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By: R Koster, Rob Koster
Aug 18 2021 12:00pm
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Ever since Modern Horizons 2 was released, many of the top-performing decks in Modern have been cyclical and consistent. As a result, decks like Hammertime, UR Murktide, and all sorts of Lurrus have been taking each other's crowns. But a few sweet things are creeping through the cracks and getting some trophies as well.

The first deck that got to me is this one. I don't know who came up with it, but the first time I saw it was in CalebDMTG's stream.

 

This is a blast from the past if I've ever seen one. This Affinity deck even has actual Affinity creatures.

So what is going on here? Why are there a Craterhoof Behemoth and a Griselbrand in here?

Well, they are here because of Sojourner's Companion and Neoform. What you want to be doing is playing a few 0 mana Artifacts like Ornithopter, Memnite or Mishra's Bauble. You then want to ramp those into your Sojourner's Companion. Next, you Neoform the companion into Griselbrand or Craterhoof Behemoth, and then you either trample in for a million or draw a million cards and dominate the board with all of your 0 Mana spells. I don't know if this deck is the real deal, but it looked lovely. Sometimes, that's all you want from a deck.

The next deck that I found interesting is this one:

 

At first, this looks like just a very straightforward Green White midrange Value pile. Well, you already don't see a lot of those in Modern. But there is a lot more going on here. This is a new spin on a very, very, very old deck named Eternal Command. This deck uses Eternal Witness to keep bringing back Primal Command and then using Primal Command to keep finding more Eternal Witness for a lot of prolonged and durdly sweet value. How much more durdly can you get than Hornet Queen and even a Kogla, the Titan Ape as a very big Trygon Predator just like in the days of yore. 3 Trinisphere in this super low CMC format is impressive. I know it's not new, but it's so good right now. If you have an itch for a very oldskool value deck, this is your jam.

And now we move from oldskool value to oldskool Prison. Because that's fun right?

Between the 16 Urza lands, 4 Chalice of the Voids, and no win condition besides Possessed Portal, this deck should be something for you if you enjoy feasting on the tears of your opponents. All this deck is trying to do is not die for a very long time and then end up in a situation where you can use Karn, the Great Creator to look for a Possessed Portal and then beat them down with it in a leisurely manner. If you were into Lantern Control, this should come close to scratching that itch. I'm just glad there aren't too many of you. If I had to face this multiple times a league, I would be done fast. But I know people like this stuff, and playing decks like these are fun. So, here you go!


And don't worry when all you want to do is counterspells and draw cards. I, too, am like that. So here's something sweet that did well in the last few Challenges.


Well, if you like drawing cards, WaToO (Pro Tour Yokohama Champion Guillaume Wafo-Tapa) is a name to follow on MTGO. They have consistently played all sorts of draw-go decks for as long as I can remember seeing their name in the winner's brackets. Compared to their usual M.O., They are playing a boatload of creatures in this one. But it's all for value, cards, and making the game go longer. So it's okay, we can forgive them.

This deck is looking to do what every Control mage dreams of doing. Counter some spells, Draw some cards and then win with the big beatdowns. I mean, it doesn't matter what you win with when you have four different ways to Counterspell your opponent's top card, and they have no board. This deck also has a lock because it has another version of the Command lock that we saw earlier. The lock-in this deck is using Cryptic Command to bounce Eternal Witness. Which then gets back Cryptic Command. It's weird to see that an almost 13-year-old combo is making a sudden comeback. But it's in two different winning decks. So there should be something there again. I think it's because Modern has finally slowed down to a more reasonable pace, which makes a lot of stuff like this more viable.

It seems that the format is finally losing its breakneck speed a tiny bit which makes a lot of these brews a lot more viable than before. This is ironic because I've never seen so many one mana spells be dominant in a format ever before. But when everything goes at warp speed, everyone keeps up with each other, making things go longer. Just look at Legacy and Vintage to see what I'm getting at. Those games tend to take a lot longer on average, which means one thing.

Don't forget your Tron hate.