Howdy, gamers! As a break from what has become the norm for me, I’m going to be writing about competitive Constructed Magic today. This one is for the Modern Prowess fans, and for Cube enthusiasts, don’t worry, I’ll be back on my usual beat next week!
This story begins a couple months ago when I heard that a Nerd Rage Gaming (NRG) event was coming to Minneapolis. I hadn’t dipped my toes back into competitive paper Magic since 2020, and my relationship with every Constructed format had pretty well lapsed, but something was telling me it was time to give coming out of retirement a shot. The recent banning of Violent Outburst meant there would definitely be less degenerate cascade stuff going on, and I was pretty confident that this would lead to a massive downtick in Chalice of the Voids as well. Music to my ears.
If I was going to play I was going to play Prowess, not due to any card availability issues, but to an adamant refusal to play Magic on anyone else’s terms. My preparation started before the release of Outlaws of Thunder Junction and I was looking at Questing Druid as a potential lifeline for the archetype. The green splash was actually more for Pick your Poison to combat all of the Leyline of the Guildpact decks, and driven perhaps mostly by stubborn nostalgia I played a handful of leagues with Tarmogoyf as an additional supplemental threat. I even posted a trophy with such a build that led to another player making Top 8 of a challenge!
I had posted a few 4-1s at this point as well, but at some point my 3-2 leagues started turning into 2-3s. It didn’t feel like the “metagame adapted” or like there was any kind of meaningful shift, it just struck me that this build of the deck was actually pretty weak and exploitable and I was getting pretty lucky when I first got back on the horse. My opponents were just drawing their Rest in Peaces as I drew my Tarmogoyfs and Dragon’s Rage Channelers more often and my draws were just lining up worse against The One Rings and Yawgmoths. The early wins were enough to keep me interested, and I was having enough fun that I committed to playing the NRG, but it was clear that this build of the deck wasn’t it.
I tried a lot of different things in those days. Varying quantities of Dragon’s Rage Channelers, different Shock suites, Lava Spikes, but in the final days leading up to the release of Outlaws everything was just differently awful in its own unique way. I was slightly apprehensive about Slickshot Show-Off’s vulnerabilities to Lightning Bolt and Fatal Push during preview season, but after days of 2-3s I was willing to put my faith in anything new. In practice, Slickshot Show-Off has been nothing short of excellent. The three leagues that I played with the card leading up the NRG resulted in two 4-1s and a 5-0,!
While playing those leagues I found myself really attached to every card in my sideboard and also wanting one more piece of graveyard hate. I was on the right track, but I foolishly convinced myself that Jegantha was the weak link. It’s true that you mostly only have mana to spend on a Jegantha in games that you’re losing, but it’s just free to have a companion and while I did post a respectable 7-2 record at the NRG, removing Jegantha was regrettable. This is the list that I played:
Creatures (16)
Lands (19)
Spells (25)
I beat three graveyard decks in the tournament, so outside of bone-headedly removing Jegantha it felt like the Turn the Earth really carried its weight! I actually didn’t play against any Leyline decks in the event, but given how cold Prowess is to a Scion of Draco with hexproof and lifelink I don’t think you can get away from having some kind of Naturalize effect. I’ll go over everything in more detail later, but I would submit the following list for a tournament today:
Creatures (16)
Lands (19)
Spells (25)
Armed with a decklist, let’s go over the individual card choices to understand what really makes this deck deck!
Core of the Deck
These are all of the most efficient cards in the deck, and I don’t expect anyone to argue their inclusion. One of the most compelling reasons to play Prowess over Burn is that playing all of the cheap prowess creatures opens up more turn three wins when uncontested, and Lightning Bolt is Lightning Bolt. People are generally less willing to play creatures that die to Lava Dart these days, but there are still some great targets and it’s still the easiest access to extra prowess triggers available to the archetype. Mishra’s Bauble’s inclusion might have been debatable at some point, but it does enough just for costing zero and the fetchlands that come with splashing a second color put the card way over.
Individual Card Highlights
The new kid on the block has quickly demonstrated its value, and regardless of how many colors you want to play in your Prowess deck I wouldn’t leave home without Slickshot Show-Offs. If turn three wins are part of the argument to play Prowess at all, then Slickshot Show-Offs ability to do all of the work of two of the other prowess creatures in that sort of game tells you everything that you need to know. Flying and haste make it pretty easy to connect with a Slickshot, and plot also lets you play a little fancy around potential sweepers or even just open mana that you want to tax for spot removal spells.
I’ve played a good amount of Questing Druid at this point, and I actually think that Slickshot Show-Off significantly increased how well this card plays in prowess. Seek the Beast is slightly awkward for only giving you a one turn window to cast the exiled spells, and as such you basically never cast it on turn two. Having another great turn two play helps to ease the burden of wanting to save your Seek the Beasts for later.
I strongly advocate for the full four Questing Druids currently, mostly because Seek the Beast is your best bet when it comes to winning grindy games. It’s a powerful card in this respect, but how you play it matters a lot too. It’s important to remember that against combo decks your clock is the only thing that matters, so don’t be afraid to just casting the Questing Druid on turn two when your closing speed is all that matters! Another useful trick to keep in mind is that if you cast Seek the Beast during your own end step you will have access to the exiled cards until your next end step. This comes up more than you might then against opponents playing Spell Pierce and Counterspell cracking fetchlands or being otherwise tapped out on your turn.
Every time that I’ve been happy registering Prowess in Modern I’ve played four copies of both of these cantrips. Manamorphose is the first card that I’m looking to board out against Orcish Bowmasters, but a “free” prowess trigger is nice and it also helps increase your access to green mana.
I think Crash Through is slightly more controversial, but I’m firm on its inclusion. There are all kinds of chump blockers in Modern, be it Plant tokens, Young Wolf, or Sanctifier En-Vec. Being able to trample over these creatures is very important for pushing damage, especially given that every deck in Modern is very good at just turning around and killing you if you give them time. Some players have reached for Abundant Harvest in this slot, but that card has performed very poorly for me outside of making some one-landers more keepable, and Crash Throughs value is very real in a lot of matchups and spots.
I’ve always played two “Shock” effects in my Prowess lists, with Burst Lightning being my original Shock of choice. You just don’t have time to kick that one these days and Wild Slash’s ability to stop damage being prevented is surprisingly relevant in current Modern. It helps you to push through random protection from red blockers, as well as Yawgmoth blocking your Humans which is more annoying than you might realize if you’ve never played that matchup. The Yawgmoth matchup is also why I prefer more Shocks to something like Lava Spike, because you really need a lot of removal to be competitive against them. And, of course, Wild Slash is the one card that you want to draw when you have prowess creatures and your opponent has active protection from The One Ring. You’ll have to target yourself or your creatures to push damage in those spots, but that rarely matters.
I had a Seal of Fire at the NRG just because I wanted another removal spell and it’s kind of nice to not have to spend the Shock right away when you’re just casting a spell to pump your creatures. I like that Seal of Fire goes upstairs, but Unholy Heat is important in the 75 to deal with Domain Zoo’s creatures as well as Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, and moving one to the main to clear space for the Jegantha freeroll strikes me as the best solution. Unholy Heat will cost you slightly in some games where racing is all that matters, but a one-of that only really costs you in games on very tight margins is probably excusable.
Notable Exclusions
When Slickshot Show-Off was first previewed a lot of players had the thought to pair it with Mutagenic Growth. If the only thing that matters is pushing damage this makes some sense, and being sort of a counter to red removal can matter, too. That said, pushing damage is far from the only thing that matters, and Lightning Bold decks in Modern tend to do some combination of pressuring your life total and having access to other removal, both of which make Mutagenic Growth very awkward. It’s also worth noting that Slickshot Show-Off is so good at pushing damage by getting double-pumped by every spell that Mutagenic Growth doesn’t actually play to the card’s strengths, but rather offers unnecessary redundancy in most actual games. The card is in any ways Lava Spikes with extra steps, and I’m very attached to the Wild Slashes that I’m playing in these slots.
My aversion to Dragon’s Rage Channeler is perhaps more controversial, but I have found the card to be the among the most exploitable aspects of most Prowess builds. It’s a nightmare when it dies to Orcish Bowmasters, but it is also just weaker to red removal and blockers than your prowess creatures. Having to attack can be a serious downside in a creature mirror, where leaving back Soul-Scar Mage to block can really mess up your opponent’s attacks. And have you ever been forced to attack into a Scion of Draco or Murktide Regent in a game that would be close if you weren’t forced to throwaway cardboard? I have. You only have so much room for threats in the deck, and given that all of your other creatures have the potential to attack for more than three, DRC is convincingly the weak link when it comes to damage races. Once you factor in the way that the card makes graveyard hate actually relevant against you, I believe that the argument against DRC in Prowess in the current Modern format is ironclad.
Underworld Breach became sort of the default for Prowess decks during the era when I wasn’t playing the format at all, and it never looked remotely compelling to me. It is specifically good in games when you are further behind than your other cards could make up for and you’re topdecking, and the small number of games where you actually draw it and capitalize it don’t do a lot to excite me. Prowess is a fine deck at grinding, but it’s generally very important for every card in your opening hand to function in a wide range of games, with games where you run your opponent over being the most ideal. Even in longer games you’re stuck on two mana often enough, and I find the card to be a very hard sell here. It does make sense if you’re very in on Dragon’s Rage Channeler as you can really stock your graveyard and just cast a bunch of Mishra’s Baubles, but once you’re off DRC there’s absolutely no way you could convince me that Breach belongs. Underworld Breach is a broken card that is worth pushing, but this is simply not the best shell for it.
The Manabase
There’s not a ton to say about my manabase. There are 13 green sources which is about the minimum you want to have access to turn one Pick Your Poison in sideboard games. I like having at least four basic Mountains to take less damage off fetches while also navigated Lava Dart flashbacks and opposing Field of Runes. You generally want a green source somewhere in your first three lands but in the spots where you get up to five lands and play Jegantha it’s often preferable that you have a lot of basics on your way up the curve.
I was very hesistant to add a tapland to the deck, but Commercial District has proven very valuable to find off a fetchland and not the absolute worst to draw naturaly. Traditionally I’ve played 18 lands in Prowess and I couldn’t convince myself to play the District without going up to 19, but I’ve been very happy with it as a 19th land and there aren’t spells that I feel like I’m missing out on playing right now with that slot.
Once I moved up to 19 lands I definitely felt some pressure to have horizon lands in the spread, and while the Fiery Islets aren’t massively impactful in any matchup, they do put my mind at ease about the land count. If only there was a Gruul option… The damage that Fiery Islet deals you can matter, but somewhere between 1 and 2 feels correct once you’re playing the extra land. It’s worth noting that Fiery Outlet is correct over Sunbaked Canyon because there is a small chance that you might get an opponent to play around a Spell Pierce that isn’t there.
The Sideboard
This is the point where you might be expecting a meticulous sideboard guide, but such an expectation would mean that you’re unfamiliar with my work. I don’t use or like sideboard guides, in no small part because players tend to make changes before playing the deck anyway. But I would like to offer expanded thoughts on the features of my sideboard that will make writing out your own such guide much easier.
The Esper Goryo’s Vengeance deck is the primary reason that I’m packing graveyard hate these days, but there’s also some Persist decks in the field, and you can never go too too wrong with graveyard hate. These decks can put you in a very bad position as early as turn two or three, so they’re pretty important to address with a high volume of sideboard hate. Tormod’s Crypt is my first choice in this regard for being easy to convert off of a Seek the Beast and for being able to sit on the table and wait for your opponent to actually set up their graveyard. That easy castability can also matter against Grief, which shows up in many of the graveyard decks these days, which is also where Turn the Earth’s flashback makes that card decisively my supplementary option. These cards tend to come in over Shocks.
Extra Unholy Heats come in against essentially any creature deck, though I primarily have them for Domain Zoo and because The Yawgmoth matchup is closer than it might appear. You need to be vigilant about killing their creatures early and often, but it’s honestly a pretty big headache when they untap with so much as a Wall of Roots because of all of the things they can get up to with a Chord of Calling. I lost to Yawgmoth enough times in my preparation to want a Cursed Totem as a hammer for the matchup.
Unholy Heats also come in against Rakdos and Murktide, and some of that is because Manamorphose is a liability against Spell Pierce and Orcish Bowmasters. It’s kind of funny in these matchups because it really is just a Shock against most of their creatures and even with delirium it will often not be able to tag a Murktide Regent, but it does at least combine with a Lightning Bolt in those spots to take the largest Dragons down.
When I first started playing with Pick Your Poison I was boarding in all four copies against any Urza’s Saga deck, though this proved more awkward in practice that I expected, particularly against Amulet Titan. Luckily, the additional access to turn three wins provided by Slickshot Show-Off gives you a lot of leverage against them, and I’ve been happy siding out the Unholy Heat (you’re never winning if your plan is to kill a Primeval Titan) for one Pick Your Poison against them. I do still like the card against other Urza’s Saga decks like Hammer Time, and the main reason to register it remains to deal with Leyline of the Guildpact and/or Scion of Draco. I’ve found that one or two can really come in handy against Murktide as well.
I’ve noticed a downtick over time in matchups where forcing your opponent to sacrifice something with a Pick Your Poison matters and an uptick in opponents presenting specific artifacts and enchantments that you want to answer. As such, I like trimming one Pick Your Poison for a second Destructive Revelry, and I could see moving more in this direction if Chalice of the Void starts to see more play again.
Last and least, we have Jegantha. I committed the cardinal sin of cutting a companion from my sideboard for another sideboard slot, but in my defense the card I added matters more in the matchups where it matters! You’re never going to beat the combo decks and Tron decks of the world with Jegantha, but it will come up sometimes against Murktide and Rakdos. One of my losses at the NRG was to Murktide and in one of the sideboard games I had all of my fetchable lands on the battlefield with three fetchlands in my hand with my opponent on two, and I can’t help but feel that the Jegantha would have won in that spot. I do think that these mathcups are quite favorable, but having access to Jegantha in literally every game that you play eventually converts to mattering in some of them.
Modern Horizons 3 Hopes and Predictions
The release of Modern Horizons 3 is just around the corner, and it’s only slightly tongue in cheek when players refer to these relations as “Modern rotation”. I expect big shakeups for Modern from this release, and truthfully I expect Prowess to be getting few if any new cards. There’s no way that the new red free spell is a Lava Axe, and the inclusion of Wooded Foothills means we’re pretty unlikely to get that Gruul Horizon land. But this isn’t necessarily bad for Prowess!
Prowess actually benefits a lot when it has the chops of a Tier 1 deck, but everyone’s eyes are on a different bogeyman. My first big finish with the deck happened during Hogaak’s reign of terror! It would actually be ideal if another graveyard deck took off after the release of MH3, presuming that it was comparably vulnerable to Tormod’s Crypt as the current Goryo’s Vengeance decks, simply because heightened presence of such decks decreases the incentives for opponents to play a bunch of interaction targeted at cheap creatures. The increased likelihood of turn three wins that Slickshot Show-Off provides has Prowess giddy at the notion of increased presence of combo decks that are at least somewhat exploitable.
I do have some worry about Chalice of the Void making a comeback with all of the Eldrazi stuff previewed, though the right texture of combo deck would tax slots for that sort of thing. It’s also worth noting that Slickshot Show-Off does give you a good amount more play against Chalice, too! Regardless, if I’m playing Modern, I’m playing Prowess, and I’m optimistic that I’ll still be playing Modern after MH3 drops.
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