Introduction
Wizards dropped one hell of a ban announcement on us.
The banning of 《The One Ring》 was very much expected and unsurprising. Weakening Energy by banning a (somewhat marginal) staple of the deck – 《Amped Raptor》 – was not too surprising, and getting rid of 《Jegantha, the Wellspring》 was just a matter of time.
But while I expected some unbans – as the state of Modern ever since Modern Horizons 3 was pretty disheartening – the extent surprised me!
WotC finally put an end to “unban Twin” memes… by actually doing it! While there’s a target audience for that, and I’m sure folks will do everything to make 《Deceiver Exarch》 (or 《Fear of Missing Out》?) work again, competitively, it pales in comparison to remaining unbans.
《Mox Opal》 and 《Faithless Looting》 used to be the cards that defined Modern as a format. In a way, it was truly disheartening to see Modern dominated by Boros Energy – a boring creature deck, built almost entirely of Horizons cards – while combo and synergistic decks that Modern was once known for failed to keep up.
Moreover, 《Mox Opal》 and 《Faithless Looting》 are flexible cards, but they’ll always play the supporting role in whatever artifact or graveyard-centric strategy you can imagine – they are building blocks, not the main focus. Unbanning those two immediately sent my mind running, trying to understand the possibilities that just opened!
We never got to play 《Green Sun’s Zenith》 in Modern. It’s not iconic in the same way as the rest of the unbans, but green creature decks – especially combo – are happy to see the card.
Today I have ten different decks I’m excited to work on in the light of the announcement – both old and new!
10 New Decks
《Green Sun’s Zenith》 – Amulet Titan
I liked what 《The One Ring》 did for Amulet. All things considered, Amulet is a ramp deck – it needs to hit six mana and a payoff to win. 《The One Ring》 helped to patch a lot of unfortunate games – whether you could only make four or five mana, or your 30-land deck happened to flood out, 《The One Ring》 was always an excellent topdeck. This card also shone in post-board games, acting as a plausible way to beat interaction, including 《Blood Moon》.
《Green Sun’s Zenith》 comes with its upsides – like greater access to sideboard bullets like 《Collector Ouphe》, 《Endurance》, or 《Roxanne, Starfall Savant》 – but based on my preliminary testing of the card in Amulet, I’m not thrilled. Zenith may end up worth playing, but comparing it directly to 《The One Ring》, it seems to me like Amulet is in a much worse spot.
Part of the awkwardness of 《Green Sun’s Zenith》 in Amulet is 《Dryad Arbor》. Amulet normally tries to invalidate small removal spells by not playing relevant targets, so the Zenith for Arbor play – equal to playing a 《Llanowar Elves》 – just… doesn’t make all that much sense. If the small 《Green Sun’s Zenith》 will struggle to meaningfully speed the deck up, that’s going to be an issue. 《Dryad Arbor》 and 《Sakura-Tribe Elder》… failed to impress me so far in that role.
Decks that are otherwise interested in running mana dorks should make much better use of the card. Such as…
Kethis Combo
《Kethis, the Hidden Hand》 is mostly famous for being banned in Pioneer, despite being barely played.
The combo here is simple – use 《Kethis》 as a sort of 《Yawgmoth’s Will》, replaying your Moxen to produce mana. Keep replaying 《Emry, Lurker of the Loch》 or 《Jace, the Perfected Mind》 to mill your deck. Eventually, you should be able to replay 《Jace》 enough times to mill your opponent’s library.
《Mox Opal》 and 《Green Sun’s Zenith》 seem like great tools to support this combo deck. Moxen speed the deck up, while 《Zenith》 finds the crucial combo piece.
As usual, the first drafts of combo decks can be pretty rough, so we can only expect the lists to get better and more threatening as time moves on, but it’s hard to deny that there’s a lot of potential here – the speed and consistency might be high enough to overcome weaknesses to both 《Stony Silence》 and graveyard hate effects.
Grinding Breach Combo by Fatcaster_Mage
Modern Challenge 32 – 2024/12/16 (6th Place)
The aforementioned weaknesses to hate hadn’t stopped Grinding Breach decks from being a formidable force in Modern even before the unbans, and it’s yet another deck that stands to gain a lot from 《Mox Opal》‘s unban.
Running eight full Moxen provides the deck with a lot of fast mana – especially since 《Mox Amber》 is one of the easier ways to gain Metalcraft on turn one! 《Emry, Lurker of the Loch》 also gets much better when she can be played on turn one quite reliably.
One thing to keep in mind is that 《Mox Amber》 is no longer necessary! 《Mox Opal》 alone lets you produce mana as you mill yourself with 《Grinding Station》, so should you be so inclined, you can build a version of the combo that’s fully creatureless – something to keep in mind.
《Song of Creation》
《Song of Creation》 is another pet deck of mine. The premise is simple – get Song down, play zero-cost cards, draw your deck, win somehow.
In the past, 《An Offer You Can’t Refuse》 was the only way for the deck to produce extra mana once comboing. If you had to go down to zero mana at any point – you fizzled, your turn (and most likely the game) was over. To win, you needed to loop your graveyard with an 《Endurance》, cast 《An Offer You Can’t Refuse》 on your spells enough times to make at least seven mana, and 《Glittering Wish》 for a 《Master the Way》. While I found it very funny, it was a mess.
《Mox Opal》 not only serves as fast mana in the deck for simply casting your 《Song of Creation》, but it also makes winning much less of a headache. Instead of supporting an entire Rube Goldberg machine of a win condition, you get to run some 《Preordain》 and find 《Song of Creation》 more easily. 《Glittering Wish》 is still an option as well!
《Boseiju, Who Endures》; 《Orcish Bowmasters》; and 《Stony Silence》 effects all pose their own unique hard-to-solve challenges. Most likely, Ruby Storm will remain the de facto Storm deck of the format – but I’ll keep trying!
Hammer Time by DB_Disgruntled_Elk
Modern League – 2024/12/16 (5-0)
《The One Ring》 was not kind to Hammer. A deck trying to eke out small advantages while pressuring your opponent to hold up interaction every combat step just fundamentally couldn’t compete with the card-drawing 《Fog》 machine that 《The One Ring》 was. Now that’s no longer an issue, and with 《Mox Opal》 in the mix, I can’t see why Hammer wouldn’t make a comeback!
I love DisgruntledElk’s inclusion of 《Kappa Cannoneer》 in this build. 《Mox Opal》 makes 《Kappa Cannoneer》 realistic to cast, it’s big enough to threaten to win the game by itself, and I can’t imagine a better creature to carry the 《Colossus Hammer》 than an unblockable, Ward 4 one…
Lantern Control
I rushed to rebuild Lantern Control almost immediately.
Since 《Mox Opal》 got banned, juggling surviving, emptying your hand for 《Ensnaring Bridge》, and establishing the 《Lantern of Insight》 lock was challenging. Neither discard spells nor 《Codex Shredder》 impact the board, so it was easy to just die to creatures before establishing 《Ensnaring Bridge》.
《Mox Opal》 helps a lot. It’s also a lot easier to spare some mana to create 《Urza’s Saga》 constructs now, and that helps survive as well.
《Kappa Cannoneer》 are an experimental way to tackle 《Meltdown》 in matchups where 《Ensnaring Bridge》 is not crucial – a sideboard card that became extremely popular overnight. Pressuring people with 《Kappa Cannoneer》 and Constructs could be a valid way to win!
One larger issue I see is the overabundance of combo decks enabled by 《Mox Opal》 and 《Faithless Looting》. While Lantern can be built to be a pretty solid prison deck against most strategies, it’s always at its best when 《Ensnaring Bridge》 is the blanket solution to most of your opposing cards… And there won’t be many decks that simply win by playing creatures. At the very least, it means that Lantern players will appreciate waiting for the meta to settle a tiny bit.
Creativity Persist by 416FrowningTable
Modern Challenge 32 – 2024/12/16 (7th Place)
Creativity, just like Hammer, disappeared from Modern when 《The One Ring》 took over. Ring’s Protection matched up well against 《Archon of Cruelty》, but perhaps more importantly – you couldn’t run Ring alongside Creativity, and it was just a better late-game card…
With 《The One Ring》 gone and 《Faithless Looting》 in the mix, it’s time to revisit 《Archon of Cruelty》 again. We’ve seen 《Persist》 in Creativity in the past, but 《Faithless Looting》 lets it become an actually crucial part of the strategy.
Persisting an 《Archon of Cruelty》 is powerful enough to pressure opponents into sideboarding graveyard hate, while Creativity is the built-in alternative plan when facing a 《Soul-Guide Lantern》 or such. A very promising way to structure a deck!
《Wrenn and Six》 gets more attractive with 《Faithless Looting》 in the mix, letting you exchange your excess lands for real cards.
《Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar》
《Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar》 was always a powerful, but awkward card. The full 《Asmo》–《Urza’s Saga》–《The Underworld Cookbook》–《Ovalchase Daredevil》 package consumes a lot of slots, and it was not clear what the deck should be trying to do with the remaining slots.
The answer is still not clear – but as a shell that can easily incorporate both 《Mox Opal》 and 《Faithless Looting》, it’s worth looking into.
《Ovalchase Daredevil》 turns all rummage effects into actual card advantage. 《Artist’s Talent》 pushes that idea to the extreme. I wanted an efficient and impactful play to make up for the deck being mostly air, and so I went with 《Archon of Cruelty》/《Persist》.
A shell like this seems capable of doing a whole lot. The deckbuilding challenge is to make sure it’s not a “whole lot… of nothing”.
《Warren Soultrader》 Combo
《Bloodghast》 was always a card I liked. There’s something I enjoy about bringing it back over and over with fetchlands, especially when paired with a sacrifice outlet. 《Bloodghast》 was too weak when you couldn’t discard it for value easily, but 《Faithless Looting》 makes that possible again!
《Warren Soultrader》 decks seemed close to being good, and 《Faithless Looting》 seems like a great way to dig for the combo, enable 《Unearth》, and place 《Bloodghast》 and 《Gravecrawler》 in your graveyard. 《Bloodghast》 serves as easy fodder for 《Goblin Bombardment》 or 《Deadly Dispute》; 《Deadly Dispute》 digs deeper to find the combo and gives you more cards to work with, enhancing your late-game 《Faithless Looting》.
This deck can use 《Orcish Bowmasters》 uniquely well with sacrifice outlets, and it seems like 《Orcish Bowmasters》 might just be a solid card in the format right now. Lots of decks will draw extra cards with 《Faithless Looting》; or use 《Mishra’s Bauble》 to support their Opals.
《Kozilek’s Unsealing》 Combo Affinity
There are tons of directions one could take the classic Affinity shell – the ones that entertain me the most are the combo builds.
The idea is to use 《Mox Opal》 and 《Ugin’s Labyrinth》 to stick one of the three-mana payoffs early. 《Kozilek’s Unsealing》 can draw a bunch of cards, while 《Simulacrum Synthesizer》 will flood the board. If you get lucky or stick a second 《Kozilek’s Unsealing》, you can draw your entire deck – at which point 《Glaring Fleshraker》 is a way to win instantly.
While the thought of doing that is exciting, this deck would work better in a best-of-one match. Beating 《Force of Vigor》 or 《Collector Ouphe》 seemed extremely challenging. 《Kappa Cannoneer》 once again shows up in the sideboard, as weirdly, it matches up quite well against the most popular hate cards.
In the End
Anyways, those decks are just the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much more to explore and I haven’t been this excited to play Modern in a while.
The next few weeks will unravel a lot! Boros Energy still seems alive and kicking, but will it be able to wrestle with all of those new combo decks? We will see!
