Kethis Combo in LOTR Modern
Decklist: https://scryfall.com/@thegrundemer/decks/0661f60e-8988-4cc9-bc3f-36975349a386
Kethis, the Hidden Hand has been a pet card of mine ever since it was printed. The gameplay with it operates on a unique axis, and it tickles my brain in a really satisfying way.
I’ve been trying to make Kethis work in Modern ever since it was banned in Pioneer for no good reason. It was bad at first. Diligent Excavator, which was essential in the Pioneer and Standard builds, is too vulnerable of a creature in Modern to function as a reliable enabler, and the deck was too soft to graveyard hate. But over the past year or so, a number of powerful tools, like Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler, and Atraxa, Grand Unifier have been printed that make the deck much more resilient and viable in today’s modern.
There are a ton of different ways to build a Kethis Combo deck given the plethora of legendary spells we have access to in today’s Modern, but, generally speaking, it works by filling our graveyard with legendaries, activating Kethis to loop Mox Ambers from the yard, generating a bunch of mana to then execute a win condition. Usually, the win con is either by milling our opponent’s deck using something like Jace, the Perfected Mind, or by milling ourselves and using Jace, Wielder of Mysteries or Thassa’s Oracle to win the game.
The combo
The way the combo works, once our graveyard is chock full of legendary cards, is to activate Kethis, exiling two legendary cards, allowing us to cast our other legendary spells from our graveyard. Cast a Mox Amber and tap it for mana. Then cast another Mox Amber, keeping the new one and sending the old one back to the yard. Tap the new one for mana, and then cast a third one and tap it. At this point, we’ll need to exile two other legendary cards to activate Kethis again, and then we can cast all those Moxen again. Once we have sufficient mana, we can cast Jace, the Perfected Mind and -5, targeting ourselves, to get rid of our library. Then, we cast Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, and activate his +1 to draw a card and win the game. Alternatively, we can cast Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler and -2 to get back Thassa’s Oracle. We can also loop Jace, the Perfected Minds and target our opponent to mill them out.
Early/Mid Game
But that’s how we win the game – how do we get to that point? The general gameplan is to use Birds of Paradise and Delighted Halfling to ramp in the early game, then use Tyvar, Jubliant Brawler and Jace, the Perfected Mind to fill our graveyards in the mid game. Tyvar will get us back a mana dork if we need it, or it can get one of our looters – Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy (I heard you like Jaces) or Rona, Herald of Invasion, and we can start churning through our deck. JVP and Rona can pitch our Atraxa, Grand Unifier to be reanimated with Goryo’s Vengeance, finding us more cards, and hopefully enabling us to win from there.
The flip side of JVP also lets us cast Goryo’s from the graveyard (and it’s pretty trivial to flip him in this deck). A common play pattern is to play a JVP, which our opponent will usually kill if they can, then play a Tyvar to get it back, milling us the cards we need to flip it. Tyvar also gives the JVP pseudo-haste so that we can flip him immediately. Getting two planeswalkers on the board for only three mana (two if you happen to have a Kethis on the field) is pretty powerful, especially if you can also find a Goryo’s and Atraxa to draw even more cards.
Rona also has great synergy in the deck. She untaps whenever you cast a legendary spell, which is most spells in the deck, and if we have her on the field with a couple Mox Ambers and Kethis, we are usually off to the races at that point. The cards we discard with Rona also fuel Kethis.
We are also playing one copy of Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy. I like having him because he doubles the mana that Mox Amber generates, and getting him down lets us execute our combo that much faster, and with far fewer clicks. He’s also not terrible in the early game, doubling our Birds and Halflings.
We also have 3 copies of The One Ring, which is too versatile not to run, in my opinion – particularly if our opponent is interacting with us and killing our stuff. It’s legendary of course, so it works with Kethis, and it’ll keep us alive for a turn and draw us a bunch of cards to find our combo pieces.
The Lands
Sequencing our land drops is one of the most challenging aspects of playing this deck, as it is with most 4 color decks. We’re playing an assortment of fetchlands and shocklands, a couple of triomes, and some utility lands. Sequencing the land drops of course depends on our draw, but I’ve found that we usually want to get an Overgrown Tomb down first for a turn one mana creature, followed by a Hallowed Fountain so that we have access to all our colors. If we can afford the tap land, we can sub in one of the Triomes for one of these lands. We usually need to prioritize a green source for our third land, since we usually need green and black (or green, black, and white) to cast our really impactful cards like Kethis and Tyvar. One thing to note here is that we do not run a Godless Shrine, because we typically need a black mana to cast our white spells.
The utility lands – Boseiju, Who Endures, Otawara, Soaring City, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, and Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth – are some of the coolest things about this deck in my opinion. Not only do they provide some interaction and mana fixing, they also help fuel Kethis. We can even play them from the graveyard using Kethis’s ability if we need to hit our land drop.
A note on Jegantha, the Wellspring
Once upon a time, this was a Jegantha deck. It really added a lot to the deck, giving us an extra card that could help cast our Atraxa, or act as Rona/JVP discard fodder. In that build, we obviously couldn’t play the Oracle or JWM, so we were all in on using JPM to mill our our opponent. However, with the popularity of The One Ring, I think it’s important to have a win condition that can win through our opponent having protection from everything. Theoretically, you could still run Jegantha in the sideboard for when you’re not playing against the Ring and side out JWM and Oracle.
A few other things to keep in mind while playing the deck
· In addition to being the build around card, Kethis is also a great card against aggressive decks due to its beefy 3/4 stats.
· Birds of Paradise vs. Delighted Halfling: Halfling is usually more powerful, since it makes most of our spells uncounterable and doesn't die to Wrenn and Six. It also will trade with Ragavan if you need. But keep in mind that the Halfling does not color fix for Goryo’s Vengeance or other mana dorks. In decks that don’t have counter magic, I will usually trim on Halflings instead of Birds when sideboarding.
· If our combo doesn’t work for whatever reason, our plan B is beating down with Atraxa and/or a flipped Rona.
· I’ll usually hold Mox Ambers in my hand until I need the mana, in case I land a Rona.
· The most common target for Goryo’s Vengeance is definitely Atraxa, but you can also target Kethis if you’re ready to combo off. You can also target a JVP, and if you flip it that turn, it’ll stick around since the game sees it as a new object. Also, Goryo’s is an instant, so you can even cast it on your opponent’s end step, and the creature will still be there on your turn after you untap.
Sideboarding
Loran of the Third Path and the second copy of Boseiju come in when we need to blow up artifacts and enchantments. Basic Plains and Swamp are there for when the opponent has Blood Moon, since that card can really mess us up, even with access to the mana dorks and Mox Amber. Hope of Ghirapur can come in against control matchups and storm style decks. Ashiok, Dream Render comes in against graveyard decks and Amulet Titan. Teferi, Time Raveler comes in against countermagic as well as cascade matchups. Urza’s Ruinous Blast is good for aggro and strategies that play a bunch of permanents, like the Food decks that have been popular lately with Samwise Gamgee. Leyline Binding comes in when we want some interaction – just keep in mind that we don’t run any mountains, so the cheapest it can be is two mana. Typically, we want to sideboard lightly with this deck, because we obviously need our combo pieces in order to win. I’ll usually trim on mana dorks and/or the Goryo’s/Atraxa package, since sideboarded games are usually a little slower and we can be vulnerable to graveyard hate.
A final note
This deck is certainly not for everyone. It’s also tough to play online (like many combo decks) because it’s so click-intensive, so getting as many reps in as you can and learning the click sequencing is essential if you want to play it on MTGO. I also wouldn’t call it a Tier 1 strategy – it’s probably in the Tier 2 range, as I think the deck still needs a couple tools for it to really hum. But if you like combo decks, especially ones that allow you to move cards between lots of different zones, then it might be for you.
