What’s the one card that defines Modern for you? I’m not asking about the best, most well-positioned, or most efficient card, but rather the one that defines the experience of playing Modern as compared to any of Magic’s other Constructed formats. There are plenty of very reasonable answers to that question. Splinter Twin is a strong combo representative. Lightning Bolt, Thoughtseize, and Path to Exile are the most efficient answers in the format. Cryptic Command is the best control tool. Cranial Plating and Goblin Guide are reasonable aggro representatives. For me, these are all just things that happen. None of them really defines the kind of games I want to play or the interaction I expect from Modern.

The one card that best represents the Modern experience for me is Remand.

What can’t this card do? It’s a Time Walk in Splinter Twin decks and Scapeshift decks. It generates card advantage in control mirrors by Remanding spells that have been countered. It functions as both disruption and a combo piece in Pyromancer Ascension decks if that’s something we’re interested in. There are times when Remand is a straight-up Time Walk that sets up the win on the following turn, and there are times when it is the blankest of blanks.

I’ve played with Remand in various Tron decks and W/U/x control decks, and I’ve even messed around with Jarvis Yu’s takes on Scapeshift. I’ve played against it in everything from Twin to Mono-Blue Time Walks. There’re no two ways about it; Remand is a fantastic Magic card that is enormously flexible and skill-testing, and it’s a card that has defined the blue interactive decks in Modern since its inception.

I’m sick of it.

It used to be that Birthing Pod was the card that kept Remand in check. Sure, you could Remand a Pod when you were on the play. But if the Pod player played first, he or she could jam a turn-two Birthing Pod and execute a powerful, proactive, and disruptive game plan without ever having to cast another spell. The player could force you to tap out to deal with what he or she was doing so that your Remands were liabilities instead of a powerful tool. For better or worse, Birthing Pod is no more, and now we need new plans to beat up on Remand.

It’s not a coincidence that we’ve seen a rise of strategies like Infect and Burn built around cards that cost just 1 or 2 in response to the banning of Pod. These strategies sneak in under Remand and put blue players into positions from which Remand is either losing tempo or rotting in hand. That’s not enough for me. After all the Gifts Ungivens I’ve had Remanded, I don’t just want to make opposing Remands bad. I want to punish people directly for trying to Remand my spells. Enter Summoning Trap.

Summoning Trap isn’t new to Modern. I’ve seen a couple of takes on the card in this format over the last few years—mostly G/W with Knight of the Reliquary and Windbrisk Heights or R/G with Through the Breach—but the Trap’s targets range from Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Iona, Shield of Emeria to Primeval Titan and Godo, Bandit Warlord. The lists generally look something like this:

G/W Trap ? Modern | Eldae

• Creatures (28)
• 4 Birds of Paradise
• 4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
• 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
• 4 Knight of the Reliquary
• 4 Nest Invader
• 4 Noble Hierarch
• 4 Primeval Titan
• 3 Spellskite

• Spells (9)
• 4 Lingering Souls
• 1 Raise the Alarm
• 4 Summoning Trap

• Lands (23)
• 1 Dryad Arbor
• 2 Forest
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 3 Marsh Flats
• 1 Mosswort Bridge
• 2 Mutavault
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Plains
• 1 Razorverge Thicket
• 2 Temple Garden
• 1 Treetop Village
• 3 Verdant Catacombs
• 4 Windbrisk Heights

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Aven Mindcensor
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 3 Burrenton Forge-Tender
• 2 Eidolon of Rhetoric
• 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1 Ethersworn Canonist
• 1 Mark of Asylum
• 2 Nature's Claim
• 1 Spellskite

Buy This Deck

These lists have the potential to be very explosive. You can either Summoning Trap into a monster or use Knight of the Reliquary and Primeval Titan to set up hideaway lands. My problem with these decks is that, while there are many synergies, there are many disparate pieces. What happens when you draw a hand full of monsters? What about Summoning Traps and Lingering Souls? Which spell are you banking on your opponent countering? What if he or she just Paths your Primeval Titan? There’re a lot of things that have to go right, and the backup plan is just curving mana dorks into anemic, midrangey threats that are easily killed or outclassed. No thanks.

Instead of being pulled in this many directions, I’d rather commit to a midrangey value plan from which Summoning Trap both gives me card selection—to find high-impact hate cards—and enables some kind of over-the-top combo plan. Birthing Pod may be banned, but can the combination of Summoning Trap and Chord of Calling do a good enough impression to be worth exploring? Jacob Wilson certainly showed that the plan of mana dorks plus Gavony Township is still good enough, but what if we try that in a Naya Pod–esque shell?

Naya Trap ? Modern | Carlos Gutierrez

• Creatures (28)
• 4 Noble Hierarch
• 4 Birds of Paradise
• 2 Wall of Omens
• 2 Wall of Roots
• 2 Kitchen Finks
• 1 Huntmaster of the Fells
• 4 Eternal Witness
• 4 Restoration Angel
• 2 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
• 1 Reveillark
• 1 Spellskite
• 1 Reclamation Sage

• Spells (13)
• 4 Summoning Trap
• 4 Chord of Calling
• 4 Path to Exile
• 1 Ghostway

• Lands (22)
• 1 Fire-Lit Thicket
• 2 Stomping Ground
• 3 Temple Garden
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 2 Gavony Township
• 3 Forest
• 1 Plains
• 4 Windswept Heath
• 4 Verdant Catacombs
• 1 Ghost Quarter

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Creeping Corrosion
• 3 Stony Silence
• 1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 1 Obstinate Baloth
• 1 Spellskite
• 1 Aven Mindcensor
• 1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
• 3 Fulminator Mage
• 1 Ghost Quarter

Buy This Deck

So the game plan is to pull ahead on mana and grind your opponent out with Restoration Angel plus Eternal Witness. That core lets you rebuy lands to power Chord of Calling, interactive elements like Path or Ghost Quarter, and even set up future Summoning Traps or Chord of Callings to find powerful utility effects. Alternatively, you can just generate an enormous board stall and break it open with enormous Chord of Callings and Gavony Township activations.

What I like about this take on Summoning Trap is that fewer of your cards are completely polarized. There aren’t uncastable monsters, and you’re not just jamming Primeval Titan and hoping you are able to activate a hideaway land. Instead, you have a very reasonable base of aggressive value creatures that are more than capable of winning games without going degenerate. It’s completely reasonable to just ramp into a Chord or a Trap and hit a hate bear that shuts your opponent out. It’s also just as reasonable for you to kill the opponent on turn three when he or she counters your Kitchen Finks. The best part? Playing four copies each of Restoration Angel and Eternal Witness makes it very difficult for your opponents to fight through powerful haymakers out of the sideboard. Affinity might be able to beat one Creeping Corrosion—maybe. But what about two? Three? There’s no way that’s happening.

One of the most interesting parts about this list is the singleton copy of Ghostway. This is here as a sort of stall-breaker for midrange mirrors and instant-speed threat against control decks. If you can generate any kind of board presence, Ghostway threatens to generate enormous advantages by Flickering a giant pile of Eternal Witnesses, Restoration Angels, and Wall of Omens to net you a giant pile of cards, including the Ghostway you just cast. It’s even possible that the Ghostway plan is worth exploring more fully instead of either the Chord of Callings or Summoning Traps. Perhaps something like this:

Naya Trap ? Modern | Carlos Gutierrez

• Creatures (30)
• 3 Noble Hierarch
• 4 Birds of Paradise
• 4 Wall of Omens
• 1 Elvish Visionary
• 2 Nest Invader
• 2 Wall of Roots
• 2 Kitchen Finks
• 1 Huntmaster of the Fells
• 4 Eternal Witness
• 4 Restoration Angel
• 1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
• 1 Reveillark
• 1 Spellskite

• Spells (11)
• 4 Chord of Calling
• 4 Path to Exile
• 3 Ghostway

• Lands (22)
• 1 Fire-Lit Thicket
• 2 Stomping Ground
• 3 Temple Garden
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 2 Gavony Township
• 3 Forest
• 1 Plains
• 4 Windswept Heath
• 4 Verdant Catacombs
• 1 Ghost Quarter

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Summoning Trap
• 1 Creeping Corrosion
• 3 Stony Silence
• 1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 1 Obstinate Baloth
• 1 Spellskite
• 3 Fulminator Mage
• 1 Ghost Quarter

Buy This Deck

The basic game plan is the same, though you’re looking to set up situations from which you can cast Ghostway for maximum value. You have plenty of cantrip creatures to help you stall the board and dig through your deck while setting up for Chord of Calling, but you also have a bunch of Wall of Roots and Nest Invaders that can set up powerful Chords on turn three all on their own. Without Summoning Trap in the deck, I’m less inclined to run a bunch of powerful singletons, but it’s certainly possible that the combination of cantrip creatures and Chord of Calling is enough.

The problem with this build is that it’s heavily reliant on Chord of Calling, which is exactly the kind of spell that is most vulnerable to Remand. I don’t know if Ghostway is efficient or threatening enough to compete with Remand in this style of shell in the same way that Summoning Trap is, but this build is certainly more capable of grinding out a late-game advantage against the midrange and control decks of the format.

So there you have it: two green decks with explosive potential, late-game attrition engines, and even access to powerful silver bullets. I don’t know which, if either, of these shells is capable of putting up consistent results in the current Modern format, given its blistering speed and the sheer breadth of threats you have to interact with. Regardless, I’m going to enjoy playing with a unique engine and a powerful toolbox and shutting down some Remand decks.