Top 5 Phyrexia: All Will Be One Cards in Modern

With Reid Duke's recent Pro Tour win a majority of the focus of the MTG community is on Pioneer and the spectacle that comes with the return of the Pro Tour, however that doesn't mean nothing interesting is happening in Modern at the moment. The modern metagame is at an all time high in diversity and the new set Phyrexia: All Will be One has brought plenty of new and interesting cards to the format. Today we will go through the cards actually showing up and what decks they are in.

Elesh Norn, the Unkillable?

This Jeskai Obosh deck is by far the most exciting and interesting deck on this list. Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines won the modern Challenge in a Obosh Midrange list with 2 Elesh Norn in the Main Deck and 1 in the Side. Elesh Norn despite being 5 mana is almost impossible to kill in the format without a 2 for 1. She can't be killed via Solitude, Leyline Binding, Fury, or Unholy Heat. Not only that but she doubles your own triggers making Solitude into a free double removal spell. This list is absolutely sick and with decks like Amulet Titan and Creativity so popular a full set of main deck Blood Moon is incredibly well positioned.

Skrelv and Melira in Selesnya Death and Taxes

Another cool deck that placed well is this awesome D&T list using 2 new Phyrexia: All Will Be One cards. It got 5th in the Saturday Challenge! Skrelv, Defector Mite adds density in Mother of Runes effects. The list runs a full 4 Giver of Runes and 2 Skrelv to ensure it can protect its hate pieces. Not only that but Melira, the Living Cure is in the list as a 3-of. The legendary creature is a nice body as a 3/3 for 2 mana, reduces the channel cost of your Kamigawa lands and by far the coolest synergy is the use of Melira's 2nd ability to “scam” a Solitude, meaning you can evoke your Solitude and before the sacrifice trigger resolves use Melira's ability of “Exile Melira, the Living Cure: Choose another target creature or artifact. When it's put into a graveyard this turn, return that card to the battlefield under its owner's control.” to make your Solitude come back and exile another creature.

Venerated Rotpriest, a Fragile but Powerful Combo Piece

Venerated Rotpriest, to my surprise, actually got 13th in the Saturday Challenge. Venerated Rotpriest works very, very well with Ground Rift allowing theoretical turn 2 kills as you can target Rotpriest with your own Ground Rift meaning if you can get your storm to 10 (or less if you target your Rotpriest along the way) you can kill your opponent with your multitude of Ground Rift copies and their accompanying poison counters.

This deck however folds to any removal spell in response to the storm trigger. Additionally Rotpriest only cares about spells so it doesn't even trigger off of Solitude or Fury as both of them kill things as a result of enter the battlefield abilities. Regardless, the deck got 13th in the challenge so there is certainly some power to it.

The Mycosynth Gardens, a New Modern Staple

As soon as Mycosynth Gardens was spoiled Amulet Titan players voiced it would break the deck. The Mycosynth Garden's ability to copy an artifact is insanely powerful with Amulet of Vigor. This is because Amulet is very cheap, making it cheap to copy, and it is absurdly powerful in multiples, a bounceland producing 4+ mana by itself is completely unfair. Whether or not Titan is actually broken is yet to be determined but Gardens certainly is very good. It enables turn 2 kills and even turn 3 kills without an Amulet in hand (as it can be fetched off of Urza's Saga). Amulet Titan got 5th & 6th in the Saturday Challenge and 3rd in the Sunday Challenge. The Sunday list only had 3 copies, this is because the truth behind Amulet Titan is that despite running 32+ lands the mana is atrocious. Out of any cards on this list if anything is here to stay is definitely The Mycosynth Gardens.

Did the Magic Community Make a Misstep in Their Evaluation of Minor Misstep?

Minor Misstep is a 1 mana counterspell for cards of mana value 1 or less. This counterspell hits plenty of cards in Modern, Ragavan, Unholy Heat, Crashing Footfalls, and/or Living End are all amazing and plentiful targets. Some cried out that this card is broken and will become a staple in the format. The card certainly has the traits of a powerful card, as it is even named after the broken and banned-in-every-format Mental Misstep, but there is a very big difference between costing 1 and 0 mana. This is not to say that everyone was terrified by the printing of this card, there were certainly voices in the community voicing that this card would be unproblematic. In the end, Minor Misstep is putting up close to 0 results. It showed up as a 1-of in a Murktide list that got… 28th place in the Sunday Challenge.