What an odd format. Being able to play Modern with two of your pals and you're not held back by any limitations. Then the flood of meme teams came in.

Triple Amulet.

Triple Tron.

Triple Burn.

These teams were designed to have some fun in a team environment and do something you would normally never do.

I'm here to give you the best advice possible for this special tournament. You see there's actually an answer on what to play for you and your team.

Are you ready?

This is gonna be wild.

Play what you want.

You catch that?

There are some exceptions to this rule but you should lean toward decks you would normally bring anyways.

This Modern tournament should be treated just like every other Modern tournament you would go to. Trying to meta for meme teams like the inevitable Edgar Magalhães, Matt Dilks, and Daryl Ayers/Tariq Patel/or Will Pulliam Amulet Titan squad is going to cause you to lose to the random Tron squad or the players who showed up with their favorite Modern decks. Instead, prepping for how the meta has shifted is going to yield better results overall.

What is the format shaping up to right now? Last week I wrote that the pillars of Modern are Arclight Phoenix, Mox Opal, Noble Hierarch, Ancient Stirrings, and Amulet of Vigor. I felt like these cards accurately represent the decks that are doing the best in Modern. However, I certainly struggled a bit on the sixth card which is Faithless Looting. Thinking back I certainly should have switched out Arclight Phoenix for Looting mostly because of Dredge, a deck that has been written off lately but might now be well positioned. With all the Izzet decks playing Surgical Extraction and only Bant Spirits really playing Rest in Peace Dredge is able to work around a lot of that.

The best three decks at the moment are KCI, Arclight, and Bant Spirits.

KCI has shown up as the best deck in the format and, thanks to the sheer amount of time it takes to play, I expect KCI to be getting banned when the new set drops. If you haven't taken the time yet, I would recommend learning this deck so you can try to figure out how to attack it and when you can make your moves.

Arclight decks are truly showing up in force and are reasonably resilient to a specific hate piece. Oftentimes you'll need more going on to be able to beat it.

Bant Spirits has become the fair deck of choice; and, while it obviously has some good tools, I'm constantly concerned about playing a deck that really starts moving on turn three. When you get to turn three the creatures are so good it's easy to turn a corner and apply a ton of pressure. However the deck has a lot of clunky hands and moments.

That leads me to believe these decks are heading toward being well positioned.

Evan Whitehouse has quietly been tearing up the SCG Tour circuit and with a variety of decks. It looks like Evan picks the general best deck for the weekend and looked dominant in his matches on camera with Dredge.

Dredge | Modern | Evan Whitehouse, 2nd Place SCG Invitational

• Creatures (18)
• 2 Golgari Thug
• 4 Bloodghast
• 4 Narcomoeba
• 4 Prized Amalgam
• 4 Stinkweed Imp

• Instants (1)
• 1 Darkblast

• Sorceries (18)
• 2 Conflagrate
• 4 Cathartic Reunion
• 4 Creeping Chill
• 4 Faithless Looting
• 4 Life from the Loam

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 Shriekhorn

• Lands (19)
• 2 Mountain
• 1 Arid Mesa
• 1 Gemstone Mine
• 1 Mana Confluence
• 1 Scalding Tarn
• 2 Blood Crypt
• 2 Bloodstained Mire
• 2 Stomping Ground
• 3 Wooded Foothills
• 4 Copperline Gorge

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Damping Sphere
• 1 Leyline of the Void
• 2 Ancient Grudge
• 1 Assassin's Trophy
• 1 Darkblast
• 3 Lightning Axe
• 4 Nature's Claim
• 1 Conflagrate

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I like Dredge's position while players are focused on trying to beat KCI, Phoenix, and Bant Spirits. Dredge also benefits from having an incredible Game 1 as well. In a format like Modern, having a great Game 1 deck can take you quite far; especially if your deck has the tools to win post board. Take a deck like KCI, for example. KCI is an incredible Game 1 deck but is kind of weak to certain hate cards. Based on Dredge and KCI's sideboards you can tell they are immensely prepared for these cards post board. Players love to complain about how sideboard cards just win games outright, but it doesn't always work out that way in games. The issue is not having any pressure or something to back it up. The reason Bant Spirits is successful is because it has devastating sideboard cards alongside mopey creatures that CAN get bigger. And when they do it's easy to close out games in short order before an opponent can dive back in.

Maybe you're a little worried about the massive grave hate for Phoenix and KCI and that scares you from Dredge. Well how about another turn three deck?

Infect | Modern | smnowako

• Creatures (14)
• 2 Spellskite
• 4 Blighted Agent
• 4 Glistener Elf
• 4 Noble Hierarch

• Instants (23)
• 2 Become Immense
• 2 Dismember
• 3 Groundswell
• 4 Blossoming Defense
• 4 Might of Old Krosa
• 4 Mutagenic Growth
• 4 Vines of Vastwood

• Sorceries (3)
• 3 Distortion Strike

• Lands (20)
• 2 Forest
• 1 Dryad Arbor
• 3 Breeding Pool
• 4 Inkmoth Nexus
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 4 Windswept Heath
• 2 Pendelhaven

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Spellskite
• 2 Dissenter's Deliverance
• 1 Grafdigger's Cage
• 2 Nature's Claim
• 2 Relic of Progenitus
• 3 Shapers' Sanctuary
• 3 Spell Pierce
• 1 Wild Defiance

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Infect has been heralded as the predator of KCI, Amulet, and Tron. The deck is fairly consistent and has a goldfish that's difficult for those decks to interact with. The concerns I have about Infect moving forward is the abysmal Phoenix matchup. Gut Shot and Thing in the Ice don't add up for a happy Elf. After some testing of Bant Spirits against Infect with Ally Warfield coaching me on stream against Brad Carpenter (check out the VODS), I came to this conclusion about that matchup:

Spirits is very favored.

The ability to interact on board with Wanderer and be able to block effectively AND turn the corner and win the race over a couple turns is too much. I'm not sure of the best way to circumvent that with Infect but utilizing Distortion Strikes and Spellskite might give some leeway and if Bant Spirits sticks to only two Path to Exile it might be easier to work through it.

But perhaps the best deck is something that some players have written off. Peter Hollman won a Modern event with this deck, and I think it should be getting more respect right now: Four-Color Shadow.

Traverse Shadow | Modern | didoguidotti1

• Creatures (12)
• 4 Death's Shadow
• 4 Street Wraith
• 4 Tarmogoyf

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Liliana of the Veil

• Spells (29)
• 1 Kolaghan's Command
• 2 Dismember
• 2 Fatal Push
• 2 Lightning Bolt
• 2 Temur Battle Rage
• 3 Stubborn Denial
• 2 Faithless Looting
• 3 Traverse the Ulvenwald
• 4 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 4 Thoughtseize
• 4 Mishra's Bauble

• Lands (18)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Swamp
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 1 Watery Grave
• 3 Bloodstained Mire
• 4 Polluted Delta
• 4 Verdant Catacombs

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Fatal Push
• 1 Kolaghan's Command
• 1 Stubborn Denial
• 2 Assassin's Trophy
• 1 Ceremonious Rejection
• 2 Collective Brutality
• 1 Disdainful Stroke
• 1 Fulminator Mage
• 1 Liliana, the Last Hope
• 3 Surgical Extraction

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Didoguidotti1 has been destroying the MTGO Modern Leagues. At the time of writing they had over 30 Trophies. That's over 30 5-0s with Shadows! I know they played Grixis but have recently moved onto Four-Color and have been seeing even more success with that variant. Against the linear decks Shadow can disrupt and apply pressure quickly and looking at the answers presented it feels workable to beat the few Paths and Engineered Explosives floating around. Traverse the Ulvenwald adds a dimension of consistency into a deck that has no cantrips. What I prefer most about this variant is it feels proactive while the Grixis Version can feel reactive. In this format being proactive is key. There's a reason didoguidotti1 moved to Four-Color and it's clear that they are being rewarded for it as well.

The overall goal for non-unified remains the same. Play what you're going to anyways and don't try to game something that isn't there. You'll thank me later.