Mono-Brown Urzatron

Thanks to excellent researcher Gerry Thompson for pointing me to today's deck. "Mono-Brown" is an old name for decks that play almost entirely artifacts, since the old artifact border was brown. Perhaps now I should call it "Mono-Silver."

Regardless, today's Modern deck uses the Urza lands the way they were intended: to cast lots of big artifacts. Kuldotha Forgemaster has seen a bit of play in Legacy, where it's dramatically improved by City of Traitors, Ancient Tomb, and Metalworker, but Magic Online user Duunko has ported that concept to Modern using the Urza lands to fuel his powerful artifact creatures.

Palladium Myr does a pretty weak Metalworker impression, but Metalworker was printed in Urza's Destiny, so it's not particularly fair to compare other Magic cards to it, and Palladium Myr still gets the job done.

This deck makes outstanding use of the casual favorite Lightning Greaves, which sees relatively little Constructed play, but it is certainly at its best here, particularly with Kuldotha Forgemaster, because it can give the Forgemaster—and then the creature the Forgemaster finds—haste in the same turn, and potentially protect a Platinum Angel, which can lock some (relatively few) decks out of the game.

One of the more interesting inclusions is Trinisphere. This card is extremely powerful in Legacy and Vintage, but much less impressive in Modern where, in this deck, it can't come out until the third turn. At that point, when the opponent has already had a chance to play his or her cheapest spells, does it still do enough? Apparently yes, but it's a noteworthy and unusual card to see here.

Decklist Stats Sample Hand

Creature (23)

1 Blightsteel Colossus 1 Inkwell Leviathan 4 Kuldotha Forgemaster 4 Lodestone Golem 1 Master Transmuter 1 Myr Battlesphere 4 Palladium Myr 1 Phyrexian Metamorph 1 Platinum Angel 2 Sundering Titan 3 Ethersworn Canonist

Artifact (26)

4 Azorius Signet 4 Expedition Map 4 Lightning Greaves 1 Relic of Progenitus 4 Trinisphere 1 Contagion Engine 2 Pithing Needle 4 Ratchet Bomb 1 Spine of Ish Sah 1 Tormod's Crypt