Deck Highlight: Modern Tibalt Cascade

Modern Tibalt Cascade by Yuya Hosokawa

Buy This Deck

I was looking at some Modern deck lists recently and it looks like both Tibalt’s Trickery and Valki, God of Lies have messed up the format quite a bit. 

2nd Place Modern Challenge with Tibalt Cascade.
Deck is broken. Maybe Tibalt ban.
I'm particular about Manabase.

R1 : Tron○○
R2 : Mirror○×○
R3 : Mirror×○○
R4 : Merfolk○○
R5 : Boggle○○
R6 : Dimir Mill××
R7 : Mirror×○○

QF : Hammer○○
SF : Simic Rec×○○
F : Mirror×× pic.twitter.com/KuQZ2UoiB6

— Yuya Hosokawa (@yuyan_mtg) February 7, 2021

Yuya Hosokawa’s Tibalt Cascade abuses the ability to cascade into Valki and play Tibalt instead. This is a bit counterintuitive because Tibalt doesn’t meet the cascade mana requirement, but that’s how the MDFC rules work. 

The rest of the deck is built to protect your combo and also uses T3feri to stop other people from cascading because that’s apparently a big part of the format now. Yuya took this list to second place in a Modern challenge, playing against four mirrors along the way, for reference.

Everything in the deck costs three or more, so you’re always guaranteed to hit Valki/Tibalt off of your cascade, but you still have two mana plays thanks to Bonecrusher Giant and Brazen Borrower, as well as Force of Negation. 

Simian Spirit Guide can also help you fire off your cascade as early as turn one.

This deck looks strong and I’m all for new, fun combo decks, but perhaps it’s time to revisit how the rules between cascade and MDFCs work. You just shouldn’t be able to play a seven drop off of a Violent Outburst.