The banning of Eye of Ugin and unbanning of both Sword of the Meek and Ancestral Vision is going to shake up Modern in a big way. Blue Mages have been clamoring for a card like Ancestral Vision to help control decks keep ahead on cards in the midgame, and who better to break down all the best ways to cast Ancestral Vision than Faeries aficionado Paolo Vitor Damo da Rosa? Grixis was a top tier deck before Oath of the Gatewatch, so it seems like a great place to start now:

Grixis Visions ? Modern | Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa

• Creatures (10)
• 1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
• 2 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
• 3 Thing in the Ice
• 4 Snapcaster Mage

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 3 Liliana of the Veil

• Spells (24)
• 1 Dismember
• 3 Kolaghan's Command
• 3 Terminate
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 2 Thoughtseize
• 3 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 4 Ancestral Vision
• 4 Serum Visions

• Lands (23)
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Swamp
• 2 Island
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 1 Bloodstained Mire
• 1 Watery Grave
• 2 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 2 Darkslick Shores
• 2 Steam Vents
• 3 Creeping Tar Pit
• 3 Polluted Delta
• 4 Scalding Tarn

Buy This Deck

So much of this deck is the same. The core is still discard spells backed by efficient removal and Snapcaster Mage. Kolaghan's Command is still an incredible value engine. The difference is Ancestral Vision substantially changes your deck-building incentives. Suddenly, flashing back Kolaghan's Command with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy isn’t the best thing you can be doing, since it doesn’t work with Ancestral Vision.

Enter Goblin Dark-Dwellers. Not only can Dark-Dwellers re-buy all of your efficient removal and Kolaghan's Command; you can also rebuy Ancestral Vision. While you can’t flashback Ancestral Vision, you can cast it without paying its mana cost, so the interaction with Goblin Dark-Dwellers is similar to Shardless Agent in Legacy. The sheer versatility of Goblin Dark-Dwellers makes it an incredible card in this deck, particularly since the first will buy you time to resolve another Ancestral Vision, and then subsequent Kolaghan's Commands can let you re-buy a Dark-Dwellers to do it all over again.

The other exciting innovation is the inclusion of Thing in the Ice in this shell. Thing in the Ice is a great blocker against the likes of Wild Nacatl and Goblin Guide early in the game, but also gives you a way to reset the board against Affinity, Infect, and Bogles and start applying pressure so you can close the game out before they can rebuild. What’s particularly important is you can do this at instant speed and without targeting a creature, which means you can force opponents to pick up animated creature-lands, fizzle lethal pump spells, and much more. Even better; if your opponent can deal with the Awoken Horror, Kolaghan's Command will let you set up another transformation to reset the board and threaten to beat your opponent down in just a few turns.

All told, this shell has gained a lot of power from Ancestral Vision and versatility from the inclusion of Goblin Dark-Dwellers and Thing in the Ice. With all of these new tools, it shouldn’t be shocking if this is one of the best decks in the format for the first few weeks.