If you’re looking for a cheaper or more unorthodox strategy, these decks might just be for you. Boros Convoke recently got a rather powerful upgrade in the form of Warden of the Inner Sky from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. Thanks to all the artifacts and token bodies that the deck makes, it is incredibly easy to activate this card’s ability multiple times in a turn, fixing your draws and continually growing its body.
Below we go over the latest tournament results to see how the Modern metagame is developing and which decks are standing out. This snapshot includes decks from the Modern Challenges on MTGO, the SCG CON Atlanta RCQ and more. But now a ‘proper’ Arceus deck, making use of these link Pokémon, is starting to become a real meta contender – taking 5th place in a 1,353 person tournament last Saturday, March 15. The deck, piloted by player Onyx G, has an intriguing grab-bag of Pokémon that’s well worth examining more closely. That said, both decks rely on Bloomburrow’s aggressive Mouse package to crush the opponent before they can get their gameplans online.
For now, however, a lack of preparation for aggro decks allows Boros Convoke to profit. At its core, this deck follows a unique aggro game plan that cares about gaining life. Not only does this activate Righteous Valkyrie, but it also helps stabilize against other aggro decks and Rakdos Sacrifice. This helps to make the deck rather resilient against the current Pioneer metagame. On The Hunt deck gives you a chance to score a win, even if the initial aggro strategy has failed you.
Claim the Fistborn is amazing for creature matchups, same as Mayhem Devil, and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker give you gas enough for playing the hardest attrition matchups. The main difference between this and Zur Domain is whether to run Yorion, Sky Nomad or play 60 cards. This gives Enigmatic iteration more room for enchantments to tutor for. 🔼 - The deck has a higher top 16 appearance % from Duskmourn last week.🔽 - The deck has fewer top 16 appearance % from Duskmourn last week.🆕 - First top 16 appearance in the current Pioneer metagame. Ss3-4-past-in-flames means you can double up on all these and build up storm for a lethal dmr-125-grapeshot via prm wish.
Mono Green Devotion
Perhaps the most complex and hardest to master deck in the format, Amulet Titan is very powerful in the hands of an experienced pilot. Now, whether the black splash is actually an improvement remains in question, since Boros Energy’s results and popularity speak for itself. It might be the right metagame call in case there’s a lot of combo decks in your event, though. Notably, Rakdos Prowess lists aren’t currently running Leyline of Resonance which is proving powerful in Standard lists. Instead, this deck has slightly more utility and removal in order to ensure it can hold up in Pioneer. A few copies of Fatal Push and a sideboard playset of Thoughtseize are great additions for this purpose.
Spoiler Highlight: United Battlefront on Standard, Pioneer & Modern
This is a Black and White deck with which you are good enough to defend against most opponents. Remember that you have to have a plan, or your defenses will collapse after a while. The Mono-Red Goblin deck is one of the best aggro decks in the game, with good reason!
The deck centers around utilizing multiple copies of Faerie Miscreant to create early evasive threats that can both create card advantage and can grant opportunities to safely Ninjutsu in your larger threats. Like many Pioneer decks, there has been an ebb and flow to the power and popularity of Jund Sacrifice. Currently, the deck is doing rather well for itself thanks to its recent green splash for Ygra, Eater of All. This offers an infinite combo with Cauldron Familiar that was discovered rather early on in Bloomburrow’s spoiler season, giving the deck an inevitability quality. This deck plays a bunch of cheap removal of its own, such as Fiery Impulse, and cheap cantrips like Consider.
Three Alchemy Control Decks for the Weekend
Azorius Humans is the new iteration of one of Pioneer's most classic archetypes and has been growing quite a bit in the Metagame, being a solid choice for those who want a consistent go wide Aggro. Indomitable Creativity decks are not the most popular combo deck of the format. However, putting Valgavoth, Terror Eater, Atraxa, Grand Unifier, or Titan of Industry via this Red sorcery is still good enough for winning relevant tournaments. Not many tier 1 decks are playing hard graveyard hate in their sideboard. Two weeks ago was a busy weekend for Pioneer with twelve relevant tournaments, including a 546 players' event in Lille, France.
Tsr-270-lotus-bloom not only powers the Belcher; it also combos with prm tameshi-reality-architect to gain three mana for every land you bounce, ensuring you have plenty to dig for the win. Immediately standing out is Grinding Breach, powered by the returning som-179-mox-opal. Amulet Titan is trying to recover from the loss of ltr-246-the-one-ring by relying on ema-169-green-suns-zenith for flexibility.
It’s pretty exciting to see the innovations and hopefully new archetypes that spring up during the Regional Championships that just started. Once again ema-169-green-suns-zenith is a natural inclusion to the deck, as it can fetch missing pieces like sld-1595-chord-of-calling. This adds some needed consistency, though the intricate tricks of the deck makes it pretty difficult to play. While Belcher has a pretty good matchup against decks without disruption, sideboard answers like mh3-54-consign-to-memory and mm3-25-stony-silence can shut it down. Despite losing the oppressive mh3-114-amped-raptor as well as ltr-246-the-one-ring, Boros Energy continues to enjoy being the top dog of Modern. It has adapted by adding slp-24-seasoned-pyromancer and mh3-40-phelia-exuberant-shepherd for card advantage and value.
It is no secret this deck thrives against most aggressive decks, but the resiliency of the Familiar+Oven combo can mtg combo be quite effective against Midrange decks with lots of removal too. This deck’s one major weakness is that it does not typically close games quickly. This deck is built around a powerful combination of cards many Magic players find frustrating to play against.
You may start playing this Enchantment Case in other Black decks and I assure you it will pleasantly surprise you. These kinds of decks have so many lines that learning all of them, and knowing which one is the best in any scenario requires a fully devoted player to master it all. This run during the Calgary Regional Championship is no small feat to any archetype. Nevertheless, playing a deck like this at its full potential is like mastering Amulet Titan or Hardened Scales in Modern.