With Grand Prix Birmingham fast approaching, it’s important that anyone attending has done all of the necessary preparation. This includes, by this stage, being confident in your deck choice, having practised a large number of matches with that deck and perhaps even more importantly, having an in-depth knowledge of the format.

In Modern, knowing every deck you could potentially come up against is particularly important as there’s a wide range of reasonable and unique strategies and a lot of decks fight on a very different axis to the traditional creature based ‘grind-fests’ that we’re used to seeing in Standard or Limited. Facing up against a deck like Ad Nauseum combo or GW Hexproof (Bogles), it is easy to be taken by surprise by a couple of oddball cards like Angel’s Grace or Hyena Umbra that you weren’t expecting. However, I realise that it would be practically impossible to go through the intricacies of every deck in Modern in a single article. For this reason, here is a breakdown of just the current consensus ‘best decks’ in Modern and how you should go about trying to beat them.

GRIXIS DEATH’S SHADOW

As the current ‘bogeyman’ of the format, this is the deck that you should be the most prepared for both in your deck selection and sideboarding. Fundamentally, Grixis Shadow is a midrange-tempo deck with the goal of reducing its life total/ filling its graveyard in order to play an early Death’s Shadow, Tasigur, the Golden Fang or Gurmag Angler backed up by discard spells and a one mana negate in Stubborn Denial.

When playing against this deck, you want to be able to grind well. That means loading up on card advantage if your deck allows you do so or limiting their interaction if you are playing a linear deck. Cards like Leyline of Sanctity, Etched Champion and Collected Company are good examples of this.

Main deck cards to watch out for:  Stubborn Denial, Fatal Push, Kolaghan’s Command, Claim // Fame and Liliana of the Veil.

Sideboard Cards to watch out for:  Anger of the Gods, Kozilek’s Return, Collective Brutality, Leyline of the Void, Ceremonious Rejection.

Key weaknesses:  Graveyard Interaction on a large Scale (Leyline of the Void and Rest in Peace, not Surgical Extraction), ‘2 for 1’ effects, unconditional removal spells, UW control (Supreme Verdict + Gideon of the Trials).

AFFINITY

Affinity has been a mainstay of modern ever since its inception and will always be a dominating force in the format, providing that people (madmen) aren’t loading up on 4 copies of both Stony Silence and Ancient Grudge! The deck aims to build up a critical mass of artifact permanents in order to power up game breaking artifacts such as Cranial Plating, Steel Overseer and Arcbound Ravager. Being able to deal with the payoff cards is crucial when trying to defeat an Affinity opponent as they play a lot of cards that do little to nothing on their own. Ornithopter, Memnite and Mox Opal (arguably one of the most if not the most powerful cards in Modern) are all pretty ineffectual without support so targeting the 2-3 mana spells is usually the best method of attack.

Always be aware of potential Steel Overseer activations, Signal Pest battle cry triggers and instant speed Cranial Plating activations as well as the possibility of games being stolen by a couple of Etched Champion hits or a well-timed Galvanic Blast.

Main deck cards to watch out for:  Cranial Plating, Galvanic Blast.

Sideboard Cards to watch out for:  Blood Moon, Ghirapur Aether Grid, Rest in Peace, Dispatch.

Key weaknesses: ARTIFACT HATE, Wrath effects, Fast linear combo decks such as UR Storm.

ELDRAZI TRON

Similarly to Grixis Shadow, Eldrazi Tron is a relative newcomer to the Modern format, replacing its ancestor (Traditional G/x Tron) as the go-to big mana deck. Unlike its predecessor, Eldrazi Tron is not all in on the Urza lands, nor is it all in on the sol lands (Eldrazi Temple) like the ‘Eldrazi Winter’ decks were. Instead, the deck aims to consistently play powerful spells on every turn of the game from turn 3 onwards. This means that when playing against ‘fair’ decks, the average card from the Eldrazi Tron side overpowers that of the other deck (usually…) Because of the nature of the deck, it cannot play a large number of interactive spells as it spends most turns tapping out for large plays. Therefore, ‘lock’ pieces such as Chalice of the Void and even Walking Ballista and Thought-Knot Seer to an extent are employed as the main ways to disrupt the opponent.

The most important things to be aware of when playing against Eldrazi Tron are : the potential of a hasty Reality Smasher attack being able to kill you, the potential for a Walking Ballista or Walking Ballista activations to present lethal damage when it isn’t immediately evident and most importantly, the presence of All is Dust. All is Dust is a huge trump card in creature matchups and can be brutal if you do not play around it effectively. Notably, the fact that it is an Eldrazi ‘Tribal Sorcery’ is very relevant as it can be cast using the secondary mana ability from Eldrazi Temple. Don’t be caught off guard by 5 mana turning into 7 mana all of a sudden!

Main deck cards to watch out for:  Walking Ballista, Reality Smasher, All is Dust, Dismember.

Sideboard Cards to watch out for:  Ratchet Bomb, Wurmcoil Engine, Hangarback Walker, Basilisk Collar, Pithing Needle.

Key weaknesses: Blood Moon (Although they do have 2 Wastes, Mind Stones and Expedition Maps), Other Land interaction (Spreading Seas, Ghost Quarter), Unconditional Removal Spells (Terminate etc.)

These are the ‘Big Three’ decks coming into the tournament and hopefully this article has helped you in understanding how they function and what you should do to go about beating them. They are powerful decks but they have their weaknesses, all we can do is try our best to exploit them!

If you have any questions on the article or about another deck that you have been struggling with in testing, make sure to post in the comments below and I will try to get back to you as quickly as possible.

Good luck to everyone attending Grand Prix Birmingham!