Right now, Modern is all about unfair decks trying to win games with minimal interaction and fair decks trying to interact more efficiently than the unfair decks are prepared for. Sometimes, that’s just not enough. Sometimes you have to go beyond interacting with what your opponent is trying to do and instead prevent them from effectively casting their spells in the first place. Pascal Maynard tries to do that in Modern with this interesting take on Death Cloud.

Mono-Black Death Cloud ? Modern | Pascal Maynard

• Creatures (14)
• 4 Fulminator Mage
• 4 Simian Spirit Guide
• 3 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 3 Solemn Simulacrum

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 4 Liliana of the Veil

• Spells (18)
• 4 Chalice of the Void
• 4 Death Cloud
• 4 Guardian Idol
• 3 Damnation
• 3 Mind Stone

• Lands (24)
• 13 Snow-Covered Swamp
• 4 Mutavault
• 3 Gemstone Caverns
• 2 Bojuka Bog
• 2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Engineered Explosives
• 4 Leyline of the Void
• 2 Night of Souls' Betrayal
• 2 Ratchet Bomb
• 4 Thought-Knot Seer
• 1 Damnation

Buy This Deck

This deck has a lot of interesting pieces. Notice that, despite being Mono-Black, there are zero copies of Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek in this deck. There are also zero copies of spot removal spells like Disfigure, Dismember, or Slaughter Pact. Instead, this is a deck which is reasonably dependent on utilizing Damnation and Death Cloud to prevent opponents from running it over, with Liliana of the Veil functioning as both a means of slowing opponents down as well as grinding out additional value post-Death Cloud.

The core of the deck is the mana acceleration. Mind Stone and Guardian Idol provide a means of setting up turn three Solemn Simulacrum. Between those ten ramp spells and Simian Spirit Guide, it’s pretty reasonable to be casting a Death Cloud for three on turn four, which will frequently be enough to put decks like Affinity and Infect on zero cards.

Of course, that plan is less good against opposing midrange decks who will be more or less as capable as you are of operating on minimal resources. Against those decks, your plan is to ramp out Fulminator Mages to ensure that your opponents don’t have access to lands as both players start to rebuild.

It’s also worth noting the power of Simian Spirit Guide plus Chalice of the Void in this style of shell. While Death Cloud goes a long way towards ensuring your opponents have no resources, Chalice of the Void is a much more efficient way of making sure that none of their resources matter. Many decks in Modern like Burn, Elves, Bogles, and Tron are enormously reliant on one-drops to execute their game plan, and the ability to completely shut those decks down as early as turn one should not be understated.

As far as actually winning the game goes, this deck has two primary paths available to it. The first is Mutavault beatdown. This isn’t especially reliable, since many decks are packing Ghost Quarter to fight Inkmoth Nexus, but Mutavault is a relatively low-cost way of ensuring that you can chip in for damage post-Death Cloud. The other path is Guardian Idol. This is a reasonable ramp spell that’s difficult to kill your opponent with, but its ability to fulfill both functions and live through Death Cloud is a big deal. You just have to be careful to protect your win conditions from efficient answers like Path to Exile and Lightning Bolt by ensuring that you’ve either resolved a Chalice of the Void or destroyed all of your opponent’s lands.

If you’re looking for something a little wacky that interacts with Modern in a way that many opponents aren’t prepare for, this isn’t a bad place to start.