Grafdigger’s Cage is one of the oldest hate pieces in Magic. Graveyard strategies have always been powerful, and this little artifact can stop them in their tracks. Once in play, casting spells from your deck or graveyard becomes impossible, and creatures cannot enter play from either zone.
Grafdigger’s Cage has, understandably, seen a heavy increase in play after the recent Modern banlist changes. Faithless Looting enables graveyard synergies, which the Cage stops. Grafdigger’s Cage also happens to stop the unbanned Green Sun’s Zenith since creatures cannot enter play from the library. Add in some strong graveyard combo strategies like Grinding Breach, and Grafdigger’s Cage becomes an all-star.
Ridiculously enough, Grafdigger’s Cage’s applications don’t stop there. It turns out that the artifact interacts particularly well against one of the headliner decks in the Modern format.
No More Dread
Grafdigger’s Cage stops a lot of obvious interactions in Modern. That being said, it doesn’t stop everything that you might initially think. For example, Grafdigger’s Cage doesn’t stop Emergent Ultimatum from Pioneer Lotus Field Combo. Since the card is pulling cards out of the main deck to cast, you may think Grafdigger’s Cage is a strong piece of tech. Sadly, because those cards are technically cast in exile, they get around the artifact. There are tons of scenarios like this in past formats.
Right now, though, it seems Grafdigger’s Cage may have gotten the drop on Abhorrent Oculus. The three-mana menace from Duskmourn is currently seeing a gigantic price spike in response to its insane Modern play. Part of the current Murktide Regent deck in the Modern format, Dimir Oculus wins the game by cheating in Abhorrent Oculus with Unearth or pulling ahead with Psychic Frog.
Abhorrent Oculus’s biggest strength is the amount of bodies it can generate. As long as the Oculus survives until your opponent’s upkeep, you get to Manifest Dread, creating another body. Occasionally, you’ll even Manifest Dread another creature for additional value.
Ironically, this strength is stopped by Grafdigger’s Cage, which makes complete sense when you think about it. Manifest Dread technically has a creature entering the battlefield from your library, which Grafdigger’s Cage stops. This makes Abhorrent Oculus a 5/5 flier with no other abilities, which is a lot less scary. Of course, Grafdigger’s Cage also stops Unearth.
It Stops Everything
This makes Grafdigger’s Cage absolutely incredible in the Modern format. Looking at our tier list updated yesterday, Grafdigger’s Cage stops something from almost every deck on the list:
- Stops Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury Escape in Boros Energy (might not be good enough)
- Stops Abhorrent Oculus Manifest Dread and Unearth in Dimir Murktide
- Stops the Grinding Breach combo
- Stops Green Sun’s Zenith in Amulet Titan (probably not good enough)
- Stops Past in Flames in Ruby Storm
- Stops Green Sun’s Zenith, Chord of Calling and Undying effects in Yawgmoth Combo
- Stops Urza’s Saga tutoring for creatures (like Haywire Mite that can be used to blow up Grafdigger’s Cage). This comes up in multiple decks on the list.
The only two decks that come out completely unscathed from Grafdigger’s Cage on our tier list are Basking Broodscale combo and Eldrazi Ramp. Broodscale Combo, in particular, commonly makes use of Grafdigger’s Cage to interact with other top decks.
As the metagame for the Modern format adjusts, expect to find more unexpected silver bullets that stop a ton of different strategies. If Crashing Footfalls, a deck on the rise becomes more popular, for example, Vexing Bauble completely stops the strategy.
Seeing cards interact with a format unintuitively is always a thrill. Expect to see more Grafdigger’s Cage in the Modern format in the near future.