Only one month ago Wizards of the Coast revitalized Modern drastically with three bans and four unbans. Intending to make the format more fun and interesting, they attempted to knock Boros Energy down a peg by banning Amped Raptor, Jegantha, and the One Ring. The Jegantha and One Ring bans were for more than just Energy but each still hurt the deck while diversifying the metagame.

The four unbans, Mox Opal, Faithless Looting, Green Sun’s Zenith, and Splinter Twin also added a greater diversity to the metagame in combination with the hit Boros energy took. Now, instead of your local Splinter Twin player complaining the card is banned, they get to go 2-2 at FNM and claim they just got unlucky and the card is actually broken. The other 3 unbans are powerful cards that have impacted the metagame. In this article, we will look at what decks have stuck around from the pre-ban metagame and what decks have been powered up by the unbans.

Top Decks from Prior to the Bans

Boros Energy: Still Top-Dog

Boros Energy is still the most played deck and still incredibly powerful. While Amped Raptor was a part of the deck's most powerful starts, acting as essentially a free 2/1 first strike, and The One Ring gave the deck power through the mid-to-late game, Guide of Souls, Ocelot Pride, and Ajani, Nacatl Pariah are still crazy good cards. Additionally, Phlage is still a game-ending threat. The Amped Raptor and The One Ring bans were important to keep the deck in check but the archetype is far from dead. The questions that remain for the deck for the upcoming RC are: “Seasoned Pyromancer or Fable of the Mirror-Breaker?” and “Is it worth it to splash black?”. 

Dimir Frog

Dimir Frog, untouched by the bans, has stayed at the top of the metagame. The legacy-banworthy Psychic Frog is an incredibly powerful threat, drawing cards, distrupting your opponent, and killing them is very good. In general, if a card can be efficient and achieve two of these goals, disrupting, drawing cards, or killing your opponent, it is especially powerful. Psychic Frog and Baleful Strix are two cards that have been very powerful in Legacy or Modern for these reasons. Psychic Frog kills your opponents and draws cards and Baleful Strix draws a card and is a very powerful blocker. No matter what decks exist in a metagame, people will always play a disruptive tempo deck. 

Eldrazi

Eldrazi lost The One Ring aswell but even without the powerful card draw engine the deck has survived. Ugin’s Labyrinth and Eldrazi Temple are among the only Sol-lands in modern and as such give the deck a leg up in the metagame that other decks lack. Arguably, the sole reason the deck succeeds is because of the 8 sol lands, without the powerful ability of lands that break parity, Eldrazi would struggle significantly. Modern Horizons 3 also gave the archetype new cards, like Kozilek’s Command, that are among the most powerful in the format. (It is Ramp, Removal, Digging, and Graveyard Hate. Quite literally everything you want.)

Archetypes with Unban Power-Ups

Temur Breach

Temur Breach was a deck prior to the ban announcement but one playing 4 Mox Amber, the only playable Mox in modern. However, the unbanning of Mox Opal sent the deck into overdrive with lists now running 7 moxen and sometimes even Faithless Looting aswell. With now 2 legal and modern power-level moxen available the deck can have incredibly fast starts with 3 mana available on turn 1 and incredibly quick combo kills given its powerful card selection and graveyard filling available with Malevolent Rumble. Tamiyo and Emry both turn on Mox amber and as artifact enablers also synergize with Mox Opal. Temur Breach now is an absolute machine of just a list of some of the most powerful cards in Modern all working together to either grind very long games or combo kill opponents incredibly quickly. 

Yawgmoth

Yawgmoth is back. After being killed previously by a metagame hostile to a grindy combo deck, the deck has returned with both the Ring ban and the Green Sun’s Zenith unban providing new life to the archetype. Green Sun’s Zenith is in my opinion the 2nd most powerful mana dork of all time and easily the most powerful mana dork in Modern. Because the Sorcery can get a Dryad Arbor for X=0 it is effectively a Llanowar Elves turn 1 or late game any other green creature in your deck. While there was initial resistance to its inclusion since it can’t find Yawgmoth, it finding essentially every other card you may need makes it a very powerful and worthwhile inclusion. 

Indomitable Creativity

Despite initial fears of Faithess Lootings dominance, the card has proven to be very fine in the current metagame. Faithless Looting sees the most play in Indomitable Creativity where it can be used as card selection and digging for a turn 2 Archon of Cruelty off of Persist, but is not played too heavily much to my own surprise. 

Twin

This deck is not real and people are finally realizing the card is bad. 

The Outlier

Titan

Titan is in an odd spot. Green Sun’s Zenith is a very, very, powerful inclusion in the deck, however, losing The One Ring was worse for Titan than any other deck. The extra turn of protection and their ability to cast Ring as early as turn two was almost unparalleled. Green Sun’s Zenith costing an extra green mana but effectively being an extra 4 copies of Primeval Titan is very powerful. Additionally, GSZ can find other combo pieces such as Aftermath Analyst which makes it well worth it. Overall, Titan has survived, as it always does, and Green Sun’s Zenith has helped in that, but it is in a worse spot than prior to the ban.