Welcome to Gathering Magic's weekly quintet of Magic Online you should be aware of this weekend, whether you're playing a major online event, going to a Grand Prix, or hitting a Friday Night Magic. In an era of big data, Magic Online provides some of the biggest data, so even a quick-and-dirty snapshot of recent Dailies gets you ahead of the competition.

Every week, I'll follow roughly the same template. For a major Constructed format, I'll cover four decks. Two will cover the most popular winning decks of the format, a third will cover a deck that won the tournament if the popular archetypes didn't, and a fourth will be one Spicy Metaball, with some innovation or another that draws me to it. The fifth deck will be from a different format, a peek at how "the others" are doing.

With Cards Played in Japan / I Am the Modern Man

As Fate Reforged releases on Magic Online a little behind paper's schedule due to bug testing and stuff like that, its banned/restricted list is also behind. So it's the last chance to play Birthing Pod, Treasure Cruise, and Dig Through Time in Modern.

But that doesn't mean that people are playing them right now. If I had to guess, players tried to sell those cards to bots as soon as the list went up, hoping the stores behind the bots weren't updating prices as fast. While the top of the standings shows those cards in some amounts, recent Modern Dailies are surprisingly good at showing a new metagame.

And for thematic reasons, each deck will have a song associated with it. If you're coming to this article, you're getting me writing it, after all...

Here's what 4-0'd on Sunday and Monday (Bold = won the Daily):

Two Times:

U/R Affinity

Once:

Abzan Midrange

Spike Feeder Pod

Storm

W/U Control

Amulet of Vigor

R/G Tron

Merfolk

TarmoDelver

Nine archetypes in 10 decks is pretty healthy (or random, I suppose - but probably healthy). What's the first step in the new Modern world?

The Popular Kid

Blue-Red Affinity ? Modern | M3l0Q

• Creatures (25)
• 4 Arcbound Ravager
• 2 Master of Etherium
• 4 Memnite
• 4 Ornithopter
• 4 Signal Pest
• 3 Steel Overseer
• 4 Vault Skirge

• Spells (19)
• 2 Thoughtcast
• 1 Galvanic Blast
• 4 Cranial Plating
• 4 Mox Opal
• 4 Springleaf Drum
• 4 Ensoul Artifact

• Lands (16)
• 4 Darksteel Citadel
• 4 Blinkmoth Nexus
• 3 Glimmervoid
• 4 Inkmoth Nexus
• 1 Island

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Ancient Grudge
• 2 Blood Moon
• 1 Dismember
• 3 Etched Champion
• 2 Spell Pierce
• 2 Thoughtseize
• 1 Wear // Tear
• 2 Whipflare

Buy This Deck

Everybody loves a bit of metal...The winning version of Affinity was the chunkier Master of Etherium version (the other 4-0 deck, piloted by 1866, went with Etched Champion in the maindeck instead, along with a singleton Ghostfire Blade). As a guy who doesn't like to go all-in, I prefer this version personally, as it has more chances of interacting and Master of Etherium plus Ensoul Artifact mean you're less vulnerable to incidental hate from cards like Zealous Persecution and Electrickery when they show up. But it's still an Affinity deck at heart, and it's capable of several Mox Opal/Cranial Plating[card] aggro-combo kills.

The other winner is likely to show up plenty now that [card]Birthing Pod is gone:

Abzan Midrange ? Modern | Cabal_Therapist

• Creatures (14)
• 2 Kitchen Finks
• 4 Scavenging Ooze
• 4 Siege Rhino
• 4 Tarmogoyf

• Spells (22)
• 4 Liliana of the Veil
• 1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
• 4 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 2 Lingering Souls
• 2 Maelstrom Pulse
• 4 Thoughtseize
• 4 Abrupt Decay
• 1 Dismember

• Lands (24)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 3 Marsh Flats
• 2 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Plains
• 2 Swamp
• 2 Tectonic Edge
• 1 Temple Garden
• 3 Treetop Village
• 1 Twilight Mire
• 4 Verdant Catacombs
• 2 Windswept Heath
• 1 Woodland Cemetery

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Lingering Souls
• 2 Drown in Sorrow
• 4 Fulminator Mage
• 1 Golgari Charm
• 1 Murderous Cut
• 1 Slaughter Pact
• 3 Stony Silence
• 1 Thrun, the Last Troll

Buy This Deck

Yeah, remember these cards? Cards that, other than Siege Rhino and Sorin, were staples of Modern before the metagame got warped? These previous All-stars are dealing the next move now that spot removal is good again. Normally, I'd be sad at how staple-heavy this deck is (apart from Drown in Sorrow, which seems well-positioned), but it's amazing how so many of these cards were in hiding the last few months. Abrupt Decay and Maelstrom Pulse are somehow refreshing.

As (presumably) Liliana sang in the linked song, "There's no reason for you to cry / we'll always be around." When the format is healthy, they probably will always be around.

Our next deck, from the well-known Dmitriy Butakov is a mix of old and new:

TarmoDelver ? Modern | Butakov

• Creatures (15)
• 4 Delver of Secrets
• 2 Huntmaster of the Fells
• 3 Snapcaster Mage
• 4 Tarmogoyf
• 2 Vendilion Clique

• Spells (23)
• 4 Serum Visions
• 3 Treasure Cruise
• 1 Burst Lightning
• 3 Cryptic Command
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 3 Mana Leak
• 2 Spell Snare
• 3 Thought Scour

• Lands (22)
• 2 Breeding Pool
• 1 Flooded Strand
• 1 Forest
• 5 Island
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Polluted Delta
• 4 Scalding Tarn
• 2 Steam Vents
• 1 Stomping Ground

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Huntmaster of the Fells
• 1 Cryptic Command
• 2 Ancient Grudge
• 3 Blood Moon
• 1 Combust
• 2 Counterflux
• 2 Forked Bolt
• 2 Vedalken Shackles

Buy This Deck

Notice how I borrowed from TarmoTwin to name this deck rather than call it the abominable Temur Delver? (I also could have called it Stand and Delver...but I'm adamant about not doing so.) And it looks very much like Patrick Dickmann's famous TarmoTwin combination except for the complete absence of Splinter Twin - I had to check a couple times to make sure it really wasn't there. Instead, it's a nearly monoblue deck (check how many few non-Island fetches are in the deck, enabling Vedalken Shackles), splashing for Lightning Bolt, Tarmogoyf, and Huntmaster of the Fells in the maindeck and a host of sideboard options.

Although Treasure Cruise is rotating, it seems replaceable here, along with enabler Thought Scour. And one of the biggest reasons I wanted to highlight this deck is that its success moving forward largely depends on what should replace those six cards (possibly 10 if Serum Visions is lackluster in the shell). There are all the usual options in U/R control archetypes, but this deck seems well-suited to, say, Temur Charm, as all three modes are live against different things. A combination of Izzet Charm, Temur Charm, and Cryptic Command seems like a nightmare to play around, especially if they're playing tempo for an Insectile Aberration.

One Spicy Metaball

Now that cards like Relic of Progenitus aren't as vital to maindeck, control decks have more slots to put in what they normally like to include. And this 4-0 deck throws in a card that looks like a copy/paste error from other Modern decks:

White-Blue Control ? Modern | ReadInReverse

• Creatures (7)
• 1 Consecrated Sphinx
• 3 Kitchen Finks
• 3 Snapcaster Mage

• Spells (28)
• 1 Gideon Jura
• 1 Jace, Architect of Thought
• 1 Compulsive Research
• 4 Serum Visions
• 2 Supreme Verdict
• 1 Wrath of God
• 4 Cryptic Command
• 4 Mana Leak
• 4 Path to Exile
• 3 Spell Snare
• 2 Detention Sphere
• 1 Batterskull

• Lands (25)
• 1 Academy Ruins
• 4 Celestial Colonnade
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 2 Hallowed Fountain
• 3 Island
• 2 Plains
• 3 Polluted Delta
• 4 Seachrome Coast
• 2 Tectonic Edge

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Kitchen Finks
• 2 Baneslayer Angel
• 2 Dispel
• 1 Engineered Explosives
• 2 Grafdigger's Cage
• 4 Kor Firewalker
• 1 Negate
• 2 Stony Silence

Buy This Deck

While the control suite backed with Celestial Colonnade is a classic Modern (would be a nice format pun except the two never existed together) group, the win conditions are pretty diverse and much higher-costed than a typical Modern deck. Jace, Architect of Thought at the four slot, Gideon Jura and Batterskull as the fives (with Baneslayer Angel in the sideboard), and the ultra-rare six-drop in Consecrated Sphinx are singletons with widely varying strengths. There's an Academy Ruins in here with only Batterskull as a maindeck artifact. While amusing as a near-nonbo with the deck, it's also nigh unto impossible to beat a Batterskull that bounces and recurs. Ruins also allows for Grafdigger's Cage and Engineered Explosives in the sideboard to get nastier.

But the innovation—and one that I'm surprised I hadn't seen much before—is Kitchen Finks. Known mostly for its work with Birthing Pod, the Finks has to find a hot producer to stay on top of trends, and when its strengths are keeping players alive and surviving removal, then it makes sense that control wants to cut a single. I made an unnecessary table, based on *NSYNC's smash hit "Pop," as an illustration of the possibilities:

Will this be a one-off*, as "Pop" was for BT producing *NSYNC, or will it continue into something fruitful and vital? I'm pretty interested in finding out.

* BT got JC from *NSYNC to sing in two of his songs off the Emotional Technology album, including "The Force of Gravity" and "Somnambulist," which set a Guinness world record for most vocal edits in a song (6,178). Both are pretty sweet, although I'm more partial to the ESCM album, as it's my favorite album by anyone ever.

A Peek at Khans of Tarkir Block

The most obvious format waiting for good Fate Reforged cards to arrive is Khans of Tarkir Block, which right now is the not-as-cool-sounding Khans of Tarkir Set. And the winning deck for many of the last several Dailies is one whose main components are tearing up Standard - Abzan Aggro:

Abzan Aggro ? Khans of Tarkir Block | Jorzu

• Creatures (19)
• 3 Anafenza, the Foremost
• 3 Heir of the Wilds
• 4 Rakshasa Deathdealer
• 2 Seeker of the Way
• 4 Siege Rhino
• 3 Wingmate Roc

• Spells (16)
• 3 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
• 2 Despise
• 4 Abzan Charm
• 2 Murderous Cut
• 2 Utter End
• 1 Debilitating Injury
• 2 Suspension Field

• Lands (25)
• 1 Blossoming Sands
• 2 Forest
• 4 Jungle Hollow
• 3 Plains
• 4 Sandsteppe Citadel
• 4 Scoured Barrens
• 3 Swamp
• 4 Windswept Heath

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Heir of the Wilds
• 2 Debilitating Injury
• 1 Murderous Cut
• 1 Suspension Field
• 2 Utter End
• 1 Bitter Revelation
• 2 Death Frenzy
• 1 Duneblast
• 2 End Hostilities
• 2 Erase

Buy This Deck

The mana is worse than the Standard incarnation - lack of painlands slows this deck down a bit - but all of the creatures, Abzan Charm, Murderous Cut, and Sorin are major Standard players that form an All-Star team here. Abzan colors tend to play good stuff decks across formats (because they're all about value), so the KTK block version goes for the best stuff it can get.

The various 4-0 Abzan aggro decks tend to vary most in their removal suite; I chose this deck for having the most sideboard options in End Hostilities, Duneblast, and Death Frenzy along with extra copies of maindeck removal. With three colors, the options of removal are as varied as what you care about killing, so customize it to your heart's content.

Conclusion

At least until the Prerelease events this weekend, when it comes to Khans of Tarkir Block, "Any player can have a deck with any archetype he wants so long as it is Abzan." Okay, maybe Henry Ford wasn't thinking about that when he said something kinda similar, but hey...do you know how hard it is to find early 20th-century quotes about this week's metagame?

So whether you want to find something new or declare that your old favorites are back, you've got some options this weekend and as the formats get new stuff. My FNM this Friday is Modern, and I don't know what I want to go with yet. It should be fun to figure out.