What is the implication of drawing a single card? The answer to that question is not always obvious. While we frequently think about card advantage as a path to victory in Magic, every card is not created equal.
This is a big reason as to why deck manipulation effects are so tightly controlled in Modern. The ability to efficiently find a variety of powerful cards easily can be a dangerous thing.
I’m willing to bet that the average Clue token in Modern is pretty powerful, and Krazylawlko is putting that theory to the test on Magic Online.
We’ve seen a sprinkling of W/U Titan decks pop up from time to time, but maybe now with the unbanning of Thopter Foundry, they can emerge as a top-tier strategy.
W/U Titan has always been excellent at grinding out fair matchups and beating up on creatures with a plethora of cheap interaction and annoying creatures that generate life and card advantage. Sun Titan plus Emeria, the Sky Ruin is the big traditional payoff, essentially letting you access several of any of the cards in your deck on any given turn with Sun Titan.
Now that we have access to the Thopter/Sword Combo, this deck has yet another payoff just for casting Sun Titan that must be then disassembled by the opponent before it runs wild.
Bygone Bishop is a nice new addition from Shadows over Innistrad. It not only generates card advantage from utility creatures and lets the deck grind well, it produces a bunch of artifacts that can be turned into aggressive Thopters. This interaction can even be backdoored into some pinpoint removal with Mortarpod!
Fabricate is a nice piece of glue that binds all of these small interactions together into a more cohesive package, but I’m actually surprised there isn’t another bullet or two in this decklist to find. Perhaps Thopter/Sword is just so powerful there’s no reason to play anything else?
I love the inclusion of Ojutai’s Command in the sideboard. That’s not a particularly foreign choice to the archetype, but it’s worth noting that this card is likely underplayed, since it is oftentimes compared directly to Cryptic Command. While they’re similar, there’s a massive difference in color requirements for casting them, and gaining four life and rebuying value creatures are extremely powerful unique modes for Ojutai’s Command.
If Modern continues to be slanted toward aggressive and midrange decks, W/U Titan decks incorporating Thopter/Sword are an excellent choice.
Creatures (21)
- 1 Aven Mindcensor
- 3 Flickerwisp
- 3 Pilgrim's Eye
- 4 Lone Missionary
- 4 Wall of Omens
- 3 Sun Titan
- 1 Phantasmal Image
- 2 Bygone Bishop
Lands (23)
Spells (16)
