Using New Eldrazi From Modern Horizons 3 In Modern MTG

The Eldrazi are back in Modern Horizons 3 and they mean business. As in their original show-stopping appearance in Zendikar block, all of the other tempting adventures and side quests in this set are irrelevant if the Eldrazi deliver on their promise to annihilate Modern once more. 

Emrakul

Let’s start with the biggest and weirdest Eldrazi of all:

Emrakul, the World Anew is a terrifying finisher for a deck that might be totally fictional. The original Emrakul could slam the door shut once you had more mana than you could ever need, but it showed up more often as the best thing to cheat in for far less than fifteen mana with the likes of Through the Breach and Goryo’s Vengeance. Emrakul, the Promised End caused nightmares in Modern because the natural flow of the game made it more than a pipe dream – you could just about get to the eight or nine mana it would eventually cost against a glacially slow control deck. 

This Emrakul is a whole new… animal? That fixed cost of twelve is closer to fifteen than to any normal number, but the Madness cost has its own asterisks. There’s no shortage of strong discard outlets in Modern, but you want one that can discard for free so you can cast a six-drop with it – yet most of the best options are incompatible with this uniquely challenging madness cost. Psychic Frog is turning heads as a discard outlet – but what kind of deck wants both Frog and Emrakul, and what manabase can make UB on Turn 2 and six colourless mana at any point?!

Cooking the Books

On a lonely and precarious perch in this middle ground, we find The Underworld Cookbook. Cookbook is already a strong enabler for various synergies, from discard and graveyard themes to artifact and Food production, but the scariest eldritch horror in the Multiverse finds itself oddly dependent on the good book too. Urza’s Saga finds Cookbook (or the Expedition Map for the next Saga or the missing Tron piece…), gives you something to do with your mana and a reward for making all these trinkets, and is a crucial source of colourless mana for the eventual Emrakul turn.

Each Emrakul has a bespoke form of protection, and this one is the clearest statement yet. Protection from spells covers most interaction, and protection from permanents that were cast this turn dodges the most glaring exceptions, like Leyline Binding and Solitude, that have kept various generations of Emrakul in its cell over the past few years.

Before thinking about Emrakul makes me too deranged, let’s move on.

Ulamog

This Ulamog is a head-scratcher in its own way. Its cast trigger has the least immediate impact across all generations of the three Eldrazi titans. When it finally attacks, it cuts a trail of destruction that dwarfs even the original Emrakul’s – but it doesn’t buy you the time to get that attack. 

Note the wording here – if Ulamog enters from exile, it counts itself. Indomitable Creativity for Ulamog gets you total annihilation… the next turn, without firm protection. Is that enough?

Kozilek

It takes at least two attempts to assess this new Kozilek – one to understand what it actually does, and a few more to judge if that’s worth nine mana. This forced manifest can rob the opponent of their big finish while rewarding you with more cards and turning your dead cards into a 5/4 and a new card. At its peak, you ruin their next move while drawing four cards and adding at least nineteen power – not a bad return on your investment!

The worry is that nine mana may as well be ten or twelve or a million – and a nine-drop in Modern should do something that rounds off to “win the game”. 

There’s a tension here that dates back to the original Eldrazi Winter. The aggressive Eldrazi decks that stormed Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch couldn’t aim for the biggest Eldrazi, but they didn’t need to – they were content to cast Reality Smasher and friends ahead of schedule. Cards like Drowner of Hope and Endbringer sat atop the curve in case the game dragged out somehow, but the legendary Eldrazi stayed home. 

On to Eldrazi Tron

Once the Eye of Ugin closed and order was restored, the Eldrazi Tron mutant that carried the torch had an identity crisis that was on display in its manabase. Eldrazi Temple was great at powering out a fast Thought-Knot Seer or Reality Smasher – but even a double Temple draw would struggle to cast Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger in any normal game. For that, you needed Urza firing on all cylinders, but without the Ancient Stirrings and Sylvan Scryings of Mono-Green Tron, you couldn’t rely on that happening in any given game and couldn’t load up on these big mana payoffs – and this in turn meant you weren’t rewarded well for assembling Tron!

It’s no accident that the various Tron decks have put their mark on Modern again after picking up payoffs that bridge this gap – cheap enough to cast in the normal games but a worthwhile use of a mana surplus. 

Thought-Knot Seer is the Eldrazi of its cohort that aged the best here, sitting at that four-mana sweet spot and providing a unique form of disruption (especially in a colourless deck!). As new threats fill the format, beaters like Reality Smasher look less impressive even with this discount – but Thought-Knot Seer is still the best in class. 

Into the Labyrinth

Let’s keep that trio in mind as we wander through Ugin’s Labyrinth:

Even the narrowest Ancient Tomb can be dangerous – as Eldrazi Temple taught us already! – and Ugin’s Labyrinth aims to follow its example. Within those layered constraints, there’s a surprising amount of variety – you can build an Affinity deck pairing Labyrinth with Sojourner’s Companion, Myr Enforcer, and friends that has almost zero overlap with any deck here – but here, Ugin is teaming up with the Eldrazi for a change. 

To avoid that fundamental issue that plagued Eldrazi Tron, we need a critical mass of cards that have the right sticker price to imprint on Labyrinth without actually requiring seven or more mana. This set helps you get started there too:

Devourer of Destiny bolsters your consistency on all fronts – it can go under Labyrinth, it can dig for Labyrinth (or the missing Tron piece, if that’s your route to untold riches this game), and it’s a respectable mana sink that gives you a broad answer to whatever nonsense slipped through the cracks. 

Devourer filling those gaps early and late but not in between means it will give Labyrinth many chances to show how useful that ‘rebuy’ mode is – and, if Grief is still keeping the format in line, hiding your payoff (or answer to Grief etc.) under Labyrinth is a very welcome option!

More Options

Similarly, Drowner of Truth can power up this land; act as a Limited-quality dual land; or flood your battlefield with more stuff later. That doesn’t add up to all that much, but there’s a hidden dream to chase too – you can play Drowner as a land and then use cards like Ghostly Flicker to turn that into the 7/6 body in all its natural beauty!

If you’re determined to have Ugin’s Labyrinth or Eldrazi Temple every game, Serum Powder joins Devourer in boosting your consistency without requiring coloured mana – or any mana at all!

Eldrazi tamers who did this years ago could freeroll Eternal Scourge as it sat in exile – and Devourer gives you yet another way to get it there without the embarrassment of actually drawing it.

Nulldrifting

As with the Fury/Solitude cycle and Up the Beanstalk, the evoke on Nulldrifter lets you pass that test on the cheap – and both Labyrinth and Eldrazi Temple let you cast this Divination even sooner. Nulldrifter offers its own little combo with Dress Down, which voids the sacrifice clause on the evoke trigger and keeps Nulldrifter around – while still giving you your cards, as this is part of the usual Eldrazi ‘when you cast…’ trigger and not the evoke Elemental ‘when this enters…’ setup.

The emerge Eldrazi concentrated in blue are a proven success story here. Sanctum of Ugin can reprise its Standard role of enabling Elder Deep-Fiend chains but now enjoys an even wider toolbox of colourless finishers. 

Blue gets its own impressive rewards for paying these hefty prices. Kozilek’s Unsealing may be more for the Myr Enforcer crowd – when you have a dozen ‘free’ Myr Enforcers that are all Ancestral Recalls, it’s trivial to draw your entire deck in one turn – but Ugin’s Binding mirrors Kozilek’s Return as an effect you get ‘on the house’ that you’d gladly pay all your mana for.

Nullkiting

Herigast, Erupting Nullkite may emerge as one of the most intriguing build-arounds in the set. Sneaking it in is the hard part – but, once you do, you get to laugh off the whole concept of mana costs as you storm off with a flurry of the most expensive Eldrazi. Getting enough fodder for this second wave without emerging away Herigast itself isn’t easy (though another forgotten Eldrazi in Artisan of Kozilek is the perfect way to keep that chain going), but maybe you always intended to use Herigast as a stepping stone. If your Tasigur, the Golden Fang becomes a Herigast which becomes an Emrakul, the Promised End in one fell swoop, what more do you really need?

The Ramp Approach

Let’s put some of the more sensible ideas here into practice:

For a more conventional Eldrazi Ramp deck, All Is Dust looms as the ideal one-sided sweeper that has the right types and costs for everything else. 

Sowing Mycospawn lives up to the memory of Reap and Sow in the Tooth and Nail decks, assembling your formidable mana engine while disabling theirs. World Breaker has its own brand of inevitability, but can be tucked under Ugin’s Labyrinth early and gives you broad coverage against a wide range of permanent types along with a new addition:

Thief of Existence is exactly what your crew of clunky aliens needs to keep up with fast linear decks powered by the likes of Amulet of Vigor or Hardened Scales, or take down a Fable of the Mirror-Breaker or The One Ring that threatens to define the mid-game. Wastescape Battlemage is a neat riff on this theme for lists that touch blue.

The Aggro Approach

Perhaps this is all too mopey. Why not just run them over?!

Eldrazi Linebreaker hits hard. Consider this Eldrazi-licious start:

Turn 1: Eldrazi Temple, Eldrazi Mimic.

Turn 2: Eldrazi Linebreaker. Attack for eight.

Turn 3: Thought-Knot Seer. Attack for fourteen.

That’s lethal damage by Turn 3! Or how about this opening that looks more tame and conventional?

Turn 1: Delighted Halfling.

Turn 2: Eldrazi Linebreaker. Attack for four.

Turn 3: Thought-Knot Seer. Attack for nine.

You have lethal next turn, and the disruption from Thought-Knot Seer can help you cross that finish line. 

These mana creatures have been the backbone of previous green-based Eldrazi decks, and they only get better with more strong three-drop Eldrazi. Delighted Halfling’s default mana being colourless is actually ideal here, and that all-important second point of toughness makes it a responsible choice with Orcish Bowmasters and the recently resurgent Lava Dart lurking around every corner. 

Is Broodscale Broken?

Fittingly, the most important Eldrazi may be an innocuous common that’s totally unlike its fellow hellspawn. Basking Broodscale creates a loop with Rosie Cotton of South Lane – Rosie enters and creates a Food, putting a counter on Broodscale, which shoots out a Spawn, triggering Rosie and adding another counter to Broodscale, and so on, leaving you with an infinitely large Broodscale and infinite mana via these Spawn (to be funneled into another win condition like Lair of the Hydra or Walking Ballista, or giving you infinite fodder for other sacrifice outlets).

By itself, this is a Turn 3 win with no need for Turn 1 acceleration (unlike the Heliod, Sun-Crowned combos, for example) and only requiring two cards that are each quite versatile, making it more compact and modular than any other creature combo in these colours. Players who enjoyed using Spike Feeder or Kitchen Finks to send their life total into their stratosphere now have a great excuse to dust off Collected Company or Chord of Calling for one more heave.

The Invasion Begins

Taken together, these Eldrazi present a curious enigma for players figuring out Modern’s twisted new landscape heading into the Pro Tour. I don’t know which of these Eldrazi will make a mark, which colours they will show up in (if they have any colour at all!), or whether they will cost two or twelve – I just know to be prepared for a skittering invasion of some kind.

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