With the common presence of cards like Abrupt Decay and Qasali Pridemage in Modern it is unlikely to show the dominance it once exhibited in Standard many moons ago. What has been demonstrated over the past year is that Modern is still an underexplored format, and the most recent changes will just add more options to the field of the upcoming Modern format Grand Prixs and Modern PTQ circuit later this year.
While there has been much discussion recently of potential Unrestrictions in Vintage, or the possible Banning of Show and Tell in Legacy, ultimately nothing came of them. Vintage and Legacy are still very healthy formats overall, and nothing has demonstrated dominance that would merit shaking up either format.
This is the archetypal Wild Nacatl deck I played before it was banned, and seeing Elspeth, Tarmogoyf , Nacatl, and Lightning Bolt team up again is awesome. There are some new additions, too, as Dromoka's Command and Collected Company give the deck a flexible removal spell and a powerful threat, but the core of the deck is exactly what I think when I hear " Wild Nacatl.
Wild Nacatl , Tarmogoyf , and Loxodon Smiter can let the deck curve out nicely, and Lightning Bolt and Path to Exile can clear the way for it to attack without stopping. Bolt even sometimes finishes the opponent off, and if you draw all these cards, the deck can look very aggressive.
However, it also has cards such as Scavenging Ooze , Knight of the Reliquary , and Voice of Resurgence , which give the deck a solid plan going into the late game. Between Path, Bolt, Qasali Pridemage , Ooze, and Dromoka's Command , it's possible for Naya Zoo to deal with all the opponent's threats and win with just one uncontested creature. That flexibility is powerful, and it's why this deck is willing to be a little slower than one of the other Nacatl decks we are going to look at.
This deck isn't doing anything broken, and isn't fast enough to beat some of the truly broken decks like Amulet Bloom or Goryo's Vengeance. Where this deck shines is when people are playing decks like Splinter Twin , Grixis Control, Naya Burn, and other decks that don't do inherently busted things.
The Burn strategy is one I expect to see at every Modern tournament. People just love casting Lava Spike , and it turns out that it is as effective as it is single-minded. I feel like I just described this deck's game plan by saying the words " Lava Spike ," but there's a little more to it, and that's where Wild Nacatl comes in. The combination of Nacatl, Goblin Guide , and Monastery Swiftspear gives this deck some real recurring damage sources, and that's critical to protect against mulligans or mana flood.
If the deck was literally 20 lands and 40 Lava Spike s, some games it just wouldn't be able to deal 20 damage; creatures help protect against that. If any of the creatures hit twice—especially Nacatl—the game is almost over, and they combine especially well with Atarka's Command.
Essentially, Nacatl is a Lava Spike on wheels paws? Level of Aggression: Wild. I'd even go as far as saying that Wild Nacatl was better than Tarmogoyf. Those games where you go turn one Wild Nacatl , turn two Wild Nacatl , Kird Ape are usually too explosive for most fair decks to handle.
Creatures in Magic are getting better with every set and there will come a point where Wild Nacatl will not dominate a format the way it did during Worlds , and clearly WotC believes that the time is now. Here's what a Modern 5-Color Zoo deck will look like after the unbanning takes effect:.
I'm actually really excited to give this deck a try. I loved playing 5-Color Zoo back in Extended a few years ago. I called it the Kill Yourself deck. Take three damage from every land you play fetch plus shock and I even played Dark Confidant!
The deck was totally brutal on your life total but was incredibly powerful. Overall, I'm not really concerned with Zoo coming back into the world. I think that we needed a boost to aggro decks in the format.
Currently, the format is dominated by Combo and Midrange decks, and a much faster aggro deck will surely keep them in check. Bitterblossom holds a special place in my heart. Faeries was my favorite deck to play the entire time Bitterblossom was legal and I didn't ever consider putting it down and picking up another deck.
I mean, why would I not play Bitterblossom in a tournament when I had the chance? After Bitterblossom rotated out of Standard, it quickly began dominating Extended tournaments to the point where everyone was playing Faeries or decks to beat Faeries. In a card pool as large as Extended I honestly didn't think that the deck would take over Extended the way it did Standard, but I was clearly wrong.
It was indeed miserable. They changed the format of Pro Tour Philadelphia from Extended to Modern and banned a ton of cards to start the format off, including Bitterblossom. We never even got a chance to even play Bitterblossom in Modern's three year existence. Honestly the unbanning of Bitterblossom was the change I was most surprised about. It clearly dominated in every format it was legal in, and I don't really see why it won't dominate here.
There are a lot of answers to Bitterblossom in the format right now, and many of them are seeing play maindeck. Abrupt Decay is the perfect answer to Faeries as it is an instant and can't be countered.
In addition to Faeries now being the deck to beat in Modern, there are lots of other uses for Bitterblossom. The first deck that immediately came to mind was BW Tokens.
I have always enjoyed playing BW Tokens in Modern but it was usually a bit on the slow side against combo decks. We looked at why other aggressive decks were not played, and after our analysis decided to ban two cards. With the crazy combo decks and massive mana decks hindered, the next move was to help diversify the aggressive decks of the format.
Punishing Fire was particularly, um, punishing, to anything with less than 3 toughness, as was Wild Nacatl. Unbanned: Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. Since Modern is a non-rotating format, banned cards never rotate out. The DCI is unbanning a card to see how that affects the format. We looked for cards that were on the initial banned list for Pro Tour Philadelphia. We wanted a card that would not easily slot into an existing top deck and also wanted to enable a deck with a different play pattern than the current top decks.
After examining the options, Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle was selected as the card to unban. The effect was exactly as desired, as Scapeshift has become a key part of the Modern metagame, but is far from dominant or oppressive.
Banned: Bloodbraid Elf and Seething Song. Speaking of dominant, this was the time of Jund.
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