Too Big for a Top 10: Modern Horizons 3
Modern Horizons 3 (MH3) is finally upon us! If it’s anything like the previous two Modern Horizons sets, it should have plenty to offer for Commander players of all stripes. This is especially true because of the Modern Horizons 3 Commander (M3C) precons! We’re still not exactly sure why a set that is ostensibly for Modern also needs Commander decks, but here we are! In this article, we (Eliana, Exuberant Shepherd and Chief, Sacrificed to Cast Flare of Fortitude) will each share our top 10 cards from Modern Horizons III for the Commander format. Let’s get started!
Warren Soultrader
Eliana: This is a very predictable pick from me, and it is easy to see why. This Zombie Goblin folds extremely neatly into most any aristocrats deck, and is especially powerful when used with Gravecrawler and the like. It isn’t a direct replacement for Phyrexian Altar, but it is a neat little backup with its own set of advantages and disadvantages.
Urza’s Cave
Chief: I love lands that sacrifice themselves to do things, especially when they enter the battlefield untapped. You can use this land to find anything from Glacial Chasm to Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx at instant speed without ever casting a single spell! It’s also yet another card that can be abused with Cosmic Intervention to get multiple uses and find up to three of your best lands if you have mana up when a wipe comes down.
Springheart Nantuko
Eliana: I’ve been playing a lot of Ellivere of the Wild Court in cEDH lately. So naturally, I was paying extra close attention to enchanments and enchantment creatures as this set was being spoiled, and this guy immediately caught my eye. Despite a little bit of unintuitive wording, this card is extremely easy to abuse in a variety of green strategies and whether it’s creating an army of 1/1s or cloning your best creature, it’s pretty scary.
Ral, Monsoon Mage // Ral, Leyline Prodigy
Chief: Izzet storm and spellslinger decks have been eating pretty good lately. Ral discounts your spells and then gives you the opportunity to transform him in order to potentially cast a bunch of spells for free. This can be pretty powerful if you have a way to cast enough spells to ult him immediately upon transformation. It shouldn’t be a tall task if your deck is built to chain a bunch of spells together.
Guide of Souls
Eliana: I’ve oft gone on record as saying that gaining life is one of my favorite things to do in EDH, despite the fact that it is not often relevant in modern Commander. This card is the latest addition to the Soul Sisters gang, and also turns your smaller creatures into big flying Angels! I windmill slammed this card into the infamous SGR.
Flare of Fortitude
Chief: This card does an amazing job protecting your permanents and your life total, which seems totally reasonable at four mana and absolutely cracked at the low cost of sacrificing a nontoken white creature. It immediately becomes one of the best protection spells in the format, while also offering yet another way to break parity on board wipes and nasty spells such as Armageddon. Not that I’d ever do that… 😈
Sorin of House Markov // Sorin, Ravenous Neonate
Eliana: Like I said, I love life gain…and so does Sorin. It is also no secret that I love Innistrad and flip planeswalkers, so I was psyched to see Sorin in this new cycle. He comes down early, is very easy to flip the turn he comes out (thanks to extort) and can immediately start his favored gameplan. A real strong - and flavorful - card that I’m looking forward to playing around with soon.
Echoes of Eternity
Chief: Eldrazi and colorless decks received a ton of new support in this set, so it was tough to narrow down which cards I wanted to represent in my top picks. In the end, I went with this enchantment because it works extremely well in decks that play a ton of artifacts or in Eldrazi decks of all stripes. It’s important to remember that even devoid Eldrazi are still colorless, so you can always add this card to the Eldrazi Incursion precon as well!
Ashling, Flame Dancer
Eliana: I really don’t like playing with red in EDH, but dang do they have some spice in this set. Ashling combines a lot of scary rules text together to make a card that looks like it will find a natural home in existing storm shells including red very easily.
Talon Gates of Madara
Chief: This is such a strange land. While it’s tough to know exactly how much impact it will have in Commander, being able to play a land and phase out a creature that you need to protect or a problem controlled by one of your opponents feels pretty cool. You can also pay four mana to put it onto the battlefield at instant speed, ramping yourself and possibly disrupting a combo. There’s also Crop Rotation if you’re feeling cheeky…
Grist, Voracious Larva // Grist, the Plague Swarm
Eliana: Another cheap flip planeswalker! This one is a little harder to flip, but her effects are very powerful. She creates aggressive, evasive creatures with her plus ability super easily that then fuel her eventual ultimate ability, which at -6 is a very real possibility if you are able to protect Grist with the deathtouch tokens that she makes. Not only that, she comes with removal stapled on!
Vexing Bauble
Chief: This artifact has made quite a stir in cEDH. It can play similarly to Defense Grid when you suspect that an opponent is relying on free interaction, but it can avoid some of the pitfalls of that card by sacrificing itself to draw a card if you need it gone so people can interact with someone else. You can also cast Veil of Summer to make your own free spells uncounterable, which definitely seems like a relevant thing to remember.
Shifting Woodland
Eliana: This is another neat Innistrad-themed graveyard-centric card! I think all of this new cycle of lands are definitely EDH playable, but Shifting Woodland specifically stood out to me as very strong. Delirium is not hard to achieve, and the activated ability to become any permanent in your graveyard (ANY type of permanent, no restrictions) is very very powerful. This one is sure to find its way into EDH and Modern decks alike.
Nadu, Winged Wisdom
Chief: A Simic commander that ramps you and puts cards in your hand? We’ve definitely never seen that before. While Nadu isn’t exactly the most inspired card design out there, it’s certainly a powerful one. There are plenty of ways to draw tons of cards and put tons of lands into play, especially with equipment like Shuko and Lightning Graves that don’t cost any mana to equip. This card should shake up both casual and cEDH tables.
The Necrobloom
Eliana: Between Thalia and the Gitrog Monster and this legendary Plant, Abzan lands enjoyers have been eating well. Dredge used to be a horrifying bogeyman but has fallen off a bit due to the ridiculous amount of cheap, generic, instant speed grave hate available everywhere now, but this card really gives some interesting payoffs by attaching dredge to your lands. Channel lands, cycle lands, and fetchlands seem disgusting with this, not to mention the Field of the Dead-esque text.
Necrodominance
Chief: Let me start off by saying that this card is definitely not Necropotence, but even a fixed Necropotence is still incredibly powerful in the right deck. I expect to see this card in a lot of the same decks as its predecessor, where it can be used to draw massive amounts of cards and win at instant speed with a game-ending combo.
White Orchid Phantom
Eliana: This might be my second favorite card in the set overall. It’s proven great in my Legacy deck, but I’ve slotted it into many EDH decks as well. Like my good friend Chief, I’m a land destruction enthusiast. I’m also a huge proponent of punishing greedy mana bases. Turn that Gaea’s Cradle into a Forest, or, ramp yourself by blowing up your Flagstones of Trokair to find two Plains!
Chthonian Nightmare
Chief: If you thought that we were going to make it through an entire article without talking about a card that does something broken with Dockside Extortionist, you were sorely mistaken. This enchantment is a fixed version of Recurring Nightmare, but it’s still an extremely powerful addition to the Commander format that can enable all sorts of shenanigans with powerful ETB triggers.
Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd
Eliana: Last but not least! Anyone who follows me on Twitter will not be shocked by this pick. This little Doggo makes the already fun and powerful blink archetype even more versatile with her attack trigger. Reuse your ETBs, remove opposing blockers, and blink tokens out of existence! I already made a really fun casual Commander list for her, and she’s also bounded her way into my Legacy Death & Taxes list.
Flare of Duplication
Chief: This instant is the latest example of red’s growth over the past few years. It’s not uncommon for red commanders such as Krenko, Mob Boss to have a stray Goblin Recruiter or Dockside Extortionist around to sacrifice and pay the cost for this spell, but the place where it will shine the most is in partner decks including Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh. I expect this card to be a massive hit in cEDH and casual alike.
Conclusion
Eliana: Although I didn’t mention any in my top 10, I think all of the new MDFCs are extremely good, especially the ones that can come in untapped if you choose to pay three life. MDFCs have long been a deck-building hack as long as you are willing to use them as lands when needed. Witch Enchanter and Boggart Trawler are shockingly my fav of the cycle, but I think almost all of them are very playable.
Chief: I’d be remiss to not mention that all of the cards in the Flare cycle have their uses. Flare of Denial in particular is another potentially free counterspell that can hit any spell type. Spymaster’s Vault and the other cards in the mono-color Rare land cycle are also extremely free includes in low-color decks that might just be very relevant to your strategy. Don’t sleep on them.
Thanks for sticking with us until the end. As you can see, Modern Horizons 3 looks like a powerful set that has the potential to really shake up Commander at all power levels. There are plenty of other great cards that we didn’t manage to fit into this article, but we hope that you enjoy this set as much as we do.
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