Rules & Lore
The starting life total for each player in a Modern format game.
20
This one-mana red instant deals 3 damage to any target and is still one of the most-played spells in Modern aggro shells like Burn and Izzet Prowess. It’s extremely efficient removal and reach all in one card, even in 2025 lists.
Lightning Bolt
This card, famously powerful in the "Twin" deck, was a major part of the Modern metagame until its banning, which many players believe led to a more linear format.
Splinter Twin
This land lets you pay 1 life, then sacrifice it to search your library for an Island or Mountain and put it onto the battlefield. It’s a classic fetch land for Izzet shells like Prowess
Scalding Tarn
This supplemental set was the first designed to inject new cards and Legacy reprints directly into the Modern format without going through Standard.
Modern Horizons
The minimum number of cards allowed in a Modern format main deck.
60
Commonly known as "Push," this black instant is one of the most efficient removal spells in the format.
Fatal Push
This colorless legendary artifact was banned in Modern in December 2024 because it showed up basically everywhere: it protected its controller for a turn, then drew so many cards every turn that even fair midrange decks were out-grinding control. Wizards said the “opportunity cost of including it in nearly any deck is too low,” and that the format would be “more enjoyable” without it.
The One Ring
This land is also an enchantment with chapters. It can tutor up cheap artifacts and then make enormous Construct tokens. It shows up in decks like Affinity and Amulet Titan as a core engine piece.
Urza's Saga
This one-mana red Monkey Pirate from Modern Horizons 2 snowballs games: when it connects, you make a Treasure and exile the top card of the opponent’s library, and you can cast that card. It’s banned in Legacy, but it’s still one of the scariest turn-one plays in Modern.
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer?
The specific core set that serves as the earliest legal set for the Modern format, distinguishable by its modern card frame.
Eighth Edition
This powerful artifact, now restricted in Vintage, was a key component of many aggressive Modern decks (like Affinity) before being banned in Modern and recently unbanned.
Mox Opal
This Modern Horizons 3 Bird Wizard enabled a deck that could repeatedly target its own creatures with cheap effects like Shuko, draw huge chunks of its library, and dump extra lands into play. It dominated paper events and even caused slow, miserable turns, so Wizards banned it from Modern just weeks after MH3 released (August 2024).
Nadu, Winged Wisdom
This legendary land taps for green, and also has a Channel ability that lets you pay 1G, discard it, and destroy an artifact, enchantment, or nonbasic land an opponent controls — and that effect can’t be countered.
Boseiju, who endures
This green card from Modern Horizons 2 with the Evoke ability has become a format staple for its ability to efficiently destroy artifacts or enchantments.
Force of Vigor
This mulligan procedure, currently used in Modern, has players draw seven cards each time they mulligan, then put a number of cards equal to their mulligans on the bottom of their library.
London Mulligan
This card's nickname is "Stone-Rain-plus-a-creature" or "Bloodbraid Elf Junior," and it provides a strong cascade effect in aggressive decks.
Shardless Agent
This infamous green enchantment, banned early in Modern's history, allowed players to sacrifice creatures to search their library for another creature and put it into play.
Birthing Pod
Name one of the three-color lands with three basic land types that enters tapped and can be fetched by a fetch land. Example: the Esper one is named after a crime boss’s advisor, the Bant one is named after a city council HQ, etc.
Raffine’s Tower / Spara’s Headquarters / Xander’s Lounge / Ziatora’s Proving Ground / Jetmir’s Garden?
This two-mana planeswalker from the first Modern Horizons gives you a +1 that returns a land from your graveyard to your hand, letting you rebuy fetchlands every turn. Its -1 pings any target for 1, which happens to clean up mana dorks and Ragavan-style threats, and it’s a backbone of multicolor/control shells that want perfect mana and never miss land drops.
Wrenn and Six
What is the exact wording of the modular trigger on a artifact creature
When this permanent is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, you may put a +1/+1 counter on target artifact creature for each +1/+1 counter on this permanent
Azorius Control in Modern often reveals this card as its companion because it basically doesn’t play real creatures in the main deck — just free Elementals like Solitude, which conveniently share creature types it cares about. Its deckbuilding rule is: each creature in your starting deck must be a Cat, Elemental, Nightmare, Dinosaur, or Beast. In exchange, you start every game with an extra card in hand that can also come down and anthem your team and give vigilance.
Kaheera, the Orphanguard
This companion creature, which only required you to have a deck of all permanents with mana value 2 or less, was so format-warping that it was the first card ever to be banned from the Modern format's banned list to the companion errata.
Lurrus of the Dream-Den
This legendary black creature has protection from Humans, lets you pay 1 life and sacrifice another creature to give a creature -1/-1 until end of turn, and also lets you discard a card and sacrifice another creature to proliferate.
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician?
This Modern Horizons creature has the single most ridiculous name in Modern. She costs exactly {B}{R} but can’t be cast normally unless you’ve discarded a card this turn. When she enters, you can search your library for a card called The Underworld Cookbook and put it into your hand. She also has an activated ability where you sacrifice two Foods to deal 6 damage to a creature. Food shells and “Cookbook” decks revolve around her — if you know the deck, you know her, but almost nobody can say her full name at speed. Who is she?
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