Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Wacky Wednesdays: Infinity Ooze

Greeting readers of the Wacky Wednesdays articles and connoisseurs of weird decks.  As you may (or may not) have noticed, I am not Eric Davey. I am Taylor Walker, the new Wacky Wednesdays Manager for Monday Morning MTG.

For my first article, I will be showing off a combo deck based around my favorite creature: Necrotic Ooze.  Have a look at Infinity Ooze!

Necrotic Ooze

Infinity Ooze

Creatures

x4 Birds of Paradise
x3 Devoted Druid
x4 Fauna Shaman
x1 Grim Poppet
x1 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
x2 Lotleth Troll
x3 Necrotic Ooze
x3 Stinkweed Imp
x4 Pack Rat
x3 Quillspike
x2 Thornling

Land

x4 Overgrown Tomb
x3 Llanowar Wastes
x3 Woodland Cemetery
x5 Swamp
x6 Forest

Planeswalkers

x1 Vraska the Unseen

Other Spells

x4 Inquisition of Kozilek
x2 Maelstrom Pulse
x2 Darkblast

Sideboard

x3 Abrupt Decay
x2 Golgari Charm
x3 Kitchen Finks
x2 Nature's Claim
x2 Pithing Needle
x2 Savage Summoning
x1 Tree of Redemption

There are a few combos this deck revolves around.  One such combo is the interaction between Devoted Druid and Quillspike.  Devoted Druid taps for a green mana and untaps itself with a -1/-1 counter while Quillspike uses that mana and removes the -1/-1 counter to give itself +3/+3 until the end of the turn.  This cycle can be repeated as many times as needed to create a lethal Quillspike.

Devoted Druid  Quillspike

Now, if both of these creatures are in the graveyard, Necrotic Ooze can accomplish this entire cycle itself.  Throw a Thornling into the mix and suddenly you have an ooze with an arbitrarily large P/T swinging in with trample.  That usually ends games.  Another interesting combo Necrotic Ooze can pull off is a pseudo-boardwipe with Devoted Druid and Grim Poppet in the graveyard.  Necrotic Ooze can tap for a green mana, untap itself by adding a -1/-1 counter, and the move said -1/-1 counter onto an opponent's creature.  This process can be repeated until each opposing creature is killed.

Thornling  Grim Poppet

The rest of the deck is devoted to protecting Necrotic Ooze and sculpting the graveyard to supply it with the necessary activated abilities. For example, Fauna Shaman, Lotleth Troll, and Pack Rat are all excellent at sending creatures from your hand into the graveyard.  Fauna Shaman has the additional benefit of finding a replacement creature for the one discarded.

Fauna Shaman  Lotleth Troll  Pack Rat

Two major support cards in this deck are Stinkweed Imp and Darkblast.  Darkblast can be used to kill many early creatures in Modern and even comes with the neat trick of casting it on your upkeep, dredging it back on your draw step, and casting it again to kill a creature with 2 toughness.  The inspiration to add Stinkweed Imp (and by extension, Darkblast) came to me after playing against Eric at a Modern FNM.  After losing a match to him, he remarked that my deck had little to no defense against flying creatures.  Well, each time I use the deck, I try to shore up its weaknesses based on its defeats.  Eric's comment led me to researching flying creatures that would synergize with the deck and I discovered Stinkweed Imp.  Dredge is an incredible ability, and allows Stinkweed Imp to block repeatedly while filling the graveyard with combo pieces.

Stinkweed Imp  Darkblast

So, readers of Wacky Wednesdays and connoisseurs of weird decks, what do you think of Infinity Ooze? Love it?  Hate it? Think you can improve it?  I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below, and don't forget to join me next month when I jump into the wacky world of alternate win conditions!

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