Modern: Boros Energy (2025) - Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

A month after the banlist updates, Modern introduced a dozen changes driven primarily by two cards: the absence of The One Ring and the rise of Mox Opal that put some combos back on the radar due to the ease of access to free mana.

As expected, the format has changed. The dominance of The One Ring over the past year has really reduced the diversity, and without it, Modern has begun to heal, with the aggregate of the Challenges in late December and early January featuring a healthy amount of distinct archetypes in the Top 32.

As with any competitive format, however, Modern will always have a few best decks, and these will see more play and tournament play than less reliable and/or unproven strategies - this is how competitive Magic has always worked and will continue to work this way as long as competitive Magic exists - and at the core of these archetypes is a well-known nemesis of the format during the second half of 2024, Boros Energy.

Despite losing three cards to bans, Boros Energy maintains a very solid core that has secured its position as the best deck, or at least the most reliable deck in Modern as we enter 2025. Amped Raptor was quickly replaced by Seasoned Pyromancer while the remaining slots are split between value cards like Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd, or answers like Blood Moon and Thraben Charm.

This list follows the pattern of most Boros Energy builds recently. While lists with cards like Showdown of the Skalds are already appearing in the maindeck, I prefer to stick to the philosophy that, today, Boros Energy is an Aggro that needs to beat unfair decks in the race while having interactions that guarantee breathing room for attrition - the combination of cards like Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury with Seasoned Pyromancer, which in turn interacts with Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd, which interacts with Ajani, Nacatl Pariah, and so on is what makes this archetype work so well.

The Sideboard is the part that undergoes the most changes each week in my list. The version presented in this article aims to deal with a specific range of the most played archetypes without leaving others too much aside, but if an archetype X or Y grows too much in the following weeks, changes will be necessary for Energy to keep up with the rest of the Metagame.

Maindeck

The heart.

Despite the loss of Amped Raptor, this deck continues to work so well because the interaction between all the cards above is extremely powerful, starting with Guide of Souls, which in addition to granting an extra breather against Aggro and an almost endless flow of Energy in this list, also turns any creature into an evasive threat, being lethal with Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury, but equally impactful with any other creature on the board.

Guide of Souls's life gain is essential for Ocelot Pride, an underrated card from Modern Horizons 3 that became a staple due to its interaction with Ajani, Nacatl Pariah, whose ability to create tokens sets creatures to trigger Guide of Souls, which triggers Ocelot Pride to increase the number of tokens created.

Ajani, Nacatl Pariah is also another of our top win conditions. Its small design mistake allows us to play a second copy of it to trigger the Planeswalker side of the first and generate an absurd amount of value in the process. Since we have many red permanents, using its damage ability while creating tokens is also easy, turning Ajani into a card that does a little bit of everything for a low cost.

In between, there is Goblin Bombardment, which due to the high amount of creatures and tokens we put into play, turns into a mix of win condition, board control and extra reach for creatures during combat and/or against the opponent's life.

The second set of interactions.

Seasoned Pyromancer has replaced Amped Raptor in most lists and guarantees positive value with cards like Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury while putting more bodies on the board for the combos of the above cards. It can also be exiled from the graveyard in longer games to create more tokens on the board.

Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd can be seen as a flexible slot, but its combinations with Ajani, Nacatl Pariah or Seasoned Pyromancer guarantee it a nearly fixed place in the maindeck, including the possibility of filtering the hand each turn by blinking Pyromancer repeatedly.

Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury is a mix of removal and threat in a single card, and is also our main bomb for longer games. An ETB and an attack from it with Guide of Souls' trigger guarantees 14 damage against the opponent, usually winning the game.

The board interaction.

Galvanic Discharge is a very comprehensive removal in an archetype that generates energy every turn with Guide of Souls, often being a source of damage so large that it can even deal with Primeval Titan.

There are situations where using Discharge just to gain energy is a viable option, and usually, these situations involve keeping Static Prison on the board for longer, since it is our own version of Leyline Binding.

Chained to the Rocks may be the third Static Prison, but I like having an unconditional removal that doesn't depend on the main resource we spend on other cards to work.

Thraben Charm does a bit of everything: it's a removal on boards with many creatures, graveyard hate against Murktide, Grinding Breach or Golgari Yawgmoth, and enchantment hate against several strategies that depend on some cards in that category to work.

Blood Moon is a necessity in a Metagame where Eldrazi Ramp and Amulet Titan are among the best decks, in addition to being a card we use to punish multicolored mana bases like Indomitable Creativity or Four-Color Rhinos.

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer was once the best creature in Modern, but now it's basically a support for games where its extra mana makes a big difference, like when we need to cast Blood Moon on turn two.

Some players like to mix up the fetch land names in their lists, but as long as you have four Arid Mesa and somewhere between 7 and 8 fetch lands that find Plains, the names don't matter in most situations - the important thing is that they can fetch two Plains for Blood Moon games and find Elegant Parlor and Sacred Foundry for games where we need the perfect mana.

Arena of Glory is another essential card with Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury and creates some explosive openings with other creatures if accompanied by the Guide of Souls trigger. Two copies seems like the ideal number.

Although it’s not a consensus, I like the idea of ​​Sunbaked Canyon as the twenty-second land on the list because there are few deckbuilding concessions in using it and the extra draw has some long-term value, but it can be replaced by the eighth fetch, or the third Elegant Parlor, or the third Plains.

Sideboard

Fear, Fire, Foes!'s main function is to be a trump card on the mirror and a way to, on the draw, hold off the opponent's advances with Ocelot Pride and Ajani, Nacatl Pariah. It can be used against other Aggro or archetypes with many X/1 creatures, but I don't like it against Yawgmoth since it doesn't deal with the archetype's core pieces.

Chained to the Rocks is an extra removal for games where we need to deal with specific creatures, preferably permanently and without major deckbuilding concessions. It can be used in the mirror, but also against most Midranges and even against some combos.

Artifacts have been all the rage in Modern since the Mox Opal unban. While some lists prefer Meltdown, I feel like the card is better today against Grinding Breach, but falls short against Belcher, so I opted for Stony Silence, which, while more fragile, is a bit more comprehensive.

Wear // Tear is the best answer we have against single-slot artifacts and enchantments in colors in Modern today, even over ten years after its original release. There are a dozen matchups where this card comes in to deal with a key card, even when the opponent's deck isn't artifact-oriented.

Surgical Extraction provides a free answer against key cards in your opponent's combos and a useful hate against Unearth, Persist and other effects that cause headaches in graveyard-based archetypes.

Ghost Vacuum is a complementary piece of graveyard hate that benefits us in longer games with an ability that allows us to “steal” creatures from our opponent. This second ability, despite rarely being activated, makes the card so comprehensive that it even enters the mirror.

From Cascade to Escape, Drannith Magistrate has become a Modern staple again because it deals with several decks that are currently on the rise in the Metagame, and our main focus in games where it appears is to capitalize as much as possible on the one or two “extra” turns that it guarantees.

Obsidian Charmaw has a similar function, but against Big Mana archetypes such as Eldrazi Ramp, Amulet Titan, or Tron, and with the bonus of being a 4/4 that can come into play for up to , despite normally costing against the most popular strategies in this category today.

Boros Energy

IN

OUT

Dimir Murktide

IN

OUT

Temur Eldrazi

IN

OUT

Grinding Breach

IN

OUT

Titan Amulet

IN

OUT

Ruby Storm

IN

OUT

Belcher

IN

OUT

Golgari Yawgmoth

IN

OUT

Four-Color Creativity

IN

OUT

Domain Rhinos

IN

OUT

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!