For years, Green Sun’s Zenith has been on the banlist, but has felt like one of the safer cards to unban. It’s undeniably a powerful card. However, with so many ways to punish one-toughness creatures in the format, green creature decks were on the downswing.
Now, Green Sun’s Zenith is free to give a variety of archetypes new life. As it turns out, there’s a plethora of different combo decks and assertive strategies that have quickly begun implementing this card.
Many 5-0 Magic Online Modern League decklists are using this card. Green Sun’s Zenith decks were quite popular in the first Magic Online Modern Challenge since the ban announcement, too. Perhaps Green Sun’s Zenith is more impactful than we initially thought.
Intriguing Combo Decks Surge
Right away, the presence of Green Sun’s Zenith has given rise to multiple combo decks that rely on finding one specific creature to win the game with. Take Kethis combo, for example. Kethis combo is a deck that hasn’t made much noise at all this entire year. A major reason for that is due to a lack of consistency.
Well, Green Sun’s Zenith helps fix that. First and foremost, it virtually acts as Kethis copies five through eight. This extra redundancy makes it much more likely you can stick your namesake card and go off.
Furthermore, Green Sun’s Zenith provides a great backup plan and meaningful interaction at a low cost. With singleton copies of cards like Grist, the Hunger Tide and Endurance in your deck, you have the luxury of tutoring up situational cards that, depending on the matchup, can be exceptionally important.
Grabbing Knight of Autumn in particular in post-sideboard games can be the difference between winning and losing. Kethis and Agatha’s Soul Cauldron are both vulnerable to Rest in Peace effects. Green Sun’s Zenith gives you an easy out. You don’t need to dilute your deck a bunch, either. Just add one or two Knights to your deck, and you’re good to go.
Beyond Kethis combo, some players are going really deep in their bag now that Green Sun’s Zenith is unlocked. One player managed to go 5-0 in a Magic Online Modern League with Venerated Rotpriest Storm, which is another deck that failed to do much of anything previously.
The goal here is to use free spells like Manamorphose to build up your Storm count, then cast Ground Rift. All of your copies target Venerated Rotpriest, and your opponent will lose via poison counters. Once again, this deck doesn’t really do much of anything unless you have access to the namesake card. Getting to play both Green Sun’s Zenith and Summoner’s Pact may be just enough to give this deck legs.
Well-Established Decks Get Better
In addition to giving a variety of unique combo decks a resurgence, Green Sun’s Zenith is also appearing in a couple well-established archetypes that were already putting up good results. Two specific strategies come to mind here: Amulet Titan and Golgari Yawgmoth.
For Amulet Titan, Green Sun’s Zenith is a pretty solid upgrade when compared to Summoner’s Pact. Sure, you have to pay an extra mana to grab Primeval Titan, which is certainly a downside. The upside, though, is that you have free rein to tutor up other creatures on non-combo turns without having to worry about paying a big tax on your next upkeep.
Searching up Dryad of the Ilysian Grove can go a long way. In some matchups, simply tutoring for Arboreal Grazer can accelerate your gameplan while putting a relevant blocker in the way.
Meanwhile, in Golgari Yawgmoth, Green Sun’s Zenith can be a bit awkward not being able to grab Yawgmoth, Thran Physician (Green Sun’s Zenith only searches for green creatures). Luckily, Green Sun’s Zenith makes up for this by being an excellent ramp element.
On turn one, go get yourself Dryad Arbor if you need some mana acceleration. Already have a bunch of mana at your disposal? Well, then put Grist into play. Young Wolf and Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons are great tutor targets in games where you have Yawgmoth rolled up and are missing a different combo piece. It’s hard to go wrong with a card so efficient yet so versatile.
Giving Green Creature Decks Hope
One final style of deck that Green Sun’s Zenith is starting to give new life to is typal Elves. Go-wide creature decks have had a rough showing in Modern for years now. From Wrenn and Six to Orcish Bowmasters, Modern has been a hostile environment to decks like Elves.
Green Sun’s Zenith doesn’t exactly help in these scenarios, but what it does do is help you maximize your synergies and fight through hate. For example, Wirewood Symbiote can be found to both protect your most important Elves, such as Leaf-Crowned Visionary, and let you create an absurd amount of mana with Priest of Titania.
Green Sun’s Zenith gets anything from a mana dork to a mana sink, like Ezuri, Renegade Leader, which is a crucial facotr in the success of the Elves deck. Ultimately, it’s cool seeing players tinker with forgotten shells like typal Elves. Unbanning a card as powerful as Green Sun’s Zenith is certainly risky, but there’s no denying that Modern was in desperate need of a shakeup.
