Modern Budget Builds: Boom-Shine Combo
This week we have a deck with almost a cult following in the community. The deck is often referred to as “Boom-Shine” and has been focused on by major creators like AspiringSpike and is really just a super fun deck to play. The deck's goal is to use indestructible artifacts combined with cards that turn them into creatures to provide you with indestructible threats. Spike’s List is a heavy inspiration to this list as he used Supreme Verdict to clear the board and open the way for your indestructible big guys. This deck is in a good place right now as very few cards can actually deal with your threats.
Breakdown of the article:
How does the deck work?
Why now?
Important Interactions & Sideboard cards
So how does this deck work:
As explained above the deck is focused on creating an indestructible creature to kill your opponent with and using your indestructible lands to your own advantage. The main combos of the deck include playing indestructible lands with Cleansing Wildfire or Boom // Bust to generate mana advantage via killing your opponent's lands or ramping your own, or animating your lands to kill your opponent.
Boom // Bust and Cleansing Wildfire:
Boom // Bust and Cleansing Wildfire each kill a land but when targetting indestructible lands you will only reap the benefit. With Boom // Bust you effectively kill an opponent's land for 2 mana and with Cleansing Wildfire while the card looks like it should target your opponent's land you can actually target your own to find a basic land and also draw a card! Both of these only cost 2 mana and are an absolute bargain.
Indestructible Artifacts and Animation:
Darksteel Relic, Razortide Bridge, Rustvale Bridge, Silverbluff Bridge, and Darksteel Citadel all are indestructible artifacts. In conjunction with The Blackstaff of Waterdeep, Rise and Shine, and Ensoul Artifact they each can become very formidable threats. Not only that but these effects can stack very effectively. If you combine Rise and Shine with The Blackstaff of Waterdeep or Ensoul Artifact then your creature will be an 8/8 or 9/9 with indestructible. You can’t use both the Staff and Ensoul Artifact as they both grant “base power and toughness” and just replace each other’s abilities. Lastly, you also have Nettlecyst as a very solid artifact and enchantment card! It is a threat on its own while also allowing you to boost the power of your indestructible threats. A 5/5 is good. But, why not get a 9/9, 10/10, or even 11/11?
Support Pieces:
The deck also runs Galvanic Blast, Stubborn Denial, and Supreme Verdict. Each of these are cards that are powered up by the strategy. Galvanic Blast is a Shock that in this deck is effectively a better Lightning Bolt because we have so many artifacts. Stubborn Denial is just a 1 mana Negate because we almost always have a 4-power creature. Lastly, Supreme Verdict is a one-sided wrath that can’t be countered.
This deck has been around for a while so what makes this deck good now?
Well in Modern at the moment very few major top decks have a single way to kill one of your threats. Leyline Binding can’t target your lands that have been Rise and Shine’d, your threats can’t be killed by damage or destroy-based removal, and with your support cards, you are very resilient to countermagic. A UR Murktide player will struggle to counter your animation effects when you have already Boomed 2 of their lands. You are weak to Solitude but 2 Blackstaff’s should provide enough resiliency to them to still win a good amount of the games.
Important Interactions:
Kaheera! You get a free companion as you run 0 creature cards in your deck! Remember every game to declare Kaheera as your companion, it is a very easy thing to do but also very easy to forget.
Glimmervoid. Always be careful to play this and make sure you don’t leave yourself open to your opponent getting rid of an artifact and also getting to kill your Glimmervoid for free!
Darksteel Relic. Oftentimes in late games, people will want to hold “dead” cards. However, with Darksteel Relic you always want to play them out as top-decking any animation effect will turn them into threats that don’t have summoning sickness. This is especially relevant for overloading Rise and Shine as it is uncommon but can create a surprise lethal board.
Careful Animation. I referred to it above but depending on the matchup what cards you animate and how you do so can be very important. You want to play around Leyline Binding and Solitude and those cards can be very bad for you. For Leyline Binding your opponent will often give it up right away that the card is in their deck by fetching for all 5 colors on turns 1 and 2 but for Solitude it is much harder. To play around both you want to diversify your threats so they can’t use one card to kill your creature. With Leyline Binding you can also target a land with Rise and Shine to make it untargetable. If the damage is especially important that turn you can also use 2 animation effects on the same card. IE if you use both a Staff and an Ensoul Artifact then your opponent can’t just get rid of one to take the creature out of combat.
Sideboard Cards:
Dispatch: This is an amazing removal spell. Very good against Murktide, Titan, and Yawgmoth.
Spell Pierce: A very versatile and cheap piece of countermagic. It can protect your own spells or disrupt your opponents for only 1 mana.
Pithing Needle: Activated abilities are all over the place, naming Yawgmoth, different Equipment, or Wrenn and Six all can restrict your opponent in very important ways. Not only that but when a deck pressures your opponents’ mana as much as this one, sometimes using this as a 1 mana Stone Rain on an absent-minded opponent can end the game. (If you are unaware, Pithing Needle can name fetch lands to stop them from activating, effectively getting rid of their utility as they don’t tap for mana.)
Stubborn Denial: This card has been gone over in the deck but the 4th in the sideboard adds redundancy.
Rest in Peace: If decks rely on their graveyard this silver bullet can end games by itself. Reanimator, Murktide, Yawgmoth, and other decks can be messed up by this card.
Wear // Tear: This card takes out both artifacts and enchantments very efficiently. A deck running Urza’s Saga is usually weak to this card. I would bring this card in against Hammertime, Amulet Titan etc.
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