Guess who's back, back again. Modern Horizons is back. This time for round 3.
To give a bit of context this isn't a normal set that gets released into Standard, but straight into Modern. Do not pass go, do not collect £200. Although, to throw some confusion into the mix any new card brought by the commander decks will only be legacy, vintage, pauper and commander legal only. This means that Modern Horizons 3 (MH3) is not legal in Standard or Pioneer. Allowing for the power level of the set to be pushed. This happened with the first 2 sets. Modern is meant to be a non rotating format, i.e., sets do not become illegal, allowing for any old deck to be played in theory. This was the case pre Modern Horizons 1. If you owned a copy of a top tier deck outside of a banning, RIP Splinter Twin, it might lose some power but would still be viable. That isn't the case now. While technically, your deck can be played practically, it probably falls short of power compared to current decks. The first two sets gave us some absolute powerhouses such as Force of Negation, Wrenn and Six, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Murktide Regent. Commander wasn't spared, and we got some goodies, too. The First Sliver, Morophon, the Boundless, Chatterfang, Squirrel General and Sythis, Harvest's Hand.
TLDR; The previous Horizon sets have been powerful, and MH3 is no different.
Table of Contents
This is the first time that Wizards have released Commander decks for a Modern set. While we did get some very good Commander cards from the previous sets, I feel like this was incidentally outside of a few cards being slipped in. This time, though, more cards have been targeted at Commander players to support the decks. In this set of blogs, I will be going over MH3’s commander decks, Eldrazi Incursion, Graveyard Overdrive, Creative Energy and Tricky Terrain.
In case you missed my previous blogs, I have given some budget options for upgrading some of the most recent commander precons. There I did 10 cards for £10, I'm going to up the budget this time however as these are what Wizards considers a “premium” product, so commands a higher price tag. Similar to the Commander Masters commander decks. As these decks generally sell for almost double the price of standard Commander decks, I'm going to give myself £20 as a budget. I know pushing the boat out here. Hopefully, your bank account can handle it. Although, with the rate Wizards is pumping product out, it might not.
Deck Overview
Sorry for the long rambling; it's time to get into it. I'm starting with a banger in Eldrazi Incursion. This is a 5 colour colourless deck. By this, I mean it uses all 5 colours of magic, but it also uses the Devoid mechanic, making the spells colourless for Magics rules. Just not that it doesn't change the colour identity of the cards, so you can be putting these in just any deck. There was a previous Eldrazi deck in Commander Masters with Zhulodok, Void Gorger, at the helm. While you can get a copy and mash these two decks together, it might not be the best idea. Due to the new deck being 5 colours, it gets you access to all the other cards Eldrazi Unbound did get. It can work, but you will need to be more selective about what you add. Personally, if you don't own a copy, I would buy selected singles instead and save some money. There are some very strong cards from that deck that I would have loved to add, but I'm trying to stick to a budget here, and they just don't fit. That will be a problem for any future upgrades you might want to do to Eldrazi Incursion as a lot of the powerful new cards, such as Ulamog and The Defiler.
It has a high price tag. At the time of writing, we’re looking at around £55, which is almost the cost of the Eldrazi Incursion precon. While the cards I suggest individually won't be on the same power as Ulamog, The Defiler, they should give the same or better price to performance. It looks like Titans have already been released, so let's get into it.
Upgrade 1
Catacomb Sifter is one of the cards that I thought would have already been included in the deck. But I guess I was wrong. This isn't the flashiest of cards, but it is a role player. It comes down early and gives you a Scion to help ramp you. But the key value is the Scry ability whenever a creature you control dies. Critically, this includes Spawn and Scions. Allowing you to help sculpt your next draw whenever you are using them for mana. Sifter of Skulls is being swapped out. The main reason for this is it triggers off non token creatures. I get why otherwise, it would be an infinite mana generator. Getting a Scion after your big creature dies isn't that much of a consolation. It was fine in the Battle for Zendikar style decks when it was running creatures on a more normal mana curve. However, this deck has it skewed a lot higher. The Skullspore Nexus is more where you want to be when your creatures are dying.
Upgrade 2
Thran Dynamo is one of those mana rocks that used to be everywhere. But with better and cheaper mana rocks being printed Dynamo got phased out and should only be in selected decks. However, Eldrazi Incursion is one of those decks that works. You’re looking to cast big cards and the colourless that it generates matters. This is the cheapest mana rock that adds 3 mana if you ignore Mana Vault. Mana Vault cheats because you only get it once until later when you have to pay to untap it. This will allow you to power out the bigger Eldrazi ahead of the curve. Skittering Invasion is coming out. While it is an interesting card mainly due to it being a Tribal or now Kindred card. It is also a 7 mana colourless card for certain triggers. But you get a pretty poor effect for 7 mana. You only get 5 0/1 Scions. These aren't even the 1/1 Spawn you can't get relevant attacks with them. Thran Dynamo does a better job at ramping you when you actually need the boost, and it's a permanent mana source, unlike the tokens.
Upgrade 3/4/5
This is the first triple set I have done. They all do something similar in terms of discounting your cards. I'll start with the most basic version, Herald of Kozilek. 3 mana discount all your colourless spells. As I explained in the introduction, due to a lot of the Eldrazi creatures having the Devoid mechanic, they are colourless, so will benefit from this discount.
Next, we have It That Heralds the End; while this one is cheaper in terms of mana, it only discounts colourless spells that are 7 converted mana cost (CMC) or higher. But it does come with the bonus of being a Lord (+1/+1) to all your colourless creatures so that it can turn an army of Spawns and Scions into a reasonable threat.
The last one we have is Conduit of Ruin. This works well with the Herald, as it lets you Tutor for a 7 CMC or higher colourless creature. It also has the biggest discount of (2), but this only applies to creatures and only the first one you cast each turn. So if you happen to have more mana around after casting Conduit, you won’t get the benefit, unfortunately.
Mutated Cultist is the first one coming out. This spicy new card has people in the Legacy community talking, normally around using it with Dark Depths. For Commander, it has its uses. It’s one of few ways to remove counters on a player and also is a new Final Act. Although Mutated Cultist is far more limited, removing energy or experience counters from an opponent is nice and gives a discount to your spells. I would much rather have the consistency of the other cards giving a static discount, as you aren't guaranteed to be playing against anyone with counters to remove. This is the same for the next card.
Ulamog's Nullifier. There are very limited ways in the deck to put cards into exile. So, it's a lot of hoops to jump through to make this Mystic Snake style card even get to that level. You first need to have 2 exiled cards that are your opponents, then to have this in hand and have the mana to cast it. All to then counter a spell. As much as this is an Eldrazi, I would rather play Counterspell over Ulamog's Nullifier, cheaper and simpler.
Ugin’s Insight was harder to cut as it's a nice draw 3 for 5 mana, which is usually the baseline for that effect. To add the gravy, you get to scry X, which is equal to the highest CMC you control. Just note that this checks on resolution, so if someone can remove your highest CMC creature, you will have to check what the new highest is when it resolves. I just need to make room, so sorry, Ugin, but your insight isn't required.
Upgrade 6/7
The next two cards I’m also grouping as they just work so well together while also being good cards individually. Darksteel Monolith, a massive 8 cost artifact. Like all of the other stuff made from Darksteel, it's also Indestructible, which means it will be harder to remove. This is good, as your opponents are definitely going to want to remove it due to the ability. Once a turn you can free cast a colourless card from your hand. Note it says once a turn. That means this works on your opponent's turns as well. But normal timing restrictions apply, meaning you can't cast your creature on your opponents. Unless you can.
”Skittering Cicada enters frame”. Now, all your colourless spells have flash. So you can cast them on your opponent's turn, and Darksteel Monolith lets you cast one for free. Even without this, you can still drop a surprise Eldrazi on your opponents.
Inversion Behemoth is a reasonable card being a potential attacking 9/2 on turn 5. This comes with the caveat that you can connect, as 2 toughness really isn't a lot and will trade with most creatures they aren't tokens. Another problem I foresee with it is that even if you can connect, you will likely become a target. With this deck, I feel you might already be one, and this just cements it. You don't want to be a threat in the early game, as you need time to set up to be able to cast your haymaker 8+ mana cards. Suffer the Past is on the other end. While it can be used as a finisher or to stabilise a bit of life, I feel that there are better cards to funnel mana into, such as Torment of Hailfire.
Upgrade 8/9
The last pair of cards are Kozilek’s Unsealing and From Beyond. From Beyond was the Battle for Zendikar equivalent of Awakening Zone, already in the deck. From Beyond, however, makes Scions instead of Spawns and has the added ability to get an Eldrazi card when you have enough mana. Kozilek’s Unsealing is the newest version, and this time, it is branching into blue. This one is arguably the best. While it doesn't give you free value like the others, it can snowball pretty hard as it's not just a token every turn but any time you cast a creature with 4, 5 or 6 CMC. You also get two Spawns for your trouble, possibly allowing you to chain more spells to get more tokens. It also has the benefit of giving you a free Ancestral Recall for any creature you cast with 7 or higher CMC. Also, these are on cast effects, so even if the spells get countered, you can still get the tokens or the card draw.
Due to this card draw, I'm dropping Mystic Forge. This is a sudo card draw in this deck, as most of the cards are colourless. The main bottleneck you will face is hitting 2 lands or running out of mana. You usually see Mystic Forge in an artifact heavy deck with discounters letting you play all your cards for near or free and winning through some storm win. Also, while you can cast off the top, you are trying to cast 5+ mana cards on average.
The other card I am dropping is Ruins of Oran-Rief. I wasn't sure if I should be dropping a land in this deck, but I feel there are enough lands with mana rocks to still be fine. The next problem was what land to cut, so I settled on Ruins of Oran-Rief. It enters tapped and has a pretty lacklustre ability. If it put a counter on every creature that entered, then we would be talking, but only boosting a single creature isn't really worth it.
Upgrade 10
I couldn't do an Eldrazi deck without one of the big 3. These are Emrakul, Kozilek and Ulamog. Fortunately, there is one that fits into the budget. Kozilek, the Great Distortion. While not the strongest, it still has very good abilities. For 10 mana, you get a 12/12 with menace. Not the best stats for the mana, but when you cast Kozilek, you refill your hand back to 7. There is also an ability hidden at the bottom that I have gotten people with. You discard a card and then counter a spell with the same mana cost. People don't expect counters out of a non blue card. I've even read the card to people and still countered a game winning spell later because they forgot that it could do that. It's more innocuous as it's also a free ability, so you can tap out and still have a counter available. I think that's what throws people as I'm usually tapped out and playing a non blue deck, so they probably didn't think I had interaction.
The final cut is Elder Deep-Fiend. This one is a high costed Eldrazi that can be discounted by using the Emerge mechanic, but compared to Kozilek, the ability just doesn't stack up. It is good in 1v1, where you can emerge it on your opponent's upkeep and lock down their mana while keeping a reasonable body. However this doesn’t translate over to Commander particularly well.
Conclusion
I'm looking forward to playing with Eldrazi Incursion. I feel like the player base, myself included, has overhyped it a bit. Wizards have missed putting some of the better Eldrazi in the deck. I would have loved to see an Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger or others on that level. I do kind of see why they didn't, as they aren't the most fun to play against. But if you are playing an Eldrazi deck, you aren't here to make friends. It's about ramping up and playing big mana bombs or die trying. Go big or go home. But there just doesn't seem to be the top end finishers I wanted to see. This does give room for upgrades, though. Just be prepared to take out a loan for some of the cards. Below are some ideas that might give you some ideas. I hope to see you in part 2, where I'll review Creative Energy. As always, good luck and have fun.
PS. All the card prices were accurate at the time of writing.
Extra Upgrades
Like last time, here are some additional cards you can also place in the deck that are a great fit, but don’t necessarily fit our budget requirements.
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