Modern Stuff: Dominaria Cards That Might Get There

(General note: inserting links for every single card mentioned is something we’re working on for the site, but in the meantime I would highly suggest a browser add-on that auto-links cards.  If you’re using Google Chrome or Opera I would suggest AutocardAnywhere.  Firefox doesn’t appear to have any good options, sadly.  If you’re using Microsoft Edge or Internet Explorer, I suggest you stop, throw your computer into a river, buy a new one, and use a browser that isn’t poop.)

Modern, being an eternal format, will normally cast a mostly disinterested eye to new Standard sets.  There’s usually only a handful of cards with any relevance, and any given set usually has zero or one card that becomes a common staple to any extent.  This is the nature of formats with non-rotating cardpools and the general direction of Magic design; overall Wizards of the Coast has done a reasonable job of managing power creep, and it shows when one looks at the eternal formats.

I’ve already done an article about Damping Sphere, the card that will easily see the most play in Modern from Dominaria.  Not to rehash too much, but I feel Sphere will be good in that more decks can reliably play it (having far fewer deck-building restrictions than Blood Moon), but the overall power level isn’t anything Tron and Storm don’t already deal with.  I won’t bother to mention it further here.

There are some more cards though that I’d like to riff on; some that others have mentioned, and others I think that haven’t.  Let’s start with one a lot of people have talked about:

he has an eyepatch. he should be a pirate.

Steel Leaf Champion has some darn good rate going for it.  5/4 is a nice body in Modern, and at least the Revolt trigger needs to occur for Fatal Push to get it (though that’s largely a formality in a format where fetch-lands exist).  While that rules text isn’t trample, it’s still extremely worthwhile.  Common mid-range and control roadblocks like Snapcaster Mages, Walls of Omens, Dark Confidants, Sakura-Tribe Elders, and 1/1 tokens of all stripes can’t chump this.  Most of the Humans deck (before any +1/+1 counters, of course) can’t either.  In some contexts it might be even better than trample, really.

However, I have a very hard time placing this card in a deck that matters.  While one of the creature types here is Elf, it does not go in Elves.  Elves is a primarily a combo deck, and this card does not contribute towards that goal any more than any other pieces of cardboard with Elf written on them.  Mono-Green Stompy loves this card more than Leatherback Baloth, but Stompy isn’t really a format player (and I don’t think this card makes Stompy better to a point where it becomes one).  Anything else recoils at the sight of the purposefully-restrictive GGG mana cost.

Some have also stated things like “wow, imagine hitting two of these off of a Collected Company!”  I don’t think that’s a valuable argument at all; the same can be said about Tarmogoyf, Savage Knuckleblade, or any other 3-CMC beefy creature.  Furthermore, how many decks are winning games by just hitting beef with a Collected Company?  Most decks that play Company are looking to assemble a combo, with beatdown as the backup plan.

I could see something like G/B Rock enlisting the Champion as a condition-less beatstick; it could likely handle the mana cost, and not having to worry about card types in graveyard could be beneficial.  However, isn’t Tireless Tracker just a better creature overall?

I’d love for Steel Leaf Champion to find a relevant home, but at this moment it’s just hard to see.

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Next up, a piece of removal I think will absolutely find a home in many decks, if only as a one-of:

the irony of the flavor text is not lost on me.

Cast Down is cheap, and will hit the vast majority of creatures in the format.  It’s flatly easier to cast than Murderous Cut and Terminate, and it’s conditions are overall friendlier than Go for the Throat and Ultimate Price.  It won’t achieve the ubiquity of Fatal Push, but I think it’s a shoe-in as a one-of in lots of decks.

Short list of relevant creatures Cast Down cannot kill:

• Tasigur, the Golden Fang
• Thalia, any flavor
• Big Eldrazi Idiots
• Baral, Chief of Compliance
• Vendilion Clique (random note: I forget this is legendary all the time)
• Asuza, Lost but Seeking
• Pia and Kiran Nalaar
• Ezuri, Renegade Leader
• Griselbrand
• Kira, Great Glass-Spinner

Obviously there’s more, but while researching this list, the only deck where I think Cast Down is actively bad against (obviously excluding decks that any removal is bad against) is Storm.  Not hitting Thalia is a bummer, but decks playing Thalia have plenty of other targets to hit as well.

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Here’s an old friend with a smaller casting cost and completely different abilities:

“hand on the globe with book in hand” is a classic generic business pose. this Karn is an accountant.

Karn, Scion of Urza is obviously going to be a player in Standard, but in Modern it’s far more fuzzy.  His first two abilities scream “CARD ADVANTAGE,” but in the context of Modern I’d call it very slow.  Almost every color has a cheap planeswalker that generates card advantage; Liliana of Whatever, Jace, Chandra, Torch of Defiance are good examples of these.  In most decks, there’s going to be an existing planeswalker that already generates the right type of card advantage, instead of Bad Sleight of Hand that needs an extra turn to become Divination.

The ability of primary relevance is his -2; here is where Donkey Karn Jr. can earn his keep.  While that -2 ability will be great in Standard where Kaladesh cards are still legal for another six months, in Modern it could be outright bananas.  Affinity may look to Karn as a sort of grindy finisher, for instance.  Anything playing a critical mass of artifacts could make use of his card advantage (slow as it may be) as well as make beaters, even if they’re only useful as blockers.

I do feel that Karn the Lesser will possibly spawn his own deck in Modern, given time.  I’m not good enough to come up with it off-the-cuff, but I can’t wait to try (and watch others try).

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Next we have two old friends that belong to among the oldest tribes in Magic history:

These two reprints threaten to make traditional Goblins a reality in Modern.  We’ve had the not-really-Goblins Eight-Whack decks for some time, which prove to be dangerously explosive, but is too often a pile of bad cards to be competitive.

I won’t profess to be a Goblins expert, but I feel they’re still one or two cards off from being a true tribal threat.  There’s a lot of great pieces, but it still all looks like an explosive deck that still loses to cheap sweepers, and will sometimes poop on itself when it has to play too many 1/1s.  You could goldfish some pretty incredible starts, but you can do the same with Humans, Hollow One, Angry Salad, Merfolk, Affinity, and even the aforementioned Eight-Whack.  Does Warchief and Prospector really make it any better than any of those decks?

Now, if we get a Goblin Recruiter reprint, we might be talking.

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Here’s a card no one’s talking about at all, because who would ever think a Mox was good (disable sarcasm font):

more like Mox Blander, amirite?

Free mana has to be good, right?  Wizards said “hold my beer” and made a Mox that isn’t blatantly usable, which is neat.  The deck-building restrictions that come with this are big enough to make sure it’s not something stupid like Chrome Mox.

Does this have a home, though?  Enabling it turn one requires playing stuff like Isamaru, Hound of Konda, which isn’t great.  Furthermore, you’d probably need to play 7-10 one-mana legends to have this active reliably, and then you’re…playing 7-10 sub-par cards that might become dead in your hand as multiples.  I’m ready to abandon that gameplan already.

So, is there use in gaining a free mana on turn two?  Three?  Four?  Perhaps.  Control decks that are particularly thirsty for mana could find use in this, but I find it hard to see out of the gate.  If you want extra mana in the mid-game, aren’t there far easier-to-play options than this?

I’m normally not the type to make any sort of call this early, but it really feels like this is a Commander/Brawl card.  I don’t see an apparent home in any existing deck, and the deck-building restrictions on this are quite steep.

I can’t wait to be proven wrong though.

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Finally, I wanted to do some quick-hits on some cards I could also see creeping into lists someday.  Most of these will be quite a bit acute in application, but the effects are powerful enough to warrant attention:

• All of the Legendary Sorceries are intriguing, but having that legendary creature or planeswalker in play is a hell of a condition.  Karn’s Temporal Sundering could likely slot into Taking Turns though (with Jace doing the honors of casting it).
• Goblin Chainwhirler’s ETB is powerful, and could see applications clearing away 1/1 tokens and other annoyances.  It’s a decent rate.
• The Sagas are very hard to rate as of yet (though I was heavily impressed with them at the prereleases), but the main ones I could see in Modern are:
  • The First Eruption: This looks like something that could slot into Skred or something like it.  Sweeping and ramping are things that deck wants to do.
  • Song of Freyalise: This isn’t hard to see, actually.  The ramp in the first two chapters is real, and the alpha strike in chapter 3 is potentially game-ending.
• Naban, Dean of Iteration looks like Snapcaster Mage’s best friend.  I doubt Wizard Tribal is a thing that could reach Modern, but if it is it’ll likely be because of this guy.
• Marwyn, the Nurturer looks like something Elves wants.  I could be wrong.
• Squee, the Immortal looks like something Dredge wants.  I could be wrong.
• Shalai, Voice of Plenty is really good rate and could be a tremendous maindeck “pre-board” option for white creature decks.  Dodging at least Lightning Bolt is pretty clutch here.
• I look at Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive and I think of a lot of stuff she makes unblockable.  Doran, the Siege Tower is probably the funniest thing I can think of.  Probably not good enough, but certainly interesting.
• Torgaar, Famine Incarnate might have legs.  Well, he has legs, but he might be good.  I want to reanimate him.  And blink him.  A lot.
• I remember thinking that Future Sight would be much better if it required less blue mana to cast, and/or cost less overall.  Precognition Field is pretty much that.
• It’s almost certainly not as good as Commune with Nature or Ancient Stirrings, but Board the Weatherlight digs deep and can hit a lot of targets.  If they had made it an instant I think it would have been wonderful.  Alas, they did not.  Still decent, though.
• This may be because I just love creatures with flash, but Merfolk Trickster does some pretty cool stuff.  There’s the obvious “make Tarmogoyf a 0/1” play.  Make a Death’s Shadow a 13/13.  Remove stuff like evasion, indestructible, Infect, doublestrike, or whatever from any number of creatures.  Turn off Meddling Mage or Thalia for a turn.  There’s a lot of applications here.
• Wizard’s Retort doesn’t excite me at all because the prospect of Counterspell in Modern doesn’t really excite me either.
• The prospect of playing Lightning Bolt 5-8, though, makes me at least moderately interested in Wizard’s Lightning.
• Divest might actually be really good.  It’s at least a nice option in the one-mana discard slot.
• Opt is already in Modern, but the Dominaria art is far superior to the Ixalan art.
• Unwind is…maybe very good.  In Standard there’s much less to do on your opponent’s turn after countering a spell, but in Modern you can counter than Snap-Bolt or something silly.  I still think countermagic is just mostly bad in Modern, but this is the better kind of bad.

Comments?  Questions?  Feelings?  Let us know, and thanks for reading!