Modern: Scapeshift Aggro

One of my favorite EDH decks is Lord Windgrace. The deck has one simple goal; get a creature with landfall on the battlefield and then play as many lands as possible. When the deck can achieve this, I usually drown my opponents underneath a mountain of card advantage and ramp. The deck is a lot of fun to play but can struggle if it doesn’t get the right cards. Sometimes I’ll have a deck that is all payoff but no enabler and vice versa. This is in part due to the singleton limit in Commander. With how much fun I have playing this deck in Commander, I wondered if it was possible to convert it into Modern.

Image result for lord windgrace art

When converting this deck over into Modern, one of the first things I had to address was the CMC of the deck. Commander players love their big splashy plays, but a card like Omnath is just not going to cut it in the face of Dredge and Pheonix. So, I looked at all of the available landfall cards and came across some very cheap options that could work in Modern. They may not be as exciting as Omnath, but when you can make a 14/15 out of a Steppe Lynx, Death’s Shadow can suck it. A single fetchland with cards like Plated Geopede puts the opponent under a ton of pressure. With added support in Sakura-Tribe Scout and Azusa, you can easily blitz people.

Image result for plated geopede

However, this deck has more dimensions than just a simple aggro deck. If killing people with a 9/9 was all this deck could do, it would be better for you to play Death’s Shadow. The wrinkle that this deck can abuse is in Ob Nixilis, the Fallen. With a Lotus Cobra and a fetch, you can play a turn 3 Ob Nixilis. If you can follow that up with a turn 4 Scapeshift Obbie is dealing 15 damage just from the lands that entered the battlefield that turn, this is ignoring the fact that you now also have a 15/15. If you don’t have Scapeshift, just following up with a fetchland means you are swinging in for 12 damage.

Image result for ob nixilis the fallen mtggoldfish

This deck is a pretty accurate representation of my EDH deck. You start with a landfall creature, and then you play as many lands as possible. While it may not be making ten 5/5 elementals, if you give this deck a chance, it will run away with the game. The combination of aggro and combo elements lets it play a different gameplan depending on the cards it sees and what the opponent is doing. Thank you all for reading, I hope you have a great week and an amazing Tuesday!

Link to Decklist: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1706822#paper

Scapeshift Aggro.PNG

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.