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Mardu Stoneblade

Modern Competitive Midrange RBW (Mardu) Stoneblade

carlsaganrealness

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Land (22)

Sorcery (13)

Creature (9)

Planeswalker (2)

Instant (11)

Artifact (3)

Sideboard

Creature (5)

Sorcery (3)

Instant (4)

Artifact (1)

Planeswalker (2)

Maybeboard

Creature (16)

Planeswalker (8)

Enchantment (5)

Instant (7)

Artifact (4)

Sorcery (3)

I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that SFM's unbanning has been long overdue, and has been a great addition to modern as a whole. While it's not as broken as it was during the days where cawblade was a thing, it's flexibility has spawned many different archtypes, as well as flavors within said archtypes. From what I've seen so far personally, we have:

U/W

U/W/x (jeskai + esper*)

Bant (U/W/G, creature heavy)

G/W Eldraziblade

B/W/x (deadguy, mardu, abzan, esper*)

  • many others

So why mardu of all things?

Mardu has access to disruption in the form of thoughtseize + inquisition of kozilek, the holy trinity of 1 cmc removal (lightning bolt, path to exile, and fatal push), and some of the most grindy cards around like lingering souls, LOTV + last hope, kaya's guile, and kolaghan's command. The thing that's held mardu back was the lack of a powerful 2 drop to tie everything together- blue based control decks has snapcaster mage, jund/rock/abzan has tarmogoyf, and we have young pyromancer, which took a bit of a hit after the faithless looting ban. Stoneforge mystic changes the game for us by being a creature that provides immediate value upon entry by digging out our batterskull/sword to help take over the game.

What does mardu provide that makes it stand apart from other stoneforge decks?

  1. First off, kolaghan's command. We are the only stoneforge deck that has access to this card, being one of the cleanest answers to other stoneforges that is mainboardable. The discard mode is excellent at keeping our opponent hellbent during topdeck wars, and the power of the raise dead ability isn't anything to overlook either. Aside from stoneforge herself, we have...
  2. Seasoned pyromancer and bedlam reveler- Seasoned pyromancer has been a huge addition to mardu in general, being able to convert dead cards into value in the form of 1/1 elemental tokens or even making a good mulldrifter impression in the late game. It's like a lingering souls with the extra upside of being immune to force of negation from U/W and stubborn denial from grixis death shadow, on top of drawing you 2 cards. This guy has value written all over it, and that's exactly the kind of thing mardu is in the market for. And bedlam reveler is no joke either- he's a 3/4 body with prowess that's immune to push, resists bolt, and has ancestral recall stapled onto him on top of it. Best of all, by the time you're in the market for casting him, he'll only cost 2-4 mana to cast, which sounds like a pretty good deal to me!

In summation this deck has the following:

  1. proactive disruption in the form of IOK and thoughtseize
  2. efficient removal in bolt, path, and push
  3. creatures that provide IMMEDIATE value + lingering souls (plenty of bodies to equip swords/skull to)
  4. Mainboard answers to planeswalkers + artifacts exclusive to us (kolaghan's command + dreadbore)
  5. nasty hate for a lot of combo decks in the side (ex. ashiok + kambal!!!)

Unfortunately we don't have:

  1. Blue to give us snapcaster, force of negation, and little teferi
  2. field of ruin (most effective in 2 color builds, u/w and b/w)
  3. ramp in the form of noble hierach (if only deathrite shaman was a thing in modern...)

Although I don't have a whole lot of matches in with this deck, things are looking promising for us, and I'm looking forward to getting more games in with it! Also, if there's anything I missed in terms of what can fit in here, leave a comment and I'll update the list going forward. Thanks for reading!

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