It has been nearly six years since Stoneforge Mystic was unbanned in Modern, giving new life to Stoneblade fans everywhere. Unfortunately, that glimmer of light didn’t last long. The release of Modern Horizons 2 would bring a slew of powerful cards to the table, including Urza’s Saga, which turbocharged Hammer Time decks. More traditional Stoneblade tempo shells fell by the wayside.
Now, even Hammer Time is struggling, as Modern Horizons 3 completely changed the landscape of the format. Stoneforge Mystic, one of MTG’s most iconic cards, hasn’t made too much noise in Modern in quite some time as a result.
Yet, yesterday, a classic Azorius Stoneforge Mystic deck with some decent upgrades won a Magic Online Modern Challenge out of nowhere. This deck has some nice tools for the current metagame, so perhaps Stoneforge Mystic could be in for a revival.
Classic Stoneblade Vibes
At its core, this deck is focused on using tempo to its advantage. There’s a good mix of removal, Counterspells, and interactive Creatures to keep the opponent off-balance.
The heart and soul of the deck, as you might expect, is Stoneforge Mystic. Stoneforge Mystic provides a lot of flexibility here. You obviously have your big tutor target in Kaldra Compleat that can end the game by itself when it sticks. Both the Equipment and the Germ that’s Equipped have Indestructible, so many archetypes are unable to properly answer the large threat.
The downside with Kaldra Compleat is that if your opponent is able to remove your Stoneforge Mystic before you untap, Kaldra Compleat will rot in your hand. The good news is that if you’re playing in a matchup where you suspect your Stoneforge Mystic won’t live, there are other solid Equipment options to grab that are easy to hard cast on curve.
Cryptic Coat, for instance, lines up well in the face of removal. Not only do you get to repeatedly bounce and replay it in grindy games, but your Creature also naturally has Ward 2 and evasion. ‘
Meanwhile, versus beatdown decks, Assimilation Aegis is a potent upgrade. Having the luxury of tutoring up an answer to any problematic threat the opponent plays is a big deal.
Tempo and Control Elements
The rest of the deck is filled with ways to interact and stifle your opponent’s plans. For removal, both Solitude and On Thin Ice serve as extremely efficient answers to even the biggest Creatures your opponent could have One benefit to this style of deck is that you have plenty of ways to remove Creatures like Psychic Frog that easily outsize most damage-based kill spells.
To make Solitude even stronger, a few copies of Ephemerate make an appearance. Against Boros Energy and other Creature-heavy archetypes, it’s common to pitch a white card to Solitude, exile an opposing Creature, then with the Evoke trigger on the stack, Ephemerate Solitude.
You’ll get to exile another Creature, Solitude won’t go to the graveyard, and Ephemerate threatens to blink Solitude on your next upkeep if it’s not dealt with. Ephemerate also works well with Thraben Inspector to generate extra value. In some games, you may want to play Stoneforge Mystic with mana up so you get to use Ephemerate as a pseudo-protection spell.
For spell-based disruption, Reprieve and Spell Pierce are your go-to cards in game one. Reprieve shines against combo decks. It conveniently interacts even with uncounterable spells, which can be essential versus decks that run Cavern of Souls. Reprieve isn’t at its best versus the aggro decks, but you can at least pitch it to Solitude when necessary.
Finally, this deck runs two different three-drops that can singlehandedly swing games depending on the situation. First, Harbinger of Seas is a great disruptive element against greedy manabases. Harbinger is one of your best tools versus big mana strategies such as Tron that rely on non-basic Lands to pull ahead.
Second, Tishana’s Tidebinder excels in an environment where so many Creatures and Artifacts have potent triggered or activated abilities. From Primeval Titan to Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd, there are plentiful targets for Tishana’s Tidebinder to mess with.
An Incredible Performance
As cool as this deck is, it’s still a bit shocking to see it have a breakout performance like this out of nowhere. After all, there are a number of weaknesses associated with Azorius Stoneblade that could make things rather difficult.
One major issue the deck can have is applying pressure in games where you don’t stick Stoneforge Mystic. Kaldra Compleat is a nice clock, but your other threats are small. This is problematic both against fast combo shells like Ruby Storm as well as Eldrazi Ramp.
Reprieve only acts as a temporary solution. In the face of Ruby Medallion, Reprieve isn’t a reliable way to stop a combo kill unless you already have a ton of pressure on board. Similarly, Eldrazi Ramp abuses cards with cast triggers. Reprieving a World Breaker or Ugin, Eye of the Storms won’t stop one of your permanents from getting removed, and the opponent can presumably just cast the big spell again.
Consign to Memory and other sideboard cards do work wonders at least. Plus, you have tons of answers to big Creatures out of Dimir Murktide, and do a pretty good job staving off early pressure from Boros Energy.
These decks are super popular, so if you manage to dodge some of your bad matchups, you can spike an event. It’s been a long time since Azorius Stoneblade flourished in Modern, so this tournament finish is definitely a welcome sight.
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