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5 Decks You Can't Miss This Week

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With Grand Prix Omaha in just a few hours and Fate Reforged preview season at peak intensity, this week 5 Decks has a Modern focus. Forget Thoughtseize and Young Pyromancer, there's more to Modern than Delve. This week we've got five decks that run the gamut from aggro to combo, featuring everything from Kird Ape to Wild Nacatl. In addition to a trio of awesome Modern decks, we've got a new take on Nykthos in Modern as well as a hateful and confusing take on Legacy. Let's get started.


The end of the previous Standard season was all about Nykthos strategies. The Blue Devotion decks powered out Cyclonic Rift. The Green ones had Garruk, Caller of Beasts. The Red ones had Burning-Tree Emissary and Boros Reckoner[/card[ to power out enormous [card]Fanatic of Mogis. Since the rotation, Nykthos has mostly fallen out of favor, except in Green-Black shells. Conley Woods is looking to change that with this spicy take on Red Devotion:

This take is interesting because there are so many cards that are difficult to keep off the table. Sarkhan, Ashcloud Phoenix, and Purphoros all have some resiliency to removal spells, while Eidolon of the Great Revel and Prophetic Flamespeaker both give you the early Devotion you need to get your engines revving. If that weren't enough, you've also got a very serviceable aggro plan with Goblin Rabblemaster and [card}Stormbreath Dragon" href="/p/Magic+The+Gathering/Fanatic of Mogis" href="/p/Magic%3A+The+Gathering/Boros+Reckoner%5B%2Fcard%5B+to+power+out+enormous+%5Bcard%5DFanatic+of+Mogis">Boros Reckoner[/card[ to power out enormous [card]Fanatic of Mogis. Since the rotation, Nykthos has mostly fallen out of favor, except in Green-Black shells. Conley Woods is looking to change that with this spicy take on Red Devotion:

This take is interesting because there are so many cards that are difficult to keep off the table. Sarkhan, Ashcloud Phoenix, and Purphoros all have some resiliency to removal spells, while Eidolon of the Great Revel and Prophetic Flamespeaker both give you the early Devotion you need to get your engines revving. If that weren't enough, you've also got a very serviceable aggro plan with Goblin Rabblemaster and [card}Stormbreath Dragon">Fanatic of Mogis" href="/p/Magic%3A+The+Gathering/Boros+Reckoner%5B%2Fcard%5B+to+power+out+enormous+%5Bcard%5DFanatic+of+Mogis">Boros Reckoner[/card[ to power out enormous [card]Fanatic of Mogis. Since the rotation, Nykthos has mostly fallen out of favor, except in Green-Black shells. Conley Woods is looking to change that with this spicy take on Red Devotion:

This take is interesting because there are so many cards that are difficult to keep off the table. Sarkhan, Ashcloud Phoenix, and Purphoros all have some resiliency to removal spells, while Eidolon of the Great Revel and Prophetic Flamespeaker both give you the early Devotion you need to get your engines revving. If that weren't enough, you've also got a very serviceable aggro plan with Goblin Rabblemaster and [card}Stormbreath Dragon serving as your super efficient threats. Once Nykthos gets going, suddenly you can start casting lethal Fanatics and mounstrousing your Dragons to get in the last few points of damage.

My fear for this deck is that Whip of Erebos plus Hornet Queen decks are super popular, as are decks that lean heavily on removal spells to control the midgame. The upside is that this deck doesn't care much about threats like Doomwake Giant, and can realistically overwhelm something like Wingmate Roc, which other Red decks may have more trouble with. All in all, this seems like a strong shell full of great threats, and it won't take much from Fate Reforged to make something in this vein a real player in the new Standard format.


At it's inception, one of the big decks in Modern was a Temur Delver of Secrets deck featuring powerful threats like Delver and Tarmogoyf backed by cheap disruption and haymakers like Cryptic Command and Vedalken Shackles. As Modern became more polarized, Black-Green variants pushed these decks out of the format, but with the printing of Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time, it may just be time for a comeback. Take a look at the list that Powerman5000 has been using to great effect in recent daily events:

The shell is the same. Blue permission and deck manipulation combined with the best threats from Green and most efficient spell from Red. The big changes come mostly from changes to the Modern metagame and the addition of Dig Through Time. The maindeck Batterskull and Huntmaster of the Fells are new, as are the Forked Bolts over Electrolyze as an efficient answer to Young Pyromancer, mana creatures, and most of Affinity's cheap threats. The last big change is that the deck has trimmed all the copies of Delver of Secrets in favor of larger, more resilient and interactive threats like Vendilion Clique.

This deck is interesting in that it tries to go just a little bigger than the other Delver and Treasure Cruise decks that have become popular in recent weeks. The issue is that you give up a lot of the advantages the more aggressive lists have against combo decks, since you have a more difficult time getting a threat into play and backing it with disruption. As long as the metagame is comprised mostly of decks that are trying to be aggressive, this seems like a great place to be. Once people are trying to combo, you might be better served with a lower curve and more threats to apply consistent pressure.


The unbanning of Wild Nacatl has yet to dramatically affect the Modern landscape. Caleb Durward is looking to change that with his fresh take on Zoo. Forget being hyper aggressive. Caleb wants to go a little bigger and out-midrange the Treasure Cruise decks. That might sound little strange, but it's actually possible given the combination of creaturse that Caleb has decided to play. Forget four-color Jund. Take a look at Caleb's four-color Zoo deck.

The most important thing about this deck is the selection of creatures. Every one of these creatures has an enormous toughness, which is critically important in this format. As people are changing up their maindecks to pick up edges in the Young Pyromancer mirrors, Forked Bolt and Electrolyze are becoming increasingly popular. Those cards don't kill a single creature in Caleb's deck. Not only that, but you can a huge edge in combat since most of your creatures are going to require a double-block to get off the board. That gives you opportunities to blow your opponent out with combat tricks like Lightning Bolt.

Not only that, but the extra points of toughness let you play maindeck Pyroclasm to destroy all the other creature decks. Add to that Abrupt Decay for the more combotastic matchups and you've got a really powerful shell. All the threats are good enough to force answers from the combo and control decks of the format, but you have plenty of disruption and virtual card advantage in aggro and midrange mirrors. This deck has a lot working in its favor and seems like a great call for the current Modern metagame.


Our last Modern deck is a little more off the beaten path than our first two picks. This one is reminiscent of the Mono-Green devotion decks featuring Primeval Titan and the Mono-White Prison decks with Enchantments like Ghostly Prison and Nevermore. What happens if you combine the powerful mana engine with the prison effects and throw some Enchantresses in for good measure? You get Brainlesss96's Naya Enchantress deck:

At it's heart, this is a ramp deck. You have the engine of Arbor Elf plus mana-producing auras which can enchant your Forests. Utopia Sprawl in particular allows for some incredibly degenerate starts, like turn two Garruk Wildspeaker. Once you've got your mana online, you can start setting up your 12 Enchantress effects to help chain through your deck and develop even more mana. The idea is that with enough mana and Enchantments, your Ghostly Prisons will buy you enough time to Nykthos out an uncounterable, lethal Banefire. I don't know how consistently this plan works, but I do know that it's exactly the kind of thing that I want to be doing.

There are two things that I really like about this deck. First, it's a budget deck, coming in at under $200, which is cheaper than many Standard decks. Second, it's highly tuneable. There are a lot of redundant slots that could be trimmed to add powerful singletons, and with the raw card drawing available, you'll be able to find them often enough that it matters. This also mean that your sideboard cards like Ground Seal have a much bigger impact than they might in other decks with less card drawing. I've always had a soft spot for enchantress decks, and there's a pretty big part of me that wants nothing more than for this deck to take off.


Our last list this week is a sweet Legacy deck built by RICFLAIRWOO that will leave you scratching your head and wondering what were just crushed by. Let's take a closer look at this crazy combination of hate cards:

Mono-colored Chalice of the Void decks powered by Ancient Tomb are nothing new. But what happens when you trim the Chalice of the Voids and splash another color instead of leaning on City of Traitors and company? You end up with this strange but effective combination of hateful Artifacts and Enchantments to power out, backed by enormous threats like Baneslayer Angel and Elspeth, Knight-Errant.

This deck has a little bit of everything! Chains of Mephistopheles to shut down Treasure Cruise and Brainstorm. Engineered Plague against Elves. Moat and Parallax Wave. You even have Enlightened Tutor to tie it all together and Ancient Tomb to power them out. Back these up with efficient threats like Stoneforge Mystic and hatebears like Containment Priest and you've got an aggressive deck with powerful prison elements that puts the Blue decks of the format in a really tough spot.


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