Despite the banning of
Fury
Fury
Double strike
When this creature enters, it deals 4 damage divided as you choose among any number of target creatures and/or planeswalkers.
Evoke—Exile a red card from your hand.
and
Up the Beanstalk
Up the Beanstalk
When this enchantment enters and whenever you cast a spell with mana value 5 or greater, draw a card.
over a month ago, the Modern metagame has yet to drastically change from where it was. Not only is Rakdos Scam still an extremely strong and popular deck choice, but small Creature decks have not been on the rise much at all. Even with Fury gone, small Creature decks still have to contest with the likes of
Orcish Bowmasters
Orcish Bowmasters
Flash
When this creature enters and whenever an opponent draws a card except the first one they draw in each of their draw steps, this creature deals 1 damage to any target. Then amass Orcs 1.
and
Wrenn and Six
Wrenn and Six
+1: Return up to one target land card from your graveyard to your hand.
−1: Wrenn and Six deals 1 damage to any target.
−7: You get an emblem with "Instant and sorcery cards in your graveyard have retrace." (You may cast instant and sorcery cards from your graveyard by discarding a land card in addition to paying their other costs.)
.
While players are no longer Cascading into Up the Beanstalk, Cascade decks are as popular as ever, just with
Crashing Footfalls
Crashing Footfalls
Suspend 4—{G} (Rather than cast this card from your hand, pay {G} and exile it with four time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter. When the last is removed, you may cast it without paying its mana cost.)
Create two 4/4 green Rhino creature tokens with trample.
in the mix instead. In this sense, there hasn’t been much innovation over the last month, unfortunately.
That being said, one strategy that is clearly a tier or two below Rakdos Scam or Temur Cascade managed to emerge victorious in a recent major Modern event. This deck is none other than Asmo Food, using the power of
Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar
Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar
As long as you've discarded a card this turn, you may pay {B/R} to cast this spell.
When Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar enters, you may search your library for a card named The Underworld Cookbook, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle.
Sacrifice two Foods: Target creature deals 6 damage to itself.
, some strong discard outlets, and aggressively costed Creatures to take over the game. This archetype hasn’t been much of a factor in the metagame for months, so seeing it make a resurgence is rather enticing.
Getting Asmo Into Play
Asmo is an amazing card in this deck. It is efficient, aggressive, and in conjunction with
The Underworld Cookbook
The Underworld Cookbook
{T}, Discard a card: Create a Food token. (It's an artifact with "{2}, {T}, Sacrifice this token: You gain 3 life.")
{4}, {T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand.
, can help remove rather large threats from the opponent. Using the Underworld Cookbook to discard a card is the simplest way to get Asmo into play quickly. Given that this deck makes use of
Jegantha, the Wellspring
Jegantha, the Wellspring
Companion — No card in your starting deck has more than one of the same mana symbol in its mana cost. (If this card is your chosen companion, you may put it into your hand from outside the game for {3} as a sorcery.)
{T}: Add {W}{U}{B}{R}{G}. This mana can't be spent to pay generic mana costs.
as a Companion, using
Street Wraith
Street Wraith
Swampwalk (This creature can't be blocked as long as defending player controls a Swamp.)
Cycling—Pay 2 life. (Pay 2 life, Discard this card: Draw a card.)
to cheat Asmo into play turn one is not an option.
Even so, as long as you can get The Underworld Cookbook into play, casting Asmo is rather trivial. Fortunately,
Urza’s Saga
Urza’s Saga
(As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after III.)
I — This Saga gains "{T}: Add {C}."
II — This Saga gains "{2}, {T}: Create a 0/0 colorless Construct artifact creature token with 'This token gets +1/+1 for each artifact you control.'"
III — Search your library for an artifact card with mana cost {0} or {1}, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle.
can tutor up the Cookbook at will, which is a nice option to have.
Additionally, in a deck with a bunch of cheap Creatures and discard outlets,
Inti, Seneschal of the Sun
Inti, Seneschal of the Sun
Whenever you attack, you may discard a card. When you do, put a +1/+1 counter on target attacking creature. It gains trample until end of turn.
Whenever you discard one or more cards, exile the top card of your library. You may play that card until your next end step.
is an amazing addition. First of all, it can provide a power boost to your other Creatures by letting you discard a card when you attack. When you discard a card, you also get to exile the top card of your library and play it until your next end step.
Because Inti doesn’t care how you discard cards in the first place, using The Cookbook allows you to keep your engine going, digging for copies of Asmo, which can in turn find more copies of Cookbook. Things can get out of hand pretty quickly.
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Abusing Ovalchase Daredevil
Where you can really start to pull ahead on card advantage is when you have access to Ovalchase Daredevil. Ovalchase Daredevil essentially acts as a recurring resource to discard at will when used alongside Cookbook. If you discard Daredevil to Cookbook, you then generate a Food token. Once the Food token comes into play, Daredevil’s ability triggers from the graveyard, and you get to return it to hand.
This allows you to continue generating tons of Food tokens without running out of cards. Asmo can start going nuts killing opposing Creatures at will, and your Construct tokens created by Urza’s Saga threaten to grow exceptionally large.
Furthermore, if you have Inti in play at the same time, you start to generate an absurd amount of card advantage. Because all of the cards in this deck are super efficient, it’s quite easy to cast multiple spells in the same turn. Unless your opponent has graveyard hate, Daredevil just keeps coming back, meaning you never have to discard anything meaningful to trigger Inti.
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An Aggressive Slant
With access to Urza’s Saga and Inti, this deck is fully capable of playing a longer, grindier game when necessary. However, part of the strength of this Asmo Food variant is that it puts a lot of pressure on the opponent. Stalactite Stalker is an excellent one-drop that grows over the course of the game. With Fetchlands present, you can start growing Stalker as early as turn one.
With Cookbook in play and Daredevil in hand, you can guarantee Descend every turn, forcing the opponent to interact. Stalker might not seem threatening at first, but it grows rather quickly, has built-in evasion thanks to Menace, and can hit harder if you can play Inti on curve.
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
Whenever Ragavan deals combat damage to a player, create a Treasure token and exile the top card of that player's library. Until end of turn, you may cast that card.
Dash {1}{R} (You may cast this spell for its dash cost. If you do, it gains haste, and it's returned from the battlefield to its owner's hand at the beginning of the next end step.)
is great here as well. Besides being a great card on its own, the Treasures it creates help make Urza’s Saga Construct tokens even scarier. Throw in some copies of
Thoughtseize
Thoughtseize
Target player reveals their hand. You choose a nonland card from it. That player discards that card. You lose 2 life.
and
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt deals 3 damage to any target.
for interaction, and you’ve got a solid strategy.
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Strengths and Weaknesses
What’s nice about the way this deck is built is that, while Asmo and The Underworld Cookbook are extremely synergistic together, you don’t need to draw Asmo for this deck to function. Simply playing powerful Creatures up the curve and mixing in interaction and Urza’s Saga can be plenty good enough to win the game.
That being said, Asmo’s presence adds a whole extra element to the deck that helps in a variety of matchups. Six damage conveniently kills
Primeval Titan
Primeval Titan
Trample
Whenever this creature enters or attacks, you may search your library for up to two land cards, put them onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle.
, for instance, and racing the Amulet Titan deck can be a bit tough without Asmo.
Unfortunately, though, one important Creature that Asmo can’t kill is
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
Protection from Humans
Pay 1 life, Sacrifice another creature: Put a -1/-1 counter on up to one target creature and draw a card.
{B}{B}, Discard a card: Proliferate. (Choose any number of permanents and/or players, then give each another counter of each kind already there.)
. Yawgmoth has Protection from Humans, so it can’t be targeted by Asmo’s ability. As a deck with lots of small Creatures, Yawgmoth’s presence can make the matchup rather problematic. Not to mention, Yawgmoth shells get to make use of Force of Vigor out of the sideboard, which can destroy both Cookbook and Saga at little cost.
Still, in many matchups, this deck’s ability to attack on multiple angles is a nice boon. If you prepare to heavily for Saga and Cookbook, you risk getting run over by Ragavan and Inti. However, on the flip side, Saga is excellent against generic removal spells, and the Constructs you generate can be enormous. This deck is quite powerful, and its win in a major event with over 300 players helped showcase its versatility. This is a great example of an underdog rising to the challenge and emerging victorious.
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