Modern Meta: Weekend of June 2-4, 2023

Modern

Friday Decklists

Saturday Showcase Decklists

Saturday Decklists

Sunday Decklists

Top of the Metagame

Winners of the Week

Jund (Friday)

Murktide (Saturday)

Murktide (Saturday)

Elementals (Sunday)

Top Ten Archetypes Across Top 32s of All 4 Challenges (Ties Weighted by Top 8 Conversion)

1. Murktide - 14.06%

2. Creativity - 13.28%

3. Scam - 12.50%

4. Living End - 10.94%

5. Hammer - 7.81%

6. Rhinos - 6.25%

7. Tron - 5.47%

8. Fair Breach - 4.69%

9. Yawgmoth/Burn - 3.13%

10. Jund/Elementals - 3.13%

Best of the Best: Top 5 Decks Representing the Highest Percentages Across All 3 Top 8s (Ties Weighted by Overall Metashare)

1. Murktide - 15.63%

2. Creativity - 12.50%

3. Hammer - 12.50%

4. Scam - 9.38%

5. Fair Breach - 9.38%

As we hurtle towards Pro Tour Lord of the Rings in Barcelona, the first Modern PT since the start of the current pro system, a stable picture of the top of the metagame is starting to emerge. After yet another round of dominant performances from all 3 archetypes, Murktide, Creativity, and Scam are staking their claim as the decks to beat at the PT, with Scam and Rhinos lagging not far behind. Tron continues to put up solid results, capitalizing on its excellent Creativity matchup, while Fair Breach had another impressive weekend with a solid slice of the meta share and cracking into the top 5 playoff archetypes. Hammer had an off weekend for the most part, only appearing near the bottom of most of the Challenge top 32s, but it came roaring back by making up half of the top 8 on Sunday, proving it remains another valid archetype for competitive play at the moment.

Pro Tour Lord of the Rings: Power Rankings

With PT preparation season in full swing, I’ve decided to include my Modern PT power rankings on each newsletter until Barcelona kicks off. As it sits:

Tier 1

1. Murktide

2. Creativity

3. Scam

Tier 2

4. Rhinos

5. Breach

6. Hammer

7. Yawgmoth

Tier 3

8. Living End

9. Tron

10. Elementals

I’ve come up with this list based on my interpretation of the Challenge data over the past few weeks, what I’ve perceived from pros who are in the midst of testing, and my own experience playing these decks. I think the race between the three decks in Tier 1 is relatively close, with Murktide and Creativity strongly rewarding pro players who know those decks in and out while Scam retains the strongest interaction and opening turns in the format. Rhinos is only in tier 2 because its Challenge data hasn’t been as impressive the past few weeks (though still solid), but I strongly believe this is because most players consider the deck solved and boring to grind, with little testing needed at least at this point. Hammer and Breach have put in results as of late that point to those archetypes being more than capable of overcoming hate pieces, while innovations in Yawgmoth have put that deck back in contention despite its rough Scam and Rhinos matchups. Living End’s high power level and ability to protect itself makes it a solid if easy-to-hate-on option, while Tron continues to hang in there as a re-established archetype that farms the Creativity matchup. Elementals has come back in a big way thanks to new cards like Nissa, Resurgent Animist and Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines, giving it new consistency and resilience that it lost with the Yorion banning. However, its Creativity matchup remains atrocious and it still has issues with fast decks like Rhinos, keeping it at the bottom of my rankings for now. Other archetypes that remain in contention for making this list include Scales, Zoo, Burn, Glimpse, and Goryo’s variants, though I think these issues have a wider spread of bad matchups amongst the top decks that makes them hard choices for the PT at the moment.

Of course this will likely shift wildly in the coming weeks with the release of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth next weekend. I personally think people are underrating how much of an impact this set will have on Modern, with plenty of cards already standing out as potential playables. I’ll be going deep on the cards from LOTR I’m most excited about for Modern in next week’s newsletter. For now, let’s look at some exciting developments from across the Modern meta…

Jund: Return of the King?

Jund, the archetype famous for players who just can’t let it go, is on the uptick over the past couple of weeks. Jund was still a big entity in Modern post-MH2 with the combination of Lurrus and Urza’s Saga giving the deck some newfound edge. With Lurrus gone and the manabase widely accepted as too clunky to be consistent, the deck had mostly vanished from Modern outside of your local FNM. However, people are starting to pick back up lists very similar to old-fashioned Jund lists, with Ragavan, Fury, Riveteer’s Charm, and Fable standing out as the newest cards amongst old classics like Wrenn and Six and Liliana of the Veil. It just so happens that one of those people won a Challenge with the deck this past Friday.

In all honesty, Jund doesn’t seem like a horrible choice to me at the moment. It has solid Murktide and Creativity matchups, can topdeck itself reasonably out of a Scam opening, and has very few terrible matchups in the rest of the field. Its overall power level is quite low compared to other decks in the format and I think its ability to grind in a long game is not what it once was, though it gets to play some of the best interaction and creatures in the format on top of Wrenn and Six, which is nothing to scoff at in the current meta. Between the Challenge win and the deck consistently popping up elsewhere in the top 32s, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the more seasoned PT vets at least giving the deck its due in testing in coming weeks. Speaking of Jund shells…

Yargle Breaks out of Reanimator

A funny list that caught my eye in this batch of results is this Yargle Jund list from the Sunday challenge, which takes the old-fashioned Jund list I’ve mentioned above and sprinkles the recently popular Cragganwick Cremator/Yargle combo into the list as a late game finisher. It’s not the worst idea in the world given the late-game issues I mentioned above, though I think it’s harder to sculpt your hand to guarantee a Yargle discard as opposed to the Goryo’s shells where we’ve seen it be more successful. One aspect of this list that should definitely be changed is the fact that the black splash is only to cast Yargle, where I think cards like Push and Thoughtseize would much better options than Abundant Harvest or Tarfire (guys, your delirium decks really don’t need this card!). As always it’s nice to see people taking note of what’s working in the meta and making it fit in other archetypes, and while I don’t think this is a deck that will take off, it does show the Cragganwick combo is good enough to make a splash beyond its usual home.

Izzet Scam: Izzet Anything?

Outside of the challenge sphere, a new deck has been taking over Magic Twitter this week and it’s a wild little mishmash of Murtkide and Scam. This Izzet Scam variant essentially plays the same shell as Murktide while removing graveyard focused-spells such as Murktide, DRC, Consider, Bauble, and Unholy Heat in favor of full playsets of Fury, Subtlety, and blue blink spells to scam your elementals. This gives the Izzet shell less late-game inevitably but a powerful opening that you can protect with Counterspell and surround it with card advantage unlike Scam, which largely relies on the strength of its opening, Pyromancers, and topdecks to continue past its strong turn 1. Scamming a Subtlety is not nearly as powerful as doing it to Grief as the second trigger is irrelevant, but an Aether Gust that puts a 4/4 flier in play at instant speed is not a bad combination by any means. Chris Giglio has been working on the archetype and is already testing out reintroducing a bunch of the cut cards and just having Fury as a Scam option, which seems like an interesting option as well. Obviously it’s too early to say if this deck is anything, but I suspect some people will be keeping it in mind for Challenges this weekend and we may have more to say about it next week.

That’s all for Modern this week. See you tomorrow for Pioneer and next week for a big look at the new LOTR cards! In the meantime, happy trophy hunting!

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