Modern Horizons 3 will be hitting the stores June 11, and preview season officially kicks off May 21, but we’ve already gotten some official previews to give us a first look at what to expect. Ostensibly, Modern Horizons cards are printed for the Modern format, but new designs often have Commander impact, so Commander fans definitely are paying attention. Today I wanted to look over most of what we’ve seen so far through the lens of casual Commander. Let’s get cracking!
Ajani, Nacatl Pariah
I’m thrilled for a return of the “ignite their spark” legendary creatures that transform into planeswalkers in the style of Liliana, Heretical Healer from Magic Origins. Ajani’s new card goes back to his Nacatl roots here, with both sides of the card caring about the Cat creature type. It’s a little awkward that he can’t fit in the 99 of a Cat typal Arahbo, Roar of the World deck, but he can certainly slide into a Rin and Seri, Inseparable Cat deck. Or you can have Ajani lead the charge on a new Boros Cat typal deck, maybe one that has a strong equipment sub-theme – think Kemba, Kha Regent, Leonin Shikari and Balan, Wandering Knight.
Kudo, King Among Bears
This is a really wild and fun build-around card that I imagine creative deckbuilders will have a blast with. One of the first things I thought about is playing this with 0/0 creatures that enter the battlefield with some number of +1/+1 counters, like Kalonian Hydra, Walking Ballista, Arcbound Ravager, and such. You can also toss in Ayula, Queen Among Bears since Kudo will make all of your other creatures into Bears too.
Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd
Corgis are universally regarded as one of the cutest dog breeds around, so having a legendary Corgi you can build a deck around is a flavor home-run. Phelia has flash which is a nice way to play around sorcery-speed sweepers, and I appreciate its exile trigger is tied to attacking rather than just entering the battlefield, making it a much less frustrating card to play against. Phelia is small and doesn’t have evasion, so it will be a sweet deckbuilding challenge to figure out how to attack and survive with Phelia. My hope is this will encourage people to break out the old classic Maze of Ith for their decks!
Flare of Cultivation
Looks like we’ve got another cycle of cards that have an alternate casting cost that requires no mana, which I’m not a huge fan of for Commander, but is no doubt quite nice for higher powered play. The green one from the cycle seems quite fair though – requiring a sacrifice of a non-token and green creature to cast it for no mana, and it gives you a Cultivate effect for two basic lands, and the one enters the battlefield tapped (unless you’re running Spelunking). There are plenty of Commander decks that I completely fine with sacrificing creatures too, so the cost can be an upside. If I open one, I’ll likely give it a whirl in my Henzie “Toolbox” Torre deck!
Flare of Denial
The last thing we need is another free blue counterspell but here we are. In terms of raw power, it looks more fair than others since it requires a nontoken blue creature to sacrifice for the free alternate casting cost, so it at least requires an investment onto the battlefield to unlock.
Chthonian Nightmare
I played the heck out of Recurring Nightmare back in the day, and when it got added to the ban list in EDH/Commander I totally agreed, because the card is easily busted in a format as deep as Commander. This fixed version has a lot of hoops you have to jump through that hopefully limits its infinite combo potential, and so makes it more of a slow grindy value engine—my favorite! I really love the energy element here in black, and I’ll be very curious to see what people do with it.
Siege-Gang Lieutenant
We got a few peeks at cards from the Modern Horizons 3 Commander decks, including Siege-Gang Lieutenant, which is a sweet call-back to Siege-Gang Commander, but with the lieutenant Commander mechanic. I’m sure Goblin typal fans are going to love this one, and so will decks that care about token creatures.
Final Act
I’m not at all a fan of Farewell, and this black card is obviously a callback to that card. I don’t think this is as egregious as Farewell, though the effect of exiling everyone’s creatures can be usually accomplished by destroying creatures and exiling all graveyards. I think in general it’s going to be pretty annoying to play against, except where people are a bit more discerning in how they play it, like not choosing all options when it’s not desperately needed. Removing all counters from each opponent is a really interesting addition here, and I guess it’s a safety valve for a bunch of new energy cards.
March from Velis Vel
This is a weird niche card that I’m going to be thrilled to see creative people do weird things with. Nonbasic land types currently include Cave, Desert, Gate, Lair, Locus, Mine, Power-Plant, Sphere, Tower, and Urza’s. I expect the “Urza’s” land type to be what people will be using this card with the most in Commander. I’m a little sad that you can’t copy any creature but rather a creature you control, which limits this quite a bit.
Wight of the Reliquary
Another cool callback, this time to Knight of the Reliquary, a sweet card that powered me to the Top 8 of Virginia State Champs back in 2009. I also played it a few times in Legacy Maverick decks. I’m a little sad to see the Human Knight’s fate as a Zombie, but as a Golgari fan I’m excited to do some sweet land shenanigans at the cost of sacrificing creatures that of course will just come back from the graveyard. While Knight of the Reliquary tended to leave you land neutral – sacrifice a land, tutor up a land – Wight of the Reliquary will actually ramp you land. Also, it has vigilance, so you don’t have to choose between attacking or activating it which was always a tough decision for Knight of the Reliquary once it would get to a particular size. I’m excited about this one.
Psychic Frog
I love the callback to Psychatog here, a card that tormented me back when Odyssey was legal in the tournament decks I was playing. “Psychic Frog” sounds a lot like Psychatog doesn’t it? It also has vibes from the old-school card Ophidian, another blue creature that terrorized Magic players back in the days of Weatherlight. I like that it will draw a card if it damages a planeswalker and not just a player, and I like that discarding a card gives it a permanent +1/+1 boost in the form of a counter. It can even give itself evasion with flying by plundering your own graveyard. It this isn’t way too expensive I imagine it will show up in a lot of Commander decks.
Spawn-Gang Commander
Oh hey, yet another callback to Siege-Gang Commander, this time in the main set! This is sneakily a mana ramp card since it creates three Eldrazi Spawn tokens that can each be sacrificed to provide a colorless mana – you’d be ramping from five to eight, which is where the biggest Eldrazi begin to show up in the mana curve. I also think it’s a nice card to have in Mono-Red decks to help provide some help against creatures that have protection from red.
Nulldrifter
Here’s a sweet callback to Mulldrifter, which has the same evoke cost as Mulldrifter and will also draw you two cards – though it’s a cast trigger so you can’t do blink or “scam” shenanigans to draw even more cards. I’m not a big fan of the annihilator mechanic in Commander, but if we have to have it on here I’m glad it’s just annihilator 1.
Null Elemental Blast
This is a cool card that I think mono-color decks will be able to access more thanks to being able to run more colorless utility lands. Most games I imagine at the very least one or two of your opponents will be playing a multicolor commander this can counter or destroy. I have a Multani, Yavimaya’s Avatar deck that has a strong colorless mana theme that I’ll be slotting this in for sure.
It That Heralds the End
A nice “ramp” card for your more expensive colorless creatures that also acts as a “lord” effect for various Eldrazi token creatures, artifact creatures, and other colorless creatures – like Spawn-Gang Commander which is colorless thanks to devoid. And the card art from Alex Konstad is amazing!
Herigast, Erupting Nullkite
Emerge is such a disturbing mechanic when you think about a creature “bursting out of” another creature, it definitely captures the horror flavor it’s playing on. Herigast gives all your creatures spells emerge, which definitely makes this an interesting card to build around. Exiling your hand and then drawing three cards when you cast this puts a lot of limitations on how your deck should be built and run. What sort of Commander deck will people make with this as the commander? I can’t wait to see what folks come up with!
Emrakul, the World Anew
I’m definitely not in the camp of people who wanted to see another Emrakul, but here we are! It’s interesting that the madness discount can’t be used from the command zone, and a whopping six colorless mana for the madness cost can make it really hard to pay if you’re not playing a mostly colorless deck. The cast effect is quite powerful, so I expect to see it in the 99 of decks that can utilize either way of casting it. I don’t know much about Modern, but I’ll be curious to see if Tron players will make use of this!
Winter Moon
I know there’s an urge to want to “punish” four and five color decks in Commander sporting the greediest of mana bases, but constricting their mana in this way isn’t something I’d want to do in the games I prefer to play. I’d much rather the punishment be something in form of damage (Price of Progress, Anathemancer, Mercadia’s Downfall) or some other sort of benefit to me for playing fewer colors (War Room). That said, for high powered or cEDH metas, Winter Moon is a fine tool to constrict those decks who want to have it all.
Urza’s Cave
Hey look, speaking of Urza’s lands, we’ve got a new one with Urza’s Cave, a sweet one that can be sacrificed to search your library for a land card and put it on the battlefield tapped. I imagine most black decks looking to have both Cabal Coffers and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth on the battlefield will want to play Urza’s Cave to help assemble the combo. If you have a particularly powerful land in your deck like Gaea’s Cradle, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, or Cavern of Souls, you’ll want this card. A land tutor that doesn’t take up a non-land slot in your deck is quite powerful!
Ugin’s Labyrinth
This seems bonkers in any deck with a critical mass of colorless cards with mana value seven or greater to ensure the combo of imprinting and getting two colorless mana each time you tap this. Even cooler, is the fact you can retrieve that imprinted card later on once you don’t need the extra mana is incredibly powerful and super-flavorful with the idea of this being Ugin’s maze. The preorder price for this seems quite high, so I don’t know how much we’ll see this at casual Commander tables, but it’ll be fun to see it in action at the Modern tables.
Planar Nexus
A super-fun card for those who are trying to assemble a particular nonbasic land type like Gates, Caves, or Locus decks. It seems bonkers for decks that run the “Urzatron” lands since one Planar Nexus counts as having a Mine, Power Plant, and Tower so it will power up an Urza’s Tower, Urza’s Power Plant or Urza’s Mine all by itself.
Snow-Covered Wastes
Snow strategies can now unlock the awesome power of colorless spells with Snow-Covered Wastes! Notably, you can run a Wastes and a Snow-Covered Wastes to diversify your land names satisfy Field of the Dead’s requirements.
Which cards are you excited about from Modern Horizons 3? What’s the coolest thing you’re planning on doing with March from Velis Vel?
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And lastly, I just want to say: let us love each other and stay healthy and happy.
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