I think it’s finally time to call it here. Boros Energy might be too good.
When the number 1 deck in a format has a playrate that is three times the next played deck (which is also a Boros Energy Variant), while continuing to maintain an extremely impressive win rate, that’s a sure sign to look into an archetype. Any given format’s best deck is almost always deflated by subpar players giving the ‘best deck’ a shot, and doing poorly with it.
This generally holds true if you compare data from MTGO to various competitive paper events (RCs, Pro Tours, etc), but in this instance, Boros Energy seems to be taking the rest of the format for a ride, as it still has the highest win rate of any other deck, even the ones with extremely small sample sizes like Amulet Titan.
If you want to win the Boros Energy mirrors, you have to have a plan for beating The One Ring. Mardu Energy was an attempt to utilize Orcish Bowmasters as a way to control the board and have a nice stopgap to The One Ring all in one card, but in the end, clean manabases win again. Now, Boros Energy players have resorted to finally cutting down on Galvanic Discharges and Lightning Bolts as their removal of choice and instead playing the full 4 copies of Static Prison. It’s the best answer to Phlage and the only answer to The One Ring, while still being pretty reasonable on slower boards, as it’s going to be pretty difficult to run out of Energy, as long as you are willing to not aggressively jump your creatures with Guide of Souls.
Fear, Fire, Foes! is some amazing tech that became really popular a month ago, and it destroys the mirror. The first line, ‘Damage cannot be prevented this turn’, turns your opponents play of “tap out for The One Ring and stabilize” into them playing a 4 mana do-nothing. It usually means you’re going to be ahead enough to win combat that turn, even before the rest of the text of Fear, Fire, Foes! applies. It’s usually going to be played for 3 mana, remove a 1/2 Guide of Souls from play, and deal 1 additional damage to any Amped Ramptors, Ocelot Prides, and random Cat tokens lying around. It’s a really powerful play that will usually invalidate most of what your opponent is trying to accomplish in the mirror.
Where does Modern go from here?
Even if The One Ring, the card that is played in about 50% of decks in Modern, eats a ban, it’s very unclear if that actually changes much. Boros Energy’s core remains unchanged, and a lot of other decks like Tron, Jeskai, and Amulet, all lose one of their better stabilizing tools in the matchup. While I do believe that Modern would be better off without The One Ring, I do not believe it would fix the problems of Energy variants being the best Aggro deck and the best Midrange deck in the format.
Banning Phlage, Guide of Souls, or Ajani Nacatl Pariah would all most likely do the trick to nerf this deck down a few pegs, but ban discussions aren’t really my expertise, and I think discussing what card would be the best to ban doesn’t really accomplish much. This problem is left as an exercise to the reader.
What you are all here for:
S Tier
A Tier
B Tier
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D Tier
