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This past week, I had the pleasure of playing a 14 year old throwback card that can be ridiculously fun to build around. It wasn't my first time playing it in Modern, but I hadn't warped any worlds in a long time. For those that don't know, people who are interested in supporting my stream can donate to have me play and critique their deck, be it Modern, Standard, Legacy, whatever. (This was actually how that sweet Golos deck came to be!) Some time last year, my buddy Adam G. reached out, telling me that once he got his finances in order, he was going to do exactly that and hit me up with a sweet Warp World deck in Modern that he was partial to. Last week we finally got to play the work of art. Ha!
This was the list Adam submitted for me to try:
Warp World | Modern | Adam G.
- Creatures (25)
- 1 Ogre Battledriver
- 2 Eternal Witness
- 3 Elvish Visionary
- 3 Siege-Gang Commander
- 4 Arbor Elf
- 4 Goblin Rabblemaster
- 4 Lotus Cobra
- 4 Primeval Titan
- Sorceries (3)
- 3 Warp World
- Enchantments (7)
- 3 Blood Moon
- 4 Utopia Sprawl
- Lands (25)
- 4 Mountain
- 6 Forest
- 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
- 3 Rootbound Crag
- 3 Windswept Heath
- 4 Stomping Ground
- 4 Wooded Foothills
- Sideboard (15)
- 3 Damping Sphere
- 3 Leyline of Sanctity
- 3 Obstinate Baloth
- 3 Reclamation Sage
- 3 Vexing Shusher
The basic idea, for those who aren't familiar with the deck, is to amass permanents, making sure to have significantly more than your opponent, then cast Warp World. This is why, you may notice, the deck is literally all permanents other than the four copies of Warp World.
Say you have 13 permanents in play. This then gives you 13 new permanents, which could be things like Eternal Witness, Primeval Titan, or Siege-Gang Commander, giving you even more permanents. And considering that your lands will all enter the battlefield untapped - and you could have even more mana with a Lotus Cobra in play - it's likely you'll be able to Warp World again if you manage to get it back with Eternal Witness or had a second copy in hand. It's very similar to the old "Tooth and Nail / Primal Command, get Eternal Witness, get Tooth and Nail / Primal Command back" loop.
Despite being a deck that revolves around an eight-mana, Red sorcery, it's capable of some really explosive plays and wins out of nowhere. I'll be including some videos of our matches below, so be sure to check those out! There were some bonkers games, and multiple Stoneforge Mystics didn't really stand a chance (chances?) You get it.
I loved a lot of the deck, but after playing a couple matches, we made some slight-yet-significant changes.
Goblin Rabblemaster into Seasoned Pyromancer
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This change turned out to be great. The problem with the Rabblemaster was he was too aggressive. You had to attack with the tokens, which made me think Legion War Boss might have been better, but then I knew the card selection provided by the Pyromancer was exactly what we were looking for. It let us discard excess lands or copies of Warp World that we drew too early, while also getting defensive bodies that we could Warp World away later in the game. We could also use it again from the graveyard if we had time, to make even more permanents.
Adam also initially mentioned that the Blood Moons were a hedge against Tron, but I didn't love such a do-nothing card in the main deck when we had such an expensive plan to be enacting (even though Blood Moon can very easily win out of nowhere). Initially we tried replacing them with Tireless Tracker, which seemed amazing, and when you Warp World, you get all the Clue tokens from all the lands you hit, but ultimately we decided on this swap:
Blood Moon into Courser of Kruphix
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One thing we kept wanting to do was hit land drops consistently, not draw too many lands, gain life, and stay alive. Both Courser of Kruphix and Seasoned Pyromancer helped us out a lot with these goals. The deck also had 25 lands, and I felt like we were getting flooded quite a bit (despite wanting 8 mana), so we cut the maindeck Boseiju, Who Shelters All, and added the fourth Courser of Kruphix. This also gave us a little more game against Burn, even though it meant our Warp World was more readily available to be countered now by decks that were able to do so.
The one-of Ogre Battledriver is pretty sweet. It's not a card you're always going to hit, but if you do, you should manage to win the game. +2/+0 to all the tokens from a Siege-Gang Commander or giving a Primeval Titan Haste is no joke. This also works really well with Seasoned Pyromancer when it's potentially making three bodies immediately. That being said, the only time we actually "warped" into it, was the time we cast Warp World post combat, because we wanted the extra permanents from attacking with Primeval Titan, and every other time we...Warped Worlds...we basically won on the spot anyway. I'm not sure if we should cut the Battledriver to make way for something else that could help our strategy, but I'm not opposed to it.
This was the list we finally ended up at:
Warp World | Modern | Frank Lepore
- Creatures (28)
- 1 Ogre Battledriver
- 2 Eternal Witness
- 3 Elvish Visionary
- 3 Seasoned Pyromancer
- 3 Siege-Gang Commander
- 4 Arbor Elf
- 4 Courser of Kruphix
- 4 Lotus Cobra
- 4 Primeval Titan
- Sorceries (4)
- 4 Warp World
- Enchantments (4)
- 4 Utopia Sprawl
- Lands (24)
- 4 Mountain
- 6 Forest
- 3 Rootbound Crag
- 3 Windswept Heath
- 4 Stomping Ground
- 4 Wooded Foothills
- Sideboard (15)
- 3 Blood Moon
- 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
- 2 Damping Sphere
- 3 Leyline of Sanctity
- 3 Obstinate Baloth
- 3 Reclamation Sage
One thing Adam mentioned after the fact, which we both overlooked, is that Wall of Blossoms is now in Modern, and actually a pretty decent replacement for Elvish Visionary as a two-mana creature that can draw you a card. It's a great replacement, but keep in mind that it can't attack if you hit it off of a Warp World into an Ogre Battledriver, which does seem like a small concession for the early game defenses.
Another card I was considering was something like Glorybringer. It's a great way to remove opposing threats that may pop up when you Warp World and don't immediately win on the spot. It's also a card that can close out a game if we manage to hit, say, two of them. A dragon package in general, with something like Thundermaw Hellkite or the like, could be a great way to close out games, or something like a couple copies of Inferno Titan. Again, as I mentioned with the Battledriver, I'm not sure if we need it, but hasty threats could prevent our opponent's from getting any extra turns.
The last card I considered was something like Khalni Garden. I don't love the fact that the lands are going to be entering the battlefield tapped here, but I do love that they create a free creature for us to either warp away, or, you know, help us survive long enough to see casting a Warp World.
As I mentioned, if you want to see the deck in sweet, sweet action, look no further! There were some great games in the series, and don't be deterred by our rocky start.
This deck was a blast, and our record, especially against powerful decks with Stoneforge Mystic, was pretty encouraging. I always like to say that Modern is a format where you can basically play whatever you like, and have a good chance of winning, and this deck felt like no exception. As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments, as there are always cards we could have overlooked when we're putting a deck together like this. Thank you all so much for reading, I love you, and I'll catch you next week!
Frank Lepore
