It’s been only 2 weeks in this brand-new Modern format and we’re already seeing the signs of a healthy and normal Magic the Gathering metagame. New decks are emerging, decks that we thought were banned continue to perform, and the new “best deck” has people clamoring for a ban! Again!

Welcome back to Modern :).

BAN MORE DECKS!!!

The ‘base’ of the Modern Energy package is very powerful, and as a result lead to multiple distinctly different archetypes emerging. Between Boros, Mardu, and Jeskai Energy, we have 24% of the Modern metagame currently existing as “Energy”, and on the surface, this is usually a problem, but I think we don’t really have that much to worry about at the moment. Again, we are only two weeks out into this new format, and Boros Energy was the 2nd best deck when Nadu was legal. In this transitional period, it’s really hard to imagine this deck not being the most played, even if it’s not the true best deck, it’s familiar.

Unlike Nadu, Energy has some clear bad matchups, most notably looking at all of the different variations of Eldrazi. During the time of Nadu, Energy usually main decking Blood Moon, and a lot of people assumed that this would continue into this current metagame. We all kind of knew that the Eldrazi/Eldrazi Tron archetypes were really good, but they just didn’t have a great time versus Nadu, so they never really thrived. However, the Energy decks have begun to self-cannibalize themselves to get better matchups in the mirror. The flex slot that traditionally contained 3 copies of Blood Moon are slowly transitioning into other cards that win the mirror, specifically The One Ring, and Static Prison to deal with your opponent’s The One Ring. There are some Energy decks that fit both packages here, but I suspect we will soon see a hard pivot towards one or the other, as cutting down on the core of the deck for what are essentially maindecked sideboard cards can sometimes hurt in a more open metagame.

It’s also not totally clear that Blood Moon really does enough versus some of these Eldrazi decks. One of my current favorite versions of the Eldrazi decks are the Green heavy non-Tron decks, with Malevolent Rumble and 4 copies of Emrakul, the Promised End. This deck doesn’t lean too heavily on the ramp from it’s manabase, it instead uses Utopia Sprawl, Talismans, and putting cards in the graveyard to ramp out a devastating Emrakul turn, which is an especially good plan versus Ruby Storm, a matchup that is traditionally pretty poor for these Eldrazi decks. While this deck still does utilize 4 Ugin’s Labyrinth and Eldrazi Temple, it can still pretty easily cast its spells and execute its gameplan through a Blood Moon. Oh, and the Through the Breach deck really does not care.

While I am not saying that these Energy variations are not the best choice in the Modern metagame, I do think that we just don’t have enough data, or overall time in the format, to reasonably conclude that these archetypes are ban-worthy. They have powerful enemies, and can reasonably be adapted to. This, to me, just sounds like your average Modern metagame, and I would bet that it proceeds like your average Modern metagame.

FrogTide is an awful name please stop using it

One of the big winners of the Nadu ban has definitely been Psychic Frog. That matchup was pretty embarrassing for the Dimir player, but it always sported an even-ish Energy matchup, while also having the right tools to fight versus Eldrazi and Storm. While I don’t think the versions of this deck we see are quite there yet, the players are quickly learning what they need to be doing in order to fight properly versus RWx Energy. We are seeing two different deluges, Toxic Deluge and Glistening Deluge are both very reasonable cards that kill mostly anything out of Energy while also keeping your Frogs alive, unlike other more traditional black sweepers like Path of Peril.

One of the main draws to the Dimir Murktide archetype is that it is one of the only great Force of Negation midrange decks at the moment, so you can really punish the other midrange players who plan on beating your evasive creature plan with The One Ring, and you can instead tempo them out with your advantage engine you played on turn 2. As the energy decks play more copies of The One Ring, I do expect this deck to just keep getting better in that matchup.

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