To start, a screenshot:

That lovely repartee you see above was me expressing my initially skeptical views of Kaladesh’s potential impact in Modern (while daggering friend and teammate Cedric Phillips, of course). As with every set release, I am generally extremely conservative on the impact new cards will have on older formats, unless something is obviously pushed by Wizards R&D. As the power level of a format goes up, you see, cards have higher and higher bars to pass in order to justify their place in decklists. Even a card as obviously powerful as Chandra, Torch of Defiance has a hard time passing the bar in a format where many decks aim to kill you by turn four. As the removal gets cheaper and more plentiful, too, cards that warp Standard (Smuggler's Copter, anyone?) end up getting relegated to the sidelines. Can you imagine, for example, the tempo swing that you incur when you Crew your Smuggler's Copter and get it Lightning Bolted? I imagine your opponent would look something like this:

However, I must confess that when I use hyperbole to undersell Kaladesh in Modern, I am being deliberately obtuse. Cedric was right; there are some cards from Kaladesh that have the potential to see play in Modern. It just takes the right shells to make them work.

Let’s start with the new inseparable pair, Madcap Experiment and Platinum Emperion. Two crazy kids in love, the Emperion smoothes over the rough edges of Madcap Experiment and turns it into a straight up one-card combo!

Wesley See took the following U/R Storm list to a Top 4 finish at a recent SCG Classic event, using the tight 6-card package of Experiment-Emperion to improve certain unfavorable matchups and buy him loads of time to Storm off at his leisure.

U/R Storm ? Modern | Wesley See

• Creatures (4)
• 4 Goblin Electromancer

• Spells (36)
• 2 Noxious Revival
• 4 Desperate Ritual
• 4 Gifts Ungiven
• 4 Manamorphose
• 4 Pyretic Ritual
• 2 Empty the Warrens
• 2 Grapeshot
• 3 Past in Flames
• 3 Sleight of Hand
• 4 Gitaxian Probe
• 4 Serum Visions

• Lands (20)
• 1 Mountain
• 3 Island
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 2 Sulfur Falls
• 2 Wooded Foothills
• 3 Steam Vents
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 4 Polluted Delta

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Platinum Emperion
• 3 Blood Moon
• 1 Ancient Grudge
• 1 Deglamer
• 1 Lightning Bolt
• 1 Naturalize
• 1 Nature's Claim
• 1 Empty the Warrens
• 4 Madcap Experiment

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Now, your average Burn opponent is basically drawing dead to a monster 8/8 on turn three, unless they saw fit to board in Destructive Revelry (or they draw three Lightning Bolt effects to try to slay the beast). Your Affinity opponent can now only win with Inkmoth Nexus (which you can generally cover with your boarded in artifact destruction). Your Bant Eldrazi opponent is forced to keep in Path to Exile (which isn’t a great card against Storm) while trying to not get Mooned. If they sideboard it out because they don’t expect an 8/8? Well, that’s gonna make it very hard for them to win. Merfolk? They better have their Vapor Snags at the ready. A lot of the rough matchups for a deck like this simply fold to the Experiment/Emperion sideboard package, which certainly justifies its inclusion. Unfortunately, the combo doesn’t cover everything. Your Jund and Abzan opponents will still have Liliana of the Veil as a catch-all answer that they would never sideboard out, and your Infect opponents . . . well, they won’t be too concerned about your life total, let’s put it that way.

Clearly, the Madcap Experiment/Platinum Emperion package is perfect as a sideboard option, similar to the Gifts Ungiven/Unburial Rites/Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite one-card combo that Storm decks have incorporated in the past. In my eyes, the Elesh Norn combo would actually be preferable in many matchups (assuming you’re willing to lose your Green splash for a White one, which would involve Wear // Tear and/or Stony Silence). It shuts down Infect completely, it’s similarly backbreaking against Affinity, and you can use Iona instead of Elesh Norn in order to shut down other combo decks like Scapeshift or Ad Nauseam. This U/R Storm list also already has Gifts Ungiven in the maindeck, which occupies most of the Gifts/Rites package slots right there!

The disadvantage of the Gifts/Rites package is its speed, of course. With Pyretic Ritual, Desperate Ritual, or Goblin Electromancer, Storm can power out a turn-three Emperion with some regularity. In general, you would not be able to get your Unburial Rites flashback until turn five, or turn four with a Ritual/Electromancer. That’s a full turn slower, which matters in a lot of these aggressive matchups. You’d much rather have the Emperion combo against Burn, to be sure. I’m a dreamer, though. Part of me wants to ask, why not both?

Let’s look at an alternative list:

Emperion Storm ? Modern | Ben Friedman

• Creatures (4)
• 4 Goblin Electromancer

• Spells (36)
• 1 Noxious Revival
• 4 Desperate Ritual
• 4 Gifts Ungiven
• 4 Manamorphose
• 4 Pyretic Ritual
• 1 See Beyond
• 2 Empty the Warrens
• 2 Grapeshot
• 3 Past in Flames
• 3 Sleight of Hand
• 4 Gitaxian Probe
• 4 Serum Visions

• Lands (20)
• 1 Mountain
• 3 Island
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 2 Arid Mesa
• 2 Sulfur Falls
• 3 Steam Vents
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 4 Polluted Delta

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Platinum Emperion
• 3 Blood Moon
• 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
• 1 Lightning Bolt
• 1 Wear // Tear
• 1 Disenchant
• 1 Unburial Rites
• 4 Madcap Experiment

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You even have Manamorphose in case you accidentally draw your Unburial Rites! (Although, you might want a few more See Beyond in the 75 in order to smooth out your draws with all of these clunkers in your deck.)

Hell, if you’re really looking to stitch together all of the sweet “make-a-fatty” packages, you can just live your dream and throw Nahiri-Emrakul in there too!

***WARNING: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME***

Nahiri?s Gone Crazy.dec ? Modern| Ben Friedman

• Creatures (9)
• 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
• 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
• 2 Platinum Emperion
• 4 Snapcaster Mage

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 4 Nahiri, the Harbinger

• Spells (22)
• 1 Electrolyze
• 4 Gifts Ungiven
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Path to Exile
• 1 Unburial Rites
• 4 Madcap Experiment
• 4 See Beyond

• Lands (25)
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Plains
• 3 Island
• 1 Desolate Lighthouse
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 1 Steam Vents
• 2 Arid Mesa
• 3 Celestial Colonnade
• 3 Sulfur Falls
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 4 Scalding Tarn

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Blessed Alliance
• 1 Supreme Verdict
• 4 Negate
• 4 Dispel
• 1 Wear // Tear
• 1 Spell Snare
• 1 Vendilion Clique

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Seriously, though, as much as I enjoy contemplating the sideboard jukes that the U/R decks can incorporate with the newest member of the Tinker family, I do want to at least devote some energy to discussing other engines in Modern.

What’s that, you say? Energy? In Modern? Aetherworks Marvel what?

Oh boy. Look, I’m not going to sugarcoat this. Aetherworks Marvel dies to Stony Silence (which is already heavily played), it gets hated by the same counterspells people have for Scapeshift and Ad Nauseam, and it requires you to play some pretty suspect cards (Puzzleknots are pretty low-power in the grand scheme of things) in order to make it work. I would love to see Energy in Modern, but the problem is that the Energy cards are just too insular, and R&D can’t make a powerful enough enabler to push Energy into Modern-playable territory without ruining Standard. I believe that Aetherworks Marvel is just a worse version of Modern Eggs, which is already a very, very fringe archetype. You have so many better options than Aetherworks Marvel if you want to play Solitaire in Modern! I can never recommend playing a worse “something else”, when that “something else” occupies the same slice of the metagame pie you’re trying to occupy. Playing Marvel instead of Ad Nauseam is an example of playing a worse “something else”. Let’s try to avoid that for now.

(Of course, now someone is going to go and win with Aetherworks Marvel at the next Modern Grand Prix, making me look like a fool for denouncing it.)

Now, the existence of Blossoming Defense means I could lose my removal spell to their pump spell and take three poison. They get the benefit of both halves of that card’s effect. Ugh.

Pack your Blessed Alliances, your Spellskites, your cheap removal and your flying blockers, folks. Infect gets a bigger boost from the new set than most decks in Modern. The rich get richer!

Now, let’s briefly consider another obvious upgrade to a few Modern decks, the new enemy-colored fastlands. The U/R one is clearly the most likely to see widespread play, as Serum Visions/Lightning Bolt decks are almost as common as Inquisition of Kozilek/Lightning Bolt decks. Being able to consistently and painlessly cast any of your one-mana spells is awesome, and so the decks that stand to gain the most from these lands are the ones with many one-mana spells. Storm and U/R or Grixis Delver are the most common ones, but I am sure that Mardu decks will end up incorporating a few Inspiring Vantages and Melira Chord will run a copy or two of Blooming Marsh.

Okay, so while we’re not waiting for a ban or unban to shake up Modern, let’s discuss one final potential flagship card (and I’m not talking about Skysovereign, either!)

Chandra, Torch of Defiance is poised to make waves in Modern the same way Nahiri made waves by revitalizing a middling-strength Blue-based control archetype. There are a lot of similarities between the two ladies, but Chandra comes with a slightly better built-in unconditional removal spell that can clean up a board and let her get to work. Both of the ultimates are game over, so there are definitely reasons to get excited about Chandra’s potential.

I’m most optimistic about Chandra in Blue Moon, as a way for that deck to pull ahead on cards or mana, then close out games quickly. In Modern, the creatures are generally more powerful than in Standard, but the battlefields don’t get as cluttered (partially due to Path to Exile and Lightning Bolt as cheap removal that keeps the board clear). This is the reason why Liliana of the Veil has been so instrumental in Modern, but was never a format-defining powerhouse in Standard. I believe that Chandra has that same potential in a format likely to be kinder to her.

Let’s start with a list.

Blue Moon ? Modern| Ben Friedman

• Creatures (5)
• 4 Snapcaster Mage
• 1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

• Spells (28)
• 1 Burst Lightning
• 1 Izzet Charm
• 2 Cryptic Command
• 2 Electrolyze
• 2 Harvest Pyre
• 2 Mana Leak
• 2 Spell Snare
• 3 Remand
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 1 Anger of the Gods
• 4 Serum Visions
• 4 Blood Moon

• Lands (24)
• 2 Mountain
• 8 Island
• 2 Desolate Lighthouse
• 2 Steam Vents
• 2 Sulfur Falls
• 4 Polluted Delta
• 4 Scalding Tarn

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Madcap Experiment
• 2 Platinum Emperion
• 3 Dispel
• 1 Negate
• 2 Anger of the Gods
• 3 Relic of Progenitus

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Ooh, lookie here! A sideboard package to help the Burn matchup? You don’t say! All jokes aside, the fact that a U/R deck with no source of lifegain can now boast a comfortable matchup against Burn in post-board games is going to subtly impact Modern. If it increases the playability of U/R decks, then other decks will have to adapt to the increased presence of decks like Blue Moon. Now, I might be wrong, and the Experiment package might just belong in the main deck, but I want to see how Chandra performs before I commit one way or the other. Regardless, two new four-mana Red spells both impacting Modern might be a first, and if they patch the weakness U/R decks had to Burn and Zoo, the waves they could make in the metagame will ripple out and affect the whole format.

At risk of repeating myself, I just want to make one thing clear. If we start getting Mooned more often in Modern, you can direct your ire toward one new power couple in particular. I’m still optimistic, but I think that Modern just might have a hard time Keeping Up with the Kaladeshians.

— Ben “40-Card” Friedman