By Frank Karsten

This weekend marked the first Modern Grand Prix since the release of Guilds of Ravnica. Earlier this morning, 1,553 main event competitors arrived at the Cobb Galeria Centre in Atlanta with their best Modern decks. In the end, it was Peiyuan Zheng who emerged triumphant with Bant Spirits, defeating Piotr Głogowski and his Ironworks Combo deck in the finals.

Modern's Diversity Is Still Shining Through

Modern, which takes its name from the "Modern" card frame redesign that happened nearly 15 years ago, is one of Magic's most popular formats. As demonstrated by the Day 2 metagame breakdown below, the format boasts a huge diversity of viable deck archetypes.

Archetype	Day 2 Players	Day 2 Percentage
Humans	34	10.7%
Burn	25	7.9%
Jund	23	7.3%
W/U Control	22	6.9%
Bant Spirits	21	6.6%
Tron	19	6.0%
Dredge	16	5.0%
Hardened Scales	15	4.7%
R/G Valakut	13	4.1%
Ironworks Combo	10	3.2%
Grixis Shadow	8	2.5%
Jeskai Control	8	2.5%
Infect	7	2.2%
Storm	7	2.2%
Devoted Company	6	1.9%
Runaway Red	6	1.9%
The Rock	6	1.9%
Ad Nauseam	5	1.6%
Affinity	5	1.6%
Amulet Titan	5	1.6%
Bant Company	4	1.3%
Bogles	4	1.3%
Elves	4	1.3%
Izzet Phoenix	4	1.3%
Abzan	3	0.9%
Mardu Pyromancer	3	0.9%
Naya Zoo	3	0.9%
Grixis Whir	2	0.6%
Taking Turns	2	0.6%
U/R Wizards	2	0.6%
Other	25	7.9%

The "other" category encompasses 25 singleton deck choices that we couldn't fit into the table: 8-Whack, BridgeVine, Bright to Light Scapeshift, Burning Spirits, Cheerios, Devoted Evolution, Domain Shadow, Faeries, Grixis Delver, Hollow One, Jeskai Aggro, Living End, Mardu Phoenix, Mono-White Martyr, Possibility Storm, Skred Red, Sultai Midrange, Temur Delver, Thopter-Sword, U/R Control, U/R Kiki-Jiki, Pyromancer Ascension, W/B Tokens, W/B Zombies, and W/U Spirits.

Basically, there is a competitive deck for every style of player in Modern, and you never know what decks you might face in a Modern tournament.

Guilds Of Ravnica Makes An Impact

For a non-rotating format with nearly 15 years of cards, it's remarkable how big of an impact the last few sets have been. Focusing on Guilds of Ravnica, arguably the biggest addition was Creeping Chill, which revitalized the Dredge archetype. Draining up to 12 life over the course of the game provides reach, helps Bloodghast get active, and is hard to interact with. Although there were no Dredge decks in the Top 8, perhaps because players were prepared with plenty of graveyard hate in their sideboards, there were still three copies of the archetype in the Top 32. In honor of that performance, we bring you the following Twitch clip.

Another Guilds of Ravnica card that made a big impact on Modern was Arclight Phoenix. Ideally, it is discarded to Faithless Looting on turn one and then brought back for free on turn two or three. Although no Arclight Phoenixes made the Top 8, there were six copies in the Top 32. Whereas Roope Metsa simply tossed two copies in his Mardu Pyromancer deck, Andrew Schneider was the best-performing player with 4 Arclight Phoenix in his main deck. His build, whose card choices are similar to the ones that Jon Stern explained to me for yesterday's highlights, focuses on discard effects, instants and sorcery spells, and creatures to take advantage of them.

Andrew Schneider's Izzet Phoenix – 12-3 (27th) at Grand Prix Atlanta 2018

Decklist Stats Sample Hand

Creature (12)

4 Thing in the Ice 4 Bedlam Reveler 4 Arclight Phoenix

Sorcery (12)

4 Chart a Course 4 Serum Visions 4 Faithless Looting

Instant (18)

4 Thought Scour 2 Burst Lightning 4 Fiery Temper 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Manamorphose

Land (18)

4 Scalding Tarn 4 Spirebluff Canal 3 Steam Vents 1 Shivan Reef 4 Island 2 Mountain

60 Cards

Sideboard (15)

2 Dragon's Claw 2 Alpine Moon 2 Abrade 2 Dispel 3 Anger of the Gods 4 Tormod's Crypt

Deal Another Hand

Only a little farther down in the final standings, we found the best-performing mono-red build, which uses even more Guilds of Ravnica cards: Runaway Steam-Kin and Risk Factor. In Quinn Kotecki's build, Runaway Steam-Kin powers the engine, and if it lives, you can do some pretty incredible things on the third turn. Given the rebate on red spells, you could chain a staggering amount of them and cast Bedlam Reveler very early.

Quinn Kotecki's Runaway Red – 11-3-1 (39th) at Grand Prix Atlanta 2018

Decklist Stats Sample Hand

Creature (16)

4 Arclight Phoenix 4 Monastery Swiftspear 4 Runaway Steam-Kin 4 Bedlam Reveler

Sorcery (10)

4 Faithless Looting 2 Tormenting Voice 1 Insult // Injury 3 Lava Spike

Instant (17)

4 Manamorphose 4 Desperate Ritual 2 Risk Factor 4 Lightning Bolt 3 Fiery Temper

Land (17)

9 Mountain 4 Wooded Foothills 2 Bloodstained Mire 2 Stomping Ground

60 Cards

Sideboard (15)

2 Blood Moon 1 Alpine Moon 1 Shattering Spree 1 Abrade 2 Lightning Axe 3 Anger of the Gods 2 Dragon's Claw 1 Shrine of Burning Rage 2 Destructive Revelry

Deal Another Hand

Although the best Arclight Phoenix deck surely hasn't been found yet, it adds a new angle to Modern that didn't exist previously, which is pretty exciting.

Continuing the theme of Guilds of Ravnica additions...

The Rock Returns To Modern

Sol Malka's The Rock – 11-3-1 (36th) at Grand Prix Atlanta 2018

Decklist Stats Sample Hand

Planeswalker (3)

3 Liliana of the Veil

Creature (15)

4 Dark Confidant 1 Eternal Witness 3 Scavenging Ooze 4 Tarmogoyf 1 Thrun, the Last Troll 2 Tireless Tracker

Sorcery (10)

2 Collective Brutality 4 Inquisition of Kozilek 1 Maelstrom Pulse 2 Thoughtseize 1 Traverse the Ulvenwald

Instant (7)

2 Abrupt Decay 3 Assassin's Trophy 2 Fatal Push

Artifact (2)

2 Mishra's Bauble

Land (23)

4 Blooming Marsh 2 Forest 3 Ghost Quarter 3 Hissing Quagmire 1 Marsh Flats 2 Overgrown Tomb 3 Swamp 4 Verdant Catacombs 1 Windswept Heath

60 Cards

Sideboard (15)

1 Ghost Quarter 1 Damnation 2 Duress 2 Fulminator Mage 1 Golgari Charm 2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet 1 Liliana, the Last Hope 2 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Slaughter Pact 2 Surgical Extraction

Deal Another Hand

Approximately 20 years ago, Sol Malka became famous for designing a black-green midrange deck featuring Phyrexian Plaguelord and Deranged Hermit. “I played it in Standard for a full year; it never came out of the sleeves," he told me. He named the deck after professional wrestler Dwayne Johnson, also known as The Rock. The deck name stuck, and it's the way Magic players have been referring to black-green midrange decks ever since.

The reason behind the name, if you're curious, was that back then, his deck could make a whole lot of tokens with Deranged Hermit. "One of the Rock's catchphrases was ‘the millions and millions of Rock fans," Malka said. "So, the Hermit is the Rock, and the tokens are the millions."

But that was nearly 20 years ago. Although Deranged Hermit is no longer legal, G/B midrange decks are still around in Modern, and they recently got a big boost in Assassin's Trophy. "It gives outs to resolved planeswalkers, which is huge. And it gives more game against Tron," Malka told me. And fittingly, the grandfather of the archetype heralded the introduction of Assassin's Trophy at the first Modern Grand Prix since its printing with an impressive 8-0 start.

The Best Decks From Good Morning Magic

The sweet new Modern brews don't stop at Creeping Chill, Arclight Phoenix, and Assassin's Trophy. On Sunday mornings at GPs, coverage always starts with the segment known as Good Morning Magic. This segment showcases some of the wackiest, spiciest, and weirdest brews to make it through to Day 2. Let's take a closer look at five decks from that segment, many of whom had great performances.

Thoralf Severin's Devoted Evolution – 12-3 (26nd) at Grand Prix Atlanta 2018

Decklist Stats Sample Hand

Creature (26)

4 Birds of Paradise 4 Devoted Druid 4 Duskwatch Recruiter 1 Kitchen Finks 4 Noble Hierarch 1 Scavenging Ooze 2 Shalai, Voice of Plenty 1 Viscera Seer 4 Vizier of Remedies 1 Walking Ballista

Sorcery (8)

4 Eldritch Evolution 4 Postmortem Lunge

Instant (6)

4 Chord of Calling 2 Summoner's Pact

Land (20)

1 Dryad Arbor 3 Forest 1 Horizon Canopy 1 Misty Rainforest 2 Overgrown Tomb 1 Plains 4 Razorverge Thicket 2 Temple Garden 1 Verdant Catacombs 4 Windswept Heath

60 Cards

Sideboard (15)

2 Burrenton Forge-Tender 1 Eidolon of Rhetoric 1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar 1 Kataki, War's Wage 1 Knight of Autumn 3 Path to Exile 1 Sin Collector 3 Tireless Tracker 2 Voice of Resurgence

Deal Another Hand

The main game plan of this deck, like a regular Devoted Company deck, is to assemble the infinite mana combo of Vizier of Remedies plus Devoted Druid, followed by Duskwatch Recruiter and Walking Ballista for the win.

But the unique elements are the inclusion of Eldritch Evolution and Postmortem Lunge. Gold pro Thoralf Severin got the deck from his teammate Jasper Grimmer, who recently cashed with it at Grand Prix Stockholm and felt it was really strong. "He said the deck only got better because a lot of the metagame evolved to be faster, when Dredge got Creeping Chill and other decks had to win at the same pace," Severin told me. "All the card choices in the deck [including Eldritch Evolution] are made based on how fast you can kill. If there's no interaction, then we'll kill on turn 3 or maybe turn 3.2 on average. That's about as fast as you can go."

"Especially the Postmortem Lunge is so surprising for many people—everybody read it so far," he laughed. What the card offers to the deck is resilience: when you play Devoted Druid on turn 2, you can still kill with it on turn 3 even if it dies. And that's pretty sweet.

Steven Peets's 8-Knight Naya – 10-5 (140th) at Grand Prix Atlanta 2018

Decklist Stats Sample Hand

Creature (28)

2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar 4 Knight of Autumn 4 Knight of the Reliquary 4 Tarmogoyf 2 Voice of Resurgence 2 Scavenging Ooze 2 Birds of Paradise 4 Noble Hierarch 4 Wild Nacatl

Instant (10)

3 Collected Company 4 Lightning Bolt 3 Path to Exile

Land (22)

1 Stirring Wildwood 1 Ghost Quarter 1 Kessig Wolf Run 2 Arid Mesa 4 Wooded Foothills 4 Windswept Heath 1 Misty Rainforest 1 Mountain 2 Forest 1 Plains 1 Sacred Foundry 2 Stomping Ground 1 Temple Garden

60 Cards

Sideboard (15)

2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 2 Stony Silence 3 Blood Moon 1 Settle the Wreckage 1 Dromoka's Command 1 Bojuka Bog 1 Abrade 2 Choke 1 Nissa, Vital Force 1 Domri Rade

Deal Another Hand

Steven Peets, playing in his first Grand Prix, had been playing Naya quite a while. "I wanted to play a midrange deck, so I was looking through the format in the moment they unbanned Wild Nacatl in Modern, and I was like 'I'm in'. And I've been in since then. There are some games where you stick two Wild Nacatls and turn them sideways and you just win."

The key new addition from Guilds of Ravnica is the flexible Knight of Autumn, which comes close to a Kitchen Finks / Reclamation Sage / Loxodon Smiter split card. "With the addition of Knight of Autumn, the deck takes a different turn," Peets told me. As he explained, it adds some maindeck interaction against Tron or Affinity, gets him back into the game against Burn, or just turns into a 4/3 beater against control. They also yielded a surprising win against a Storm player yesterday: "He stormed out and had one card left in hand. He Grapeshotted me for 21—I was at 18—and I cast Collected Company, slammed two Knights, and gained eight. I don't think he was expecting that."

He felt that Knight of Autumn drastically improved his Humans matchup. "It allows me to play the pivotal turn-2 three-drop. Especially if they start on Æther Vial, I can blow it up." He also made other card choices (such as Stirring Wildwood over Horizon Canopy, to block Mantis Rider all day long) with that matchup in mind, which is really valuable given that Humans was the most popular deck in Day 2.

David Hauser's Possibility Storm – 9-6 (221th) at Grand Prix Atlanta 2018

Decklist Stats Sample Hand

Planeswalker (2)

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Creature (2)

1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn 1 Endless One

Sorcery (7)

4 Serum Visions 1 Sweltering Suns 1 Anger of the Gods 1 Flame Slash

Instant (13)

3 Izzet Charm 2 Gifts Ungiven 1 Lightning Bolt 1 Remand 1 Condescend 1 Logic Knot 1 Mana Leak 1 Gigadrowse 1 Harvest Pyre 1 Kozilek's Return

Artifact (5)

1 Batterskull 2 Vedalken Shackles 1 Engineered Explosives 1 Expedition Map

Enchantment (6)

4 Possibility Storm 2 Blood Moon

Land (25)

4 Island 2 Snow-Covered Island 3 Tolaria West 4 Scalding Tarn 2 Flooded Strand 1 Polluted Delta 3 Steam Vents 1 Academy Ruins 1 Zoetic Cavern 1 Watery Grave 1 Sulfur Falls 1 Mountain 1 Cascade Bluffs

60 Cards

Sideboard (15)

1 Gigadrowse 1 Anger of the Gods 1 Engineered Explosives 1 Tormod's Crypt 1 Grafdigger's Cage 1 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Abrade 1 Chandra, Flamecaller 1 Counterflux 1 Dispel 1 Negate 4 Leyline of Sanctity

Deal Another Hand

The main game plan of this deck is to stick Possibility Storm, cast Endless One, and turn it into an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.

"I've been playing the deck for like five years," Hauser told me, although this was his first time playing in a Grand Prix main event. "I played it since we had to play Memnite. When Battle for Zendikar came out, they printed Endless One. Endless One means that you can play—because Memnite is an artifact creature obviously—noncreature artifacts, which made a Blue Moon control shell much more possible. So I could play Vedalken Shackles, Batterskull, and Engineered Explosives. And then they banned Splinter Twin, so now my deck is pretty viable."

What makes his deck stand out is that he employs Gifts Ungiven in a creative way. If you already have Possibility Storm in hand, you can search for the following four cards to guarantee the combo:

If they ditch the Endless One, which is correct according to Hauser, there is a Zoetic Cavern in the deck, which both Expedition Map and Tolaria West can get. So then you morph Zoetic Cavern, and hit Emrakul guaranteed. As confirmed with the head judge, this interaction indeed works this way: even though Zoetic Cavern would be exiled face-up, Possibility Storm looks for the card type on the stack, where it was a creature.

His list also had a lot of other one-ofs for Gifts Ungiven. "Modern is so diverse that hedging is net neutral, and with Gifts it's net positive." His deck has several sweet Gifts piles available. For instance, Hauser showed me Batterskull + Jace, the Mind Sculptor + Possibility Storm + Gifts Ungiven, which guarantees a way to win the game: either you get Batterskull or Jace, or you get the combo.

His sideboard is filled with ways to beat otherwise difficult matchups: Leyline of Sanctity against Burn; graveyard hate (all of which are artifacts for Academy Ruins) against Dredge, and Gigadrowse to beat W/U Control.

Marc Tobiasch's Pyromancer Ascension – 12-3 (18th) at Grand Prix Atlanta 2018

Decklist Stats Sample Hand

Planeswalker (1)

1 Ral, Izzet Viceroy

Creature (3)

3 Snapcaster Mage

Sorcery (4)

4 Serum Visions

Instant (29)

4 Cryptic Command 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Manamorphose 3 Noxious Revival 4 Opt 2 Path to Exile 4 Remand 4 Thought Scour

Enchantment (5)

4 Pyromancer Ascension 1 Search for Azcanta