Despite being around for over a decade, Modern is a surprisingly active format with new decks popping up regularly. For better or worse, this is largely thanks to Wizards creating sets like Modern Horizons, which shake up the meta. Alongside this, the occasional Modern ban can also invert the order, breathing new life into the format once again.
With room for constant deckbuilding and exploration as new cards get printed, Modern is an incredibly compelling format. It’s also one of the most popular competitive formats in MTG at the moment, with tournaments aplenty. Thanks to this, you may well be looking to jump into the fray and beat the competition. To do that, you’ll obviously need a deck, and we’ve got you covered there.
Here are all the best MTG decks in the Modern format right now!
9 | Basking Broodscale Combo
Right before the recent Modern ban announcement, Basking Broodscale combo was gaining a ton of traction in the Modern format. It had strong matchups into all of the top decks, allowing it to gain a foothold into a format that was unhealthily dominated by Boros Energy. The deck got even better postban with the inclusion of Mox Opal but, for whatever reason, this deck doesn’t seem to be putting up a ton of recent results.
Like many of the strong Modern decks at the moment, Basking Broodscale Combo wins the game by assembling a few key cards. The main combo involves the namesake card and Blade of the Bloodchief. This, basically, allows you to make infinite Eldrazi Scion tokens (one at a time), create infinite colorless mana, and gain infinite entry and death triggers.
This two-card combo wins the game alongside a huge combination of different cards. The most common win condition for this deck is Glaring Fleshraker. The three-mana uncommon, one of the best in the entire game, will deal infinite damage alongside the Broodscale + Blade combo. It will also generate tons of mana, and can turn a massive Kozilek’s Command into a Fireball, offering a secondary win conditon.
Walking Ballista also becomes a win condition alongside Basking Broodscale. Since you can sink infinite mana into the creature, it can become infinitely large, dealing infinite damage. Karn, the Great Creator also becomes a win condition in this circumstance since it can grab a Walking Ballista from your sideboard.
While this deck should be perfectly capable of putting up results, it simply does not seem to be, at least outside of Leagues and the odd Modern Challenge. For that reason, the Basking Broodscale combo is eighth on our list.
With Underworld Breach now absent in the Modern format, Basking Broodscale combo may become the next Mox Opal combo deck, picking up Breach’s mantle. This deck could be very powerful and popular but, for the time-being, despite its strong finishes, it is rather unpopular.
8 | Hollow One
Hollow One is a blistering fast deck aggro that utilizes discard synergies to deal massive amounts of damage. Enabled by the unbanning of Faithless Looting, as well as the new Marauding Mako from Aetherdrift, the strategy is simply to get some early creatures that grow with discard, get Vengevine in the grave, and cast cheap Hollowed Ones. This creates a massive board that starts swinging for unbearable amounts of damage.
While this deck saw a decent amount of success before Underworld Breach was banned, the meta’s adjustments may hurt it significantly. Boros Energy gains a lot of life and can stonewall Hallowed One’s plan with Cat tokens. Orcish Bowmasters is an absolute disaster for this archetype, and is beginning to return in Dimir decks. Finally, Ruby Storm is very good right now, and that seems like a difficult matchup.
7 | Orzhov Sewers
Orzhov Sewers is the newest archetype to take Modern by storm. Utilizing effects like Aether Vial and Recuriter of the Guard, this Sewers deck is basically the current version of Death & Taxes in the Modern format. Utilize powerful ETB effects and abuse them with cards like Ephemerate to squeeze your opponent’s options before ultimately closing the game.
The core engine that allows this deck to exist appears to be Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd paired with Overlord of the Balemurk. Not only does this combo create a lot of card advantage, but Phelia can flicker the Overlord, turning it into a creature if you casted it for its Impending cost.
Thanks to the recent bannings of multiple Evoke Elementals in Modern, Orzhov Sewers is one of the few archetypes that can still take advantage of them. Solitude is at its best in a deck like this. You can pair the card with Ephemerate to exile multiple creatures at once for just one mana, while keeping Solitude’s body in play.
While Orzhov Sewers was one of the better decks before Underworld Breach left the format, it seems to have become absent after the bans. This may be a result of other combo decks rising in the ranks that have a better matchup against this deck.
6 | Mono Blue Belcher
Currently, the Modern metagame appears to be remarkably stable, all things considered. Following the chaos after the release of Modern Horizons 3, this is a relief, especially since creativity isn’t being stifled. While the top of the meta is fiercely competitive, occasionally more unique decks can break out and steal the spotlight.
Before the recent Modern bans and unbans, Mono-Blue Belcher was stealing the show. Utilizing a grand total of zero lands, this deck is very strange, but it’s also seriously strong. If you can get the titular Goblin Charbelcher in play and tap it, you win the game. Without any lands to find, Charbelcher reveals your entire deck before doming your opponent for lethal.
While Goblin Charbelcher won’t find any lands in this deck, there are technically 24 lands you can play. Each one of these is a double-faced card, which has a land on the back. Several of these, such as Sink into Stupor and Sea Gate Restoration can even be played untapped, at the cost of life.
Once you have some lands in play, Mono Blue Belcher is effectively a control deck that delays until activating its combo. Flare of Denial, Jwari Disruption, and Disrupting Shoal should all disrupt your opponent’s plans. The same is true for Harbinger of the Seas, which can stop many land-based shenanigans.
The more recent addition of Temeshi, Reality Architect has given Belcher a secondary combo line to utilize. This allows you to recur Lotus Bloom repetitively to generate tons of mana. This can turn on Sea Gate Restoration, draw tons of cards, and ultimately win the game with Goblin Charbelcher. You can even bounce the Sea Gate as a land with Tameshi’s ability to cast the spell side of it.
Mono-Blue Charbelcher has been seeing a decent amount of success after the Underworld Breach ban. There was little reason to play Charbelcher while Grinding Breach was in the format since it was basically just a better version of Charbelcher combo.
5 | Dimir Murktide
Now that bans have shaken up the Modern metagame, a familiar face is back in a new shell. Instead of Izzet, this time the namesake Murktide Regent has found a new home in Dimir alongside everyone’s second favorite Frog. That’s right, just as expected, Psychic Frog is putting in work after the latest Modern bans, though perhaps this deck should be called Dimir Oculus at this point.
Ostensibly, Dimir Murktide is a tempo-control deck that eventually drops one hell of a threat to finish games. You’ve got all the best counterspells and removal options that are Modern legal with Harbinger of the Seas providing disruption too.
Considering it’s a control deck that’s in black, Orcish Bowmasters is a four of must-have for this deck. The same is true for Phsyhic Frog, which is arguably the deck’s real killer card. As strong as Murktide Regent can be, Psychic Frog is an earlier threat that offers card draw and evasion too.
Thanks to the litany of cheap spells in this deck, activating the Frog’s third ability is a breeze. While this is good enough on its own, if you have Murktide in play both creatures get that much better. This gives the otherwise fiercely controlling deck a lot of power that stops it from falling out and floundering.
While the Abhorrent Oculus build of Murktide fell off in Modern’s last Regional Championship Qualifier season, a new variant of Murktide with the namesake card and Kaito, Bane of Nightmares is starting to pick up steam. this deck is certainly now a contender in the Modern format.
4 | Amulet Titan
Amulet Titan has long been a staple archetype in Modern for very good reason. Thanks to the titular Amulet of Vigor and lands like Gruul Turf, Amulet Titan can ramp incredibly quickly into major threats. Specifically, this deck is looking to play its other namesake card, Primeval Titan, for even more ramp.
To generate insane amounts of mana very quickly, Amulet Titan exploits bounce lands and untap triggers. Essentially, Amulet of Vigor will untap Gruul Turf, which you can then tap for mana before bouncing. A second Amulet of Vigor will let you do this twice, allowing you to generate four mana. If you have Explore in play, you can then recast Gruul Turf for four more mana.
Ideally, with two Amulets and an Explore in hand, you can play Primeval Titan on turn two. Once in play, Prime Time can grab Hanweir Battlements and Commercial District to immediately gain Haste. Not only does this allow them to crash in for damage, but attacking gets you even more lands too.
Should you find more Gruul Turfs or even Lotus Field, Amulet Titan can generate a disgusting amount of mana. This can be sunk into utility lands like Kessig Wolf Run to end games on turn three. Thankfully, even if you don’t hit this turn three combo in magical Christmas land, Amulet Titan can still hold its own.
Supported by The One Ring, Summoner’s Pact, and Urza’s Saga, the deck has plenty of tools to find its combo. There are even extra top-end threats in the form of Cultivator Colossus and Lumra, Bellow of the Woods. This helps to keep Amulet Titan viable against removal and the other best MTG decks in the Modern metagame.
Following the unbanning, Amulet Titan gained access to Green Sun’s Zenith, and it has proved to be absolutely monstrous for the archetype. This deck doesn’t have a ton of repeat top performances so far, but Amulet Titan is also infamously difficult to pilot. There’s a very good chance that this archetype should be higher on the list than it currently is.
Amulet Titan just won the biggest Modern tournament to date – the American Regional Championship taking place in Portland. This is the only deck that appeared to have a positive matchup against the broken Grinding Breach deck, but once the stats were all said and done, nothing truly had a positive matchup against the banned menace.
Amulet Titan continues to get results postban in the hands of its diehard fans, but a bad Storm matchup may spell trouble for this nostalgic Modern archetype.
3 | Ruby Storm
Ruby Storm was a fringe archetype in the Legacy format before Modern Horizons 3 allowed Ruby Medallion to make its presence known in the Modern format. The idea of the deck is to resolve a cost reduction piece and, basically, Storm your way to a Grapeshot win. This is achieved with a combination of Ritual effects like Desperate Ritual, Impulse draw effects like Wrenn’s Resolve, and Past in Flames as your engine piece.
Another big addition that adds a lot of game to this deck is Ral, Monsoon Mage. This Modern Horizons 3 Flipwalker does everything that the deck needs. Not only does this card function as a cost reduction effect early in your Storm sequence but if you manage to win a coin flip after passing Storm 6, you can flip Ral and immediately Ultimate it, exiling a ton of cards to cast.
Adding White to the red core of this deck allows Ruby Storm to run a bunch of removal pieces in the sideboard to deal with common pieces of hate. Get Lost and Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury gives the archetype a ton of game even in postboard games. With the rise of multiple other combo decks in the format, Orim’s Chant is also seeing play to buy some time, as well as stop countermagic.
With Underworld Breach leaving the format, Storm has become the de-facto combo deck in the Modern format. The deck quickly saw massive success in Modern’s early post-Breach ban days, but it appears players are beginning to adjust.
2 | Boros Energy
Bizarrely, even though Boros Energy was targeted in the December bannings, it is still likely the best deck in the Modern format. Without early answers, Boros Energy, and its Mardu counterpart, can quickly run away with games. With this thanks to the sheer speed at which it can build a board and deal damage.
At the core of Boros Energy, Ocelot Pride and Ajani, Nacatl Pariah put in serious token-generating work. Dropping these cards in succession will have you gaining the City’s Blessing on turn three. From here, the tokens you create are effectively doubled, and the steamrolling doesn’t stop.
While the Energy theme, with Guide of Souls at its core, still exists in this archetype, Boros and Mardu Energy has become more midrange-y in nature. Thanks to the unbanning of Mox Opal, in particular, the format has sped up significantly. As a result, the deck is forced to run a lot of hate pieces in the sideboard, slowing the deck down considerably.
Should all this not be enough, Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury provides extra removal and slower, but nonetheless damaging swings. Should this be too slow, Goblin Bombardment can repurpose your creatures to end games early.
Overall, Boros Energy is one of the most consistent and efficient decks in Modern right now. While it’s not steamrolling every event, thanks to the meta’s volatility, it’s nonetheless a dominant force that’s more than capable of blitzing through opponents.
Read More: Wizards Admits Recently Banned MTG Card Was a Design Mistake
1 | Eldrazi Ramp
If you ask most pros what they think the Modern format looks like after the ban of Underworld Breach, they would respond to prepare for the second Eldrazi Winter. Eldrazi Ramp, popularized in the last format, appears to be the best thing to be doingin Modern out of the gate.The overall goal of this deck is to, eventually, cast Emrakul, the Promised End.
Emrakul, the Promised End usually does exactly what it promises. Thanks to most decks either being unable to deal with a 13/13, or risk self-destructing when having their turn taken, this is a unique solution to the entire format.
Even if Emrakul can’t end the game outright, there are a series of other threats in the deck to make sure your opponents can’t keep up. Sowing Mycospawn helps accelerate your endgame, while also acting as a toolbox, capable of finding lands like Bojuka Bog.
Following Modern Horizons 3, this archetype has been empowered by Ugin’s Labyrinth. Synergizing with Devourer of Destiny specifically, this card offers powerful ramp while storing the Imprinted card for later. Alongside Eldrazi Temple, you have lots of fast starts in the deck, even without the Urzatron lands.