Modern is either a format with Splinter Twin, Affinity, Jund, and Grixis annihilating anyone who is trying to have fun, or this wild and magical place where anything is possible.
The first deck can potentially break the turn 4 paradigm of Modern, although clearly the deck isn’t built attempting to maximize it — It’s just a possible nut draw that exists. In essence, it’s a midrange creature deck featuring a toolbox and a combo kill.
Whether you’re beating them down, answering threats while looking for an opening for the combo, or naturally drawing the combo, it doesn’t really matter. This deck is capable of playing multiple different gameplans and those will often be decided by what your opening hand looks like and what the matchup is.
While the second list is mostly unremarkable, it has a couple things I wanted to highlight, namely the use of a singleton Summoner’s Pact to provide its own toolbox. Cards like Sigarda, Host of Herons and Thrun, the Last Troll often reside in sideboards, but they’re fine cards in their own right. With a singleton copy of Summoner’s Pact, the aptly named JoeyTheSiegeTower effectively has two copies of each maindeck, which can be brutal against certain matchups. Perhaps some other decks should try out that mini-toolbox.
The other thing that’s worth pointing out is how good a hexproof threat is in Modern, especially one that can potentially outgrow a Tarmogoyf. Dungrove Elder might look silly against infinite clerics or an Ornithopter with a spiky helmet, but the format isn’t entirely represented by those archetypes. You still have 80% of the field to worry about!
Creatures (20)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 2 Doran, the Siege Tower
- 2 Wilt-Leaf Liege
- 3 Knight of the Reliquary
- 4 Voice of Resurgence
- 4 Siege Rhino
- 1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Lands (24)
Spells (16)
Creatures (23)
- 2 Birds of Paradise
- 3 Doran, the Siege Tower
- 4 Noble Hierarch
- 2 Knight of the Reliquary
- 2 Qasali Pridemage
- 1 Thrun, the Last Troll
- 2 Spellskite
- 4 Dungrove Elder
- 1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
- 1 Siege Rhino
- 1 Surrak, the Hunt Caller
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (24)
Spells (10)