When Birthing Pod was legal, it was the dominant deck in Modern for many months, with the biggest question being whether you wanted to play the Abzan with the then-combo of Melira, Sylvok Outcast plus persist tricks or Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Restoration Angel. Since Birthing Pod was banned, we’ve seen a couple of variations on Four-Color Chord of Calling decks with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, as well as Abzan Collected Company decks as spiritual successors to Birthing Pod. However, both of those decks have weaknesses that the predecessor did not. Specifically, the Naya builds frequently lack card advantage, while the Collected Company builds can lack sufficient selection. This week, Conley Woods has an interesting take on this style of deck which takes the Kiki-Chord shell and adds a powerful, off the wall card advantage engine. Let’s take a look:

Four-Color Beck-Chord ? Modern | Conley Woods

• Creatures (24)
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Izzet Staticaster
• 1 Restoration Angel
• 2 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
• 3 Thraben Doomsayer
• 4 Birds of Paradise
• 4 Hunted Phantasm
• 4 Nest Invader
• 4 Noble Hierarch

• Instants (7)
• 3 Sprout Swarm
• 4 Chord of Calling

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Intruder Alarm

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 Aether Vial

• Lands (17)
• 1 Island
• 1 Cascade Bluffs
• 1 Inspiring Vantage
• 1 Mana Confluence
• 2 Khalni Garden
• 2 Seachrome Coast
• 2 Yavimaya Coast
• 3 Botanical Sanctum
• 4 Forbidden Orchard

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The difference is this: rather than packing the rest of the deck full of midrangey value creatures, Conley has added further combo engines to see just how crazy things can get. The two cards in question are Beck // Call and Intruder Alarm. Beck // Call is the most straightforward combo piece, since it’s just there as a means of letting you generate extra cards. If you can lead off with some mana creatures, Beck // Call lets you turn Forbidden Orchard activations and additional cheap creatures into extra cards, which is great in a deck that needs a lot of resources. In particular, this combos with Hunted Phantasm to net you six new cards.

Intruder Alarm is an interesting combo piece because it lets you generate infinite creatures in conjunction with Thraben Doomsayer and Sprout Swarm, as well as letting you generate plenty of mana to cast additional creatures if you lead off with a handful of mana creatures. However, the really interesting things start happening when you combine these pieces.

It’s not especially hard to imagine leading off with mana creatures into Intruder Alarm. Then a follow-up turn could start with Beck // Call and Hunted Phantasm to draw six cards and untap all of your mana creatures six times. Any further creatures and Forbidden Orchard activations will net you more cards and mana while you dig through your deck looking for Sprout Swarm to go infinite and draw your deck, or just the natural Kiki-Jiki combo.

All in all, this is a cool deck with a lot going on. The upside to this style of deck is that much of your gameplan doesn’t really care about Fatal Push, which is the premier removal spell in the format. Abrupt Decay is less common than it used to be, which makes Intruder Alarm much safer. The sheer number of mana- or card-positive interactions in this deck is staggering, and the seeming randomness of it all can make it difficult for opponents to identify key points where they can interact, including how to sideboard against you. If you’re looking for a wacky deck that can combo hard, this deck certainly fits the bill.