Much Abrew: Glimpse of Tomorrow (Modern)
Hello, everyone! Welcome to another episode of Much Abrew About Nothing. Last week on stream, we ran into someone playing a wacky Glimpse of Tomorrow deck that looked to cascade into the free spell on Turn 3 and (hopefully) dump a bunch of big things like Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or Iona, Shield of Emeria into play to win the game. The idea was hilarious, although it felt like something was missing when we tried a couple of matches with the deck. Well, today, we're going to try a new and improved build of Glimpse of Tomorrow. The main plan is the same—cascade into Glimpse of Tomorrow, shuffle our battlefield into our deck, and hopefully spin into some game-ending threats—although we've got some sweet new support cards to add more permanents to the battlefield in Wavesifter and Khalni Garden, along with a much-improved sideboard plan to help us beat our opponent's hate cards. How many massive threats can we spin into on Turn 3 with the help of Glimpse of Tomorrow? Let's get to the video and find out; then, we'll talk more about the deck!
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Much Abrew: Glimpse of Tomorrow
The Deck
- Record-wise, we finished 4-1 with Glimpse of Tomorrow, narrowly missing another 5-0 finish after losing a tough three-game match to Hammer Time where, in game three, we managed to Glimpse of Tomorrow twice but mostly whiffed on big finishers. While going undefeated would have been sweet, it's probably a good thing we got to see the risk inherent with our deck's plan. When our plan works, Glimpse of Tomorrow can be unbeatable and super fast, but when our opponent has hate or we get a bit unlucky with our Warp World, we can lose in just as spectacular a fashion.
- Playing the deck is actually pretty straightforward. We mulligan aggressively to find a hand that can cast a Glimpse of Tomorrow on Turn 3. (This usually means mulliganing until we have a Shardless Agent or Violent Outburst and some lands because we know that either cascade spell will hit Glimpse of Tomorrow 100% of the time since we don't play any other cards cheap enough to cascade into. But As Foretold plus Glimpse of Tomorrow itself can also work). We cast Glimpse of Tomorrow, and we hope for the best.
- With 16 big finishers in our deck (four Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, four Iona, Shield of Emeria, four Archon of Cruelty, and four Omniscience, which lets us cast whatever finishers we happen to draw naturally), even a Glimpse of Tomorrow with just three or four permanents on the battlefield can be enough to win the game, although obviously, the more permanents we can add to the battlefield, the more likely we will be to hit one or more big things and be able to kill our opponent.
- Assuming we are casting Glimpse of Tomorrow on Turn 3, the floor is that we'll have three permanents on the battlefield (our three lands), but we will have a couple of ways to add more permanents to the battlefield quickly. Khalni Garden is an old Warp World trick, adding a land and a Plant token to the battlefield. Wavesifter gives us two Clues for two mana if we evoke it and also has a mana cost high enough that it doesn't fizzle our "cascade into Glimpse of Tomorrow" plan. We also have four Leyline of Sanctity and two Leyline of the Voids in our deck, which can give us some extra permanents for free if they are in our opening hand.
- Speaking of the Leylines, both are extremely relevant even outside of upping the number of permanents we have on the battlefield for Glimpse of Tomorrow. Leyline of Sanctity protects us from discard, like Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek, which would otherwise be really strong against our deck because of how aggressively we have to mulligan, while Leyline of the Void gives us main-deck hate for graveyard-based decks like Hollow One, Dredge, and the like. Being able to run both in the main deck is one of the big upsides of playing Glimpse of Tomorrow.
- As for our cascade spells, we have Shardless Agent and Violent Outburst. While it doesn't really matter which one we use since the end result is the same—us getting to cast a Glimpse of Tomorrow for free—I did want to mention that even though Violent Outburst is an instant, if we have big finishers in hand like Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or Archon of Cruelty, it's often better to cast it main phase since if we happen to spin into a Omniscience with Glimpse of Tomorrow, we can immediately cast the finishers stuck in our hand.
- The biggest drawback of our deck is that sometimes it fails hilariously. Even if we manage to get a bunch of permanents on the battlefield, Glimpse of Tomorrow can hit a bunch of Leylines and lands and basically lose us the game, rather than winning it. While it doesn't happen all that often, it is important to realize that with Glimpse of Tomorrow, you can play perfectly and still lose horrifically due to the randomness of our namesake card.
- Oh yeah, it's also important to keep in mind that even if our first Glimpse of Tomorrow isn't great, we potentially can cast another one in the same turn if we spin into an Omniscience or a bunch of lands, assuming we have a cascade spell or Glimpse of Tomorrow in hand.
- The sideboard primarily is designed to fight through hate. What's good against Glimpse of Tomorrow? Decks with a ton of counters can be an issue since we don't do much of anything if our opponent can counter our Glimpse of Tomorrows. Mystical Dispute helps us fight counter wars. Chalice of the Void and Void Mirror are two of the hardest hate cards in the format, keeping us from resolving a Glimpse of Tomorrow as long as they are on the battlefield. Foundation Breaker and Brazen Borrower give us options to deal with them. Finally, there are some hateful creatures like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben (which slows down our "cascade into Glimpse of Tomorrow plan" by at least one and sometimes multiple turns), and Sanctum Prelate (which locks Glimpse of Tomorrow altogether by naming zero), for which we turn to Bonecrusher Giant. While the adventure cards might look a bit strange and inefficient, they are actually the perfect answers for our deck since they have a high enough mana value that they don't fizzle our "cascade into Glimpse of Tomorrow" plan but we can still cast their important modes for just two mana. Adventures are pretty silly.
- Overall, the deck reminds me a bit of Tibalt's Trickery (before it was banned), in the sense that it is super fast and powerful but also high variance and susceptible to certain hate cards. Another good comparison might be Living End, which is also built around cascading into a free spell. Glimpse of Tomorrow has the upside of not getting beaten by graveyard hate but the downside that we never know for sure what will happen when we resolve it.
- So, should you play Glimpse of Tomorrow in Modern? I think the answer is yes, with the note that the deck can be extremely high variance and some hate cards can be very good against it. As we saw in our league, the deck clearly has the power to go 5-0, but I think it's also possible for it to go 0-5 due to bad luck or running into matchups with a lot of hate cards. The deck is hilarious, powerful, and unique—just remember that it is built around a very random card, so sometimes it goes down in flames.
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today! 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.
