Much Abrew: Naya Sunforger (Modern)
Hello, everyone! Welcome to another episode of Much Abrew About Nothing. Sunforger is well-known as one of the best Boros equipment in Commander, but can it make the jump to Modern as a weird combo piece, backed by some of Zendikar Rising's MDFC lands and Fervent Champion? That's what we're going to find out today on Much Abrew About Nothing! The idea is to use Sunforger with Fervent Champion, which will allow us to equip Sunforger for free. This will allow us to unequip Sunforger to tutor up and cast a red or white instant, cast it for free, and then immediately re-equip Sunforger to do it again, as long as we have the mana. In theory, this will allow us to tutor up a combination of cards that can win us the game on the spot! How good is Sunforger in Modern? How does the combo work? Let's get to the video and find out; then, we'll talk more about the deck!
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Much Abrew: Naya Sunforger
Discussion
- Naya Sunforger was a lot better than expected! We cruised to a 4-0 start before dropping a super-close match to Amulet Titan in round five, narrowly missing the 5-0 finish!
- One thing that was apparent while playing the deck is that the actual combo kill doesn't come up all that often. But even without comboing, Sunforger was quite strong, allowing us to tutor up removal, lifegain, and even creatures, with the help of Eladamri's Call.
- Speaking of the combo, here's the idea: we get down a Fervent Champion and a Sunforger along with four mana. We equip Sunforger for free and then use two of our mana to tutor up a Manamorphose, which gives us back our two mana and draws us a card. We do this four times, until we've used all of our Manamorphoses. Then, we tutor up Fists of Flame to give our Fervent Champion +6/+0 and trample (thanks to all of the cards we've drawn with Manamorphose). We put Sunforger back on Fervent Champion, giving it an additional +4/+0, and attack for 11. Finally, after combat, we can use our last two mana to unequip Sunforger in order to tutor up Kazuul's Fury and fling our Fervent Champion at our opponent, giving us at least another seven damage, which, combined with any incidental damage, should be enough to win the game on the spot!
- While the above combo is the most straightforward, we occasionally stray from the plan. Tutoring up Sejiri Shelter can allow us to attack through blockers, thanks to protection, while Chance for Glory is another very strong finisher, giving us another turn to close out the game.
- Outside of our Sunforger combo shenanigans, the deck is built around finding and protecting our key cards. Giver of Runes helps to ensure our Fervent Champion doesn't just die to removal. Stoneforge Mystic finds Sunforger, while Magmatic Channeler draws through our deck to find whatever we happen to be missing.
- The other interesting aspect of the deck is Eladamri's Call, which essentially allows Sunforger to tutor up creatures, which is quite powerful. This tutoring allows us to play some spicy one-ofs like Magus of the Moon for janking people out, Skyclave Apparition for removal, Scavenging Ooze for graveyard hate and lifegain, and Phoenix of Ash as a surprise hasty, evasive attacker. It becomes even better after sideboarding, when we can grab Gaddock Teeg, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Kor Firewalker, or Remorseful Cleric (among other options), depending on the matchup.
- Maybe the most surprising part of the deck is how well it functioned without the combo. While we got plenty of Sunforger value throughout our league, we only truly comboed off once. Just equipping Sunforger and attacking can offer a lot of damage, and we won most of our games like a weird equipment-ish aggro deck.
- Chance for Glory is really sweet in the deck, in large part because no one expects Chance for Glory in Modern! Apart from buying us an extra turn to close out the game, it was also key to winning our match against Uro Pile, where we were able to tutor it up with Sunforger at instant speed to fizzle a Supreme Verdict and steal the win.
- Emrakul, the Aeons Torn probably looks strange in the sideboard. We're never going to cast it (we literally don't have enough mana sources in the deck). Instead, it's tech to beat the mill deck, with the idea being that we can bring it in and let our opponent mill it, shuffling our graveyard back into our library to buy us a couple more turns to close out the game.
- So, should you play Naya Sunforger? Shockingly, I think the answer is yes. The deck was oddly competitive, super unique, and really fun to play! My only regret is that we didn't get to tutor up Boil with Sunforger to blow out our Dryad of the Ilysian Grove–playing Amulet Titan opponent to pick up the 5-0! If you like equipment decks, strange aggro brews, and weird combos, Naya Sunforger seems like a solid and super-fun option for Modern!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
