Metagame Mentor: The Top 10 decks for the Modern RCQs in August 2024 (2024)

Hello and welcome back to Metagame Mentor, your weekly guide to the top decks and latest Constructed developments on the path to the Pro Tour. From August 3 through November 3, the next round of Regional Championship Qualifiers (RCQs) will take place, featuring Modern as the Constructed format for in-store events. In this round, RCQ participants will receive a sweet variation of Sleight of Hand, while top finishers will earn a Supreme Verdict prize card.

This RCQ round enables competitive Modern players to qualify for their corresponding Modern Regional Championship. These RCs will be scheduled between January 4 and March 16, 2025 and lead into the second Pro Tour of 2025.

To get RCQ participants up to speed on Modern, I'll walk through the current state of Modern, providing a metagame snapshot and walk you through the top 10 Modern archetypes right now, pointing out the biggest developments since Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3. Afterwards, I'll go back in time to highlight a great Modern deck from the 2012 Magic World Championship for a perspective on the metagame back in 2012.

Modern is a nonrotating 60-card format that was introduced in 2011. It allows cards from expansion sets, core sets, and straight-to-Modern sets from Eighth Edition forward, except for cards on the banned list. The next banned and restricted announcement will be on August 26.

Fresh from today's WeeklyMTG, Blake addresses the next Banned and Restricted announcement date, gives a peek into the process behind the curtain & discusses the potential for future changes to the philosophy. pic.twitter.com/9DFKGCxkYH

— Magic: The Gathering (@wizards_magic) July 23, 2024

For this metagame snapshot, I analyzed over 2,000 decklists from all scheduled non-League Modern events held on Magic Online and Melee from July 8 through July 29. This includes the huge $10K tournaments at SCG CON Baltimore and NRG Series Chicagoland. Overall, the most-played nonland cards were The One Ring, Galvanic Discharge, and Orcish Bowmasters.

I awarded each deck points equal to its rectified number of net wins (its number of match wins minus losses if positive and zero otherwise). Each archetype's share of total rectified net wins can then be interpreted as its share of the winner's metagame, combining popularity and performance into a single metric.

In this table, each archetype name hyperlinks to a well-performing, representative decklist. The "Other" category included Mono-Black Grief, Domain Zoo, Temur Breach, Orzhov Breach, Dimir Control, Naya Scapeshift, Four-Color Rhinos, Boros Burn, Rakdos Grief, Rakdos Soultrader, Jund Sagavan, Hammer Time, Domain Living End, Azorius Control, Merfolk, Rakdos Skelemental, Four-Color Omnath, Jeskai Dress Down, and more.

Bant Nadu dominated Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3, and it has remains on top of the metagame ever since. At last weekend's 349-player $10K at SCG CON Baltimore, the largest and most competitive event in my dataset, the Top 4 consisted of four Bant Nadu decks. At the moment, if you want to win Modern tournaments, the Bird is the word.

Meanwhile, the non-Nadu part of the metagame has shifted compared to the Pro Tour. The arrows in the table indicate the biggest differences. Most notably, Boros or Mardu Energy strategies with Guide of Souls and Amped Raptor have climbed in popularity. Furthermore, Matt Sperling's Esper Goryo's deck and Yuta Takahashi's Dimir Murktide deck had great results at the Pro Tour, and their archetypes have become more prominent since then. Conversely, Ruby Storm posted a disappointingly low win rate at the Pro Tour, and its numbers have dropped significantly.

Magic: The Gathering® – Assassin's Creed®, a Modern-legal set that was released after the Pro Tour, has had a minor impact of the format. The most-played new-to-Modern card from this set was Basim Ibn Ishaq, which synergizes with Mox Amber. However, across the thousands of decklists I analyzed, there were only 20 total copies of Basim Ibn Ishaq. The best-performing list, played by 2022 NRG Champion Raja Sulaiman, posted 4-3-1 at the event. There might be untapped potential, but it will require a leap of faith by deck builders.

To indicate what to expect for the upcoming RCQs in August, let's take a closer look at the 10 archetypes with the highest winner's metagame share over the past few weeks. To do so, I've used a decklist aggregation algorithm that takes into account the popularity, performance, and synergy of individual card choices.

At 18.0% of the winner's metagame in July, this is the big bad of the format. Bant Nadu is based around Nadu, Winged Wisdom, whose ability applies twice for each creature—not twice in total. So. when combined with zero-mana ways to target your own creatures, such as Shuko or Outrider en-Kor, you can go off. Each land put onto the battlefield by Nadu triggers Springheart Nantuko, creating another 1/1 creature that can get targeted by Shuko twice. Once you get going, you can easily draw your entire deck.

To win the game, most lists from Magic Online use Thassa's Oracle for convenience, while lists from tabletop tournaments don't need these training wheels. More commonly, they rely on convoluted Endurance and Sylvan Safekeeper loops. After drawing your entire deck, you can get to a point where you have bestowed Springheart Nantuko onto Endurance and your library consists of three lands. Then you target a few Insect tokens to put the three lands onto the battlefield, tap them for mana, make a copy of Endurance, sacrifice the lands to Sylvan Safekeeper in response, and put them back into your library. You can loop this for infinite mana, and there are various ways to win the game outright or leave your opponent without any relevant permanents.

Three-color builds with main deck Volatile Stormdrake have become the norm. Almost no one is splashing black anymore and Volatile Stormdrake's ability to steal Nadu has become an essential aspect of the mirror match. In addition, many successful versions used Malevolent Rumble in the main deck, digging for key combo pieces while putting a creature onto the battlefield for Shuko and Chord of Calling. It's proving to be a solid addition to this and other Modern combo decks. Regardless of the exact card choices, Bant Nadu is the deck to defeat right now.

Jeskai Control features spot removal, countermagic, card draw, sweepers, and the powerful new Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury to stabilize and win the game. The deck also exploits Wrath of the Skies from Modern Horizons 3, supported by Tune the Narrative and Galvanic Discharge. The sweeper is a brutally efficient answer to mana creatures, Shuko, Urza's Saga, and/or Nadu, Winged Wisdom.

Javier Dominguez made Top 8 at Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3 with a Jeskai Control deck designed to beat Bant Nadu, and similar lists have become the norm. Alternative Jeskai builds based around Flame of Anor, Dress Down, or Orim's Chant failed to put up big numbers after the Pro Tour. Dominguez's control build relied on Force of Negation and Subtlety instead of Solitude and Prismatic Ending, as counterspells that sidestep Delighted Halfling are generally superior to spot removal spells that trigger Nadu, Winged Wisdom. It's still worth having a few copies of white removal spells, if only to answer Suncleanser post-sideboarding, but players are favoring the blue cards.

The largest Jeskai Control development compared to the Pro Tour decklists is related to the decline of Ruby Storm. As a result, many players shaved Drannith Magistrate from their sideboard, making room for Obsidian Charmaw. This improves the matchup against various Eldrazi or Tron decks.

Boros Energy makes the most of Modern Horizons 3, and all cards work supremely well. Guide of Souls, Galvanic Discharge, and Amped Raptor provide the energy to dominate the battlefield, while the feline firepower of Ocelot Pride and Ajani, Nacatl Pariah puts considerable pressure onto the opponent.

More than half of the cards in the main deck stem from Modern Horizons 3, which also allowed the Historic version of the archetype to dominate Arena Championship 6 recently. This must have given Modern players a confidence boost, and the archetype climbed to 9.7% of the Modern winner's metagame soon after. Access to Harsh Mentor—the best anti-Nadu sideboard card in the format—helped as well.

Compared to the typical lists at the Pro Tour, the energy cards have largely been limited to only the very best ones. Typically, Unstable Amulet was shaved to make room for main deck Blood Moon. The enchantment may prevent you from hasting Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury with Arena of Glory, but it can steal free wins against greedy mana bases. When playing against Boros Energy in your RCQ, remember to fetch for basic lands to protect yourself from Blood Moon.

Mono-Black Necro features cheap, efficient interaction to trade resources in the early turns before refilling with Necrodominance. Unlike the original Necropotence, this new enchantment actually draws the cards, so you can almost double your life total with Sheoldred, the Apocalypse while sculpting the perfect five-card hand. There's also an opportunity to cast spells in between drawing cards and discarding to hand size. You can pay an exorbitant amount of life, pitch a bunch of modal double-faced cards to March of Wretched Sorrow or Soul Spike, then pass the turn at a higher life total than you started with.

After the Pro Tour, where Mono-Black Necro had a solid showing despite struggling against Bant Nadu, the most prominent builds have become heavy on four-drops. Both The One Ring and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse have recently finding success in large numbers. Early-drop creatures like Shambling Ghast and Dauthi Voidwalker have generally gotten cut. Having as many card-draw synergies as possible seems like the best approach

Mardu Energy has the same core as Boros Energy, but gives up Blood Moon for higher card quality. Notably, Orcish Bowmasters gives an edge against other decks with Ocelot Pride and Amped Raptor while Thoughtseize provides an answer to combo strategies. In addition, black unlocks various sacrifice synergies. For example, Chthonian Nightmare and Ob Nixilis, the Adversary can exploit Cat tokens, easily transforming Ajani, Nacatl Pariah.

The choice between Boros Energy and Mardu Energy is largely a metagame call. Boros has access to Blood Moon and takes less damage from its mana base, while Mardu gains stronger cards overall. At the tabletop Modern events that I analyzed, the win rate of Mardu Energy against the field has been slightly better, but both versions are viable.

Looking ahead, I wonder if Mockingbird from Bloomburrow might unlock Jeskai Energy as an option as well. I'll cover the competitive impact of Bloomburrow on Modern in a later article, but I'm already dreaming of creating a flying Ocelot Pride for X=0 or making a steady stream of Ranger-Captain of Eos copies for X=2.

Eldrazi Tron utilizes Ugin's Labyrinth from Modern Horizons 3, which can imprint Devourer of Destiny to get access to two mana on turn one. Along with Eldrazi Temple and the trio of Urza's lands, this deck ramps into enormous amounts of colorless mana early on, enabling busted starts. You could easily cast Kozilek's Command for X=2 on turn two or X=5 on turn three.

Compared to typical decklists from the Pro Tour, the aggregate Eldrazi Tron deck in July is now playing fewer copies of Trinisphere, Dismember, and Emrakul, the Promised End. Instead, Mind Stone and Thought-Knot Seer have taken their place. A turn-two Thought-Knot Seer provides reliable and versatile disruption against every deck in the metagame.

Esper Goryo's aims to discard Atraxa, Grand Unifier to Tainted Indulgence, then return her to the battlefield with Goryo's Vengeance. This provides a massive lifelink swing and a fresh grip of new cards, after which you can use Solitude or Grief to have an immediate effect on the game. Moreover, when Ephemerate is cast on an Atraxa that was brought back to life with Goryo's Vengeance, she returns as a new game object, meaning you won't have to exile her at end of turn. In addition, Ephemerate has excellent synergy with Grief, as rebound will force your opponent to discard yet another card on your next upkeep.

Although the Modern Horizons 3 additions are minor—Psychic Frog in the main deck, along with Wrath of the Skies and Consign to Memory in the sideboard—the core strategy remains powerful and proactive. Due to its large suite of interactive spells, Esper Goryo's can play like a control deck in disguise. With this play style, you can dictate the game before setting up your combo finish.

Gruul Eldrazi comes in a variety of builds, but all of them leverage Eldrazi Temple and Ugin's Labyrinth to ramp into massive threats. Lands that tap for two mana remain powerful as always. At the Pro Tour, Gruul Eldrazi decks typically used Through the Breach to sneak in Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, setting up an immediate attack with annihilator 6. These versions also tended to run All Is Dust. While Through the Breach remains fairly popular, another build has become even more prominent.

Instead of Through the Breach, the aggregate Gruul Eldrazi deck from July uses Utopia Sprawl, Malevolent Rumble, and Sowing Mycospawn to ramp into World Breaker or Emrakul, the Promised End. When casting these expensive Eldrazi, Kozilek's Return triggers from the graveyard to sweep the battlefield. The key enabler to tie this all together is Malevolent Rumble. It adds consistency and ramp while also filling your graveyard to reduce the cost of Emrakul, the Promised End. Milling World Breaker or Kozilek's Return provides free value. This new version of Gruul Eldrazi offers spicy synergies and looks promising.

Dimir Murktide is a midrange deck that uses countermagic, spot removal, and card-draw spells to fill the graveyard for Murktide Regent, quickly turning it into a two-mana 8/8 flier. The strategy is similar to Izzet Murktide, albeit with a different support spells. The deck was taken to a 7-3 record at Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3 by 2021 Magic World Champion Yuta Takahashi, and its 70% win rate was the highest out of all archetypes at the Pro Tour.

Although many players shaved Deep Analysis after the Pro Tour, the deck still evokes memories of the Psychatog decks that dominated Standard back in 2002, bringing a lot of nostalgia to players who played at that time. Psychic Frog is a sweet throwback to the original Psychatog, and Dimir Murktide uses the Frog quite well. It's quickly becoming the premier midrange deck in Modern.

Ruby Storm, the tenth and final deck of this overview, is based around Ruby Medallion and Ral, Monsoon Mage from Modern Horizons 3. With either of these cards on the battlefield, Pyretic Ritual and Desperate Ritual cost only one red, providing a huge mana boost. The cost of Reckless Impulse and Wrenn's Resolve is also reduced, allowing you to rapidly sift through your deck. The plan is to cast numerous spells in a single turn at a reduced cost, do it all over again with Past in Flames, and finish the job with a lethal Grapeshot. It's combo at its finest.

Although turn-three kills are likely, the deck can win as early as turn two with the perfect draw. Despite this potential, the deck performed poorly at the Pro Tour, as many opposing sideboards were ready with Damping Sphere and/or Drannith Magistrate. The prevalence of these sideboard cards has fallen off, making the metagame slightly more hospitable for Ruby Storm, but the combo strategy still sits in the shadow of Bant Nadu.

While the upcoming Modern RCQs are a perfect first step in your competitive Magic journey, the World Championship has always been the yearly crown jewel of organized play. As Corbin Hosler and I count down the weeks leading up to Magic World Championship 30 at MagicCon: Las Vegas in late October, each week I'm taking a look at a great deck from a past Magic World Championship.

Although preceding World Championships featured a large field of competitors akin to a Pro Tour, it changed in 2012 to a smaller-scale tournament. The event become even more difficult to qualify for, and the smaller field involved just the best players in the world. At the 2012 Players Championship, which would later become the World Championship, the tournament featured only 16 players. To demonstrate the strength of the field, over half of the 16 competitors are currently inducted into the Hall of Fame.

The formats were Draft and Modern, where Jund and Zoo were the most-played decks. In the finals, Yuuya Watanabe from Japan used Thoughtseize and Bloodbraid Elf to defeat his compatriot Shota Yasooka, who lost no more than a single match over the entire tournament prior to the finals. His spicy, nearly invincible deck was the talk of the tournament.

Yasooka's blue-red-green list took everyone by surprise, confirming the lasting potential for innovation in Modern. Many deck builders would not even have considered Aether Vial when you have more instants than creatures, but the artifact provided a powerful, reusable mana engine for Yasooka's strategy.

The plan was to tap Aether Vial to put Eternal Witness onto the battlefield at instant speed, returning Cryptic Command to hand. Cryptic Command would then counter, draw, or tap in addition to bouncing Eternal Witness. Next turn, Aether Vial would again put Eternal Witness onto the battlefield, setting up a loop that could be repeated turn after turn. It was a joy to see in action, and it led to his deck being called Eternal Command.

The main win condition in Yasooka's deck was Tarmogoyf, one of the most efficient two-drops ever printed. Due to the sheer number of cheap spells and fetch lands in Modern, Tarmogoyf was typically at least a 3/4 for two mana, and it dominated the format in 2012. To indicate its degree of saturation: Of the sixteen decks in the field, thirteen of them were running Tarmogoyf. Meanwhile, Yasooka was using main deck Spell Snare as a countermeasure to answer the 'Goyf. At the time, Tarmogoyf was the main threat in Modern.

In between 2012 and 2024, the Modern card pool more than doubled, enabling more combo decks. Cryptic Command has largely gotten outclassed, and Tarmogoyf is no longer the dominant creature that it once was. Nevertheless, this Eternal Command deck, as well as Watanabe's winning Jund deck, is an awesome piece of Magic history.

The 2012 Players Championship reinforced Shota Yasooka's mastery as both a player and a deck builder. The Hall of Famer is one of the few players to have achieved multiple Pro Tour wins, and his decklists are often brilliant. What's more, he's still got it. Shota Yasooka is on the invitation list for Magic World Championship 30, based on the match points he earned at Pro Tours earlier this year. On October 25, we'll be able to see what he and the other World Championship competitors have cooked up for Standard. I can't wait!