We’ve had a couple of big Modern events over the last few weekends, which is enough to get people talking about the upcoming banned and restricted announcement before Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch. In the wake of those Modern events, there’s been a lot of talk about whether Amulet of Vigor is too good for Modern. This past weekend, Bob Huang set out to remind everyone there’s another turn two combo deck in the format.

Goryo?s Vengeance ? Modern | Bob Huang, 2nd StarCityGames Open

• Creatures (14)
• 2 Borborygmos Enraged
• 4 Simian Spirit Guide
• 4 Worldspine Wurm
• 4 Griselbrand

• Spells (28)
• 1 Manamorphose
• 2 Desperate Ritual
• 2 Izzet Charm
• 4 Goryo's Vengeance
• 4 Nourishing Shoal
• 4 Through the Breach
• 3 Night's Whisper
• 4 Faithless Looting
• 4 Serum Visions

• Lands (18)
• 1 Island
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Swamp
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 1 Darkslick Shores
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Watery Grave
• 2 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 2 Bloodstained Mire
• 3 Polluted Delta
• 4 Scalding Tarn

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Pact of Negation
• 1 Rending Volley
• 2 Sudden Shock
• 2 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 2 Painful Truths
• 2 Pyroclasm
• 2 Shatterstorm
• 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All

Buy This Deck

We’ve seen a few different builds of Griselbrand combo decks in Modern. The first builds prominently featured Fury of the Horde as a way to chain together Griselbrand or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn hits to end the game on the spot. Bob’s build has traded this consistent, combat-dependent combo kill for much more resilient, though inconsistent, engine. That engine is Nourishing Shoal.

The game-plan for this deck is to use Through the Breach or Goryo's Vengeance to put Griselbrand into play. From there, you can get in a hit with Griselbrand and start paying life to draw cards. You can generally draw fourteen or more cards, hopefully finding Nourishing Shoal plus Worldspine Wurm to gain some of that life back so you can keep going. Eventually, you’ll find enough resources to pitch Simian Spirit Guides, cast Manamorphose, and cheat a Borborygmos Enraged into play to throw all your lands at your opponent’s face.

This engine is much more resilient in the face of removal, since the entirety of your engine is instant-speed and does not rely on the combat step. It does, however, require you to assemble a two-card combo of Shoal plus Wurm rather than Fury of the Horde and random Red cards. More moving pieces means there will be more games in which the deck just loses to itself. These new pieces aren’t without their upsides though! The ability to gain eleven life against burn decks is a big deal, and being able to Through the Breach a Worldspine Wurm to hit for a bunch and generate tokens is also a big deal.

All told, this is a fast combo deck with the potential to win through all manner of disruption. Any deck with the ability to win on turns one and two, especially when it can also fight through disruption in longer games, is not something we should be ignoring. It may be somewhat inconsistent, but this is certainly one of the most powerful decks in the Modern format.