When discussing the Modern format online, time and again the biggest issues players have the the format is its price point and consequently the barrier to entry for newer players. There have always been budget options available to newer players, but usually these come at greatly reduced power level compared to the rest of Modern’s decks. However, in my usual pursuit of exploring Modern playable cards from new sets, I managed to stumble into a big upgrade to a classic Modern strategy that’s both competitively viable and one of the most budget-friendly decks that I’ve ever encountered in Modern.
I’ve been calling the deck “8-Rebirth,” a strategy that uses both Kuldotha Rebirth and its new (slight upgrade) Gleeful Demolition to make tokens and Goblin Bushwhackers and Reckless Bushwhacker to buff your tokens for massive bursts of damage.
Budget Modern Mono-Red 8-Rebirth by Evart Moughon
Companion
Instant (3)
At the time of writing, this deck costs about 18 tickets on Magic Online, and a little over $50 on TCGPlayer, making the deck either a very affordable for new players or a cheap option that more enfranchised players can pick up to loan to friends.
With this list, there are some budget considerations, mainly cheaper sideboard options (Alpine Moon over Magus of the Moon and Smash to Smithereens over Shattering Spree). If you’re interested in either buying or building your way up to a non-budget tuned list, I’ve prepared the following deck list for you that, at the time of writing, is about $120 in paper and 71 tickets on Magic Online (still a very reasonable budget option and a deck that’s good for grinding leagues/local play). I’ve had good success with this list both on and off stream and had tons and tons of fun flooding the board with Goblins and blasting my opponents for 10 damage at once with Goblin Grenade.
Modern Mono-Red 8-Rebirth by Evart Moughon
Companion
Instant (3)
Beyond the sideboard changes, this list is playing Mishra’s Bauble over Ornithopter, and consequently playing four red fetchlands that can be used as occasional card selection, as if you have both a fetchland and a Mountain in your opening hand, you can look at your top card to see if you want to draw it net turn. If you do, then you can simply play your Mountain and if not, you can shuffle it away by using your fetchland instead. You can perform a similar trick with an Experimental Synthesizer, looking at your top card with Bauble before you play or sacrifice your Synthesizer to see if you can play your top card. These two tricks add enough consistency to your deck that I think it’s worth playing this package of Baubles plus fetchlands over Ornithopters, but at the end of the day you’ll usually just turn these zero-mana artifacts into three Goblins and there isn’t a significant drop in power level when playing Ornithopter instead.
Tips and Tricks
Beyond these tricks with Bauble in the non-budget variant, the deck is relatively simple to pilot once you get used to the sequencing. You’re a red aggressive deck and you’re looking to win die rolls and end games as quickly as possible. That being said, here are a few of sequencing tips to help you get started:
- Your best hands always contain a Rebirth effect and an artifact to blow up with it. You have a few keepable hands without this combination, but I strongly recommend mulliganing a medium seven-card hand without this combination.
- If you have a Reckless Bushwhacker in your draw, it’s very important that you plan to trigger surge so that you can cast it. This will usually involve sandbagging a zero-mana artifact in your hand for a turn or two since the deck is light on lands and won’t always be able to play a one-drop and Bushwhacker on turn two.
- Recognizing at what point in the game you need to pivot from attacking your opponent to sacrificing your permanents to burn spells is the hardest part of piloting this deck. In my experience you’ll want to start doing this sooner than you’d expect, using your mana immediately to cast a Goblin Grenade or Shrapnel Blast (even if it puts you behind on board) so that your mana is free on future turns to dig for more burn with Chromatic Star or Experimental Synthesizer.
Sideboard Guide
As always, thanks for reading. Here’s how I’d recommend sideboarding with the budget deck list:
Izzet Murktide
In: +1 Pithing Needle
Out: -1 Ornithopter
Creativity
No changes
Breach Combo
In: +3 Pithing Needle
Out: -3 Ornithopter
Hammer Time
In: +4 Smash to Smithereens, +4 Pyrite Spellbomb
Out: -4 Ornithopter, -3 Shrapnel Blast, -1 Reckless Bushwhacker
Burn
In: +4 Pyrite Spellbomb
Out: -4 Ornithopter
Living End
No changes
Rhinos
No changes
[/spoiler
UWx Control
In: +2 Smash to Smithereens
Out: -2 Ornithopter
Yawgmoth
In: +3 Pithing Needle
Out: -3 Ornithopter
Amulet Titan
In: +3 Alpine Moon
Out: -3 Ornithopter
Tron
In: +3 Alpine Moon
Out: -3 Ornithopter
