The card Goryo’s Vengeance has recently seen a spike in playability in Modern before thanks to Atraxa, Grand Unifier and now with Yargle and Multani. Marco Vassallo won the MOCS Championship with his own take on Esper Goryo Atraxa, but the hottest Goryo’s Vengeance version at the moment involves Cragganwick Cremator!
This creature from Shadowmoor is very specific and in order to succeed, it asks you to have an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or Yargle and Multani in hand without anything else. While this may seem like a meme and not actually a competitive deck, it’s a a hard combo to interact with that can’t always be stopped with Modern’s most common countermagic. It’s your job to empty your hand of extra lands and other cards via The Underworld Cookbook and Blood tokens. Let’s get to the list!
Modern Goryo's Vengeance Combo by Andrea Mengucci
Creature (22)
Instant (4)
Land (21)
Plan A
Your best and most successful plan is Goryo’s Vengeance bringing back Emrakul, the Aeons Torn at instant speed with the shuffle trigger on the stack and attacking with it, making your opponent lose their board and 15 life. You have to make sure you respond the shuffle trigger and have two mana up for Goryo’s Vengeance when you discard the Emrakul via The Underworld Cookbook or Voldaren Epicure.
You can also use Goryo’s Vengeance to reanimate Yargle and Multani, but for this plan to succeed, you’ll need your opponent to have no blockers since the Frog Spirit doesn’t have any kind of evasion.
Plan B
Cragganwick Cremator is an expensive win condition that requires some set up but has a lot of good things going for it, since it doesn’t use the graveyard and it doesn’t get countered by many of the spells that could target Goryo’s Vengeance such as Flusterstorm or Spell Snare.
You can set up this card by discarding cards at the end of turn with The Underworld Cookbook to keep large creatures in your hand when you put the Cragganwick Cremator on the stack.
Plan C
Urza’s Saga Constructs can be huge in this deck because of The Underworld Cookbook. While you shouldn’t focus too much on this plan, it can work in the face of a Leyline of the Void or plenty of counterspells.
Plan D
Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar is here both to tutor up extra copies of The Underworld Cookbook, as well as give your deck some sort of interaction against creature decks. You can reanimate Asmo with Goryo’s Vengeance too in case you desperately need The Underworld Cookbook or to kill a large Ledger Shredder.
- Thoughtseize is mostly a protection tool as opposed to an additional way to put Emrakul in your graveyard to reanimate in the same turn with Goryo’s Vengeance, but you can Thoughtseize yourself if you’re sure your opponent doesn’t have interaction and you’re free to go for the kill.
- Profane Tutor is extremely bad against Teferi, Time Raveler. Make sure to sideboard it out any time you get that pairing and consider not suspending it on turn two if you have a Blood token out or need Food tokens with The Underworld Cookbook.
- Urza’s Saga isn’t just a way to make Constructs. In fact, in this deck, you should treat it mostly as a tutor effect for The Underworld Cookbook. If your hand, for example, is Goryo’s Vengeance and Emrakul, it’s very reasonable to play a turn one Urza’s Saga just to go for the kill on turn three.
