The full effects of Magic: The Gathering bans are nigh-impossible to predict. Sometimes decks that are targeted by changes may prosper regardless. Sometimes, a deck will be eliminated, but something worse will rise in the vacuum left behind. The recent Modern and Legacy bans, thankfully, seem to have led to a good mix of both. Modern is a much more diverse format now, and Legacy has been rid of the Psychic Frog menace. Interestingly, MTG decks running the Frog and its partner-in-crime, Abhorrent Oculus, have started to thrive in Modern.
Decks starring these two cards certainly existed in pre-ban Modern, but they’ve risen to astronomical new heights post-bans. So much so that Legacy players will be getting some uncomfortable war flashbacks right about now. Whether this new development is cause for concern or not remains to be seen. No matter how you slice it, however, it’s a shining testament to 2024 power level.
Oculus And Frog Take Over MTG Modern
The deck in question is Dimir Oculus, and it’s one of the rising stars of the post-bans Modern format. In fact, it claimed all four top spots in a 151-player Modern Challenge event this past weekend. It also took up a 19% share of the 465-player Modern Super Qualifier yesterday. Looking at the top 32 results, Oculus and Energy seem to have dominated the event.
As a deck, Dimir Oculus is a kind of Midrange/Reanimator hybrid. It plays a lot of the generic ‘best’ cards in both of its colors, including Orcish Bowmasters and Subtlety. It supports these cards with a spellslinger package, stuffed with cantrips and counterspells. These spells let Dimir Oculus control the pace of the game, but they also support its graveyard plan at the same time.
Outside of Oculus itself, which asks you to exile six cards from the ‘yard if you want to cast it normally, the deck also runs the ever-powerful Murktide Regent. A well-stocked graveyard is essential to support a threat package like this. Psychic Frog, the other half of the MTG Modern Dimir Oculus puzzle, comes in clutch here. It’s a discard outlet, a draw engine, and a means of leveraging your graveyard all in one.
I mentioned above that Dimir Oculus is also a Reanimator deck, and Psychic Frog plays a key role here too. The deck runs a full playset of Unearth, which lets you bring back most of your creatures for just a single mana. Oculus is obviously the best target here, but grabbing a Frog or Bowmasters can be just as good. One sneaky pick that’s rising in popularity right now is Harbinger of the Seas: a blue creature version of Blood Moon that can totally lock some decks out.
Echoes Of Darkness
The newfound dominance of Dimir Oculus is novel for Modern, but Legacy players won’t be particularly surprised. Just before the bans, Dimir Reanimator was riding roughshod over the Legacy format, due in no small part to both Frog and Oculus. The deck was so good, in fact, that Psychic Frog was banned in Legacy to address the issue.
According to Wizards this decision was made because Psychic Frog gave Reanimator decks the option to play a fair game, which circumvented their usual weakness to graveyard hate. With the sheer power of Reanimator options available in Legacy, this created a deck that could fight extremely well on two fronts. It could either go for a classic Entomb/Reanimate line and claim an early win with Archon of Cruelty, or just grind out a fair game with Psychic Frog and other generically good Dimir cards.
Getting déjà vu yet? This gameplan is incredibly similar to that employed by Dimir Oculus in Modern, albeit on a bit of a higher power level. Entomb is a real game-changer, adding a toolbox element while also guaranteeing you hit your big targets every game. The step-up from Unearth to Reanimate is a big deal too.
Apart from that, the two decks play very similarly. Murktide Regent does a fine impression of a big Reanimator threat, and the counter/cantrip packages employed by each version are functionally similar. The fact that Psychic Frog, the card Wizards decided to ban from the strategy in Legacy, is still legal in Modern is a pretty big deal. The two formats have been drifting closer together in recent years, and this deck is one of the clearest examples of that so far.
A Problem To Be Solved?
So Dimir Oculus is a Legacy-level deck in Modern, that much is clear. The question is whether or not this is an issue. The deck proved ban-worthy in Legacy, after all. With its numbers rising rapidly in Modern, it could well end up on a similar trajectory to old Boros Energy soon.
Currently the deck takes up about 14% of the Modern meta according to MTG Decks. In addition, all of its key creatures are sitting in the top 5 ‘most popular’ creatures in Modern according to MTG Goldfish. These are warning signs very similar to those displayed by Boros Energy just before it caught the ban hammer earlier this month.
That said, I don’t think we should be hasty when it comes to labelling the deck a ‘problem’. The biggest reason for this being the fact that Modern is still in a bit of an experimental state. The bans and unbans have totally changed the metagame, with decks like Affinity, Control, and Energy all vying for a piece of the pie. Though Dimir Oculus is the top deck for now, there are plenty of other viable builds out there. It’s also possible that another strategy could emerge to dethrone it soon.
It is definitely worth keeping an eye on, however. There’s a trend in current Magic for Dimir being the best deck, with Dimir Midrange dominating in Standard too. Clearly Wizards is loving blue and black right now, and the colors are receiving a lot of powerful new pieces with each set. If this trend continues, Dimir Oculus could fully fill the slot Boros Energy left behind. While that would be preferable to a fully Modern Horizons-built deck, it’s still not ideal for format diversity.
