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For a couple of months, "Amulet Bloom" was the premier combo deck in Modern. It had the most explosive potential of any deck in the format, capable of winning as early as turn one. It had monstrous staying power since Primeval Titan could tutor up additional copies of itself. Sure, Blood Moon, Fulminator Mage, and other powerful hate cards kept it more or less in check, but the deck was more than capable of fighting through some hate or just winning before the hate became relevant. Then Summer Bloom was banned and the deck died. But is it really unplayable? Matt Nass seems to think otherwise:


The core of this deck is still very similar to what it was before. The engine is to utilize Amulet of Vigor with Ravnica block bounce lands to generate enormous quantities of mana. When you play a Simic Growth Chamber with an Amulet of Vigor, you can stack the triggers such that you can tap Simic Growth Chamber for mana and then pick it right back up with its own effect. If you have effects like Summer Bloom to generate multiple land drops per turn, you can net huge amounts of mana all at once.

Unfortunately, Summer Bloom is banned. Matt Nass has made up for this by playing both Explore and Sakura-Tribe Scout in addition to the more typical Azusa, Lost but Seeking. These cards mean that the deck has less explosive potential, but is still capable of casting a Primeval Titan as early as turn three. Of course, in order to make space for the extra mana acceleration, Matt had to cut cards like Hive Mind, which gave this deck many more strong top decks to end games.

Of course, that isn’t to say that this deck isn’t dense with threats. The combination of Primeval Titan, Summoner's Pact, and Tolaria West means that you’ve got a full eleven copies of Primeval Titan in your deck. Particularly important is the ability to use Primeval Titan’s trigger to tutor up a bounce land and a Tolaria West so that your Primeval Titan effectively finds another copy of Primeval Titan. This allows the deck to fight through multiple removal spells and still come out on top.

Of course, there’s still the question of how exactly you win the game. The goal is to utilize Boros Garrison in conjunction with Amulet of Vigor and powerful lands like Slayers' Stronghold and Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion. If you resolve a Primeval Titan with an Amulet of Vigor in play, you can immediately get Boros Garrison and Slayers' Stronghold to hasten up your Primeval Titan. The subsequent trigger on the attack can get some combination of Vesuva and Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion to allow you to hit for 16 or more damage.

Given how aggressive the format has become, non-basic land hate is pretty sparse at this particular stage in Modern’s evolution. That makes this a great time to play a powerful deck that’s capable of stalling out games with Radiant Fountain and Khalni Garden, racing other combo decks, or grinding out control decks. The deck may have lost some of its more explosive draws, but "Amulet Combo" may still be a great choice for your next Modern event.


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