Howdy gamers, and welcome to another list of the most Cubeable cards from Modern Horizons 3! Today we’ll be tackling the set’s corresponding Commander release, and there are some nice ones here. All four decks are a bit specific, which is about what can be expected from Commander precons, but there are some really awesome cards in the spread.
Before we get into that, let’s take a look at all four Modern Horizons 3 Commander decks and what they have to offer more generally.
Tricky Terrain
Tricky Terrain is a Simic deck with all kinds of weird land synergies. Rampant Frogantua is a pretty sweet card if you can get past the loud multiplayer text, and there’s something very charming about the oddball Copy Land. There are lots of interesting niche cards in this precon, such as Horizon of Progress, which is in some ways Reflecting Pool with downside but in others a Horizon land with upside. I’m also pretty big on Planar Nexus as a way to make Urza lands, Locuses, Gates, and whatever else more viable. If you like weird land stuff, this deck is very much for you!
Graveyard Overdrive
Graveyard Overdrive is a Jund deck that has the most generically good cards of the spread here, accounting for (spoiler) a whopping six of my Top 10 individual card picks for today! It turns out that the graveyard is a fun and powerful zone to exploit, and that you don’t have to change Tarmogoyf much to make it very appealing!
There are a number of more specific and cool cards in this deck as well as some Desert and lands-in-graveyard synergies, with Desert Warfare being probably my favorite card in any of these decks that didn’t make my Top 10 list. Its power level makes it likely too strong for most environments that facilitate Desert synergies, but it’s on my short list of cards I would like to someday Cube with.
Creative Energy
Hot on the heels of the Jeskai Energy deck from Fallout Commander we have… another Jeskai Energy deck! The main set has a much deeper pool of useful energy cards for two-player play, but there are some nice designs in this deck if you want to go really deep. There are also a few random non-energy cards offering unique and potentially powerful effects like Hourglass of the Lost. This is my pick for the least consequential of the four decks, but there are some very cool designs here.
Eldrazi Incursion
Last but certainly not least, Eldrazi Incursion is a five-color Eldrazi typal deck with plenty of colorless mana requirements to boot. I’ve personally been working on an Eldrazi Twobert that will use some goodies from this deck and even more cards from the main set, and there are some individually powerful cards here as well as synergistic tools that don’t necessarily need an Eldrazi heavy environment to thrive. In fact, the first card on my list comes from this very deck!
10. Mutated Cultist
Mutated Cultist is a very specific card, and I mostly expect it to show up as a second copy of Vampire Hexmage in high-power Cubes facilitating Dark Depths combo. That said, Mutated Cultist does enable some funky plays that Hexmage can’t, so maybe this is actually going to be the first copy of the “remove all counters” effect!
There are two things going on here that make Mutate Cultist appealing. The first is that the 1/3 is left over if you have to use the card to disrupt your opponent by removing all counters from something like a planeswalker, as opposed to needing to sacrifice Hexmage to do so. The other is that there is some explosive potential with the mana-generating ability. If you’re living in Magical Christmas Land, this means creating Marit Lage and then casting an Emrakul with your bonus mana, while the more realistic play pattern of destroying a planeswalker and casting a three- to five-mana spell with the bonus mana will be a very satisfying swing for us mere mortals.
9. Aggressive Biomancy
There are a lot of cards in Aggressive Biomancy’s space these days, but this still captures me as a nice effect for something like the Live the Dream Cube while also being a serviceable option for more modest environments. It’s really nice that you can use this card to target multiple of your own creatures so it won’t fully fizzle to one removal spell, though this card won’t do anything if you haven’t already established some battlefield presence. In that way, I would often cut it from my decks for existing in something of a “win-more” space, but it is a very cool card all the same.
8. Omo, Queen of Vesuva
I love this card, with Omo’s significant weakness being that the everything counters only do anything while Omo remains on the battlefield, but if you’re able to keep this 1/5 around, you can facilitate a lot of synergies that can otherwise be very difficult in singleton environments. Whether you’re interested in more niche creature types or land types, Omo can make your weirdo Lords and Locuses hum! Omo doesn’t serve much of any purpose in more mainstream and higher-power-level Cubes that will glue together a lot of more obscure and niche ideas.
7. Sawhorn Nemesis
Magic’s most splashable Furnace of Rath, Sawhorn Nemesis is one of the most spiteful multiplayer cards ever printed and comes at a solid rate for two-player games as well. The card itself says it’s a 2/4, but when you factor in the ability, it functions as a 4/4. There are plenty of great four-mana red options these days at or around this rate, but Sawhorn Nemesis is one of the better ones for an immediate alpha strike that also turns up the heat on your Thundermaw Hellkite next turn.
Ultimately, Sawhorn Nemesis is quite replaceable with four mana being so high on the curve for aggressive decks, but it is definitely significant for Commander Cubes and Live the Dream-style Cubes. That’s pretty par for the course when it comes to Commander precons.
6. Tarmogoyf Nest
Tarmogoyf Nest is one of the cooler cards printed in recent memory, and I’ve been very happy drafting it in my Spooky Cube to this point. You pay for what you get with Tarmogoyf Nest, but you also get what you pay for! Making a Tarmogoyf every turn is a great way to break through a battlefield stall once you’ve stabilized a game, and the mana costs associated have felt really balanced.
I’m also really happy to see the return of kindred as a card type, meaning that Tarmogoyf Nest counts as two card types if it ends up in your graveyard for any delirium or other Lhurgoyf shenanigans. I knew that I wanted to play with this card since I first saw it previewed, and I’m happy to report that it has played better than I could have expected it to!
5. Final Act
The black Farewell. Final Act won’t be going into any of my Cubes, but there’s an argument for a card like this in higher-power Cubes where you want a way to catch up in games that have gotten completely out of hand. I would expect this to show up in the Magic Online (MTGO) Vintage Cube, given how much mention they make of both exiling removal and Otharri, Suns’ Glory they make in their changelogs. You resolve the abilities from top to bottom, so this will ultimately exile any creature that it destroys if you select both relevant modes, though this will not answer indestructible creatures.
It’s amusing to see exiling all battles on a card when we haven’t seen a single battle released after March of the Machine. The Lord of the Rings and Modern Horizons 3 seemed like the most likely spots to see the card type return, so who knows what the future of battles looks like. I do consider Invasion of Gobakhan to be a Vintage Cube-caliber card at the very least, but I don’t see too many battles in too many Cubes. Battle text aside, Final Act is a sweeper that really cleans up, which will make it appealing for some Cube environments, even if it’s one that I don’t personally intend to Cube with.
4. Talon Gates of Madara
Cards in the Shimmering Grotto space show up in some Cubes, and two wonky and powerful abilities make this card really appealing. Talon Gates of Madara can be used to phase out a blocker, or can be cheated onto the battlefield from your hand to phase out an attacker, or even to save one of your creatures from a sweeper!
A land that has a built-in ability to ramp, assuming you’re able to make your land drops otherwise, is unique and potentially powerful. I’m not sure which Cubes this card fits into exactly, or how popular it will be, but much like Omo, it’s the uniqueness that puts it over. At the very least, this card will play well alongside bouncelands.
3. Barrowgoyf
My initial read on Barrowgoyf was that it would be a cool card for Spooky Cube, but after one game, I determined that the card is much too individually powerful for that environment! Barrowgoyf is the newest card in the lineage of Vampire Nighthawk and Nighthawk Scavenger, with it being much more powerful than the former and reading much more cleanly than the latter. And then it also comes with a hit trigger that makes it a very scary attacker.
I currently have Barrowgoyf slotted in the original Twobert, and I really like how it fits into a midrange environment like that. As a black creature that only attacks and blocks, there’s not much space for it in the highest-power formats, but I could see it showing up in the MTGO Vintage Cube and being at least as good as other black creatures that have been in and out lately. Barrowgoyf is a formidable rate monster for any environment interested in that sort of thing.
2. Bloodbraid Challenger
Bloodbraid Elf’s older sibling, Bloodbraid Challenger is equal parts chaotic and reliable as a midrange threat. It exists at the crossroads of fun and powerful, which is exactly what I look for in a Cube card! Gruul is a bit of a problem color pair, and Bloodbraid Challenger is an easy card to slot in when you’re not sure what to do with your Gruul slots, though I could definitely see the card taking over games in lower-power environments, which would make it unappealing. Escape is a fundamentally powerful and repetitive mechanic, and both of those things can lead to problems, but it’s a lock for the original Twobert at the very least.
1. Pyrogoyf
I see a lot of love for Flametongue Kavu in 2024, and while I do have nostalgia for the card, you can count me as an FTK hater for modern Cubes! A more robust body and the ability to go upstairs put Pyrogoyf way over Flametongue Kavu, though much like Bloodbraid Challenger, this card will be too powerful for lower-power Cubes. If you like a higher power level, though, Pyrogoyf does rank among the most powerful four-mana options for red Cube cards, and it’s good in controlling and aggressive decks alike!
I currently have Pyrogoyf in the original Twobert, though I am curious if it might pack too much of a punch and how the ability to trigger off other Lhurgoyfs will play. You can definitely push the typal synergy if you want, up to including Polygoyf and its weirdo myriad ability, though I can’t imagine you’ll get too many triggers before the game ends!
Certified Cubeable
Modern Horizons 3 and Modern Horizons 3 Commander are chock-full of Cube goodies. I’ve really enjoyed playing with the sets so far and can’t wait to play more! I wouldn’t expect any less from a Modern Horizons set, and this might very well be my favorite installment in this genre to date.
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