Today fellow readers, we will be looking at a themed deck. What do I mean by a themed deck you may be wondering? Well a themed deck is a deck that fits some type of niche and follows a general big idea or topic. For example merfolk tribal could be considered a themed deck, and so could mono lands.
As many veteran MTG players can tell you Eggs used to be (and in some ways still can be) a very annoying but potentially good deck, with the terrible habit for its turns to take upwards of 10 minutes each! But for the players who have never felt the joy and/or frustration of an Eggs deck, I will go over the basics.
An Eggs deck was a Modern combo deck that focused on mass amounts of mana generation in one turn in order to cast very powerful spells with X in their casting cost (which typically would win the game on the spot). The deck got its name because its main goal was to “crack” as many fetchlands and artifacts as a pilot could in one turn. Which allowed the deck to make loads of mana, that could then be used to facilitate a combo, or draw more cards to further fuel a combo. The real power in the deck came from cards such as second Second Sunrise and Faith’s Reward. Which allowed a player to crack their artifacts and fetchlands a second time, doubling the amount of mana they produced, and potentially drawing them into even more combo pieces. Once there was more mana than anyone knew what to do with, the deck usually won by either milling its opponents out with cards like Blue Sun’s Zenith, or burning its opponents to death with something like Banefire.
Sadly if you wanted to play an Eggs deck in Modern today you may be out of luck. On May 3rd 2013 Second Sunrise was officially banned from the format, and it does not look like it is coming back. Their reason for the ban was not because the deck was over powered or unbeatable, but because it was causing rounds to last significantly longer than normal (forcing many matches in tournaments to go to time). Although the deck can still be played by using Faith’s Reward, it is a much less powerful than it used to be.
However if you are still interested in playing an Eggs deck, here is a basic albeit not perfect list:
Modern Eggs
| Instants (18) 4 Faith’s Reward 2 Blue Sun’s Zenith 4 Open the Vaults 4 Reshape 4 Thoughtcast Artifacts (26) 4 Krak-Clan Ironworks 2 Codex Shredder 4 Chromatic Star 4 Chromatic Sphere 4 Ichor Wellspring 4 Lotus Bloom 4 Mox Opal | Lands (16) 4 Ghost Quarter 5 Island 3 Plains 4 Flooded Strand |
Now let’s get into what these cards do, so you can see they were included in the deck list.
Faith’s Reward & Open the Vaults: Both of these are our combo pieces. Faith’s reward is generally better because of its lower cost, but once we get going, casting Open the Vaults isn’t too much of a challenge. Both of these cards allow us to return all of our mana generators (fetchlands, artifacts) back to the battlefield and reuse them in order to make even more mana.
Reshape: We almost always want to use this card to cheat Lotus Bloom into play for even more mana generation, because we don’t really have the luxury to suspend it. However if for some reason we don’t want to or can’t get the bloom, this card can also be used to tutor for other pieces we may need.
Thoughtcast: Since our board is heavily filled with artifacts most of the time, this card almost always let’s us draw two cards for only one mana! It’s basically our own version of Ancestral Recall. The reason we play this is because we need to find our combo pieces efficiently. Cards like Serum Visions and Thirst for Knowledge can also be used for a similar effect, but I think Thoughtcast works best for this deck.
Blue Sun’s Zenith: This is the win condition of our deck. Banefire can also be put in this spot, but I don’t think red gives us very much and it’ll typically be better to run an in color win condition. In theory you could try running almost any X casting cost spell that has the potential to win the game with enough mana, but since we already want blue for Reshape and Thoughtcast, I think Blue Sun’s Zenith is our best option.
Side Note: This deck can sometimes get away with only running a single copy of Blue Sun’s Zenith, because of all the card draw that it uses. However the list above runs two for more consistency.
Krak-Clan Ironworks: Another one of our combo pieces. This turns our lesser eggs into mana producing machines.
Codex Shredder: With enough mana generation, we can endlessly loop Faith’s Reward or Open the Vaults with Codex Shredder’s second ability.
Chromatic Sphere, Chromatic Star, & Ichor Wellspring: All of our “basic eggs” and the main resource in the deck.
Lotus Bloom: This card is the all-star in the deck, and possibly the only reason it works. The downside is we can’t really play it for its suspend cost and have to cheat it into play. But once we do get one out, it can almost pay for Faith’s Reward on its own!
Mox Opal: Another one of our more notable Eggs. Because we typically always have metalcraft up, this essentially becomes a legendary version of the Mox of our choice.
Ghost Quarter & Flooded Strand: Since both of these cards can sac themselves, they pair great with Faith’s Reward and Open the Vaults. Ghost Quarter also let’s us blow up or own lands, to get an additional basic land into play. Then after a carefully placed Faith’s Reward or Open the Vaults, we return Ghost Quarter and the land we destroyed back to the battlefield essentially netting an additional mana!
But what do you think? Do you have any suggestions on how we could improve this deck list? Do you think Eggs was unfairly banned or are you glad it’s (mostly) gone? Do you have any other ideas for themed articles we should do in the future? If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to say something in the comments section below.
Shakunjin
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