As far as artifact decks in Modern go, Affinity sort of steals the spotlight. The blistering speed and raw power of cards like Cranial Plating and Arcbound Ravager are hard to compete with, and there are plenty of decks that can’t compete with the splash damage that Stony Silence and Ancient Grudge put on other decks trying to do cool Artifact things. That being said there are plenty of powerful artifacts in Modern, including Vedalken Shackles, Ensnaring Bridge, and the recently unbanned Sword of the Meek that all give you powerful options. On their own, these engines may not be able to compete in the format, but what happens if you put them together into a

>shell that tries to deny your opponent the ability to play?

Jeskai Prison - Modern | Shaun McLaren

• Creatures (4)
• 4 Simian Spirit Guide

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Nahiri, the Harbinger

• Spells (35)
• 4 Blood Moon
• 4 Chalice of the Void
• 4 Ensnaring Bridge
• 4 Faithless Looting
• 4 Mishra's Bauble
• 4 Mox Opal
• 4 Sword of the Meek
• 4 Thopter Foundry
• 2 Engineered Explosives
• 1 Pithing Needle

• Lands (19)
• 1 Island
• 1 Mountain
• 3 Plains
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 3 Darksteel Citadel
• 2 Arid Mesa
• 2 Scalding Tarn
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 1 Steam Vents

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Grafdigger's Cage
• 2 Pithing Needle
• 1 Relic of Progenitus
• 1 Spellskite
• 1 Rule of Law
• 1 Hurkyl's Recall
• 1 Wear
• 2 Nahiri, the Harbinger
• 2 Anger of the Gods
• 2 Timely Reinforcements

Buy This Deck

We’ve seen plenty of decks built around some of these interactions. Lantern of Insight decks for example, sometimes play both Ensnaring Bridge and the Sword of the Meek combo. There are a handful of decks that try to play the Blood Moon, Simian Spirit Guide, Chalice of the Void package to lock greedy decks out games as early as turn one or two. But I’ve never really seen a deck that tries to put it all together like this.

With both Simian Spirit Guide and Mox Opal to help power out early lock pieces, you have a real chance of ending games before they even get started. An early Chalice of the Void absolutely crushes decks like Infect, Bogles, and Elves, and Blood Moon is just as good against more controlling decks, or ones that rely on particularly lands like Inkmoth Nexus. However, even if you can’t get out ahead of these decks, you can frequently empty your hand using Faithless Looting and fast mana so that Ensnaring Bridge locks your opponent out of combat.

Sure, that plan might not be strong against Lightning Bolt decks, but Chalice of the Void and Thopter Foundry are. The power of this deck is that, while a number of your cards are pretty hit or miss in common matchups, some portion of them are powerful enough to end games on the spot. Combine that with your ability to dig for the spells that matter with Faithless Looting and to power them out with fast mana, and this seems like a deck that’s a lot of fun - for you at least.