R/b Land D

[rcwraspy]

I was playing around with what turned out to be a crappy mono-red deck at a recent Modern FNM. I tried to shove Blood Moon and Molten Rain in the mainboard of that deck. Obviously with just a few copies of Land D in the deck it was fairly pointless since you don't know when you'll hit it and by the time you do it's likely too late. There were many other problems with that deck too.

But it got me thinking about making a focused land destruction deck in Modern. Has anybody here looked into this type of build before? I have absolutely no sense of whether it could win a single game, but I like at the least the concept of it. Hoping more experienced Modern players can help flesh it out or tell me why I should give it up.

Here's my starting point:

[deck]
Creature (12)
4x Chandra's Phoenix
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Young Pyromancer

Instant (8)
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Terminate

Enchantment (4)
4x
Blood Moon

Sorcery (14)
4x Molten Rain
2x Peak Eruption
4x Rain of Tears
4x Stone Rain

Planeswalker (2)
2x Chandra, Pyromaster

Land (20)
4x Arid Mesa
4x Blackcleave Cliffs
4x Blood Crypt
3x Mountain
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Stomping Ground

Sideboard (15)
3x Boil
4x Cryoclasm
4x Leyline of Punishment
4x Leyline of the Void
[/deck]

Some observations:
1. The sideboard is really just placeholders.
2. I may want to put in a Sacred Foundry so I can bring in some white from the side
3. I like that Blood Moon makes everything a Mountain which, in addition to its normal hosing properties, lets you blow up any land with Peak Eruption
4. I like that many of the red based land D cards also deal damage to the opponent, which helps with Phoenix
5. I think I want Dark Confidant in here. Maybe -1 Rain of Tears, -1 Phoenix, -1 Blood Moon, +3 Bob.
6. This is obviously very heavy at the 3-drop slot, but hopefully DRS can help there
7. I'm not sure I have the right number of black sources for
a T1 DRS, will have to crunch those numbers

Other thoughts to consider:
- Having some hand disruption like Thoughtseize, IoK, Liliana to help slow them down before I can start blowing up lands
- Going into more of a Pox build. Smallpox blows up a land on T2 (but one of mine, too).

Any thoughts welcome. Thanks!

[rcwraspy]

Some tweaking and a new list:

[deck]
Creature (14)
3x Dark Confidant
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Fulminator Mage
3x Young Pyromancer

Instant (7)
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Terminate

Enchantment (3)
3x Blood Moon

Sorcery (16)
4x Molten Rain
2x Peak Eruption
4x Rain of Tears
2x Sowing Salt
4x Stone Rain

Land (20)
4x Arid Mesa
4x Blackcleave Cliffs
4x Blood Crypt
3x Mountain
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Stomping Ground

Sideboard (15)
3x Boil
4x Cryoclasm
4x Leyline of Punishment
4x Leyline of the Void
[/deck]

Changes:
-1 Terminate, -1 YP$, -1 Blood Moon, +3 Dark Confidant
-2 Chandra, +2 Sowing Salt
-4 Phoenix, +4 Fulminator Mage

[hamfactorial]

There's a huge tension between running Blood Moon with a 2-color mana base and no splash color basics. If you go Blood Moon, you need enough basics in there to naturally draw your 2nd color or off-color fetches (in this case, Marsh Flats and Verdant Catacombs).

Can you imagine drawing a Rain of Tears with a resolved Blood Moon? What about those Terminates or a mid-game Deathrite Shaman? DAGGERS.

A land destruction build wins by getting down a difficult to remove threat, then denying resources as it grows to inevitability.

I like the idea of both Blood Moon and land destruction in Modern, since many decks have very greedy mana bases (looking at you, Jund, UWR).

I put together an LD deck for lulz, picking mono-red for consistency and synergy with my main win-con -

[deck=<3 the D]
Lands:24
12 Mountain
4 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Ghost Quarter

nInstants:6
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Dismember

Sorceries:16
4 Boom // Bust
4 Molten Rain
4 Anger of the Gods
4 Sowing Salt

Artifacts:4
4 Shrine of Burning Rage

Enchantments:4
3 Blood Moon
1 Genju of the Spires

Planeswalkers:6
3 Koth of the Hammer
3 Chandra, Pyromaster

Sideboard:15[/deck]

The main win-con here is a resolved Shrine of Burning Rage, then a bunch of red LD to set your opponent back before they can deal with it. Most of the spells are red, so Shrine should get big quickly.

The deck packs a 3 CMC sweeper to deal with Pod, Affinity and possibly Zoo. Bolt and Dismember are there for spot removal of whatever sticks, and you sometimes need to kill a Goyf or a pro-red creature.

Boom // Bust has some play to it. You can use it to trade lands 1-for-1, but if you have a fetch in play, you can target your fetch with Boom, then crack the fetch in response to avoid losing your land.

Genju of the Spires can be a 6/1 threat on your side, or can be used with Chandra as
repeatable LD if a Blood Moon is in play. Attach to opponent's land, activate, ping for 1, get Genju back.

Koth and Chandra provide CA and inevitability.

Drop the fetches if you want, they're largely just for Boom // Bust trickery. 20 Mountain may be better.

[hamfactorial]

You could also make an excellent case for running Hammer of Purphoros instead of Koth, as it gives you another tricky way to play with Boom // Bust.

[rcwraspy]

awesome! Thanks, Ham. Exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for.

I had already thought to remove Terminate and make that 2x Bonfire (killing lands starting T3 doesn't help against Affinity, for example) and 1x something else. Dismember makes a lot of sense.

I absolutely see where you're coming from with Blood Moon and the black splash. I was banking on DRS being able to give any color, but of course he's a huge target and just about anything kills him. Plus I may not see him and can't afford to mulligan to just DRS hands. So changing the basic mountains to basic swamps and the fetches to black-based fetches makes sense. What to do with that singleton green source for DRS's other ability? Stomping Ground makes sense since it can cast DRS, activate that third ability, and can cast any of my red cards, which is the majority. But only Catacombs gets it, not Marsh Flats. Overgrown Tomb?

How does this look
for a mana base:
[deck]
lands
4 Blood Crypt
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Swamp
1 Overgrown Tomb
[/deck]

With fetches, scars land and crypts that's essentially 16 red sources and now everything can tap for black as well.

[Jack]

I'm against Cryoclasm. At first, I was like "why isn't he mainboarding it over Peak Eruption?" but then I read the part about its synergy with blood moon (which is sweet). Now, it seems like a sort of a trap card in your deck. It's marginally better than your other land destruction against a few decks, but it still doesn't seem like your best option versus Twin, UWR (Geist and control) and mono color aggro. You could even side out LD versus certain decks in favor of strong hate cards. Your deck should theoretically still work well, since you'll still be playing a prison deck.

[hamfactorial]

awesome! Thanks, Ham. Exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for.

I had already thought to remove Terminate and make that 2x Bonfire (killing lands starting T3 doesn't help against Affinity, for example) and 1x something else. Dismember makes a lot of sense.

I absolutely see where you're coming from with Blood Moon and the black splash. I was banking on DRS being able to give any color, but of course he's a huge target and just about anything kills him. Plus I may not see him and can't afford to mulligan to just DRS hands. So changing the basic mountains to basic swamps and the fetches to black-based fetches makes sense. What to do with that singleton green source for DRS's other ability? Stomping Ground makes sense since it can cast DRS, activate
that third ability, and can cast any of my red cards, which is the majority. But only Catacombs gets it, not Marsh Flats. Overgrown Tomb?

How does this look for a mana base:
[deck]
lands
4 Blood Crypt
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Swamp
1 Overgrown Tomb
[/deck]

With fetches, scars land and crypts that's essentially 16 red sources and now everything can tap for black as well.

That mana base is much better.

I packed the sweeper because the deck looks soft for the first 2 turns. In a pinch, Shrine can be popped to kill a trouble creature even if it has color protection (looking at you, Etched Champion)