Many months ago, there was a ramp deck that could threaten to overpower and outrace other fast mana decks like R/G Tron, Scapeshift, and other Primeval Titan decks. As Amulet of Vigor increased in popularity and Ghost Quarter became ubiquitous in Modern, the deck became much less tenable. Now, we see decks shifting away from Ghost Quarter and other mana denial strategies as those effects don’t help you keep up with cards like Cranial Plating, Nahiri, the Harbinger, or Glistener Elf. Could it be time for Utopia Sprawl to make a comeback?

Green Devotion ? Modern | Lunik, 5-0 Modern League

• Creatures (21)
• 1 Craterhoof Behemoth
• 4 Arbor Elf
• 4 Birds of Paradise
• 4 Eternal Witness
• 4 Kitchen Finks
• 4 Wistful Selkie

• Planeswalkers (7)
• 3 Kiora, Master of the Depths
• 4 Garruk Wildspeaker

• Spells (12)
• 1 Primal Command
• 3 Genesis Wave
• 4 Oath of Nissa
• 4 Utopia Sprawl

• Lands (20)
• 5 Forest
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Kessig Wolf Run
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 4 Windswept Heath

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Ancient Grudge
• 1 Nature's Claim
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 1 Seal of Primordium
• 1 Terastodon
• 2 Obstinate Baloth
• 4 Dismember
• 4 Negate

Buy This Deck

The core of this strategy hasn’t changed since the deck was first built about two years ago. The idea is to pair Arbor Elf and Utopia Sprawl for some unbelievably explosive draws. Turn one Arbor Elf and turn two Utopia Sprawl allows you to do things like cast a turn two Garruk Wildspeaker or Kiora, Master of the Depths. Kiora, Master of the Depths would even allow you to untap enough mana to cast a follow-up Garruk Wildspeaker. Once you’ve got a bunch of Green symbols, you can start going even bigger by untapping Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx.

The end game is to chain together enough Wistful Selkies and Eternal Witnesses to find a Genesis Wave or Primal Command into Craterhoof Behemoth. With the power of the Arbor Elf engine, it’s not unreasonable to win the game as early as turn three.

But unlike some other combo decks, this deck doesn’t have to go big early in order to win the game. You also have plenty of ways to generate cards and play a more protracted game. You have cards like Kitchen Finks and Wistful Selkie to help generate extra cards and life, as well as Eternal Witness to buy them back. Both of the Planeswalkers in this deck can be used to generate value rather than explosive mana. Perhaps most importantly, Primal Command lets you tutor for Eternal Witness and either gain life or set your opponent back a land. Eternal Witness lets you rebuy Primal Command so you can rinse and repeat that sequence, setting your opponent further and further behind while you have time to sculpt your board.

All in all, there’s a lot of explosive potential here, but also plenty of staying power, which is a great place to be in this format. Sure, there are plenty of fast decks. There’s also lots of early interaction in the form of Lightning Bolt, Ghost Quarter, and Thoughtseize. You don’t want to play a deck that just folds to one of these effects. This is a deck with some weaknesses to many of these hate cards, but can still play a reasonable game using raw card quality when the combo plan is off the table.