MTG Top 10: The MOST BUSTED Modern Decks of All Time | Magic: the Gathering | Episode 624

[@XaurielZ]

There's something poetic about Eldrazi unstoppably invading Modern and the breach in reality that let them in having to be closed, and also in Hogaak just coming back again and again despite multiple attempts to weaken it

[@andrewsparkes6275]

Hogaak didn't keep coming back. It just never left in the first place. Mostly because they were too prideful (on the design side)/greedy (on the corporate side) to ban the actually-problematic card from their brand-new set too soon. Even after the playtesters of that set (this was just before actual Play Design existed for supplemental sets) admitted they didn't test the set enough as it was, and that they didn't even playtest the version of Hogaak that ended up being printed at all.

[@Walter-n8b]

In the last issue of scry magazine they had a article about the eldrazyi saying that they would break magic it wasn't wrong 😉

[@danberger337]

Just wanted to say I appreciate the consistent quality content over the years. Always learn something new and keeps me involved with magic even when I don't play it as much. Thank you.

[@NizzahonMagic]

I appreciate that!

[@PapaBradford]

My favorite is that there's no drama that could come out of Nizza's content. There's no bashing of players, no YT drama that could come out of it. We're never going to see the headline that Nizza is a closet Nazi and retroactively ruin all of his years of content 😂

[@Psychonautical89]

​@@NizzahonMagicI know that some people might see someone popular on KZbin or in other media and think it must be so great, it must pay insane, it must never get old, etc. I'm sure it does, just like any other job, and I want you to know that I really appreciate the sheer volume in addition to the quality in spite of what I'm sure must occasionally not always be as fun to do as some might think. It's work, after all, work that you've been doing for pretty much a decade now, and that takes some serious dedication because passion can only go so far. Thank you for your dedication to the players of this game. I know at some point you'll have to retire, and that will be sad, but you've helped so many players with this game it's insane.

[@JuanWonOne]

​@bradsievers3541 uh I musta missed something. Who's the magic nazi?

[@PapaBradford]

​@nathantaylor6754 Seb McKinnon was fired for being at a rally in Canada with Nazis, Terese Neilsen is a big alt-right supporter, Noah Bradley was an admitted rapist I realize those are all artists, but those are example of popular fan faves in the MTG scene that turned out to be shitheels. We'll never need to worry about that with Nizzahon. He's a quiet, nice history teacher that fosters rats with his wife. Simple as. Lol

[@conovan5081]

I love the fact that I went to get a glass of water, came back, and the KCI combo is still being explained lol

[@adrianwolanski7475]

While it was really short lived, I think the valki cascade deck should have been on here as well. Wizards killed it after only 3 weeks by banning simian spirit guide and issuing an errata to the cascade mechanic. Playing a 7 mana Planeswalker on turn 1 was absolutely insane.

[@nharviala]

Wasn't the main wincon of those decks to go into something like Emrakul?

[@naomicoffman1315]

@@nharviala Are you thinking of Tibalt's Trickery?

[@astuteanansi4935]

@@nharviala You're thinking of Tibalt's Trickery. That deck was never consistent enough to be busted. It was just really miserable to play both with and against, since you were basically flipping a coin on turn 2 that would decide who won or lost, which doesn't make for a very entertaining game of Magic. At that point you might as well be playing rock-paper-scissors

[@uglyaniimals]

ooh good call, i didn't even think of this deck

[@delta3244]

Minor note, I don't think it's quite correct to say the Eye of Ugin produces 2 mana per turn. It produces 2 mana per eldrazi played per turn. Those two numbers can certainly be the same, but if you play two eldrazi in one turn, the eye effectively produced 4 mana for you across those two spells.

[@ceulgai2817]

They didn't day "2 mana per turn," they said "2 mana for all your spells," which encapsulates what you said.

[@delta3244]

​@@ceulgai2817Then they were wrong about the other land. Notice that when Nizzahon mentioned the two lands that produce mana for all one's spells, they then went on to clarify that the eye technically doesn't do that. From this, we can detetmine that when they said "for all your spells," they meant "all the spells in your deck" rather than "for each spell you cast." While both interpretations of the sentence make semantic sense in isolation, when the following sentence is considered, only the former continues to make sense.

[@ceulgai2817]

@@delta3244 The clarification is about whether it /produces/ mana, not about how many times a turn it does it. It is true that each of those lands takes care of {2} for each of your spells.

[@heartfang13]

Still baffles me that WOTC didn't see Oko's ability to turn your opponents creatures into a Homelands rare as being really busted.

[@astuteanansi4935]

The ability itself is fine, the truly baffling part is that someone decided "yeah this should *add* loyalty". If it were a -1 it would have been fine.

[@MTG69]

Homelands rare, great stuff.

[@itskmillz]

Yes the card would still be amazing if it was a -1 ability, truly baffling.

[@cax1175]

Eldrazi Winter? Nah, we celebrate the Eldrazi regardless of season. Emrakul welcomes all. And she doesn't die by poor writing like Elesh Norn.

[@sjstronghold9238]

No but Ulamog does.

[@Natboof]

She went to the moon due to ok writing

[@Xrilliam762]

Lol the most based MTG comment to ever be written. Someone get this man a beer.

[@cax1175]

​@@sjstronghold9238Yeah, Kozilek too unfortunately. At least Emrakul is just asleep.

[@astuteanansi4935]

@@sjstronghold9238 Literally indestructible ingame but dies to standing in some fire

[@mikotagayuna8494]

I had a friend who sold his Legacy cards to make a Modern deck saying that he no longer interested in a format that determines the winner of a match by turn two. He said that nearly a decade ago. Now I heard he only plays Commander.

[@sephyrias883]

01:06 this would be interesting too though, like the yugioh Cross Banlist Cup by Lithium. It is a lot of work however.

[@czajda]

I remember when some pro player answered question in interview about Hogaak without Bridge and they said it was s miss build and it is better without it 😀

[@d-boyzinfinity1614]

Decks were maining 4 Leyline of the void to deal with the Hogaak decks. Rip was too slow back then. Crazy times. That’s around when I entered modern. As a ygo player I was attracted by all the busted mh1 cards. I was like “you can do what with magic cards now?!” I gotta play this game. I waited to buy a deck tho cuz my experience with ygo made me realize Hogaak was gonna go soon and the format would shift to react to the huge change

[@crondog]

To be fair to storm, ponder, preordain, and probe were in just about every busted deck. If anything the causality is reversed. Those cards didn't get banned because storm was too good, storm became ban worthy because the cantrips were too good.

[@johnruhd5917]

There's a definition of broken I heard around Mirrodin standard that I liked. It's what they based standard bans on back then and I liked that better. A card is broken if its existence in the format reduces said format down to two types of decks: those playing it, and those playing against it. That makes the latter type a good bit harder since they also have to be able to beat each other.

[@altromonte15]

I love KCI because it sounds like a 6+-card combo christmasland deck that people would build as a joke, the first time you hear about it it sounds so stupid, there is no way it can be consistent, and yet it works

[@chazzanschutz6096]

Tough to master though. A lot of moving parts, trust in the deck, and at times, hard to figure out if what you are doing is legal timing while your trying to go off.

[@astrostl]

Playing against KCI was absolutely miserable time-wise. Ruined entire events because of every round going to clocks.

[@jenniferwilliams9612]

It is kind of amazing that between when you recorded this video and when you released it that Preordain got unbanned! 11:41 😊

[@NizzahonMagic]

Yep, it literally got banned WHILE I was editing it. Haha.

[@mantissaPuc]

@Nikachu said once that they made a modern tournament with no banned cards and the top 8 was almost all Eldrazi Aggro :-p

[@poiri]

Valki cascade should have been #1 easily. It did the Hogaak thing of just being better even after you maindeck hatecards for it and could virtually win the game much faster and with fewer pieces, a true 1 card combo. Turn 2 Tibalts was common and very hard to disrupt since the deck played many free counters to stop disruption or opposing Tibalts, it was insane.

[@Alecations]

The craziest part of the deck was how peak 2019 modern it was and it implemented the rule of the energy decks. The combo was just there and the rest of the deck was just the best cards in the format

[@icansavehiphop]

the problem with it being number 1 is while that deck was good hogaak is an entirely different beast. the deck consistently killed people on turn 2 and played a long grindy game that was impossible to stop. valki cascade had answers. hogaak had main deck leyline of the void and that was it

[@Alecations]

@@icansavehiphop They kind of operated similarly: Even if you stop the turn 2 combo they’ll both outvalue over time

[@blurgalsklech2929]

Honestly it wasn’t that busted. It sucked both the play against and even play with but it wasn’t busted. Strong yes, but boring and tedious were the reasons for the banning.

[@Alecations]

@@blurgalsklech2929 TBH the deck surrounding it being “2019’s greatest hits” was the bigger issue.

[@adams3627]

I had a friend who built himself a storm deck, we all learned to just concede whenever he started counting through the cards in his hand on turn 3. There was never anything we could do to stop him.

[@crawdaddy2004]

Did you ever think that maybe he figured this out and just started counting cards to get you to concede even if he didn’t have the win?

[@nicholasfarrell5981]

IIRC, the real problem with Twin wasn't the dedicated deck. It was that the combo could be added to almost any shell that could support Splinter Twin.

[@debumbivandebumbo3570]

It would be very fun to unban all the cards (except for the mistake designs like: skullclamp, dephs, probe, shaman, hoogak, dread, cruise and dig) and see what would happen

[@TheeGoodSir]

cruise and dig are veey strong but not nearly as strong without fetches, i wouldnt say they are design mistakes by that standard

[@MistaHoward]

KCI got banned from modern because WOTC wanted to make the game simpler and dumbed down and KCI flew in the face of that, no other reason.

[@MaliciousTachyons]

Rhystic Studies just posted his "Summer of th Gaak" video as well, seems like EVERYONE hated Hogaak.

[@thomasthemtman]

How about tell us some decks that are NOT BANNED ?!? that way we can build them ?!?

[@Pistallion1]

They should just unban everything besides the elsrazi land, hogaak, and dark depths and see what happens

[@astrostl]

* Star :)

[@tcgmetaslayer4202]

Hmmm after 30 years, broken decks still have either abusive mana, card draw, or spell/creature casting... I wonder when designers will learn...?

[@hlaw2830]

>KCI is more complicated than Grim-Long Bruh.

[@viserproductions1]

Rest in peace hogaak. Gone but not forgotten.

[@uglyaniimals]

if only i *could* forget it :P

[@andrewsparkes6275]

As an idea for a mini-series, how about a mash-up between your banlist series and your deck histories series. I.e. take a deck from Standard (or any other format, I guess) that survived multiple bans (Ramunap Red/Hazoret Red from 2017ish, the Simic Goodstuff pile from 2019ish that turned into 4c Omnath over time, etc) and give a little history not only about the cards that got banned, but what other cards came in to replace them to keep the deck strong, and all the other cards in the deck and how they helped keep it afloat despite key pieces being banned.

[@Ahdbfbfbeh]

You forgot to list Brassman Firewhip!

[@miekamariehodson1731]

it was never in modern

[@MyDj56]

Excellent videos as always! Just out of curiosity, is Nizzahon History officially a dead channel? I hope to one day hear more about Medieval History from you, Dr. Nizzahon

[@chazzanschutz6096]

Great list. Pretty much covers all the feels bad modern eras. Heres a wild one, a top 10 list of cards that could get reprinted into modern in MHIII, (with as much as Urza is getting reprinted, It sure would be funny if Winter Orb made the jump)

[@VeGiTo3Po2]

Maybe jund with desthrite shaman?

[@cooperburnham2359]

Delving Delver deck made me go 13-1 in an online tournament. I played chalice of the void and it was an easy 13-0 until that damned blue tron player

[@bobfranklin2572]

Crazy that essentially every single yugioh deck in the last decade has more complex combow than KCI

[@ADGamingLLC]

Well chosen. I really feel Pod can be unbanned.

[@faerie7dragon]

Preordain: I'll be back/I'm back 😎

[@czajda]

Unban twin!

[@5un5hine73]

DREDGE REUNION BABY 🎉

[@chapmanandchapmanproductio974]

BROKENNNNNNN

[@volosguidetomonsters3440]

Now I have an idea Hive Pact Armageddon Green-Blue-White Game Plan: Ramp into Hive Mind, Cast Pact of Intervention, Summoner's Pact, or Pact of Negation, the blow up all the lands

[@chazzanschutz6096]

Geddon not legal in modern?Modern? (I built an Ahnk of Mishra deck, then realized it wasn't legal in modern, lol).

[@volosguidetomonsters3440]

@@chazzanschutz6096 oh ok nevermind

[@MrKikke2]

Nice! Now it is the time from Legacy decks?

[@assault410]

Is modern REALLY a non rotating format?

[@spyderman312]

Haven’t watched yet, but gonna guess 1 KCI 2 Pre Summer Bloom ban Amulet 3 Eggs (Second sunrise)

[@spyderman312]

That number 10 though…

[@spyderman312]

This comment aged like milk on a southern front porch in the middle of July.

[@hudjahulos]

Great video, but you missed Tibalt’s Trickery which was pretty clearly in the contest for #1 most busted, imo.

[@rpriske]

TT was not that busted. It was just bad for the game.

[@NizzahonMagic]

I talked about my take on that deck in my "fastest bans" video. In short, the deck was deinitely a tier one deck, but it didn't get banned for power level reasons. It got banned because the deck was so thoroughly uninteresting to play with or against.

[@bobmenat3361]

"Modern is a non rotating format" modern horizons: hold my beer

[@NizzahonMagic]

Modern Horizons doesn't rotate anything. It just adds cards like any set would.

[@bobmenat3361]

@@NizzahonMagic denial

[@NizzahonMagic]

Or a fact. I'm not denying that Modern Horizons sets have a huge impact on the format, just that it isn't technically a "rotation."

[@dyne313]

I just wish Modern was a format with only cards that went into Standard. Now it's a rotating format and it's really ruining it.

[@aidanhood3666]

Have to agree with you there. Ragavan, elementals, wren and six, murktide, DRC, etc. not healthy for the format

[@marcoottina654]

@@aidanhood3666 fighting powercrept cards with other powercrept cards sounds fun (and diverse) /sarcastic

[@buddieschiknful]

Forgot about second breakfast which I would say is easily top 5

[@zackestin1368]

Wasn’t really a broken deck, just banned because of the amount of time it took up, it wasn’t too fast, died to counters, and had no real interaction of its own, it’s ban was mostly because of how long it took to play out.

[@elginrees6142]

If I were create a new format it would be modern but with only 2 banned cards: Hogaak and Eye of Ugin Interesting format?

[@delta3244]

Oko?

[@ceulgai2817]

Negatory, Ghost Rider

[@vivid.worker]

youre goated bro and look like it

[@LordNovaPrime1]

I think Twin should have been on the list. Yeah its hard to call it busted because it doesnt really feel like its busted but it was pretty much the best deck in modern the entire time it was in the format. Everything warped around twin. Its my favorite deck of all time and i played it exclusively the whole time it was legal and it felt like a cheat code. Definitely not safe to unban. I think people underestimate how easily it interacted with fast decks/combo decks and then killed them immediately.

[@Matti_Mattsen]

honestly, twin and pod should be unbanned

[@pauljimerson8218]

Twin would likely be a turn slow

[@theopreston8507]

yeah, nizz mentioned how pod pushed other creature decks out of the format-- with the creature decks we have now, i cant imagine izzet murktide wanting to play pod lmao, i think it would be totally fine

[@pauljimerson8218]

@@theopreston8507 Izzet murktide didn't do so hot recently either

[@superbaas8822]

It's worth noting that Murktide pods into Griselbrand

[@ItsDangerousGoAlone]

Seeing you can do two thought seizes and have a 4/3 menace for a single mana on turn one, yeah, pod is without a doubt ok and i do think twins is fine too.

[@talonarayan]

While not an exact carry over. I play alot of the Historic format on MTG arena. I can see alot of parallels between paper modern, and their cousins in digital only.

[@joelmonteiro1419]

Appreciate the content, even though I never got into Modern. I was a bit mad when Wizards got rid of Extended, my favorite format, so I never gave Modern the chance it probably deserved. That being said, the format doesn't look healthy at all nowadays thanks to the Modern Horizons sets.

[@ceulgai2817]

From my perspective, MH1 was fine, but MH2 was disastrous.

[@joelmonteiro1419]

@@ceulgai2817 going by what I hear in some podcasts, the free elementals and Ragavan completely destroyed the format.

[@Nopejams]

Splinter twin is fair, and 100% could get unbanned no reason for it not to be, wizards excuse why they wont is super weak, specially since they printed the evoke bs and one ring. Pod was toooo much of a toolbox deck, that junk is too powerful.

[@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor]

Bah, who cares about Modern? I personally don't even know what it is. All I know is it sounds like it wouldn't have any effect on "Top 10 Vintage Cards (Minus Power 9)"!

[@mchild80]

That doesn't make any sense. The bigger the card pool, the more things that you can do. Of course a Top 10 Modern list wouldn't stand up to a Top 10 Vintage list. That's like saying a Top 10 draft deck wouldn't beat a Top 10 Standard deck...duh

[@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor]

@@mchild80 I mean yeah, but I had to think of a bit somehow. Not much material when it comes to a list like this.

[@mchild80]

@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor There's a lot of material here. It shows power in a format. Last week he did the Top 10 Standard decks of all time. Affinity would be the only deck that may win a round vs any of these decks on this list. Shows the difference in power between a format with 2yrs of cards and a format with 12yrs of cards. Vintage has 30yrs of cards. The way Standard Affinity is to Modern is the same as Eldrazi and Hogaak is to Vintage. It's not fair and shouldn't be judged as such. We should just appreciate how powerful a deck is in their respective formats and not try to cross powers when it isn't fair to do.

[@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor]

@@mchild80 I mean perhaps, but I think you might be overthinking it. I don't actually have a real opinion on modern or an understanding of it, it's just a set piece to reference the video request, and videos like these are very hard to link to said video request beyond "This format =/= vintage" for someone like me who really only plays EDH.

[@mchild80]

@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor As an EDH player, it should make even more sense. What if EDH had a No Ban List. What if you could play Moxen and Rofellos and Upheaval. That would be Vintage. Currently it would be considered Modern and if you could only play commons and uncommons it would be Standard.

[@noartist4818]

Na, splinter twin and pod were toxic. Turn one sculped hand. Turn two counter, Turn three tap opponents land. Turn 4 win. The games became stagnant. The argument of twin being unbanned will never out way the toxic game play it forced everyone play around. Same for birthing pod.

[@LordNovaPrime1]

I don't think it was toxic (I also don't really think there's such a thing as toxic in tournament magic) but it was and would still be too strong imo. It was consistent, fast and interactive.

[@uglyaniimals]

wait what abt bloodbraid / deathrite jund ? i feel like that deserved a spot over kci which i don't remember being *that* bad, just a logistical nightmare like its predescessor eggs

[@a_fuckin_spacemarine7514]

The modt busted decks though are tron and titan. They've been around since the beginning, and they've managed to convince people (somehow) that they aren't totally broken (7 mana off three lands, a completely nonsensical, unintentional but hey its "cool" interaction between bounce lands snd amulet) the decks are nuts and always around, they're so broken and ubiquitous that we've all just accepted it.

[@a_fuckin_spacemarine7514]

Twin was only banned to promote "diversity" but all that ban did was cause "die-versity" of fair control alligned decks. Its ein rate was fine. Same reason they banned Uro and mystic sanctuary, crybaby anti-control players.

[@uglyaniimals]

as someone who lived through a good chunks of the decks of this list, i'd swap gravetroll dredge and amulet bloom, as the former was a lot more dominant and format warping then the latter. good list overall tho !

[@StEvEn420BrUlE]

You forgot to mention that Faithless Looting was banned because of Hoogak

[@NizzahonMagic]

It didn't though. It remained unbanned for two more years