You may have noticed that between Guild theme weeks, my articles since starting these columns have covered Commander, Standard, and Pauper. If you didn’t notice, I certainly won’t be offended; I actually just noticed the trend as I was writing the Scrapyard Salvo article a couple weeks back. But I figured: Why not keep with the trend this week and delve into Modern? I doubt I’ll keep up the cross-format momentum, as that would lead me to such maligned places as Extended and Block, but we’ll see.

One Magic love I haven’t had a chance to capture so far in an article is my love of Auras. Many players directly associate Auras with card disadvantage, and that’s a hard point of view to argue with, but there’s something intrinsically fun about suiting up a creature and assembling your own monstrosity—or work of art.

Conscripting through the Rift

The first thing an Aura deck needs is Auras. I guess creatures to put the Auras on are good, too. I could see starting with creatures. But we’re going to start with the Auras.

Boom! Those are some serious business. But they’re also kind of expensive. I wonder if there’s a way to avoid paying mana for them. I know!

Scour the Lore Hedron

With the ability to bring back a bunch of Auras from our graveyard, we need some ways to put them there. Tome Scour and Hedron Crab are some great options for just . Aww . . . what a cute, spiky little Crab with his hedron toy. If only he knew the fate that we had in store from him. Ahh, the secrets of the hedron he’ll discover indeed.

With those two to do the work of milling, these can help us reach some consistency in case we mill our Retethers instead of drawing them:

Tethering It all Together

"Retether Mill"

• Creatures (9)
• 1 Academy Researchers
• 2 Birds of Paradise
• 2 Eternal Witness
• 4 Hedron Crab

• Spells (27)
• 1 Memory's Journey
• 1 Call to Mind
• 4 Retether
• 4 Tome Scour
• 1 Daybreak Coronet
• 1 Drake Umbra
• 1 Mammoth Umbra
• 1 Mind Control
• 1 Spirit Loop
• 1 Spirit Mantle
• 1 Verdant Embrace
• 2 Auramancer's Guise
• 2 Faith's Fetters
• 2 Flight of Fancy
• 2 Shielding Plax
• 2 Eldrazi Conscription

• Lands (24)
• 3 Forest
• 3 Plains
• 4 Island
• 1 Glacial Fortress
• 1 Razorverge Thicket
• 4 Khalni Garden
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 4 Seaside Citadel

Buy This Deck

Yeah, I just went ahead and jumped into the decklist there. I didn’t spend a ton of time on card choices this week because I want to try something different by actually playing some games and sharing with you directly how this deck plays out.

However, there are a couple notes I’ll breeze through:

• Khalni Garden enters the battlefield tapped, which is kind of rough, but it offers additional creatures for enchanting while also giving the deck the ability to provide chump-blockers to buy time.
• The dual lands mostly reflect what my Magic Online collection consists of, but fetch lands of some form are somewhat important to trigger the Crabs. (Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds are fine stand-ins.)
• I’ve had an awkward relationship with Daybreak Coronet since it was released in Future Sight. It’s not even particularly great in an Aura deck because if none of your creatures are enchanted when you cast your Retether, the Coronet won’t be able to return. (No creature was enchanted before the Retether started resolving, so no creature is eligible according to its enchant keyword requirement.) If you want to return a Daybreak Coronet, make sure at least one of your creatures has at least one Aura before you Retether.
• Neither Faith's Fetters nor Mind Control is a card you want to put on your own creatures necessarily, but they can both come back from a Retether, making that sorcery’s resolution that much more impactful. You can Retether one of these just to stay alive if need be. Note that while Faith's Fetters can enchant any permanent, if you return it with a Retether, you won’t be able to put it on anything other than a creature because of Retether’s text. If you happen to have no creatures, feel free to suit up an opponent’s creature as long as one of the Auras you’re suiting it up with is a Mind Control.

With all that out of the way, let’s take this baby to the Just For Fun room on Magic Online.

Game 1 Versus Mulligan Man

I won the die roll and chose to play first. I kept my hand, and my opponent mulliganed to six. He then conceded.

Good game!

Game 2 Versus No-Response Bant

My starting hand was quite good: Hedron Crab, Tome Scour, Verdant Embrace, Retether, Island, Misty Rainforest, Forest. This is a great hand because it has only one semi-dead card (Verdant Embrace), and it has multiple millers and a Retether. Great starting hands have mill components and either Retether or a way to rebuy one (Eternal Witness or Call to Mind).

I played my Island and then Tome Scour (targeting me!). I prefer to play Hedron Crabs on turn two for the immediate land follow-up, and having Tome Scour to fill that turn-one gap is just great. The only Aura I milled was Mammoth Umbra.

My opponent played a tapped Temple Garden, and it was back to me.

I drew Birds of Paradise, cast Hedron Crab, and played Misty Rainforest. With not too many basic lands in the deck, I like to sacrifice fetch lands before the Crab’s trigger resolves, thus avoiding the unfortunate scenario in which I mill the only remaining copy of a land I was looking for. Six more cards in my graveyard later, I had a Forest and cast my fresh Bird. These mill triggers were heartbreakers, as the only Aura was a Faith's Fetters, and both of my Eternal Witnesses vanished into the dead zone. That would have been worse if I hadn’t already been holding my key sorcery.

I drew Glacial Fortress and played it, milling Auramancer's Guise and Spirit Mantle. The four Auras in my graveyard weren’t a great bundle, and my opponent had 2 mana open, but I went for it anyway. I cast Retether, and my opponent didn’t counter it. I put Faith's Fetters on my Birds of Paradise. Darn. I had to put it somewhere, and hey, at least I could still tap it for mana later on. Spirit Mantle, Mammoth Umbra, and Auramancer's Guise went on the Hedron Crab, making it a 10/12 with vigilance and protection from creatures. Expecting a removal spell at every priority pass, I was relieved to see my opponent’s life drop to 10 from the Crab’s attack. At the end of my turn, he finally tapped his lands, but they were only for a Think Twice.

He played a Forest on his turn and conceded, giving me the, “ff,” though I suspect he meant, “gg,” and I “Good Game”d him back.

That was quite a good draw for the deck, and I’m not unhappy to have been able to showcase it in the article. I have to imagine it can only be downhill from here. Let’s see.

Game 3 Versus Skeleton Tribal

This game, I mulliganed and kept Glacial Fortress, Seaside Citadel, two Misty Rainforest, Auramancer's Guise, and Flight of Fancy. Clearly, this is not a great hand. It has no creatures, mill cards, or Retethers. It’s just lands and Auras. But, hey, this is Just For Fun!

My opponent played a Swamp and cast a Duty-Bound Dead. I drew a second Seaside Citadel, played one, and passed back. My opponent played another Swamp and cast Augur of Skulls, and he then attacked for 1 with Duty-Bound Dead and its exalted superpower. I drew another land—Razorverge Thicket—and played another Citadel.

My opponent sacrificed his Augur of Skulls during his upkeep, and I discarded Misty Rainforest and Auramancer's Guise. I kept the Flight of Fancy, as it is often useful as an expensive Divination. My opponent then played a Spawning Pool and cast a Reassembling Skeleton. It was at this point when I realized what I was up against . . . Skeletons. Skeleton tribal. Beautiful.

I drew Tome Scour, played Razorverge Thicket, and cast Tome Scour on myself. Among the new cards in my graveyard were Spirit Mantle, Verdant Embrace, and Drake Umbra. Not bad! Also was a Retether. While it might feel kinda bad to mill a key card, it’s actually a good thing because it means instead of having four live draws (four Retethers), I now had six (three Retethers, two Eternal Witness, and Call to Mind).

I drew Call to Mind, which was quite fortuitous, and I played Misty Rainforest and sacrificed it for an Island, then cast Flight of Fancy on his Reassembling Skeleton. I could have cast Call to Mind for Retether right there, but with no creatures to enchant, I didn’t want to show my hand and remind him to keep up for his artifact. I chose to give flying to the Skeleton of the reassembling variety rather than to the one of the duty-bound variety in case it did turn into an attrition war. A flying regenerator could be tough (though I did have Spirit Mantle; oh well), whereas if he sacrificed the Reassembling Skeleton to play to its strength, that would mean a Retether could return the Flight of Fancy and draw me two more cards. As it was, the cards I drew were Retether and Eternal Witness. Not bad at all! Now all I wanted was a Hedron Crab.

My opponent paid 1 life and drew an extra card with his Arena, then tapped out to play Coat of Arms. Skeleton tribal indeed! He attacked for 3—still not quite a scary clock considering the powerhouse he’d just played.

And then I drew the Hedron Crab. Luck certainly seemed to be on my side for article-writing night! I cast the Crab and then played my untapped Glacial Fortress, and I milled . . . nothing of import. I was really hoping for an Eldrazi Conscription there. But I gave myself another chance as I cast Eternal Witness and returned Tome Scour, then cast it. With a Retether and a Call to Mind still in hand, there was no need to be greedy for Aura-reanimating effects. The only Aura the Tome Scour milled was Daybreak Coronet. Ahh, my fickle friend.

I drew a Forest, which made me happy, as it meant I could mill three more cards. Those cards were Tome Scour, Tome Scour, and Seaside Citadel. Ugh. But I hadn’t done the math, and I didn’t really have any other options, so I went ahead and cast the Retether.

Drake Umbra, Verdant Embrace, Spirit Mantle, and Auramancer's Guise all returned to the battlefield attached to my Crab, making it a 15/17 with vigilance, flying, and protection from creatures. However, the only creature that was enchanted before Retether was my opponent’s tapped, flying Reassembling Skeleton, which meant I had no choice but to attach Daybreak Coronet to the Skeleton. I attacked for 15, and my opponent dropped to 3.

If the Coronet had been any other Aura, I’d have won then and there (Auramancer's Guise and Phyrexian Arena would have dealt with the last 3 points), but instead, my opponent activated his Spawning Pool and cast Tragic Slip on my Witness just as slaps in the face, as even with my new Saproling token (from Verdant Embrace), I would have taken at least 4 from just the four creatures he’d had on the battlefield.

But there’s no shame in losing—especially to the ferocious Skeleton tribal. I just hope next time the little Crab will unlock the secrets of his hedron toy.

That Crab would never be the same.

Until next time, I’m Andrew saying, “May you one day know the joy of annihilating your foe with Crabs.”

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com