Modern: Midnight Hunt Highlights + Decklists

With new cards constantly being added with each set, it is a pleasure to see Modern become a scenario with ever richer options that will try to dethrone already forceful strategies, such as Dragon's Rage Channeler and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, of which I recently made an article about.

Although I think Innistrad: Midnight Hunt didn't make much good use of werewolves, we have new cards capable of adding a lot to the game, some of causing players to create wonders from their heads, and others, objectively stronger, being able to automatically guarantee itself in constructed formats. In this article, we'll talk about the cards that showed up after their release, and we'll introduce some that could be very interesting in the future.

For all the werewolves, vampires, and zombies here, I've put together some of Innistrad Midnight Hun's best cards for Modern. I ranked among the most interesting, in my opinion:

As a corrupted zombie version of Champion of the Parish, Champion of the Perished has what it takes to finally pave a blue and black zombie tribal in Modern. With lords like Diregraf Captain, the deck has everything to be considered ready-made.

The problem is that the tribe has been around for years, and every once in a while, it gets interesting additions, with many trying to build decks with that focus over time, with fun results at best.

As much as Champion of Perished seems like the icing on the cake, we should put our hands on our conscience and think about how many cherries this cake already has and if this guy is really going to complete this deck or if there's still something missing from its core.

At least it matches well with Diregraf Colossus, activating twice in a row.

Below, we have a very interesting deck that uses everything that was mentioned, but with the twist of being a Mardu deck, inspired by the list of player D00mwake, who scored 5-0 with it:

When I make this kind of analysis, I usually leave the lowest positions extremely customizable and try to put alternatives that are less obvious or that need more factors to reach their full potential, bringing a more creative vision to the article.

This is the exact case of Rem Karolus, Stalwart Slayer, who relies entirely on exiting the current meta's comfort zone, returning to the traditions of Boros Burn before the appearance of Lurrus of the Dream-Den, a card that might be banned one day, since many players have already shown some discontent with it and point out its strong presence in the competitive scenario.

Rem Karolus, Stalwart Slayer makes a great sideboard against aggressive decks that use red instants and sorceries to deal damage, nullifying their effects. Which could come in handy in a Burn mirror matchup. In addition, the human gives you an advantage for your own spells, increasing the damage done by them, improving your Lightning Bolt, Boros Charm and especially Lava Dart, which has increased damage in both installments.

As stated earlier, this little fellow will unfortunately only see play if Lurrus of the Dream-Den ever becomes banned, and Burn returns to accepting three mana permanents as its absolute curve-topper. It will be perfect on the sideboard against red decks.

Now, let's go into my Top 5 cards for Modern and how they have shown up or how they might show up:

Lately, Modern Red decks has been incredibly reliant on its graveyard. With high-performance cards like Unholy Heat and Dragon's Rage Channeler that lean on the variety of cards in your graveyard, cards that can do more than select what you throw into your graveyard might become necessary.

Cathartic Pyre is here for that, it not only does a competent looting effect, it also serves as a removal throughout the game. On the one hand, it's capable of dealing 3 damage to creatures or Planeswalkers, which is a more relevant amount than ever in a format populated by low toughness creatures like, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Lurrus of the Dream-Den, Hedron Crab and Dragon's Rage Channeler.

Its other mode allows us to select up to two cards and have the effect of discarding them to draw the same amount. The idea of ​​being "up to two" and not arbitrarily two is an interesting choice for Delirium decks, allowing us to discard only what we really need and want to discard, without having to get rid of any important cards, and without feeding the graveyard redundantly. Without Faithless Looting, Modern's true gold standard for discarding and drawing in the format, cards like Cathartic Pyre are strong contenders.

The most obvious comparison with this card is Timely Reinforcements, a three-mana card that puts tokens and gives you life, when you have fewer creatures or life than your opponent, respectively.

Sunset Revelry is a tweaked version of this card. It does give less life and fewer tokens than its more famous counterpart, but it rewards us with a lower cost and a third facility, that of drawing a card when your opponent has a greater hand size than yours. Card drawing is a very lacking ability in white, and Wizards has been promising its integration for a long time, adding little by little cards in the color that can fill your hand satisfactorily.

Achieving two or even all three modes of this spell isn't difficult, especially when playing it in an aggressive deck that's in bad shape after a sweeper, and casting this card could very well be the start to turn the tables.

Here, I present the player billsilve's UW Control, who did super well in the Modern Challenge:

Comparing cards from Innistrad: Midnight Hunt with existing counterparts is a theme in this article. Rite of Harmony is nothing more than a Glimpse of Nature with white and some benefits.

The most visible of them is its ability to draw you cards with enchantments as well as creatures. This becomes very welcome in decks like Enchantress, which uses cards like Sythis, Harvest's Hand to draw cards with every enchantment played, thus giving you two draws together with Rite of Harmony and Sanctum Weaver which generate mana for each enchantment on the battlefield, giving you plenty of resources to spend on new enchantments, which will generate new draws.

Also, this card, unlike Glimpse of Nature, is an instant spell, and can be cast in response to something that will give you some creature Token or after blinking your entire battlefield, such as with the help of an Eerie Interlude. Of course, Rite of Hamony also has flashback, allowing it to be recast later in the match.

Decks of small creatures or that generate plenty of mana will easily benefit from this card, which behaves like one of the most powerful spells ever printed. Elves, White Weenies, Enchantress, Prisons and others may flirt with the idea of ​​adding an extra color to the deck to optimize its card draw engine with this powerful addition.

I confess that this is the card I was least excited about in the set, I didn't understand why everyone talked so much about it. But Faithful Mending gets better every time I read its text.

As much as gaining life with the card can help the control decks against the aggro explosion in the meta, what make it worth mentioning is bringing the Looting effect to White and Blue.

The mechanic, that got its name from Merfolk Looter, which allowed you to draw one and discard another right away, was rather explored in Blue and non-existent in White. Except for Faithless Looting, most red cards do the opposite, discard first and draw later, leaving you to your devices.

A way to gain a breath of life, along with rotating your hand and selecting the cards that best fit your matchup, is without a doubt one of the best gifts Innistrad could bring as it allows you to throw away Negate against creature decks, Path to Exile against decks with no targets for it, and run those lands stuck in your hand in search of something more useful. And of course, Flashback for such a low cost makes this card even more powerful and desirable in your control decks.

Thinking of an even tastier and crazy idea, how about adding them to your UR Tempo or UR Phoenix and making them a Jeskai, with one more piece to make the Looting you want so much?

Taking the opportunity, we brought the Jeskai Phoenix from aspiringspike, who reached the top 8 at the September 19 Challenge:

Our friend, Gadu, also wrote an article about the deck and how the new set helped Phoenix decks! Check out here and enjoy!

Coincidentally, one of the lists that did the best result with Faithful Mending also used the card I consider the best card in the set:

At the beginning of the text, our fifth position was marked by Cathartic Pyre, a card that allows you to fill your graveyard with a good degree of selection or deal damage to certain card types. As much as I really trust the Pyre's potential, you have to be willing to trade some broader card, like Lightning Helix, to include it.

This problem doesn't occur with Consider, which goes well in almost every Blue deck. Opt brought up the problem that the cards played to the bottom were still in your deck, allowing them to be reshuffled in the future with some Fetchland, for example, and returned to your draw steps. Consider fixes this towards the end of the game, allowing you to discard useless cards from the top.

When placed in decks that care about the graveyards, the card shines even more, allowing you to select with surgical precision what will or will not be discarded, something essential for UR Tempo, which as said, is extremely focused on Delirium shenanigans.

With Consider you not only decide what to draw or not in these decks, you also grow up your graveyard. This card shows that simplicity often proves stronger than walls of text in explaining how some not-so-good cards work.

Even though it can be labeled as an evolution of Opt, nothing prevents these cantrips from being used together. Whether it's a mixed build, 3 of each, or something like that. But we must recognize all the merits of the card that helps to clean your top and your deck, as well as feed your graveyard, when necessary.

You should Consider using this card in your deck, for despite its simplicity, and it is, in my opinion, Innistrad: Midnight Hunt's most powerful card.

The following is the list played by Manacymbal, who uses the best of our two favorite cards from the new set to make a powerful Reanimator deck that brought him a 5-0 in a league:

That's all for today!

Innistrad: Crimson Vow will come out in November, and I am pretty sure it will bring even more interesting cards for Modern!

Thanks for reading.