It’s finally over. 

Looking Towards the Future

This new Modern metagame is going to be extremely different, and just like every other Week 0 format, it’s always going to be a bit difficult to determine what decks will be at the top without doing a bit of playtesting and theorycrafting. However, we can always look towards the top-performing decks and see how they currently fare into other decks that also still exist. While Nadu leaving the format got rid of the top 15% of the metagame, Grief still made up a reasonable percentage of decks that are now just gone. 

Pouring One Out

Besides the obvious Nadu ban, the Grief ban came out of left field. Although it was the main card in Modern’s best deck pre-MH3, it was only played in 7% of decks post-MH3, none of which being particularly powerful. I’m not here to discuss if this was a correct ban or one chosen at random, but creating a more interesting Modern format is something I’m always happy with. 

Living End, Esper Goryos, Rakdos Midrange, and Necrodomiance are all either dead or close to dead with this change, which is really going to cause some big shifts in the metagame that players were not really expecting. These 4 archetypes can be clumped into two categories, “graveyard decks” and “shitty midrange decks”, and the removal of these decks can teach us a bit about what decks will succeed a bit more in the upcoming metagame.

The removal of these graveyard strategies are going to make graveyard hate a little less common. While some midrange decks will still be playing some number of Surgical Extraction in the sideboard (this seems to be the best answer to Phlage in the non-Solitude midrange mirrors), there most likely will not be any Leyline of the Voids or Rest in Peaces in sideboards. This could lead to Storm, Twiddle Storm, or Breach Storm strategies emerging, especially since the deck that could easily Chord for a Dranith Magistrate is now gone. Yawgmoth and other sacrifice decks are also decks that would benefit from players forgetting about graveyard hate, but these are both strategies that have an easier time removing these hate pieces (Chord of Calling for Haywire Mite).

Necrodomiance and Scam are 2 of the 3 main Black Midrange decks in the format at the moment, the other one being Dimir Murktide. This now means that Dimir Murktide and about half of the RWx Energy players will be the only ‘real’ decks in the format playing Orcish Bowmasters, and close to no one else. Does this magically make UR Wizards and other blue Control decks playable again? No, but it does mean that effects that draw extra cards, most notably Preordain and The One Ring are going to be a bit less opposed to “doing their thing”. This also could lead to X/1 creatures being a little more safe in Modern, but there’s not a ton that are super playable at the moment. Springheart Nantuko is a card that sometimes pops up in fair creature shells outside of Nadu, and this could mean that Pawpatch Recruit, a new card from Bloomburrow that has started to creep into various green creature decks such as Domain and Jund, could be reasonable again. 

Sam’s Personal Thoughts that I Cannot Connect to any Other Overarching Theme, Bullet-Pointed in Order of Importance

• Jeskai Control, being favored into both Boros and Mardu Energy, is most likely going to be the default Week 1 best deck. Mardu Energy is slightly better in that matchup due to Bowmaster, so we could see movement to that archetype over straight Boros.

• If Boros doesn’t keep maindecking 3 or 4 Blood Moon, Green-based Tron decks could be extremely strong, traditionally good into the Jeskai Control decks and fine into any Energy draw not involving Blood Moon

• Now that Midrange decks are no longer at risk of dying to Nadu, it will be a lot safer to tap out for The One Ring, leading to a lot more decks playing it in the Mainboard and Sideboard. (another reason for Mardu over Boros because Orcish Bowmaster)

• Domain Zoo was pushed out of the metagame because it was very difficult to race Nadu, and Nadu did not care in the slightest about the Leyline Lifelink nut draws, so this deck might be good again. Jeskai control could have a difficult time in this matchup.

• Burn might be playable again, although Phlage is a real issue out of the two front-runner decks. https://x.com/GeneralQuinniac/status/1824328970046746962 Quinn’s Lizard burn deck looks promising, but doesn’t hold the needed answers to Phlage. If 4 Skullcrack isn’t enough, what is?

• Mill players are saying the Nadu ban makes their deck better, but they also said Nadu was one of their best matchups. Why are mill players like this?

• Ruby Storm and Twiddle Storm are maybe really good. Less Tutorable hate, amazing Energy matchups, passable Jeskai Control matchups. It may be time. 

Speculative Post-Ban Tier List: