Modern Day Magic

So here we are at Pro Tour Return to Ravnica (not literally) and it is Modern.  Also (what a massive coincidence, not) we are one week away from the first ever Sheffield Patriot Games Invitational, where day one sees us play Return to Ravnica sealed and Modern.  Just to cap it all off tonight it is Modern Pauper at FNM Relax, it almost looks like this was planned...

 As close as you get to a modern staple.

This is the second part of my blog on Modern, looking at the cards and decks which have defined the format so far.  The first part can be found here.  

Birthing Pod has led to a variety of powerful decks in Modern.  Naya Pod was good in standard and instantly better in Modern because of the diverse number of creatures available to Pod into/from.  Bant Pod is equally well placed to take advantage of creatures like Strangelroot Giest, Eternal Witness and of course good old Elesh Norn.

Perhaps the best known of the Pod variants is Melira Pod.  This can gain infinite life by sacrificing Kitchen Finks to Viscera Seer with Melira out so that Kitchen Finks comes back without a -1/-1 counter, rinse and repeat.  The same can be achieved using Murderous Redcap to infinite damage your opponent as it enters the battle field dealing 2 damage a time.  The ability to Pod Kitchen Finks into the Murderous Redcap for a net cost of 1 mana is equally a powerful option.

RDW (Red Deck Wins) has been a staple of Magic for many years.  With a number of 3 damage for 1 mana cards in the format and the likes of Goblin Guide and Ash Zealot as a creature base RDW can be a very quick way to die!

Boros has all of the burn mentioned above as well as great removal spells like Path to Exile and figure of destiny.  It also get Lightning Helix, what's not to love about a lightning bolt that gives you 3 life as well for just 1 more mana.  Part of me would love to see it back in Gatecrash but I recognise that it is never going to happen.

Reanimator/Frites has become a serious contender in Standard of late mostly thanks to the Angel above.  Coupled with Griselbrand, Iona and Zombify in Modern this could make someone very sad...

Way back in February Bronson Magnan (what a great name) won GP Lincoln with a deck no one was quite ready for.  It used a combination of Seismic Assault, Flame Jab, Raven's Crime and Life From the Loam to empty opponents hands by ditching lands to the Raven's Crime and then Dredging them back with Life from the Loam to then ditch them again to the Assault and shoot you in the face.  With a large number of tron decks around this was even more effective as the deck could Ghost quarter away the tron pieces each turn and they quickly found themselves unable to find any basic lands to replace it with.

You just can't do an article on Modern without Bob...

I hope you have enjoyed my little trip through Modern as a format and I also hope you enjoy the Pro Tour his weekend which promises a load of great Modern play and hopefully a few new deck ideas.  Hope to see you there...