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Main » Articles » Modern: The Top 8 Decks You Need to Know

Modern: The Top 8 Decks You Need to Know

Michael Flores
Posted on August 17, 2021
 Reddit

"Every problem is an opportunity in disguise."

-John Adams

Well... In my case, I think I started with an opportunity (woot!)... Which I sadly quickly realized was a problem.

Since the Dungeons and Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Prerelease, I've mostly swapped my Friday night activities back to FNM. Just a quick recap on life... For a year or two prior to last year's pandemic lockdowns, I had worn myself a nice groove; deciding in my white-whiskered latter years that I was going to be happily an FNM player.

Constructed, Standard, FNM became kind of central to my week at the end of the week; something I looked forward to but that could still satisfy my desire to play tournament Magic. And to be fair, in my old age (I'm forty-five today, but we're talking about two years ago), it was more manageable from my spouse's perspective. She respected that from the time we started seeing each other twenty years ago I would disappear for weekends at a time in faraway cities; generally gave me room to try to grind long events; but always thought the Magical part of my life could be more balanced, especially after we had started to have kids.

Ultimately she was very encouraging of FNM as fitting nicely into my schedule... But not bleeding through late rousing Monday mornings, or surprise plane tickets like I had in decades past.

Then the re-vamped PPTQ system happened.

I won something called a WPN Preliminary on my first try and I realized pretty quickly going undefeated in my first PPTQ that I was basically going to be - worst case - up against the same players I was generally successful against on Friday nights! Never before had a route to the Pro Players Tour been so clear, or so straight.

So having played in the first year of the Pro Tour, at forty-three, I set the record for distance between first and last most recent qualifications, winning a berth to Phoenix in 2020. Keeping in mind that I was playing on average more than a Magic tournament a week, The Fire re-kindled and I went after a couple of Modern trophies... Falling short (if not too short) on consecutive weekends before finishing in the money at the last physical Grand Prix to date.

And then. Boo hiss. Global bastard.

Over the pandemic, physical Magic tournaments essentially disappeared. You know this. So, I switched to socially distanced, masked, but still deadly! Archery practice.

I had started shooting back in 2017 on a lark, but putting in multiple hours a week at the range I got much more consistent. We weren't going out for whiskey after archery or anything, but faces became familiar. Did I have archery friends now? At some point I realized I should just buy my own kit because I was shooting enough to wash out the rental costs in a year. Aspiring barbarians can do math, too!

Of course, that kit hasn't been opened since FNM has started back up!

I went a lowly 2-1 at the Prerelease, and sadly, haven't been able to crack 2-1 yet. But then last week I saw a sign advertising "the return of Modern Mondays".

Getting not out of work, but actually to the LGS by six on a Monday probably isn't feasible every week... But Modern is nominally my favorite format! The one where I can best stretch all the muscles I've built around Monastery Swiftspear decks various.

But here's the thing.

More than "the entire world" has changed in the last year, since I last crossed The Red Zone with a tapped Taylor Swiftspear.

The best deck in Modern came and went! Lurrus of the Dream-Den with the original Companion rule made for the best Burn in forever; cemented rw as the color combination of choice, just to get the pips for Lurrus.

The Companion rule changed. A slower Red Deck, often falling back on Blood Moon, became the build of deference... Sometimes falling onto Obosh, the Preypiercer as a twice-slower Companion, and sometimes quite right in the adoption of doesn't-do-damage removal like - wait for it - Ratchet Bomb.

In the most recent months, both ur and a completely reimagined rw have appeared on the scene. Blisteringly fast - and even faster - than the builds I'd made my Modern reputation on... But wholly lacking in the flexibility and transformation of the 8x Searing sideboards. And now with not one - but two (!!) - new first turn plays, either of which might have greater impact than Goblin Guide, Soul-Scar Mage, or even Monastery Swiftspear?

At the very least I'll have to put in an order here at CoolStuffInc.

It's too late to hit this week's Monday night Modern... But damned if I don't get the gears turning and a-ready for one of the next couple.

But to do that?

I'm less worried about understanding how the Red Deck I will eventually play works. Rather... What's going on with everyone else?

As we've said, Modern has turned two or three violent revolutions in the last year. Here's to catching up with decks I've simply never played against before.

The Top 8 Decks You Need to Know

Deck 1: Hammer Time

Hammer Time | Modern | shadow_PT, 1st Place MTGO Modern Challenge 7/11/2021

Concept: Colossus Hammer is a card ripe for setting the world on fire. It only costs one; with the barrier an exorbitant equip cost. Circumvent that equip cost, and you can win in just one or two attacks.

Colossus Hammer

Simple enough, right? This recent build is actually truer to the steel of Hammer Time. Magnetic Theft in some rw versions was a powerful (and mana saving) trick; but did next to nothing if you didn't have a Colossus Hammer in play.

Speaking of having a Colossus Hammer in play, the additional incentive toward Hammer Time now comes from a Dungeons and Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms 2-drop that provided no card advantage for me or any of my opponents who had it at last week's FNM:

Ingenious Smith

Kind of like Stoneforge Mystics 5-7.

The mana cheats:

Sigarda's Aid
Puresteel Paladin

Exploits: This deck is actually exactly the kind of deck I wanted to play against with the rwversions of Burn circa The Chained to the Rocks Experiment in 2017. Even if the opponent has a more powerful Plan A than Burn, their strategy can be completely overloaded with de facto two-for-one removal. Sear that, Sear that, Smash that to Smithereens. Either the opponent has to have a Puresteel Paladin in play (i.e. a lowly 2/2) or they're one Sigarda's Aid from paying retail to equip the Colossus Hammer.

Even with Sigarda's Aid, the Hammer trick goes on the stack, giving Burn a window to tap Grim Lavamancer. Red Decks don't have to win any foot races to win this matchup... They can invalidate an opponent into a squad of 0/2 creatures and ultimately get there with anything.

So... Highly exploitable, if with the deck three generations ago. The current ur or rw Blitz decks tend to completely lack creature-grinding-overload sideboard plans.

Deck 1a: Orzhov Stoneblade

Orzhov Stoneblade | Modern | Talisker, 8th Place MTGO Modern Challenge 8/1/2021

Concept: Like Hammer Time... but less fancy.

Like Hammer Time, Orzhov Stoneblade pairs newcomer Ingenious Smith with longtime equipment hero Stoneforge Mystic. But instead of going for a specific combo-like sequence, this one is happy to just cash in two-for-ones. Ingenious Smith and Stoneforge Mystic are obvious two-for-ones... But in its way, so is Living Weapon Nettlecyst. There are loads of new cards in this deck, many of which can help generate short-term advantages. Portable Hole is cool in a low casting cost format like Modern; Urza's Saga is great in the same high powered format.

Exploits: Overload their ability to field attackers, and this deck acts like every Death and Taxes and / or Affinity deck that every Red Deck before it has faced. I do think it might be greater than the sum of those parts, with more self-contained card advantage than either parent in isolation... But the Searing / Searing / Smash to sideboard should work to spec here. They can't close out on a dime.

Deck 1b: ReanimatorBlade

ReanimatorBlade | Modern | KarnageKardsENT, 7th Place MTGO Modern Challenge 7/17/2021

Concept: Like Orzhov Stoneblade... but much, much more fancy.

While ReanimatorBlade has a fair number of cards in common with the above two decks - and a cycle theme in common with the next one - it is very much its own thing, and something to be feared, I fear.

The "Reanimator" side of the deck is pretty straightforward. Get something big into the graveyard. Bring it back at a discount. In some cases, you are using a card to do the former (e.g. Unmarked Grave, a four-of in this deck); in other cases you're just doing what everyone else does but get a little value tacked on later (Liliana, Collective Brutality).

Because this is "only" Modern and not Legacy, the Reanimator targets are just very good and not unbeatable. But they are quite a bit faster than any fair deck can field, and often come with compelling 187 abilities that will pre-emptively counter one-for-one removal. You just aren't going to get very far trying to trade with Archon of Cruelty or Ashen Rider.

The downside here is that "pretty good Reanimator deck" is only half the story. This is also a somewhat sub-par Stoneblade deck; albeit fancier than the actual Stoneblade deck we just looked at.

Batterskull
Kaldra Compleat

I honestly don't know why all the Stoneforge Mystic decks don't dabble into some Kaldra Compleat. I mean, if you're not going to spend the mana anyway, this seems like a heck of a way to cheat.

Grief is a card that plays like a Thoughtseize in Orzhov Stoneblade... Sometimes. But this is also an Ephemerate deck, so if you have a spare w when you're setting up the discard, someone is going to start having a lot of fun and the other person is going to not have any fun at all. Interestingly if you wanted to clear the opponent's last card, you could also just use one of your many Reanimator cards to bring back a Grief you had evoked earlier in the game... Then keep the now 2/1 Grief.

Exploits: Of the three Stoneforge Mystic decks we have looked at so far, this one is by far the least exploitable. You can't just go into mono-advantage removal mode after sideboarding here. They'll crush you with their big spells. I would actually say that just any plausible Reanimator deck is probably the worst possible opponent for a Red Deck. This is yet another example of why cards like Rest in Peace under-perform so consistently. Try siding that in and facing the other half of this deck. They might not bring anything back from the grave, but their Kaldra Compleat will be fatty enough.

On the subject of Kaldra Compleat, I feel like either of the other two Stoneforge Mystic decks can sideboard just one copy to foil the traditional rw Burn sideboard plan. Not that anyone is playing a remotely traditional rw Burn deck just now.

ReanimatorBlade gets a lot done in a short period of time; but what it actually does is not objectively powerful when considering all options in Modern. They're just great compared to what a fair creature deck can field. Either they're much bigger or they're slightly more card advantageous... But it's not like they're taking 100 consecutive turns or making infinite mana here. A combination of speed and one well-placed removal card can get you over the line; but that doesn't make this deck remotely exploitable. Would not want to face, etc.

Deck 2: Elementals

Five-Color Elementals | Modern| derk714, 1st Place MTGO Modern Challenge 7/31/2021

Concept: Elementals come together to form a Linear Creature showcase. They have had Flamekin Harbinger to start the party for years, but it's the addition of the Modern Horizons 2 pitch-spell Elemental cycle that have taken it over the top.

This is a deck that can't be reasoned with. If it's your Plan A against their Plan A, no one not interacting with or disrupting their Plan A is going to succeed. They have size and speed and silver bullets.

Ephemerate transforms the downside of a card like Solitude. Can you imagine playing against a conventionally resolved Solitude for call it three turns? They can set up one-of combo sequences like Thunderkin Awakener + Lightning Skelemental. I kind of don't understand why they don't sideboard even more Skelementals just for the pure mana efficiency. They don't need to combo you, you know? They're terrible people running cards that should never have been printed for Standard.

Omnath, Locus of Creation

Exploits: I think we need to go speed on this one. Despite being creature decks that both kind of need to win by attacking, Elementals couldn't be farther from Hammer Time tactically.

What we can say is that they have an abnormal number of lands that enter the battlefield tapped [for Modern] and can get their pitch colors wrong. They have a stupid number of cards that essentially tap for "whatever color I need"... But can potentially stumble.

The exploit, the only exploit as far as I can see, is to beat them before they put together an overwhelming position on the battlefield. Since they are playing theoretically fair four or 5-drops (lol), that at least gives us some context.

Deck 3: Footfalls

Temur Footfalls | Modern | MikoGK, 1st Place MTGO Modern Challenge 7/10/2021

Concept: Compact card advantage into individually smaller, often highly mana efficient, packages. Cheat on mana at the same time.

The ur-ideal of Temur Footfalls is Shardless Agent into two 4/4 creatures but everything in the deck is either self-contained card advantage (e.g. Bonecrusher Giant) or conditionally very, very mana efficient (e.g. Force of Negation)... Often capable of sliding from one column to the other (e.g. Subtlety).

Exploit: At the end of the day, this deck isn't very powerful. It is conditionally the most powerful deck at the table. Like, Bonecrusher Giant is legitimately the best card ever against certain fair creature decks! But relative to any deck with any kind of a Teferi, or actual sweeper, or a permission spell without fourteen clauses attached, it doesn't actually reach very high.

I mean... None of that helps the aspiring Red Deck player, but it does give the deck some context for analysis.

Deck 4: Taking Turns

Taking Turns | Modern | MrRaeb, 2nd Place MTGO Modern Challenge 7/11/2021

Concept: Taking Turns is a cheater's deck. It plays a cheater-y elsewhere-banned setup man in Teferi, Time Raveler; then it utilizes multiple routes to cheating on mana.

Dwarven Mine into Indomitable Creativity into Velomachus Lorehold

The ideal draw involves playing Teferi, Time Raveler on the third turn using three Mountains (Steam Vents, Arid Mesa, etc.) Then play Dwarven Mine as your fourth Mountain to obtain a 1/1 creature for free that is naturally protected by Teferi.

Hit that Dwarf with Indomitable Creativity... And you can get only one kind of creature, which is Velomachus Lorehold.

You have at this point cheated on mana at least twice. Velomachus crashes hastily in - still protected by Teferi, mind you - and seeks to cheat once again: Hopefully with a Time Warp of some stripe.

Exploit: The above describes the perfect draw. There are lots of ways to get from Point A to Point B, and not all of them come wrapped in Teferi Teflon. You can kill the Dwarf or counter one of the big spells. While this deck is very, very powerful, it devotes a ton of cards to Time Warp variants (some of which are not very good if you play them fair) and setup cards for Velomachus Lorehold. As powerful as the Strixhaven Dragon is, it's ultimately just a big dumb creature that dies to Doom Blade.

Now after all that work... What have you got left?

Here is a deck that might answer that question:

Deck 4a: Four-color Creativity

Four-Color Creativity | Modern | calmdownbronco, 2nd Place MTGO Modern Challenge 7/31/2021

Concept: What if you have the same kind of cheater-y Indomitable Creativity inevitability... But instead of lining up Velomachus Lorehold and multiple turns of, ahem, Taking Turns you just made the most powerful unfair creature in the history of Magic: The Gathering?

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

calmdownbronco has a lot of additional slots for fake creatures; some of them are pretty good (Shark Typhoon) or at least conditionally novel (Hard Evidence). Like, I think I would have to spend an actual Magic: The Gathering card on a Hard Evidence half-card most of the time I was up against it. Additionally, calmdownbronco doesn't need to get remotely as "lucky" to put together an Indomitable Creativity sequence.

On balance, this deck does have to play more fair Magic, potentially for longer; although a 15/15 Annihilator doesn't really take a long time to win.

Exploits: ... Are fewer here. There are just more cards that do things, by themselves, and successfully. Like how much offense are you going to put up against Nahiri, the Harbinger? That thing has always had a bazillion loyalty! If you ignore it, it is going to get Emrakul in play! It is also just a perfectly workable permanent in terms of generating an advantage without using mana once it's already on the battlefield. Delay is a very good permission spell, especially if you think you can leverage its tempo into winning before the opponent's card comes through. Lightning Bolt and Prismari Command are just literally excellent interactive spells that can go in lots of decks.

Generally, the Red Deck is quite bad against decks that just seek to make one big threat, and that threat either gets its money immediately (like a Primevel Titan) or can't get gotten (like Emrakul).

I think, again, the counter-recipe here has to be speed. If you let them set up, you're definitely going to be behind on card quality, or maybe just dead.

Deck 5: Dimir Mill

Dimir Mill | Modern | tibalt_of_red_sub, 4th Place MTGO Modern Challenge 7/18/2021

Concept: The Mill deck is just a Burn deck. But instead of going after the opponent's 20, they go after the much less guarded 60. Often, the opponent helps them out along the way!

This deck is the closest thing to mono-offense that I think you'll see in Modern. Even the blockers - 0/2 and 0/3 Crabs - attack in their way. The reason this strategy is so compelling is that Archive Trap is free... And even when people try to play around Archive Trap, they get trapped by cards like Field of Ruin.

The big new card is Tasha's Hideous Laughter, which is bonkers strong in a format with cards like Crashing Footfalls or the consistently low casting costs of Affinity variants and Burn decks. The single biggest thing that I think folks miss when planning against Mill is how bad their mana can be. Many Modern decks run a ton of fetchlands that aim for a small number of basics (say three Mountains) or Ravnica duals (often only one or two copies of a particular dual). So, Mill might not manascrew you in terms of your ability to draw land in the abstract... But if that land is a Scalding Tarn and you now have no Mountains or Islands in your deck, it's like Mill got free card advantage.

Exploits: Simply, Mill is not the fastest deck. It's fast, and weirdly disruptive. It can remove a surgical deck's way to win, or passively manascrew a Burn player. But it's not a turn three killer. It also doesn't have a lot of interaction.

That said, I worry about going all-in on turn two against a deck with Darkness.

Oh well. This is what I just pressed "send" on:

Looks like everything old is about to get blazingly new again.

LOVE

MIKE

TAGS articles, metagame, constructed, analysis, modern, decklist, discussion, michael flores, 08172021

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