Hello everyone! With the Modern Top 8 just starting, it’s time for a metagame breakdown! This league is a pretty interesting one, as everyone played different decks and pretty much every Tier 1 Modern deck except Grixis Shadow and Burn were absent. Let’s see which decks performed the best!
| Macroarchetypes | Decks |
| Midrange (9) | Niv to Light Boomer Jund 4c Shadow Abzan Saga Obosh Red Abzan Hell’s Kitchen Grixis Shadow Griefblade Chandra Midrange |
| Combo (2) | Belcher Temur Scapeshift |
| Creature Combo (4) | Heliod Company Kirin Combo Abiding Martyr Yawgmoth |
| Aggro/Tempo (3) | Bant Spirits Lazytown Domain Boros Burn |
| Control (4) | 4c Creativity Jeskai Control Abzan Lantern Control Hive Mind Pacts |
| GigaChad (2) | 4c Dorothea’s Vengeance Grixis Storm Herald |
The Field
We can see that Midrange decks are pretty well represented, occupying a bit over one third of the field. Around half of the midrange decks have companions, but I honestly would’ve expected more, especially Yorion, Sky Nomad, which made an appearance in Dank’s Niv to Light list.
Combo is also present, with three lists being pretty much all in on the combo, four others relying on creatures as another way to win the game and arguably 4c Creativity and Hive Mind Pacts on a control game plan.
Speaking of control decks, there are a couple of those, with 4c Creativity and Hive Mind Pacts winning with a combo, Jeskai Control winning via classic control ways, and Lantern Control winning via milling or Urza’s Saga’s constructs.
Next up are the Aggro/Tempo decks in Bant Spirits, Burn and Lazytown Domain. I was extremely surprised to see no Hammer Time here, since it is probably the best Aggro deck tied with Burn.
We then have a deck that is in another category, for the simple reason that it’s just in a on a league of its own. I’m talking about 4c Dorothea’s Vengeance. I have no idea why or how Sammii got that idea, but I love it. The amount of sweet synergies here are countless, and we even have two copies of Dakkon, Shadow Slayer, which is a really sick card from MH2 that can fill the graveyard for Dreadhorde Arcanist, the three main-deck Lurrus of the Dream-Den and the reanimation spells. On top of that, one of the reanimation spells is Claim // Fame, which is basically a free card if you mill it. Dakkon can also remove big things like Murktide Regent. Overall, this list probably isn’t the most competitive out there, but it’s definitely a super sweet standout.
This league’s meta is the definition of diverse. Yes, some decks are similar to others, but there’s no 75 (or 95) that is the same, which makes the gameplay a lot less repetitive, very hard to predict, and opens the possibility of getting destroyed out of nowhere by a deck you weren’t prepared to play against.
Let’s see which decks managed to get in the Top 8:
| Macroarchetypes | Decks |
| Midrange (3) | Niv to Light Boomer Jund 4c Shadow |
| Creature Combo (2) | Heliod Company Kirin Combo |
| Aggro/Tempo (1) | Bant Spirits |
| Control (1) | 4c Creativity |
| GigaChad (1) | Grixis Storm Herald |
The Top 8
For the Top 8, the midrange decks are taking the exact same percentage as they were in the Swiss part of the tournament, with Niv to Light, Boomer Jund and 4c Shadow (me). The big surprise here is the fact that almost all of the Control decks were wiped out, with only one remaining, 4c Creativity. Outside of that, the field has remained pretty similar, with Bant Spirits representing Aggro/Tempo, and Heliod Company/Kirin Combo representing Creature Combo. I’m also sure everyone is happy to see Grixis Storm Herald get in the Top 8.
We also have two lists running Aether Vial (Spirits and Kirin Combo), a card that people started taking out of their lists since the printing of Prismatic Ending. Even with eight lists running Ending, Vial apparently still managed to get the job done.
Another thing to note is that both decks running Yorion, Sky Nomad as their companion got into the Top 8, with 4c Creativity and Niv to Light.
Top 8 Decks
It’s time to look more closely at each deck from the Top 8 and ask the competitors the reasons for their choices! Some decks ended up having more content than others, thanks to our competitors sharing their experience with the deck
Niv to Light – Dank_confidant
Dank is our top seed player, being the only undefeated player in the Swiss part of the tournament, which is pretty impressive.
Q: Why did you choose Niv to Light as your deck for the tournament?
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- Playing a traditional control list requires to pick the best answers in the correct answers for the meta you expect. Since I expected a really diverse meta, I knew that I would have never been able to cover all bases so I picked a deck that actually does cover all bases although it is a bit clunkier than a Bant / UW Control list.
- I wanted a deck that can beat everything if played correctly because I wanted my skills (my own particular better skills) to be the defining factor. A deck with more polarized matchups can bring you to lose and win games on its own depending on how favorable or unfavorable the matchup is; with a deck that can beat everything and doesn’t have tremendously good mathchups too, I can make sure that I can leverage said skills and “bring the battle in the terrain that favors me.”
- While I’m mostly known for playing control, the archetypes I perform best with are most definitely combo and midrange. This deck walks in the misty space between proactive control and value-oriented midrange, so right up my valley.
- The requirements for the deck I was going to pick were: being able to reliably beat Heliod, outgrind Lurrus of the Dream Den midrange shells, beat Hammertime/Izzet Murktide/Tribal lists. The deck is a bit susceptible to leaner Lurrus + Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer strats, but Wrenn and Six and 2-for-1 exchanges can be really devastating so it’s not that bad anyway.
- I really wanted to play something unique and a Pioneer strat ported into Modern definitely falls in that category
Q: What decks/strategies were you aiming to beat with your sideboard cards?
The interesting parts of the list are:
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- 1 MD + 1 SB Unmoored Ego to beat those pesky combo decks that you can find in UOL
- 3 Vindicates and 2 Assassin’s Trophy (over Abrupt Decays) to not risk succumbing to Urza’s Saga decks)
- 3 Prismari Command to beat Hammertime, Urza’s Saga, and even Blood Moon (which isn’t that good against the deck to begin with)
- 1 Crumble to Dust for Tron (that matchup can be scary)
- 1 Fracturing Gust for Saga/artifact decks (like Food ones too), really good with Niv and Bring to Light
- The Prismatic Endings and the Veil of Summers that occupy more than half of the SB are for the Lurrus of the Dream Den Tempo/Midrange and UWx matchups that I expected to face
- Prismatic Ending is for Lurrus decks (Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and =< 2 cmc permanents)
Kirin Combo – Pizza
Next up we have a super sweet deck: Kirin Combo!
Q: For those who never had the chance to witness Kirin Combo before, how does it work?
Kirin Combo works like this: when you cast Ugin’s Conjurant for X=0 with a Celestial Kirin in play, Kirin destroys all permanents with a cmc of 0 (not nonland permanents), so it’s essentially a two-card Armageddon combo. The rest of the deck is built to abuse Armageddon with mana generators like Aether Vial, Flagstones of Trokair, and Noble Hierarch alongside Eladamri’s Call as a combo/silver bullet tutor.
Q: Why did you chose to play Kirin Combo this league?
I’m mostly playing Kirin Combo because it’s my pet deck. I came up with the list myself, and I like to use the league as a testing ground for new cards. Other than that, the deck is just very good—it has a favored matchup against Murktide, Hammertime, Grixis Shadow, and Rhinos, which is a solid portion of the top/high tier of the format. Also (brag alert), I’ve made Top 8 with this deck five times out of the last six leagues, and I even managed to win one of them. Kirin is no joke!
Q: For your sideboard choices, what kind of field were you expecting?
In the past, I played a 2/1 split of Oust and Prismatic Ending with 1 Solitude in the main deck, but here I cut the Ousts for a 2/2 split of Ending and Solitude because of the addition of Brutal Cathar in the sideboard, which shores up the same weaknesses that Oust covers (Murktide/Reanimator). This split is better vs. Wrenn and Six and sideboard cards like Torpor Orb.
This league, I decided to focus my sideboard on midrange decks since UOL Modern is always heavily skewed towards that archetype. Sanctum Prelate is a 3-of because both Death’s Shadow and Murktide decks are relatively popular. I’m also playing a copy of Ghostly Prison for creature decks; I ditched creature hate last league and got punished by Humans in the Swiss, and there were a lot of new people this league so I figured someone would be going face.
Bant Spirits – JB_Alters
We have another deck that is both in Pioneer and Modern here, with Bant Spirits.
Q: Why did you choose to play Bant Spirits over other decks?
Here’s my explanation:
Full disclosure, this league is my first sincere foray in Modern in several years – my previous constructed play has mostly been Pioneer (plus a joyful run with Temur Reclamation in Standard), and the majority of my 5-year MTG history is draft. A previous season of UOL Pioneer saw me lose in the finals piloting Niv to Light vs. UW Spirits. I won the first game and then lost the following three games straight and was blown away by the flexible playstyle of spirits, especially post-board. Since then I’ve built Pioneer UW Spirits in paper and am starting to build Modern Bant Spirits too, even if it’ll be a while before I’ve accumulated all those fetches!
That’s basically what led me to my deck choice for this league, and I can say I’ve really enjoyed playing it. I’m not gonna make up any rationale for specific sideboard choices, because I’m just not familiar enough with the format yet to start crafting things on that level. I basically browsed the various builds of the deck on MTGGoldfish and chose one that the card balances seemed to make most sense to me from. Dull but true, and now here we are. Good luck Top 8ers!
Something I want to mention about Bant Spirits is that’s it’s insanely strong against Lurrus midrange decks. I’ve played against JB while playing a Lurrus deck (I lost), and there were a lot of cards that were really a pain. Kira, Great Glass-Spinner is pretty much always a 2-for-1, and if there are two Drogskol Captains on board, it’s impossible to remove any creature except Noble Hierarch. You also have a lot of creatures that protect those two, like Mausoleum Wanderer, Selfless Spirit and Rattlechains.
Jund – krt_01
Jund is probably Modern’s most iconic deck. Since MH2, lists have been getting rid of Liliana of the Veil and other classic Jund cards to get Lurrus of the Dream Den as their companion, but krt_01 decided to come back to Jund’s roots with Bloodbraid Elf, Seasoned Pyromancer, Liliana of the Veil and even MH2 car like Grist, the Hunger Tide. Jund doesn’t have any terrible matchups, except unfair decks that rely on cards that dodge their removal like Tron, Living End and Amulet Titan, but the top decks seem to all be either extremely fast or extremely hard to outvalue. Fortunately for krt_01, none of those unfair decks were in the tournament. Liliana of the Veil makes a comeback her, because of her ability to win the game against value decks, even if her +1 is double-sided. There’s also 2 copies of Kolaghan’s Command in the maindeck, which is great against Hammer Time.
Grixis Storm Herald – Trinket9
We have another sweet list: Grixis Storm Herald!
Q: Why did you choose to play Grixis Storm Herald?
Why I chose my deck? Well, I didn’t know what to play into the league. I heavily disapprove of MH2 and the current modern meta, and I did not have a deck I wanted to play, so I asked GreenSkyDragon for a jank combo deck. He sent me a few variants, and I picked this one to have some fun and laugh. As such, the list is basically his and I did not choose the cards in my sideboard (or maindeck).
Q: Since you picked a janky deck, it’s pretty surprising to see you get in the Top 8. How did you manage to get there?
How am I in top 8? I don’t know, there was much luck involved hahah. If my round 4 opponent just mulliganed to Leyline of the Void, I would have probably lost easily and wouldn’t even stand a chance (there is no way to remove a leyline in the sideboard).
But, alas, I’m here and I’ll give it my best shot in the top 8. It’s definitely been the most fun modern league since coming back to playing leagues in STX season. And I preserve my streak of consecutive modern and pioneer top 8s!
4c Shadow – PtiCaline (me)
My list is pretty much the stock version of a Grixis Shadow deck, but it’s splashing green for a playset of Tarmogoyf, and it’s cutting 1 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, 1 Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger and all Dress Downs for it. It doesn’t have the blowout lines with Dress Down and it’s much more vulnerable to graveyard hate (Rest in Peace in particular) but it’s also harder to outvalue thanks to Tarmogoyf. Tarmogoyf also pairs very well with the seven discard spells; Shadow lists usually run six or seven, but with Goyf joining the party, I felt like seven was the correct number.
I chose this deck for two big reasons: it was pretty strong when I played it and it was a lot of fun. There’s also the fact that it has one-mana hand attack, which sometimes just makes you win the game on the spot, and getting the opportunity to get a free win or two seemed like something good. I also didn’t have a lot of experience playing Shadow decks, this deck being the second Shadow deck I’ve tried and the first being a terrible Mardu Burn/Shadow deck, when Scourge of the Skyclaves was still playable.
I decided to cut one copy of Ragavan because I was expecting a ton of hate for it, like Gut Shot and the pro-red white creatures (Auriok Champion, Kor Firewalker, Burrenton Forge-Tender and Sanctifier en-Vec). There’s also one copy of Kolaghan’s Command for Hammer Time and one copy of Stubborn Denial because it’s pretty easy to get a four-power creature on board and it’s good for bluffing in general, since leaving up one blue is pretty easy.
4c Creativity – Princeharperman
Princeharperman chose their deck for pretty much the same reason as me: it’s a fun deck to play. From Princerharperman: “I mean I was just enjoying playing Creativity online, I ripped the list off Goldfish and I am no expert on the deck at all.”
4c Creativity is a deck that’s very good if you’re expecting Hammer Time, fair midrange decks, and control decks, since it’s got a lot of removal and has a lot of planeswalkers that generate an absurd amount of value if left unanswered. It forces the opponent to constantly keep up removal in case Indomitable Creativity is in the Creativity player’s hand. Teferi, Time Raveler is also really neat here, as it makes the opponent unable to counter or fizzle the Creativity and gives the opportunity to cast Creativity on their end step.
If you want more in-depth info on 4c Creativity, there’s a free article on Channel Fireball about it. I read it before playing against Princeharperman in the Swiss and I’d recommend it to anyone trying to learn more about that deck, whether it’s to play with or against it.
Heliod Company – viperfang4
To finish things up, we have the return of Heliod Company:
Q: Why did you choose to play Heliod Company in this league?
I am playing Heliod Company. In my opinion this deck is Tier 1 in paper; the chess clock and amount of clicks needed for the combo on MTGO don’t show how good the deck is because it’s not functional there.
Q: What decks/strategies were you looking to beat with your sideboard cards?
I played a lot of stuff for red removal in the sideboard as there are a lot of Dragon’s Rage Channeler decks and Fury exists. A lot else in my sideboard is for Hammer or something like Infect that can kill quickly. Some of the Hammer stuff doubled vs our Lantern player. There is also some counterspell hate.
Q: Are there any cards in your deck that stand out?
The most notable card in the deck is 1 Endurance main compared to other lists. This lets you win with infinite life by decking the opponent, even if they have more cards in deck than you, because you reshuffle yourself. So no deck without a way to beat infinite life other than waiting on a deckout is safe.
Predictions
Dank_confidant (Niv to Light) v.s. Viperfang4 (Heliod Company)
Since Dank_confidant built their deck with a mindset of trying to beat Heliod, I’d say they’re favored. Pre-board Unmoored Ego is obviously great for Dank, especially if they manage to use their Birds of Paradise and Utopia Sprawls to cast it off of Bring to Light before Heliod, Sun-Crowned hits the board, but that’s the only way to permanently answer Heliod pre-board. Valki, God of Lies’s back side, Tibalt, Cosmic Impostor might be able to remove it if Heliod becomes a creature, but I wouldn’t count on that as a consistent way to remove Heliod. Post-board, Viperfang4 doesn’t have a lot of great cards that are effective in this matchup except Veil of Summer to protect against an Unmoored Ego, but Dank_confidant gets a huge addition in Prismatic Ending, a clean answer to Heliod.
krt_01 (Jund) v.s. Trinket9 (Grixis Storm Herald)
This matchup was one that was played in the Swiss rounds, and krt_01 came out on top the first time; I’d expect it’s going to be the same this time. Pre-board, I’d expect krt_01 to have the upper hand because their ten removal spells are all able to kill Storm Herald at instant speed, but with seven ways to return Storm Herald from the yard and four Izzet Charms, it’s not impossible that Trinket9 wins one or even both games.
The post-board games are going to be pretty interesting, with Trinket9’s ability to switch gameplans to a certain level with Sedgemoor Witch and interaction, but krt_01’s graveyard hate suite only contains cards that are maindeckable (Endurance and Nihil Spellbomb), and on top of that there are 2 Necromentias that’ll probably come in alongside those two. I’d say krt_01 will get the win here.
pizza (Kirin Combo) v.s. Princeharperman (4c Creativity)
I’d expect this match to be a little bit more on Creativity’s side pre-board and being pretty much a race between of who combos first and revolving a lot around on whether Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Vial are in play or not. Skyclave Apparition seems like a double-edged sword here, as it can take out any planeswalker, but removing it or bouncing it with Teferi, Time Raveler gives a free token. The best hit from Indomitable Creativity is by far Serra’s Emissary in this matchup, since there’s no option for pizza to answer it. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn also seems pretty bad here because of Solitude, even if there are only two copies in pizza’s deck.
For the post-board games I expect the games to revolve a lot around Sanctum Prelate and Thalia. Three and four seem like the best numbers for Prelate, three blocking Teferi, Time Raveler, Prismatic Ending for three and Prismari Command, and four hitting X=1 Indomitable Creativity and Supreme Verdict. An early Prelate on two could also be backbreaking for Princeharperman if their hand is heavily counting on Wrenn and Six to hit their land. I’d say it’s a bit more on pizza’s side for the post-board games, but still very close.
JB_Alters (Bant Spirits) v.s. PtiCaline (4c Shadow)
I played against JB_Alters in the Swiss, and I got pretty much demolished. Rest In Peace and Kira, Great Glass-Spinner absolutely farmed me and to be honest, if I don’t manage to get some wins in the pre-board games, I’m done for. Because of Rest in Peace, I have to take out all my Goyfs and Drowns on top of the one Kroxa, and I don’t have many cards in the sideboard that can replace them without being terrible. JB also has 3 Burrenton Forge-Tenders and 2 Chalice of the Void, which will also be great. I’d say JB is pretty favored on this one, but I might have a shot if I win both pre-board games.
The Winner
I think Dank_confidant is going to win this one. I doubt they’ll get defeated by Jund, thanks to Veil of Summer, Prismatic Ending and Shadows’ Verdict. I’m not sure who would win between pizza and JB_Alters, as it seems like a pretty close matchup. Usually, Kirin Combo tries to blow up all lands in play, but Ugin’s Conjurant can also be cast for more than 0 to basically get an effect similar to Engineered Explosives. Skyclave Apparition is also a spirit, so it can kill Spell Quellers, Kira, Great Glass-Spinner and Drogskol Captain, so I’d say they’re advantaged here. Then I think pizza might beat Dank_confidant, but I’m not too sure on this one. pizza has a lot of cards that seem great in this matchup, like Sanctum Prelate, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Ranger-Captain of Eos, Lavinia, Azorius Renegade, but they’re all very vulnerable to removal, and Dank_confidant is packing a whopping 20 of them in their 95. Even if I’d say pizza is the favored one here, the odds seem pretty even.
Conclusion
This Top 8 seems very exciting, and I can’t wait to see who will win in the end!
Great article. Thank you for taking the time to write it.