Let’s talk about Flickerwisp.
Like Thraben Inspector in Standard, Flickerwisp is Modern’s unassuming white creature that does a lot more than anyone expects it to. But unlike Thraben Inspector, there is a key to making Flickerwisp work: playing it at instant speed.
At sorcery speed, Flickerwisp is mainly removing blockers, reusing an enters-the-battlefield trigger, or blinking a land so you can double-spell with an instant on their turn. That’s a reasonable set of abilities, but in a powerful format like Modern it falls short.
However, once you’re able to put Flickerwisp onto the battlefield at instant speed, you unlock a litany of other modes. It can stop an opposing attacker, save your creature from a removal spell, or Stone Rain your opponent for a turn, just to name a few.
Aether Vial and Collected Company are the two cards that enable instant-speed Flickerwisps and typically you find one or the other because they are hard to make work in the same list, but today’s list has both, as well as mana creatures to accelerate the whole process.
And of course, we’re going one step further by trying to take advantage of Wasteland Stranger alongside the 3/1 flier. Flickerwisp leaves the permanent exiled until the following end step, so an end-step Flickerwisp with a Wasteland Strangler on the following turn lets you process the permanent before it comes back, removing it from the battlefield forever. Tidehollow Sculler and Path to Exile are the other sources of process fodder, which may be a little light, but Collected Company greatly increases your access to creatures over the course of the game.
Few of the cards here are linchpin cards in the format, and the cards don’t stand pound for pound against the Tarmogoyfs and Snapcaster Mages of the world, but Flickerwisp has made a career out of being underestimated and I don’t see why that would stop now. Put some time in and learn all the tricks that this deck has its disposal, and you’ll be rewarded by a string of dumbfounded opponents signing match slips while muttering “What just happened?” under their breaths.
Creatures (27)
- 1 Birds of Paradise
- 3 Eternal Witness
- 4 Flickerwisp
- 4 Tidehollow Sculler
- 4 Noble Hierarch
- 1 Qasali Pridemage
- 2 Scavenging Ooze
- 1 Fiend Hunter
- 3 Wasteland Strangler
- 1 Duskwatch Recruiter
- 3 Selfless Spirit
Lands (18)
Spells (15)
