When it comes to sci-fi/fantasy, robots tend to follow a similar trend to skeletons: You can take us apart, but we'll put ourselves right back together.

Modular adds a unique twist to this theme. The ability may not allow its owner to reconstruct itself, but does ensure a metallic buddy receives their spare parts.

Noteworthy for their Lego-like aesthetic, Modular creatures are composed of multiple pieces held together by magnetic beams. If a brave little Arcbound Worker chump blocks an incoming Krosan Colossus, his parts (+1/+1 counters) can be picked up by another artifact creature and added to their frame. Assemble an army of Modular creatures, and no counter will go to waste, with each fallen bot stacking counters atop another, who can in turn pass on their counters, and so forth.

Ideally, you want to chain modular creatures together so no counter is lost and you end up with progressively-larger threats. +1/+1 counter artifact synergies like The Ozolith, Resourceful Defense, Steel Overseer, and Iron Spider, Stark Upgrade pair perfectly with Modular, ensuring counters never wasted and gradually build over time. Even if the majority of your team falls, the survivors will avenge them with massive stats.

Arcbound Ravager by Kev Walker

Enter the MVP

Background

Debuting in Darksteel, Modular took Standard's Affinity archetype from strong to utterly ridiculous. Modular gave Affinity decks added resilience, which when coupled with their already explosive startups and synergy, made for a top strategy. Take a peek at Aeo Paquette's World Championship Deck from 2004 to get a better idea:

Affinity | Aeo Paquette, Finalist 2004 World Championships

• Creatures (22)
• 2 Somber Hoverguard
• 4 Arcbound Ravager
• 4 Arcbound Worker
• 4 Disciple of the Vault
• 4 Frogmite
• 4 Ornithopter

• Instants (4)
• 4 Shrapnel Blast

• Sorceries (4)
• 4 Thoughtcast

• Artifacts (12)
• 4 Chrome Mox
• 4 Cranial Plating
• 4 Welding Jar

• Lands (18)
• 3 Blinkmoth Nexus
• 3 Glimmervoid
• 4 Great Furnace
• 4 Seat of the Synod
• 4 Vault of Whispers

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Annul
• 4 Furnace Dragon
• 4 Seething Song
• 3 Serum Visions

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In brief, the deck blasts right out of the gate with multiple free artifacts and artifact lands, severely reducing Affinity costs. With a boatload of artifacts in play, Arcbound Ravager and Cranial Plating become lethal threats. The Ravager will eat any artifacts your opponents try to remove, growing into a bigger monster in the process. Modular ensures that even if opposing removal kills the Ravager, it's +1/+1 counters will transform a humble Ornithopter or Arcbound Worker into a new threat. All the while, Disciple of the Vault takes bites out of enemy life. To ensure you don't run out of gas, the deck features 4x copies of Thoughcast, which given the copious array of free artifacts and artifact lands, almost always costs a single Blue mana to cast, leaving the rest of your lands open to dump even more artifacts onto the field.

The ban-hammer spared no prisoners when it came to Affinity. In 2005, Arcbound Ravager, Disciple of the Vault and all five Artifact lands introduced in Mirrodin (Great Furnace, Seat of the Synod, etc.), were banned in Standard. Flash forward to today, and some of these consequences still linger. The five Artifact lands are still banned in Modern, along with Chrome Mox. In Pauper, Disciple of the Vault and Cranial Plating are also in cardboard jail.

Flash forward to today, and Modular's landscape resembles something else entirely. As of the writing of this article, only 25 cards feature the ability. Technically 24, when you consider one of the dual-sided Blaster, Combat DJ // Blaster, Morale Booster. Ignoring the Transformer, Modular was associated with only colorless cards until Modern Horizons 3. Here, Modular was given a Boros color identity, counter-centric Limited play strategy, and even an associated commander (Zabaz, Glimmerwasp). Blaster isn't the only oddball of the group, as Black contains the lone Arcbound Condor.

Interestingly, for all of Blue's iconic Artifact synergies, it's the only color that's yet to receive a Modular card.

Also noteworthy is Scrapyard Recombiner from Modern Horizon 2. This bot is bizarre in that you'd assume it'd constantly sacrifice other Modular creatures to both grow bigger and tutor up new ones to take their place. Sadly, the only other Construct among the Modular creatures is Arcbound Worker. In the future, hopefully more creatures with the Modular ability will be Constructs, giving Scrapyard Recombiner more tutoring reach.

Arcbound Crusher by Michael Sutfin

Can you believe this behemoth starts out as a 1/1?

Rulings

All Modular creatures are printed with 0/0 stats, but enter the battlefield with a number of +1/+1 counters equal to their Modular number. Arcbound Bruiser's Modular 3 will cause it to enter play with three +1/+1 counters on it. The Modular number only indicates how many counters the creature comes into play with. If it dies with additional +1/+1 counters - common for cards like Arcbound Crusher or Arcbound Slith - all counters will be transferred to another artifact creature. Not just those equal to the Modular number.

For example, if an Arcbound Stinger dies, giving its counters to an Arcbound Prototype, the Prototype becomes a 3/3 (three +1/+1 counters). Then, if the Prototype then dies, it will give away the full three counters to another artifact creature. As you can imagine, this clause makes +1/+1 counter strategies synergize very well with Modular creatures. This holds especially true for the Modular creatures that allow you to remove +1/+1 counters for value like Arcbound Reclaimer and Arcbound Javelineer.

There's another ruling to consider when discussing Modular, namely in how it interacts with -1/-1 counters. Most of the time, a -1/-1 counter will cancel out a +1/+1 counter. If an Arcbound Lancer gets hit with a Puncture Blast, three of its four +1/+1 counters will be removed, leaving the lancer a 1/1. Intuitive on its surface, but gets complicated when/if the number of -1/-1 counters are enough to destroy the creature. Let's refer to the following ruling for more info:

"704.8. If a state-based action results in a permanent leaving the battlefield at the same time other state-based actions were performed, that permanent's last known information is derived from the game state before any of those state-based actions were performed."

Essentially, if a creature is receives enough -1/-1 counters to destroy it all at once, Modular will check the status of the creature before it leaves the battlefield. In practice, this means that if a bunch of -1/-1 counters would cause it to die, all +1/+1 counters would first be checked and passed on to another creature before the -1/-1 counters could remove them. For example, if an Arcbound Bruiser gets hit with a Puncture Blast, it'll actually give away its three +1/+1 counters before the -1/-1 counters cause it to leave the battlefield. However, if -1/-1 counters are handed out incrementally, this effect is lessened. Say an opponent goes wild with The Scorpion God and starts stinging your 8/8 Arcbound Overseer with -1/-1 counters. The above rule will only take effect if the amount of counters being added at one time are enough to make the Overseer leave the battlefield. Because the The Scorpion God's activated ability hands out -1/-1 counters individually, the Overseer gradually shrinks until the last -1/-1 counter kills it as a 1/1, at which point it'll only pass on a single +1/+1 counter to another artifact creature.

This complexity is why you seldom see +1/+1 counters and -1/-1 counters appear in the same set.

The Future

Modular ranks a 7 on the Magic: The Gathering Storm Scale, which ranks the likelihood of an ability making a return in future sets. The lower the score, the better the odds. Something like Flying or First Strike is at a 1, likely to appear in every future set. At a 7, Modular's a much harder sell, with likelihood summed up as such:

"It's unlikely to return, but possible if the right environment comes along."

Such an environment is illustrated by Modern Horizons 3, where Boros Modular is an intended archetype. As such, it has sufficient support from many artifacts and +1/+1 counters sources to make it viable. Because a specific environment is necessary to revive the mechanic, we're likely going to have to wait awhile before Modular makes its grand return. I can see the ability getting 1-off cards in Artifact-centric Commander decks, or Master's level sets, like in the case of the lone Scrapyard Recombiner in Modern Horizons 2.

Presently , Zabaz and company have enough troops to support the skeleton of a Modular-themed Commander deck. Alas, most of said troops are designed for Limited play rather than Commander (Arcbound Hybrid, Arcbound Slasher, etc.), so here's hoping we get more multiplayer-centric Modular cards in the future. A few more pieces would go a long way, as plenty of artifact-based +1/+1 counter synergies are already out there (Ex. Power Conduit, Triskelion. etc.).

Here's hoping the plane of Mirrodin might one day phase back into the Mutliverse, ushering in a new wave of Modular cards. They might have Phyrexian aesthetics, but I have a feeling players won't mind one bit. I have a theory that Urabrask, and maybe even Sheoldred, are still alive out there in the phased-out zone, despite their 'apparent' death scenes. Perhaps they'll bring some Legos back with them upon their grand return?

Thanks for reading, and may your stack of counters grow ever larger!

-Matt Lotti-

@Intrepid_tautog