. Running 1 copy of each means both are likely to be top decked rather than seen in the opening or middle, and when opponent has lots of mana available both cards lose effectiveness. I would consider running another countersquall over the mana leak and perhaps a fatal push or opt over the spell snare.

I also don't see a watery grave, which would be a good rounding out of the lands.


Just my thoughts, seems like an excellent build. Good work.

I would tend to agree in general, but in this build I was trying to fuse a regular reactive control mechanic with the land/grave interaction, so the fewer critters and non-control instants the better, then win with man lands and/or recurring gearhulks.

For the suggestions you propose, with which I absolutely agree, I would use in a deck like this:

https://www.mtgvault.com/dknight27/decks/modern-greenhouse-3/

Where its a more active control than a reactive one.

Strange that they decided to release jace and bloodbraid onto modern and pulled probe and deathrite from legacy