Modern Meta: Weekend of May 12-14, 2023

Welcome to the very first Multiverse Meta newsletter! Every week this newsletter will dive into the Modern and Pioneer metagames based on Challenge data from the previous weekend as well as rumblings around the web and beyond! Each newsletter will feature an aggregated snapshot of the top 32s from all Challenges while also diving deep into the latest trends and innovations across the meta. Let’s dive right into it with a look at Modern!

Modern: May 12-14, 2023

Friday Decklists

Saturday Decklists

Sunday Decklists

Top of the Metagame

Winners of the Week

Scam (Friday)

Sultai Death’s Shadow (Saturday)

Burn (Sunday)

Top Ten Archetypes Across Top 32s of All 3 Challenges (Ties Weighted by Top 8 Conversion)

1. Scam - 13.54%

2. Rhinos - 10.42%

3. Creativity - 9.38%

4. Murktide - 9.38%

5. Living End - 5.21%

6. Yawgmoth - 5.21%

7. Scales - 4.17%

8. Hammer - 4.17%

9. Tron - 4.17%

10. Burn / Amulet Titan / 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. Scam - 16.67%

2. Rhinos - 16.67%

3. Creativity - 12.50%

4. Scales - 12.50%

5. Murktide - 4.17%

Scam and Rhinos remained the decks to this beat this week with a solid share of the overall metagame as well as the best top 8 representation of all archetypes. Creativity and Murktide also continued to dominate with healthy shares of the meta, though Murktide’s ability to secure top finishes remains in flux as only one Murktide pilot managed to nab a top 8. Scales was the surprise over performer of the weekend, representing only 4.17% of the overall field but 12.5% of the Top 8 meta (more on that below).

Don’t Call It a Comeback: The Rise of Scales

Math fans, your deck is back on the upswing. Hardened Scales had 3 appearances in the Top 8 of the Saturday Challenge, cementing its slow but steady rise back from the shadows of its former glory. What’s the deal with this sudden resurgence?

You can largely chalk it up to the deck’s new toy from MOM, Ozolith, the Shattered Spire. Now that you have 6-7 Scales effects to play with, the deck has become even more consistent. Add that on top of other newish additions such as the insanely difficult to kill Patchwork Automaton and you have a deck that’s feeling as scary as it ever was. Scales has been an underplayed archetype for a while now due to its difficulty, but these new cards, newfound popularity with streamers such as Aspiringspike (one of the aforementioned Top 8 finishers with a perfect 7-0 in the Swiss), and its excellent matchups against spot removal decks such as Murktide and Scam have made the deck difficult to ignore.

The question remains over whether or not Scales is here to stay. As the deck becomes more popular, nightmare cards such as Force of Vigor may see a resultant uptick and the deck is one that can get quickly hated out of the meta. However, I have a feeling that the deck is consistent and resilient enough now that more and more pilots will be willing to bust out their calculators and get modulating.

Talk of the Town: Sultai Death’s Shadow

Winning both the Modern Challenge and the hearts of Magic Twitter, this seriously sweet Sultai Death’s Shadow list has had everyone talking about it the past few days. The deck is centered around Invasion of Ikoria // Zilortha, Apex of Ikoria, the battle from MOM that Modern brewers seemed most determined to crack. The ability to tutor up Vampire Hexmage and immediately flip the battle into a massive 8/8 was an interaction pointed out early into MOM spoiler season that seemed promising if a bit underwhelming in practice. However, this list fully utilizes the beauty of the big dino in how it takes advantage of Zilortha’s ability to let you re-assign blocked combat damage. Death’s Shadow and Tarmogoyf have struggled to adapt to a world where Temur Battle Rage is no longer a premium card, and suddenly this combo solves a lot of problems those beloved staples were facing.

Not only do you get the 8/8, now your other creatures are essentially unblockable killing machines. It also opens up neat lines such as sacrificing your Hexmage in combat to flip Invasion at instant speed and punish your opponent’s poor blocks. The battle has great flexibility in this deck outside of the combo as well, tutoring up and putting your Shadows and Goyfs into play while looming as a possible threat in the late game. There’s things about the list that I think need tuning (main deck Dress Down in a deck where you play 4 Goyf and one basic land + 4 Traverse are certainly some choices), but the core of the deck is very strong and we’ll certainly see innovations on it in the coming weeks.

Risen Reef, We Hardly Knew Ye? Nissa Takes Over the Elementals 3-Drop Slot

Newly desparked and ready to party, is Nissa the glue that Elementals needed to climb back to tier 1? Printed in the new supplemental set Aftermath, Nissa, Resurgent Animist is a landfall-matters creature that quickly generates value with fetchlands, netting you two mana and an Elemental in hand for every fetch you play and crack. It’s comparable to long-time Elementals favorite Risen Reef, but the ceiling is much higher here as Nissa consistently provides both mana and card advantage while Reef does one or the other depending on what is on top of your deck. Nissa also has a much better body than Reef, letting you profitably block a dashed Ragavan or other smaller creature, and fights through Blood Moon by generating that one precious colored mana for your Leyline Binding or Prismatic Ending every land drop. She’s essentially a turn 4 Omnath + fetch that curves into a turn 5 Omnath + fetch + even more mana than before, not to mention a powerful ally to other new ETB-loving creatures such as Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines. Gross!

Difficult to acquire this past weekend due to the lack of Aftermath cards in treasure chests, only a lucky few managed to get their hands on Nissa for the Challenges and one of those was YungDingo, who managed a top 4 and top 16 finish in the same weekend thanks to the beloved elf. Nissa will become a certified staple in the coming weeks and there’s more to explore with the card; many have aptly pointed out that Nissa fits nicely into decks that play Solitude as its only elemental such as Bant Soulherder and Wall Tribal, guaranteeing you one of the most powerful removal spells in the format with every fetch. This isn’t going to be a finance newsletter but this one time I’ll offer some spec advice: buy buy buy!

The Taxman Cometh? Taxes Players are Going Green

Oh, Death and Taxes players. You can’t let go can you? Every night you lay awake, mind racing over what cards can make your deck good again. Worry not! Recent innovations splashing green in the deck may satiate your need for Taxes to feel playable again.

This top 16 list by MTG_Lukas is a good example of how Taxes players are once again looking to the color of money (ironic I know) in order to boost the deck. New cards Melira, the Living Cure and Deeproot Wayfinder are leading the charge on top of your long-term staples such as Thalia and Archon of Emeria. Melira is a solid two-drop that allows you to save your creatures from (permanent) death and return them to the battlefield for value, while Wayfinder is a decent beater that lets you dig through your library a little bit and buys back your Ghost Quarters for maximum taxation. The green splash lets you play efficient artifact hate, something that Mono W lacks, as well as speciality creatures that are right at home in the Taxes archetype such as ye olde Gaddock Teeg.

While I don’t see Taxes making a noticeable impact in the coming months, it has seen success in leagues and this Challenge finish is maybe an indicator of something more. Melira is a powerful and underexplored card and other new GW cards such as Cosmic Rebirth could find a home in the new shell. Either way, look out online and at your LGS for players who are once again hoping you’ll forget that Leonin Arbiter is on the battlefield.

Reckless Handling: Making Belcher Even More Unhinged?

Noted combo master Bob49 took a weekend off from tinkering with the new Timeless Amulet archetype to return to their old faithful Belcher, nabbing a top 4 finish. The new card calling them home was Reckless Handling, a two mana sorcery that lets you tutor up a Goblin Charblecher and (hopefully?) not discard it away. While the card has some significant downside, Belcher players have long desired a card in red or green that finds their namesake card quickly and this seems to fit the bill. I don’t expect Belcher to see a resurgence in the current environment, though this card could play a big part in its return to the fringes of the Modern metagame.

Dome You for 18? Goryo’s Kitchen is Just Getting Silly Now

I’ve been happy to see a particular pet deck of mine, Goryo’s Kitchen, continue to find success in recent weeks. The recently discovered tech of Cragganwick Cremator as an explosive redundancy to graveyard hate has been making waves, and this weekend champion of the deck Cherryxman optimized this new innovation to the peak of its beautifully stupid potential. This top 16 list runs the full 4 Cremators alongside Yargle and Mutani, the 18/6 dummy from MOM that I dreamed of Flinging the second it was spoiled, as another Goryo’s/Cremator target.

This deck looks like an absolute pile, but you’d be surprised at how consistently it gets the job done. You now have 3 solid angles of attack, all of which require a different approach to hate against. The reanimator angle requires your opponent to bring in graveyard hate, the Asmo/Saga plan requires artifact hate, and the Cragganwick plan requires countermagic (against a creature no less). That’s simply too many approaches for a lot of decks to handle, and often you win simply because you had the nut draw game 1 and your opponent over-sideboarded game 2. This deck’s issue lies in how easily it folds to itself by having bad opening hands, but cards like Profane Tutor and Urza’s Saga help smooth out those awkward draws. The deck is getting to a consistent enough point that it’s continuing to show up in Challenges week after week, and I think this hilarious but powerful list represents the apex of its potential in Modern.

Pouring One Out for Underworld Breach

What on earth has happened to Underworld Breach? Breach decks have almost vanished off the face of the Earth these past few weeks, with only one (!) deck featuring the card across all 3 top 32s this weekend, and that was a Prowess list only playing two copies. I strongly suspect this is due to the resurgence of Rhinos in the metagame, a deck that has strong answers to Breach strategies in Force of Negation, Force of Vigor, and Endurance as well as a fast clock. However, that doesn’t completely explain the downfall of the card, which was near ubiquitous in recent months. Perhaps the Grinding Station version of the deck has fallen off a bit due to the difficulty involving with clicking through the combo on MTGO, while “fair” Breach decks have difficulty keeping up with the fast clocks of not only Rhinos but other top decks like Creativity and Murktide, which pair their big finishers/creatures with interaction more premium than what is available to Breach players. Time will tell if Breach can shake up the meta once more, but for the time being it seems to have firmly dropped out of contention.

That’s all for Modern this week. Remember to subscribe if you haven’t already and keep your eyes peeled for the Pioneer deep dive later this week! Thank you for reading and happy trophy hunting!