pandaman
01-15-2016, 11:12 PM
DISCLAIMER: This is a work in progress and is only my first draft of the primer.
I love Necrotic Ooze in Legacy and have been involved in developing the deck now known as "Oozing" (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?29490-PRIMER-Oozing), assisting our noble leader Raystar and godfather jamis in developing a ferociously fast and resilient Dark Ritual combo deck. I've recently been convinced that I should play some Modern, but the current Modern Oozing incarnation - using Goryo's Vengeance to abuse Griselbrand into a Borborygmos Enraged fuelled Necrotic Ooze kill (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25703-Griselbanned-Modern-Edition) - didn't immediately appeal to me because Ooze is really only used when you're going to win and is not the main focus of the deck. So I decided to see what type of deck I could brew up with Necrotic Ooze at its very centre.
I first started to look for neat Modern-legal Necrotic Ooze combos. I immediately discovered two infinite combos that were attractive.
Necrotic Ooze (no summoning sickness) in play with Devoted Druid and Quillspike in the graveyard gives you an infinitely large Necrotic Ooze. Using Devoted Druid's ability and tap Ooze for G, then use Devoted Druid's other ability and put a -1/-1 counter on Ooze to untap it, then use the G you generated into Ooze's Quillspike ability to remove that -1/-1 counter to give Ooze +3/+3 until end of turn. Repeat as many times as required.
Necrotic Ooze (no summoning sickness) in play with Devoted Druid and Grim Poppet in the graveyard gives you infinite G mana and/or infinite -1/-1 counters on an infinite number of creatures without passing priority. For infinite mana, you need a creature you can kill with -1/-1 counters (preferably your opponent's but in a pinch your own). Using Necrotic Ooze's Devoted Druid ability you tap Ooze for G, then again using Ooze's Devoted Druid's ability you put a -1/-1 counter on Ooze to untap it. Then use Ooze's Grim Poppet ability to remove the -1/-1 counter to target another creature with that ability. However, you don't let that ability resolve. Instead, you retain priority, tap Ooze for G again, put another -1/-1 counter on it to untap it, and once that's resolved use Ooze's Grim Poppet ability again on the same creature. You continue to resolve the mana generation and -1/-1 untap abilities but not the target creature gets -1/-1 ability. This will allow you to create infinite G mana. Once you've got enough you just let all of the Grim Poppet abilities resolve and the target creature dies.
For infinite -1/-1 counters, you simply use Ooze's Druid ability to put a -1/-1 counter on Ooze, hold priority, and then use Ooze's Grim Poppet ability to remove the -1/-1 counter to target a creature with a -1/-1 counter. Then continue to hold priority and repeat. You can hold priority until you've distributed all the -1/-1 counters you want. Then pass priority and let all of those Grim Poppet abilities resolve.
I went Googling for further inspiration and found some interesting and thought provoking decklists. The first, and most basic, I found was Jacob Van Lunen's deck "I Ooze, You Lose" at http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/boab/198. It is admittedly budget, but brought my attention to Fauna Shama as a great enabler for the Ooze combo. It also highlighted the usefulness of Thornling and the explosive power you have with one copy in the graveyard, and also showed that a Thornling on its own can be a massive roadblock in the plans of a number of decks. It runs Birthing Pod, which is now banned, but overall it was a great base for a list.
The second, and more advanced, list I discovered was Conley Woods's Necrotic Ooze list from the 2010 Worlds, at http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/breaking-through-just-a-slime-or-twooze/. Instead of a combo-oriented route, Conley took the deck in a Rock direction with the combo just available as a way to close games out quickly if necessary or if you just happened to draw into it. A playset each of Fulminator Mage and Acidic Slime made the deck extremely land destruction heavy, but that was less interesting than the other Ooze interactions it revealed. A Necrotic Ooze (not summoning sick) with a Fauna Shama and Devoted Druid in the graveyard allows infinite Fauna Shaman activations, which allows you to pull all of the creatures out of your deck and the subsequently use Molten Tail Masticore's ability to fling them at your opponent for almost always more than enough damage to kill them. Also, Necrotic Ooze is extremely effective as land destruction with Fulminator Mage in the graveyard, which seemed like a strong interaction to combat the big mana decks in the current Modern format.
So, with little planning, little knowledge of the format, and the above two lists for inspiration, I brewed up my first Modern Oozing list:
4 Necrotic Ooze
4 Devoted Druid
4 Quillspike
4 Fauna Shaman
3 Thornling
1 Grim Poppet
2 Eternal Witness
1 Fulminator Mage
3 Lead the Stampede
3 Chord of Calling
1 Abrupt Decay
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
1 Elvish Mystic
5 Forest
2 Swamp
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Woodland Cemetary
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
1 Bloodstained Mire
Sideboard (15)
3 Leyline of Sancity
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Nature's Claim
2 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Duress
2 Ground Seal
My original list pitched in the middle of Van Lunen's and Woods's list. It was less "all-in" than Van Lunen's, both in mana ramp and pure combo, but not quite as "Rock" as Wood's list, eschewing the playsets of Fulminator Mage and Acidic Slime. Lead the Stampede seemed good with over 30 creatures in the deck and Chord of Calling also seemed good to get a Fauna Shaman early or a Necrotic Ooze late. I brewed the deck quickly and it was as a result very raw. But I put it to the test at a Modern FNM at the local store.
I went 4-0 without losing a single game.
Not what I was expecting.
First round I played Elves, and both games the turn before dying I assembled the Necrotic Ooze+Devoted Druid+Grim Poppet to machine gun his board. In G2 I had to play through both a Tormod's Crypt and Scavenging Ooze, but because the machine gunning doesn't need to pass priority to work I could leave him with no creatures in exchange for the exile of my Druid and Poppet. After that, with him playing off the top of my deck, I simply used Fauna Shaman to find a Thornling and beat him down with it and my Ooze for the win.
Second round I played a strange combo deck that used lots of Defender cards into Staff of Domination. I ran over it without too much trouble, again playing through grave hate(Relic of Progenitus) in G2.
Third round I played a GR Ramp deck that used Birds of Paradise and Burning-Tree Emissary to aggressively ramp into Domri Rade and massive hydras and go on quick beatdown. It was close, but again Ooze+Druid+Poppet swept the Board, again in G2 through a Tormod's Crypt and Scavenging Ooze. Again, the Ooze and a Fauna Shaman'd Thornling cleaned up.
Fourth and final round I was 3-0 with my friend on RUG Twin, so we ID'd (I thought I would get whipped so I was happy with this) and played for fun. Game 1 he let a Fauna Shaman get active and I overwhelmed him with inevitability while representing Abrupt Decay with GB. Game 2 was exactly the same
So a good start. Of course, I was lucky, drew well, and was doing things no one had ever seen before, but the result was enough to convince me I might just be on to a good thing. Since then, though, I've gone 1-3 and 1-2, but I'm tuning the deck and am not too discouraged. In my 1-3 showing I made three play mistakes that cost me three rounds, and in the 1-2 finish I made one play mistake that cost me a round. So those results could have been 4-0 and 2-1 but for my general ineptitude at this game. That means nothing, of course, but it encourages me that with good play I could have been in those matches.
For reference, my current list is as follows:
4 Necrotic Ooze
4 Devoted Druid
4 Fauna Shaman
1 Quillspike
1 Grim Poppet
1 Thornling
1 Molten-Tail Masticore
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Spike Feeder
1 Lotleth Troll
1 Griselbrand
1 Reveillark
1 Archangel of Thune
1 Fulminator Mage
1 Reclamation Sage
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Llanowar Elves
2 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Lead the Stampede
3 Chord of Calling
4 Forest
2 Swamp
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Woodland Cemetary
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Dryad Arbor
Sideboard (15)
1 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Ground Seal
3 Leyline of Sancity
2 Nature's Claim
2 Duress
The maindeck is 61 cards, yes, but it's nowhere near tight enough yet to make the cut to 60 and it lets me try out new cards more freely. The list is fun and flexible but it needs major improvements. The issues are at the moment:
I have never cast Griselbrand or used its ability with Ooze and G2 I have always boarded it out. It seems a bit too cute so I think it needs to get cut.
I have no W apart from Birds of Paradise to use to cast Archangel of Thune and Reveillark. That on its own is insufficient so I think the deck needs to become GBw.
Because I'm beating with creatures to finish many of the games I win I think I need two or three Gavony Township. It seems like it would be very effective with all of my 0/1's and 0/2's.
If I'm going white the single Llanowar Elves should become a Noble Hierarch
Do I need more than 5 one-drop mana accelerators? Some Melira decks run 7. Should I run that many?
Thornling is REALLY good in most matchups. Should I run one more, either maindeck or sideboard?
Given I have Fauna Shaman, should I up the toolbox creatures in the deck? If so, what are the best ones?
I hope I can get a bit of help in further developing this deck. It may be bad, but it's a Necrotic Ooze deck and that makes it worthwhile! So fellow Oozers assemble and let's Ooze on in Modern as well!
I love Necrotic Ooze in Legacy and have been involved in developing the deck now known as "Oozing" (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?29490-PRIMER-Oozing), assisting our noble leader Raystar and godfather jamis in developing a ferociously fast and resilient Dark Ritual combo deck. I've recently been convinced that I should play some Modern, but the current Modern Oozing incarnation - using Goryo's Vengeance to abuse Griselbrand into a Borborygmos Enraged fuelled Necrotic Ooze kill (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25703-Griselbanned-Modern-Edition) - didn't immediately appeal to me because Ooze is really only used when you're going to win and is not the main focus of the deck. So I decided to see what type of deck I could brew up with Necrotic Ooze at its very centre.
I first started to look for neat Modern-legal Necrotic Ooze combos. I immediately discovered two infinite combos that were attractive.
Necrotic Ooze (no summoning sickness) in play with Devoted Druid and Quillspike in the graveyard gives you an infinitely large Necrotic Ooze. Using Devoted Druid's ability and tap Ooze for G, then use Devoted Druid's other ability and put a -1/-1 counter on Ooze to untap it, then use the G you generated into Ooze's Quillspike ability to remove that -1/-1 counter to give Ooze +3/+3 until end of turn. Repeat as many times as required.
Necrotic Ooze (no summoning sickness) in play with Devoted Druid and Grim Poppet in the graveyard gives you infinite G mana and/or infinite -1/-1 counters on an infinite number of creatures without passing priority. For infinite mana, you need a creature you can kill with -1/-1 counters (preferably your opponent's but in a pinch your own). Using Necrotic Ooze's Devoted Druid ability you tap Ooze for G, then again using Ooze's Devoted Druid's ability you put a -1/-1 counter on Ooze to untap it. Then use Ooze's Grim Poppet ability to remove the -1/-1 counter to target another creature with that ability. However, you don't let that ability resolve. Instead, you retain priority, tap Ooze for G again, put another -1/-1 counter on it to untap it, and once that's resolved use Ooze's Grim Poppet ability again on the same creature. You continue to resolve the mana generation and -1/-1 untap abilities but not the target creature gets -1/-1 ability. This will allow you to create infinite G mana. Once you've got enough you just let all of the Grim Poppet abilities resolve and the target creature dies.
For infinite -1/-1 counters, you simply use Ooze's Druid ability to put a -1/-1 counter on Ooze, hold priority, and then use Ooze's Grim Poppet ability to remove the -1/-1 counter to target a creature with a -1/-1 counter. Then continue to hold priority and repeat. You can hold priority until you've distributed all the -1/-1 counters you want. Then pass priority and let all of those Grim Poppet abilities resolve.
I went Googling for further inspiration and found some interesting and thought provoking decklists. The first, and most basic, I found was Jacob Van Lunen's deck "I Ooze, You Lose" at http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/boab/198. It is admittedly budget, but brought my attention to Fauna Shama as a great enabler for the Ooze combo. It also highlighted the usefulness of Thornling and the explosive power you have with one copy in the graveyard, and also showed that a Thornling on its own can be a massive roadblock in the plans of a number of decks. It runs Birthing Pod, which is now banned, but overall it was a great base for a list.
The second, and more advanced, list I discovered was Conley Woods's Necrotic Ooze list from the 2010 Worlds, at http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/breaking-through-just-a-slime-or-twooze/. Instead of a combo-oriented route, Conley took the deck in a Rock direction with the combo just available as a way to close games out quickly if necessary or if you just happened to draw into it. A playset each of Fulminator Mage and Acidic Slime made the deck extremely land destruction heavy, but that was less interesting than the other Ooze interactions it revealed. A Necrotic Ooze (not summoning sick) with a Fauna Shama and Devoted Druid in the graveyard allows infinite Fauna Shaman activations, which allows you to pull all of the creatures out of your deck and the subsequently use Molten Tail Masticore's ability to fling them at your opponent for almost always more than enough damage to kill them. Also, Necrotic Ooze is extremely effective as land destruction with Fulminator Mage in the graveyard, which seemed like a strong interaction to combat the big mana decks in the current Modern format.
So, with little planning, little knowledge of the format, and the above two lists for inspiration, I brewed up my first Modern Oozing list:
4 Necrotic Ooze
4 Devoted Druid
4 Quillspike
4 Fauna Shaman
3 Thornling
1 Grim Poppet
2 Eternal Witness
1 Fulminator Mage
3 Lead the Stampede
3 Chord of Calling
1 Abrupt Decay
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
1 Elvish Mystic
5 Forest
2 Swamp
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Woodland Cemetary
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
1 Bloodstained Mire
Sideboard (15)
3 Leyline of Sancity
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Nature's Claim
2 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Duress
2 Ground Seal
My original list pitched in the middle of Van Lunen's and Woods's list. It was less "all-in" than Van Lunen's, both in mana ramp and pure combo, but not quite as "Rock" as Wood's list, eschewing the playsets of Fulminator Mage and Acidic Slime. Lead the Stampede seemed good with over 30 creatures in the deck and Chord of Calling also seemed good to get a Fauna Shaman early or a Necrotic Ooze late. I brewed the deck quickly and it was as a result very raw. But I put it to the test at a Modern FNM at the local store.
I went 4-0 without losing a single game.
Not what I was expecting.
First round I played Elves, and both games the turn before dying I assembled the Necrotic Ooze+Devoted Druid+Grim Poppet to machine gun his board. In G2 I had to play through both a Tormod's Crypt and Scavenging Ooze, but because the machine gunning doesn't need to pass priority to work I could leave him with no creatures in exchange for the exile of my Druid and Poppet. After that, with him playing off the top of my deck, I simply used Fauna Shaman to find a Thornling and beat him down with it and my Ooze for the win.
Second round I played a strange combo deck that used lots of Defender cards into Staff of Domination. I ran over it without too much trouble, again playing through grave hate(Relic of Progenitus) in G2.
Third round I played a GR Ramp deck that used Birds of Paradise and Burning-Tree Emissary to aggressively ramp into Domri Rade and massive hydras and go on quick beatdown. It was close, but again Ooze+Druid+Poppet swept the Board, again in G2 through a Tormod's Crypt and Scavenging Ooze. Again, the Ooze and a Fauna Shaman'd Thornling cleaned up.
Fourth and final round I was 3-0 with my friend on RUG Twin, so we ID'd (I thought I would get whipped so I was happy with this) and played for fun. Game 1 he let a Fauna Shaman get active and I overwhelmed him with inevitability while representing Abrupt Decay with GB. Game 2 was exactly the same
So a good start. Of course, I was lucky, drew well, and was doing things no one had ever seen before, but the result was enough to convince me I might just be on to a good thing. Since then, though, I've gone 1-3 and 1-2, but I'm tuning the deck and am not too discouraged. In my 1-3 showing I made three play mistakes that cost me three rounds, and in the 1-2 finish I made one play mistake that cost me a round. So those results could have been 4-0 and 2-1 but for my general ineptitude at this game. That means nothing, of course, but it encourages me that with good play I could have been in those matches.
For reference, my current list is as follows:
4 Necrotic Ooze
4 Devoted Druid
4 Fauna Shaman
1 Quillspike
1 Grim Poppet
1 Thornling
1 Molten-Tail Masticore
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Spike Feeder
1 Lotleth Troll
1 Griselbrand
1 Reveillark
1 Archangel of Thune
1 Fulminator Mage
1 Reclamation Sage
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Llanowar Elves
2 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Lead the Stampede
3 Chord of Calling
4 Forest
2 Swamp
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Woodland Cemetary
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Dryad Arbor
Sideboard (15)
1 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Ground Seal
3 Leyline of Sancity
2 Nature's Claim
2 Duress
The maindeck is 61 cards, yes, but it's nowhere near tight enough yet to make the cut to 60 and it lets me try out new cards more freely. The list is fun and flexible but it needs major improvements. The issues are at the moment:
I have never cast Griselbrand or used its ability with Ooze and G2 I have always boarded it out. It seems a bit too cute so I think it needs to get cut.
I have no W apart from Birds of Paradise to use to cast Archangel of Thune and Reveillark. That on its own is insufficient so I think the deck needs to become GBw.
Because I'm beating with creatures to finish many of the games I win I think I need two or three Gavony Township. It seems like it would be very effective with all of my 0/1's and 0/2's.
If I'm going white the single Llanowar Elves should become a Noble Hierarch
Do I need more than 5 one-drop mana accelerators? Some Melira decks run 7. Should I run that many?
Thornling is REALLY good in most matchups. Should I run one more, either maindeck or sideboard?
Given I have Fauna Shaman, should I up the toolbox creatures in the deck? If so, what are the best ones?
I hope I can get a bit of help in further developing this deck. It may be bad, but it's a Necrotic Ooze deck and that makes it worthwhile! So fellow Oozers assemble and let's Ooze on in Modern as well!