In this week’s experiment, we make the most of Nylea’s blessing after enduring her ordeal with a slew of +1/+1 counters.

• Ordeal of Purphoros simulates a Lightning Bolt, which costs 1 mana. That’s not totally fair, though, as Lightning Bolt is notoriously powerful. Let’s use Searing Spear or Lightning Strike instead, both of which cost 2 mana.
• Ordeal of Erebos is like a Mind Rot, which costs 3 mana.
• Ordeal of Nylea is like a Divination or Counsel of the Soratami, which cost 3 mana.
• Ordeal of Heliod throws us for a loop, as there are no one-shot sorceries that grant 10 life. Heroes' Reunion, though, gives 7 life for 2 mana, and it’s among the more powerful life-gain-only spells—but it still isn’t considered playable in most (if any) formats.
• Ordeal of Nylea is like an Explosive Vegetation, which costs 4 mana.

So, apart from the Ordeal of Heliod throwing off our game, it appears that the green entrant into this cycle is worth the most virtual mana, historical precedents considered. And just as Primeval Titan was originally considered the worst of the Titans but was later discovered to be the best, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ordeal of Nylea proving itself in one or more Constructed formats in the future.

Of course, other Ordeals do have advantages over our green friend, as they lend themselves more readily to particular strategies. Notably, the Ordeals encourage low-cost creatures attacking early and often, which means dealing 3 damage and/or drawing two cards may be more valuable than searching up more lands for our deck full of low-cost spells. But that just means we need to build a deck that really values the lands and a deck that can frequently trigger the Ordeal.

Like Clockwork

From there, I knew I wanted a 1-drop that came with its own +1/+1 counters. Experiment One and Rakdos Cackler immediately came to mind, but what I really wanted was something with two counters to immediately fire off the Ordeal. (Well, it would be turn three, but I consider that immediate under the circumstances.)

I love it when specific needs like these turn up otherwise-unplayable cards, such as when my Rakdos, Lord of Riots deck let me play with Judgment’s Goretusk Firebeast. In this case, a Gatherer search for 1-mana creatures with counters turned up Icatian Javelineer. But that wasn’t useful at all. I don’t even know why I mentioned it.

However, the search also reminded me of Clockwork Beetle, a terrible Mirrodin artifact creature that loses a +1/+1 counter at the end of each combat in which it attacked or blocked. To make up for this, it starts with 2 +1/+1 counters of its own.

That means, after dropping a Clockwork Beetle and turn one and enchanting it with Ordeal of Nylea on turn two, we can attack on turn three and immediately fire off the Ordeal’s reward. That will potentially mean we have access to 6 mana on turn four. Of course, we can’t always count on having our one-two-mana punch, so we’ll include the aforementioned Experiment One and Rakdos Cackler for when we don’t have the Beetle and are willing to wait another turn to set up.

And we also won’t always have Ordeal of Nylea, but we’ll be building the deck around taking advantage of a bunch of mana, so we want other ways to fetch lands. Since the rest of the deck will be Modern-legal (though probably not Modern-competitive), I’ve foregone Explosive Vegetation in favor of Ranger's Path, and two copies of Farseek will help us keep up for cheaper.

The Most Monstrous

Ember Swallower is a powerful, monstrous creature that can reward us heavily for having so many lands. If we make a lot early and then activate its monstrosity superpower, we can deny our opponent of three lands when he or she only had, say, five—while we had already built up to seven. It’s big game when the opponent has only two lands while we have four lands and a 7/8.

Polukranos, World Eater is another great monstrosity that can make good use of a lot of mana, potentially clearing a significant portion of the enemy’s board, especially if he or she only has a couple of low drops while we have 7 or more mana.

Finally, on the creature front, I’ve included a couple copies of Kalonian Hydra in the list. With all the +1/+1 counters running rampant, doubling them seems in order. In addition, the Clockwork Beetle does little more than enable our turn-three popped Ordeal—it would die shortly after with a couple combats under its belt—but with this Hydra around, we can continually double the Beetle’s counters to keep it around and ticking. And depending on how many counters it had when it started, it could even be growing larger in the process.

Who Walk

To that end, I’ve included a few copies of Garruk: two Garruk, Caller of Beasts and one Garruk, Primal Hunter. These expensive Garruks can refuel our hands, giving us plenty more beef to crush our opponents. I’ve also included one Primeval Bounty—while it’s not a planeswalker, it can act as one, granting huge benefits each turn over the course of many turns. Unfortunately for us, it doesn’t trigger when we place a free green creature with Garruk, Caller of Beasts, but it does trigger from lands entering the battlefield, so we can gain all the life with our Ranger's Paths and Ordeals.

In All the Land

Speaking of Primeval Titan, part of what made this guy so powerful in Standard were the impressive lands he could fetch—especially in combination with each other. One of these lands also interacts quite well with the mana we’re expecting to generate. Kessig Wolf Run produces only colorless mana, but it can use our overflowing mana to turn even small creatures, such as Clockwork Beetle and Rakdos Cackler, into large, trampling threats.

A 1/1 with flying and infect would be another potent Wolf Run target, so we have a couple copies of Inkmoth Nexus for Primeval Titan to fetch to help us end games in the air and/or against opponents with extremely high life totals.

The final land to cover is Copperline Gorge. While Clockwork Beetle has no colored mana requirement, Experiment One and Rakdos Cackler will be asking for different colors on turn one, and Copperline Gorge is among the few dual lands capable of offering either red or green that early.

"Clockwork Hero"

• Creatures (22)
• 2 Kalonian Hydra
• 3 Ember Swallower
• 4 Experiment One
• 4 Primeval Titan
• 4 Rakdos Cackler
• 4 Clockwork Beetle
• 1 Polukranos, World Eater

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
• 2 Garruk, Caller of Beasts

• Spells (11)
• 2 Farseek
• 4 Ranger's Path
• 1 Primeval Bounty
• 4 Ordeal of Nylea

• Lands (24)
• 4 Mountain
• 7 Forest
• 1 Dryad Arbor
• 1 Kessig Wolf Run
• 1 Sapseep Forest
• 2 Inkmoth Nexus
• 4 Copperline Gorge
• 4 Stomping Ground

Buy This Deck

If you like search-for-two-land effects as much as I do, you might have also been excited to see Ordeal of Nylea, and you might have also had an idea like this. I think Clockwork Beetle is what really makes this deck exciting—maybe not Pro Tour–level powerful, but exciting. If you play in a more casual Modern environment, give this—or something like it—a shot, and let me know how it goes!

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com