The Rock, Land Edition
Midrange decks usually try to slowly build advantage over the course of the game, but this deck does so in a very different way. Being able to use your lands, and turn them into card advantage puts you ahead of your opponents who can't do the same. Modern has quite a lot of cards to let you do so. Tireless Tracker, and Nissa, Vital Force both let you draw extra cards from playing your lands. They are key components to this deck being able to function the way that you want it to.
The deck has quite a few other cards that deal with lands such as The Gitrog Monster drawing you cards when they leave the battlefield, and Courser of Kruphix letting you play lands from the top of your deck while also gaining you life in the process. The Gitrog Monster is really good with fetchlands letting you draw a card from it going to the graveyard. Even better if you have a Nissa, Vital Force emblem or a Tireless Tracker when you get a trigger for playing the land, it leaving, and another entering the battlefield.
The deck being able to cycle lands out of the deck, while drawing cards lets you get more advantage than other midrange style decks, any aggro decks, and lets you try to compete with control decks. With all the card draw from your lands, it makes all of your cards good draws, even the lands. In a lot of games a player loses because one player drew too many or too few lands. With this deck playing 23, you shouldn't get too few, and turning your lands into cantrips makes sure you will never feel like you drew too many.
Card Choices
Noble Hierarch/ Birds of Paradise are the necessary in this deck, to be able to have a faster time getting one of the many CMC 3 creatures in the deck out consistently. We play 4 Hierarch and only 3 Birds because we are mostly green, so Hierarch not tapping for black doesn't matter so much, and the exalted on Hierarch can be relevant. Personally I have even won through an Ensnaring Bridge with the use of Hierarch attacking, and getting those exalted triggers to do damage.
Courser of Kruphix is great because it comes out early against aggro decks, while also gaining you life to help combat those decks even more. In addition to that Courser lets you "draw" lands off of the top of your deck.
Tireless Tracker is perfect in any midrange deck. This card draws you cards for playing lands, while also getting bigger. Since this is a main way to draw cards for lands, and he is really good with multiple copies out, we play a full playset here.
The Gitrog Monster is great in this deck, especially with Crucible of Worlds. This lets you get a big creature out that escapes Fatal Push, while also letting you play extra lands to get extra triggers for lands entering the battlefield. The only "downside" is that you have to sacrifice a land every turn, but you get to draw a card from this, and with all the card draw, you shouldn't have a problem with this.
Reaper of the Wilds is a great four drop, being able to block most creatures and live. In addition you can even give it deathtouch, or even hexproof, so this card is extremely hard to kill. If your opponent is playing a lot of kill spells, you can wait until you have six mana, four to play it, and two to hold the hexproof ability up. In doing so, your opponent would have to use two kill spells to get rid of this. The scry ability on this creature is also really good
Eternal Witness is a really good creature, putting Regrowth onto a creature. This mainly is to be able to get back a planeswalker or Crucible of Worlds, but it really depends on the game, what you need at the time.
Scavenging Ooze is a great way to gain some life, and to get rid of your opponents graveyard if it's needed. Also since we aren't running Tarmogoyf in this list, you can just eat anything without hesitation.
Crucible of Worlds is perfect in a deck that wants to keep playing lands to gain value, especially playing The Gitrog Monster. If you have something that draws you cards for lands entering as well as a Courser of Kruphix, you can even recur a fetchland with no more lands to search for, just for the triggers, and not lose any life. Even without the Courser, you can do so just for the triggers, if you're at a point that you can lose life.
Nissa, Vital Force is a versatile card letting you attack with a land as a 5/5, or getting a permanent card back into your hand. The main thing with Nissa, is being able to ultimate her as soon as the turn after she hits the board. It's almost always worth it to just ultimate her when you have to option to, because turning any land drop into a cantrip is insanely good.
Ob Nixilis, Reignited is a good planeswalker that lets you draw a card, or kill a creature. As well as his ultimate being a slow, but eventual game winner. You could cut this for something else is you want to, but I like the versatility of this card.
Fatal Push is just a great and cost effective kill spell.
Abrupt Decay/ Assassin's Trophy are both great permanent destruction. We play two Assassin's Trophy because they can hit anything, while Abrupt Decay can only hit CMC three or less cards. The reason we still play one abrupt in the main though is because it doesn't give our opponents a land to kill something. The sideboard has a second Abrupt because I like the second uncounterable destruction spell, but it could easily be another Assassin's Trophy if you want.
Maelstrom Pulse is a one of just in case you play against tokens, or your opponent happens to have 2 or more copies of the same card out that you need to deal with. Otherwise it's just a 3 mana destroy target permanent with no downside or restriction, which is still good.
The manabase is pretty much what you'd expect with fastlands, fetchlands, shockslands, a couple of each basic, a couple draw lands, and an Urborg. In addition we have 1 each of Hissing Quagmire, and Treetop Village to have a couple man-lands. They are both good, Treetop being cheaper for more damage, But Quagmire being able to trade with any creature. We play a Ghost Quarter because it's really good with Crucible of Worlds, but you can't run more that one or two because of how color intensive this deck is. We play two Castle Locthwain because it not being legendary doesn't hurt us, and being only two colors, we can fit it. It's just extra card draw if you need it.
Sideboard
Plague Engineer is great against any tribal or token decks that are out there. The fact that it only affects your opponents is really good.
Damping Sphere is really good against Tron decks, Combo decks, or even Prowess decks.
Ashiok, Dream-Render is great against any graveyard based decks, or even decks that search their library a lot. I picked Ashiok instead of something like Nihil Spellbomb or Relic of Progenitus because the extra mana to play Ashiok isn't as relevant in this deck as it is in others. As well as the fact that it can hit your opponents graveyard multiple times.
Weather the Storm is really good against any aggro deck, especially prowess style decks that play multiple spells in a turn. It can essentially counter multiple "bolts".
Choke ruins any blue deck that runs a lot islands. If you can get your opponent to tap out to counter something else, and then slam this, you can get a few turns without them interacting with you, until they draw a bounce or destruction spell.
Thrun, the Last Troll is another card in the sideboard against control decks, because he can't be countered, and can live through most board wipes. Stuff like Terminus, Wrath of God, or Damnation will still get rid of Thrun though. Thrun having hexproof could also be good against decks that play a lot of kill spells, so you could bring Thrun in against those matchups if you want to.
Golgari Charm is a good one of because of its versatility. Being able to destroy any enchantment, or kill any tokens from Young Pyromancer or Lingering Souls helps with card advantage because this deck doesn't have a lot to deal with a bunch of creatures at once. The regeneration mode on this is also really good against decks that run board wipes specifically, but can also be good against kill spells, or be used to chump block a few creatures, and then keep your creatures alive.
Veil of Summer is a great card against counter spells, as well as discard spells, and kill spells. This can help in matchups that utilize cards like Cryptic Command, Remand, Thoughtseize, Fatal Push, ect to gain more advantage over them.
Decklist
Creatues (24)
Artifact (1)
Planeswalkers (3)
Instants/Sorceries (9)
Lands (24)
2 Forest
2 Swamp
Sideboard (15)
2 Choke
Overall this deck has a good match up against other midrange decks, being able to gain a lot of card advantage over them. This can also stay alive long enough against aggro decks with the use of Courser, and Ooze gaining life. Against control, you have a harder time, so that is why there are quite a few cards in the side to be able to make that match-up better.
Deck created by, and article written by Clayton Burt
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