Two elephants in the room: Horizons du Modern 3 editorial

There’s an elephant in the room.

In fact, there are sort of two elephants in the room?

Eldrazi! Even though there are more than 40 returning mechanics in Modern Horizons 3 Limited, one of them stands out above the rest: the Eldrazi (and their associated Spawn and related friends).

The Eldrazi as a creature type have been one of the most popular in the game since they arrived on the scene in 2010. They have a great combination of big and weird that is a great fit for much of the player base, including me.

And punches weren’t pulled when it came to creating the Eldrazi in this set. In fact, the Eldrazi theme is so prevalent that it is, in my opinion, the deck most likely to be drafted on the Pro Tour.

The goal of the Eldrazi deck is simple: use your first few turns to increase your mana, avoid the boring middle ground of 4 and 5 mana creatures, and start attacking the big players as soon as possible. There are enough big Eldrazi around – and the ramp support is good enough – that Pro Tour players will be able to execute this double consistently.

The Eldrazi primarily exist in Temur colors; Green, red and blue.

Green gives you the best ramp options, either tapping for mana, putting lands onto the battlefield, or spawning Eldrazi tokens.

Malevolent Rumble Eldrazi RePurposer Nightshade Dryad Basking Brood Scales

Malevolent growl It seems harmless, but don’t sleep on it: it’s a high pick for the Eldrazi deck. Eldrazi Reconverter And Basking Brood Scale gives you the advantage of adding significantly to the board while still coughing up spawn tokens for your big finishers. Nightshade dryad the transitions from mana creator to big blocker in the late game are pretty seamless.

Once the mana is set up, it’s time to start deploying battleships.

In common you get cards like Drowning Prowler And Deformed Tusker.

Distorted Drownyard Tusker Lurker

These two offer the flexibility of being a decent finisher or helping you cast and/or find your other finishers via cycling for value.

But it’s rare and most importantly, you get some real heavy hitters.

Creation Breaker Eldrazi Ravager Fate Devourer 662158 662162 662167

Not all of these cards are equal, but you will take any of them and insert them as “good enough” cards that can take over the game if cast on turn five or earlier. And that’s enough to win a lot of matches in this format, just that combination of early ramp and big finisher.

Normally, Eldrazi cards are limited by the fact that you need specifically colorless mana to cast some of them. Modern Horizons 3, you don’t really feel the pressure like you would in a normal set. This is mainly because of the Eldrazi Spawn tokens mentioned earlier, but it’s also true because of these:

Generous landscape Perilous landscape Tranquil landscape Twisted landscape Disturbing landscape

Landscape cards have proven to be excellent solutions, they sacrifice for one of the three terrain types they can recover, but perhaps just as importantly, they commit to a “fourth” type of terrain. mana: Colorless.

This, plus the fact that you’ll occasionally use them for a late-game card, means they have little downside and enough upside to warrant early picks. A designer who ignores the need for some scenery in his construction is one who cannot cast his spells and will pay the price.

Finally, there’s another Eldrazi-sized elephant in the room that needs to be addressed:

Writhing chrysalis

In fact, this guy is bigger than an elephant.

Looking for what is probably the best running print…well, since I started competitive writing?

And it was in Lorwyn block, released in 2007.

Seriously, Writhing chrysalis is better than almost all rares and mythic rares in the set, and it’s common!

This is going to change the way table drafts play out, and players really need to decide if they want to jump at the chance to have one in their deck if they open it, or if they want to try to ‘go in a different direction and everyone throws it away for the Eldrazi scraps.

We haven’t seen a historically good common like this in a while. It will be interesting to see how players adapt to it. I suppose they will happily take any Writhing chrysalis they open and proceed from there.

The Eldrazi deck is the best in the format, and the table can support multiple Eldrazi drafters because it comes in three colors and is relatively flexible in terms of game plan.

You will see it at the Pro Tour, and I think it will produce good results.

The other mechanic that shines through in this whole is energy.

The energy is primarily in the Jeskai color trio; white, blue and red. He was a popular mechanic in Kaladesh when it first appeared, and it proved versatile enough to be brought back on a large scale for Modern Horizons 3.

You want cards that create energy and cards to spend that energy on. The good news is that many cards do both; they create energy when you throw them or when they enter the battlefield, and they also give you a place to spend it.

There is the question that players must face: is the bottleneck in obtaining energy or in spending it?

Some mechanics like this make it difficult to obtain the resource, but once you do, you get a big benefit from spending it. Others make it easy to obtain the resource, but difficult to spend efficiently.

Overall, it’s easy to get and easy to spend. It’s not uncommon for a good energy deck to end the game with extra energy meters floating around, so the focus is on the spending part, but overall it’s pretty easy to get and expend energy.

Your bread and butter energy cards give you energy immediately and give you a place to spend it immediately or in installments.

662202 Storm Harvester 662274 Hexgold Slithe Smelted Chargebug

Galvanic discharge has been particularly impressive, even scaling up to Eldrazi-sized damage when necessary, but still effective enough to kill a double-drop and leave some energy in reserve.

And when each of them leaves behind a few scraps of energy, you can spend it in these excellent energy wells.

Roil Cartographer Custom Battle Cart Amped Raptor Reiterating Bolt Static Prison Voltstorm Angel

I saw people getting active Roil Cartographer three times in a single match, Amplified Raptor run Eldrazi “for free”, Reiterating bolt replicated three times, and Static Prison never leave the battlefield.

The key is that you want every card in your deck to produce energy, be a place to spend energy, or both.

And that doesn’t even include my favorite:

662265

Aether Revolt is one of my favorite builds overall. This is the type of card that can take over a game and turn it around in the process, because it no longer requires you to attack to win the game. In a dedicated energy strategy, the revolt ability is a bonus that you will get from time to time but is not necessary to win.

My favorite version of the energy deck is the red-white beatdown version.

You need all the good cards usually like Galvanic discharge And Static Prisonbut it combines them with two energy-focused gold cards that have been awesome.

Goblin Drive Gremlin Race

Goblin Conduit is one of the scariest threats you can have on turn two. Normally, cards that give haste to other creatures require an investment of mana to do so.

So you end up getting your creature in a hurry, but one turn late. With Goblin Conduit, you can expend energy on this, so you can still bend like you would have done before. Adding a power point also goes a long way, combining for a powerful energy well for just two mana.

The star of the red-white energy deck is Gremlins Dispatch.

This card has a bad habit of ending the game the very turn it enters the battlefield thanks to its two Gremlin armies and often something like six to eight extra energy. This energy (and any energy you have saved) is immediately used to activate it two or more times. After some quick calculations, the game ends.

It is crazy.

Gremlins Dispatch is one of the short list of cards where players will pick up good Eldrazi cards and feel good about doing so.

So those are the two big, hard-hitting elephants that players will primarily consider when sitting down for the ever-important Pro Tour draft. Modern Horizons 3 in Amsterdam. You can tune in to twitch.tv/magic for live coverage of the Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3 from June 28 to 30, 2024.

If they want to qualify for the Top 8 of the tournament, a strong – or even exceptional – draft record will be a requirement, and these two strategies are the favorites to get them there. I can’t wait to see how it turns out!

@Marshall_LR