dknight27

thanks. It's obviously too slow and dependent on conditions to work in tournament play, but its a fun concept

you couldn't ask for a better deck fit for phyrexian obliterator. he is a win condition by himself, and will give you +4 on your devotion count.

i would consider running diabolic tutor. its cheap enough to not mess up your curve, will work out to be about the same as chord of calling, and is super useful in a 3 card combo deck like this.

this is how i would build this deck

http://www.mtgvault.com/dknight27/decks/modern-mindcrank/

im afraid this deck wont be consistent enough in the long run. your mindcrack ascension combo is good, but you have only 1 way to search for it and no way to draw more quickly through your deck. i would consider running blue in here as well for 4 serum visions and 4 telling time. that way you have something to do while you assemble your combo more quickly and can save your burn to make the combo go off. i would also knock it up to 22 lands, as 20 makes it more difficult to hit your 4 for diabolic tutor, and this deck is relying extensively on hitting the combo as fast as possible, especially considering it wont go off until 2 turns after the combo is assembled. just a thought

you are right, this probably wouldn't hold up in competitive. im not too worried about discard, as there really isn't anything to hit other than gifts, and I could side in answers to that. plus, they have to have some king of creature presence to win with discard, and I have 8 nukes to deal with that. burn poses a bigger problem, but I would build the sideboard around dealing with faster decks like weenie and burn

your best friend in a mill deck is ensnaring bridge

mana ramp with axebane guardian and overgrown battlement into a burn spell

for this build I am focusing on fast and reliable damage. ill be making a soulstroke combo deck in the near future, and you're right, doomgape will be used.

oh ya, this deck would get murdered in competitive. I don't actually think there is a way to work giants in a modern tournament. too slow and vulnerable no matter what. I tried to stay away from mana ramp creatures cause they are so vulnerable to removal and that will basically lose me the game. but ive got 8 4 drop land searches, 4 3 drop searches, and 4 reduce costers, so in a given game I should be able to drop a giant turn 4, which is ideal

only 3 polymorphs and no search?

I know you want to use that as an alt win condition in here cause you are running so much token buff, but it seems to easy to dismantle to me. i would consider running 4 serum visions at least to help move the deck along

no worries

there is almost no way you will be able to pull this off in time. empty the warrens needs at least 1 other spell being played before it to give you the 4 creatures necessary to make casting battle hymn cost effective. which means you have to spend one of your ramp spells to make it happen, which cuts back on your ramp to dragonstorm.

im not really sure why you arnt running bogardan hellkite over your current choices, unless this is a multi player deck.

with only 3 copies of dragonstorm, no search, and only 7 cards that each let you draw 1 card, the combo isn't likely to go off until late game, and you have no way to slowing your opponent down or blowing up the field.

in order to make this work you need some serious search/draw power and a different ramp base. manamorphose nets you nothing, and you only need 3 other spells played to get your win, so its unnecessary

cranial extraction should be run over surgical extraction. i know you want to make them discard their cards and then surgical the rest of the pieces from their deck off, but cranial is more consistent. surgical has the condition of them already having discarded it, and since you are running the extraction to nix combo pieces'win conditions/and answers they side it, you cant afford to wait around until they discard something to extract it. cranial extraction is top 5 best sideboard cards in the game. you should run at least 3 copies. it fixes almost every problem in magic. murders combo decks. protects your combo from your opponents answer. gets rid of big win conditions. every time i run black i side it in

you need more than 17 lands unfortunately. i know you want to keep the land count low, but you have enough 2 and 3 drops in here that your deck can't operate on only 1 land, and 17 (especially with some fetch lands) is too likely to stick you with only 1 land and a hard full of useless 2 drops. i would knock it up to 4 arid mesas and a temple of triumph. that way, you dont change the concentration of the deck too much but can guarantee your second land on turn 2

its vintage that uses the mox en masse, and only combo decks rely on landless mana in legacy.

serum visions will help a lot in this deck. its basically never a bad draw.

you actually have a lot of mana production in this deck, but not really anything to do with it. 24 lands and 10 things that either produce mana or lower artifact costs. that's a little redundant.

I would make this deck a blue/black hybrid so you could run diabolic tutor to pump up the deck like crazy. that would also let you run more control

ive got 6 suspend cards, so I don't need to worry about any more copies to make the combo work. if worldfire goes off, it doesn't matter if they get burned on the next turn by arc blade or the turn after by a creature. in addition, the creatures give you extra options for non-combo wins and ways to hold off till the combo works. if I snag 2 creatures on turn 1, ill drop 1 of them and wait for the suspend and either start swinging with it or use it to hold off the opponent till the combo works.

man, I must have missed some big changes. when did they make bitterblossom modern? what a horrible idea. It was a good win condition in legacy. Modern wont be able to handle it.

I know you want to run as few lands as possible in this build to maximize your permanents, but you wont be able to get away with 16 lands. the chances of you being stuck on 1 land are very high, and even with 2 you wont be able to do very much each turn, basically negating the advantage you wanted to gain. I would say 20 is the lowest I would consider running, even in a deck like this.