by Johnny Cycles, June 16th, 2024
It’s been more than a month since the release of Outlaws of Thunder Junction and Magic’s 100th set has not disappointed. And while Lavaspur Boots, Slickshot Show-Off, and Simulacrum Synthesizer may be the most played cards from the set, here at cyclesgaming.com we’ve been more excited about Tinybones, the Pickpocket, Magda, the Hoardmaster, and Goldvein Hydra.
But one card we haven’t yet played is Colossal Rattlewurm. This 4-mana 6/5 trampler has the stats to pass the eye test, but is it good enough to win some games in Modern? Let’s find out!
Decklist – Mono Green(ish) Colossal Rattlewurm
by Johnny Cycles
Format: Modern
Creatures (22)
| 3 Hexdrinker | |
| 4 Goldvein Hydra | |
| 4 Werewolf Pack Leader | |
| 4 Steel Leaf Champion | |
| 3 Questing Beast | |
| 4 Colossal Rattlewurm |
Planeswalkers (4)
| 4 Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner |
Enchantments (7)
| 4 Utopia Sprawl | |
| 3 Garruk’s Uprising |
Instants (6)
| 4 Fatal Push | |
| 2 Abrupt Decay |
Lands (21)
| 4 Hashep Oasis | |
| 4 Overgrown Tomb | |
| 4 Verdant Catacombs | |
| 4 Wooded Foothills | |
| 5 Forest |
Sideboard (15)
| 3 Thoughtseize | |
| 3 Veil of Summer | |
| 3 Assassin’s Trophy | |
| 3 Endurance | |
| 3 Force of Vigor |
Deck Tech
Primary Game Plan
Despite all that Desert-matters text on Colossal Rattlewurm, we are largely a Mono Green beat-down deck looking to cast overpowered, undercosted creatures ahead of curve in order to pressure our opponent’s answers and life total on the way to victory.
Why?
Because I don’t think we need to cast Colossal Rattlewurm at instant speed for it to be good. The relevant parts of this card, in my mind, are the 6/5 in the bottom right corner and the word Trample sandwiched between those two blocks of text. Not that we are totally ignoring the Desert part of this card. We’re playing 4 copies of Hashep Oasis to give us something to tutor up, something to enable Flash, and a value land that can steal wins out of nowhere.
The rest of the deck is made up of some of my favorite Mono Green cards in the format. Hexdrinker is a 1-drop best cast on turn 4 when we can immediately level it up to 3 to protect it from instants. However, if we have an aggressive hand that curves out nicely, we’ll run it out on turn 1, mainly because it will either trade with Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer or bait out a kill spell. It’s true that it dies to Orcish Bowmasters, but most 1-drops do and this one has the ability to win a game if unanswered. It’s also arguably a better late-game draw than early game one when our opponent isn’t expecting it.
Werewolf Pack Leader is our first overpowered, undercosted threat as a 3/3 for . It’s possible this spot should be given to Tarmogoyf, but more on that later. For our purposes, the Human Werewolf hits hard early and late, while functioning as a mana sink and card draw engine in the late game.
From there, we get a 3-mana 5/4 with semi evasion in Steel Leaf Champion. Rounding out our beaters are two of my favorites, Questing Beast and Goldvein Hydra, alongside our namesake card. I don’t think either of the first two need much by way of explanation as to why they’re so powerful. But in case you haven’t watched my Gruul Dragons deck or my Hydra Tribal one, the most relevant word for both is Haste. For us to close out a game after getting some early damage in, we need to be able to hit hard and unexpectedly. All that other text on these two mythic Green creatures make them two of the best in the game.
Colossal Rattlewurm, with flash, has pseudo haste, allowing us to surprise an opponent who taps down for whatever nonsense they’re up to.
Utopia Sprawl and Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner give us some ramp and card draw. Garruk’s Uprising, a card I’m trying out for the first time, gives our big beaters trample, while also drawing us cards to keep us from running out of action.
Why Splash Black?
The short answer is that we want some way to interact with our opponent. The long answer is that Mono Green Stompy was one of the first archetypes I played in Standard when I got back into Magic. This was the time of Sphinx’s Revelation decks that gave Midrange decks a lot of problems. My Mono Green deck too easily ran out of threats in that match-up. And so I splashed Black for Underworld Connections, Abrupt Decay, and Golgari Charm. These cards from the sideboard gave me much needed card draw and answers to Detention Sphere to fight against Control.
We don’t need Black for card draw, but having some main deck removal does mean we’re less likely to die to a turn 1 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. Thoughtseize out of the sideboard gives us an additional way to combat the Combo decks that are such bad match-ups for us.
Will our janky mono Green beaters be up to the task of defeating Modern’s premier creatures, most of which are more overpowered and undercosted than our own, despite the color pie dictating otherwise? Will the unfair decks in the format feast on our relatively slow strategy? Let’s find out!
Practice Matches
Match 1 vs. Izzet Murktide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18rp0RAGRlE
Match 2 vs. Vexing Devil Burn
Match 3 vs. Lazav, Wearer of Faces
Match 4 vs. Indomitable Creativity
Match 5 vs. Living End
Overall Record: 3-2
Wrap-Up
Overall we went 3-2, which is basically our goal with the kind of janky decks we play. We did well against what I’d call fair decks: Izzet Murktide and Burn. We saw how our game plan to overwhelm our opponent’s answers and life total with our big threats worked to perfection against Izzet, one of the best decks in the format.
In our match against Burn, we saw why splashing for Black can be so important. Answering their creatures allowed us to win the race. We also got to watch Deflecting Palm whiff against our Questing Beast. What can’t that card do????
Our third match win was against a Grixis Control deck looking to abuse Lazav, Wearer of Faces. Here we saw just how powerful our Black cards can be in support of our aggressive strategy. We also got pretty lucky with some of our top decks, but that’s part of the game, and we certainly have lost our fair share due to poor draws.
The last two matches were against two of what I call the unfair decks in the format. Both are playing on a different axis, one by cheating in an Archon of Cruelty as early as turn 3, and the other by cheating in a bunch of big fatties from the graveyard after cycling them for value. These are the kinds of decks we’re going to struggle against. And we did.
However, we did get a game against Indomitable Creativity, winning on turn 4, which is pretty fast, even in Modern. And we were one draw away from going to game 3 against Living End. The problem for our deck against these kinds of strategies is that we are super reliant on our sideboard cards to keep us in the game. And, if we’re drawing those, that means we might not be drawing our threats to actually win the game. It’s all good and well to stop our opponent with a timely Endurance, but if we can’t continue pressuring their life total after that, they’ll just rebuild. Still, that the games were competitive bodes well.
Other Directions
I enjoyed returning to my roots to play a Mono Green Stompy deck, but Colossal Rattlewurm has more potential homes than this one. We played against an opponent who had gone all in on the Desert aspect of the deck with cards like Ramunap Hydra, a wide range of deserts, and even Hour of Promise. You can watch that match here. I like our opponent’s commitment to a janky theme and I’m curious to toy with a more desert-centric build, as well.
However, we could make a few changes to our current build while maintaining its general shell. Tarmogoyf over Werewolf Pack Leader, for instance. Mishra’s Bauble over Garruk’s Uprising. These are two simple swaps that could pay big dividends. We could also make room for Thoughtseize in the main, since it’s such a flexible and powerful card that shores up our most difficult matches.
We could also take the deck from Golgari to Gruul. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Lightning Bolt, Questing Druid, plus our tried and true Planeswalker duo of Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner and Domri, Anarch of Bolas could easily support Colossal Rattlewurm as a finisher. I’m reluctant to go this route solely because I don’t want to simply take my Gruul Dragons deck and switch out the finishers.
With the printing of Flare of Cultivation we’ll have access to another 2-card combo that can reliably give us 4 mana on turn 2. A deck looking to abuse 4-drop creatures will certainly want Colossal Rattlewurm in the 60. Be on the lookout for that deck once Modern Horizons 3 drops, which, as of the publication of this article, it has! I’m testing decks as you read and I can’t wait to see how the new cards impact my favorite archetypes!
That’s all for now! I hope you enjoyed the janky brew and the game play! Be sure to click that subscribe button on YouTube if you did. Thanks for reading and watching. And happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there! The struggle is real sometimes. Drop me a message at johnnycycles16@gmail.com if you want a sympathetic ear to vent to.
I’ll catch y’all on the next one!
