by Johnny Cycles, July 31st, 2026
Hello and welcome to another edition of Keeping Modern Janky! I knew the moment I saw World War Hulk that I wanted to build a deck around its first chapter. A 5-mana spell that let us cast ANY red or green creature for free???
Visions of giant, overcosted creatures coming down as early as turn 3 filled my mind. How could we best abuse this card? Well, I have a few ideas.
I’ve played the above-pictured cards in a variety of decks in both Modern and Pioneer. They were fun when they worked, for sure, but I figured with all of the Red and Green creatures in Modern, we could do better.
That’s right! A 20-year-old card from Saviors of Kamigawa brings our deck true explosive combo potential. Why, you ask? Well, first, thanks to a bit of an unexpected wording of World War Hulk‘s first chapter, we cast the next Red or Green creature for free, rather than putting it on the battlefield. This allows us to take advantage of the cast trigger of Iname as One and go get…
The best Spirit in Modern baby!!! And it’s a Dragon! This deck checks a lot of boxes for me. Here’s the list:
Decklist – Golgari Hulk
by Johnny Cycles
Format: Modern
Creatures (15)
| 4 Arboreal Grazer | |
| 2 Disciple of Freyalise | |
| 3 Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant | |
| 3 Ureni, the Song Unending | |
| 3 Iname as One |
Spells (18)
| 4 Fatal Push | |
| 2 Esper Origins | |
| 4 Malevolent Rumble | |
| 4 Flare of Cultivation | |
| 4 Turntimber Symbiosis |
Enchantments (8)
| 4 Utopia Sprawl | |
| 4 World War Hulk |
Lands (19) + 6 mfdcs
| 2 Boseiju, Who Endures | |
| 6 Forest | |
| 1 Island | |
| 1 Mountain | |
| 1 Overgrown Tomb | |
| 2 Swamp | |
| 2 Underground Mortuary | |
| 4 Verdant Catacombs |
Sideboard (15)
| 4 Thoughtseize | |
| 3 Veil of Summer | |
| 2 Damnation | |
| 4 Leyline of the Void | |
| 2 Koh, the Face Stealer |
Deck Tech
Primary Game Plan
We are a pretty straightforward combo deck. We want to ramp into a turn 3 or 4 World War Hulk, cast Iname as One with the first chapter of the saga, then tutor up Ureni, the Song Unending. If we happen to have Ureni in hand alongside Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant, we can cast the latter to cheat in the former.
Our secondary game plan is to ramp enough to hard cast Turntimber Symbiosis or one of our 8-drops. I’ve yet to get to 12 mana, but 7 and 8 is doable.
Disciple of Freyalise is a sneaky all-star in our deck and it’s possible we should run the full playset. By the time we cast Iname as One and snag Ureni, we are typically low on life and sometimes still facing a big enough board to lose in a few turns.
Disciple of Freyalise allows us to stabilize by sacrificing Ureni or Iname as One. We gain a ton of life and draw a bunch of cards, all but guaranteed to find our combo pieces in order to run it all back. And, if we are lucky enough to have a Spirit in the yard, we can sacrifice Iname and get that Spirit on the battlefield.
Everyone knows how good Malevolent Rumble is, but Esper Origins isn’t too far behind it with what it brings to our deck. It gives us a way to sculpt our draw in the early game, while its flashback lets us surveil again, then draw what we leave on top. Yeah, that’s me just reading the card.
What makes it powerful in our deck is that we don’t have a lot to do before we hit 5 mana. Our best use of 4 mana is either Flare of Cultivation and Arboreal Grazer or flashing this back.
What’s sneaky good, though, about the saga side is its second chapter. The can help us hard cast a Ghalta or Ureni well ahead of curve.
Sideboard
We’re playing a bunch of the usual suspects here other than Koh, the Face Stealer. I wanted another threat to bring in from the board that synergizes with our plan and this 6-drop happens to be a Spirit we can snag with Iname as One. Otherwise, it’s more castable than our other bombs and does exile our opponent’s best creature. So far I’ve only played it as a beater, but all that other text is certainly not irrelevant.
A quick word about Thoughtseize and Veil of Summer. Being that we’re very all in on resolving one spell in order to resolve another, we need these cards to help clear the way and/or protect us from counter magic.
Game Play
Overall Record: 4-2
Overall Impressions
Two of our opponents scooped the third match at a point when I considered them to be in a good position, but we’ll take it! Our Affinity opponent wanted no part in a game 2. A win’s a win! I do think a deck like Affinity will win more often than not, given how fast it can be. Which gets me to my first impression.
Going into our matches, I fully expected the deck to be too slow to compete in today’s Modern. I figured we may get to do our thing, but that it wouldn’t matter. And a couple of matches (Burn and Charbelcher) definitely went that way. But in all of the others, we were able to stay alive long enough to resolve our combo and either win the next turn or use Disciple of Freyalise to stabilize and refill our hand.
Second, I was really impressed with the consistency of the deck. Sure, many of our matches started with a lot of awkward draws of all bombs and no ramp. And, when that happened, it caused us problems. Nevertheless, we didn’t have much of a problem finding our main piece, World War Hulk. Our dig spells did their job very well.
Finally, shaking off the rust of not playing Modern led to some ugly misplays and perpetually forgetting to sacrifice Arboreal Grazer to cast Flare of Cultivation, but we largely overcame our misplays. Over the course of the matches, I hit my stride with the deck. Still, I’d love to have our match against Burn back. Had I played my hand correctly, we may have won that first game.
Another Direction
I built two decks around World War Hulk and it’s this second one that I expected to be more competitive. It’s a Jund version built with mana dorks as its ramp alongside Badgermole Cub. Its bombs, in theory, are more easily cast. Here’s the list:
Decklist – Jund Hulk
by Johnny Cycles
Format: Modern
Creatures (22)
Spells (14)
| 4 Fatal Push | |
| 2 Esper Origins | |
| 4 Malevolent Rumble | |
| 4 Turntimber Symbiosis |
Enchantments (8)
| 4 Utopia Sprawl | |
| 4 World War Hulk |
Lands (19) + 6 mfdcs
Sideboard (15)
| 3 Meltdown | |
| 3 Thoughtseize | |
| 3 Veil of Summer | |
| 4 Leyline of the Void | |
| 1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed | |
| 1 Ancient Adamantoise |
My thoughts on the deck are that it lacks the explosive combo potential of the Golgari version, but has traded this for more diverse threats that are easier to resolve on their own. Then I manage to put 29 power on the battlefield on turn 4…
Nut draw aside, though, I do expect the deck to be a bit more grindy, as well as more susceptible to commonly played removal. I’ve only managed the one match, but boy was it a fun one! I’ll post more games as I get to them.
Conclusion
World War Hulk proved to be as fun as I had expected. What was unexpected was how consistent the deck played and how we were able to execute our combo in the face of much aggression. Sure, we didn’t play Boros Energy or a true Affinity deck, but we did our thing by turn 4 more than once. And with the potential to do it on turn 3, I think this is one of my more competitive Keeping Modern Janky decks!
So if you’re looking for a Combo deck with explosive, game-ending power but don’t like Neoform, then give this deck a shot! Let me know in the comments what you think! Are there any bombs I could be playing instead of the ones I chose? Thanks for reading and watching! I’ll catch y’all on the next one.
