Perhaps I’m being delusional but is there anyway Jeskai Blink can be salvaged? I’m thinking of making a version that uses bolts and [[Overlord of the Boilerbilges]] but I’m not sure if it’s fast enough :/
For reference this is my current list: https://manabox.app/decks/AZ2OagxVe\_GGhDRVzf3yPA
Been loving flashback for Prowess. It's amazing for the aggro plan, but super flexible and can also become removal, card draw, or just an easy double spell for grindier games.
Making cuts feels a lot harder now, because now I have this card that is "always good". Some matchups I have a lot more cards I want to put in then take out.
Is flashback ever bad? When do you take it out?
https://youtu.be/iCipdZ0Vvzc?si=ep48R5waBHJNicOp
I took out force of despair as people are playing to many counters to free spells so I put in vexing baubles to help and also if they target it I can draw a card and use it to go over the top! This deck is still strong and does even better vs boros with phlage gone. we played boros a lot today and lost 1 round vs them!
Casting Violent Outburst during an opponent's turn reduces a lot of the risk inherent in such a strategy. It allows the cascade player to untap with all their mana open and Rhino tokens or cycling creatures ready to attack. Both decks also include Force of Negation, which costs zero mana on opponents' turns, enabling a streamlined defense of the combo.
Just an interesting thing I noticed league-watching the past few days to see how people are reacting to the shake up in the format.
Hi all,
I know that knowing a deck inside and out is very helpful in this format. I have three choices that are already built. I was hoping I could get some insight in what is the best positioned currently with the changes.
I have Ruby Storm which is extremely fast but also requires massive reps to become an expert.
Grixis Reanimator is another choice. Turn 2 Archon is the dream but I expect more graveyard hate to combat living end which will probably see a large rise in percentage.
My last choice is mono blue Belcher.
I do not mind putting in the reps to learn the deck but I don't really have enough time to become an expert of 3.
The card:
Namor, the Sub-Mariner 1UU
*/4
Legendary Creature - Mutant Merfolk Villain
Flying
Namor's power is equal to the number of Merfolk you control.
Whenever you cast a noncreature spell with one or more blue mana symbols in its mana cost,
create that many 1/1 blue Merfolk creature tokens
The take:
This seems like a pretty nutty inclusion in decks that run free spells (FoN, Flare of Denial, Commandeer in a pinch). Each of these spells represents 4 additional power, 2 of which with evasion.
It could be an alternate win-con in Blue Belcher, create too many fodder blockers to count in Control, and so on.
Do you feel this card is troublesome, or too expensive for its effect?
I know someone else made a post about aspiringspike’s [[slumbering trudge]] [[fight rigging]] deck, but aside from that, nothing. This list is genuinely so cool, so explosive, and I’m really excited by how CHEAP it is too! I’ve posted the list that spike played in a challenge. I’m sure there’s some changes needed for this new living end meta, but this is a fantastic starting point.
Is it totally crazy to not run a grapeshot in the mainboard and just have it as a wish target? I feel like drawing it early and having it clog up your hand is not ideal. Am I way out of line for thinking its okay to just leave in the sideboard? Also im pretty sold on Heroe's Hangout as the sort of flex 2 of that used to be strike it rich or now flashback from strixhaven. Also not sold on flashback lol as its not very efficient if youre using it to flashback a ritual or wrenns resolve early game and when youre going off you already have past in flames that make it an actual do nothing. I get why people think its good and would find a home here but im not sold on it, whereas heroes hangout is basically just a red sleight of hand in this deck which just seems great, especially for turn 1 when you dont have a fetch and cant surveil land. Open to all opinions, thanks
I'll keep it short. This is how I will be looping Analyst going forward.
The setup:
5 lands (any),
1 Amulet effect,
1 Sacrifice outlet (Sylvan Safekeeper/Zuran Orb)
1 Scapeshift
The key numbers are 9 and 17 mana.
Steps:
You now have infinite mana and Tolaria West can transmute for a cycling land (Tranquil Thicket or a Triome).
Draw your whole deck. Play Grazers, land the Mirrorpool and Battlements Haste etc.
If going for the Safekeeper line,
At step 2, Safekeeper targets itself on stack to sacrifice all the lands.
At step 5, there is a need to target another creature for sacrificing as Safekeeper now has shroud. This would not be a problem if there's an Arboreal Grazer/Saga Construct on board for you to target or if you had 6 lands and 1 of the lands is a Dryad Arbor (cannot tap for mana when returned via Analyst).
At step 6/7, tap for mana and activate the Woodland to reanimate Analyst first. Then use the Safekeeper ability to target Woodland Analyst and sacrifice all the lands. Then use Woodland Analyst ability to bring back the lands.
After step 7, when all the lands are brought back, be aware that you need to hit Delirium again to activate Woodland and this means you have target the Primeval Titan with Safekeeper ability and then ON THE STACK, activate Woodland into Analyst, get your infinite mana, continue targeting Primeval Titan to sacrifice all the lands each time, until you're done.
Then you can Tolaria West for a cycling land, and this time around, because you can cycle a land, you always have Delirium from the land type, and you can therefore activate Woodland Analyst further and target it with Safekeeper.
I will be stuffing in 1 Sylvan Safekeeper, 1 Zuran Orb, and definitely running 4 Green Sun's Zenith in order to find the Safekeeper and have consistent sacrifice land outlet.
Sorry for the word dump, but this is as short as I can go.
Anyone got any ideas or lists for Golgari Saga? Could be a persist/archon or goyf list etc. - just looking for ideas :)
Here you can see the full video.
https://youtu.be/40V1QK-5W9g?si=Mh0NrnFCCwwjP7Yf
Hey everyone, I played rhinos before the ban of violent outburst and have been on domain zoo. Anyone have any decklists for 4c rhinos or is the play to go temur with the elementals?
RIP PHLAGE AND LOTUS FIELD
VIOLENT OUTBURST AND JITTE ARE FREE!!!
Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury is banned. Lotus Field is banned. Violent Outburst is unbanned. Umezawa's Jitte is unbanned.
By and large, Modern has looked fun for a while now, with a handful of decks finding success at the top of the metagame, each taking turns at the top of standings at a clip we generally like to see.
So why ban something?
Over the last couple of years, Boros Energy has been a deck that's seen consistent success, floating around the top three most-played decks in the format. In online play, we've seen Boros Energy steadily climb in metagame share, with fewer and fewer decks able to compete with it. For a time, we saw a few different versions of Boros Energy that mixed in new colors and tech, but lists have largely solidified around versions like the above list. We believe this is in part to the rate of the combo between Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury and Arena of Glory.
These two cards together hang over games and threaten a bunch of face damage or to distribute two of Phlage's Titan triggers from the graveyard. The rate of this pair has led to the deck playing progressively more copies of Arena of Glory over time, which then makes it harder to include more cards of colors that aren't red. Our decision to remove a card from this pair (in lieu of attacking another part of the deck) is because this consolidation of variation hasn't been localized entirely in Energy variants. We've also observed that most aggro and midrange decks in the format either adopt the combo or almost disappear from the metagame.
We think the aspirational synergies that Arena of Glory offers with cards like Scion of Draco and Quantum Riddler are things that lead us to preserve it over the Elder Giant. This led us to the belief that we needed to act and that Phlage was the card to see to the door.
Phlage isn't the only card being added to the Modern banned list, however.
Amulet Titan has seen a good bit of success in the last eighteen months or so, with most of that success being concentrated in tabletop play. The version of the deck widely considered to be the strongest is one that uses a combination of Lotus Field, Aftermath Analyst, and Shifting Woodland. Once it's established said loop, it can put all the lands in its deck onto the battlefield, in its owner's hand, or leave them in the graveyard if need be. This provides infinite mana and infinite channeling of Boseiju, Who Endures and Otawara, Soaring City. The path to get there can frequently involve extremely complicated and, more importantly, non-deterministic lines of play that are a nightmare for tournament logistics.
Even looking past the details of tournament logistics, Lotus Field adds very meaningful power to the Amulet Titan deck. It allows the deck to begin executing its combo from fewer resources than it otherwise would be able to, as it's the only land in Modern that can tap for three mana without needing several other cards to be involved. This ends up mattering in patterns of play involving Scapeshift and an Amulet of Vigor.
We perceive removing Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury as a meaningful hit to a few of the strongest decks in the format. We were already concerned with the power level of Amulet Titan coming out of the previous round of Regional Championships and believe Modern will be more fun to play without this version of Amulet Titan existing. We take bans against historically iconic archetypes very seriously and don't want to outright kill the deck. This move is meant to de-power the deck in a direction that addresses some other pain points we had identified in the past.
Both moves above are for the sake of modulating power in the name of making the format more fun. Cutting in the other direction, we also have some unbanned cards to talk about:
Violent Outburst was initially banned in a very different version of Modern, just a hair over two years ago. At the time, it was in a pre-Modern Horizons 3 world. Underworld Breach; Grief; The One Ring; and Jegantha, the Wellspring were still legal, and we hadn't seen the shake-up that came with unbanning Mox Opal, Green Sun's Zenith, and Faithless Looting. There have also been some extremely potent hate cards for Cascade decks printed in the time since, including Consign to Memory and Vexing Bauble. We believe the gap between the previous version of Temur Rhinos that existed in early 2024 is closer to an appropriate power level for today's Modern. Lorwyn Eclipsed giving Living End a shot in the arm has largely also seemed to be positively received by the community, which has us interested in showing the archetype a bit of love.
We want Modern to be a place where people can fall in love with archetypes, master them, and find success. Unbanning Violent Outburst is certainly risky given the recency of its ban, but we believe there are very clear upsides to these sorts of decks existing in Modern and are happy to take a calculated risk here.
After about fifteen years, we can finally tick the "Number of Days Umezawa's Jitte Has Been Legal in Modern" counter up to one. When Modern first became a sanctioned format, it had about 20 cards on its banned list, including Jitte. Magic has changed a lot since 2011. We've also seen players happy to play with the card in formats like Legacy and Cube. We hope that this unban will inspire people to try out more combat-oriented decks or breathe new life into Stoneforge Mystic decks that have been on the fringes of Modern for a few years now.
We've generally been hesitant to unban the card in Modern because it has some play patterns that are … unsavory, to say the least. That said, community sentiment on the card has generally slanted positively. We also like the incentives of the card even if the rewards aren't our favorite.
Ultimately, Modern is a strong format that can absorb a lot, both in terms of power level and tolerance for novel play patterns. We hope these unbans inspire players and make people happy to experiment in Modern.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/banned-and-restricted-may-18-2026
Hi!
I'm pretty new in the format... Now that phlage got banned, which card can possibly take that slot in Domain?
Inreally like mono Red or boros burn but they seems dead in the meta, are they so bad?
Hello, I’ve recently gotten back into MTG, and modern interests me the most. I’m trying to work with a token / sacrifice deck. My biggest issue is that there seems to be no finisher, originally I just took phlage and added him, but with him banned I’m not sure what to do. I’ve added the current deck list below.
The idea is to exploit token generation with sacrifice effects to make a token tax a lot of life.
4 Ajani, Nacatl Pariah
3 Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER
4 Ocelot Pride
4 Arid Mesa
4 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
4 Guide of Souls
4 Marionette Apprentice
2 Athreos, God of Passage
4 Goblin Bombardment
1 Arena of Glory
2 Mountain
2 Sacred Foundry
1 Godless Shrine
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Swamp
3 Plains
3 Galvanic Discharge
3 Boros Charm
3 Thoughtseize
1 Blood Crypt
4 Marsh Flats
// Sideboard
3 Voice of Victory
3 Orcish Bowmasters
2 Athreos, God of Passage
2 Wear / Tear
1 Wrath of the Skies
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Surgical Extraction
Thank you for the advice!
Hey there,
i decided to come back to modern after good chunk of years and need some help regarding matchups.
I’m playing pretty stock izzet prowess list, since it looks like some solid aggro deck, goldfishwd, looked on the metagame and am ready for tomights fnm.
However im a bit shaky on the sideboaring and some gotcha cards that could come from opponents sb.
What cards to keep in mind after sb that are played and destroy me?
I’ve seen [[Damping sphere]] and [[High noon]], dont have that blue 1 mana thingy, is [[Prismatic ending]] or [[Wear/Tear]] viable, or how to go about these cards?
What should i really avoid when playing?
Whats the mindset with this deck?
Thanks for any tips and suggestions, ill male sire to have fun today. :)
PS: How do you think thi deck will be against cascade decks after todays unbannings?
Cheers!
So what’re people thinking with shadow? With phlage gone the aggro idea is actually possible, but I’m wondering if people are playing dimir, grixis, or rakdos. Recent lists on mtgo are playing rakdos with the learn ability to get key pieces out of the sideboard, but personally I think playing cards like flow state or expressive iteration is better. What’re the thoughts from redditors?
After 15 long years on the ban list, Umezawa's Jitte is finally unbanned. It's fun to have it the format, but it seems like Modern may have moved beyond a point where it's relevant. What deck wants this? Will this unban revive otherwise unviable equipment strategies like hammertime or Stoneforge Mystic toolbox decks?