Modern Oozing - GBx Necrotic Ooze combo

[pandaman]

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/s...-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/s...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/mag...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/artic...ime-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!

[pandaman]

Reserved for matchup analysis, sideboarding discussions, further deck description, etc.

[pandaman]

I want to work on three things first of all: adding W to the mana base, tuning the maindeck toolbox, and improving the sideboard.

Regarding mana, I have brainstormed this:

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Plains
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Twilight Mire
1 Godless Shrine
1 Temple Garden
2 Gavony Township
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Treetop Village

Could anyone critique? I am inexperienced at building manabases for Modern.

Regarding toolbox creatures in the maindeck, I figure that I currently have 9 slots after I've put in playsets of Druid, Shaman, and Ooze and one-offs of Spike, Thornling, Poppet, and Masticore. I've brainstormed some categories and cards that might fit in.

Creature removal: Shriekmaw, Nekretaal,

Artifact/enchantment removal: Wickerbough Elder, Qasali Pridemage, Reclamation Sage

Graveyard hate: Scavenging Ooze, Faerie Macabre

Sweepers: Orzhov Pontiff

Utility: Spellskite, Phyrexian Revoker, Eternal Witness

Lifegain: Spike Feeder, Kitchen Finks, Archangel of Thune

Given the meta, I think Spellskite (Infect and Burn), Phyrexian Revoker (maindeck Relic of Progenitus from Tron), and Eternal Witness (general awesomeness) should be in. Shriekmaw is probably the best creature removal so that makes it. Although Wickerbough Elder interacts with Ooze, Reclamation Sage makes it for lower CMC and no activation cost. Scavenging Ooze makes it for graveyard hate and minor life-gain against Burn. Scavenging Ooze combos with Spike Feeder and Necrotic Ooze (a Necrotic Ooze with Scavenging Ooze and Spike Feeder in the graveyard can gain three life by resolving Scavenging Ooze's ability (+1 life) then Spike Feeder's second ability (+2 life)). That seems powerful, and gaining 4 life from Spike Feeder by itself seems reasonable and also sends it to the graveyard ready to interact with Necrotic Ooze. So I'll give that a go.

1 Spellskite
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Eternal Witness
1 Shriekmaw
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Spike Feeder

One slot left. I tould be Orzhov Pontiff against tokens/Infect/Affinity/Scapcaster Mages/Elves (without lords of course) or it could be Archangel of Thune (infinite combo with Spike Feeder: remove a +1/+1 counter from Spike Feeder to resolve Spike Feeder's lifegain ability, which triggers Thune's ability to put a +1/+1 counter on each of your creatures including Spike Feeder, so your creatures get infinitely large and you gain an infinite amount of life). I would like to fit them both in! Can I? I wonder if I could drop one Chord of Calling? Then we have the following list:

4 Necrotic Ooze
4 Devoted Druid
4 Fauna Shaman
1 Quillspike
1 Grim Poppet
1 Thornling
1 Molten-Tail Masticore
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Spellskite
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Eternal Witness
1 Shriekmaw
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Spike Feeder
1 Archangel of Thune
1 Orzhov Pontiff
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Lead the Stampede
2 Chord of Calling

plus the mana as above.

Sideboard could contain some utility creatures and cheap answers to major decks:

1 Faerie Macabre (Dredge-a-Vine, Goryo's Vengeance, and SCM decks)
1 Kitchen Finks (generic aggro, Burn)
1 Obstinate Baloth (generic aggro, Burn, discard decks)
1 Reclamation Sage (Affinity, Swords of This and That)
1 Shriekmaw (when more creature removal is needed)
1 Kor Firewalker (Burn)
4 Fulminator Mage (because they seem to be the nuts against so many decks. Which begs the question, why don't they go in the maindeck? They get ridiculous with Necrotic Ooze and it's feasible to go T2 Fulminator, T3 OozeFulminator. Brutal.
1 Nihil Spellbomb (you want to bomb their GY not yours so this is better than Relic).
1 Nature's Claim (early disruption against Affinity)
1 Abrupt Decay (generally good)
2 Thoughtseize (control or combo).


Also, finally, could Jarad's Orders be a thing in this deck?

[pandaman]

More stream-of-consciousness thoughts, just so I don't forget about the ideas. Kataki, War's Wage for the Affinity matchup. Eidolon of Rhetoric for Storm and Living End and other decks that want to play more than one spell per turn. Magus of the Moat for Tron and other decks that like to play big dudes that don't fly?

[Dice_Box]

I think you are going to need Needle or Revoker in the side. The rise of this Eldrazi thing will hurt if you can not stop the grave hate that is commonalty mainboard now. Needle I think is the better of the two since Eldrazi has ways to remove creatures but not Artifacts. Faerie is not that useful against Dredgevine thanks to the shear weight of cards they can bring to the fight. You would be better off with something like another Spellbomb in it's place. Also I am not sure you have enough to fight Affinity in there, but locally that is not really an issue right now. Kataki is a fine choice if you go for it.

The manabase looks like what I would expect in a 3 colour deck (The one you asked for input on) but I do not think that the Treetop is going to be that useful to you. I would look at maybe a Razorverge Thicket if you want green. The other option often run are Check lands like Woodland Cemetery to save on life. You have a good amount of basics though so it becomes a question of if you feel you need the extra fixing. With Twin gone Tron takes over as the powerhouse to stop. That means Moon is likely coming out in force as Burn starts to prey on the newer big mana decks. Having a good amount of Basics is no drawback now.

I edited your post to have the /cards brackets around it. I hope you do not mind, it made it much easier to see what you are up to.

[Raystar]

Hey Panda!

I know you were looking for something else but take a look at this...a friend of mine put it together some time ago, could it trigger any ideas?

3 Griselbrand
4 Sphinx of the Chimes
4 Prognostic Sphinx
4 Necrotic Ooze
4 Golgari Brownscale
2 Borborygmos Enraged
3 Simian Spirit Guide

4 Faithless Looting
4x Izzet Charm
4x Grisly Salvage
2 Unburial Rites

3 Cavern of Souls
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Mana Confluence
1 dakmor’s savage
2 Forbidden Orchard

It's really combo oriented but pretty cool

[dte]

Hello,

Great that yu started the thread!

As I didn't know the 5 missing cards in your previous build, I tried some things and ended up with that:

4x Birds of Paradise
4x Devoted Druid
1x Dryad Arbor
2x Elvish Mystic
1x Eternal Witness
4x Fauna Shaman
5x Forest
1x Grim Poppet
4x Grisly Salvage
3x Llanowar Elves
1x Lotleth Troll
2x Marsh Flats
1x Morselhoarder
4x Necrotic Ooze
4x Overgrown Tomb
4x Quillspike
2x Scryb Ranger
1x Spikeshot Elder
2x Swamp
1x Thornling
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Windswept Heath
2x Wooded Foothills
2x Woodland Cemetery

Globally, I was very happy with the one of Morselhoarder for the immediate kill while Ooze was summoning sick.
I also enjoyed a lot the grizly salvage and the scryb rangers. A non summoning sick Fauna Shama + scryb ranger leads to a win next turn usually.

[CaptainTwiddle]

In tinkering around with these lists a bit, the issue that I've come across is with the noncreature spells. The deck lacks interaction with with the "unfair" decks. Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize are good choices, as they double up as ways to discard your own creatures to turn on Ooze in a pinch. Thoughtseize is a little nicer in that it lets you discard Grim Poppet and can nab bigger things from your opponent, which is great, as I think the most fun you can have with this deck is giving your Ooze random abilities from your opponent's creatures. Some removal would be nice. Drown in Filth could be an option, but in a deck running fewer than 24 lands, I don't know how reliable it would be.

Unfortunately, I think there is a lot stacked against a Necrotic Ooze deck. Specifically,...
a) the combo requires a lot of slots
b) the Ooze is a key component and the deck is much less effective without it (vulnerable to Surgical Extraction, Pithing Needle, etc.)
c) graveyard hate is fairly abundant (Scavenging Ooze and Relic of Progenitus see a lot of maindeck play)

I think Ooze is at its best in a deck that is generally trying to pair two creatures for a combo but can utilize Ooze as a redundant copy of either, or ideally both, pieces. That could be said of the Devoted Druid + Quillspike combo, but Quillspike isn't really a good enough creature to want to run 4 copies.

Anyway, as food for thought, I played a Fauna Shaman/Necrotic Ooze toolbox + Vengevine standard deck once upon a time (not tier 1, by any stretch). I included Molten-Tail Masticore, as it fits well will Ooze, but I also ran single copies of Vector Asp and Gigantomancer. Being able to give your Ooze infect and shoot things for 4 can be useful and Gigantomancer sort of fills the role of Gavony Township, in that it lets your elves/birds become lethal threats.

[pandaman]

@dice_box, I have a Revoker maindeck already. Perhaps I could put a Pithing Needle in the sideboard? Although I do like how creature-based hate plays with Fauna Shaman, Pithing Needle is very powerful. I wonder if I could fit U in the deck, then I could run a Trinket Mage package. I like the Treetop Village because it's a manland in G that is a 3/3 trample, which plays well with Gavony Township. I wanted one manland in there, and an on-colour one I think is best.

@Raystar, the list you posted is the all-in Ooze list I mentioned in the OP. I'm trying to take this one in a less combo direction.

@dte, I am missing something. All I can see Morselhoarder doing is comboing with Devoted Druid for infinite mana of any colour. What's the instant win with it? I considered Grisely Salvage but decided against it because I don't want random cards going to my graveyard. Controlling what enters your graveyard when is important in a meta where Tron plays 4 maindeck Relic of Progenitus and sideboard there is plenty of graveyard hate going around. Scryb Rangers is a nifty idea, I will try and find a slot for it.

4 Necrotic Ooze
4 Devoted Druid
4 Fauna Shaman
1 Quillspike
1 Grim Poppet
1 Thornling
1 Molten-Tail Masticore
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Spellskite
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Eternal Witness
1 Shriekmaw
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Spike Feeder
1 Archangel of Thune
1 Orzhov Pontiff
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Lead the Stampede
2 Chord of Calling

Land

Sideboard (15)

1 Faerie Macabre
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Fulminator Mage
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Nature's Claim
1 Kor Firewalker
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Kitchen Finks
2 Thoughtseize
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Shriekmaw

[dte]

@dte, I am missing something. All I can see Morselhoarder doing is comboing with Devoted Druid for infinite mana of any colour. What's the instant win with it? I considered Grisely Salvage but decided against it because I don't want random cards going to my graveyard. Controlling what enters your graveyard when is important in a meta where Tron plays 4 maindeck Relic of Progenitus and sideboard there is plenty of graveyard hate going around. Scryb Rangers is a nifty idea, I will try and find a slot for it.

What you missed is Spikeshot Elder. It may seem clunky, but with Fauna and scryb, it is actually much easier to get there than I originally thought.

Additionally, it is easier to play around relic this way, as you can answer it by making infinite mana. They cannot answer the fact that you're discarding (it's a cost). They can only blow your grave as an answer to you fetching with fauna, meaning the worst they can do is to remove one devoted druid from the grave. So you lose one fauna activation. Scryb ranger gives you 2 extra activations per turn, and return dryad arbor to hand for blocks or fauna food. I' m really thinking about a third one.
An instant kill at the cost of 2 slots is worth it imho. It also allow you to win through PtE effects very easily.

The main disadvantage is that the deck becomes even more fauna-centric. I used grizly more to find fauna or scryb than to put things in the grave.

[Ricardio]

What about gather the pack from origins and satyr wayfinder? Glimpse the unthinkable can be great. 10 is a lot. unburial rites for graveyard. I may be entertaining something entirely different. Gifts works well as a makeshift buried alive. Lily to discard things you need in the graveyard same as faithless looting. lingering souls to buy time.

As a side note, cant you steal games with vengevines?

[Kathal]

Some interactions you might consider:

Wall of Blood + Skarrgan Skybreaker, way to kill the opponent without the combat step (as long as your lifetoal is not 4 or more lower than from your opponent).

Civilized Scholar + Stinkweed Imp/Golgari Thug, mills your whole bib, and thus enables any kind of win you want

Devoted Druid + Morselhoarder, similar to the Devoted Druid + Quillspike combo, but you can get any kind of mana of it (and since you are working with cost + mana abilities the opp cannot interrupt).

With Scholar of Athreos you can win with instant speed and play around stuff like Leyline of Sanctity too.


Furthermore, you can use Ground Seal to stop Scavanging Ooze + Surgical shenanigans.

Greetings,
Kathal

[Echelon]

I don't play modern, but as a legacy Nic Fit pilot I can tell you that a manabase with 10 fetch lands, 1 of each (shock)dual in your colours and 2 of each basic (19 land) enables 14/14/14 initial GBX mana across the board. You probably want to run 22 lands or so, so that would leave you with 3 slots for utility lands. This would bring you to the following manabase:

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Temple Garden
1 Godless Shrine
2 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
3 utility lands

For other colour combinations, just switch corresponding fetches/duals/basics. Go for BG and whatever colour that gives you the best SB options or utility/redundancy. This manabase has worked perfectly for me even when lacking Veteran Explorers, so don't worry about that.

Good luck with the deck!

[dte]

If you play scryb ranger (and I strongly advise to do so, with Fauna shaman it's incredibly strong. With any of the manadorks it is easily +2 manas per turn once you've made your landdrops, with arbor it's a goyf-fog, perfect SCM/VClique killer,...), You will want to run mostly green fetches and forest (basics, dryad arbor and duals).