Back in 2016 Standard we had dual lands and fetch lands leading to some aggressive mana bases. This is a time when Khans of Tarkir pushed a wedge theme. To make deck nomenclature easier we named things after wedges and added a colorful adjective for four-color strategies. I was partial to Wet Abzan, myself.

Thanks to Modern's fetch+shock+triome mana bases it's once again feasible to play four colors. Ragavan's treasure makes it easier than ever. I've been a fan of Lurrus combined with efficient Modern staples for the last month. Aspiringspike began with Rakdos Lurrus which quickly adopted a splash; what happens when we add a fourth color?

My inspiration came from Eduardo Sajgalik's list he piloted to a 7-2 finish in a MODO Showcase Challenge a couple weeks ago. I present to you Moist Mardu:

This deck has everything I want: a colorful mana base combined with some of the strongest spells in Modern. At the core this is a Rakdos deck taking advantage of the best Red creatures (Ragavan and DRC) and Black hand disruption leaning on two extra colors for interaction.

Last week I mentioned a White splash would strain the Rakdos Lurrus mana base because Dauthi Voidwalker was still the best 2-drop available. Once you need to double-spell with Red cards, cast Dauthi Voidwalker early, and cast White cards it can get a little sketchy. I even felt uncomfortable playing the Plains due to Kroxa and Voidwalker, so I was also weak to Blood Moon.

The Blue splash enabled the best card advantage at two mana - Expressive Iteration. This actually made the mana better as you were effectively replacing Dauthi Voidwalker with a spell that cost two different colors.

White spells such as Prismatic Ending and Kaya's Guile allowed you to answer a wide variety of threats while Blue provided countermagic to fight uninteractive decks. It's only natural to take the Reese's approach and put them together.

Here's my current list:

Moist Mardu | Modern | Kyle Boggemes

• Companion (1)
• 1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den

• Creatures (12)
• 2 Snapcaster Mage
• 2 Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger
• 4 Dragon's Rage Channeler
• 4 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer

• Instants (12)
• 2 Drown in the Loch
• 2 Kaya's Guile
• 2 Kolaghan's Command
• 2 Unholy Heat
• 4 Lightning Bolt

• Sorceries (11)
• 1 Thoughtseize
• 3 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 3 Prismatic Ending
• 4 Expressive Iteration

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 Mishra's Bauble

• Lands (21)
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Swamp
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 1 Raugrin Triome
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Watery Grave
• 3 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 3 Marsh Flats
• 3 Scalding Tarn
• 4 Bloodstained Mire

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den
• 1 Nihil Spellbomb
• 1 Alpine Moon
• 2 Wear // Tear
• 2 Aether Gust
• 2 Engineered Explosives
• 1 Kolaghan's Command
• 1 Kaya's Guile
• 2 Flusterstorm
• 1 Terminate
• 1 Thoughtseize

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I didn't make many changes to Eduardo's list as it already had a proven track record in the Showcase Challenge and makes a lot of sense in theory and practice. If you take one thing away from this article it's that the mana base is good. There have been multiple pilots with good records; none of them had structural issues with the lands.

The Spells

Rakdos Lurrus began with seven hand disruption spells because there were only two colors to find interaction. Mardu Lurrus needed to also lean on hand disruption because Modern is full of uninteractive decks. The Blue splash allows us to cast Drown in the Loch as well as Flusterstorm and Aether Gust in the board to fight combo. For this reason, I only play four discard spells maindeck. A single Thoughtseize in the main prevents me from drawing too many when I am reliant on shock lands.

There are plenty of options for early removal spells. It's not a given that I should play a set of Lightning Bolt because Unholy Heat is so powerful. There's a chance I want a 3-3 split if Amulet Titan picks up in popularity. For now, I'll go with ol' faithful as it's hard to go wrong with four Lightning Bolt.

Unholy Heat is often at odds with Prismatic Ending because there's only so much room for removal. Prismatic Ending is able to deal with Rest in Peace, Sanctifier en-Vec, Amulet of Vigor, and Sigarda's Aid.

Unholy Heat and Prismatic Ending help cover two bases on the opposite ends of the spectrum. Heat can kill expensive creatures while Ending removes cheap, resilient threats.

Since Drown in the Loch is also better at killing small creatures I wanted to play just three Prismatic Ending to make room for a second Unholy Heat. It's also tricky to double-spell with White cards because it's the least important color. I begin with Raugrin Triome and Grixis shock lands when possible.

The more expensive removal has diminishing returns so I play a split. Kolaghan's Command and Kaya's Guile are both very powerful spells, but a 21-land deck can't play too many of each.

Kaya's Guile removes the need to maindeck Terminate for Murktide Regent like Grixis Lurrus plays. It can in theory deal with Sanctifier en-Vec, but Hammertime plays so many 0-mana creatures that will be sacrifice fodder and it gets boarded out for Wear // Tear. Remember it's not always a good move to exile the opponent's graveyard as it can power down Drown in the Loch.

Kolaghan's Command helps cover your bases against Chalice of the Void. You can also be more aggressive at putting Lurrus into your hand and plays well with Snapcaster Mage. It's the best maindeck interaction against Hammertime.

Recall that Grixis Lurrus playing three Kolaghan's Command meant there are so many ways to recur a dead Ragavan the fourth copy isn't warranted. I actively want to play four Ragavan because the treasures making any color of mana is helpful to fix your early turns.

To make room for the second Kaya's Guile there are only two Snapcaster Mage. This would be sacrilege in Grixis Lurrus as Snap plays so well with Kolaghan's Command, but you can afford to trim in Moist Mardu. The post board games involve leaving up Blue mana to counter scary combo cards; Snapcaster needs two Blue which can be a bottleneck with only three sources - Steam Vents, Watery Grave, and Raugrin Triome.

Despite playing four colors it's definitely correct to play four Expressive Iteration. When combined with four Mishra's Bauble and four Ragavan there are enough reasons to only play twenty-one mana sources. The mana curve is still very lean despite there being plenty of big spells. I don't want the deck to be too chunky because Lurrus and Kroxa provide enough mana sinks.

There are two Kroxa because Moist Mardu has more tapout elements compared to Grixis Lurrus. It's an extremely potent threat in Lurrus mirrors as most versions don't have a way to exile it. In general, Moist Mardu is likely the best version to play if you expect plenty of fair decks. I would still favor Grixis Lurrus if you expect being bottlenecked on Blue mana will be an issue.

The Mana

At a high level we're playing a fetch+shock+triome mana base. There are ten fetch lands and eleven mana-producing lands.

All ten fetches can find Raugrin Triome which is a land I have yet to cycle as adding three different colors is important to making the deck function with a low land count. There are plenty of cheap spells to cast so there is enough time to have a land enter the battlefield tapped.

The best dual land to pair with Raugrin Triome produces Rakdos colors. This enables you to cast Expressive Iteration, Drown in the Loch, Kroxa, or cast two Red spells in the same turn. For this reason, all ten fetch lands can find Blood Crypt and my remaining lands are Blackcleave Cliffs. I would play a fourth Cliffs, but I need more of the other colors.

The Raugrin Triome + Rakdos dual land combo covering all of my color requirements means there isn't a compelling reason to play Savai Triome. At that point two lands always entering the battlefield tapped can get dicey.

It's possible to pair Savai Triome with Darkslick Shores or Spirebluff Canal, but Blackcleave Cliffs casts the most 1-drops. There isn't much to do with a single Blue mana unless you add more counters.

There are eight fetchable lands: Raugrin Triome, two basics, and five shock lands. Bloodstained Mire finds all eight lands, meaning I want to save the best for last when possible. Marsh Flats and Scalding Tarn find a basic as well as each dual except their opposite color pair. Scalding Tarn can't find Godless Shrine and Marsh Flats can't find Steam Vents. I find myself counting the number of fetchable lands in play and graveyard to make sure I don't use a fetch for no reason.

A basic Plains would not work in this deck because it only casts Prismatic Ending for a single mana. I will likely have fetched Raugrin Triome by the time I need to cast Kaya's Guile. The only advantage a Plains would have is to help cast Ending while Blood Moon is in play. The issue with this is I would also need a Swamp on the battlefield to generate three colors of mana.

A basic Island is better than Plains, but I need a high density of dual lands to ensure I can cast spells of all four colors. I can cast Snapcaster Mage, Expressive Iteration, and Drown in the Loch, but the land does nothing by itself as I don't play any 1-drop Blue cards.

The biggest upside for a third basic land is the extra optionality when you don't want to grab an untapped shock land. Unfortunately, Plains or Island can only be found with Scalding Tarn or Marsh Flats.

Hallowed Fountain suffers the same drawbacks as Plains and Island. In most cases I would rather fetch Raugrin Triome as the Red mana casts Ragavan, DRC, and Kroxa. It's also the opposite color pair of Bloodstained Mire which would no longer find all of the lands.

The best way to play around Blood Moon is to prioritize hitting the opponent once with Ragavan and not sacrifice the treasure. This will bank the White mana needed to cast Prismatic Ending.

The Sideboard

Four colors provide plenty of optionality in the sideboard.

Wear // Tear is the best spell to bring in against Hammertime and is also quite good against Amulet Titan. Since there are so many colors to choose from, I don't need to play more than two as Kolaghan's Command offers a similar effect. Engineered Explosives is another option against Hammertime that also will typically cost three mana.

Alpine Moon is the third way to remove an Urza's Saga, but it doesn't cost three mana. You will notice a common theme of the sideboard is to play a few copies of a 3-drop that answers a variety of threats and a single, surgical, efficient answer to round it out.

Nihil Spellbomb has a similar role. There are three Kaya's Guile to exile the graveyard, but that can be taxing to hold up the interaction. A single spellbomb can be cast off Lurrus and help enable delirium. I like Spellbomb more than Soul-Guide Lantern. An upside to Lantern is the exile ability doesn't target to play around Leyline of Sanctity.

Aether Gust has been stellar for me in Grixis Lurrus and it can be supported in a four-color mana base, too. I want extra interaction against Burn and Blood Moon decks as having a painful mana base is the tradeoff for interacting against a wide range of threats.

Mystical Dispute can counter Murktide Regent, but I have had a lot of success with Flusterstorm. I had a cool line at my weekly tournament where I cast Snapcaster Mage that was intending to flash back Flusterstorm and then cast the Flusterstorm in response to him entering the battlefield to generate additional storm.

Engineered Explosives is just a great catch-all in Modern sideboards. Kolaghan's Command, Prismatic Ending, and Wear // Tear make it so I don't need a third copy which would mostly be desirable against Temur Rhinos. The fourth sunburst color won't come up often for EE because I'm boarding it in against decks with numerous cheap threats, but does come in handy with Prismatic Ending against 4-drops.

A single Terminate acts as the fourth Kaya's Guile against Murktide Regent without costing three mana. I also board it in against any other creature deck to increase the critical mass of interaction. Since I don't play Plains, Island, or Hallowed Fountain every land in the deck casts Terminate.

A Thoughtseize is a well-rounded piece of interaction against combo decks. To avoid playing too much blue countermagic a Thoughtseize will help ease the color constraints. There's also something to be said for playing enough proactive interaction with Expressive Iteration.

Moist Mardu's Place in the metagame

It's no secret that Ragavan/Lurrus decks are one of the most powerful things to be doing in Modern and players are beginning to adapt. I have seen more Tron and Burn on Magic Online which has a high chance of translating to a higher paper presence as well. This is because players already had these decks built in early 2020.

Moist Mardu is best in a fair metagame as it's able to handle every type of threat, but can have a hard time answering everything quickly as the shock lands can add up.

My favorite part about this deck is that it's 100% modern staples. Each card is very well-positioned in the metagame.

That's all I have for today. Thanks for reading!

-Kyle