The combination of Devoted Druid and Vizier of Remedies has proven itself to be a solid roleplayer in Modern, but not much more than that. When the combo was first discovered, people were jamming four copies of both pieces into all manner of Collected Company and Chord of Calling decks. These days, you'll often see one or two Viziers just to give decks the option of going infinite. That said, the combo is very powerful, and both pieces are relatively cheap. It seems like there ought to be a fast combo deck that prominently features this combo. This weekend, Matusgan may have shown us what a fast infinite combo might look like:
Turbo Vizier - Modern | Matsugan, 1st Modern Challenge
- Creatures (17)
- 1 Deadshot Minotaur
- 1 Duskwatch Recruiter
- 1 Wild Cantor
- 2 Walking Ballista
- 4 Devoted Druid
- 4 Street Wraith
- 4 Vizier of Remedies
- Instants (9)
- 1 Manamorphose
- 4 Pact of Negation
- 4 Summoner's Pact
- Sorceries (15)
- 1 Postmortem Lunge
- 2 Commune with Nature
- 4 Adventurous Impulse
- 4 Ancient Stirrings
- 4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
- Artifacts (5)
- 1 Conjurer's Bauble
- 4 Mishra's Bauble
- Lands (14)
- 1 Forest
- 1 Misty Rainforest
- 2 Horizon Canopy
- 2 Temple Garden
- 2 Verdant Catacombs
- 2 Wooded Foothills
- 4 Hall of the Bandit Lord
- Sideboard (15)
- 1 Defense Grid
- 1 Dissenter's Deliverance
- 4 Mystic Enforcer
- 4 Path to Exile
- 2 Postmortem Lunge
- 2 Reclamation Sage
- 1 Slaughter Pact
At a glance, this deck looks like a pretty strange pile of cards, but eventually the pieces start to fall into place. The core idea is to assemble the combination of Hall of the Bandit Lord, Devoted Druid, and Vizier of Remedies in the first couple turns of the game. From there, you can use a hasty Devoted Druid to make infinite mana and kill your opponent with a Walking Ballista.
So how do you assemble the combo quickly enough to sneak in underneath opposing interaction? You've got a high density of cantrips that can dig for various combo pieces, ranging from Ancient Stirrings to find Walking Ballista or Hall of the Bandit Lord or Adventurous Impulse and Commune with Nature to find your Viziers and Druids. You also have Street Wraith and Mishra's Bauble to power Traverse the Ulvenwald to find your Hall of the Bandit Lord or combo pieces. You even have Pact of Negation to ensure that you can force through your combo even in the face of interaction.
One of the most exciting things about this deck is the suite of cards you can go get with your Summoner's Pact. Wild Cantor serves as pseudo-fixing in case you need to cast a Postmortem Lunge or Vizier of Remedies. Duskwatch Recruiter gives you a mana sink for infinite mana that allows you to find a Walking Ballista and end the game. Deadshot Minotaur is a cheap way to draw a card or stock your graveyard for Traverse the Ulvenwald. All of this flexibility and we haven't touched on the fact that you can splash all manner of hateful sideboard cards from Reclamation Sage to Scavenging Ooze.
If your opponents are assuming that games will be fair and go on for at least a couple of turns, maybe it's time to show them just how degenerate Modern can be and bring a deck that can win as early as the second turn of the game.