Modern: 10 Decklists with Modern Horizons 3

The previews of Modern Horizons 3 have finally come to an end, and with our review season coming to an end, the time has come to test ideas and possibilities starting next Friday, June 7th.

With several themes and powerful mechanics, MH3 follows in the footsteps of its predecessors of bringing cards capable of building decks around it and/or enabling different archetypes, leading them to try new features to complement their strategies.

In this article, we present ten Modern decks with MH3 to try out, based on some of the main archetypes and/or cards to build around the new set, as well as the insertion of some potential staples in known or new strategies!

Eldrazi Stompy

Eldrazis had an episode in Modern as potentially the most broken archetype in the format's history, eventually turning the Metagame into “deck” versus “anti-deck” until leading to the banning of Eye of Ugin.

Now, the interplanar monstrosities gain powerful new supports in MH3, in addition to a new land whose theme interacts very well with the archetype, Ugin's Labyrinth - and to fuel it, I opted for cards that do something relevant in the absence of the land and don't take as long to be useful as other creatures, as Emrakul, the World Anew would.

Nulldrifter is a Divination that we can cast with Eldrazi Temple and that interacts well with It That Heralds the End and Eldrazi Mimic early in the game, while a 4/4 with Flying is not worth throwing away when compared to other options, and the 7-drop package is shared with Drowner of Truth, which despite being much less impactful, increases the number of lands we have in play and the consistency in access to blue and green mana, necessary for some of our other cards.

Our beatdown plan includes some historical Eldrazi staples like Thought-Knot Seer and Reality Smasher, now complemented by Thief of Existence, a powerful answer against several permanents in the Metagame, but which it can be replaced by other three-drops if necessary and Eldrazi Linebreaker, which adds even more aggression to our creatures and establishes a powerful clock with evasive threats, in addition to performing a pseudo-combo with Kozilek's Command.

Mono White Phelia

Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd is one of the best white cards in the set and one of the best build-arounds in an aggressive deck oriented towards value creatures in Modern, and in this version, we seek to bet on a Mono White variant where the majority of creatures can interact with her.

Our main plan involves reusing White Orchid Phantom or Solitude with Phelia to control the opponent's board while we aggro them, with Recruiter of the Guard serving to fetch our key cards while also allowing us access to other forms of interaction, such as Aven Interrupter or Skyclave Apparition, not to mention the potential to create plenty of tokens with Ajani, Nacatl Pariah.

This plan is complemented with Stoneforge Mystic and the famous package with Kaldra Compleat and Swords, with priority for Sword of Light and Shadow for the recursion it can offer our creatures and the ability to stop Fatal Push, while Sword of Fire and Ice protects against Lightning Bolt and offers card advantage.

Mono Blue Cannoneer

Affinity was already rehearsing a return to Modern with the arrival of Simulacrum Synthesizer, but it could be Kappa Cannoneer and Ugin's Labyrinth that will bring the deck back to the Metagame to the point of making it a mainstay.

With Frogmyr Enforcer, the list has up to twelve cards capable of powering Ugin's Labyrinth while also enabling very explosive plays alongside Simulacrum Synthesizer or, even worse, with Kappa Cannoneer, which grows rapidly in this strategy, protects itself masterfully and can even win the game alone in two turns if it is not dealt with.

With the availability of a Sol Land, Affinity also makes it easier to cast Synthesizer on the second turn, an essential move that can create very impactful consequences if, on the next turn, a sequence with Frogmite and other artifacts bring an army of 4/4 creatures that will each put an equally large golem into play.

Necrodominance

Necrodominance is a difficult card to break without Dark Ritual to speed it up or the spells we cast with the absurd number of cards we draw. Therefore, the most interesting proposal so far to unfairly abuse the new enchantment is to use it as a resource to cast multiple free spells in the deck end of the game.

In this list, entirely focused on cheating on mana costs, we have Grief to control the opponent's hand and be a threat as the game goes on, Soul Spike as a removal that guarantees us four more cards in our hand with the enchantment, March of Wretched Sorrow to fuel our resources and Sickening Shoal as an efficient removal. We can also add Force of Despair against go wide decks or even Flare of Malice if we support a version with more black creatures that we can sacrifice.

Our winconditions include the famous combination of Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord with Vein Ripper, or the much talked about combo between Sheoldred, the Apocalypse with Necrodominance. Since the three key pieces of our plan are Legends, a splash to green allows us to use Delighted Halfling without major compromises, thus allowing us to cast Sorin or Necrodominance on the second turn without risking a Counterspell.

Dimir Frogtide

It's natural for players to explore new variants with existing shells, and one of the most interesting in this case is to run Psychic Frog to combine two archetypes that haven't merged in Modern yet: Evoke with Murktide.

Psychic Frog may be vulnerable in an Orcish Bowmasters format, but its ability to discard multiple cards to grow and consequently feed a Murktide Regent as early as the third turn can give it offer a lot of space in the Tempo or Midrange lists - where it can also serve as a pitch for Grief.

Thus, we cab¥n complement the efficient discard and reanimation plan with Not Dead After All alongside other powerful threats, as well as a powerful topdeck protection package with Counterspell and Drown in the Loch, thus creating a strategy that could eventually become very popular in the Metagame.

Warren Zombardment

Zombardment is a Legacy strategy that migrated to Modern and aims to use the interaction between Gravecrawler with Zombies to control the opponent's board or deal enough damage - and now, this combination can go up to infinite damage with Warren Soultrader.

As the new creature is a Zombie which does not require any mana cost or tap to activate abilities, we can sacrifice Gravecrawler to create a Treasure and use the Treasure to pay its mana cost, repeating the process as many times as we have life.

All it takes, then, is one payoff, and we can repeat this loop as many times as we want, and MH3 was even very kind to bring a Blood Artist on steroids in the form of Marionette Apprentice to mitigate our life loss and leading to infinite damage - and this combination is just one of several that we can have with Zombardment now, where we can, for example, absurdly increase the power of Champion of the Perished, deal an absurd amount of damage with Mayhem Devil or even make a creature attack for lethal with Spymaster's Vault.

Golgari Omniland

Shifting Woodland may or may not be the most broken card in Modern Horizons 3 due to its potential to copy permanents and the ability to complete a combo with Omniscience, allowing it to cast any card from its controller's hand.

At first, it seems tempting to play the new land on a similar shell to what players do with Dark Depths in Legacy, especially with cards like Arboreal Grazer and Flare of Cultivation to speed up the mana while Wight of the Reliquary, Elvish Reclaimer and Traverse the Ulvenwald can find the land.

However, this proposal isn't as fast here as it is in Legacy, and it seems more prudent to supplement the combo with another proposal. In this case, we bet on Mono Black Evoke as a shell while taking advantage of another black card that cares about Delirium - Nethergoyf - thus, the mix of an attrition game with a combo threat complements the rest of the archetype incredibly well.

The most difficult challenge with Shifting Woodland is putting Omniscience in the graveyard and enabling Delirium with the possibility of ending the game the moment we copy the spell. The best proposal we found so far was to use Buried Alive to enable Delirium while Mastermind's Acquisition serves as a wincondition, where we cast the first to get Enter the Infinite and the second to win the game with Thassa's Oracle - and if one of the tutors is countered, we can always look for Emrakul, the Aeons' Torn to end the game with the extra turn.

Beseech the Mirror can be a little difficult to cast naturally, but it greatly complements our strategy by being extra copies of our enablers while allowing us to sacrifice some of our cards, including Urza’s Saga to ensure Delirium.

Jund 8-Goyf

And speaking of Delirium, Nethergoyf and Amped Raptor form a great duo in an archetype that already naturally seeks to use an extremely low mana curve, Jund Saga, where they extract maximum value while powering up its game plan.

Amped Raptor is a card whose expectations are very high in Modern due to its potential with other low-cost cards. In this list, we seek to enhance it by inserting Wrenn and Six and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer in the same deck while Tarmogoyf and Nethergoyf complement each other and are equally impactful with the new creature.

Bant Nadu

Nadu, Winged Wisdom is one of the most interesting cards on MH3 to build around and has an almost guaranteed combo with cards that target without any mana activation cost or restriction, such as Shuko or Lightning Greaves.

In this list, Stoneforge Mystic serves to enable the combo with Nadu, where Shuko or Lightning Greaves can be used twice on each creature to reveal top cards, accelerating mana and/ or putting more creatures in your hand that can be cast with the untapped lands.

Among them, we have several dorks that can be tapped when they come into play with Lightning Greaves to generate mana and to support this game plan, lands like Khalni Garden, Mishra's Factory and Dryad Arbor counts as creatures, and Malevolent Rumble puts another body on the board while helping us find more creatures and/or some key piece.

This sequencing will eventually lead to Thassa's Oracle winning the game due to lack of cards in the deck, and while this version is quite all-in, it won't be surprising if, by chance, players find ways to mix this combo with other options such as The Necrobloom.

Primal Prayers

Primal Prayers is extremely challening to build around because it needs many parts to work and, unlike Aluren, it requires a commitment to Energy to do anything. In this list, we have prepared a gigantic toolbox with different ways to achieve our victory.

The first and most obvious combination among them is Guide of Souls with Acererak, the Archlich to deal infinite damage to the opponent with Acererak.

Another proposal includes using Satoru, the Infiltrator with Greenbelt Rampager to draw the entire deck at once and thus find Thassa's Oracle to win - also achievable with Shrieking Drake, Snarling Gorehound and Guide of Souls. We can also make infinite life with Greenbelt Rampager and Prosperous Innkeeper.

All of these combinations receive some support from our tutor package, with twelve cards we can cast for free with Primal Prayers in play: Knight-Errant of Eos finds Guide of Souls, Shrieking Drake and Snarling Gorehound while protecting our threats, while Recruiter of the Guard finds the above cards plus Eternal Witness for recursion, Grand Abolisher to protect from answers and Moon-Blessed Cleric to find Primal Prayers.

Finally, Eladamri's Call finds Satoru, the Infiltrator, Acererak, the Archlich, Thassa's Oracle and Greenbelt Rampager, and we can recover it with Eternal Witness. All pieces have a lot of redundancy with twelve “free” tutors, and we can even include other pieces depending on the format's demands and/or deckbuilding restrictions.

That's all for today.

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!