I’ve become particularly enamoured with the Modern format of late (although if you ask me, it looks like a tamer version of Extended before it was butchered into oblivion). Before the changes to Type 1.X, I was very fond of it since it encompassed almost all of the sets that had been released since I first started playing (which was Torment at the time). I had many of the cards in my collection for the format and there was a certain nostalgic feeling about it. Then on June 18^th, 2010, Wizards performed surgery on my once favourite format and neutered it. Extended has never been the same for me since then. Even now it feels more like the Standard of yesteryear, which doesn’t seem particularly exciting. But now, like a phoenix from the ashes, it has been reborn again into a brilliant new frontier of possibilities.

However, Wizards was wise about resurrecting the dead, unlike so many before them. Extended had known its fair share of degenerate decks that had a chokehold on the format. The boys in R&D saw this and made sure to stamp out any of the cards that the top decks had built around by banning over two dozen cards. Now, the only deck that truly stands out from that era is the menagerie of fearsome animals known as Zoo. To this day, they are still fine tuning the format so that decks will be more honest and less abusive than their ancestors.  So far, they seem to have been successful.

In their most recent weed trimmings, Wizards went though with the banning of [card]Punishing Fire[/card] and [card]Wild Nacatl[/card], the last of the truly overpowered cards still present. Having been swept away, they leave a relatively balanced playing field in their wake. While the cat being kicked out the door seems a little harsh, not many people are going to complain about her lack of presence in the red zone, barreling at them. Despite this, Zoo can still rely on a bevy of strong one drops without [card]Wild Nacatl[/card] since this doesn’t drastically change its long term plans (it just might take a bit longer to get there now).

One debate was whether [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] should have gotten the ban hammer instead of or as well as [card]Wild Nacatl[/card]. Sure, this would have made the format a bit less costly and people wouldn’t necessarily be disadvantaged due to cost restraints with [card]Tarmogoyf[/card]s costing anywhere from $80 to $100 each. However, it’s unreasonable to think a card would be banned because of its secondary market cost. For [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] to be banned, he would’ve had to be strong enough to get the boot. After all, he’s just a vanilla creature. Yet, so was Wild Nacatl and she got the ban and not him. Therefore we can assume, in the minds of their creators, the cat is superior to the lhurgoyf. But is that really the case? In terms of speed, a 3/3 for one isn’t necessarily as good as a 6/7 to 8/9 for two. [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] doesn’t always grow like a weed though, unless someone’s playing a bit too much with the gravesoil. [card]Wild Nacatl[/card] is almost always a 3/3 by the time it first attacks as long as its controller is wise enough to fetch the right lands.

At the end of the day, whether or not you agree about [card]Wild Nacatl[/card], I don’t think anyone can disagree about [card]Punishing Fire[/card] getting canned. With a [card]Grove of the Burnwillows[/card] in play, the amount of card advantage this combo generated was absurd. [card]Punishing Fire[/card] might as well have the buyback mechanic written on it, except it’s even more powerful than that, as you don’t have to pay that cost as you cast the spell, deciding only to shell out when your opponent gains life (which was controlled with [card]Grove of the Burnwillows[/card] all on its own). This easily kept down small creatures to the point where they were being evaluated based on their toughness much like they are in Standard due to [card]Dismember[/card]. The only difference is that [card]Dismember[/card] can be played in any deck while [card]Punishing Grove[/card] probably wanted to be in a deck playing at least some red. This meant just about all decks playing red were running this combo, whether it was Zoo, [card]Splinter Twin[/card], Jund, [card]Pyromancer Ascension[/card], etc. The only red deck not stooping to that level was ironically straight up burn decks, since they couldn’t afford the deck space (or giving the opponent life).

Some would argue that though the [card]Punishing Fire[/card] combo needed to go, the wrong card from it was banned. There are still cute things you could do with [card]Grove of the Burnwillows[/card], like boosting [card]Kavu Predator[/card] for instance, but it isn’t something that’s necessarily viable in this format. [card]Punishing Fire[/card] could still have been used for what it was originally intended: punishing players for playing life gain. But even when this was in Standard, it did not see an overwhelming amount of play. Neither card stands well on its own but one of them needed to go. [card]Grove of the Burnwillows[/card] being the future timeshifted card seems likely to stay around if they ever plan to reprint it (although let’s hope it’s not that soon or else we’ll probably need to ban [card]Punishing Fire[/card] in Extended as well).

Bannings aside, the format is seemingly wide and diverse, with a number of potential strategies that can be deployed to take advantage of the metagame (whatever it may turn out to be in the coming months). As of right now though, I would say that Zoo is still poised to be a popular and dominant threat amongst the competition. The general rule of thumb when constructing a Modern deck should be to ask: “Can my deck beat Zoo?” If that answer is no or not consistently, you should probably go back to the drawing board. That’s not to say all decks should have a heavily favourable match up against it, but if it’s not at least 50/50 then it’s not worth it. The best thing to do is to build your deck with it in mind, having ways to deal with Zoo’s threats that attack other decks effectively as well. Cards like [card]Path to Exile[/card] shine in this regard because Zoo isn’t going to benefit from extra lands very often (as most of their spells don’t cost more than three) and it also deals well with creature combo decks like Melira Pod and [card]Splinter Twin[/card]. We can even see decks like Teachings running cards like [card]Doom Blade[/card] or [card]Smother[/card] which hits everything Zoo plays and interacts favourably with the aforementioned decks.

Looking at the Worlds results (even though they were pre-banning), Zoo was massively popular. Players will most likely still veer towards this deck since it’s not an overly complicated strategy. Zoo’s matchups don’t typically lead to very long drawn out games (like Teachings for instance). Games generally end relatively fast and aside from land flooding, its draws are rarely bricks in the late game. The one thing that would deter players from sleeving up Zoo would be the overall cost of the deck, which can be anywhere from twice to three times as expensive as almost any other deck in the format with the number of shock lands it plays to a set of [card]Tarmogoyf[/card]s and what not.

Another aggro deck worth noting in this format is the old Standard headache known as Jund. Unfortunately, it seems if you want to play aggro in this format, it’s hard to get away from Mr. Lhurgoyf and his steep price tag. Jund has even thrown in [card]Tarmogoyf[/card]’s good buddy [card]Dark Confidant[/card]. While Bob makes a mean card, he’s a risky card when you cast him in this format due to the amount of residual damage players are taking from cracking their fetch lands and playing untapped shock lands. Some people can be down to as low as 14 life by turn two. Further, [card]Thoughseize[/card] sees play in the format, which causes even more life loss from one’s own hand. All these things mean you’re essentially killing yourself for card advantage, which isn’t necessarily terrible but it can come to bite you in the ass when facing an aggro-heavy format. Jund’s forte is stripping its opponents’ hands using cards like [card]Blightning[/card] and [card]Inquisition of Kozilek[/card], making responding to its threats (or playing one’s own) more difficult. [card]Inquisition of Kozilek[/card], in this case, is both a cheap replacement for [card]Thoughtseize[/card] and less of a liability. [card]Liliana of the Veil[/card] even makes an appearance here, further carving apart your opponent’s hand and their creatures. Can you think of anything as brutal as [card]Bloodbraid Elf[/card]’ing into a planeswalker like her? And we used to think [card]Blightning[/card] off cascade was bad (it’s actually still just as annoying).

So is there an aggressive alternative to decks with green in them? Well, as I mentioned earlier, mono-red decks do exist in this format and unlike Zoo and Jund, they’re incredibly cheap in comparison to build. It’s a sound choice because if opponents are willing to maim themselves just to fix their mana bases, this just makes your job even easier as you can assume you only have to do roughly 16 to 18 points of damage (and sometimes even less). The basis for these decks is to throw together the major 1 casting cost-3 damage spells (e.g. [card]Rift Bolt[/card], [card]Lightning Bolt[/card], [card]Lava Spike[/card], etc.) and an assortment of creatures like [card]Goblin Guide[/card] and [card]Keldon Marauder[/card]. There is a little room for variety however. Cards like [card]Shard Volley[/card] and/or [card]Shrapnel Blast[/card] can be powerful additions to the deck but require additional costs which can be hard to fit into the deck. Whatever the build ends up looking like, the battle plan going forward is simple: fling all your spells at their face and go straight for the jugular. If that doesn’t work, go to game two. You rarely want to point anything at their creatures unless it means you’re about to lose (which is obviously an indication that something already has gone wrong). The burn strategy is all well and fine but while players will have to play their lands more cautiously in face of the red menace, the burn deck weeps at life gain. Cards like [card]Kitchen Finks[/card] and [card]Lightning Helix[/card] can invalidate multiple spells the red player casts, forcing them to bank on going into top deck mode to finish you off. There are even decks like Martyr Proc that gain absurd amounts of life that are Red Deck Wins’s worst nightmare. [card]Leyline of Punishment[/card] is a possible sideboard option but losing a single spell in one’s opening hand is still painful for a deck that needs every inch in order to win. If you’re looking to punish the life gain (in a world without [card]Punishing Fire[/card]…), [card]Flames of the Blood Hand[/card] is a fairly good way of keeping the blood flowing while effectively being able to counter life gain. Casting it at the right time could theoretically deal six, seven or even more points of damage.

But enough about aggro, let’s now talk about combo decks. If you’ve been missing a true combo deck in Standard of late, you might be able to get your fix in Modern as there are a number of potential routes to take for those that are Johnnys at heart. Melira Pod takes advantage of the peculiar interaction between the Legendary creature [card]Melira, Sylvok Outcast[/card] and creatures with persist ([card]Kitchen Finks[/card] and [card]Murderous Redcap[/card]). There’s also [card]Splinter Twin[/card], a deck not long forgotten from the Standard metagame, using [card]Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker[/card] and [card]Pestermite[/card] as well [card]Deceiver Exarch[/card] and [card]Splinter Twin[/card], increasing the chance of hitting combo pieces. These two creature based combo decks, while both powerful, are susceptible to a number of mainboard cards that aggressive decks run. However, careful play means that these two decks can still win despite this, either using counter magic (in [card]Splinter Twin[/card]’s case) or well timed spells like [card]Chord of Calling[/card] in response to your opponent’s hate. What’s more, these two decks can breathe a heavy sigh of relief with the ousting of [card]Punishing Fire[/card], a card combo that severely limited their functionality. However, with earlier bannings, [card]Splinter Twin[/card] isn’t exactly as strong as it used to be, as without [card]Ponder[/card] or [card]Preordain[/card], the deck’s consistency isn’t what it once was. Keep it in mind when building your deck, as it’s still a surprising threat, but there’s no need to be overly paranoid about it like in Standard. Melira on the other hand proves to be a more versatile deck, using creature tutors like [card]Chord of Calling[/card] and [card]Birthing Pod[/card] to find combo pieces and responses to opponents on the fly. It can surprise opponents with any number of the one-of creatures it plays, meaning that even if its combo is shunted, it can still scramble for a win.

In terms of other combo decks, there are certainly a few more obscure decks to round out the archetype. I won’t go into detail about each but [card]Ad Nauseum[/card], Martyr Proc, [card]Living End[/card] and [card]Pyromancer Ascension[/card] are all decks that have the possibility to coexist in this format. They aren’t necessarily top tier, but with diligent testing and the right amount of tweaking, you could surprise the metagame. There are many other combos that could be explored in this format, as the number of sets we are dealing with have contained the pieces of many a combo over the last eight years, which could be resurrected if the environment is ripe for their growth. Again, apply the rule of Zoo explained earlier to it when testing and then go from there.

Finally, we’re going to talk about control decks. These are the rare breed of the format. The dark horse if you will. These decks are probably the underdogs of the format, but certainly not dead. Most Modern control decks have looked towards [card]Mystical Teachings[/card] as their tool to look for silver bullets against their opponents; their major strength is that they can answer just about anything in the format effectively. The issue is that, unlike most other decks in the format, there is no blueprint for what a control deck should look like. Decks need to be specifically tailored to whatever kind of metagame awaits. There are a few cards that will be really good in these decks, but the numbers of each will vary and copious amounts of testing will be needed to get it all right. The final problem with this deck choice is that not only will piloting be difficult (like control decks tend to be) but often games will require long grinding to force back a strong aggressor until the very end. This deck would be an ideal one to play at a major tournament if it weren’t for fear of constantly going to time or how taxing it can be to play control for eight to nine rounds. If you’re looking to pick this one up, you’ll be getting a powerful weapon, but know that it is not a tool that is easily mastered.

In closing, this is all just scratching the surface of the current Modern metagame. In addition to all of these decks, there are still plenty of others of note. It will be interesting to see how people will play around with this format and truly bend existing card interactions, not to mention Dark Ascension being not too far around the corner. At this point, the sky is the limit. This new world has barely been explored thus far, and we’ll eventually get to see how far the rabbit hole goes.