In some cases, when a combo becomes extremely powerful and popular in one particular Constructed format, players will go out of their way to give it a shot in other environments. Take the classic Temur
Crashing Footfalls
Crashing Footfalls
Suspend 4—{G} (Rather than cast this card from your hand, pay {G} and exile it with four time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter. When the last is removed, you may cast it without paying its mana cost.)
Create two 4/4 green Rhino creature tokens with trample.
shell, for example. This deck has been elite in Modern for quite some time now.
However, Modern isn’t the only format you’ll see players Cascading and making Rhinos. While not quite as impactful, Temur Cascade is a real deck in Legacy that players need to respect. The core gameplan of the deck is very similar to its Modern counterpart, but it features strong upgrades like
Elvish Spirit Guide
Elvish Spirit Guide
Exile this card from your hand: Add {G}.
and
Force of Will
Force of Will
You may pay 1 life and exile a blue card from your hand rather than pay this spell's mana cost.
Counter target spell.
.
In a similar vein, Abzan
Amalia Benavides Aguirre
Amalia Benavides Aguirre
Ward—Pay 3 life.
Whenever you gain life, Amalia Benavides Aguirre explores. Then destroy all other creatures if its power is exactly 20. (To have this creature explore, reveal the top card of your library. Put that card into your hand if it's a land. Otherwise, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature, then put the card back or put it into your graveyard.)
combo has been a staple archetype in Pioneer since The Lost Caverns of Ixalan was released. Now, the deck seems to be making its presence felt in Modern. Once again, the deck features a lot of the same powerhouses as in Pioneer, but with a plethora of potent changes. With a recent top eight performance in a Magic Online Modern Challenge, perhaps it deserves more respect and exploration in Modern.
Two Incredible Combos
The main goal of this deck is to execute one of two major combos that can win the game on the spot. The first and most important combo revolves around Amalia Benavides Aguirre and
Wildgrowth Walker
Wildgrowth Walker
Whenever a creature you control explores, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature and you gain 3 life.
. Just like in Pioneer, these cards can create a back-and-forth loop once you either gain life or Explore.
With both cards on the battlefield, let’s say you cast
Cenote Scout
Cenote Scout
When this creature enters, it explores. (Reveal the top card of your library. Put that card into your hand if it's a land. Otherwise, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature, then put the card back or put it into your graveyard.)
to Explore. This will trigger Wildgrowth Walker, and you will gain three life. This, in turn, will trigger Amalia to Explore. Now, you have created a chain reaction, allowing you to gain a ton of life and Explore until Amalia reaches 20 power.
From there, you effectively end up with a massive Creature while wiping the rest of the board and can usually attack for lethal the following turn. Notably, if you’re concerned that the opponent may be able to answer Amalia and win the game even through your massive life buffer, it may be worth tutoring for
Dina, Soul Steeper
Dina, Soul Steeper
Whenever you gain life, each opponent loses 1 life.
{1}, Sacrifice another creature: Dina gets +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is the sacrificed creature's power.
before executing the combo. With Dina out, you get to drain the opponent for a ton of life in the combo process and not have to worry about attacking with Amalia.
In addition to the Amalia combo itself, Dina plays an important role in another combo line. See, this deck plays a single copy of both
Spike Feeder
Spike Feeder
This creature enters with two +1/+1 counters on it.
{2}, Remove a +1/+1 counter from this creature: Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature.
Remove a +1/+1 counter from this creature: You gain 2 life.
and
Heliod, Sun-Crowned
Heliod, Sun-Crowned
Indestructible
As long as your devotion to white is less than five, Heliod isn't a creature.
Whenever you gain life, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature or enchantment you control.
{1}{W}: Another target creature gains lifelink until end of turn.
that you can tutor for when applicable. With Heliod and Spike Feeder in play, you can easily gain infinite life. Each time you remove a counter from Spike Feeder to gain two life, Heliod triggers and can put a counter right back on Spike Feeder. Add Dina into the mix, and you have a way to infinitely drain the opponent.
Read More: Bizarre Infinite Combo takes Over MTG Format
Massive Modern Upgrades
Much like how Legacy Cascade shells get to utilize some notable inclusions that aren’t Modern legal, Abzan Amalia combo in Modern boasts some strong upgrades over traditional Pioneer decklists.
First, we had mentioned that tutoring for Dina as well as the Spike Feeder+Heliod combo can be important when attempting to close the game. Unsurprisingly, a playset of
Chord of Calling
Chord of Calling
Convoke (Your creatures can help cast this spell. Each creature you tap while casting this spell pays for {1} or one mana of that creature's color.)
Search your library for a creature card with mana value X or less, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle.
makes an appearance, but that’s not all. Four copies of
Eladamri’s Call
Eladamri’s Call
Search your library for a creature card, reveal that card, put it into your hand, then shuffle.
helps make the deck more consistent.
The only downside with a card like Eladamri’s Call is that, unlike with Chord, the Creature you search for goes into your hand, not onto the battlefield. This means that using Eladamri’s Call isn’t the most mana efficient play. Luckily, this deck gets to make perfect use of a way to cheat your powerful Creatures into play:
Aether Vial
Aether Vial
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may put a charge counter on this artifact.
{T}: You may put a creature card with mana value equal to the number of charge counters on this artifact from your hand onto the battlefield.
. Not only does Aether Vial help speed up your combo process, but it also helps make sure your important combo pieces resolve. Sometimes, you can even put in the last piece of the Amalia combo on your opponent’s end step, dodging Sorcery-speed removal and surprising the opponent.
The last essential difference between the Pioneer and Modern decklists is the inclusion of
Auriok Champion
Auriok Champion
Protection from black and from red
Whenever another creature enters, you may gain 1 life.
in Modern. Auriok Champion avoids a lot of the most common removal spells in the format while providing an easy way to get the Amalia combo train rolling. You even get to gain life off of your opponent’s Creatures entering play, which is a nice bonus if you have Heliod or Amalia in play.
Read More: MTG Designer Discusses Potentially Returning Blocks Feature
Navigating Different Matchups
As strong as a lot of these improvements to the Modern version are, though, pulling off the Amalia combo isn’t necessarily easy in the format. Typical removal is significantly more efficient in Modern. For instance, it can be tough to combo reliably in the face of
Solitude
Solitude
Flash
Lifelink
When this creature enters, exile up to one other target creature. That creature's controller gains life equal to its power.
Evoke—Exile a white card from your hand.
. In this sense, even if the opponent is tapped out of mana, that doesn’t necessarily mean the coast is clear.
Furthermore, Golgari
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
Protection from Humans
Pay 1 life, Sacrifice another creature: Put a -1/-1 counter on up to one target creature and draw a card.
{B}{B}, Discard a card: Proliferate. (Choose any number of permanents and/or players, then give each another counter of each kind already there.)
combo is still the premier Creature combo deck in the format, so it’s tough to imagine Abzan Amalia combo running rampant in Modern in the near future. That being said, the Amalia deck does have some edges over Yawgmoth combo. For instance, some popular hate cards that are very strong against Yawgmoth combo do very little against Amalia. Most importantly,
Cursed Totem
Cursed Totem
Activated abilities of creatures can't be activated.
. In fact, Abzan Amalia decks in Modern get to make use of Cursed Totem themselves in the sideboard!
The consistent flow of life gain and presence of Auriok Champion also helps a lot against
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
Whenever Ragavan deals combat damage to a player, create a Treasure token and exile the top card of that player's library. Until end of turn, you may cast that card.
Dash {1}{R} (You may cast this spell for its dash cost. If you do, it gains haste, and it's returned from the battlefield to its owner's hand at the beginning of the next end step.)
decks and burn strategies. This deck can assemble the combo relatively quickly, so if you don’t come equipped with a decent amount of disruption, you may be in for a bad time. There’s no denying the elite performance this archetype put up in Modern, so it’s certainly worth monitoring if the deck picks up steam in the coming weeks.
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