Modern Boros Energy — Deck & Sideboard Guide

Ever since it came about in Modern Horizons 3, the Boros Energy shell has been at the pinnacle of Modern decks. The combination of powerful, aggressive cards like Ocelot Pride and Ajani, Nacatl Pariah with efficient removal in Static Prison and Galvanic Discharge make for one of the most synergistically powerful deck shells we’ve ever seen.

Even with the banning of Amped Raptor late last year, this deck has stayed at the top of the Modern format, only coming second to the now-banned Underworld Breach deck. And, with a current metagame percentage of over 15% (and the only deck over 10%), it still looks like the de facto ‘best deck in format’.

So, as a new player, how do you pilot Boros Energy? And, how do you play against the three top decks in the metagame? Let’s find out! In this guide, we’ll be giving you a taste of the best, so you can start taking Boros Energy to your FNMs and local RCQs feeling confident in piloting the deck.

What is Boros Energy?

Boros Energy is an aggressive red-white deck that plays around the energy mechanic. Essentially, cards based on this mechanic will say ‘You gain X energy counters’. Energy counters are resources, like mana, that you use to pay for costs. 

So, if something says you need to pay two energy counters, you can only use that effect if you have two or more energy counters, and will lose those counters when you ‘spend’ them. Energy counters stick around permanently, though, until you spend them, meaning that you can just stock them up, which is nice if you can amass a lot of energy.

This deck combines that mechanic with an aggressive shell, meaning that you can play aggressively-costed, fast creatures while also amassing a resource to pay for big costs throughout the game, instead of having to use mana to do so (and generally, you’ll be generating more energy than you would mana anyway).

Boros Energy is especially good, though, because all of its cards are powerful even outside of the energy game plan. Guide of Souls is a Soul-Sisters effect without even considering its energy generation, Galvanic Discharge is a Lightning Bolt when it comes to removal in the worst-case, and the rest of the deck doesn’t actually need energy counters to function, instead opting for generally synergistic cards like Ocelot Pride and Ajani, Nacatl Pariah.

Boros Energy Decklist and Guide

For this guide, we’ll be taking a look at cbarnes011’s deck that came 6th at the Axion Now MEGA Modern tournament in the United Kingdom.

For quite some time in Modern, Boros Energy hasn’t really changed a lot. The core is there — cards like Guide of Souls and Ocelot Pride are going to be in the shell for as long as it remains, and most versions of Boros Energy pretty much look the same as well, only differing with a few card quantities here and there.

To be honest, Boros Energy is a pretty optimised deck as-is, and is pretty simple to play. Your key path to victory will be aggression, whether that be using Guide of Souls’s built-in ability to grow your creatures, or Ocelot Pride to go wide, or even Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury as a late game threat from your graveyard.

There are a few things that you need to be aware of, though:

• Arena of Glory: One of the secret key players in your deck is Arena of Glory, an unassuming land that can actually sneak out wins pretty well. You can use it to easily haste out a Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury from your graveyard, which will end games if your opponent is unprepared.
• Goblin Bombardment: Goblin Bombardment may seem like a weird choice to include in an aggressive deck, as sacrificing your value creatures for a singular point of damage may feel underwhelming. But, it can get past board stalls (times where you can’t attack with your smaller creatures) and take out smaller creatures on the other side of the board. And, with Ajani, Nacatl Pariah, it’s a powerhouse — you can instantly flip your Ajani and start building a huge boardstate, all while having the flexibility to either kill your opponent’s creatures or even just send the damage to their face to speed up your clock.
• Guide of Souls and Tokens: Between Ocelot Pride, Seasoned Pyromancer, and newcomer Voice of Victory, you’ll be able to gain a ton of life and energy through Guide of Souls. This will give you some healthy sustenance as well as ensure that you never run out of energy, which can turn Guide into a wincon in itself.
• Ragavan: In itself, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer has been one of the best cards of the format since it arrived. In this deck, he’s often the best turn one play, and can accelerate you multiple turns ahead if he can stick around.

Otherwise, though, this deck is a case of playing cards until they spiral out of control, and beating down your opponent as fast as possible while overwhelming them with said spiral. By making sure to keep the pressure on, you’ll often find that your opponents simply can’t handle all of your threats, at least without sweepers and other mass-removal.

Boros Energy Sideboard Guide

Boros Energy

With it being the best deck in the format, you can expect to find yourself playing the mirror at least semi-frequently. Essentially, the mirror is about going as fast as possible before your opponent can, meaning that whoever can snowball faster wins the matchup.

In:

• 2 Showdown of the Skalds
• 2 Celestial Purge
• 1 Wrath of the Skies
• 1 Ghost Vacuum
• 1 Wear // Tear

Out:

• 3 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
• 2 Voice of Victory
• 2 Static Prison

First and foremost, Voice of Victory isn’t very effective in this matchup, nor is Static Prison — we’ll be replacing Prison with better, more effective pieces of removal for this matchup. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer isn’t that great here, as your opponent will have too many small creatures for you to be able to hit effectively.

We’re bringing in Showdown of the Skalds to help snowball, as who doesn’t like essentially drawing four cards? Showdown can help power out massive turns that can lead you to victory, by generating raw advantage and powering up your smaller creatures while you’re at it. 

Otherwise, we bring in interaction — Celestial Purge and Ghost Vacuum to deal with Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury (and other red cards, in the case of Purge), and we bring in Wrath of the Skies as a sweeper in case we lose the race against our opponent. Wear // Tear can take out a Goblin Bombardment, which is a key card for this matchup.

Izzet Prowess

The newest top deck on the block, Izzet Prowess, is a menacing deck for most. But, Boros Energy is paired pretty well into it, due to its inherent lifegain — the key is making sure that you stay alive long enough to get that lifegain online.

In:

• 2 Deafening Silence
• 1 Celestial Purge
• 1 Wrath of the Skies
• 1 Wear // Tear

Out:

• 3 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
• 2 Ocelot Pride

The key card that we want to beat here is Cori-Steel Cutter, which will let our opponents spiral out of control if left unchecked. So, most of our sideboard plan is dedicated to stopping it (and Prowess in general). Deafening Silence restricts our opponent to one noncreature spell per turn, and Celestial Purge and Wear // Tear take out Cori-Steel Cutter with ease.

Otherwise, try and remove your opponents’ key threats (Cori-Steel Cutter, Slickshot Show-Off or any creature with Prowess — be careful to play around instant-speed Prowess triggers, though) on sight, as much as you can, and hold out with lifegain and removal until you can land a Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury.

Temur Eldrazi

Temur Eldrazi is a trickier matchup, as they generally tend to run Kozilek’s Return — and sometimes in their mainboard. Your goal is to leverage killing your opponent as fast as possible while also playing around a sweeper, which can definitely be rough, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the matchup.

In: 

• 4 Molten Rain
• 1 Obsidian Charmaw

Out:

• 2 Galvanic Discharge
• 3 Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury

Here, we want all of our land destruction to destroy Eldrazi Temple and Ugin’s Labyrinth. We trim out Galvanic Discharge because it feels feeble with how quickly your opponent can ramp up out of range of it, and Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury as it’s often too slow to get online before you’re facing down an Emrakul, the Promised End. We still want some of these, though, in the case they do become relevant (if our opponent bricks), we just want to see them less often.

This is where I’d recommend practising the matchup until you’re comfortable with it, as a newer player. Sure, sometimes you’ll win by going all-in to an extent that your opponent can’t handle it, but other times you simply won’t be able to — Kozilek’s Return can clear your board at instant speed twice-over without stopping its own gameplan.

Closing Time

Boros Energy is one of the most dominant decks in the whole of Modern’s history, being at the top of the format for most of the time it’s existed. With this guide, you’ll be able to get stuck in and start playing Boros Energy in your local community, and even take it forward to higher levels.

In any case, hopefully, this has inspired you to pick up the Cats and never put them down! Otherwise, check out our other Modern deck guides to see if you can find something that fits your tastes more.

In any case, though, thank you for reading, and I’ll see you in the stars.