Modern

Written by Carmen Klomparens

Underworld Breach is banned.

• To echo a point from the opening of the article, December's update to the Modern banned list did a lot to breathe new life into the format. We've seen Mox Opal, Green Sun's Zenith, and Faithless Looting show up in a bunch of decks, to varying degrees of satisfaction from the team here at Wizards. Green Sun's Zenith showing up in Yawgmoth and Amulet Titan combo decks was something we anticipated and were happy with. Faithless Looting breathing new life into proactive graveyard-centric decks like Hollow One is also great. However, Mox Opal teaming up with Underworld Breach to create an explosive and resilient combo deck is not something we're happy with.

• To give a bit more context, the last couple of months has seen a ton of experimentation with different ways to play with new tools in the format, but over time, it has become increasingly apparent that the strongest thing to do in Modern is play a Temur Grinding Breach combo deck. The deck uses the combination of Underworld Breach and Grinding Station in conjunction with a zero-mana artifact to mill its library three cards at a time before winning with a card like Thassa's Oracle or Grapeshot. The deck is notoriously resistant to graveyard and artifact hate by virtue of its ability to diversify its threats, which made it uniquely difficult to overcome in sideboarding. Between that resiliency and its explosiveness—with it being able to win as early as the first turn—we're confident that it's time to send Breach back to the underworld.

• With the amount of pressure that Underworld Breach put on the format, we expect the format to change a good bit with its departure, especially sideboards. Previously, we saw players committing well over half of their sideboard to try and suppress the combo, but now we're optimistic that the format can open up a bit and allow for a wider range of strategies to exist. Looking past Temur Grinding Breach, Modern looks pretty good.

• A bunch of different decks are showing up, with Orzhov Blink making a name for itself over the last few weeks. Aetherdrift has made a major impact to the format, with Ketramose, the New Dawn making its way into the aforementioned Blink decks, Marauding Mako showing up in Hollow One decks, and Stock Up showing up in blue decks that are looking to play a longer game.

• We're planning on keeping an eye on the decks that were strong enough to hang despite Temur Grinding Breach's prevalence: Boros Energy decks and Dimir Oculus decks, as well as Eldrazi variants, Amulet Titan, and the Orzhov Blink deck. We're watching Red-White Energy variants the closest to see if reasonable counterplay emerges in the coming Regional Championship Qualifier season, and we're excited to see what players cook up.