THE Modern Format Primer

Modern Competitive

ChiefBell rothgar13

---

This primer is available as a decklist here. Please do use the decklist for any feedback you may have, whether positive or negative!

1. What Is Modern?
2. How Fast Is Modern?
3. How Interactive Is Modern?
4. How Can I Construct A Modern Deck?
5. Defining Archetypes
6. What Colours Should I Play?
7. What Are The Top decks In Modern?
8. What Are Some Complex Rules Interactions I Should Know About?
9. Links And Other Resources

What Is Modern?

Modern is a Magic: the Gathering, DCI-sanctioned, constructed format that was first introduced for competitive play in May 2011 on Magic Online. After months of success the format saw its first premier-level play at Pro Tour Philadelphia 2011, where the ten constructed rounds of the tournament were played in the Modern format rather than the originally planned Extended format.

Modern follows the same deck construction rules as other constructed formats, decks must contain a minimum of 60 cards and sideboards may contain a maximum of 15 cards. No more than 4 copies of any individual card may be included, between the main-deck and sideboard.

In Modern every card that was printed in a core or expert-level set starting from Eighth Edition onwards is legal, however there is a well-regulated banlist of cards that may not be used. The full list of sets legal in Modern, as well as the format's banlist, can be found here.

The original goal of Modern was to create a format that was more diverse than Extended. Extended allowed cards from the last seven years of sets, but the metagame often stagnated as the same decks repeatedly saw success and new cards had difficulty affecting the format. In contrast to both Extended and Standard, Modern offers a larger pool of cards, however it avoids the incredible power of Legacy and Vintage by restricting older sets that were more prone to balance issues. By widening the card pool whilst regulating the power level, Wizards have created an exciting format that includes both old, powerful archetypes but also new, exciting, outsiders that vie for dominance within an ever-changing metagame.

---

How Fast Is Modern?

Show

Modern is often referred to as a "Turn 4" format. This means that aggro and combo decks aim to win by this turn whilst, on the other side of the spectrum, control and midrange decks attempt to stabilise before this point. Overall, the format feels significantly faster than Standard, but about a turn to a turn and a half slower than Legacy.

Below are some examples of typical plays you should expect in Modern. This is provided to help you understand the tempo of the format; it is important to have an awareness of how much mana most spells cost in relation to their effects, and how quickly most decks can win.

Example Aggro Win

T1: Play a Mountain. Play Goblin Guide. Swing with Goblin Guide. Opponent at 18.
T2: Play a Mountain. Play Monastery Swiftspear. Play Lightning Bolt. Opponent at 15. Prowess on Monastery Swiftspear triggers. Swing with Goblin Guide and Monastery Swiftspear. Opponent at 11.
T3: Play a Mountain. Suspend a Rift Bolt . Swing with Goblin Guide and Monastery Swiftspear. Opponent at 8. In the opponent's turn play Skullcrack to stop them gaining life. Opponent at 5.
T4: Remove a counter from Rift Bolt , and cast it. Opponent at 2. Prowess triggers on Monastery Swiftspear. Swing with Goblin Guide and Monastery Swiftspear. Opponent dies.

Example Combo Win

T1: Play a Swamp and Viscera Seer.
T2: Play a Forest and Melira, Sylvok Outcast.
T3: Play a Plains and Kitchen Finks. Gain infinite life.

Example Control Plays

T1: Play an Island and suspend Ancestral Vision.
T2: Remove a counter from Ancestral Vision. Play an Island. In the opponent's turn play Mana Leak.
T3: Remove a counter from Ancestral Vision. Play a Plains. In the opponent's turn play Remand and then Path to Exile.
T4: Remove a counter from Ancestral Vision. Play a Supreme Verdict.

The control deck has successfully kept the board clear for the early portion of the game and can now go about winning.

Example Midrange Plays

T1: Play a Swamp and then Thoughtseize. Force the opponent to discard a threat.
T2: Play a Verdant Catacombs and search for a Forest. Play a Tarmogoyf.
T3: Play Overgrown Tomb untapped and then Liliana of the Veil. Use Liliana's -2 ability to force the opponent to sacrifice a creature. Swing with Tarmogoyf. Graveyards contain: Thoughtseize (sorcery), Verdant Catacombs (land), and opposing threat (creature). Tarmogoyf has 3 power. Opponent at 17.
T4: Play a Mountain. Play an Abrupt Decay to remove an opponent's creature and then play Scavenging Ooze. Use Liliana of the Veil's +1 ability to cause you and your opponent to discard. Swing with Tarmogoyf. Graveyards contain: Thoughtseize (sorcery), Verdant Catacombs (land), opposing threat (creature), Abrupt Decay (instant). Tarmogoyf has 4 power. Opponent at 14.

The midrange deck has managed to keep the board clear whilst also playing its own threats. It can now continue to use Tarmogoyf and Scavenging Ooze to attack the opponent in relative safety.

As a result of the "Turn 4" philosophy the mana curve of the most common decks is very low and streamlined. Many decks are saturated with cheap spells that cost one or two mana. These could be removal spells such as Lightning Bolt, Path to Exile and Abrupt Decay, or these could be aggressive creatures such as Goblin Guide, Delver of Secrets  , and Tarmogoyf. It is important to have cards to play at all stages of the game, including turn one, whether that be in the form of draw spells, removal, discard, creatures, or counterspells. Sometimes the failure to play any cards even as early as turn two results in an un-winnable position where no chance of recovery is possible. This occurs when the player finds they are consistently one step behind the opponent and unable to react to all the cards they have played against them. Perhaps the opponent has too many creatures for the player to deal with before they die, or the opponent has a hand full of counterspells whilst the other player lacks any threats in theirs.

In order for spells that cost four mana or more to be considered competitive in Modern, they need to either be game-winning or provide a significant impact regardless of the game state. Examples of such high-cost spells are Scapeshift (a game-ending sorcery that results in lethal damage from lands entering the battlefield), Cryptic Command (an extremely versatile spell that can stymie a large attack or serve as a hard counter), and Siege Rhino (a creature that provides lifegain to stabilise against aggressive decks and trample to blast through weak blockers for a quick finish). All of these cards are popular because they result in an overwhelming advantage regardless of whether the player is ahead in the game or behind. Despite the power level of cards that cost large amounts of mana, many decks prefer to include a great number of cheaper plays in order to maintain parity with their opponent. This is simply due to the "Turn 4" philosophy and the high tempo of Modern; many decks can win on turn four, and therefore including spells that cost four mana or more is a risky strategy because it is possible for the opponent to win before they can be cast!

Some decks choose to avoid this pseudo-restriction in various ways. Spells that include phyrexian mana such as Dismember cost less to cast than it initially seems because players often cast them using life instead of mana. Mana acceleration is another way to be able to play very resource-heavy cards early on in the game. Decks such as Scapeshift and Tron try to accelerate their mana production with cards such as Birds of Paradise or Urza's Tower and the other Urza lands (Urza's Mine, and Urza's Power Plant) in order to resolve powerful spells and develop their board state more quickly than their opponent. A third way is reanimator strategies with cards such as Goryo's Vengeance and Unburial Rites that attempt to cheat incredibly large creatures such as Griselbrand into play without actually casting them.

Back to Top

---

How Interactive Is Modern?

Show

Interactivity is the extent to which a deck can respond to plays that the opponent makes. In all formats this is determined by the presence and power level of removal spells, discard spells, counterspells, tempo spells and the prominence of creature combat. Not having spells that enable you to interact with your opponent can mean a certain loss against combo decks that have the capability to win the game in a single turn.

Removal

In Modern, the removal spells are nearly on par with those of Legacy, missing only Swords to Plowshares and Toxic Deluge. The best removal is cheap, efficient and can kill a wide range of creatures, or even other permanent types such as artifacts. The following is a list of the competitively playable removal spells in Modern:

Abrupt Decay - This is arguably the best removal spell in the format, able to hit all manner of creatures as well as other troublesome permanents. Most permanents in the format have a converted mana cost of 3 or less due to Modern's high tempo, which makes this spell incredibly powerful. The "cannot be countered" clause makes it all the more effective, allowing the safe removal of threats played by control players, despite them holding counterspells.

Anger of the Gods - Anger is a very powerful wrath effect that is commonly played to combat aggressive creature-based strategies. The "exile" clause on this card specifically deals with Kitchen Finks and Voice of Resurgence, preventing those two cards from gaining the opponent value. Three damage is enough to function as a near-perfect boardwipe in Modern, making it very powerful at 3 mana.

Anguished Unmaking - This card is gathering popularity as a catch-all answer to permanents like planeswalkers that white and black may struggle with. Whilst 3 mana and a cost of 3 life is certainly hefty, being instant speed and exiling is a definite strength in many cases. On balance Anguished Unmaking is not good enough to warrant more than 1 or 2 copies per list, but it does nevertheless serve an important function from time to time.

Dismember - Dismember is unique among removal spells in that it uses Phyrexian mana. This affords it the position of being flexible in its casting cost, and potentially extremely efficient at destroying creatures. It is often used as a 1 mana or 2 mana removal spell, and is very powerful in the right circumstances as -5/-5 is enough to remove almost all of the creatures in the format. Note that its method of destruction allows it to remove creatures with the "indestructible" keyword from play. The flexible cost allows blue and green decks to use this as removal, thus escaping the normal limitations of the colour pie.

Dreadbore - A sorcery speed Terminate that also hits planeswalkers. In the majority of situations it is almost strictly worse, but planeswalkers do show up from time to time and having an answer to them is often essential, otherwise games can be lost very quickly. The importance of this card is very meta-dependent, because planeswalkers vary in terms of their prevalence.

Electrolyze - This card sees a lot of play in controlling UR decks, as it can be used for both card advantage and spot removal. It is particularly effective against the plethora of one-toughness creatures in the format, allowing a potential 2-for-0 advantage against certain decks. Cards that replace themselves by allowing you to draw cards when they are cast are favoured by many players because they function as if you have not used a card at all.

Kolaghan's Command - Kolaghan's Command stands alongside Cryptic Command as one of the few cards that almost guarantees a 2-for-1 against the opponent. Its modes are equally relevant against decks that play lots of creatures, and decks that focus on the long-game and card advantage. Against aggro the 2 damage to a creature and forcing a discard can diminish their board presence and force them to get rid of a potential threat in their hand. Against midrange and control reanimating a dead creature and forcing discard can turn a game around with its huge resource swing. Notably, against Affinity decks, this card can kill two creatures given that Affinity plays lots of small creatures that are also artifacts.

Lightning Bolt - This is the most efficient burn spell in Magic. Most creatures in Modern can be killed by this card, and it is flexible in that it can target players as well. This is particularly important because it makes the card as useful when facing control decks with low creature counts as it is when facing aggressive decks that play nothing but creatures. It stands with Dismember and Path to Exile in the rare category of efficient, one mana options.

Lightning Helix - This spell is very useful against aggressive decks, given that gaining 3 life is the equivalent of negating a Lightning Bolt. Again, 3 damage is enough to remove most threats in the format.Maelstrom Pulse - Almost exclusively played in BGx midrange decks, Pulse has the potential to destroy multiple permanents, which justifies its 3 mana cost. Along with Abrupt Decay this gives BGx decks a way to destroy artifacts, enchantments, and planeswalkers. However, 3 mana at sorcery speed can sometimes feel restrictive. It is most useful against decks that play many tokens.

Path to Exile - This spell is capable of dealing with any creature, at the cost of giving your opponent a free basic land. The versatility of this card makes it very popular despite the drawback, which becomes less of a hindrance as the game wears on. Another card that enters into the hallowed category of costing just 1 mana. Players often argue over whether this card or Abrupt Decay is the best removal in the entire format.

Pyroclasm - With a mass abundance of creatures with toughness two or less, this two mana mini-wrath has the power to completely wipe the board early to mid-game. Important creatures like Dark Confidant, Noble Hierarch, Delver of Secrets   and even most of Affinity will all fall to this spell. Not to be underestimated.

Roast - Not a hugely popular card but it provides very relevant removal options in a colour that sometimes struggles to hit larger creatures - particularly those late-game Tarmogoyfs. Players who lack the better options presented by black or white will want to seriously consider Roast.

Slaughter Pact - Occasionally seen in BG-based midrange decks, this card allows players to still interact with the opponent despite being tapped out. Players of this spell often tap all their land to lure the opponent into playing a large threat, and then play Pact to remove it - leaving the opponent very surprised.

Supreme Verdict - More useful than Wrath of God or Damnation against decks that mix counterspells with heavy creature presence. However it does not stop creatures from being regenerated which can occasionally be problematic against Thrun, the Last Troll and others. The problem with 4 mana wraths in Modern is that they are most effective against creature-heavy aggressive decks, however most of these decks can win the game on turn 4. Players may occasionally find that casting Supreme Verdict and other 4 mana wraths is too little, too late.

Terminate - Being able to destroy any creature regardless of size at instant speed is very powerful for two mana, making Terminate a strong choice for any midrange deck that includes both and .

Wrath of God - The classic Wrath provides decks that include a powerful way to stabilize the board. The regeneration clause is relevant against Thrun, the Last Troll. It suffers from the same drawback as other wraths - the high mana cost.

Damnation (sideboard) - A timeshifted Wrath of God, this card provides unconditional mass removal for BGx midrange decks and black control decks. 4 mana is a downside, as occasionally aggressive decks can win before you have the chance to cast this.

Drown in Sorrow (sideboard) - Drown in sorrow is 1 mana cheaper than Damnation but far more conditional. However, it is sometimes viewed favourably over Damnation because many aggro decks can have the game won by turn 4, and therefore a card that can (potentially) clear the board on turn 3 is necessary. If cast early enough this card can be effective, but in later turns it can become useless due to anthem effects like Honor of the Pure or large beaters such as Arcbound Ravager and Steel Overseer.

Rending Volley - A potent sideboard card for red decks to use against decks that rely on white or blue creatures and typically pack a lot of counterspells.

Galvanic Blast (deck-specific) - This card mostly sees play in Affinity, where it allows the deck to either deal lethal damage or take out a specific threat. In Affinity, decks this card is even more powerful than Lightning Bolt.

Oblivion Stone (deck-specific) - UrzaTron decks make use of this card to destroy all nonland permanents that may be giving them trouble. They are able to produce the 8 mana needed to use it comfortably by using Tron lands.

Back to Top

Counterspells

Counterspells are also a large part of Modern decks. Combo, control, and even some aggressive decks use them to protect their combo pieces, protect themselves, or protect their creatures. The following is a list of the competitively playable counterspells in Modern:

Cryptic Command - Command is arguably the most powerful counterspell in the format. At four mana, it may seem clunky, but the versatility of the card makes up for its cost and color intensity. Hard-countering a key spell, stalling a large attack to draw more removal spells, and gaining tempo advantage are all very important to combo and control decks. The key upside to Cryptic Command is the fact that the player has multiple options to choose from when casting the spell - this flexibility makes it prized because it is useful in almost any situation. Furthermore the player chooses not 1, but 2 options - making the cost actually quite reasonable when considering cards that do each effect individually will often cost two to three mana. It is also among a small group of non-conditional counterspells in Modern that can hit every spell type.

Mana Leak - Leak acts as a hard counterspell in the early parts of the game, allowing control decks to counter anything that would come down in those stages. However, it quickly loses potency as the game wears on, given that the opponent can become able to pay the extra cost it incurs. In modern this card is essentially the go-to, auto-include option for a general purpose counterspell.

Remand - This spell is the king of tempo advantage, allowing its caster to continue to develop their board while stalling the opponent. Combo decks may also favour this as a way to dig through their deck to find their combo pieces. Many players choose to cast Remand when the opponent could not recast the countered spell on the same turn, resulting in almost a turn of advantage gained. One advanced-level trick with Remand is to counter your own spell and return it to your hand (so you can cast it the next turn) in order to save it from being countered or otherwise nullified by the opponent. However, given that Remand returns the opponent's spell to hand, rather than sending it to the graveyard it must be viewed as a temporary, but not permanent answer to threats. Due to this it is most favoured by aggressive and combo decks that aim to win the game quickly, rather than control decks that want to take their time. These faster decks hope to win before the opponent has the chance to recast the spell that was Remanded.

Spell Pierce - This spell is powerful in fast blue decks, allowing them to counter removal spells as well as larger spells that may be cast relatively early on, such as Cryptic Command. Like Mana Leak it does lose effectiveness in the late game.

Spell Snare - Many of the most powerful cards in Modern cost two mana, including Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, Cranial Plating, etc. It can be terribly devastating especially when used by a player on the draw (ie. who started the game second); countering an opponent's two-drop and having them waste their second turn - therefore negating the disadvantage of not playing first.

Counterflux (sideboard) - This spell is a game-breaker in control mirror matches, as well as against many combo decks. It ends a counter-war on its own, allowing the caster to stop an opposing game-winning spell in its tracks, without fear of the opponent casting their own counters in response. It can also counter all copies of a storm spell such as Grapeshot.

Dispel (sideboard) - Powerful in a variety of situations: for control decks as an extra hard counterspell, as well as for aggro decks to fight removal spells.

Logic Knot (deck-specific) - In decks that can generate a lot of mana exceedingly quickly (Like -Tron, for example) this card is a very reliable hard counter, however it can flounder in decks that lack a mana-base that can support it. Logic Knot does pop up from time to time in very reactive decks that run many lands, or some kind of mana producing combo, but it is certainly not a standard choice, despite its power.

Negate (sideboard) - This counterspell sees limited play due to its two mana cost and inability to hit creatures. Its versatility is still very strong, especially against certain decks that might not play many creature threats.

Swan Song (sideboard) - This counterspell is cheaper to cast than Negate, and is more versatile than Dispel. However it does come at the cost of a 2/2 flier on the opposing side of the battlefield. It is very useful if one expects enchantments such as Blood Moon to be cast and the drawback is of little consequence, perhaps due to having a strong board presence.

Pact of Negation (deck-specific) - Pact is played in more dedicated combo decks as a means of stopping opposing interaction without having to pay any mana. The advantage to this card is that the caster wont have to pay on the following upkeep, as they would have already won the game.

Back to Top

Tempo Disruption

Tempo spells are those that temporarily slow down the opponent, typically by returning something to hand in order to force the opponent to recast it (using their mana inefficiently). This wasted time is used by the tempo player to cast or attack with aggressive threats such as Young Pyromancer or Delver of Secrets  , taking advantage of this momentary lead in board presence. The most representative example of this is Remand, which has already been discussed. Other examples include:

Echoing Truth - This card is particularly effective if the opponent has multiple permanents of the same name on the battlefield. For 2 mana and instant speed it can grant significant tempo advantages when used against Aether Vials that may have taken a while to accrue counters or against creatures that are swinging at you. Combo decks often sideboard this card as it is a catch-all answer to any hate cards that may be on the field the turn before they combo-off. For example: a storm deck may bounce an opposing Rule of Law or Eidolon of Rhetoric. It fills this role very well as it removes all copies of any permanent type from the battlefield for very little mana, and in blue: a colour which normally struggles with artifacts or enchantments. In a combo deck only one turn is needed to end the game so the fact that Echoing Truth returns the opponents permanent to hand becomes irrelevant. Similarly in an aggressive deck the player hopes to swing in with their creatures and win before the opponent can recast the permanent that was sent back to their hand.

Repeal - Whilst this card can cost one to three more mana to cast than Echoing Truth it does replace itself by allowing the caster to draw a card. Whether Repeal is better or worse than Echoing Truth often comes down to personal preference.

Vapor Snag - The cheapest to cast out of the 3 examples but this one only hits creatures. It is obviously most useful against decks where the low casting cost is significant, such as aggressive decks that threaten to end the game quickly. Against slower decks that play a variety of permanents, its disruptive value is lessened. However, its still useful as a cheap way to scoop your own creatures out of harms way if need be (essentially trading itself for a removal spell).

Back to Top

Discard / Hand Manipulation

Most black decks have access to discard spells that allow them to heavily disrupt combo and control decks. Some discard spells allow you to look at the opponent's hand and choose what they discard. The advantage of these cards is that, unlike killspells and counterspells, they give you information about what the opponent has in hand and what they are likely to cast in the future.

Inquisition of Kozilek - This is an extremely good discard spell, due to its low mana cost and high power. You get all the information about what the opponent has in hand and what theyre likely to do in the future, and its potential drawback of only hitting cards costing 3 or less cmc is largely irrelevant. However, this card is very weak against UrzaTron decks and misses some important combo-pieces such as Scapeshift , or strong midrange spells like Collected Company.

Liliana of the Veil - One of the strongest cards in modern hands down. Not only a discard spell but also a source of removal (albeit removal that you dont get to choose the target for). Most well known for being played in BG/x decks where her potential drawback of making you discard as well as the opponent is not particularly painful due to constant card draw from Dark Confidant, or card advantage from Tasigur, the Golden Fang, and the fact that it actively feeds threats like Tarmogoyf.

Raven's Crime - This card is seen mainly in decks running Life from the Loam, which allow it to be cast over and over again, however it is also a popular choice in 8rack decks. Compared to Thoughtseize this is very weak, but if the retrace ability is exploited it can be a great asset, netting you pseudo card advantage as you use the same card over and over again, at the cost of discarding a land each time.

Thoughtseize - Probably the most widely played discard spell. For just one mana and two life you get to see all of the opponent's hand, giving you an idea of the deck they are playing on the very first turn, and then obviously the unrestricted choice of which card to get rid of. This is extremely powerful against almost any deck in the format.

Duress (sideboard) - Another discard spell, this one not being able to hit creatures. Used mainly by combo decks (and other decks that rely on a certain card) to protect their winning card from discard or removal spells.

Smallpox (deck specific) - Smallpox is peculiar because the discard, life loss, land destruction and removal it causes are all built in as a symmetrical effect, causing damage to all players at the table. This card is most commonly used in builds that do not rely on creatures or lands and therefore are less affected by Smallpox than decks that might be heavily creature and mana based. The 'sacrifice a creature' clause is especially important against Infect, Bogles and Thrun, the Last Troll, as it gets past potential Protection, Regeneration, and Hexproof. This card can most often be found in 8 Rack, or B/W attrition based decks, abusing the land sacrifice effect with Flagstones of Trokair or Life from the Loam. Occasionally BG/x decks are built around this card.

Tidehollow Sculler (deck-specific) - Whilst being quite restrictive in how it is cast and not having the largest body, this card is most popular for the fact that it's "Thoughtseize on a stick" but with no life loss. However, it must be noted that the discarded card does return to the opponent when this creature dies. It therefore needs a deck capable of mitigating that weakness in order to be truly effective.

Wrench Mind (deck-specific) - Most commonly seen in 8-Rack decks. This card forces the opponent to discard two cards but doesnt give you the ability to choose what they are, making it far less powerful than Thoughtseize. Whilst this card can often be viewed as a 2-for-1, it is very weak against UrzaTron and Affinity, which can readily discard artifacts.

Back to Top

Creature Interaction

Creature combat is a very important part of Modern. There are several prominent aggressive decks, including Affinity, UR Delver, Burn/RDW and Naya Zoo which focus on cheap, efficient creatures such as Wild Nacatl, Goblin Guide, and Delver of Secrets  , or strong synergy to pressure the opponent into blocking or using removal spells. Most aggressive decks can win by turn 4 if left unchecked.

It is no wonder then that many creatures are favoured because they not only attack but also interact with the opponent's plans. Cards such as Scavenging Ooze are appreciated for their ability to act as strong blockers, and for their life gain. Scavenging Ooze is also able to exile cards from the opponent's graveyard. Furthermore, some cards allow your creatures to interact with the opponent's creatures outside of combat. Examples include Domri Rade, Pit Fight , and Ulvenwald Tracker.

Back to Top

---

How Can I Construct A Modern Deck?

Show

Construction of a Modern deck begins with asking yourself a few easy questions. The two most basic questions are interrelated: 1. What style of play appeals to me the most? (Aggressive, Midrange, Control, Combo?) and, 2. Which colours or color combinations appeal to me the most?

These two questions lead on nicely from each other because each colour has its strengths and weaknesses in terms of the strategies they support. For example, red on its own is a very strong colour for aggression, but lacks certain key capabilities for control, such as card draw. Similarly, if you wanted to play large efficient creatures then you would gravitate towards green. It is important at the first stage to have a plan about what you want your deck to do, and then consider the strengths and weaknesses of each colour and how they could support your plan. If you have a plan about what you want to do but dont know which colours to do it in - don't worry. You can research your local meta for ideas about strategies and how to build them, and below you will find a section about the common archetypes and which cards are often seen. Furthermore, we have compiled a nearly exhaustive list of the commonly played decks in Modern from which you can take inspiration.

A follow on question for many people may be - how expensive are the cards I'll need to achieve my goal? Unfortunately the answer to this may be 'very expensive'. However, do not fret! The first thing to remember is that Modern is a non-rotating format, unlike Standard, so once you have your deck built you'll be able to use it forever (barring the banning of any cards). The second thing to remember is that there will probably be budget-friendly replacements, which we will highlight later on in this section. You can easily begin building with whatever you have in your collection and work your way into a more powerful and expensive version of the deck over time. Naturally, prices do fluctuate, but Wizards have repeatedly promised to support Modern with an aggressive reprint policy. It is hoped that this will help greatly in keeping the cost of the format low. Remember that if you have any questions about budget replacements for expensive cards then you can always ask a knowledgeable member of the community for help!

Finally, once you have decided what you want to build remember the "Turn 4" speed rule and the guide on interactivity. The trick to modern is to build sensibly (lots of interaction and low mana options) but to also build freely because any other cards aside from those "sensible choices" are probably ok! As long as you have a focused game-plan that realistically factors in what the opponent is capable of doing, you will be fine.

Back to Top

---

Defining Archetypes In Modern

Show

In our last section, we discussed the four major types of deck in Modern. Let's get into more depth on what these archetypes are, and how we can go about building them.

Aggro

Aggressive decks try to win in the first four to five turns of the game. However, the trade-off for fantastic speed at the start of each game is very poor performance in later turns. This occurs because aggressive decks tend to have a very strict mana curve that is packed full of low cost spells, which makes sense because they want to be able to play at least one card every turn and constantly pressure the opponent's life in some way. As aggressive decks are so focused on pressuring the opponent they often have no time for card draw, or they may be light on removal spells. Another problem is that because they want to be playing cards in the early stages of the game, they often don't devote deck space to high mana cards. Whilst this works if they manage to win quickly, the problem is that in the late game they typically have multiple problems; their creatures won't be able to threaten creatures that cost twice as much mana, they run out of resources due to the lack of card draw, and they can end up facing a wall of opposing creatures due to a lack of interaction. Building an aggressive deck typically means having cards that cost between one to three mana and having fewer lands in your deck so that more of the cards you draw are spells or creatures. Example decks, for reference, are Infect, Merfolk, Red Deck Wins (RDW, also known as Burn), Zoo and Affinity. Aggressive cards include Goblin Guide, Wild Nacatl, Kird Ape, and Lightning Bolt.

Back to Top

Midrange

Midrange decks usually have a plan centred around packing enough removal spells to survive the early game and enough threats to play in later turns to pressure the opponent. This means having quality removal that can hit multiple types of permanent, resilient creatures that are hard to remove by conventional methods, and the ability to either draw cards or find other ways of obtaining a long term advantage over the opponent. The general style of this deck is one that attempts to find a balance between answering your opponents plays and forcing them to answer your own, like a mixture between control and aggression. Playing a deck like this usually means knowing when to hold creatures back and play removal instead, or vice versa. You do not want to fall behind because you tried to play too many creatures at once, or equally because you did not manage to secure a board presence at a crucial moment. Common examples of this deck, for reference, include BG/x (The Rock, Jund, Abzan) and UrzaTron. Included in the wide range of midrange cards are Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, Liliana of the Veil, Abrupt Decay, Wurmcoil Engine, Lingering Souls, and Snapcaster Mage.

Back to Top

Control

Control decks are built on the idea that you can answer everything your opponent ever does. This style of deck is often referred to as the hardest to build and play due to it, arguably, requiring a more intimate knowledge of the Modern metagame than others. Building a control deck requires an understanding of each other deck type you will be playing against in order to assess which spells you will want to block your opponent from playing via discard spells or counter magic, and which ones you will allow. The control deck does not play anything proactive in the early game but opts to solely mediate what the opponent is doing. This means they will spend most of their turns using any removal or interaction available to keep the opponent off of their plan. Control decks will make use of plenty of pure card draw spells, and spells that replace themselves by allowing you to draw a card in addition to their other effects. Once the control deck has established dominance of the game, the aim is to cast a powerful game-ending spell. These finishers are ideally very resilient, or will inevitably kill your opponent over time. Many control decks resort to manlands like Celestial Colonnade to finish the game because these can function as both a land and a win condition, thus saving deck space. Others may use Batterskull, Grave Titan, and Keranos, God of Storms. Common examples of this style of deck include Jeskai Control, Grixis Control, Gifts Ungiven control and Blue Moon.

Back to Top

Combo

Combo decks differ from all other archetypes due to the fact that they do not have to win the game at any particular point. Many combo decks are designed to operate as quickly as possible, but are not aggressive in terms of the damage they do; instead, the way they go about winning the game is more of a one-shot approach than repeated attacks. Combo decks aim to establish a combination of cards in play that create an interaction that is either very hard to beat or outright kills the opponent. Many combos will be infinite, meaning that the same action or series of actions can be repeated infinitely to gain the same advantage over and over again, likely resulting in a game-winning effect. Examples of these advantages could be damage, card draw, or life gain. Common Modern combos include Scapeshift for lethal damage via Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and many Mountains, and Kitchen Finks + Melira, Sylvok Outcast + Viscera Seer for infinite life, Codex Shredder + Lantern of Insight to ensure you never draw a useful card.

Back to Top

---

Which Colours Should I Play?

Show

In this section we aim to highlight the roles that each colour is commonly responsible for, before exploring some examples of stand-out cards.

White

White is appreciated in modern mainly for two things - small creatures with upsides and removal.

The "white weenie" strategy is popular in all formats, and Modern is no exception. In fact it is so popular it has spawned its own archetype - Hatebears. Hatebears are white creatures that are around 2 mana and have an effect that stops the opponent from doing certain things. Examples include Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Leonin Arbiter. Another card that white is known for (although it is mainly used in decks that include both black and white) is Lingering Souls. This is a card that is well known due to its ability to provide blockers when needed, or the ability to provide 2 to 4 power in the air when desired. The flashback ability makes this card even more powerful by providing a second casting opportunity.

In terms of removal, white is well known for Path to Exile. This spell has already been discussed above. It is one of the most powerful removal spells in modern, costing just 1 mana, and having little to no downside in the later stages of a game.

Back to Top

Blue

Blue is well known for counterspells, tempo plays, and card draw. It is a colour that is somewhat weak when played on its own, but extremely strong in conjunction with others. The reason for this weakness is because it has few truly top tier creature choices or win conditions.

Top blue spells are Mana Leak, Remand, Spell Snare, Serum Visions, and Cryptic Command. These are all fantastic choices for catapulting you ahead in the game by either refilling your hand or by preventing the opponent from successfully casting spells.

In terms of creatures, blue rewards devotion to a theme. If you want to sling spells, Snapcaster Mage, Delver of Secrets  , and Thing in the Ice are the choices for you. If you want dedicated aggression, you are best served by Merfolk, particularly Lord of Atlantis, Master of the Pearl Trident, and Merrow Reejerey , which form a potent aggressive triumvirate that you can supplement with support creatures such as Cursecatcher, Harbinger of the Tides, and Silvergill Adept (not to mention big haymakers like Master of Waves).

Back to Top

Black

Black is known for creature removal, as well as the best hand disruption options in the format. Whilst black has some fantastic creatures, it does not have many. Its main weaknesses, however, are struggling to deal with artifacts and enchantments, and playing aggressively. For these reasons it sees large amounts of play in controlling and midrange-style builds, such as BGx midrange and 8rack.

Top spells in Black include disruption such as Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek, efficient removal such as Go for the Throat, Victim of Night, Smother, and Dismember. With the splash of white, black receives Lingering Souls, a card which can fill the role of being a resilient threat or a wall against aggressive decks, or with a green splash black gets arguably the best removal spell in the format in Abrupt Decay.

Black also has access to some extremely potent creatures in Dark Confidant and Phyrexian Obliterator. More recently it was boosted with the Delve creatures from the Khans of Tarkir block: Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Gurmag Angler - both are large threats that can be cast for just 1 mana if enough cards are exiled from your graveyard. The only viable mono-black deck right now is 8rack, which is usually creatureless. Most deck opt to use black as a support colour, such as BGx midrange or BW tokens. In terms of planeswalkers black has Liliana of the Veil which is one of the most powerful and widely played planeswalkers in the format. She is known for her flexibility, granting you good options against control and aggressive decks, along with an ultimate that allows you to halve the number of lands an opponent has, as well as possibly getting rid of other troublesome permanents.

Back to Top

Red

Red was traditionally known as a very aggressive colour that has poorer options as the game gets longer, however to some extent this is no longer true. The colour certainly has many excellent spells and creatures that fill the 1 to 2 mana range, but has also been increasingly given more midrange options that fill the 3 to 4 mana slots. Red is most known for direct damage burn spells such as Lightning Bolt, but has increasingly been relied on for creatures that generate card advantage such as Pia and Kiran Nalaar with their ability to remove multiple threats.

In terms of spells red has Lightning Bolt which is one of the most played spells in Modern. Bolt is extremely cheap, and the flexibility to hit either players or creatures makes this card very coveted because it fills a variety of roles. However, the 3 damage limit makes Lightning Bolt ineffective against very large creatures. Red also has access to Volcanic Fallout and Anger of the Gods which are fantastic options to be used against aggressive decks. However, as before, the damage limitation renders them ineffective as the game wears on and larger threats are played. Roast gets around the limitations of other red removal spells by putting out 5 damage, however it has problems of its own with the increased mana cost and being sorcery speed. As a splash colour however red offers Terminate which is one of the best no-strings-attached removal spells in the format and cards like Atarka's Command which are endlessly flexible and provide many options to a variety of decks.

Regarding creatures, there are fantastic examples in Eidolon of the Great Revel, Goblin Guide, and Monastery Swiftspear. These creatures allow you to start the game at a blisteringly fast pace, and to hopefully finish the opponent off early. More midrange options that can carry later stages of the game include Grim Lavamancer, which lets you mine your graveyard for long-term value. Red also has access to Boros Reckoner, which puts up a very tricky roadblock to navigate for a lot of decks, and Stormbreath Dragon which can be a really nice finisher given haste and protection from white (Path to Exile). More recently red has been handed some nice card advantage creatures in the form of Bedlam Reveller, Sin Prodder, and Pia and Kiran Nalaar. It now has multiple creatures to choose from when playing a long game oriented deck, and focusing on card advantage.

Back to Top

Green

Green is primarily recognized as a midrange colour with options that either become better as the game progresses, or that cost a large amount of mana. However, certain decks have been known to lean on green as an aggression enabler (see Infect as an example). Green is also valued as a colour that has ways of dealing with both artifacts and enchantments. This means that it is a colour that is flexible in its removal and presents a large amount of quality creature choices.

In terms of spells green presents Creeping Corrosion as a very strong choice for destroying artifacts. This spell alone is well able to stop Affinity decks in their tracks. Nature's Claim is an example of a spell that trades a low mana cost for the downside of giving the opponent life. Often this is seen as preferable against decks that try to combo and win on the spot. Green also has a large selection of very powerful removal spells when splashing other colours. Examples like Abrupt Decay and Maelstrom Pulse can destroy any permanent type for very little mana. Green also has access to spells that cement it as the go-to colour when running a creature heavy deck, notably Chord of Calling, Collected Company, Eldritch Evolution, and Oath of Nissa .

Green has the best access to creatures out of any colour. Tarmogoyf, Scavenging Ooze, Courser of Kruphix, Obstinate Baloth and Thrun, the Last Troll are some fantastic examples. As discussed in the first paragraph, many of these creatures get more effective as the game goes on, in particular Scavenging Ooze, and Tarmogoyf. Others such as Obstinate Baloth and Thrun, the Last Troll cost somewhat large amounts of mana. However they all fill vital roles. Tarmogoyf is noted for its ability to be a 6/7 for just 2 mana in the late game. Scavenging Ooze, Courser of Kruphix and Obstinate Baloth are fantastic examples of creatures that can halt aggressive decks in their tracks. Whilst Thrun, the Last Troll laughs at most control decks with the fact that he cannot be countered and has regeneration.

Back to Top

---

What Are The Top Decks In Modern?

Show

The decks here are presented in alphabetical order. Deck names are followed by the archetype and tier.
Note on language: In this primer, combo decks are those that aim to win the game in one shot with some kind of loop or other card interaction.
Synergistic decks aim to assemble groups of cards, like a combo, but instead of using them to win immediately, they are merely used to put the deck far ahead of the opponent.

The given tier is a rough guide to how powerful and widely played the deck is. Be aware that tiers change often.
High tier represents decks that make up around 3% to 5+% of the meta and are overtly powerful in a variety of situations. If you are a newer player pay particular attention to these decks. Expect to play these decks most often!
Mid tier decks may make up in the region of 1.5% to 3% of the metagame and will be powerful in certain situations but also contain shortcomings that stop the deck being amongst the most widely played. These decks are still very good but also have a clear weakness.
Low tier decks are those that you should expect to see very rarely, representing only around 1% of the metagame. These decks might contain very strong strategies but they may be fragile in some fundamental way, e.g. by pursuing a line of victory that is particularly easy to disrupt such as lifegain or mill.

Abzan Company (Combo, Higher Tiers)

What Does This Deck Do?

Abzan company is an extremely consistent and powerful combo deck that aims to assemble Viscera Seer with either Melira, Sylvok Outcast or Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit and then finally Kitchen Finks or Murderous Redcap. The combo works in the following way: you sacrifice Kitchen Finks or Murderous Redcap with Viscera Seer. The creature dies. Persist triggers and the creature returns to the battlefield. Depending on the creature you gain 2 life, or do 2 damage. Melira, Sylvok Outcast or Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit triggers as the creature enters as well. Melira stops the placement of -1/-1 counters, so the Finks or Redcap return with their previous power and toughness, whilst Anafenza allows you to place a +1/+1 counter on them which cancels the -1/-1 counter and again, allows the creatures to return with their prior power and toughness. Repeat infinitely. Win.
There are three facets of the deck that make it extremely potent and powerful. The first is speed. Viscera Seer is a turn 1 play, Melira, Sylvok Outcast is a turn 2 play, and Kitchen Finks is a turn 3 play. Thats a turn 3 win. The second factor is consistency. The deck plays four copies of Collected Company, and multiple copies of Chord of Calling. It has many, many ways of ensuring it can dig and search its way for the right cards to finish the combo. Any pieces of the combo you do manage to kill can be replaced very quickly and easily with these spells. The final facet that makes the deck extremely dangerous is resilience. Abzan Company often runs multiple copies of Eternal Witness which means that removing one part of the combo is futile - they can reanimate lost creatures with ease. Alongside this, the deck is easily able to transition from a combo deck, to an aggressive won. Even with missing pieces the opponent will be happy enough beating you in the face with the creatures they run, and given that they can run up to a whopping 30(!) the onslaught seems to never end. Note that the deck runs cards such as Noble Hierarch and Qasali Pridemage to make sure that they can swing with huge creatures due to stacked exalted triggers.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

Removal spells that exile, such as Path to Exile, work particularly well against Abzan Company. However one trick to watch out for is that smart players will respond to exiling spells with Viscera Seers exile ability which will mean the creature simply dies instead of being exiled. Do also note that graveyard exile can be activated in response to the persist triggers on Kitchen Finks or Murderous Redcap. In response to the trigger you can exile the creature from the graveyard; the trigger will still resolve but the creature will no longer be in the graveyard and therefore nothing will happen. Cards like Relic of Progenitus can enable this. Finally mass removal can work quite nicely in simultaneously removing any assembled combo pieces, and other creatures that are threatening you too. Damnation and Wrath of God do this nicely. Another note here though: Kitchen Finks and Murderous Redcap may return after you resolve a sweeper. They will decrease in strength because any Melira, Sylvok Outcasts or Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirits will be dead, but the opponent will have board presence remaining nevertheless.

Back to Top

Ad Nauseam (Combo, Mid Tiers)

What Does This Deck Do?

The Modern Ad Nauseam deck revolves around a two-card combo of Ad Nauseam and Angel's Grace or Phyrexian Unlife that aims to win on turn 4. The aim of the deck is to ramp to six mana using some combination of Lotus Bloom, Pentad Prism, and Simian Spirit Guide. Once the player has six mana, they cast Angel's Grace and Ad Nauseam, which results in the player being able to draw their entire deck without losing. After this the player exiles three Simian Spirit Guides to cast a Lightning Storm and then discards enough land cards to deal 20 damage to their opponent. It is worth noting that once the 6 mana is produced the entire combo takes place in one single turn. Travis Woo popularized another version of the deck, where after exiling the three Simian Spirit Guides, the player casts Manamorphose, generating 2 black mana. With the remaining mana (2 black, and one red), the player casts Death's Shadow and then Rite of Consumption. The Death's Shadow is sacrificed, resulting in the opponent losing 20 life. Death's Shadow is able to become larger than a 20/20 because Angel's Grace allows you to have a negative life total.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

How do you win against Ad Nauseam combo? Its worth remembering that this deck is a relatively slow combo deck that goes all out to combo on turn 4, but can occasionally take longer. Aggro decks should have little problem finishing the job before the combo is assembled, particularly creature based aggression as Ad Nauseam plays no creatures that can act as blockers. However, it is worth noting that Angel's Grace can be problematic for burn decks and other decks that aim to win in one shot. Leyline of Sanctity stops Ad Nauseam decks cold, however many will include Patrician's Scorn in the sideboard, which can be cast for no mana after they have cast Angel's Grace and drawn their library with Ad Nauseam. Unlike a lot of other combo decks, this deck folds to anything happening to the namesake card, which includes discard or countermagic. Examples such as Twin or Scapeshift have alternate win conditions or multiple versions of the same combo. Ad Nauseam does not. If your copy of Ad Nauseam is removed from your hand or countered - you lose. Often you will not have enough time to go looking for another before the opponent manages to end the game. Travis Woos version features an alternate win condition in the form of Death's Shadow beat down, but this is fairly weak. Finally, Ad Nauseam makes you reveal your entire library, so the opponent sees your exact decklist. Every single card. That means all secret tech or tricks should start in the sideboard, otherwise a good opponent will look through your entire deck when you reveal it with Ad Nauseam and see them. However, even bringing them into the mainboard game 2 results in them being revealed at that point - nothing stays secret for long when you play Ad Nauseam!

Back to Top

Affinity (Aggro, Synergy, Higher Tiers)

What Does This Deck Do?

The Affinity deck is known as the fastest and most consistent aggressive deck in the format. However, it is also one of the most difficult decks in Magics history to pilot optimally. The goal of Affinity is to establish a strong board presence as fast as possible, using zero mana creatures such as Memnite and Ornithopter, alongside Springleaf Drum and Mox Opal to power out several creatures each turn. In addition to these cards, the deck plays several lords - cards that make the Affinity players board much more threatening. The most commonly played of these cards are Arcbound Ravager, Cranial Plating, Etched Champion, Steel Overseer and Master of Etherium. The Ravager makes it difficult to use removal against the creatures, as any target can immediately be sacrificed to Ravager, making him larger. This creature also makes it difficult to predict all the damage that the Affinity deck is capable of doing at any given time. Commonly Affinity decks win with Cranial Plating, which is often cited as the most powerful card in the deck, as it provides enormous power boosts to creatures. This is made even more powerful by lifelink through Vault Skirge or infect through Inkmoth Nexus . The ability to move the Plating at instant speed only increases the efficacy of this equipment. The three-drops of choice in Affinity are Etched Champion and Master of Etherium, which either provide a practically unkillable threat or an additional massive power boost.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

How does one beat Affinity? Artifact hate. Affinity is a deck that has a very good matchup in game 1 against almost any deck, then becomes much weaker after sideboarding due to all the powerful hate cards in the format. If you are worried about Affinity, playing more maindeck creature removal as well as sideboarded artifact hate will help immensely. The most powerful artifact hate cards in Modern include Ancient Grudge, Stony Silence, Shatterstorm, Nature's Claim, Kataki, War's Wage and Wear / Tear. General Wrath of God and especially Creeping Corrosion style effects do wonders in this matchup.

Back to Top

(Midrange, Higher Tiers)

What Does This Deck Do?

BG/x is most commonly seen in three different flavours - BG (Rock), BGR (Jund), and BGW (Junk or Abzan). They are all midrange decks that switch quickly between taking a controlling approach to the game or taking an aggressive one. The central goal of this archetype is to win a battle of attrition. This means that you will use your resources to remove your opponents threats, whilst trying to gain card advantage in order to eventually get to a game state where you have a threat or two in play and they have few answers or threats themselves. To this end, the deck plays efficient removal and creatures, discard spells in Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize, and some number of manlands in order to have a more consistent late game. Scavenging Ooze, Dark Confidant and Tarmogoyf comprise the core creature suite of the deck, but Jund and Abzan have access to a few more options that the Rock cant support. All have access to fantastic late game threats like Thrun, the Last Troll and more recently, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. The differences between the three versions are that Jund and Abzan have access to more cards, granted by the addition of an extra colour. Red adds sweepers such as Volcanic Fallout or Anger of the Gods in addition to the powerful Lightning Bolt, Kolaghan's Command, and Terminate, whilst white adds strong token strategies through Lingering Souls; it also makes casting Kitchen Finks easier, and allows you to use Siege Rhino for its impressive body and life gain. Adding a third color also creates more sideboard options that can be used to combat certain common matchups. While this may sound enticing, the advantage to simply playing BG is a much more solid mana base, to help against Blood Moon, that is also less punishing in terms of life loss - which can be a large help against aggressive decks. The other advantage is consistency.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

Sideboarding against BGx Midrange is difficult in that there are no cards that completely shut it out of a game, unlike some other decks (e.g. Affinity). Sideboarding in powerful midrange tools such as Thrun, the Last Troll and Batterskull is a good starting point, while Engineered Explosives destroys all of the core three creatures used by the deck, given that they are 2 mana. Some decks will be able to access counterspells to stop the powerful Liliana of the Veil. In general, when sideboarding against this deck one should aim for having as many cards that generate more than one cards worth of advantage as possible. It is worth noting that these decks almost completely (except for Jund with Lightning Bolt) attempt to win the game with creatures. With no creatures, a BG/x deck cant end a game. However, some lists play some number of Treetop Village or Raging Ravine as creatures that are also lands.

Back to Top

Blue Moon (Control, Low Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

Blue moon is a UR control deck based around locking the opponent out of the game with the card Blood Moon. Early turns are spent trying to slow the opponent down with cheap answer cards such as Lightning Bolt, Remand and Mana Leak, until the pilot can play a Blood Moon and finish. The deck runs about half of its lands as basic Islands, with the rest being Steam Vents and blue fetchlands (Scalding Tarn first, and then others based on personal preference). This allows the Blue Moon player to find basic Islands in the early-game before they cast Blood Moon, and then have sufficient mana requirements because they can fully utilize the red sources that the moon makes. Most modern decks do use a small amount of basic lands to play around Blood Moon, so some number of Spreading Seas can also be played to disrupt these, whilst also disrupting UrzaTron players from assembling their three required lands as a bonus. Once the opponent has been locked out of the game, the deck usually wins with a single resilient threat. The main win-conditions used are Batterskull and Vedalken Shackles, with occasional or sideboarded usage of Master of Waves, Vendilion Clique or Keranos, God of Storms. Blue Moon was originally played at Pro Tour Born of the Gods, in a metagame just after Wild Nacatl was unbanned. This meant people were expecting a large proportion of the metagame to feature Naya Zoo decks, which often use shocklands along with sometimes Tribal Flames . Blood Moon was therefore expected to be a very impactful card, and this was true in that format, which resulted in Lee Shi-Tian piloting Blue Moon to the top-8. The decks effectiveness is mainly dependant on what decks are being played at the time.

The decks best matchups are those which rely on a very colour intensive mana-base, such as Abzan and other BG/x variants, in particular those which are not red, as Blood Moon will affect these decks much more than others. It also struggles in games 2 and three where people can use their fetchlands to find basic lands in anticipation of it, however forcing a three-color deck to find basics does still hinder its mana-base greatly, considering that these decks can sometimes get mana-screwed even with a very nonbasic mana-base.

This decks worst matchups are those decks which are unfazed by a Blood Moon, and particularly the more aggressive ones, as the deck is not effective at stopping extremely fast decks, relying on a few spells to slow them down enough to lock them out with Blood Moon. The worst two are therefore affinity and burn, as they do not care about a Blood Moon, and are too fast for blue moon to resist.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

In order to beat a control deck it is necessarily to either play cards faster than they can be countered (the control deck runs out of resources) or to play resilient threats that are hard to counter or remove. Cards like Thrun, the Last Troll are perfect because they cannot be countered. Fast, aggressive threats such as Goblin Guide are also good because they can be played at the beginning of the game before the control deck is ready to start countering plays.

Back to Top

Burn/RDW (Aggro, Higher Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

Do you like dealing 20 points in a matter of minutes? If so, this is your deck. The entire basis of Red Deck Wins (RDW) is to throw as much damage as you can in as little time as possible. To do this, the deck runs very few lands and as many damage maximizing spells as it can fit in the list. This means maximising on Lightning Bolt and its various other versions from across the years (Shard Volley, Rift Bolt , Lava Spike). Some lists opt to run as few creatures as possible, sometimes none at all, earning the nickname Burn, however most conventional lists will include copies of Goblin Guide, Vexing Devil, Eidolon of the Great Revel, Monastery Swiftspear, and/or Hellspark Elemental to add additional pressure to the board. This is an all in aggressive strategy but requires decisive thought to ensure that your 20 damage happens in a timely fashion; the window of time you have to win with this deck can quickly close. As the deck mainly uses instant speed cards, be sure to take advantage of situations when you feel you can chain the most damage together safely (such as when the opponent taps out on their turn).

Sideboarding Against This Deck

Be wary of decklists containing the card Leyline of Sanctity and be sure to splash either white or green in the sideboard to be able to answer it, as this deck will simply fold to it alone. Thankfully this card is relatively rare. The biggest threats to this deck are white/green life gain cards like Kitchen Finks or Obstinate Baloth, decks that focus on life gain such as Soul Sisters, and artifacts such as Spellskite which can stop our instants and sorceries hitting the opponent, and Dragon's Claw reduces the damage each of our spells can do.

Back to Top

Delver (Tempo, Mid Tiers)

What Does This Deck Do?

Ever heard someone use the expression Counter-Burn? Imagine if you will, an aggressive deck that has the ability to protect all its threats with counterspells while continuously assaulting the opponents with burn spells. This is that deck. The goal is to cast one of three creature spells: Delver of Secrets  , Young Pyromancer, or Monastery Swiftspear, then protect them with cards such as Remand and Mana Leak as they lay waste to your opponent's life total. Burn spells are used to remove opposing threats or to hit the opponent in the face for a quick win. Lightning Bolt, Pillar of Flame , and Electrolyze are most commonly seen. Delver decks are typically hesitant with their spell casting until they have a creature on board; once this occurs they will viciously use counterspells and burn to clear a path for attacks. If Monastery Swiftspear or Young Pyromancer are present the counters and burn will increase the efficacy of your attacks due to their ability to produce tokens or to be pumped up by noncreature spells.

Delver has three main types: Grixis (blue, red, black), Temur (green, blue, red), and Izzet (red, blue). Grixis adds black which gives you fantastic discard and threat options. Both Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek are able to remove problematic cards from the opponent's hand such as Abrupt Decay or Anger of the Gods. Gurmag Angler and Tasigur, the Golden Fang are both able to take advantage of the many cheap instants and sorceries in the deck with Delve - granting them the ability to be cast for just 1 mana. Howver, the clearest advantage of Grixis Delver is that cards like Terminate and Kolaghan's Command give the deck a way to continue with its momentum in the late game when other versions may fall off due to Lightning Bolt not hitting larger creatures, or all your threats being dead. Grixis Delver is typically more controlling than Izzet or Temur versions given the power of Terminate

Temur adds green which gives access to the classic green creature Tarmogoyf. Tarmogoyf is fantastic in delver because its able to dodge some of the removal that hits your other threats such as Lightning Bolt. Other possibilities include Hooting Mandrills which, like other delve threats, can take advantage of your full graveyard to be cast extremely cheaply. Finally Simic Charm is a fantastic instant that can pull out surprise wins when combined with creatures with Prowess, or simply be used to protect against removal, and Mutagenic Growth fills a similar role. Compared to Grixis, Temur tends to be more all-in favouring a larger suite of creatures and more buff spells.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

Decks that can gain substantial life or easily outclass your threats can be an issue for Delver. Be wary of Soul Sisters and their ability to hit hundreds of life while beefing up a few creatures to extraordinary sizes. Furthermore green creatures such as Scavenging Ooze and Obstinate Baloth can be both hard to remove, and a source of life gain for the opponent. As with all creature based aggro, board sweepers and multi-target removal can hurt a lot; examples of these are most often found in black (Drown in Sorrow) and red (Anger of the Gods). This is particularly the case for the faster version of the deck that packs fewer counterspells. Finally, fast combo decks can sometimes prevail if they manage to hang on for a few turns without dying, whilst also assembling their winning combo. Again, this is most often true for the faster delver deck that plays fewer spells to disrupt the opponent. The Grixis version of the deck that packs both resilient threats and solid counterspells can be tricky to specifically target with sideboard cards as it has enough flexibility to respond to solid blockers, lifegain, or board clear

Back to Top

Dredge, (Aggro, Synergy, High Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

Dredge is notable among decks for its concerted effort to throw as many of its own cards as possible into its own graveyard, which might seem exceedingly counterproductive, but actually results in a terrifyingly potent deck. The heart of the deck really lies in the quick way in which it can fill its own graveyard with cards like Stinkweed Imp or Faithless Looting and then creatures that are able to be reanimated from this position. Typically dredge will open with an Insolent Neonate or Faithless Looting on the first turn which enables it to start throwing cards away. The presence of Bloodghast in the graveyard means that each land the dredge player plays results in a creature being reanimated. The presence of Prized Amalgam in the graveyard means that each Bloodghast reanimation also brings along a friend. As quickly as the second turn the dredge player can start reanimating these creatures and populating the board. The key graveyard-fillers are Tormenting Voice, Faithless Looting and Insolent Neonate, along with Golgari Grave-Troll and Stinkweed Imp . The key reanimating creatures are Narcomoeba, Bloodghast and prizedamalgam. Finally, dredge also often plays Conflagrate as a card that can be flashed back from the graveyard whilst also filling it with threats, and Life from the Loam as another filler that can also recur lost lands.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

The first thing to notice is obviously that removal spells like Terminate are not going to achieve a lot against a deck that can reanimate its creatures a seemingly infinite number of times. Exile spells like Path to Exile can, however, be potent. The best way to attack dredge is simply to take away their graveyard. Rest in Peace, Relic of Progenitus, Grafdigger's Cage, Scavenging Ooze, and Anafenza, the Foremost are particularly noted for this. Another good way to deal with dredge is to make sure that any dead creatures stay dead forever, whilst also building up a board presence: Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet fills this role.

Back to Top

Eldrazi and Taxes (Aggro, Tempo, Mid Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

This deck looks to combine disruptive creatures such as Leonin Arbiter, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Thought-Knot Seer, Tidehollow Sculler, and Wasteland Strangler with the ability to flicker creatures in order to make continued use of their enters-the-battlefield effect. The creatures in charge of that are Eldrazi Displacer and Flickerwisp. In fact, Eldrazi Displacer, Flickerwisp, and Wasteland Strangler can combine to form a lock of sorts, provided that you have sufficient mana. Because of its disruptive elements and its ability to close out games with creatures, this deck is very strong against combo and control strategies, and the Eldrazi additions have maded it more potent against aggro and midrange, which was a glaring weakness of most Modern attempts to replicate the Legacy Death and Taxes archetype.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

This deck has two major weaknesses: one is that most of its disruption is aimed at individual creatures or noncreature spells, so a fast start from an aggressive creature deck that puts multiple threats on the table (such as Affinity, Elves, Merfolk, or Zoo) can overwhelm it. The second is that it actually takes the deck some time to put an opponent away, so it can be ground down using attrition tactics. BG/x Midrange decks are a traditional nemesis of this deck for that very reason.

Back to Top

Emeria Control (Control, Synergy, Low Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

Emeria Control, Titan control, UW Titan, or Mono White Emeria - whatever you end up calling the deck, it is a White based Tap Out control deck that aims to head into the long game because it utilizes Sun Titan and Emeria, The Sky Ruin for an unbeatable end game plan. The deck plays a bunch of cards with strong Enter the Battlefield abilities that some people might consider "Terrible". Things like Wall of Omens, Pilgrim's Eye, Lone Missionary and Court Hussar gain some sort of card advantage while helping to gum up the ground and buy time until you can jam out a Sun Titan to get the value train rolling. Supreme Verdict or Wrath of God, Path to Exile, Detention Sphere , and Mortarpod (yes, really) help to knock the opponent off balance and buy more turns. Once all of the pieces have been assembled, you are able to reanimate these creatures to continue to pile the card advantage on and eventually just bury the opponent in it.The deck comes in two main flavors, White splash Blue and Mono White, and they suit two different playstyles. The blue version contains counterspells and is for those that want to take a more conservative approach to the deck, whereas the white version is on the full tap out plan, choosing to run Flickerwisp instead to recycle all of its triggers and be a bit more aggressive. Either way, this deck is for the player who wants an unconventional approach to controlling the format, for those who want a deck with few to no actual bad matchups, those who like extreme synergy, and for those who really like making decks out of discarded draft cards. However the deck is by no means solved so there is plenty of room to innovate.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

This deck is very difficult to board against because of its natural resiliency and resistance to conventional removal. The real key to beating this deck is repetitive graveyard hate and removal with no stipulations such as Terminate. Land hate helps take care of Emeria, but because titan and emeria can grab each other back from the yard the only real way to stop them is to get em dead and keep em dead, and not focus on removing any of the little dudes. Titan and Emeria are the only things you should focus on. General strategies that the deck is weak to are extreme aggression by way of burn spells, resilient combo decks such as Ad Nauseam, and Prison strategies.

Back to Top

Gifts Ungiven (Control, Lower Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

Gifts control decks are built around the extremely powerful card advantage engine Gifts Ungiven, with the most common taking the form of 4 color Gifts or Esper Gifts. Gifts Ungiven is used by players not only for card advantage, but to find answers to almost any situation within their library, and sometimes to set up a game-ending combo. It often searches for multiple similar answers to a specific board-state. For example, a typical set of cards that a Gifts player will search for when needing a board-wipe is: Wrath of God, Supreme Verdict, Damnation and Snapcaster Mage. As you can see, the players opponent must allow him/her a Wrath effect in his/her hand, no matter how the set of cards are split. You may also notice that due to the wording of Gifts Ungiven, specifically the phrase with different names, a Gifts deck will often include a set of similar but not identical cards that do the same thing, allowing the player to search for them if necessary. For example, rather than have 4x Path to Exile and 4x Abrupt Decay, it is more common to see Gifts decks run something like 2x Path to Exile, 3x Abrupt Decay, 1x Dismember, 1x Slaughter Pact, 1x Maelstrom Pulse. This inclusion of multiple single copies of similar cards characterizes most Gifts decks. Most Gifts decks will attempt to end the game either through manlands such as Celestial Colonnade or through casting Gifts Ungiven for only two cards: Unburial Rites and a large creature to reanimate that will most likely end the game.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

If you wish to beat Gifts Ungiven based decks, graveyard hate is a good place to start. The deck relies heavily on Life from the Loam as well as Snapcaster Mage, and sometimes Unburial Rites to actually win the game. Scavenging Ooze can be your best friend here, and it is the bane of many Gifts decks. Other cards that target Gifts ability to search and neuter it can swing the game in your favour. Cards like Aven Mindcensor or Shadow of Doubt can keep your opponent from searching his deck for the cards he actually needs in order to kill you. In addition, many of the same tools that are good against other control decks will help against Gifts, including extra counterspells and discard spells.For a sample decklist and more in-depth information on Gifts Ungiven Control, feel free to visit slovakattacks extended primer: deck-large:gifts-ungiven-primer-modern.

Back to Top

Goblins / 8Whack (Aggro, Synergy, Low Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

Well, this deck plays lots of goblins at an exceedingly fast pace. Goblin Guide, Legion Loyalist, and Foundry Street Denizen fill the 1 mana slot whilst Goblin Bushwhacker, Goblin Piledriver and Mogg War Marshal fill the two mana slots, and finally the deck closes with Goblin Chieftain and Reckless Bushwhacker. The key to the deck is the ability to unload a vast number of cheap 1 or 2 power creatures and then buff their power with lords like Goblin Chieftain or the whackers like Goblin Bushwhacker to turn what appeared to be an unimpressive board presence into lethal damage. The key to the deck is the synergy between the strategy of going wide with lots of different creatures and the huge swings that this produces when a single creature comes into play that gives everything +1 power.

The creature suite is often complemented by Lightning Bolt and Goblin Grenade which are used to just push the last bits of damage through despite the opponent having blockers. Goblin Grenade is known in particular to be a fantastic card at turning games that looked like a lost cause into a definitive win for the goblins player.

Rarely goblins may splash a second colour. Black gives Spike Jester , Dismember, and Terminate which gives you a better chance to get damage in around blockers, whilst a green splash can give Atarka's Command as another source of direct damage with a solid creature buff. Other options in mono red that are sometimes seen include Goblin Cohort (another 1 mana 2/2 like Goblin Guide but no haste and a big downside), or Goblin Wardriver (battle cry is great at buffing your board but does nothing the turn it is played).

Sideboarding Against This Deck

Goblins is an aggressive creature deck made up of 1/1s and 2/2s for the most part. This means that it has two inherent weaknesses. The first is the presence of solid blockers, such as Tarmogoyf which greatly threatens the deck and its ability to produce damage. Goblin Grenade can get around blockers to some extent but theyre still no doubt a problem. The second issue is simply board clear like Drown in Sorrow, Pyroclasm and other examples. With no creatures the deck achieves virtually nothing.

Back to Top

Grixis Control (Control, Mid Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

Grixis control is a reactive deck that focuses on a very strong suite of removal spells, along with cheap threats in the form of Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Gurmag Angler. The game plan revolves around cards that accumulate advantages over long games: Snapcaster Mage, Kolaghan's Command, and Cryptic Command in particular. All of these cards produce 2-for-1s by either allowing the deck to draw more cards, or by removing multiple resources from the opponent, or simply allowing you to use your spent resources again. Tasigur, the Golden Fang is notable due to the fact that his ability grants the ability to use your resources again, and again, and again, and again! The deck can close out games extremely quickly with the classic Lightning Bolt-Snapcaster Mage-Lightning Bolt line of play, or Gurmag Angler granting a 2 or 3 turn clock. The deck is also well known for its possible Turn 2 Gurmag Angler, or Tasigur, the Golden Fang. This is done with a T1 fetchland into a Thought Scour (3 cards in the graveyard for Delve) and then another fetchland on T2 (4 cards in the graveyard for Delve, and 2 mana). Once a threat has landed the deck can protect it from removal with classic counterspells such as Remand or Mana Leak. Even if a threat dies it can be reanimated with Kolaghan's Command, and if it dies again you can Flashback the Kolaghan's Command you used before with Snapcaster Mage. This makes for one extremely resilient deck.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

The deck relies a great deal on the graveyard and therefore cards like Scavenging Ooze, Relic of Progenitus or Leyline of the Void can make things difficult because it removes the ability for you to use Delve on your creatures, and Flashback on your spells. Having said this both Gurmag Angler and Tasigur, the Golden Fang can eventually be hardcast, at which point the opponent is in trouble again. Aggro decks can take advantage of any slowing down in tempo, at which point they can take a swift win, but midrange decks can still be in trouble. Any deck that is able to take swift wins through either combos (Abzan Company) or aggression (Burn) can pose problems as Grixis Control is a fairly slow deck most of the time.

Back to Top

Grixis Midrange (Midrange, Mid Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

Grixis midrange is very similar to Grixis Control but focuses more on sorcery speed elements instead of instant speed cards. The deck utilises Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek and Liliana of the Veil, along with jace, vryns prodige to keep the same controlling feel as Grixis Control but tends to play more proactively rather than reactively. This means that instead of a draw-go style it is more likely to tap out in its own turn. The advantage of this approach comes from the repeatable removal presented by Liliana of the Veil and the repeatable Flashback given by Jace, Telepath Unbound  . Both cards are extremely powerful but require you tap out in your own turn. The deck therefore doesnt run as many counterspells such as Cryptic Command. Due to its reliance on both controlling and aggressive components this deck is sometimes referred to as Blue Jund - named after the classic BGR deck. Similarly to the control deck a Turn 2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang or Gurmag Angler is possible through a T1 fetchland into Thought Scour (3 cards in the graveyard for Delve), and then a T2 fetchland (4 cards in the graveyard for Delve, and 2 mana).

Sideboarding Against This Deck

This deck is more vulnerable to removal than Grixis Control due to their reduced reliance on counterspells. Therefore their wincons are more likely to be hit by Dismember, Path to Exile, Maelstrom Pulse and others. As with the control version of the deck, Grixis Midrange doesnt usually run more than 10 cards that can actually win the game. One key weakness of Grixis Midrange is that unlike Grixis Control it lacks a large number of counterspells, and unlike BG/x decks it lacks Abrupt Decay. Therefore against decks like Jeskai Control you can sometimes find your own removal being countered - leading to a loss. Furthermore the lack of both Green and White means that against decks like Affinity, Burn, or Zoo you lack lifegain.

Back to Top

Hatebears, (Aggro, Low Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

The name for this deck is derived from the types of creatures that it typically includes. They all feature some sort of hate utility, and they all have stats similar to 2/2, (2/2s are typically referred to as bears; named after Grizzly Bears ). The bread and butter of a Hatebears deck is: Leonin Arbiter, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Aven Mindcensor, Qasali Pridemage, Scavenging Ooze and Voice of Resurgence. These are all cards that can simultaneously threaten the opponent and hinder their progress. Hatebears decks can be sorted into those that run Aether Vial and those that dont. Aether Vial was originally put in the deck so you can cheat your hatebears into play, and it also helps a great deal with any mana problems caused by Ghost Quarter and Tectonic Edge. The Hatebears deck without Vial tends to be a more midrange/aggro hybrid deck which can end games a lot faster, whereas the Vial version is slower and more controlling, but can still win pretty quickly, and sometimes out of nowhere - with the Vial being able to quickly get things into play. When playing with this deck, remember that it is a control / midrange hybrid, not an overly aggressive and fast deck. Failure to acknowledge this can often lead to you overextending and getting blown out.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

To win against Hatebears, you either need to outrace, or utilise superior attrition. Outracing is pretty simple: you kill them before they kill you. This can easily be done by decks like RDW, Affinity and various other fast strategies, that are able to finish the game before the Hatebears deck has really started. Alternatively, utilising attrition involves taking advantage of superior card draw and control options to beat the Hatebears player in the long-game. This can be difficult because Hatebears runs cards like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben that heavily punish control cards. However spells that quickly clear out many creatures remain effective. Engineered Explosives can kill almost all of the creatures in the deck, as most of the creatures are 2 mana. As always against creature decks, sweepers are very good. Its pretty safe to use Anger of the Gods and the exile clause is relevant if they run Kitchen Finks. Drown in Sorrow is also a good choice. However, bear in mind that Hatebears can run creatures with higher toughness like Loxodon Smiter, Linvala, Keeper of Silence, and Wilt-Leaf Liege. Finally, Suppression Field weakens Aether Vial, Scavenging Ooze, Qasali Pridemage, and Stirring Wildwoods manland ability, land destruction and Thrun, the Last Troll.

Back to Top

Hexproof Auras (Aggro, Synergy, Mid to Low Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

Hexproof Auras (sometimes referred to as simply Bogles" (after the card Slippery Bogle)) is an extremely aggressive Green and White deck. The premise is in the name. Nearly every creature you play will be one mana and have the keyword Hexproof or at least text that indicates that your opponent cannot target the creature. This is combined with the fastest and most efficient aura enchantments in the modern format. These range from granting first Strike, Lifelink, Card Draw, to even protection in the form of the ability Totem Armor which saves your creature at the cost of destroying the enchantment instead. The strategy of the deck is to land a threat within turn one and attach the best enchantments you can to it while providing as much protection to it as you can. This will be fairly easy as your opponent will never be able to target this threat with removal. This doesnt mean they have no outs by any means as sacrifice effects and field wipes still kill your team as they dont require targeting your Bogle. For this reason it is encouraged that you pay very close attention to your board-state along with your opponents when playing this deck to prevent yourself from losing your threats too quickly before closing the deal.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

Problem cards for this deck include Liliana of the Veil, Anger of the Gods, Back to Nature, and Aura Barbs . Most of these are sideboard cards, and some are not often seen in decks - but theyre worth a mention. More often than not, your opponent will resort to field wiping you to trigger Totem Armor; lowering the power of your boggle in order to overpower you. This deck also has very little interaction so winning against combo decks, notably fast combo decks such as Jeskai Ascendancy becomes very difficult. For more information about this deck, you can visit xzzanes sample decklist and extended primer: deck-large: Modern Primer: Hexproof Auras.

Back to Top

Infect (Aggro, Synergy, Higher Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

Moderns Infect deck is very similar to what you may expect having seen the Legacy and Standard versions: play a cheap creature with Infect, make sure you can protect it, and pump it up to deal 10 poison counters to your opponent as quickly as possible. While we have classified this deck as a combo deck due to its ability to win very fast and relative fragility, a strong Infect pilot should treat this deck as an aggressive deck that simply has less damage to deal to win the game.

The most important part of the Infect deck is its creature base. Noble Hierarch is the strangest inclusion to most people new to the deck, as the fact that it deals no poison damage and making mana seems irrelevant in such a fast deck. However, this card is the most important in the deck due to its ability to provide extra damage through Exalted triggers as well as making mana to protect creatures while killing the opponent. Glistener Elf, Blighted Agent, Inkmoth Nexus as well as either Ichorclaw Myr or a black splash for Plague Stinger fill out the creature base, as they are the cheapest and most evasive threats available. Inkmoth Nexus in particular is the best creature in the deck, avoiding sorcery-speed removal as well as Abrupt Decay.

The other major part of the Infect deck is the pump spells. The core package consists of Groundswell , Might of Old Krosa , Vines of Vastwood , and Mutagenic Growth , with Distortion Strike, Apostle's Blessing and Wild Defiance providing additional support and protection. These spells are the most efficient available, either providing a high power/mana ratio or accomplishing an important role such as protection or unblockability. The most consistent and powerful version of the Infect deck is UG, but some pilots will choose to go mono-green for budget reasons, splash black for Plague Stinger, discard spells and Abrupt Decay, splash white for Path to Exile and other hate cards, or red for Assault Strobe and Ancient Grudge in the sideboard.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

One of the biggest strikes against the Infect deck is Spellskite. The deck plays a lot like Hexproof, and both are weak to the 0/4 redirecting their pump spells. If you are worried about this deck, Spellskite is your best option. Note that most Infect pilots have access to Twisted Image in the sideboard specifically for the purpose of dealing with this card. Sideboarding in more removal is always a good idea against this deck, as it has a small creature base that can easily peter out without protection spells.

Back to Top

Jeskai Control (Control, Higher Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

UWR Control, or Jeskai Control, is a deck that aims to get to the late game by trading with the opponent using efficient 1 for 1 removal and counterspells, before winning in the with a combination of Snapcaster Mage attacks, burn spells, Celestial Colonnade, or Ajani Vengeant. The most important parts of this deck are the instants and sorceries. Lightning Bolt, Lightning Helix, Path to Exile and Electrolyze are all powerful ways to deal with creature based strategies. The deck also uses counter magic to keep problematic cards that dodge removal off the table; Spell Snare, Mana Leak, Remand and Cryptic Command are all examples of this. Finally cards like Serum Visions and Ancestral Vision are included so that the player can find more counterspells, removal, or threats. In terms of creatures Snapcaster Mage is an auto-include in a deck like this, due to it granting the ability to recur your instants and sorceries. He effectively functions as copies 5-8 of your favourite burn or counterspell. Some versions of this deck opt for a more midrange style that includes a greater number of creatures. Common inclusions include Vendilion Clique and Restoration Angel. Creatures such as these can be exploited in a controlling way (i.e. forcing the opponent to discard cards) and can pressure the opponent's life total. Jeff Hoogland has recently splashed Black in his UWR Geist deck to incorporate Crackling Doom to combat Bogles and the various B/G/x decks of the format, and Slaughter Games has been added to help improve the Scapeshift matchup. Recently, Nahiri, the Harbinger has been used in Jeskai control to search for an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn as its primary win condition. If you draw Emrakul it is not a concern, as Nahiri can cycle it back into your deck through Nahiri's +2 ability. The addition of another colour simply cuts Tectonic Edge as this card is fairly weak in the metagame.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

The popularity of the deck has decreased recently because of relatively poor matchups against both hyper aggressive decks like Burn and those that play manlands such as Jund or Abzan. As a control deck, Jeskai control can struggle against very fast, and aggressive, decks, such as RDW or Delver because these can play more threats than Control has counters for. Whilst modern includes a lot of efficient removal, there are still relatively few efficient ways to deal with 1-mana creatures like Goblin Guide, save Lightning Bolt or Path to Exile. Midrange decks like Jund or Abzan can sneak in manlands such as Treetop Village which also avoid counterspells. However, against slower midrange decks Jeskai control is a very strong choice. For a larger deck list I recommend checking out I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid you can't do that. which contains a good breakdown of the card options for this deck.

Back to Top

Knightfall, (Midrange, Combo, Low Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

This deck is very similar to a Naya Zoo deck in that it focuses on very solid 2 and 3 mana creature aggression, however it differs in that it also includes a potential instant-win combo in Knight of the Reliquary and Retreat to Coralhelm. The combo itself is very simple: the knight taps to sacrifice a land and search for another, the land you searched for enters the battlefield, coralhelm triggers which untaps the knight, and you repeat until you have enough lands in the graveyard to kill the opponent in one shot. The obvious advantage of this deck is that you are are taking very solid creatures that apply a lot of pressure to the opponent like Loxodon Smiter and Geist of Saint Traft and then adding in Retreat to Coralhelm which at worst taps down opposing blockers and helps with draws through scry, or at best enables you to win the game by turn three or four in a single shot. Any removal the opponent wastes killing your Knight of the Reliquary is removal they cannot use when you follow up with a Loxodon Smiter, Tarmogoyf, or Voice of Resurgence. The deck also features strong control elements in Path to Exile and the possibility of including blue counterspells.

Some knightfall decks have been testing with a red splash in order to include Nahiri, the Harbinger. The advantage of this is that you get access to another potential insta-win situation with Nahiris ultimate searching for an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. You also get access to an exceedingly solid planeswalker that can remove opposing threats or help you cycle through your deck to find the cards you need at any given moment. Furthermore, the inclusion of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is interesting because the card can actually be cast with the mana you get whilst carrying out the Knight of the Reliquary and Retreat to Coralhelm combo. Any lands that come in untapped can be tapped for mana before you sacrifice them with the knight in order to slowly give enough for Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. The opponent needs to be very careful about the point in which they use removal spells because waiting two long will result in two game ending threats.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

Knightfall is somewhat slow given that it relies a lot on 2 and 3 mana creatures, which means opposing aggressive decks can pose a problem, and opposing control decks can also out-tempo it. 1 and 2 mana threats and/or removal result in a deck that can just outpace Knightfall and cause it to struggle. There may not be any particular cards that you can sideboard to deal with the entire strategy in one fell swoop but focusing on speed is a good way to go. If you can remove a 3 mana creature with a 1 mana killspell then obviously you are going to end up ahead. Similarly if you can play twice as many creatures as the Knightfall deck then they will also have problems.

Back to Top

Lantern Control, (Synergy, Control, Low Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

Lantern control is an artifact heavy lockdown deck that aims to control the game by preventing the opponent from ever drawing a useful card. It does this by assembling the very simple lock of Lantern of Insight with Ghoulcaller's Bell or Codex Shredder. Every turn you get to see what the opponent is about to draw and if you dont want them to have it - you make them bin it. To support this strategy it also plays Ensnaring Bridge to stop any lone creatures getting through, and Pithing Needle to stop any pesky abilities causing problems. Spellskite is also added to redirect any artifact removal from your key combo pieces onto itself. The deck also plays a convincing suite of control spells in Abrupt Decay, Pyrite Spellbomb, and Inquisition of Kozilek to stop any other cards that may cause problems. In order to find the combo quickly Ancient Stirrings and Gitaxian Probe is included.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

This deck is remarkably resilient. It may, at first glance, appear that the entire deck folds to artifact hate but this is not entirely true. Spellskite can stop simple 1-for-1 spells, and Welding Jar from the Lantern Control players sideboard can also provide added protection, as can their discard spells (Duress and Inquisition of Kozilek). Mass artifact removal seems promising but often requires so much mana that the Lantern Control player has the lock in effect well before you can cast any. Artifact removal with flashback like Ancient Grudge is fairly effective because it can be cast from the graveyard. Aggression can also work very well if the opponent fails to find an Ensnaring Bridge. Perhaps the most effective strategy is discard through Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize which can stop the opponent from ever assembling the Lantern of Insight and Codex Shredder lock.

Back to Top

Living End (Combo, Mid to Low Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

Living End is a powerful, cheap and effective combo deck based around abusing the graveyard and cascade effects. Travis Woo brewed this deck, and it is probably his most successful deck to date, being wildly popular due to its relatively cheap cost and effectiveness. The deck utilizes its name sake, Living End, to bring back a suite of creature cards from your graveyard and wipe the opponents board to essentially win the game on the next turn. This is typically a turn four or five combo, making it perfectly fit in the Turn Four world of Modern. The basic idea is to cheat Living End, a fairly slow spell when cast for its suspend cost, into play through the use of the cascade ability. The strategy is to spend the first few turns dumping creatures into the graveyard, and then cast a cascade spell that cascades into Living End, wiping the board and putting lethal or close to lethal attackers into play. The cascade cards of choice for the deck are Demonic Dread and Violent Outburst which, once cast, dig through the deck until hitting their only legal cascade target, Living End, and casting it. Due to how cascade works, this deck doesnt play a single one or two mana card. This ensures that when the cascade effect is triggered Living End is always found. However, the deck uses multiple large creatures with cheap cycling costs, such as Deadshot Minotaur or Monstrous Carabid in order to quickly get things into the graveyard and draw through the deck in the early stages of the game. With a suite of around 28 creatures, all with cycling or a similar ability, the combo is essentially all the deck does. However, in desperate situations the deck can just hard cast large creatures and go for a more traditional beat down! The creature base is what makes the deck so cheap to buy; the vast majority of them are pretty mediocre, none of which being big money cards. However, this deck does utilise Fulminator Mage for land destruction, a card which is somewhat expensive. Fulminator Mage, and sometimes Avalanche Riders, are used as sources of interaction with the opponent. Often a Living End player will choose to disrupt the opponent's manabase while they attempt to build up their own combo. This strategy can help to keep the opposing player in a position where they are unable to cast their key cards.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

Many people often go to graveyard hate as a way to shut this deck down, (un)fortunately (depending on if youre playing the deck, or playing against it!) Living End is very resilient to this. With Ingot Chewer in the sideboard, the ability to throw many creatures rapidly into the graveyard in a single turn, and around 28 creatures with cycling in the deck, neither Relic of Progenitus nor Scavenging Ooze can make a large impact. In fact the only sources of graveyard hate that Living End is afraid of is Leyline of the Void and Rest in Peace. Even then, later into the game the Living End player can simply hard cast their creatures and not have to worry about the graveyard. They are still able to use Living End as a board clear to survive the early turns. Against counterspells, the deck utilises Ricochet Trap, so this isnt as effective as it seems either. In fact, the only way to have a good chance against this deck is to simply beat it down before it can combo off. Aggro decks should have few problems here. However, it should be noted that Living End functions as a board clear spell and is playable on T4, so even aggro decks can run into problems. Slower midrange and control decks, however, need to be especially wary when playing against Living End. Suppression Field is a sideboard card that can cause Living End decks problems because it increases the cycling cost of all their creatures by 2. This significantly slows the deck and makes it possible to steal an early game advantage against them.

Back to Top

Loam (Midrange, Combo, Low Tier)

What does this deck do?

The card Life from the Loam is a powerful card advantage engine capable of fueling itself by putting land cards and useful spells from your deck into your graveyard, then fishing out land cards for some sort of benefit. The main goal behind any Loam deck is to fill up your graveyard while casting cheap, disruptive cards from your graveyard, and gaining marginal advantage until you are in a spot to secure the win.

There are two main breeds of Loam strategies in Modern - Aggro Loam and Loam Pox.

Aggro loam is an aggressive strategy that can typically be found utilizing Seismic Assault as a means of dealing large amounts of consistent damage, in addition to cheap and aggressive creature spells such as Tarmogoyf, Young Pyromancer, and Man-Lands like Treetop Village.

Aggro Loam can be a cheaper aggro option than other builds, but is more often used as a "non-meta" aggro option to get an edge on opponents who have less experience in the format.

Loam Pox, in contrast, is built more like a control deck that grinds the opponent with a very heavy attrition strategy. Loam Pox utilizes the card Smallpox as a means of cutting your opponent off of resources while using cards with graveyard synergy to take advantage of the resource shift. Common cards in Loam Pox lists range from Lingering Souls and Flagstones of Trokair to Zombie Infestation , sometimes also including Seismic Assault and man-lands as a secondary win condition.

Loam Pox is often seen as The Rock deck on a budget, a deck well suited for those that like a slow, grindy ordeal.

Sideboarding against this deck:

Graveyard hate is very powerful against any sort of Loam strategy for obvious reasons. Bojuka Bog, Relic of Progenitus, Rest in Peace and Grafdigger's Cage are all cards that Loam hates to see. Aside from that, this deck has trouble handling resilient creatures like Wurmcoil Engine. Illness in the Ranks may be another option if you happen to know that a local Loam player is relying on cards like Lingering Souls or Young Pyromancer. Some lists also cannot handle a Blood Moon, but that varies from build to build.

Back to Top

Merfolk (Aggro, Mid to High Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

Merfolk, or Fish as it is often referred to, began as a Legacy deck that used the power of its Lords (a Lord is a creature that gives +1/+1 to other creatures of the same type) to create an explosively fast aggro deck that protects itself through counterspells while using Aether Vial to cheat out a large number of potent creatures. The backbone of the deck consists of Master of the Pearl Trident and Lord of Atlantis, along with Silvergill Adept, Aether Vial and Mutavault . The deck comes in U/B, and U/W but is most popularly played as a mono-blue deck. It usually wins by abusing Lord of Atlantiss islandwalk attribute with Spreading Seas, or by slamming down a Master of Waves and going too wide for an opponent to handle. It is a fast, efficient and somewhat low budget deck. It also has the benefit of being extremely portable to Legacy, as the decklist only features a difference of a few cards (Chalice of the Void, Force of Will, True-Name Nemesis, and Daze). If you want a fun, powerful aggro deck that is (comparatively) easy on your wallet and can efficiently transfer from Modern to Legacy, Merfolk is for you!

Sideboarding Against This Deck

Unlike other creature based aggro decks, Merfolk often manages to create incredibly large threats, due to the presence of multiple Lord of Atlantises, or Master of the Pearl Tridents. This can mean that traditionally used sweepers like Anger of the Gods and Drown in Sorrow may be ineffective. The most reliable way to try and beat it is to go wide - Merfolk is not the fastest aggro decks, so other aggro decks may attempt to outrace it. Cards that hose creature-based decks (such as Ensnaring Bridge) can also work here. On the spells front, Maelstrom Pulse is one possibility in these scenarios - being able to efficiently remove multiple threats, however it suffers from the fact that it wont deal with all of their creatures, only a few. Occasionally it may be best to use single target removal against the lords as these present the biggest threats. However, compared to other aggro decks, damage based sweepers and removal can be somewhat less effective here. As always, Damnation and Wrath of God remain effective. The biggest problem Merfolk faces is the ability to lose steam or run out of plays when facing decks that also play efficient threats. BG/x playing early Tarmogoyfs has the chance to trade efficiently and gain a quick upper hand, for example. However, Merfolk also has ways to make its creatures unblockable. In this regard, Merfolk is perhaps in the unique position that whilst it does have weaknesses, there are none that it cant address to some extent.

Back to Top

Scapeshift (Combo, Control, Mid Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

Scapeshift is similar to other controlling decks in that it uses removal and a large number of counterspells to delay and disrupt the opposing aggression. However, past this point the deck takes a different turn. A suite of at least eight ramp spells allow the deck to produce a great deal of mana very early in the game, with the goal being to get to at least seven lands in play. When this is achieved, the pilot will ideally cast Scapeshift and search for a Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and six mountain cards (including shocklands such as Stomping Ground and Steam Vents ) in order to deal the opponent 18 damage due to those lands entering the battlefield simultaneously and seeing each other. To get to this point, the deck employs counterspells such as Remand and Cryptic Command to buy time while they continue to play lands. Removal spells contribute to the effort to delay the opposing attack, while Snapcaster Mage allows all these spells to be reused. Cards like Sakura-Tribe Elder allow you to ramp up quickly and reach the required number of lands relatively early in the game. The most common variant of Scapeshift is the heavy-blue controlling version, but there exist alternate versions that use Primeval Titan and Prismatic Omen to accelerate the kill. These versions rely less on countermagic and more on brute force to find the lands they need and deal the opponent very large amounts of damage.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

The best way to beat the Scapeshift deck is through cards that disrupt its manabase or outright stop its kill condition. Land destruction spells such as Molten Rain, Stone Rain , Fulminator Mage, Sowing Salt and Tectonic Edge do serious work on the manabase, stopping the player from reaching seven or more lands unhindered. Blood Moon is the single best hate card against Scapeshift , as it stops the kill from Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and makes producing mana for intensive spells such as Cryptic Command a lot more tricky.

Back to Top

Soul Sisters / Martyr Life (Aggro, Synergy, Low Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

Soul Sisters is the life gain deck in modern. Due to the ability to gain life explosively, it often prioritises a good board state over interaction with the opponent. The main strategies are either gaining 30 life to turn on Serra Ascendant, (giving a 6/6 Flying Lifelink), or using life gain triggers to buff up Ajani's Pridemate. The main life gain engines are Soul Warden and Soul's Attendant (the Soul Sisters); because the deck almost exclusively runs playsets of each card, it has remarkable consistency. This is further improved by Ranger of Eos with the ability to search for Martyr of Sands to gain a large amount of life instantly, a Serra Ascendant as a win condition, or either of the Soul Sisters when behind on board state. The deck also uses Squadron Hawk due to its ability that allows you to search for the other 3 when played, this allows you to ensure you have enough creatures to trigger the Sisters. A less popular card is Archangel of Thune due to its steep mana cost, however if it does resolve it can steal a game. If played when there are 2 or more Sisters on the field, it causes a large amount of counters to be distributed to all your creatures instantly. This can often break stalemates, or win games out of nowhere. The only removal in the deck is the standard 4 Path to Exile, as found in most white decks, and should be used sparingly. As a secondary strategy, Soul Sisters is able to win through massed small creatures (White Weenies). This involves swarming the board with creatures and then using Honor of the Pure to turn your creatures into more legitimate threats.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

How do you fight against such ridiculous life totals? The answer is simple. You either remove the source of life gain, or remove the threats (Serra Ascendant, Ajani's Pridemate). Soul Sisters, like other creature decks, is very weak to removal, and board sweepers. This is even more true for this deck in particular because it revolves around a synergy that requires multiple cards to be present - if just one is removed the entire plan falls apart. Another way to disrupt the deck is to use exclusively Red/Black hate, in the form of Leyline of Punishment , Rain of Gore , Skullcrack, or Everlasting Torment. These can prevent life gain from taking place. While Soul Sisters matches up very well against almost all creature decks, and fair decks, the control matchup is quite grindy, and could go either way, and against Tron/Gifts, the deck has no way to interact before sideboarding as it runs virtually no removal.

Back to Top

Storm (Combo, Low Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

UR Storm is a combo deck that aims to cast many spells in one turn and kill the opponent with Grapeshot. It can often manage to do this by turn 4 with some ease, making it a resilient and fast combo deck. Storm decks feature four essential parts: an engine that allows spells to be cast for very little mana, cards that generate mana, cards that draw more cards, and a win condition. Storm runs three engines to drive the deck: Past in Flames, Pyromancer Ascension and Goblin Electromancer. Ascension, and Electromancer are the most powerful engines, whilst Past in Flames acts as a way to generate more storm by recasting used spells. Both Goblin Electromancer and Pyromancer Ascension are integral to the deck as they allow cards such as Desperate Ritual, Pyretic Ritual, and Manamorphose to generate far more mana compared to their cost. A Goblin Electromancer allows you to generate 3 mana, while spending only a single red mana with Desperate Ritual. Pyromancer Ascension allows you to generate 4 mana, and draw 2 cards, off a single Manamorphose costing 1R. These engines allow a lot of mana to be produced with relatively little effort, and therefore keep the deck going. The mana generated with the Rituals and Manamorphose is then used on cheap draw spells (cantrips) like Gitaxian Probe, Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand to refill your hand. Once this is done the process is repeated. Eventually the Storm player casts Grapeshot, after 20 spells have been cast, and wins with a single card. Given the amount of card draw Storm plays and the incredible ability to generate massive amounts of mana by turn 3, Storm is one of the faster combo decks and preys on slower decks like Tron or any that are light on disruption like Zoo.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

The only way to reliably beat Storm is to remove the engine. Killing Goblin Electromancer or removing Pyromancer Ascension means that the mana producing spells no longer sustain the deck as effectively and therefore fewer draw spells can be cast, and therefore a large storm count is unobtainable. Counterspells do not work too effectively because Storm decks spend so little mana on each of their spells they can easily cast another, often without even having to wait for the next turn to untap their lands again. A counterspell used on Grapeshot does not work because Grapeshot creates copies and therefore a counterspell only counters 1 of those copies, the rest will resolve. Storms resilience to interference is a major reason why the deck is so successful.

Back to Top

Tokens, (Midrange, Lower Tiers)

What Does This Deck Do?

B/W tokens is a deck that focuses on using tokens boosted by an anthem such as Honor of the Pure or Intangible Virtue to win. The structure of the deck can vary depending on how the deck is built, with some decks focusing on creatures such as Auriok Champion, Hero of Bladehold , or Brimaz, King of Oreskos, while others focus on primarily token producing instants and sorceries with Raise the Alarm, Lingering Souls, and Spectral Procession. Occasionally Pack Rat will be used, but it mostly sees play in deadguy ale. B/W tokens decks use control elements such as hand disruption (Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, and Tidehollow Sculler) and removal (such as Path to Exile, and occasionally Murderous Cut, Doom Blade, or Dismember) to deal with key cards such as Tarmogoyf, or board wiping spells that would be problematic such as Anger of the Gods. This gives durability against the combo decks in the meta like Scapeshift, and can save them from hate cards like Anger of the Gods or Damnation. Most tokens decks opt to finish their curve with Gideon, Ally of Zendikar or Sorin, Solemn Visitor because both of these cards can provide game-winning buffs to your tokens, and produce tokens of their own.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

Tokens decks suffer against mass removal. Drown in Sorrow, Pyroclasm, Damnation, Wrath of God, and Maelstrom Pulse can all cause problems for B/W tokens. Other cards that people can use to sideboard against tokens are Illness in the Ranks and Ratchet Bomb/Engineered Explosives. Tokens have a very good matchup against creature based decks such as Affinity or Jund. Merfolk, on the other hand, is a very difficult matchup for tokens. B/W tokens is an archetype that can vary enormously depending on how you build it, with no one way being the best. For a more in depth explanation feel free to visit xzzanes primer 2016 B/W Token Primer.

Back to Top

Tron, (Combo, Control, Mid to Low Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

Mono-Blue Tron, or UTron for short, is a combo-control deck that generates mana advantage through the Tron lands, Urza's Tower, Urza's Power Plant, and Urza's Mine. This nickname arises from an 80s cartoon in which astronauts combine their spaceships in order to form a more powerful machine. Our main win condition is the infinite lock established with Mindslaver and Academy Ruins, which allows you to mill them out while you draw Mindslaver each turn. Since we are looking to control the game until we establish this lock, we need blue mana sources before we start assembling Tron and often dont complete this until Turns 4-5.

In order to find the Mindslaver lock pieces, we use Expedition Map to find Ruins (which conveniently finds the Tron lands as well) and Treasure Mage to find Mindslaver. We use a suite of counterspells and bounce elements to protect our game plan. Since the Mindslaver lock can be disrupted in a variety of ways, we also run a suite of alternative win conditions that often includes Wurmcoil Engines and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, although Sundering Titan and Platinum Angel are also common choices depending on the meta. Note that Treasure Mage can find most of these alternate win conditions, and that they would not be playable without the Tron lands. In short, UTron is unique because it can generate so much mana, making 6, 7, or even 8-drops playable in a very fast format.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

A common misconception about UTron is that it completely scoops to land destruction or Blood Moon. While this is an effective way to slow us down, it doesnt end the game - our counterspells still work, and it is not unheard of to hard-cast a Wurmcoil Engine. Plus, we have bounce effects to turn off Moons for a turn! So, while sideboarding in Crumble to Dust and Blood Moon may very well change the outcome of your match against UTron, the best option is to be as aggressive as possible and win before they can lay threats down.

Back to Top

Tron, (Midrange, Mid to High Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

GR Tron is the more popular of the two Tron decks. It wins by getting out either Karn Liberated or Wurmcoil Engine on T3 before other decks have a chance to answer. The main ramp engine are the series of "Urza's" lands including Urza's Tower, Urza's Power Plant and Urza's Mine. These give access to 7 mana on T3, and therefore permit the casting of Karn Liberated or Wurmcoil Engine on the same turn. Obviously this is far too soon for some decks to have an answer ready, and most opponents will concede at this point. Tron builds up consistency with Sylvan Scrying and Expedition Map , allowing them to find the Urza lands that they are missing. They also use cantrip-like artifacts such as Chromatic Star/ Chromatic Sphere to add mana and draw into either a wincon or ramp. When played correctly GR Tron can be a devastating deck to face, mainly because it plays threatening cards early in the game that are also difficult to remove (Wurmcoil Engine replaces itself with tokens, and planeswalkers arent hit by killspells). In the late game Tron is able to cast Emrakul, the Aeons Torn with relative ease given that once the lands are assembled each adds 2 or 3 mana.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

The way to beat GR Tron is to outrace them, run counterspells, or run land destruction. If they cannot resolve a big beater then the deck folds. This is fairly self-explanatory and can be achieved by either winning before the threat can come out (Zoo and Burn is capable of this) or just countering the threat (Delver and control decks are capable of this). The GR Tron builds have a weaker G2 after sideboarding as there are various land destruction pieces (looking at Fulminator Mage, along with Tectonic Edge) which completely destroy Tron as they can dismantle the land combo.

Back to Top

Zoo, (Aggro, Mid Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

This is Moderns resident hyper-aggro deck - its goal is to vomit out efficient creatures at a terrifying rate, then use them to pummel your opponent. Its backbone is composed of creatures such as Experiment One Goblin Guide, Kird Ape, Wild Nacatl (which requires a small white splash in terms of lands), and Flinthoof Boar . These are supplemented by ramp effects such as Burning-Tree Emissary, and burn/pump spells like Atarka's Command, Ghor-Clan Rampager , Lightning Bolt, Mutagenic Growth , and most notably Reckless Bushwhacker (which can pump the team and give haste). These combine to make the deck extremely fast, able to go very wide, and able to come up with huge sums of damage seemingly out of thin air. Zoo is very land sensitive given that threats like Wild Nacatl and Kird Ape deal damage based on the presence or absence of certain land types. This means the player will often take a large amount of damage from its own manabase.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

The major weakness of this deck is that most of its creatures lack evasion and solid blockers do a number on their threats. Sturdy walls can really buy time against RG zoo. Furthermore, disruptive effects such as Anger of the Gods, followed by putting a clock on them like Delver of Secrets   is a way to slow this decks blistering pace. RG Zoo is also a bit cavalier with its life total, so a deck that can evade its creatures (such as Burn or Affinity) can just try and outrace it (and win, if it gets a good hand).

Back to Top

Zoo, (Aggro, Mid Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

Naya Zoo is an aggro deck that relies on low cost creatures to finish the game off as soon as possible, similar to GR Zoo. However, unlike GR Zoo, it often includes creatures that cost a little more mana. Whilst turn one threats like Wild Nacatl or Goblin Guide are shared by both versions of the deck, Naya Zoo may opt for mana dorks such as Noble Hierarch or Birds of Paradise. The two and three mana slots show further deviation from the RG versions gameplan. Tarmogoyf, Qasali Pridemage, and Scavenging Ooze are often included instead of Flinthoof Boar . Further, cards that cost more than 2 mana are seen relatively often with Loxodon Smiter and Knight of the Reliquary being popular choices. Some versions may even have a couple of Thrun, the Last Troll for added durability. Whilst the aim is to finish the game quickly, if the game does go long the deck is able to rely on Tarmogoyf and Path to Exile to survive. Unlike GR Zoo the 3 mana creatures are more competent at dealing with opposing blockers or removal like Lightning Bolt given their high power and toughness, which further solidifies their mid to late game potential.

Only a few non-creature spells are used in Naya Zoo Lightning Bolt, Lightning Helix and Path to Exile are the most popular choices. The burn spells are well loved for their ability to remove opposing blockers or go straight for the opponent. Collected Company is seen in this deck, but the mana cost is fairly high.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

As a creature based deck Naya Zoo is vulnerable to board wipes and removal. It also loses steam in the late game due to a lack of card draw, but watch out for Collected Company. Wipes such as Drown in Sorrow and Anger of the Gods may be effective against the earlier threats, but it is worth noting that as their creatures get bigger these spells can lose efficacy. Damnation and Wrath of God avoid this downside. Land destruction through Tectonic Edge or Fulminator Mage is another way of disrupting the strategy; without the right lands the creatures become extremely weak and tricky to cast. Finally, single target removal can slowly whittle the threats down until the Zoo player runs out of steam.

Back to Top

Zoo, (Aggro, Synergy, High Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

This is the most all-in, aggressive variant of zoo and is commonly referred to as suicide zoo. The core of the deck is exceedingly aggressive 1 mana creatures such as Monastery Swiftspear, Wild Nacatl, Death's Shadow and occasionally also Steppe Lynx. The manabase of any zoo deck has always been somewhat of a liability given that it really wants to power up Wild Nacatl to a 3/3 on turn 2. This requires a Forest, Plains, and Mountain to be present, which in turn requires an awful lot of fetchlands and shocklands to be played. Suicide Zoo took this facet of the deck and ran with it. It plays somewhere in the region of 10 fetchlands, 4 copies of Gitaxian Probe, 4 copies of Mutagenic Growth , and 4 copies of Street Wraith. Why? Because of Death's Shadow. The entire point of this deck is to lose as much life as possible whilst absolutely hammering the opponent with very cheap creatures and then finishing them off with a blowout spell like Become Immense or Temur Battle Rage. Not only do the noncreature spells buff your Death's Shadow, but they also trigger prowess on Monastery Swiftspear which, all-in-all, results in one very dangerous deck. The other upside of the deck is that as Gitaxian Probe and Mutagenic Growth cost 0 mana to cast, it can achieve a surprising amount in a single turn, making it both very consistent (lots of card draw and ways to play cards even without the right mana) and exceedingly quick to kill.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

There a few ways to beat Suicide Zoo. One risky method is to let the Zoo player do what they want whilst they slowly whittle away their own life then finish them with a Lightning Bolt. Another key way to win is just to sideboard enough removal to ensure that their creatures never hit you. Suicide Zoo easily finds more creatures with Gitaxian Probe, and Street Wraith, among other cards, but in doing so they lose yet more life and make it easier for you to kill them with one surprising blow. Removing their creatures forces them to lose more life than perhaps they are comfortable with. The final method is just to put up solid blockers. A Wall of Omens or Tarmogoyf is going to be tricky for them to get through with anything smaller than a Death's Shadow. A Monastery Swiftspear might be able to do it, but only if the Zoo player invest cards just to buff it up. In this case the cards used to buff the Monastery Swiftspear went towards killing your creature instead of hitting your face, which is a good outcome.

Back to Top

8-Rack (Control, Low Tier)

What Does This Deck Do?

8rack is given its name due to its primary win conditions: The Rack and Shrieking Affliction. These cards, along with a myriad of discard effects, allow you to slowly whittle your opponents health down while allowing them fewer and fewer cards to cast, disrupting strategies, and in certain cases, forcing them to concede completely. The competitive core of the deck is mono-black, with a few artifacts, and occasionally an additional color (or even two!). Due to the early curve, it generally wants to run a few less lands than most higher-tiered control decks, but land draws late game are sometimes fatal dead draws, and it wants to minimize that problem as much as possible. There are 5 playsets the deck cannot live without: The Rack, Shrieking Affliction Liliana of the Veil, Thoughtseize, and Inquisition of Kozilek. The first two are relatively self-explanatory. Liliana of the Veil is the mistress with the most, providing awesome tempo, while keeping your opponent consistently off cards and off creatures. This is probably one of the only decks where using her ultimate isnt your game plan with her, rather keeping her around using her abilities to keep your opponent tempoed out of responses. Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize are easily the strongest hand attack spells in modern. Inquisition grabs most everything relevant in modern, and what it cant grab, Thoughtseize can for just a little extra life.

What you do beyond that point is kind of up to you. there are many other strong discard effects out there, and other cards that provide strong attrition.

Sideboarding Against This Deck

To be completed

Back to Top

---

What Are Some Complex Rules Interactions I Should Know About?

Show

Grafdiggers Cage

Grafdigger's Cage: A common mistake that newer players will do is to side in Grafdigger's Cage against Living End decks. Unfortunately, this does nothing to hinder Living End, as the cards come into play from exile, and not from the graveyard.

Remand

Remand: Many newer players do not understand the importance of this card, and will instead favor other hard counters such as Mana Leak. Remand has many uses which make it an extremely valuable card, however. Many players describe Remand as a free Time Walk due to the fact that in the early stages of the game, your opponent will not be able to recast their spell, and you get an extra card draw. Remand is perfect for tempo style decks such as delver for this reason. Another interaction that can be done with Remand is to remand your own spells. For example, if your opponent plays Counterflux on your Scapeshift , you can potentially Remand your own spell to save it. Another thing of note is that if you Remand a flashbacked spell, the spell will still go to exile, and not to its owners hand. Remand is also very useful against decks that use delve to cast their spells cheaper. If you Remand a Tasigur, the Golden Fang after they empty their graveyard in order to cast it, you make it significantly harder for them to recast it.

Spellskite

Spellskite: This is one of the more complicated cards in modern. Spellskite and Electrolyze is one example of a complicated interaction revolving around this card. If your opponent casts Electrolyze and targets two separate targets, you will only be able to redirect one of the targets to Spellskite, and not both of them. For this reason, if you have a Pestermite and a Spellskite out, and the opponent casts Electrolyze targeting both your Spellskite and your Pestermite, you will be unable to redirect the one damage to Pestermite to your Spellskite. If your opponent attempts to send two damage to your Pestermite, then Spellskite can redirect the damage, however. Unlike Electrolyze, Spellskite can redirect the damage from Kolaghan's Command, even if Kolaghan's Command is also chosen to destroy target artifact. The reason for this is that Electrolyze uses the word target only once, so the two targets have to be different, unlike Kolaghan's Command which uses target twice, meaning that it can target the same thing twice. Spellskites ability will also not work on illegal targets. A common example of this would be attempting to equip a card like Cranial Plating. Because Cranial Plating specifies target creature you control, Spellskites ability is not legal upon resolving, and will simply go to the original creature. This is also true for the attach function of Cranial Plating. Auras, for the most part, are different however, and you can redirect their target to Spellskite. One exception is Daybreak Coronet, however. Spellskite will only be a legal target if it is already enchanted with another aura. You also cannot change the target of a spell like Go for the Throat to Spellskite, as it is an illegal target. A key thing to note with all of this is that even if upon resolving Spellskite is not a legal target, you still pay the activation cost of Spellskites ability.

Electrolyze

Electrolyze: If you attempt to deal two damage to a creature and the creature is taken out by a flicker effect such as Restoration Angel, then Electrolyze fizzles, and you do not draw a card.

Fulminator Mage

Fulminator Mage: One of the best parts about Fulminator Mage is that its ability is instant speed. This can lead to some interesting interactions. Say youre playing against a jund player, who is attacking with a Tarmogoyf and Raging Ravine. You can block the Tarmogoyf during the declare blockers step, and then sacrifice Fulminator Mage, targeting ragine ravine. Tarmogoyf remains blocked, while Raging Ravine is destroyed, so you take no damage! One key exception to this is if you attempt to block a creature with trample. If you block a creature with trample and attempt to do this, the creature with trample will simply assign all of its damage to you, so make sure to always block a creature without trample when doing this.

Primeval Titan

Primeval Titan: If a creature with trample like Primeval Titan is given double strike through a card like Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion, which is commonly seen in many bloom titan decks, then the damage leftover from the second attack will go through to the player after all necessary damage has been dealt to the creature. For example, if a Primeval Titan with double strike is blocked by a 1/1 soldier token, Primeval Titan will deal one damage to the soldier and five to the player from the first attack. Then, six damage will be dealt to the player from the second attack due to double strike.

Protection

Protection: If a creature with protection from white, such as Blood Baron of Vizkopa is targeted with a spell like like Path to Exile, then the target is illegal, and the game will rewind to before Path to Exile is played. A spell like Wrath of God does not target or deal damage, so Blood Baron of Vizkopa would still be destroyed, however. Kor Firewalker would still be alive after a Pyroclasm or an Anger of the Gods, because its protection from red prevents it from taking damage. One thing to note is that if a creature with protection from a color blocks a creature with trample, then the creature with trample can still deal damage to a player once enough damage has been assigned to the creature with protection. To give an example, if I block Primeval Titan with Mirran Crusader, then Primeval Titan must assign two of its damage to Mirran Crusader, but can then assign the rest of its damage to me. If the Primeval Titan has lifelink for any reason, then the owner of the Primeval Titan will only gain 4 life however, as it could not deal the two damage it assigned to Mirran Crusader.

Aether Vial

Aether Vial: Any creature that is being put into play through Aether Vial cannot be countered, because the creature is not being cast. In order to prevent Aether Vial from putting a creature into play you would need something that stops an activated ability such as Pithing Needle or Phyrexian Revoker. Creatures such as Merrow Reejerey will not have their abilities triggered because the creature is not cast as well.

Arcbound Ravager

Arcbound Ravager: This is one of the most powerful cards in affinity, and its ability is something to be very cautious of. Arcbound Ravager can sacrifice any artifact at instant speed to boost itself. This means that if you try to kill a Vault Skirge with a kill spell, Arcbound Ravager can simply sacrifice Vault Skirge to further increase its own power. One of the best ways to use Arcbound Ravager is to attack with several creatures, and if other creatures are blocked when Arcbound Ravager is not, then sacrifice the blocked creatures to give enough power to Arcbound Ravager to potentially push lethal damage through. Another option is to sacrifice Arcbound Ravager to itself, and give all of its +1/1 counters to something like Inkmoth Nexus through its modular ability. Something to keep in mind is that this particular line of play has anti-synergy with Cranial Plating though.

Wild Defiance

Wild Defiance: While its main purpose in Infect decks is to allow creatures to survive Lightning Bolt and Lightning Helix in addition to other damage-based removal, Wild Defiance also allows pump spells to have a use in the face of a Spellskite. While Skite can redirect the pump spells themselves, the trigger from Wild Defiance cannot be redirected as it specifies its target as a creature you control. Spellskite can only successfully redirect abilities for which it would be a legal target, so the creature will still receive the +3/+3 bonus.

Tectonic Edge

Tectonic Edge: If you and your opponent both have Tectonic Edge out with both you and your opponent having four lands, you can activate your Tectonic Edge to destroy theirs with them being unable to destroy any of your lands. The reason for this is that when you activate your Tectonic Edge to destroy theirs you are left with only three lands, so they cannot destroy any of your lands with their Tectonic Edge.

---

Links And Other Resources

Show

- MTGTop8: This is a website that displays the metagame breakdown in terms of deck prevalence across a set time period; the default is the last 2 months but it can be changed. MTGTop8 is very useful for giving a broad overview of whats going on in the world of modern across magic online, Starcity opens, grand prixs, and other events. The site is probably the best resource available in terms of finding out which decks are (or were) most commonly played in a set time period and the cards that they use. If you want to learn how to build a certain deck, and find that the above primers werent enough, checking MTGTop8 is always a good idea for further information. A word of warning: whilst this is an essential tool in assessing the overall metagame it is important to realise that local, and platform variations do apply. For example, whilst at a certain time point BG/x decks might make up 5% of the overall meta, this does not mean that you should expect 5% of the modern decks at your LGS to be BG/x - this is an example of local variation. Platform variation is the difference in metagame observed between paper magic and online magic. It is often found that the types of decks commonly encountered across these different platforms differ.

- MTGSalvation: This is a website with an excellent forum featuring some very good user submitted primers. Using the search bar in the top right you can find information about most different decks in the format - sometimes to a great degree of detail. The best primers are typically long and thorough and include a lot of very good material. Whilst this primer here has aimed to go wide (including a large range of content) the primers on MTGSalvation aim to go deep and include lots of information about one specific topic. If youve made a decision about which deck you want to build and have an idea for a list it may be worth checking this website for discussion about alternative cards and strategies. However, it is worth noting that MTGSalvation features user submitted information; the validity and accuracy of which can vary. Everyone makes mistakes, and sometimes erroneous material will be found in discussions and primers. It is highly recommended to seek multiple sources instead of just one. Remember that often in magic we deal with opinions, not facts.

Back to Top

Top Ranked	Achieved #1 position overall 9 years ago
Date added	9 years
Last updated	7 years
Key combos	Kitchen Finks + Melira, Sylvok Outcast + Viscera Seer Codex Shredder + Lantern of Insight
Legality	This deck is not Modern legal.
Cards	0
Folders	Damn, Modern Ideas, learn, 5-Color, Decks I like others made, Decks to watch, modern, Look into it, Wow, Reference