There have been a lot of "toughness matters" cards printed in Modern-legal sets. It all started with Doran, the Siege Tower, but now that we have access to the likes of Assault Formation, the gameplan is a lot more consistent. It also helps that we have plenty of creatures with high toughness and powerful effects to choose from. Can these creatures keep up with the likes of Death's Shadow and Burn? There's only one way to find out:

Doran Aggro - Modern | Jeff Hoogland

• Creatures (22)
• 2 Noble Hierarch
• 4 Birds of Paradise
• 4 Doran, the Siege Tower
• 4 Spellskite
• 4 Tarmogoyf
• 4 Treefolk Harbinger

• Instants (12)
• 2 Abrupt Decay
• 2 Chord of Calling
• 4 Path to Exile
• 4 Tower Defense

• Sorceries (6)
• 3 Lingering Souls
• 3 Thoughtseize

• Enchantments (3)
• 3 Assault Formation

• Lands (18)
• 1 Plains
• 1 Swamp
• 2 Forest
• 2 Murmuring Bosk
• 2 Overgrown Tomb
• 2 Temple Garden
• 4 Verdant Catacombs
• 4 Windswept Heath

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Collective Brutality
• 2 Dusk // Dawn
• 2 Eidolon of Rhetoric
• 2 Pithing Needle
• 2 Rest in Peace
• 2 Stony Silence
• 2 Surgical Extraction

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That said, decks with a high density of removal can still keep your high-toughness creatures off the board, thanks to Fatal Push, Abrupt Decay and Path to Exile. Enter Lingering Souls. This is your answers to decks that go wide like Affinity, or decks that want to trade one-for-one with all of your creatures. That said, Lingering Souls has to be a much slower clock than beating down with Spellskites and Dorans, right?

It's actually not as slow as you might think. It turns out that it's really easy to pump toughnesses quite a bit for very little mana. Tower Defense and activations of Assault Formation threaten enormous amounts of damage, particularly in conjunction with Lingering Souls, and also make combat a very difficult prospect for your opponent.

If you're looking for a more aggressive take on midrange, this seems like a very fun place to start. Lingering Souls seems great in this format, and maindeck Spellskite is absolutely backbreaking in a number of matchups. The combination of disruption, removal, and a very fast clock has traditionally been a good one, and this doesn't seem to be an exception.