As far as the meta game goes, you only see that in Jund and Grixis though.

Green is something to consider for sure. It could potentially evolve from a pillowfort deck to an enchantress type of deck, though I’d really have to look the cards over to be sure. Porphyry Nodes would feel real bad in that hypothetical enchantress deck, unfortunately, because the creatures that you tend to want to mine for value are wimpy from the body POV.

And thanks for the shout-out man. I appreciate it. 🙂

Except that it dies to any removal that isnt Path or Bolt – which is Terminate, Dismember, Go for the Throat

Hey Dan, are you on tappedout.net at all? I’ve been throwing around making a pillowfort primer on there, I just suck at writing. Maybe you would be interested in working on one with me?

That aside, I’m a pillowfort brew builder too; I enjoy playing with 5 colors, for example here http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=73318, but I’ve recently just been trying the two colors. I think the hardest time we have, overall, is permission decks. But, I like how you are willing to play non-enchantment cards, like faithless looting. Pretty cool.

Oh, hey fellas, I didn’t mean to imply that I disagree with you regarding War’s Toll, your assessment as usual is probably spot on. Especially, for competition at the highest levels. I’m simply trying to relate its general purpose in the deck. Where I’ve used it, I’ve had some decent results–however, neither my local meta nor MTGO provide pro level competition consistently, so take my statements for what they’re worth. It may be out of the box, but Currie seems to have done fairly well. If worked for him great, but It may not be everyone’s cup-o-tea. I think he’s crazy for not running green for its ability to accelerate the deck (something I think the deck badly needs) but again, I’m hardly an expert. I just enjoy seeing new decks challenge the meta in new ways.

As far as removal goes, Roland’s ideas regarding lightning helix seem great to me. I also forgot to mention that I’ve learned a great deal about modern from his comments as well while visiting the site. Lastly, don’t sleep on enchantment removal like Porphyry Nodes, they can be very potent. Although it tends to remove it self when Starfield lands, so that’s something to consider.

Well, the idea with all-in Tooth is to survive your guys being Bolted, or generate so much mana that Mana Leak just stops working properly. Given that slower hard counters like Cryptic Command are sort of being hated out of the format right now by all of the aggression, it’s not the worst idea.

And I think you’ve explained my thoughts on War’s Toll better than I have – it just reeks of jank.

As Jordan noted below, Defense Grid accomplishes the “protect me from countermagic” effect for just 2 mana, and making people choose between tapping for Ghostly or casting something doesn’t sound overly significant, given that it’s what most people opt to do anyway. The creature-based effect is also close to irrelevant in Prison, since you’re not tagging them on a backswing. I don’t think War’s Toll is all that great an effect, and certainly not for a whopping 4 mana.

I get splashing red for Ajani (he’s pretty great), but you might as well grab other good things in red while you’re there. I don’t see much reason to not pack Lightning Helix, given that the first few turns of this deck’s games are it hanging on for dear life until it can stabilize. The swing from removing an attacker and getting life is absolutely huge, especially against a burn deck or any other deck with reach that can ignore your lock effects.

The problem with an all-in Tooth deck is its weakness to countermagic, but Leak + clock is already hard for these kinds of decks to beat. On War’s Toll, I mostly agree with you. It seems to me like a jankier, two-card (still), eight-mana Isochron + Silence. Or, if the goal is to pacify counterspell decks, a jankier, eight-mana, two-card Defense Grid that only works against opponents with creatures.

Nice insights. I especially like the idea of Starfield of Nyx… with Fatihless Looting.

Wow, thanks for picking that up! Stormbreath Dragon is a great option in Modern because it’s hard to kill and tough to chump.

Hey there Roland,
Regarding Currie’s deck. I’d argue that Ajani is the purpose for red in his build. The synergy between War’s Toll and Ghostly Prison/Suppression field is the reason we play it. Yes, a player can float all of their mana in response to the tap trigger. But when that mana fizzles as the phase ends, it leaves the player unable to attack as they can’t pay the Ghostly tax. Conversely, should they decide to wait until the attack step to pay for an attack, this leaves them without the ability to cast spells during main phase two, or our turn.

The deck has some weaknesses to counter control–War’s Toll helps mitigate this by limiting the opponents options to attacks, or spells.

2) I’m a bit leery of MBD given that it has no ability to interact with artifacts or enchantments (so no beating Lantern Control, Prison, or Affinity, ever), but that deck looks really fun. It also looks to be reasonably resilient (though I worry about Lashwrithe in a format where Kolaghan’s Command is so popular). I think I might want to experiment with Complete Disregard, Geth’s Verdict, or a small splash in order to handle creatures with pro-black.

3) This deck looks mean. It durdles a bit much for my taste (no matter how many lands you run, 4+ mana win-cons in a deck that blows its own lands up screams slooooooow), but it would probably be a bear for a lot of decks that don’t have countermagic, ramp, or the ability to vomit out their hands quickly to deal with.

4) I don’t think that splashing R just for War’s Toll (whose land trigger I’m assuming you can respond to by floating all of your mana and casting stuff – feels a bit underwhelming), Ajani Vengeant, and Blood Moon is worth it. It’s fine if you want to avoid the CMC1 removal (though Bolt in particular would be great here, since it avoids the non-bo that is Path + Ghostly Prison), but you have to at least think about cards like Lightning Helix and Wear // Tear.

5) I’ve taken an “all-in” variant of that Tooth & Nail list out for a spin. I doubled down on the combo by using Garruk in addition to Kiora, Fertile Ground in addition to Utopia Sprawl and Overgrowth, and Kiora’s Follower in addition to Arbor Elf and Voyaging Satyr). The deck is a blast to play, and I also found it to be redundant enough (and possessing enough cantrip power, thanks to Serum Visions and Harmonize) to shrug off the initial wave of disruption attempts. The Gifts version has its merits, but I’m not sure they trump just being really consistent on your comboing off.

Anyways great article 🙂 you have a small mistake in it: The pillowfort is also called pox like the dega deck before it.