How To Stop Venerated Rotpriest Storm In Modern

Video By The EPIC Storm

Phyrexia: All Will Be One has spawned a number of new decks. Perhaps none more powerful than the Storm deck using Venerated Rotpriest and Ground Rift to give opponents a lethal number of poison counters as early as turn two. I'll give a brief overview of how the deck works and show the full deck list, as well as a link to a gameplay video on youtube. Then, I'll get to the good stuff and go over how to beat the deck and what cards you should be playing to keep you alive against Venerated Rotpriest Storm In Modern. So, let's jump right in with the deck list.

Rotpriest Storm By The EPIC Storm

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Main 60 cards (19 distinct)

Lands - 15

Side 15 cards (6 distinct)

Main 60 cards (19 distinct)

Lands - 15

Side 15 cards (6 distinct)

$€Tix

Main 60 cards (19 distinct)

Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, Artifact (35)
4 Abundant Harvest			$0.15
4 Desperate Ritual			$3.39€1.31
3 Grapeshot			$0.43€0.200.03
4 Ground Rift			$0.37€0.330.03
4 Manamorphose			$4.12€2.711.66
4 Mishra's Bauble			$1.29
4 Pyretic Ritual			$5.95€4.690.03
4 Summoner's Pact			$3.50€3.54
4 Underworld Breach			$11.00€9.370.64
Creature (10)
4 Dragon's Rage Channeler			$1.00€1.011.10
2 Goblin Anarchomancer			$0.296.04
4 Venerated Rotpriest			$2.390.35
Land (15)
2 Arid Mesa			$22.99€20.534.31
1 Bloodstained Mire			$11.60€11.540.99
1 Forest			$0.55€0.170.04
1 Mountain			$0.37€0.170.03
2 Scalding Tarn			$39.895.09
4 Stomping Ground			$11.13€10.420.88
4 Wooded Foothills			$12.00€11.101.06

Side 15 cards (6 distinct)

1 Jegantha, the Wellspring			$1.02€0.941.55
3 Lightning Bolt			$2.95
3 Blood Moon			$7.50€7.823.22
4 Veil of Summer			$6.53€6.465.34
2 Empty the Warrens			$0.25€0.10
2 Boseiju, Who Endures			$27.53€29.239.26

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How The Deck Works

Before you can understand how to beat the deck, you have to understand how it works and what it's looking to do. So, here's a basic rundown of what the deck wants to be doing. For this section let's assume the role of the pilot of the deck.

Venerated Rotpriest & Ground Rift

These are the main components of the deck. With Rotpriest on the battlefield, whenever one of your creatures is targeted, an opponent gets a poison counter. With Ground Rift you'll be able to target your Rotpriests once for each spell that has been cast that turn. So, the goal is to get a high Storm count, then cast Ground Rift and give the opponent a poison counter for each spell you cast.

What makes this so powerful is the fact that the ability of Venerated Rotpriest stacks. This means that if you have two copies on the battlefield they both trigger whenever your creatures are targeted. With two copies out, each spell represents two poison counters and a storm count of five is lethal.

You May Also Like: Phyrexia: All Will Be One Combos – The Quirkiest Ones so Far

Generating A Storm Count

The deck builds up a Storm count very quickly by chaining cantrips like Manamorphose and rituals like Desperate Ritual and Pyretic Ritual with Goblin Anarchomancer to reduce their cost and make the spells actually net mana when cast. There are also a number of free spells that drive up the count. These include Mishra's Bauble and Summoner's Pact, the latter of which pulls double duty by tutoring out the Rotpriest.

Underworld Breach allows the deck to "escape" all the cards mentioned above from the graveyard and cast them again to help close out games.

How To Beat The Deck

Now that we know what it is and what it wants to be doing, let's look at some ways to stop it.

Creature Removal

First things first, Venerated Rotpriest is the name-sake card and is the key to winning. So, anything that can remove it from the battlefield is your friend. Cheap interaction like Fatal Push, Path to Exile, and Lightning Bolt all work well here. Unfortunately, you'll take a poison counter if you target it, and Underworld Breach and Summoner's Pact give them some redundancy here. Still removing the Rotpriest is a good way to slow the deck down.

You May Also Like: Ranking The Best Removal Spells From Phyrexia: All Will Be One

Graveyard Hate

You should 100% have some graveyard in your Modern sideboard and it can be helpful in this matchup. Turning off Underworld Breach isn't an auto-win but again, it puts a damper on the deck's plan and stops the combo from happening as quickly. My personal favorite piece of graveyard hate card is Tormod's Crypt but which is best for you will depend on your deck and strategy.

Extraction Effects

When you're dealing with any sort of combo deck, naming and exiling the key cards with Surgical Ectraction and Extirpate is a solid plan. Naming the Rotpriest is the best-case scenario but exiling all of the Ground Rift works too. The reason that the Rotpriest is the better choice is that Grapeshot can fill the same role as Ground Rift.

Anti-Storm Cards

As this deck becomes more and more popular, I expect to see anti-storm cards making their way into Modern sideboards again. What I mean, by "anti-storm" is cards that stop them from getting a high Storm count. Things like Damping Sphere, Deafening Silence, Eidolon of the Great Revel, and Trinisphere all work well for this.

Furthermore, Chalice of the Void on one or two can do a lot of work as well, as it counters most of the deck. However, the Rotpriest deck will bring in Boseiju, Who Endures to try and remove all the cards I just mentioned even while under a Chalice. So, keep this in mind.

Change The Target Of Their Spells

The deck has to target their creatures to beat you via the combo. Spellskite is a card that can change the target of their spells to your creatures instead. Another thing to like here is that Spellskite survives Lightning Bolt, which is the Rotpriest deck's main removal spell. However, they can pair a Grapeshot with it and remove it.

Anti-Infect Cards

If this deck is a big problem for you, consider taking some more direct steps to combat it. These cards won't be good against any other deck but they'll stop this one in its tracks if it can't answer them. Melira, Sylvok Outcast just plainly says "you can't get poison counters." It doesn't get much cleaner than that but you'll need to have some backup and support spells to keep this alive.

Another very direct answer to any strategy that's looking to win via infect or Toxic is Solemnity. The only bad thing about this is if the deck storms off quickly, it may come down a turn too late. If you do get it down in time, be sure to have a way to keep it on board.

Conclusion

I like combo decks and I am happy to see Storm back in Modern. That said, the deck is quite powerful and can have some very explosive wins. Furthermore, it's very resilient to combo hate and you may need a combination of multiple methods mentioned above to come out on top of Modern's newest storm deck. Comment down below and let me know if there are any good cards I forgot to mention.