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!

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.

  

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.

  

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.

    

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.

  

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!