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Much Abrew About Nothing: Souleater Combo (Modern)


Hello, everyone! Welcome to the new and improved Much Abrew About Nothing. Before we get to the action, I've got another change to announce. A couple of weeks ago, I talked about how the Much Abrew About Nothing week ran from Wednesday to Tuesday, but I've come to the conclusion that this schedule is needlessly complicated and confusing. So, from this point forward, the week is Monday through Friday, but the videos for the week will come out the following Sunday. For example, let's take a look at the voting from last week's decks!

Much Abrew About Nothing: Voting
Deck Votes
Souleater Combo (Modern) 980
Pox (Legacy) 758
Genesis Wave (Modern) 672
Abzan Blink 600
Jund Planeswalkers (Standard) 367

That's right—this means we get to play Souleater Combo in Modern for this edition of Much Abrew, a deck that's basically Blistering Rage on steroids, and are looking to rack up as many Turn 2 kills as possible!

Let's get to the videos, but first a quick reminder. If you enjoy the Much Abrew About Nothing series and the other video content on MTGGoldfish, make sure to subscribe to the MTGGoldfish YouTube Channel to keep up on all the latest and greatest.

Souleater Combo: Instant Deck Tech

Souleater Combo vs. Infect

Souleater Combo vs. Affinity

Souleater Combo vs. GR Land Destruction

Souleater Combo vs. Naya Burn

Souleater Combo vs. Eggs

Souleater Combo Wrap Up

Thoughts

  • First off, the deck was super impressive in our matches, going 4-1; however, I think we were a little bit lucky for two reasons. 
  • The first way we got lucky was that we didn't lose to ourselves as often as we should have. One of the biggest problems with the deck is that we only have eight creatures that really matter, in Immolating Souleater and Kiln Fiend. We pretty much need to have one of these eight creatures in our opening seven for a hand to be keepable, which means that the deck will have to mulligan quite often, but this didn't really come across in the videos, where we managed to have keepable sevens more often than not. 
  • The second way we got lucky was the matchups. One thing that was abundantly clear in our matches is that we are faster than just about any deck in the format, assuming our opponent doesn't have any interaction. On the other hand, all it takes is a single Lightning Bolt or Path to Exile on Turn 1 to ruin everything. Thankfully, we ran into a bunch of decks playing minimal interaction like Infect, Affinity, Eggs, and Land Destruction. If we had played against Jund, Jeskai, and Delver, our record would likely have been much worse. 
  • One of my favorite synergies in the deck is revealing a Chancellor of the Tangle and then exiling it to Gemstone Caverns. This gets us 2 extra mana on Turn 1 (meaning we might have enough mana to leave up an Apostle's Blessing to protect our Immolating Souleater or Kiln Fiend); plus, our deck is never going to cast Chancellor of the Tangle anyway, so Gemstone Caverns doesn't really cost us a card. 
  • Basically, Souleater Combo is Blistering Rage on steroids. It will win on Turn 2 more often than Blistering Rage and is just about as consistent. That said, Souleater Combo costs magnitudes more than Blistering Rage, and while Souleater Combo is better, I'm not sure it's $600 better. I don't think either deck is consistent enough to win a major tournament, and if you're going to play casually, it feels silly to buy a nearly $700 deck when an almost-as-good budget option is available. 
  • While I really like the transformational sideboard plan of bringing in Geist of Saint Traft and Tarmogoyf, it feels risky in a deck with only 14 or 16 lands (after sideboarding). We also didn't run into many of the matchups where we'd want to bring them in (Jund, Jeskai, etc.). Plus, you can cut the cost of the deck almost in half but cutting the expensive sideboard cards. 
  • Should you play Souleater Combo? For fun, yes, especially if you have most of the cards lying around or skimp on the expensive sideboard cards. As far as playing the deck in tournaments, it really depends on your meta. The matchups against combo decks or aggro decks lacking in interaction seem great, but if you expect to battle decks stuffed full of Turn 1 removal like Lightning Bolt and Path to Exile, things will be difficult. 

Conclusion

Anyway, that's all for today. Don't forget to vote for next week's deck by liking, commenting, 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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