A Sage’s Ramblings: A Toolbox for Modern Warfare (Part 1)

Posted on by

In case you’ve been living under a rock, in addition to Vintage and Legacy, we now have Modern as a new non-rotating format. In this multi-part article, I’ll be attempting the mammoth task of compiling a list of list of staples from these Modern-legal sets, partly inspired by Stephen Menendian’s Complete Vintage Checklist.

Since 2003, Wizards has published 6 core sets starting with 8th Edition, and 26 expansion sets spanning 10 blocks starting with Mirrodin. That’s 9 years worth of Magic printed totalling a cardpool (including reprints) of 2,218 cards excluding basic lands which form the basis of the Modern format.

As at 12 August, The Modern Banned list is 21 cards, or 0.95% of the current available cardpool. The list of banned cards is as follows, with the explanation for the list by Wizards here:

To clarify, this article isn’t about strategy, it’s supposed to be a starting point for anyone to start buying into this infant format. As a format that is just officially a month old, I see no better time to participate. Think about it: If you had a time machine where you could go back in time when Legacy splintered off from Vintage (then called Type I) wouldn’t you buy into the format? Sure, PT:Philly and associated speculative activity may have driven the price of some cards up (see Blazing Shoal and Through the Breach), but over the long term, most of the cards should retain some, if not all of their value, especially format staples. Now, this isn’t a financial article either, so bear in mind that prices may fluctuate for these cards on the list as new strategies emerge and as new sets are published. Remember, what is most unique about Modern versus the other two Eternal formats is that the entire Modern cardpool has the potential to be reprinted which even includes “mistakes” like Skullclamp, Tarmogoyf and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. In theory, the threat of a potential increase in supply of any particular card should keep the total cost of entry into the format down.

Method

At the moment, Modern looks like a pretty wide format where a number of strategies are viable despite being currently dominated by combo. While nothing’s stopping you from bringing your mono-white Kithkin deck to a tournament, don’t get upset if your opponent decides to vomit his entire hand of artifacts onto the battlefield on turn 1 or Infect-Shoal kill you by turn 2. With competitive Magic practicalities in mind, the list will concentrate on cards with the best chance of becoming tournament staples.

Over time, as the Modern game matures, there will be bound to be cards that suddenly break out at a big tournament that don’t find themselves on the list at all. This is expected. The basic idea of this article series is to compile an inventory checklist of sorts for the reasonably equipped Modern wizard, or in my case, the Modern Invoker (L34!).

Cards on the banlist will be addressed in the set that they are in, so look at the TSP commentary for a snap judgment on a card like Hypergenesis and Ancestral Visions.

Lastly, I definitely welcome feedback on the list as I expect the list to evolve and grow.

My Magic Box

How you keep your collection organized can be a huge topic. Some choose to keep them in folders, others in cabinets or in multiple deckboxes. I keep the bulk of my collection which aren’t already in decks in a WoW Epic Collection box (blasphemy!) with most of them fully sleeved in the same colour. This way, I can build a deck and sideboard in somewhat reasonable time. While some sleeves and cards are slightly more worn than others, I keep a bunch of unused sleeves around to replace the more tattered ones. In this respect, I really think Cryptozoic have definitely one up over WOTC.

Aside: The WoW Epic Collection boxes are simply excellent! They are pretty heavy duty boxes, and they come with a good quality deckbox with a sideboard divider that fits even double-sleeved decks. On top of that, you get an awesome playmat that you can easily sell for at least RM50, a bunch of WoW boosters and a Loot card that you can either open for kicks or sell to your WoW playing friends. Epic value indeed.

I have 2 boxes: one for Legacy and another for Modern and they are both split in the same way: Lands, Spells (Instants & Sorceries), Creatures and Permanents (Artifacts, Enchantments, Planeswalkers). I’ll be using this method to group our checklist.

Getting Started in Modern Warfare

In this first part of this series, we start off with 8th Edition, published in 2003 all the way up to RAV block in 2005, ending with 9th Edition in 2006. Let’s go!

8th Edition

Lands Spells Creatures Permanents

8th Edition is your first stop for the Urzatron and a number of format staples like Wrath of God and Birds of Paradise. It is also your only place for you to grab Bribery and Plow Under, powerful 5 mana cards with powerful effects. Intruder Alarm is there on the list because of its interaction with Imperious Perfect + mana elf.

Mirrodin

Lands Spells Creatures Permanents

Our first expansion is where you’d want to go and grab the few lynchpins of the format like Tooth and Nail, Chalice of the Void and Cloudpost. Chrome Mox, while still on the banned list, is still worth obtaining in my opinion due to its unique accelerant effect. It’s difficult to say if the Mox will ever make it out of the banned list because of Wizards’ intention to make Modern a “Turn 3” format, but it’s still an iconic card that any self-respecting wizard should own.

Darksteel

Lands Spells Creatures Permanents

Darksteel gives us more cards to add to our Affinity arsenal including the ubiquitous Arcbound Ravager. What is perhaps most attractive to me in this set though, are the 2 Mythic swords and Æther Vial. A card like Trinisphere keeps cascade decks like Living End honest. Even if they have an Ingot Chewer, they have to pay 2R to evoke the Elemental out.

Fifth Dawn

Lands Spells Creatures Permanents
  • NA

 

Despite Fifth Dawn story being about the Green Sun emerging from Mirrodin’s core, you can find plenty of blue staples in the set in the form of Condescend, Serum Visions, Trinket Mage and the artifacts typically found in Some-Level-of-Blue decks. By the way, did you know that Crucible of Worlds is now a $20 card?

Champions of Kamigawa

Lands Spells Creatures Permanents

A Dragonstorm for 4 Kokusho wins you the game even if the opponent has Leyline of Sanctity on the board. In my opinion, the banned cards Glimpse of Nature and the Top don’t look like they would be taken off the banned list unless some form of countermagic returns to the format (Mental Misstep?). Kiki-Jiki is there as your 5th to 8th Splinter Twin and Sakura-Tribe Elder as your green non-spell mana accelerant du jour. Through the Breach, once a $1 bulk rare, is now a format staple. As the Modern equivalent to Legacy’s Show and Tell, it can even power Emrakul through a Blood Moon effect (it’s a red card after all) as early as turn 3.

Betrayers of Kamigawa

Lands Spells Creatures Permanents
  • NA

 

The second set in the Kamigawa cycle is slightly higher on the power-rare count with the inclusion of the format defining U and R shoals. Kira is here as your friendly top-of-the curve Merfolk creature alongside the anti-Goyf, anti-Knight card Threads of Disloyalty. While I presume the Jitte was left on the banned list to avoid Modern combat becoming all about Jitte battles, watch out for the need to have at least a playset handy should the legendary equipment become unbanned.

Saviors of Kamigawa

Lands Spells Creatures Permanent
  • NA

As a clone that can return to your hand, Sakashima provides a unique effect that can even copy Emrakul. Erayo is there for some Affinity builds whilst Enduring Ideal is are there for the previously proven strategy of locking your opponent out of the game with enchantments (great if they ever decide to print accelerants like the Invasion sac lands:Tinder Farm and friends).

Ravnica

Lands Spells Creatures Permanents

 

On shocklands: (a) you don’t need the full playset to build a competent Modern manabase, (b) their generic names allow Wizards flexibility to reprint them in any block, (c) their current price is higher than they were back when RAV block was in standard: bubble much? On the other hand, Ravnica block is really great for common/uncommon Modern staples like Remand and Lightning Helix. The only other “great” money-rare is of course Dark Confidant, which sounds to me like a dead ringer to be reprinted in a dark, gothic block like Innistrad. It is odd that Dredge looks too slow for Modern at the moment, especially with Dread Return banned as well, so with that in mind, there could possibly be a case for Grave-Troll to be unbanned.

Guildpact

Lands Spells Creatures Permanents

 

The Angel of Despair is there for its historical role in Hypergenesis decks; the Plotter a great sideboard card for Cloudpost mirrors and the Shaman there for Melira combo. It’s also interesting to note that the Shaman has probably the best power & toughness to casting cost ratio with no drawback in Modern not counting Tarmogoyf.

Disssension

Lands Spells Creatures Permanents

 

The 2 most important non-land cards in the set are probably Spell Snare and Protean Hulk, the latter a Legacy defining card when Flash was unerrata-ed. Technically, the deck is still viable with Through the Breach (also an instant!) taking the place of Flash. As for those who miss Hymm to Tourach in Modern, the Rakdos half of Rise/Fall does a pretty good impression. By the way, just in case you didn’t get your Ghost Quarters as they steadily rose towards the $5 mark, you can now get them in Innistrad in all-new creepy looking artwork.

9th Edition

Lands Spells Creatures Permanents

The second core set in Modern gives us all 10 painlands and our favourite forest-dwelling simian. My other observations about this core set is that it has the only Modern printing of Wildfire and Sleight of Hand, also known as Preordains 5-8. Hypnotic Spectre is probably up there for nostalgia reasons but with no way to ritual him out on Turn 1 and with a ton of removal in the format, it is unlikely that he (She? It?) would ever regain its place as black’s poster child.

And that concludes Part I of the Modern Warfare Toolbox. Join me in Part II as we go from 2006’s Coldsnap to 2008’s Alara block.

Comments are closed.