What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 1:9 English Standard Version (ESV)
Twenty years is a long time. Long enough for a car purchased new to fade and become a “classic.” It’s long enough for a newborn to grow up and decide they want to spend most of their money on shiny pieces of cardboard so they can make people miserable on a Friday night.
It’s long enough for some Magic players to forget how miserable playing against Armageddon can be.
I didn’t choose to wax poetically about twenty years at random. Twenty years ago, in 1996, Magic decided to institute something that probably seemed a little bit crazy at the time. They decided that Magic needed a Pro Tour, a place for the game to be competed at the highest level.
And, twenty years ago, Bertrand Lestrée took a deck known as ErnhamGeddon into the finals of the first Magic: the Gathering Pro Tour. For those of you who weren’t alive, ErnhamGeddon revolved around a four power creature and a card that destroyed all lands in play, Armageddon, a card so aggravatingly broken we will probably never see the likes of it at that cost in Standard or Modern again (thankfully, Armageddon was a pain in the butt to play against). Twenty years later, I think we could see a similar deck return to Modern. Everything old is new again. Behold, ErnhamGeddon 2016.
[deck title=Goblin ‘Geddon by Travis Hall]
[Lands]
4 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Graven Cairns
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
3 Blood Crypt
2 Sacred Foundry
2 Godless Shrine
1 Shambling Vent
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
3 Fulminator Mage
4 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
3 Terminate
1 Dreadbore
4 Night’s Whisper
4 Boom // Bust
2 Kologhan’s Command
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Dismember
3 Ajani Vengeant
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
3 Stony Silence
3 Wear//Tear
1 Inquizition of Kozilek
1 Anger of the Gods
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Terminate
2 Rakdos Charm
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
I’ve seen Naya versions of this floating around, and while the additional speed given to the deck by adding green is attractive, I wanted to build a version that looks at the Goblin Dark-Dwellers into Bust combo as a knockout punch. This deck uses early discard and targeted creature removal to leave the board in a state where your GoblinGeddon is enough to wipe them out in a couple of attacks.
[card]Goblin Dark-Dwellers[/card]: While the ability to flash in during an opponent’s turn adds to Snapcaster Mage’s versatility (and, being in blue, the flash is one of Snapcaster’s main attractions, for counterspell purposes), the GDD make up for it by being large enough to end games quickly. GDD is the baseball bat to Snapcaster’s katana. It isn’t all about being pretty, it just wants to bludgeon the hell out of you. Menace may seem like an afterthought at first, but it has been valuable.
[card]Boom // Bust[/card]: The combo with Flagstones of Trokair isn’t new, but it’s never had the inevitability of GDD to back it up. Versatile lands are important in Modern (Inkmoth Nexus, Mutavault, Academy Ruins, the Tron lands, Eye of Ugin, a host of manlands, etc), and the ability to knock them out as early as turn two, is as powerful as it has ever been.
[card]Night’s Whisper[/card]: The last card to make the deck and the one I’m the least sure of (and yes, I tried Painful Truths). The deck wants card draw, it’s thirsty for more cards, but I’m not sure I’ve been able to find the right answer. Night’s Whisper works (and there are some games where flashing it back with GDD is a necessity), but I’m sure there’s something better out there.
[card]Lightning Bolt[/card] + [card]Dismember[/card] + [card]Terminate[/card] + [card]Dreadbore[/card]: The removal suite. You get that “Bolt-Snapcaster-Bolt” experience, with a creature that can turn that six damage into a very short clock. Terminate is the best removal spell in Modern, if you’re in the right colors, and the solo Dreadbore is to deal with those fast Karn/Ugin draws you will see all too frequently out of Tron.
[card]Kologhan’s Command[/card]: The best Swiss-Army knife in Modern at the moment. I like having some main deck artifact removal that doubles as a way to regrow my Fulminator Mages (or even GDDs if necessary).
[card]Ajani Vengeant[/card]: Adding Ajani to the mix was when I really started to feel the deck click. He fits in with the mana denial theme of the deck, he curves into GDD, he provides a very important smattering of lifegain for a deck that runs both Night’s Whisper and Thoughtseize, and he even sometimes acts as an Armageddon himself. This card is still criminally underplayed in Modern.
The sideboard is still in flux, but with white mana in the deck, you have access to the most powerful sideboarding options in the format. Stony Silence is very good against Tron and can be back breaking against Affinity or the Lantern control deck. This deck is a dog to the burn matchup, but Leyline of Sanctuary gives you a fighting chance (or, you can hope Burn stumbles on its mana and you can ride a turn five GDD to victory). Really, I look at the sideboard as a way to fight specific zones or strategies in Modern instead of particular cards. Leyline helps against the decks that want to go to the dome, Stony Silence takes out the artifact decks, Rakdos Charm does double duty against both the artifact decks and the graveyard shenanigan decks. Wear // Tear is a necessary evil.
While I am happy with how the deck is performing, I do think it can be improved. This feels like a draft, very powerful, but also rough in its execution. More than anything it needs an additional threat, another way to end the game quickly. I’d like to consider Tamogoyf (or the “land in the graveyard” loving sexiness of Knight of the Reliquary), but I don’t want to push the manabase any harder. It may be that this becomes necessary, but for now, let’s keep it Mardu.
If you like my suggestions, you can follow me on Twitter: @travishall456. I throw around random observations and deck ideas every day. You can also hear me on the Horde of Notions podcast each week, discussing deck ideas for FNM level events and the PTQ grinders.
Travis Hall is a resident Mana D rogue deck brewer with an unhealthy addiction to Heartless Summoning and Birthing Pod.