Was it me, or did this deck get banned earlier this year? Because I could’ve sworn it was banned. Was I just dreaming?
Yeah, that’s what I thought. Summer Bloom is gone. So imagine my surprise to see it popping up recently, albeit in a slightly altered form. Matt Nass, wacky combo deck connoisseur, has been its most notable proponent, and the masses are starting to take heed.
The basic gameplan is the same: play a bunch of lands no one remembers existed and use Amulet of Vigor to power out a Primeval Titan, at which point you find even more lands no one remembers existed and kill your opponent. Sounds simple, although the reality is anything but, as the deck is a sea of tutors and complex sequencing. My one foray into the deck went…poorly. But it was incredibly powerful in its day, and its combination of raw speed and late-game power led to Summer Bloom getting the axe.
Azusa, Lost but Seeking, formerly a singleton target for Summoner’s Pact, comes in as a slightly more expensive and less powerful replacement. To help recoup the lost speed, we see the addition of Kamigawa block all-star Sakura-Tribe Scout and its generic equivalent Skyshroud Ranger. Importantly, Sakura-Tribe Scout combines with Azusa, Lost but Seeking to accelerate you to six mana on turn 3, aka Titan mana, aka Dead Them mana.
You can still pull off some crazy double-Amulet draw to land Primeval Titan on turn 2, but gone are the days of “Amulet into Summer Bloom, thanks for playing,” landing the safely in the turn 3-to-5 space that Modern currently inhabits. You also are more dependent on Amulet of Vigor, since your ramp cards are less powerful, so I wouldn’t be surprised if anyone opted to play some number of Sleight of Hands before the fourth Ancient Stirrings, which came up previously.
In fact, Nass’s recent list has two copies of Sleight of Hand in addition to the other cantrips, eschewing the Hive Mind plan entirely in order to focus on the big green creature that’s not-so-secretly a combo card.
Of course, the new iteration of this deck needs equal or greater late-game potency than the Summer Bloom lists had, since it cannot beat opponents on pure speed as often, and we see those elements in the sideboard. Hornet Queen is a near game-ender against most creature decks, and things like Obstinate Baloth; Melira, Sylvok Outcast; and Engineered Explosives all let you play a more traditional ramp-control hybrid style, akin to G/R Tron.
Is this deck going to ascend to its previous heights? Most likely not, but it does reinforce the status of Primeval Titan as a seriously messed-up Magic card. Because if you told me five years ago that Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion would play a key role in a deck that caused a ban in Modern, I would’ve cocked my head to the side, furrowed my brow, and asked:
What does that card do again?
Creatures (10)
Lands (27)
Spells (23)
