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Much Abrew: Whisperer Ooze Combo (Modern)


Hello, everyone! Welcome to another episode of Much Abrew About Nothing. Last week during our Instant Deck Techs, our Modern option—Whisperer Ooze Combo—came out on top, so we're heading to Modern this week to see if we can turn Necrotic Ooze into a one-card combo by getting the correct combination of cards into our graveyard. The primary plan of the deck is to set things up in a way so that as soon as Necrotic Ooze resolves, we can mill most of our graveyard (with Necrotic Ooze acting like a Doom Whisperer), make infinite mana (with Ooze mimicking Devoted Druid and Morselhoarder), and finally kill our opponent (with Ooze pretending to be a Walking Ballista). Just how practical is the plan of going infinite with Necrotic Ooze in Modern? Can we dodge the graveyard hate and assemble our combo? Let's get to the video and find out; then, we'll talk more about the deck!

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Much Abrew: Whisperer Ooze Combo (Modern)

Discussion

  • We played a friendly league with Whisperer Ooze combo and ended up 3-2, which is a pretty reasonable record in Modern, where it seems like most decks have at least some really bad (and really good) matchups.
  • As for our two losses—Storm and Jeskai Control—both showed off some of the weaknesses of our deck. Against Storm (where we actually came surprisingly close to winning, with our opponent needing double Remand to stop our combo), we're mostly just a half a turn slower, and since both decks are essentially goldfishing for the win, being the slower combo deck is a pretty easy way to lose. Meanwhile, against Jeskai Control, we simply couldn't resolve our combo pieces through our opponent's disruption. As such, one of the best upgrades to the deck is likely a couple of copies of Cavern of Souls to make sure we can resolve Necrotic Ooze. If we had a Cavern of Souls on the battlefield, it's very possible we would have finished 5-0 with the deck. 
  • The good news about Necrotic Ooze is that the combo is surprisingly consistent. We've got a ton of ways to get cards in the graveyard, which made it pretty easy to set up the instant-win Necrotic Ooze
  • Speaking of Necrotic Ooze, the combo is a bit strange, so it's probably worth explaining. The main synergy is playing Necrotic Ooze with either a Doom Whisperer in the graveyard (to surveil more cards in the graveyard and find our missing combo pieces) or with Devoted Druid and Morselhoarder in the graveyard. With Devoted Druid and Morselhoarder in the graveyard, as soon as Necrotic Ooze hits the battlefield, we can make infinite mana by adding a counter to Necrotic Ooze with Devoted Druid's untap ability and then removing the counter to make a mana with Morselhoarder's ability. The last piece of the puzzle is Walking Ballista. While it takes a lot of clicks on Magic Online, if we have a Walking Ballista in the graveyard, we use our infinite mana to add counters to Necrotic Ooze equal to our opponent's life total and then ping them to death with Necrotic Ooze taking advantage of Walking Ballista's second ability. In theory, we can do this as early as Turn 3 thanks to our mana dorks, but Turn 4 or 5 kills are more common.
  • One of the downsides of Whisperer Ooze Combo is that we don't really have any interaction in the main deck, which means we're pretty much all-in on the combo plan. While I'm not sure how we could make it work, it would be nice to find a few slots in the deck to play some discard or removal. The problem is we'd have to cut combo pieces, which might make the deck too inconsistent. 
  • If you watched the Instant Deck Tech, you'll know that we upgraded the sideboard a bit to be better able to deal with graveyard hate like Leyline of the Void and Rest in Peace. The sweetest addition is Wickerbough Elder. If we can get it in the graveyard along with the rest of our combo pieces, we can blow up any number of artifacts or enchantments, which is a good way to win through things like Leyline of Sanctity or just wreck Affinity or other artifact-based decks.
  • All in all, Whisperer Ooze Combo felt competitive—certainly competitive enough to win a reasonable number of matches—although the list feels like it can probably be improved. Finding a way to add some interaction to the main deck would go a long way. The other challenge with Whisperer Ooze Combo is that thanks to the recent rise of Dredge in Modern, people are overprepared to hate on the graveyard. Thankfully, we posted a winning record even in a hostile meta, but it's worth keeping in mind that the deck would be even better if everyone wasn't focused on exiling the graveyard to stop Dredge.
  • So, should you play Whisperer Ooze Combo? I think the answer is yes but with the knowledge that the deck probably isn't a great metagame call at the moment. This being said, despite the graveyard-exiling meta, Whisperer Ooze Combo is fast and consistent enough to win a lot of games, and it's super fun to play!

Conclusion

Anyway, that's all for today. Don't forget to vote for next week's deck by liking, commenting on, and subscribing to Instant Deck Tech videos! As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.



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