It’s been five years since Blasphemous Act and Boros Reckoner roamed the tables at Standard tournaments together, threatening an easy thirteen damage on top of sweeping the battlefield of all but the largest of creatures. That interaction was a key part of the Aristocrats: Act 2 decks that were popular at the time, and Jeskai decks with Boros Reckoner even incorporated a single copy of Harvest Pyre to achieve a similar effect.
As is often the case, a synergy from Standard that is powerful enough to compete in Modern is ported over, but upgraded once you gain access to the much larger card pool.
The first upgrade comes from redundancy. There isn’t a reasonable facsimile of Blasphemous Act, but Boros Reckoner’s ability is faithfully reproduced by Stuffy Doll, which has the added benefit of not dying to the sweeper, and Spitemare, the worst of the three but still worthy of a couple of slots.
Having redundancy on the creature side is more important because a Blasphemous Act with two of them on the battlefield will end the game much of the time, whereas the second sweeper is often unnecessary. The supporting spells are typical removal spells, mostly burn-based so they can be used to finish off an opponent who has already taken thirteen damage, as well as some high-powered threats that can win games when the deck’s synergies are broken up.
Of these threats, both Assemble the Legion and Chandra, Flamecaller can aid in the casting of Blasphemous Act so they aren’t completely separate from the combo element of the deck. Casting Blasphemous Act can indeed be tricky against opponents who aren’t flooding the battlefield with creatures, so being able to help them along is important.
That’s why we see notable Oath of Druids enabler Forbidden Orchard in the manabase. You may think four is excessive, since they can be a liability and you don’t need to give your opponent too many creatures to make Blasphemous Act castable, but every extra token makes the last core piece of the deck, Soulfire Grand Master, more potent.
Sometimes killing the opponent proves difficult and you need to buy time before everything comes together. Sweeping a large battlefield with a lifelinking Blasphemous Act gains an absurd amount of life, buying you enough time to find the necessary pieces, especially if you use the activated ability on Soulfire Grand Master to buy back the Act.
With the two most popular and successful decks in Modern right now being Humans and Hollow One, decks that want to overrun their opponents quickly with creatures, coming packed with a pile of quality removal and creatures that are great blockers is a good place to be. Throw in a combo kill and I’m sold.
Creatures (14)
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (24)
Spells (21)
- 4 Lightning Bolt
- 1 Worship
- 2 Mind Stone
- 2 Lightning Helix
- 2 Path to Exile
- 4 Blasphemous Act
- 2 Boros Charm
- 1 Assemble the Legion
- 1 Pyromancer's Goggles
- 2 Sweltering Suns
Sideboard
