Modern Kidney Beans-Competitiv

by dknight27 on 07 March 2025

Main Deck (60 cards)

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Deck Description

Kidney Beans- a joke about Up the Beanstalk

Glarb was objectively created for EDH (like so many legendary critters these days). He could also be played in Legacy (perhaps) in an Up the Beanstalk shell, as he pairs very well with cards like Force of Will.

So hey, let's see if he can work in modern.

Here's the theory: there are many, many ways to take advantage of Glarb's 4-drop requirement, such as evoke, split cards, delve, X costs, and double-faced lands. Of note, I checked the rulings on all of these (as well as many other types), but if I got something wrong, please tell me.

Long story short, you can get away with playing heavy CMC's with or without Glarb on the field, but with Glarb on the field, you can gain pretty good card advantage and take advantage of some good synergy.

Glarb himself is a mixed bag. Being a full sultai 3-drop is aggravating, and he has no ETB effect, which is REALLY aggravating. You also probably can't take advantage of his effect the turn he hits play because you've gotta dump the mana into getting him on the field, so you probably can't play spells from the top of your deck, and you probably played a land this turn, so you can't play lands from the top of your deck. Plus, he doesn't have haste, so he can't do his delightful surveil effect. On the other hand, he's fetchable with Green Sun's Zenith, making him much more reliable as an engine. He's blue, so you can pitch an unneeded/inconvenient copy to Force of Negation. He's got a decent ass, so he's not boltable. He comes with deathtouch, so he's a decent wall and a potential one-for-one against something nasty. And his surveil ability helps himself as well as your delve spells, and your synergy in general.

The deck itself has a pretty simplistic plan that relies very heavily on surviving the opening without being too far behind, and to that end, there is some good synergy with Glarb. 25 lands means you're probably not going to miss a land drop, and Glarb will help make sure the excess lands don't get in the way once you escape the first few turns. Ice can be used to tap out a land of opponent's. On the play, this is potentially a Time Walk, on the draw, it's not as good, as you've got to use it on opponent's turn 3, but can still buy you a turn either way, even if it's just stopping some early damage. Force of Negation protects against combo decks going off before you hit your groove. Green Sun's does its famous accel into Dryad Arbor, and keeps the deck fat with ways to get Glarb and/or answers. Fetch lands into surveil lands is an excellent turn 1 play that gives you selection and fixes colors.

Once Glarb is fielded, you've got 41 cards in the deck that he can do something with off the top, so the math is definitely on your side. Since he plays lands, the accel helps with this quite a bit, as each turn you build up the inevitability.

Will it hold up in Tier 1 Modern? Nope. Is that super lame? Yep. Oh well, was still a fun idea.

Feedback appreciated.

Deck Tags

  • Modern
  • Sultai
  • Competitive

Deck at a Glance

Social Stats

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This deck has been viewed 71 times.

Mana Curve

Mana Symbol Occurrence

0311729

Deck Format


Modern

NOTE: Set by owner when deck was made.

Card Legality

  • Not Legal in Standard
  • Not Legal in Modern
  • Legal in Vintage
  • Legal in Legacy

Deck discussion for Modern Kidney Beans-Competitiv

Damn, this shit is cool as fuck! Only thing is that 4 Force of Negation just seems excessive, especially with so many non-blue cards. Also, do you think you can fit a Triome land in there to cast Fire? Like, surely you don't need 3 surveil lands,

1
Posted 12 March 2025 at 01:43

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I never know how to balance Force of Negation. My thought here was that it protects Glarb the turn you play him (if you're out of mana), so you can play him a turn early, and that you can pitch Glarb to it if you need to shut down some explosive combo bullshit. Also, that once Glarb is online, having one in hand is worth the 2:1 since Glarb pulls from the top of the deck, so you're really not losing material, as it lets you dump all your mana into capitalizing on Glarb's engine. It does clog up the top of the deck, which is a bummer, and really isn't a good substitute for Force of Will since it's double conditional, so I might be way off trying to run 4 of them when I could jam in a Spell Snare or the like. It REALLY blows that there aren't any counter spells in modern that you can reliably reduce in cost that Glarb can take advantage of. Disrupting Shoal and Out of Air are atrocious, and Overwhelming Denial defeats the purpose, so I didn't really know what else to do.

The Triome makes perfect sense. The fact that this deck can't play red as a major color because of Glarb's tri-color identity bummed me out like crazy, cause cards like Fire // Ice, Cut // Ribbons, Rise // Fall, and Rough // Tumble would all be in the mix. My initial thought with the surveil lands was that 1- they help Glarb anyway cause you can play em from the topdeck and you can either see 2 cards with Glarb or just net the land, 2- that you can do the same thing with a fetch land into a surveil land (deck thinning on top), and 3- that you can store up fetch lands to effectively be used as Brainstorms. Ideally, turn 1 you're going to fetch a surveil land in opponent's endstep anyway, leaving 2 in the deck (as is), but I can see why the access to red would be better. Fire knocks off lots of little threats like Orcish Bowmasters, so being able to cast one instead of just Ice would be super beneficial. Good call.

0
Posted 12 March 2025 at 20:44

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