by Johnny Cycles, January 6th, 2024

Welcome to my first ever video! And while you would be correct to assume I’d want my debut on YouTube to be about dragons, probably Gruul Dragons, I have something even jankier in store. I call the deck Lukka Surprise!

This is the deck in 3 pictures! We want to use 1-mana mana dorks and Treasure tokens from Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer to cast Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast as early as turn 3 (usually turn 4). We -2 Lukka, exile one of our 1-mana creatures and, voila, Ignoble Hierarch becomes Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. It’s basically magic in the other meaning of the word…

Deck Tech

And here’s the deck:

Decklist – Lukka Surprise

by Johnny Cycles
Format: Modern

Creatures (13)

4 Ignoble Hierarch
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Planeswalkers (4)

4 Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast

Spells (4)

4 Lightning Bolt

Artifacts (2)

2 The One Ring

Enchantments (15)

4 Footfall Crater
4 Oath of Nissa
3 Bitter Reunion
4 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker

Lands (22)

3 Arid Mesa
1 Boseiju, Who Endures
3 Forest
7 Mountain
4 Stomping Ground
4 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard (15)

4 Tamiyo’s Safekeeping
3 Veil of Summer
4 Abrade
4 Questing Beast

The Other Part of the Combo

While our deck can be summed up with just 3 cards, we are really a 4-card combo deck. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn isn’t what it used to be 5 or 10 years ago. Letting our opponent untap before attacking with her is often enough time for them to answer our big threat. Cards like Teferi, Time Raveler, Petty Theft, and Otawara, Soaring City can bounce our 15-mana finisher to our hand and ruin our fun. How do we avoid this? We give Emrakul haste, like this:

There are two really sweet aspects to this part of the combo. First, at just 1 and 2 mana apiece, we will be able to cast these enchantments during the early portion of the game when we’re still digging for Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast and making our land drops. What this means is we are executing our game plan on every single turn. Turn 1 – mana dork. Turn 2 – mana dork plus one of these enchantments. Turn 3 – the world is our oyster.

Second, each of these combo pieces supports our combo in a second way: they let us dig for what we’re missing. We can cycle away extra copies of Footfall Crater to draw a card. Or, we can discard them to draw 2 cards with Bitter Reunion.

Now for the drawback of this part of the combo. At 5 mana, the soonest we can cast Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast is turn 3. However, we won’t have the mana to give our Emrakul, the Aeons Torn haste yet. That makes us a turn 4 combo kill deck. Is that fast enough for today’s Modern? I guess we’ll find out!

Finding our Pieces

Besides the two enchantments above, we have Oath of Nissa, Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, and The One Ring to dig for whatever part of the combo we’re missing. All said, that’s 5 ways and 17 cards that let us churn through our deck in search of what we need to execute our super sweet and super janky gameplan.

Things Worth Noting

We aren’t technically all in on our combo. A turn 1 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer followed by two of our mana dorks lets us attack for 4 on turn 2. We can chip in a lot of early damage this way.

Our 2/2 Goblin Shaman token and Reflection of Kiki-Jiki can finish an opponent off with enough exalted triggers. In one game, I did this:

That’s a 6/5 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer swinging in.

Essentially, we are a combo deck playing two of the best cards in the format: Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker. Both of these all-stars can take over a game single-handedly, whether it be the snowballing of Ragavan, or digging for what we need with Fable before flipping it and making copies of our best creature (okay, fine, making tokens of a Hierarch for us).

Weaknesses

Being a 4-card combo deck means we have three big weaknesses. First, we are slow compared to the best decks in the format. Turn 3 is the earliest we can stick an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, while turn 4 is the earliest we can attack with her. With just Lightning Bolt as our removal and two copies of The One Ring to Fog for a turn, decks like Hammer Time, Merfolk, and even Amulet Titan may just steamroll us before we get close. Even the Golgari Food deck I played was able to go off before us and take infinite turns.

Second, we need four cards to execute our combo optimally. That’s a lot of cards. And even with all the ways we have to dig for our pieces, there will be some games where we just don’t find what we need. Third, a creature-based combo deck is easily disrupted with removal. Modern is full of efficient and flexible removal/answers, from Unholy Heat and Lightning Bolt, to Leyline Binding and Tishana’s Tidebinder. Throw in Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek and that’s a lot of hate. Playing around these cards when we can is crucial to our success. One benefit of playing cards like Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker is that opponents are very incentivized to answer these cards with their removal. This means our mana dorks, haste-giving enchantments, and Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast will have a better chance of surviving.

Enough preamble! Let’s get to the games and my FIRST EVER VIDEO!!!

Video of Practice Games

Match 1 – Rakdos Midrange

Match 2 – Amulet Titan

Can we beat the unbeatable deck with our jank? Will we ever get a flawless victory? Let’s find out!

Match 3 – Tron

Another big mana deck. Will our Lukka and Emrakul be fast enough to beat Tron?

Wrap Up (for now)

Click here to see the deck in action in a league!

Thanks for reading and watching!