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Modern on the Horizon for Arena

 


The fine folks at arena, amongst other things, announced at GenCon a couple of very impactful upcoming changes for the client. The first I want to discuss today, is that they plan to have "tournament Pioneer" completed on Arena by the end of the 2024 calendar year. I believe this will culminate with Pioneer Horizons in December of 2024. Additionally, the announced that Modern Horizons 3 would be a fully supported release on Arena, and I  feel it is most likely the Summer set for 2024. These two announcements, I believe, lay the framework for Modern to come to Arena in much the same way Explorer has brought us Pioneer. This article is a companion piece for my YouTube video on the subject.

With the fringe Modern sets numbering 36 (to the Explore 14 at announcement), it may certainly take a while to have the entirety available on Arena. Thus I believe that will start with the most played cards, and I have assembled a list of potential high impact decks. This include the Top 5 most played decks before and after the release of LotR, the 5 most budget friendly builds in the format, deck archetypes easily built from the resulting card pool. 

  • Rakdos Scam
  • Merktide
  • 5C Control
  • Creativity
  • Living End
  • MonoRed or Boros Burn or Aggro
  • MonoGreen Tron
  • Temur Rhino
  • 8 Whack
  • Gruul Breach
  • MonoGreen Stompy
  • HammerTime
  • Callab Blast
  • Gruul Aggro
  • Affinity

By analyzing these lists, and backing out low hanging fruit like the Fetch and Tron lands, and cards likely to be added to Pioneer, I was able to compile a list of cards needed to create this rough 20 decks. A surprisingly short list at that.

Maindeck Cards 54

Ancient Stirrings
Arcbound Ravager
Architects of Will
Archon of Cruelty
Autochthon Wurm
Calibrated Blast
Cranial Plating
Crashing Footfalls
Dauthi Voidwalker
Daybreak Coronet
Dead // Gone
Desert
Dismember
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Endurance
Fire // Ice
Flame Slash
Fury
Gemstone Caverns
Goblin Bushwhacker
Goblin Guide
Grief
Grinding Station
Groundbreaker
Grove of the Burnwillows
Hexdrinker
Hyena Umbra
Inkmoth Nexus
Kaldra Compleat
Lava Spike
Living End
Manamorphose
Memnite
Mogg Fanatic
Mogg War Marshal
Murktide Regent
Prismatic Ending
Puresteel Paladin
Rancor
Rift bolt
Scion of Draco
Searing Blaze
Shardless Agent
Shriekhorn
Slippery Bogle
Sojourner's Companion
Subtlety
Terminate
Thoughcast
Thunderous Wrath
Treetop Village
Urza's Saga
Welding Jar
Wrenn and Six

Sideboard Cards 37

Blood Moon
Chalice of the Void
Collector Ouphe
Crime // Punishment
Deglamer
Dress Down
Engineered Explosives
Etched Champion
Exquisite Firecraft
Flusterstorm
Force of Vigor
Foundation Breaker
Gaddock Teeg
Gut Shot
Kitchen Finks
Magus of the Moon
Nature's Claim
Noxious Revival
Obsidian Charmaw
Path to Exile
Sanctifier en-Vec
Smash to Smithereens
Sundering Titan
Terastodon
Thrun, the Last Troll
Torpor Orb
Void Mirror

Clearly this is a very short list to establish 20 playable decks in a new format, and could easily be accomplished in a single set. Who knows how much the 10 draftable archetypes in Modern Horizons 3 could add or overlap. When Explorer was announced, most creators recommended between 5-10 decks, so we are talking about a format at least twice it's size, with minimal efforts.

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