Modern Metagame Review post 12/4 BnR & LCI

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

Before We Start

Lost Caverns of Ixalan (LCI) is a pretty strong set, which we could already tell back during the previews.
Add the Dec 4 BnR on top of that and the metagame has changed quite a bit. For the decks affected by the banned list, see the previous article The Impact of the 2023 Dec 4 Banned and Restricted Announcement on the Metagame.

Meta Change

As usual, here is the metagame list at the time of writing, with data from MTG Goldfish.
Because lists containing banned cards have already been removed, and to avoid skewing the usage rate of some decks (for example, Golgari Yawgmoth has the highest usage over the last 30 days simply because none of its lists were removed), I only used data from the last seven days, which should be a bit more accurate (?

Rhinos are now undoubtedly the leader of the meta. Murktide and Mono-Green Tron, which used to have a hard time against Scam, have seen much higher usage. It’s possible that this is just the first week after the banned list update, and some people who didn’t know what to play picked Murktide and Tron, two decks that weren’t touched much and have answers for most matchups.

Written on 12/13, before LMS Barcelona.

Over All: Tishana’s Tidebinder, Stifle Stands Up and Fights!

Before looking at the decks one by one, let me first mention this new darling of the format, so I don’t have to keep bringing it up later.

We can think of Tishana’s Tidebinder as a three-mana creature version of Stifle. Also, when you counter the ability of a creature, artifact or planeswalker this way, it loses all abilities (becomes a vanilla permanent) until Tidebinder leaves the battlefield.

What makes it excellent is that it’s a creature spell, so it dodges haters aimed at noncreature spells such as Force of Negation and Deafening Silence.

Although three mana looks heavy, that also means it can go into the Rhinos deck, and the Tron matchup becomes far more comfortable. Now even the cast triggers of the Eldrazi can be countered (Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger: First of all, I haven’t done anything to any of you… (five thousand words omitted)). Tidebinder is almost a universal answer to Tron: it can deal with the Ring, with Karn, and with the three abilities of Urza’s Saga (whether you want to deny the opponent’s mana, stop a Construct, or stop an artifact search). This indirectly forces Tron players to think about more dimensions of possibility when facing blue decks.

Finally, its creature types are right (Merfolk Wizard), which are the strongest tribes in Modern right now, and it works with the new LTR card Flame of Anor.

Tidebinder also handles many other situations, such as the triggers of Chalice of the Void or Void Mirror, the activation of the Ring, cascade triggers, and so on. For more, see another article, A Flash Deck That Can’t Be Countered: Mono-Blue Merfolk.

Yes, that’s right: Tidebinder’s ETB can also be used to counter the opponent’s Tidebinder ETB, just like we can use Subtlety to counter the opponent’s Subtlety.
So in the future we’ll see Subtlety countering the opponent’s Subtlety, Tidebinder countering the opponent’s Tidebinder, Subtlety countering the opponent’s Tidebinder, Tidebinder countering the opponent’s Subtlety… I’m so confused!

Rhinos

Rhinos were also swept up in the tail of the BnR typhoon and lost Fury, a powerful board answer. But Tidebinder handles many situations Fury couldn’t, and with few natural predators around right now, they’ve secured the throne as the leader of the meta.

Also, thanks to Tidebinder, the main deck can safely play a full set of Flame of Anor, with no need to squeeze in a Mutavault anymore.

Murktide

Murktide got both a cut and a sip of milk. Without Fury it loses two handy board answers in the sideboard, but it is also less likely to have its main-deck swarm of small creatures (Dragon’s Rage Channeler + Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer) answered by two cards from the opponent’s hand.

With Tidebinder it can also handle more matchups, so Narset, Parter of Veils sees less play. Partly that’s because Up the Beanstalk got banned, so the only thing left in the format that draws lots of cards is The One Ring, which you can just leave to Tidebinder.

Some players have also started adding Ledger Shredder back into their lists. The main reason is that with fewer Scam decks, there are fewer Orcish Bowmasters too, and you couldn’t beat Bowmasters anyway, so you might as well raise your win rate in the matchups without Bowmasters.

For the sideboard you might consider one more Brotherhood’s End. It’s a bit of a shame that it went from a one-sided zero-mana sweep to a symmetrical one, but it’s still better than nothing. If there are a lot of Hardened Scales in the metagame, consider two copies.

Mono-Green Tron

As mentioned above, Mono-Green Tron gets answered in too many situations by Tidebinder, so it has to think in more dimensions.
Also, since Scam has decreased, or you could even say vanished (at least you no longer face being hit twice and killed by a turn-one Fury), it can cut down on the number of Dismember.

Yawgmoth

Yawgmoth is about the same as I said before: with Agatha’s Soul Cauldron added, its usage rate shot straight up, but the diversity of its builds makes the matchups unpredictable. Interested readers are welcome to study it in A Guide for Yawgmoth Turned Chef.

For players who aren’t on Yawgmoth, you can consider using Cursed Totem in the sideboard to lock the activated abilities of all creatures.

Amulet Titan

One of the decks that returned to the scene after Scam disappeared. Also, with Spelunking added, the deck has more ways to make mana from bounce lands after they enter the battlefield.

However, Spelunking causes some rules issues, so let’s discuss them here while we have the chance.

Spelunking & Amulet of Vigor

First, let’s understand what type each ability is:

Spelunking making lands enter untapped: a replacement effect
Lands entering tapped (such as bounce lands, Tolaria West, Vesuva): a replacement effect
Amulet of Vigor untapping a permanent that entered tapped: a triggered ability
The ability of Primeval Titan/Cultivator Colossus putting lands onto the battlefield tapped: this is not a replacement effect

Also, a quick reminder: when multiple replacement effects apply, the affected player (the controller of the permanent or ability the effect affects) chooses the order in which they apply.

Next we’ll explain the different situations separately.

Spelunking vs Lands That Enter Tapped

Both of these are replacement effects (a land that enters tapped replaces the original effect of entering untapped with entering tapped), so we can choose which one applies, and either entering untapped or entering tapped is possible.

Edit 12/22
This is a simplified result. More precisely, it’s about how the affected player orders multiple replacement effects (later effects overwrite earlier ones).
Suppose an effect is going to be replaced by three replacement effects (call them A, B and C). The affected player can choose the order in which they apply, for example A -> B -> C, which changes the original effect in turn into the result replaced by A, then into the result replaced by B, and finally into the result replaced by C.
So in this example, the replacement effects for a land entering the battlefield can apply in these orders:
Spelunking’s replacement effect -> the land’s own enters-tapped replacement effect
The land’s own enters-tapped replacement effect -> Spelunking’s replacement effect
and the replacement steps are then:
The land entering is first replaced by Spelunking to enter untapped, then replaced by its own enters-tapped replacement effect to enter tapped
The land entering is first replaced by its own effect to enter tapped, then replaced by Spelunking to enter untapped
In conclusion, when a tapped land enters the battlefield with Spelunking in play, you can choose either to have it enter untapped or tapped.

Spelunking vs Amulet of Vigor vs Lands That Enter Tapped

If you have both Spelunking and Amulet of Vigor on the battlefield and play a land that was returned to hand, as mentioned above we can choose whether the land enters tapped or untapped. If it enters tapped, it triggers Amulet of Vigor’s ability and untaps the land; or it can just enter untapped and make one mana, but then Amulet of Vigor won’t trigger.
So with multiple Amulets of Vigor, entering tapped maximizes the amount of mana.

Spelunking vs Primeval Titan/Cultivator Colossus

As mentioned earlier, these two creatures putting lands onto the battlefield tapped is not a replacement effect. So if we put a land that normally enters untapped, such as Boseiju, Who Endures or a basic Forest, onto the battlefield with this effect while we control Spelunking, those lands will be changed to enter untapped and won’t trigger Amulet of Vigor’s ability (if there is one on the battlefield).
But if we fetch a land that is supposed to enter tapped, there are still two replacement effects (the land itself and Spelunking), so it can still enter the battlefield tapped.

Living End

In the Scam article I mentioned before that Dauthi Voidwalker practically pins Living End to the ground. There were even Scam players who, on the draw, would deliberately do nothing and discard Dauthi to the graveyard themselves, leaving the opponent too afraid to cascade at all until they found an answer.

Now that Scam’s usage has dropped sharply, Living End runs into this situation much less, so quite a few players have picked Living End up again for tournaments.

Hammer Time

Hammer’s little creatures can finally survive the early game without being swept away by Fury!
But that’s about all. As mentioned above, in sideboard games, to improve the win rate against Yawgmoth, people have started bringing Cursed Totem to lock activated abilities of creatures.
There is still Pithing Needle, but after Yawgmoth got Agatha’s Soul Cauldron, a single Needle can no longer lock it (if you use Cauldron to exile Yawgmoth, Thran Physician and give other creatures that ability, it can’t be locked), so bringing a more comprehensive creature lock is safer.

4C/5C Omnath

After Up the Beanstalk and Fury were banned, the usage of Elementals fell straight down, and because Wrenn and Six was added back, Delighted Halfling has also returned to the lists.
Also, Elementals may have a problem of not overwhelming the opponent with resources, so you might consider adding Karn to the build, but that still needs testing.

5C Creativity

Creativity also returned to the meta because of Scam’s disappearance. It’s a deck that isn’t weak in itself, it just disappeared for a while because it couldn’t keep up with the speed of the format, so its return to the meta is expected.

Death’s Shadow

LCI has a new removal spell, Bitter Triumph. Its cost of three life is very heavy in other decks, but it suits Death’s Shadow, a deck that wants to keep its life low anyway.

Scam

…Uh, why is it still in the meta?
Personally I think that after Fury got banned, this deck still has a certain amount of strength, it’s just not as strong at removal as before; losing a scammed Fury dealing eight damage divided as you like makes quite a difference. I think that without Fury this deck is a late-Tier 1 to early-Tier 2 deck. The Fury slot can be swapped for more kill spells, plus a few additional ones; also, since the chance of a turn-one scam has dropped, you could consider cutting a few Feign Death, or just go back to playing straight Rakdos midrange without mixing in Scam.
Recently I’d also like to try building the Rakdos midrange version from when MH2 first came out. Although without Lurrus of the Dream-Den its late-game resources might not keep up, with Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki it might improve, who knows.

Edit 12/19
As it turned out, at the LMS Barcelona Grand Open Qualifier, Scam still took the title. Broadly, they changed the Fury slots into straightforward removal and a few Seasoned Pyromancer, cut one Feign Death slot, and the rest is basically the same as the original Scam.

Control

Finally, the control decks. Over the past year or so, control decks have barely made it into the meta, until The One Ring from LTR was released and Dimir Control began to appear in tournaments.
Also, because Scam has decreased, control doesn’t have to face huge pressure early, so some players are trying to pick control back up, hoping to gain a foothold in the format.

Quite a few Dimir lists have also started splashing red to play Grixis, mainly because Tidebinder makes Flame of Anor better, and they can bring Alpine Moon in the sideboard against things like Urza’s Saga, which also makes it less likely to waste tempo.
The downside is losing room for four Preordain, which makes the early fight over resources more painful.

Epilogue

Actually, this article was originally supposed to be about Tishana’s Tidebinder, but halfway through writing I found that another writer who was working on a Modern Merfolk deck had already covered nearly everything there was to write, so it became about LCI’s impact on the metagame.
Then suddenly news came that the Dec 4 BnR would touch Pioneer and Modern, and I figured some cards might disappear, so I decided to continue after the BnR came out.
In the end I wrote nothing at all and just happily abandoned it (shrug.
But it had been a long time since I wrote a metagame review, and although MITQ #5 is mostly over, I figured we could still look at recent metagame performance, and that’s how this article came to be.

The next Modern list update should be after the New Year. Right now I’m focusing on Mono-Black Coffers, Grixis Control and Murktide, though it’s also possible that in the end I’ll be too tired to think and just take Burn out the door.

I also hope that Ravnica: Murders at Karlov Manor (MKM) in February won’t affect the metagame too much, at least not with a card that blows up the format like Up the Beanstalk (shrug.

The abbreviation of the next set is MKM… A mysterious voice: I want to be Miss Makima’s dog so badly… woof woof!