Cards to Watch in the Post-Breach Modern Meta
Happy Wednesday, readers! Today we’ll take a deep dive on some choice singles finding their way into the best archetypes the Modern meta has to offer in this post-Breach, post-The One Ring world.
The absence of
Let’s jump in!
Psychic Frog
Tempo-Control is back!
Rather than build Frog as an engine and discard outlet for Atraxa reanimation synergies, Frog now represents a draw engine and tempo piece that can be set up for a Murktide Regent’s Delve mechanic. In a sense, Frog is a cost-reducer for your most important card, and win condition, while also serving as a draw engine.
In many ways, Psychic Frog’s resurgence, and the growth in popularity of another interesting single we’ll talk about later, has to do with the absence of The One Ring more than anything else. The One Ring became ubiquitous with Modern and really homogenized the format, as any deck could utilize it as a draw engine and subsequent crutch. Having said that, some decks utilized it better than others, but the song ultimately remains the same.
Murktide Regent decks similarly fell to the wayside after MH3 was released, however, when decks can no longer run The One Ring, they have to get creative with how they compensate or build in its absence. Murktide decks have the luxury of tapping into the potential of Psychic Frog, and have stood to benefit substantially from doing so.
Having said that, Murktide/Frog decks still have a little bit more footing to find in a field saturated with Eldrazi, Energy, and Orzhov Blink. But if the trend of this deck’s representation continues, it’s not hard to imagine Psychic Frog swinging back upward in its respective price trend, though only time will tell. For now, Psychic Frog sits at a relatively undercapitalized price of $6.50, making for high financial potential in the weeks to come.
| Psychic Frog | ||
| Psychic Frog (Retro Frame) | ||
| Psychic Frog (Borderless) |
Emrakul, the Promised End
The flying spaghetti monster is seeing an uptick in Modern play within the Eldrazi Ramp archetype, which one could argue is the best overall deck in the meta after the Underworld Breach ban.
While Emrakul costs a “shocking” 13 mana, which is steep even by Eldrazi standards, it does have built-in cost reduction. For each card type among cards in your graveyard, Emrakul costs one generic mana less, which may seem trivial, but in a deck that runs four copies of
Obviously, the main value that Emrakul provides is the on-cast trigger, allowing you to
Thanks to the recent reprinting in
| Emrakul, the Promised End | ||
| Emrakul, the Promised End (Retro Frame) | ||
| Emrakul, the Promised End (Showcase) | ||
| Emrakul, the Promised End |
Seasoned Pyromancer
Seasoned Pyromancer was once a Jund mainstay, back when Jund was the most represented deck in the format many eons ago. While Seasoned Pyro was one of the highlights of
So what does this lovely Shaman creature do? Well, it’s a 2/2 for 1RR, which isn’t the worst rate, but more importantly, when it enters it allows you to do some looting by discarding two cards and drawing two cards, and then for each nonland card discarded, you create two 1/1 Elemental creature tokens. Effectively, for three mana, you get up to three creatures, and two card draws. If Shaman dies or would be put into your graveyard through other means, it has the ability to exile itself in order to create two more 1/1 Elementals. Not bad at all.
Back in the Jund days, this card enabled card draw and filled the graveyard up with different card types to make
Now, unsurprisingly, as Jund fell out of favor in Modern, so too did Seasoned Pyro. For a little over a year, this card was around $4 right up until Innistrad Remastered rolled around. Couple this with the recent bannings in Modern, particularly The One Ring and Underworld Breach, and what you have is a replacement draw engine for Boros Energy shells.
No longer running The One Ring, Seasoned Pyro now occupies its slot in Energy shells (which are basically the Jund decks of today’s meta) and draws cards, makes tokens for achieving the City’s Blessing from
| Seasoned Pyromancer | ||
| Seasoned Pyromancer (Borderless) | ||
| Seasoned Pyromancer (Foil Etched) |
Kaito, Bane of Nightmares
Bookending our discussion today, we have another new inclusion in Murktide Regent shells that’s making a positive overall contribution to its position in this post-Breach meta. Kaito probably didn’t get a fair look for Modern potential at the time it was revealed. After all, Modern was in an interesting period of turbulence between reeling from the impact of MH3 on the format, the burden of The One Ring and its outsized impact on the format, and so on.
In a world with neither The One Ring, nor Breach, decks are getting a little more creative with their advantage engines and looking farther and wider for cards to fill the shoes of these now-banned giants. Kaito serves many roles in Murktide shells: he represents a potential attacker with hexproof, a form of interaction, and most importantly a small-scale advantage engine.
Kaito’s 0 loyalty ability allows you to surveil two and then draw a card if an opponent loses life this turn. If Kaito connects for damage, you can use this ability post-combat to surveil and plant some cards in your graveyard to feed Murktide’s Delve mechanic, and then draw a card.
Because of its Ninjutsu ability, you’ll very seldom “cast” Kaito, which means he dodges
Taking into consideration that Kaito also sees play Yuriko cEDH shells, its current price is settled around $20, but as with Psychic Frog, there’s significant upward potential as Murktide shells continue to carve out their place in the meta.
| Kaito, Bane of Nightmares | ||
| Kaito, Bane of Nightmares (Borderless) | ||
| Kaito, Bane of Nightmares (Showcase) |
Concluding Thoughts
On paper, Modern seems like it's at the healthiest that it’s been in some time. Yes, Energy still occupies a significant portion of the meta, but so did old school Jund once upon a time. Again, on paper, there’s not one obvious problem deck or problem card - that we know of yet. One could argue that Energy is still a fundamentally broken mechanic whose push in MH3 is having a negative impact on the format, but that criticism aside, the meta looks fairly stable, healthy, and with a wider set of decks than what we’ve seen in some time.
Echoing the theme of this article, taking away power from the format has forced builders around certain archetypes to look for more creative substitutes to otherwise auto-includes like The One Ring. This evolution has led to cards like Kaito, Psychic Frog, and Seasoned Pyromancer seeing renewed interest, and are hopefully positive indicators of things to come!
Further Reading
Checking in on Aetherdrift Prices
Corey Williams
Corey Williams is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Shippensburg University in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. He considers himself a macroeconometrician with his research body reflecting work in applied macroeconomics and econometrics. Corey is an L1 Judge who started playing Magic around Eighth Edition. He enjoys Modern, Commander, cEDH, and cube drafting. Outside of Magic, he loves running, teaching, and the occasional cult movie.