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- Modern Meta: Weekend of May 26-28, 2023
Modern
Top of the Metagame
Winners of the Week
Fair Breach (Friday)
Yawgmoth (Saturday)
Fair Breach (Saturday)
Hammer (Sunday)
Top Ten Archetypes Across Top 32s of All 4 Challenges (Ties Weighted by Top 8 Conversion)
Creativity - 11.72%
Scam - 10.94%
Murktide - 10.16%
Hammer - 7.03%
Yawgmoth - 6.25%
Living End - 5.47%
Tron - 4.69%
Elementals - 4.69%
Fair Breach/Zoo - 3.91%
Burn - 3.91%
Best of the Best: Top 5 Decks Representing the Highest Percentages Across All 3 Top 8s (Ties Weighted by Overall Metashare)
Scam - 18.75%
Murktide - 15.63%
Creativity - 12.50%
Yawgmoth - 12.50%
Hammer - 6.25%
What a weekend for Modern! This weekend’s results saw a staggering 35 different archetypes nab a top 32 finish, showing off the diversity of the format in a big way. These challenges had it all, from Winota decks to Boomer Jund, and it’s exciting to see how the metagame is continuing to evolve as people experiment with their favored decks. At the top of the metagame, this weekend saw some continuing trends while interesting new developments have started to make their impact on the Modern landscape. While it doesn’t always sit as the most represented deck as it has this week, Creativity remains the most consistent performing deck in the meta with top 3 overall and playoff percentages week after week. While the resurgent popularity of some bad matchups such as Tron and Burn has affected its playoff conversion rate in recent weeks, it nevertheless persists (*wink*) due to its equal-to-favorable matchup spread against the rest of the field as it currently sits. Meanwhile, Murktide held strong from its big showing last week and Scam scammed its way to another week as the top-performing archetype of the week with the highest playoff-conversion rate of any deck. Fair Breach had a breakout weekend with a smallish metagame share but two Challenge wins, continuing from the re-emergence of Breach decks last week in the form of a solid weekend for Grinding Breach pilots. Yawgmoth came back in a big way as well which we’ll dive into deeper below, and the changes being made to that list are part of the reason I suspect Rhinos is losing some percentage points as of late since it usually eats that matchup alive.
Yawgmoth: An Old Favorite Gets a Brand New Look
Yawgmoth, in my opinion, is both secretly and not-so-secretly one of the best decks in the format. It’s a deceptively complex, difficult-to-master archetype that highly rewards pilot skill and intimate knowledge of its many lines and ingenious interactions. This level of difficulty always makes it a quiet contender but one that consistently performs well due to the dedication of those who devote themselves to the Thran Physician’s ways. Why then has Yawgmoth had such a tough time in recent months?
The answer almost uniformly comes down to the heavy presence of Scam/Rhinos, which both play the full 4-copies of Yawgmoth’s worst nightmare: Fury. As the only mana dork deck left in the top tiers of the format, Yawgmoth is the deck most heavily punished by the red elemental, as a fast Yawgmoth start depends on an army of 0/1s that handily die to its fiery blaze. Wrenn and Six’s popularity via Creativity and now Elementals decks also doesn’t help things, as turn 1 mana dork on the play will almost certainly meet the ping of a Wrenn on your opponent’s turn two. With all these hostile answers to Yawgmoth’s mana core in the meta, it’s been tough to justify registering the beloved deck despite its high power level.
After this weekend, that will perhaps no longer be the case. Due to innovations across the Yawgmoth community, a new list has emerged that is resilient to Fury blow-outs and Wrenn while maintaining the fast start that the deck requires. The answer? Everyone’s favorite monkey. No, not Ragavan! It’s Arboreal Grazer!
The running joke that Grazer is one of the most broken cards in the format has slowly evolved from a meme to a certified fact in recent months. The card ramps you without relying on surviving a turn to tap, it effectively blocks Ragavan and Ledger Shredder, and its 0/3 stat line also means it soaks up almost all of Fury’s damage (not that it matters if it dies to Fury that much anyway). Historically it’s only been a go-to in big mana decks such as Amulet Titan and Scapeshift, though looking at it in the Yawgmoth list it’s crazy to think no one had really thought of including it in the deck until recently. Not only does it do all the things mentioned above, it opens up a world of possibility in the manabase: it lets you effectively play cards like Khalni Garden to up your number of convokers and bounce lands to maintain those turn 3 hits such as Grist. You’re also happy to sac it to a Yawgmoth as it’s already done its job once in play. While this new manabase doesn’t solve all the issues Yawgmoth has against its bad matchups, it certainly makes it more resilient to the card that makes those matchups so tough.
While Grazer and the manabase have been the talk of the town this week, that wasn’t the only new innovation that has been bolstering Yawgmoth. Two cards new to the deck that caught my eye are Phyrexian Metamorph and Pile On out of the sideboard, which look to hedge the deck against big creatures in addition to Grist. Pile On is a natural addition with the greater number of convokers due to Khalni Garden, while Metamorph offers you some excellent inevitability in the Creativity matchup as it lets you tutor it up to copy an Archon and give your opponent a taste of their own medicine.
Similar to the innovations on Tron we saw last week, it’s good to see an old dog like Yawgmoth get some new tricks to keep up with the meta, and I’m confident that you’ll see these changes continue to evolve in the coming weeks. I’m also confident that if you play a Ragavan on the blind, your Yawg opponent will have Grazer in hand every time.
Is Surge of Salvation Making Hammer Tier 1 Again?
Despite its always heavy presence in the metagame, I haven’t talked much about Hammer since starting this newsletter. My reasoning is that it feels like Hammer is just sort of hanging out and doing its thing at the moment; similar to Living End, the deck runs a largely stock list week after week and will always be very strong but it’s hard to say if it's quite at the level of Scam, Murtktide, or Creativity. As I’ve seen Hammer slowly climbing the ranks these past few weeks however, I’ve noticed a card Hammer players were very excited about as a sideboard card or maybe 1 or 2-of main deck option is slowly creeping up into a full playset in the main.
That card is Surge of Salvation, a one-mana catch-all hexproof spell from MOM that also prevents red and black damage to you and permanents you control. This is an obviously back-breaking card against Scam, which is why Hammer pilots were so excited to have it as a sideboard option as a situationally better Blacksmith’s Skill. However, it’s becoming clear this is an extremely versatile card that Hammer wants against many archetypes. Besides the obvious Scam applications, this card is good against Murktide, Creativity, Rhinos, Burn, Elementals, Yawgmoth…I could go on. The reality is that there’s very few matchups this card isn’t good against, hence why players are realizing it’s a snap 4-of in the main. The fact that this card protects your hand/face, your Hammers, your Sigarda’s Aids, your Urza’s Sagas, and your creatures all for one mana is a pretty incredible stat line. With Hammer needing so many different lines of protection, that versatility is absolutely crucial.
Despite its high power level and consistency, Hammer took a beating from the Lurrus ban because so much of the deck is easily removable. While the blue splash for cheap counterspells has helped, it’s never quite reached the heights of its former glory. Is this seemingly innocuous card the glue that Hammer needed to become a total menace once again? Time will tell, but for those scared of Hammer, you have a new card to play around.
Elesh Norn: A Quietly Versatile Roleplayer
Since it was printed in All Will be One, players have been well aware that Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines is a powerful card. However, it’s largely only been played in Elementals decks as it’s a natural fit there, doubling up the effect of all its elementals and Leyline Bindings. The ability to shut off your opponent’s ETBs hasn’t been a major factor in its play so far, but players are quickly realizing that effect has a place in a lot of decks. In Creativity, where players are increasingly deciding to never go for Creativity on x=1, hitting a Elesh Norn isn’t a bad at all as it largely turns off your opponent’s Archons, Leyline Bindings, and Solitudes, all while doubling your Archon’s game-breaking effects.
The most surprising appearance of the card was in the top 8-placing UW Control list in Friday’s challenge, where it emerges as a hard-to-kill finisher for the deck while shutting off Creativity, a poor matchup for Control overall. It also gives some extra value to Solitude as well as Wall of Omens, a blocker that UW has been increasingly turning to for card advantage and as a defense against Ragavan. With Creativity and Elementals ever-present in the meta these days and difficulty for those decks to remove or counter this card, not to mention relevant text against a lot of other cards in the format, it’s becoming possible that pretty much every deck with white in the mana base wants this card even at its steep 5 mana cost.
Ragavan + Winota = Profit?
An interesting little brew that emerged this weekend is this Mardu Winota value pile, a deck that accrues value early with cards like Ragavan and Scrapwork Mutt before curving into Winota, Joiner of Forces to dump some more humans-based value on the battlefield. With only three noncreature spells in the form of Prismatic Ending, this deck feels shockingly old-fashioned and yet brimming with newer staples. An interesting note here is that the black splash is almost exclusively for Jirna, Dauntless General, a card we talked about previously as having potential in Pioneer. Some brewers have been speculating about its viability for humans-based strategies in Modern, and here it does a good job of protecting both your Winota and the humans she puts on the battlefield.
Winota is card brewers have been trying to port into Modern for some time now, but the decklists are often too convoluted to work well. Winota is a broken card in many formats, but its enablers are at their worst in Modern because the quality of removal spells is so high. While I don’t think this list is perfect by any means, the simple idea of just jamming a good mix of strong early game cards such as Ragavan and Seasoned Pyromancer does offer more power and consistency compared to other Modern Winota decks we’ve seen try to break through in the past. It’s hard to imagine this deck reappearing often or at all in the coming weeks, but if you’re a Winota fan looking to make the card put in work in Modern, maybe this is one to check out for your FNM or a league or two.
That’s all for Modern this week. See you for Pioneer later in the week and in the meantime, happy trophy hunting!
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