Occasionally you come up with a 2 card combo that needs to be satiated, and it’s all you can think about even though you know it’s bad and will never see competitive play. But you build a deck anyways and lose with it 10 times simply because the 1 time it actually goes off it is so worth it. Recently, I’ve been having these feelings about Echo of Eons and Smothering Tithe and today I finally put that awful deck together.
The deck first came to fruition when I started thinking about how Echo of Eons could best be abused in Modern. Timetwister is a powerful effect, and there’s bound to be ways to break the card. In Legacy, combining it with Lion’s Eye Diamond means you just drew 7 cards for 0 mana. Modern does not have LED and has to work a lot harder to make the card busted. When I was thinking about how Timetwister becomes a powerful card, it always came back to being able to use more of your cards before your opponent can. Day’s Undoing is the closest thing to Timetwister we have ever had, but the end your turn clause kills it from actually being good on its own. Then it hit me! If you can generate mana from drawing cards you can cast the cards in your hand before your opponent gets a chance. In comes Smothering Tithe.
Smothering Tithe is a commander staple but has seen 0 Modern play for obvious reasons. It’s a 4 mana do nothing enchantment*. Despite this, Smothering Tithe is the only effect (that I’m aware of) that nets you mana for drawing cards, specifically cards your opponent has drawn. Combine this with a wheel effect and you can generate mana from every wheel as long as the wheels cost 6 or less mana. You can keep on doing this until you cast a second Smothering Tithe which basically gives you infinite mana. You can then keep on wheeling your hands away until you find your win condition.
Now, it would seem on the surface that this deck would only need 2 colors. After all, your key cards are Echo of Eons and Smothering Tithe. But after some playtesting, I’ve come to the conclusion that this deck requires 5 colors to succeed. You need Blue for your main wheel Echo of Eons, but also additional wheels in Commit // Memory, and an additional wincon in Narset, Parter of Veils. White gives you access to the coveted Smothering Tithe and also opens up the possibility for a lot of good sideboard cards. Red is necessary as it gives us access to another wheel in Reforge the Soul, and Faithless Looting which lets us pitch Echo of Eons and gives us the all-important flashback. Green is important as without it, the deck usually gets overrun before it can even cast Smothering Tithe, so having ramp in Birds of Paradise and Farseek helps a ton. Finally, black is the least important color, but in my testing getting to 20 for a Grapeshot gets progressively harder as more wheels get exiled to various effects, and you can kill the opponent much faster with Fate Unraveler. Or you can cut the one of entirely, and just hope to shuffle your Lightning Bolts back in 7 times.
With all of that said, this deck has some serious issues. Narset is a nonbo with Smothering Tithes, and if she’s out when you cast a wheel you’re only getting one treasure token. You’re only form of interaction in game one is 4 Lighting Bolts which can only go so far. This deck is extremely weak to Rest in Peace and Stony Silence, and the fastest you can kill is turn 4 which is proving to be too slow in Modern these days. However, if you are ok with all of these downsides, this deck can have extremely explosive turns where you draw your entire deck, shuffle it all back in, and do it again. Narset can completely ruin someone’s day with a wheel, and you can randomly rip a Reforge the Soul and turn everything around. This is a really fun deck to rent or proxy and can be a good deck to pull out when Timmy wants to play his mono-green stompy deck that he built yesterday. Thank you all for reading, I hope you have a great week and an amazing Tuesday!
Link to Decklist: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2035162#paper
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