Last Wednesday, June 5th, was an auspicious day for Magic: the Gathering content creators as a select group got a chance to dust off Modern Horizons 3 for the first time in an all-access promotional event simply titled the Streamer Event. In the past, these have been called Early Access, but there was a rebrand at some point so here we are.
As I primarily play Standard on Arena, I decided to focus my efforts on the constructed queues. Since Modern Horizons 3 won't be going into Standard, that left me with Historic and Timeless and only a few hours to put some decks together. There were a few archetypes I wanted to try, so here's a rundown of my favorite decks from the event.
Primal Prayers Combo
This deck is trying to execute a combo with Primal Prayers, Shrieking Drake, and Guide of Souls. The idea is, Guide of Souls gives you an energy every time a creature enters the battlefield, and Primal Prayers lets you play creatures for the low-low cost of on energy. When Shrieking Drake hits the battlefield, it can bounce itself back up to your hand. That alone just creates an infinite engine, but when you toss in a Witty Roastmaster, it's GG.
The deck was very inconsistent and I don't expect it to take Timeless by storm after release, but the combo was satisfying to pull off and I was left with the feeling that other combinations of creatures could result in Primal Prayers being a real deck. I'll be very interested to see what mad science Arena players cook up with this thing.
Also, I learned very early on that Guide of Souls is very strong on all its own. The ability to buff a creature and give it flying with energy will probably be part of an energy aggro deck in the near future because it popped off more times than I ever expected.
Golgari Scam
This deck is leveraging a ton of cheap value creatures in green and black that like to sacrifice or benefit from the graveyard in one way or another. It is running the “scam” package of Grief, Malakir Rebirth, and Not Dead After All, but the deck attacks on more angles than just that. Wight of the Reliquary proved an absolute unit in the games where it showed up as a massive beat stick but also a repeatable tutor for utility lands such as Bojuka Bog or Phyrexian Tower.
The other card that put in massive amounts of work for me was Grist, Voracious Larva. This little bug has some major stopping power, plus using cards like Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler or Unearth to bring her back means that the opponent can kill her, but she won't stay dead for long unless they can exile the graveyard. Chthonian Nightmare also proved a valuable tool in this deck since the creatures we're reanimating are usually two-drops and at most four-drops.
I don't know if I landed on a competitive 60 in the short turnaround time I had between conception and play, but I think a Golgari aggro list using some of these pieces will absolutely be viable in timeless moving forward.
I also tried builds that included Endurance, but the graveyard hate was very situational, and its good stat line was often much smaller than Fiend Artisan and the wight. I think this would be a good sideboard card in this type of deck but doesn't fit well in the main.
Abzan Vamp Lazer
This deck had a very simple mission: gain as much life as humanly possible in a single turn, add Sorin of House Markov to the mix and activate his planeswalker -1 to deal a lethal blow to our opponents. Given that you can play Sorin and flip him in one turn, this proved easier than I had initially thought and had an absolute blast with this thing.
The lifegain method of choice was Soul Warden effects including Prosperous Innkeeper, Guide of Souls, and Lunarch Veteran. Ideally, we stack so many of them up that we can't help but gain a ton of life. We're also filling our graveyard with Stitcher's Supplier and even Deadly Dispute so we can get a single mass reanimation using Rally the Ancestors. Bringing in all the creatures in a single turn nets us more simultaneous lifegain triggers and, therefore, a bigger Sorin blast.
The deck worked because we went up against folks who weren't packing main deck graveyard hate. I anticipate it won't be as successful in a world where people come packing for Arclight Phoenix or Reanimate piles, but it's a fun gimmick that can lead to explosive wins your opponents won't see coming.
Mono Blue Eldrazi
Of course I had to build a big, stupid Eldrazi deck with the new tools they gave us and it did not disappoint. For this build, I decided to attempt every Eldrazi titan they gave us and most of the new seven-plus mana toys and, honestly, they all played very well with the possible exception of Ulamog, the Defiler.
The standout titan for me was, unsurprisingly, Emrakul, the World Anew. If the opponent is playing creature-heavy decks, this basically just wins you the game once it hits the stack by stealing your opponent's board. Also, given how the lands I chose almost all produced colorless mana, discarding her to a Collector's Vault was not hard to pull off at all assuming I was careful about what mana I tapped for the activation. I'd also like to note that Kozilek, the Broken Reality performed very well for me also and I think is being underrated in the greater discourse right now.
Nulldrifter also played far better than I expected because the evoke was still seen as a seven-mana spell for the purposes of Ugin's Binding or Kozilek's Unsealing. The number of cards we were able to draw off this was game defining when it lined up. Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student also performed well in the matchups where our opponents didn't play Orcish Bowmasters.
The primary reason this deck was able to accomplish anything, however, was Ugin's Labyrinth. Being able to get this on turn one into a Mind Stone was frankly unfair. With massive Eldrazi like Devourer of Destiny and Drowner of Truth providing other utility the deck can take advantage of, we never struggled to find an imprint target. Honestly, it felt like we needed to mulligan aggressively to find this land because the games when it arrived versus the games when it didn't were remarkable.
In Conclusion
Modern Horizons 3 has some absolute bangers and the archetypes are powered up enough so there will be tons of brewing potential. I'm a pretty passive Timeless fan these days, but this set has reinvigorated my interest in the format and I can't wait to dive into it once the cards are fully on Arena. I hope I'll catch you on the ladder!
Happy brewing!