How They Brew It - The Best Modular Deck
Zabaz, the Glimmerwasp by Jason Felix
Quick Fix
Hi there! I'm level five Tech Wiz Michael Celani, and welcome to uBreakiTakeuLeaveiRepairuComeBackiBilluPayiReturnuLeaveAgain®®, the nation's premiere machine fixologists. We repair computers, video game consoles, and ancient religious artifacts the precursor race who once inhabited our planet left behind. While you wait for us to make your Walkman as good as new, please feel free to browse our large selection of phone cases and nothing else.
Now, we didn't become the most popular repair franchise in the world because of our low prices or friendly staff. No, it definitely wasn't that.
It's because we know that, deep down, every device is the same. Phone? Computer. Tablet? Computer. Refrigerator? Believe it or not, computer. All these devices are basically the same thing at their core: they just have different peripherals attached that let you do different things. If you try really hard, you can actually squeeze parts from one machine into another, and it works just fine. That's called modular design!
Plug 'n Play
Yes, we're talking about modular, that +1/+1 counter thing some artifact creatures from Modern Horizons have.1 It's a simple ability: creatures with modular enter with that many +1/+1 counters, and when they die, all the +1/+1 counters on them move onto another artifact creature you control.
But therein lies the game. Modular lies at the intersection of many seemingly disparate strategies: artifacts, counters, and sacrifice. Because of this, choosing a single commander to make the modular deck won't easy.
That's why this installment How They Brew It is going to be a little different. I have three separate decks to discuss, each focusing on a different aspect of the modular strategy. We'll investigate what tools they share, what they do differently, and ultimately, which is the best modular deck for you.
Starting the Build
Let's get started by talking about what all our lists share: namely, they're all one-hundred-card singleton decks. Being a bit more specific, let's take a gander at the common core of good modular creatures, the ones that don't feel like an absolute waste of a slot to play on account of being a 1/1 for 1.
Arcbound Ravager
Unlike most kitchen gadgets, Arcbound Ravager serves more than one just role: it's not only a modular creature, it's also a (free!) sac outlet for artifacts. That means you can move counters from a modular creature to any other artifact creature whenever you want, which is especially strong if your opponent has let a creature through unblocked. Activating this ability also grows Arcbound Ravager itself, and best of all, you can even sacrifice Arcbound Ravager to its own ability once you're ready to cash in its counters.
Scrapyard Recombiner
Scrapyard Recombiner isn't quite as flexible as Arcbound Ravager when it comes to scrapping robots, but it makes up for that by searching your deck for any Construct creature and putting it into your hand when you activate its ability. Unfortunately, this can't really find you any other true modular creatures (the only other Construct with the ability is Arcbound Worker), but it will find you modular-adjacent support pieces, like Steel Overseer, Iron Apprentice, and Hangarback Walker.
For my money, your best hit is Kuldotha Forgemaster, which you can use to create search chains similar to a Birthing Pod deck... or you could just drop a Blightsteel Colossus to close out the game.
Arcbound Crusher
A 1/1 for four sounds like a rip-off so dire it would make a Brazillian wax blush, but Arcbound Crusher grows in power every time an artifact enters the battlefield. That's not just your artifacts, by the way: any artifact bulks this guy up. It's much better in the variants of the deck that focus on cloning creatures, but even the bog-standard types can leverage its trample to do some major damage.
Arcbound Shikari
Arcbound Shikari buffs your entire field when it enters and is blessed with first strike, meaning it's just one sacrificial lamb away from becoming a severe problem for those spellslinger opponents that only play value creatures.
Arcbound Reclaimer
A single +1/+1 counter is a small price to play for a repeatable Reclaim, and that's exactly what Arcbound Reclaimer brings to the junkyard. While a resilient modular deck will also include recursive creatures like Emry, Lurker of the Loch, Arcbound Reclaimer can set up the top of your deck, which is especially relevant if you want to get extra value out of something like an Etali, Primal Storm.
Zabaz, the Glimmerwasp
Let's get this out of the way right now: Zabaz, the Glimmerwasp is a terrible modular commander. In fact, it doesn't even crack the top five, let alone the top three. A good modular commander requires some level of either recursion or speed. You either need to be able to easily and consistently reuse the creatures you sacrifice so you can grow your number of counters to ever more dizzying heights, or you get a huge amount of counters so fast your opponents can't respond. Zabaz, the Glimmerwasp can't do either.
What it can do, however, is add an additional counter to each of your modular triggers, in addition to having modular itself as well as the world's most jank sacrifice outlet. For a mere , it all adds up to an excellent support piece in the strategy.
Booting Up
It's not just modular that makes the man, though. In fact, you'll only want to include a maximum of about twelve such creatures in your deck, because after a certain point going deeper into the mechanic has diminishing returns. Instead, fill your deck up with these support pieces:
Counter? I Hardly Know 'Er
Here comes the Overseer with a steel chair, ready to buff up all your artifact creatures with an additional +1/+1 counter every turn cycle.
You'll want some cards in your deck that can repeatedly add counters to your entire field. If you have multiple modular creatures on the field, this lets you effectively concentrate all the counters onto a specific artifact creature via sacrifice when you're ready to go for a kill later.
Steel Overseer is the most straightforward and accessible, but Metastatic Evangel, Felidar Retreat, and Virtue of Loyalty are also valuable. Throne of Geth is also spectacular, since it doubles as a sac outlet and the triggered modular ability will resolve before the proliferate does.
Sac Attack
Of course, we need to find a way to actually scrap our creatures when we're ready.
Krark-Clan Ironworks and Ashnod's Altar are both incredible, as they're free abilities that, thanks to their status as mana abilities, go even faster than a Krosan Grip. If your deck is particularly recursive, Altar of Dementia can act as an alternate wincon by milling your opponents out.
Other winners include Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, whose proliferate ability is actually useful in the deck for once, and Sage of Lat-Nam, which can keep your hand full. Black has access to one-shot effects, like Village Rites and Diabolic Intent, too, and don't forget lands: High Market, Phyrexia's Core, and Phyrexian Tower can also get the job done in a pinch.
Reuse and Recycle
No, you don't have to crack open your wallet for however many thousands of dollars a copy of The Ozolith costs these days.
If your field doesn't go too wide, you might prefer to go tall. The simplest way to do this is to repeatedly double the counters on your modular creatures. Green is the best at this by far, with access to cards like Branching Evolution, Innkeeper's Talent, and Doubling Season.
Doubling the effect of a modular death can also turbo-charge the strategy, especially if you have access to good recursion. Look for cards that move counters when a creature dies; thanks to how these abilities are worded in the rules, it basically acts as if modular triggers twice. If you're in white, try cards like Resourceful Defense and Reluctant Role Model. Black has access to Drivnod, Carnage Dominus.
The Final Target
The last thing we need to consider is what creature is ultimately going to end up carrying all these counters into battle. Ideally, it would be a creature some sort of evasion or effect based on its power, like Threefold Thunderhulk, who floods the field with tons of Gnomes the instant it attacks.
Generally, any evasive creature (like Kappa Cannoneer) can fulfill this role, but the specifics will depend on which commander you're playing. Resist the temptation to go too top-heavy, though; your deck can't afford drawing an average of more than one Blightsteel Colossus-tier threat every game.
Central Processing Unit
Like a burglar with backup plans, I've come up with multiple separate ways to take this strategy, using what I believe are modular's three strongest individual commanders. I'm not going to waste any more of your time: let's get into it!
Marchesa, the Black Rose
Marchesa, the Black Rose immediately recurs any creature that dies with a +1/+1 counter on it. Since modular creatures naturally enter with some amount of +1/+1 counters on them, you don't have to do any more work before you can get to sacrificing.
The main strategy of this list is to use repeatable sac outlets, like Carrion Feeder, to concentrate as many counters as possible on one creature. All you need to do is leave at least one modular creature alive to absorb all the incoming counters, and you can get upwards of twenty counters a turn cycle. Altar of Dementia is a potent alternate win-con in this deck, as each death mills your opponents out more and more.
This list also uses some standard aristocrats pieces to get extra value out of the constant, inexorable march of death. Grave Pact and Butcher of Malakir will ensure your opponents don't ever have a creature again, while Grim Haruspex and Pitiless Plunderer ensure you never run out of resources.
Once a creature gets big enough, all it takes is to make it unblockable before you can swing for a kill.
Zinnia, Valley's Voice
Zinnia, Valley's Voice gives creature spells offspring , meaning for an additional as a tax, each creature enters with a copy of itself. This is usually balanced out by the fact that the offspring copy has base power and toughness 1, but modular creatures don't care: it's actually an improvement from their usual 0/0!
With an opportunity to easily create copies of creatures, this deck wants to ramp by doubling creatures like Etherium Sculptor, reducing the cost of the artifact creatures we want to duplicate.
Unlike the other two decks, Zinnia goes wide, so the plan is to use cards like Steel Overseer to buff up all our creatures at once, which combos especially well with Danny Pink and Herald of Secret Streams.
Shalai and Hallar
Finally, Shalai and Hallar are all about raw counters. They deal damage whenever one or more counters are placed on a creature you control, so modular's combination of an initial burst of counters and death trigger means you can burn out your enemies quickly.
This deck cares deeply about counter-doublers. They're effectively counter-quadruplers, because both the initial replacement effect adding counters and the death trigger are enhanced. There's also a few triggered abilities that further double-counters, like Byrke, Long Ear of the Law and Fractal Harness.
There's not much more to this list; it's zero to sixty. That means it burns out quick if interacted with, but both Reveillark and Vesperlark can help you recover from a blowout.
Ready for Pickup
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