Like most formats, Modern is in a place where the dread of Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath looms over the format. You also have Amulet Titan as the other best value deck and then there's Lurrus Aggro and Izzet Blitz decks that are fast enough to take out the value decks. That is what the top four decks of the meta look like right now, so today we'll be looking through Zendikar Rising to see which five cards will have the biggest impact on Modern.
Honorable Mentions
Valakut Awakening is actually an interesting tool for dredge decks, and I not just saying that as a meme. Having the ability to dump a useless hand with no action to get three or four dredge triggers immediately is a powerful option to have attached to a land. My problem is that dredge decks usually play a single Mountain as their basic land and that is for when they need an untapped source to get off of a fetchland. Even if you found room for this in the mana base I'm pretty sure that just having Ox of Agonas is good enough.
Archon of Emeria is a safe pick with two very powerful hate abilities. It's basically a Thalia, Heretic Cathar, and Eidolon of Rhetoric stapled together on a 2/3 flier. Those are two creatures that see play on their own with Modern being heavily influenced by nonbasic lands as well as having plenty of Storm style decks. I'm personally interested in brewing up a Hatebears Fliers deck that can slow down the opponent with cards like Archon of Emeria but has a fast clock with lords like Empyrean Eagle.
#5 - Akoum Hellhound
At first, I thought a landfall aggro deck was wishful thinking as the days of Wild Nacatl Zoo decks are behind us. Modern has outgrown fair creature aggro decks, making it so that Aggro decks need to be hyper-aggressive to take out the more degenerate value and combo decks. With Fetch lands available in Modern, landfall is very easy to trigger and having eight copies of Steppe Lynx makes the deck a lot more consistent. I'm confident you could make a blitz style deck around landfall with cards like Temur Battle Rage, Groundswell, and Explore to really go off. You could even go all out with Wrenn and Six to get back a fetch land every turn.
#4 - Agadeem's Awakening
Agadeem's Awakening is the mythic from this cycle that I am the most excited for in Modern. The obvious home for this is Death's Shadow decks where the three life from Agadeem, the Undercrypt isn't a drawback. This one turn one plus a Thoughtseize will cost you five life which is the equivalent of cracking a fetch land then shocking into Thoughtseize. Agadeem's Awakening is also great with cheap creatures like Death's Shadow and Snapcaster Mage that can be brought back in the late game. Death's Shadow was at one point the desk deck a couple of years ago with many variations to play. I think the problem with the deck right now is that it is not fast enough to kill the Uro and Amulet decks and it can't out value them either. I'm not sure Agadeem's Awakening will be enough for it to compete but it should appear in the lists nonetheless.
#3 - Roiling Vortex
Roiling Vortex does it all for red aggro decks. At two mana the ping on upkeep is efficient enough and the ability to shut down life gain every turn is very powerful. Sometimes you just need to stop one Uro trigger to maintain lethal, and Weather the Storm becomes a joke. Modern also has a lot of free cards like Mishra's Bauble running around as well as free interaction such as Pact of Negation and Force of Negation. Suspend cards like Ancestral Vision and Crashing Footfalls also get hosed. Roiling Vortex is very powerful and efficient and will be a staple of red sideboards.
#2 - Confounding Conundrum
Confounding Conundrum has very obvious applications just from fetch lands alone. I'm actually convinced that this will see serious competitive play considering Uro and Amulet decks are at the top of the meta. This card dunks all over Uro by denying that extra ramp, but the deck also plays Growth Spiral and even Life From the Loam to get back lands for Uro to put into play. Amulet gets wrecked completely when they try to go off and the entire creature package from Sakura-Tribe Scout to Primeval Titan. The fact that it draws a card to replace itself and punishes fetch lands makes this card safe to main deck.
1# - Ruin Crab & Maddening Cacophony
Although Roiling Vortex and Confounding Conundrum will see widespread Modern play and may even become staples, Ruin Crab and Maddening Cacophony will be very important to Mill decks. Mill has received new toys such as Thieves' Guild Enforcer and Drown in the Loch and is getting close to becoming an established second-tier deck. Ruin Crab will add more constancy alongside Hedron Crab and Maddening Cacophony is kind of like a second Glimpse the Unthinkable. Sure it mills eight cards instead of ten but the effects are basically the same. I doubt the kicker will come up often but having another mass mills card that isn't Mind Sculpt is fantastic. Mill is plagued by the need to main deck lots of graveyard hate like Surgical Extraction and Cling to Dust to avoid turbocharging graveyard decks. More spells like Ashiok, Dream Render that mill and exile would free up a lot of main deck slots.
I am personally very excited to see where Modern Mill decks go with the editions from Zendikar Rising and if an explosive Landfall aggro deck can exist. Roiling Vortex and Confounding Conundrum will certainly see heavy competitive play and hopefully, give Uro decks a hard time. Let us know in the comments of there are any cards we missed that you think will have an impact on Modern. Today is a double article day so if you a Pokemon Go player check out our Flying Cup article. Follow us on social media to make sure you don't miss out on future content and join the fellowship. Thanks for reading and have a great day!
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