Will Moonsnare Prototype (And Reality Heist) Revitalize Artifact Decks In Modern?

Between the recent Standard bannings and the sheer amount of powerful cards in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, I have no idea what to make of the set in that context. I do, however, see a couple of big ways the set could impact Modern.

Yes, I am very excited about a weird Springleaf Drum. 

The decks that aim to take advantage of Springleaf Drum typically use it to accelerate into a powerful three-drop, like Master of Etherium, Nettlecyst, or Cranial Plating plus equipping it. Those three-drops mentioned mostly care about creatures because the Drum decks also have to play extremely mediocre cards like Memnite and Ornithopter to enable it. Naturally, the cards they accelerate into have to be focused on making their crappy creatures into real threats. 

Moonsnare Prototype doesn’t have any of those issues. Sure, you’re incentivized to play Mishra’s Bauble, Mox Amber, Engineered Explosives, or Everflowing Chalice, but you probably want to play some amount of those in any super-cool, very fun artifact deck anyway.

Cards like Metallic Rebuke and Thought Monitor become stronger when you’re able to deploy your artifacts sooner, so that’s mainly why Moonsnare Prototype has my attention. If you’ve played the Urza, Lord High Artificer decks both pre- and post-Mox Opal, you feel the difference of how much a single mana accelerator can change things. Now, Moonsnare Prototype is no Mox Opal, but it’s honestly not that much worse either. 

In the best scenarios, Prototype is a one-mana artifact that produces a mana immediately. If you don’t particularly care that the mana you’re getting is colorless, it’s one of the best versions of Llanowar Elves of all time. Springleaf Drum has the same upside, except it forces you to play mediocre cards like Memnite and Ornithopter to get the best use out of it. With Prototype, all of our cards can be bangers. 

Prototype really wants a zero-mana artifact to enable casting a three-drop on Turn 2. If you can’t do that reliably, maybe casting a four-drop on Turn 3 is what you should be planning for. Urza, Lord High Artificer is the obvious four-drop, especially if you plan on winning with Thopter Foundry. However, Karn, the Great Creator is another powerful option. 

To top it off, Prototype can be a removal spell when you’re flooded (or happen to have a large supply of mana thanks to Urza). Surprisingly, it’s card-neutral and not a random bounce spell, but I’ll happily take it.

My Moonsnare Prototype decks will also have four copies of Urza’s Saga. That means they’ll also have an Aether Spellbomb and a Soul-Guide Lantern. Depending on the metagame and how the deck is built, Shadowspear might be a lock for the maindeck. Regardless, there will certainly be one copy somewhere in the 75. Four Mishra’s Baubles are also a must, given Prototype’s need for a cheap artifact to tap alongside it. 

Even though it looks great at first glance, Reality Heist is a conundrum. What sort of deck do you want to play it in? If we were building a new deck, what would it look like?

Ideally, you have options with Reality Heist. Hopefully there’s a mix of threats, mana sources, and answers that gives you agency over what to Heist. When Reality Heist costs UU, it’s probably because you put in the work. If your spell turns up only trinkets, it’s mostly a disaster. 

Alternatively, you could play it in an artifact-based combo deck. A couple come to mind, although none are remotely competitive at the moment. Regardless, finding the best cards to Heist into is more difficult than it seems. 

Let’s start with arguably the best artifact-based deck in Modern at the moment.  

As I mentioned earlier, any Moonsnare Prototype deck is going to have a certain amount of slots spoken for. Even once you decide on trying to win the game with Thopter Foundry, Sword of the Meek, and Urza, Lord High Artificer, there remain a ton of different directions to take the deck. 

The move away from Emry, Lurker of the Loch in these decks was baffling. Some of the decks stopped playing Mishra’s Bauble, despite having Ingenious Smith and Urza’s Saga in their decks as well. That meant they couldn’t play Thought Monitor, but I saw most of that as a bug, not a feature. Now that we have Mishra’s Bauble, Prototype, and Emry, I could see a return to Thought Monitor, even if it’s just two copies.

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Regardless, Prototype is a huge addition to this deck. Each time I tried the Azorius Thopter Foundry / Sword of the Meek decks, they seemed slightly too slow. The aggro decks could get under you and decks like Amulet Titan could steamroll you before you even got going. Having Prototype to accelerate you into faster Urzas or even just entering “two spells per turn” territory is exactly what this archetype needed. 

I don’t know if you’d ever actually use Stoneforge Mystic to find The Reality Chip, but having something grindy could be beneficial, especially when you have Urza’s massive mana output. However, that grindy card could be something like Sword of Fire and Ice, which has somewhat of a proven track record. If you want something specifically for control, Sword of War and Peace is excellent. Both require more creatures than I’m currently playing, although Esper Sentinel would be a solid way to get the count up.

Reality Heist didn’t make the cut. Being able to find either piece of the Thopter combo is nice, but unless you’re playing Time Sieve, it won’t be able to find the final piece. There’s a home for it, but it won’t be here.

This deck is missing some of the key cards in other decklists, such as Stoneforge Mystic, Urza, or Emry. Honestly, I like it that way. Cut the fancy stuff and focus on aggression and disruption.

It’s odd to include Nettlecyst, as it was one of the cards from Modern Horizons 2 that I was most disappointed with. One of my major gripes with Nettlecyst was that it’s too clunky for Modern. With Moonsnare Prototype, it’s more reasonable because you can cast it on Turn 2. 

The trick to making Reality Heist playable is finding artifacts worth finding. Nettlecyst solves that problem. Slightly more than half the deck is artifacts, so Reality Heist should be solid. We also have a wide variety of artifacts to choose from, like removal, card advantage, threat, or mana source. 

In many of the decks where I’d consider Reality Heist, it’s tempting to lower the mana curve and play Thoughtcast in addition to Thought Monitor, similar to what folks are doing in Legacy. 

Asmor was responsible for the initial downfall of creature decks in Modern, which in turn, caused its demise. Solitude and Fury are now doing the job of keeping creature decks in check. Without them, there are very few reasons to play Asmor decks at the moment. Cards like Death’s Shadow and Murktide Regent that can outscale Asmor are another reason to stay away from Food decks. That said, Asmor has picked up numerous tools since then and doesn’t necessarily fit its “anti-aggro” classification. 

Both Blood Fountain and The Underworld Cookbook can make two artifacts for one mana, which makes casting Thought Monitor and Thoughtcast relatively easy. Moonsnare Prototype effectively does the same by providing two mana toward your affinity cards, so now we have a tight, consistent package. Plus, channeling Prototype is an expensive (and uncounterable!) way of removing Murktide Regent.

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Admittedly, Prototype can be awkward in this deck if everything is going right, since there aren’t many ways to filter colorless mana. Using it to cast your first Thought Monitor for 1U or activate an Urza’s Saga isn’t out of the ordinary, but in the late-game, all it can really do is activate a Blood Fountain or Cookbook to return some threats. 

Overall, it’s not the worst thing to have in the deck, but it might feel like it goes dead quickly. If that’s the case, it probably means you were able to use it productively early. Having a way to filter colorless mana would be nice, but without Darkwater Catacombs, we’ll have to pay for it with Chromatic Star, Urza, or something similar. That would defeat the purpose.

It has been many, many years since I last tried a deck like this in Modern. Since then, we’ve gotten so many numerous incredible additions that it’s time to revisit. To put it into perspective, the last time I played this deck, boomer Jund with several copies of maindeck Abrupt Decay was one of the most popular decks. These days, there are very few ways to remove a flipped Erayo, so it’s often a stronger piece of disruption than even Chalice of the Void.

You can flip Erayo, Soratami Ascendant on Turn 2 with an alarming number of combinations. Erayo, Mox Amber, tap for blue, Repeal my Mox, recast Mox is my favorite. Any Turn 2 Erayo flip is likely game over.

I struggled to choose a direction for this archetype. Accelerating into a four-drop could be reasonable. You could also morph it into either a Paradoxical Outcome or Paradox Engine combo deck. Splashing Portable Hole could also be nice. I want to try them all.

This is another one of those decks that could potentially use the white splash. My confidence level that this deck is built correctly is extremely low though. I’ve seen weird versions of Paradox Engine combo in Modern with Coretapper and stuff like Temple Bell. Not being all-in on the combo seems like the best plan, so I’m dubious of that sort of strategy. That said, Reality Heist seems excellent for that sort of deck. 

Maybe this is the best Reality Heist deck. It could also be a Karn prison deck or some sort of Academy Manufactor deck. Meanwhile, Moonsnare Prototype could fuel an eight-Springleaf Drum and eight-Thoughtcast deck and could even help Lantern Control. The possibilities are endless.

Is Moonsnare Prototype destined to make an impact? There’s no shortage of artifact-heavy decks floating in Modern’s Tier 2 and many of them can add Prototypes to their deck with minimal effort and be greatly rewarded for it. Mox Amber’s banning took Urza out of Tier 1 and Prototype will help it gain some of that equity back. As for Reality Heist, I’m less certain. There are spots for it, but it’s not clear whether there’s a home for it.

Either way, I’ll certainly be working on artifact decks once Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty is released.