Modern Set Review: Modern Horizons 3

With the end of the preview season for Modern Horizons 3 and to close our season of reviewing the expansion for the main Magic formats, it is finally given the moment to delve into it for the environment where it was planned and designed to affect.

The MH series has a long history of permanently affecting competitive Magic, and with historically problematic mechanics like Energy, Eldrazi, Free Spells, Sol Lands, and Delirium, the new expansion brings more than a hundred cards with a lot of potential to the competitive Metagame and, consequently, might leave its mark on history, just as its predecessors did.

Check out, in this article, our complete Modern Horizons 3 review for the Modern format!

Emrakul, the World Anew is probably the strongest and most playable of the three Eldrazi titans in this cycle. Her ability is capable of winning games on its own, dominates the battlefield and also has one of the most efficient built-in protections in the format, being immune to removals - including permanents that have been cast, forcing opponents to blink Solitude or use sweepers and/or sacrifice effects to deal with her.

Furthermore, Emrakul is also a great “pitch” for Ugin's Labyrinth in various strategies and can join Urza's Saga to create a new proposal with The Underworld Cookbook in lists with a lot of access to colorless mana, like Eldrazi Tron or new variants of Eldrazi strategies, where we take advantage of the fast mana for a more proactive plan while, if the game goes on, we can pay the Madness cost to have a titan in play early.

Kozilek, the Broken Reality is strong and stands out better in Eldratron variants that want to bet more on a go wide plan instead of go big. Like Emrakul, he is also an excellent pitch for Ugin’s Labyrinth and fits better when we can establish a more efficient board than the ones we give the opponent with manifest.

Ulamog, the Defiler is more interesting for Big Mana decks, more specifically Tron, but I believe it still loses space compared to Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, which interacts better with the field and establishes a more threatening clock, in addition to being more difficult to deal with traditional removals.

This variant, however, can better protect itself against exile removals like Solitude and Leyline Binding or at least make the opponent pay a high price for dealing with it.

Early game effects tend to create tricky situations in Modern, as we saw with Once Upon a Time in Throne of Eldraine.

Devourer of Destiny is not a Once Upon a Time and doesn't fit into any deck for consistency, but it certainly fits into Eldrazi variants as another excellent pitch for Ugin's Labyrinth whose function extends itself as a relevant threat with an ability that interacts with the board, and its early game effect can add value to any archetype with a lot of access to colorless mana, even Tron, where this top filtering can help find the necessary lands and/or the cards that will find the lands at the start the game.

If a new more aggressive Eldrazi shell emerges with MH3, It That Heralds the End will certainly serve as a complement to the archetype and a means of speeding up its clock, and can be cast on the first turn with Eldrazi Temple.

Whether on Tron, Eldrazi or any deck capable of paying its cost, Kozilek's Command does a lot in a single card and does it all at instant speed, in addition to being ramped with Eldrazi Temple.

Removal, cantrip, graveyard hate, ramp, blockers - the new spell does a little bit of everything a deck could need at a highly flexible cost, and will become an instant staple of any archetype with a lot of colorless mana.

Null Elemental Blast is a good Sideboard answer to a format where Domain Zoo is one of the best decks and Goodstuff lists remain crammed with multicolored permanents like Omnath, Locus of Creation, Wrenn and Six or Teferi, Time Raveler.

Excellent Meta call for the format today, and an excellent safety valve for occasions where multicolored archetypes gain a lot of notoriety.

Nulldrifter is a potential staple for some archetypes for the mere fact that it serves as a pitch for Ugin’s Labyrinth while its alternative cost allows drawing cards and triggering other permanents, such as Kozilek’s Unsealing and Ugin’s Binding.

It's another creature that interacts well with Eldrazi Mimic and its body and cost are relevant and easy to achieve with Eldrazi Tron or other variants.

Wastescape Battlemage is another Sideboard staple for colorless archetypes and will typically be used as answers against Leyline of the Guildpact or The One Ring while leaving a relevant body in play.

Its bounce ability can be useful on some occasions, but we are in a format where we hardly want to bounce creatures because, in most cases, they will have a relevant ETB effect.

Ajani, Nacatl Pariah has a positive value in its creature mode, placing three power divided into two bodies for two mana in addition to enabling, on its own, the resources necessary to trigger its Planeswalker side, of which has relevant abilities in creature-oriented lists.

It interacts well with Leonin Arbiter, and is ideally suited to establishing pressure, so it could find a home in White-Based Aggro or another more proactive strategy, as well as interacting with Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd to create several new tokens each turn.

Witch Enchanter is the type of card that tends to find homes in flex slots, and being a land that comes into play untapped and a Disenchant with a body, we're likely to find it as a one-of or two-of on some archetypes to combat a possible rise of artifact-based archetypes or to resolve Leyline Binding and other enchantments.

White aggressive decks received a lot of support in Modern Horizons 3, and Flare of Fortitude greatly benefits these archetypes by offering efficient protection that doesn't require us to keep lands untapped to cast it.

It also has some combo potential similar to Platinum Emperion, but there doesn't seem to be any way to take advantage of these interactions at the moment.

Guide of Souls is an excellent enabler for Primal Prayers combos, especially alongside Acererak, the Archlich, where we can use both to end the game. It is also a good support for Soul Sisters and helps it have a more aggressive game plan with its second ability, allowing all your creatures to eventually become a threat.

This interaction with Lifegain could give it a home in Heliod Company, despite competing with Auriok Champion, much more capable of protecting itself from removal, while Guide of Souls offers another way to take advantage of the lifegain theme in favor of a beatdown plan.

Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd might secretly be the best white card in Modern Horizons 3.

A 2/2 for two mana that repeats the effects and ETB of several creatures in a format where Fury no longer exists to punish “go-wides” turns Phelia into an excellent value engine when paired with cards like Solitude, Grief, Stoneforge Mystic or the recently released Recruiter of the Guard and White Orchid Phantom, and the fact that it repeats these ETBs whenever it attacks, and we can play “around” removals and interactions on the opponent's turn.

Its ability also interacts with any nonland permanent, including Planeswalkers like Teferi, Time Raveler or Wrenn and Six, meaning there's no shortage of homes and occasions where we can extract a lot of value of this creature and its synergies with other cards.

White Orchid Phantom is a perfect hate to deal with greedy mana bases and/or archetypes that need specific lands, even serving as an excellent answer against a possible rise of the Eldrazi in Modern, but it also deals with Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, Urza's Saga and other.

A potential Sideboard staple and an excellent motivator for the return of Death & Taxes, where it interacts with Leonin Arbiter.

Recruiter of the Guard is the other big motivator for the return of White-Based Aggro in Modern, as it is on an ideal basis both for searching for specific creatures and including several one-ofs, in addition to finding interaction like Solitude and/or key cards like Stoneforge Mystic.

Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student is quite difficult to evaluate because a one-drop that offers value every time it attacks and has a good body to block offers some advantages. She is not a Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, but generates a card extra in hand whenever she attacks can put her controller way ahead, and her Planeswalker side is easy to trigger.

Her Planeswalker abilities are not impressive, but we can extract value from her recursion, she protects herself from attacking creatures and, at the same time, has an Ultimate that can virtually win the game.

Flare of Denial is another in the cycle of free Counterspells and the second to arrive in Modern unbanned. Its most obvious interaction is with Merfolks, where cards like Merfolk Trickster can be used as sac fodder for the card after performing their functions, while ensuring the safety of not losing for free and/or dealing with very heavy hate, even if you have to sacrifice a Lord of Atlantis or any other key creature.

Outside of Merfolks, other archetypes with a good amount of blue creatures can benefit from the new card, although they don't exist yet or aren't very prevalent in the Metagame today.

Consign to Memory is the Stifle that Modern deserves and another efficient hate against Eldrazi for its ability to deal with the cast ability and the spell cast in the same turn. It also serves as an answer against Evoke triggers and/or other cards of the same style for just one mana, in addition to being a safety valve against Planeswalkers and/or other colorless cards.

Certain sideboard staple in blue decks in the first weeks of MH3, with the potential to find space in the maindeck as the Metagame changes!

In addition to being another support for Merfolks, Harbinger of the Seas should become a staple of any blue-based archetype that can support more specific non-basic land hate, even being more impactful than Blood Moon or Magus of the Moon due to the low number of decks in the current Metagame that can play around Islands instead of Mountains.

Hope-Ender Coatl is a Daze with a 2/1 body and evasion that can be cast from an Eldrazi Temple, and can be considered if greedy spells become very present in the format.

Kozilek’s Unsealing can be very broken or do absolutely nothing in Affinity. The idea of ​​a proposal with this card is to use Myr Enforcer and other creatures with a mana value of seven to draw several cards and create a “chain” of threats in play.

It may be that other Affinity variants are interested in this card instead of Simulacrum Synthesizer, but I believe that the Thunder Junction artifact has more interactions with the archetype and is more useful on its own, while Unsealing can be efficient in matchups where having more resources than threats ensures you don't run out of steam.

With Kozilek’s Unsealing, we can discard several cards from our hand with Tamiyo Meets the Story Circle to create several Clues and, from them, sequence the Myr Enforcers to generate value.

This saga can also feed Glimpse of Tomorrow and other similar spells, where we can transform our tokens into creatures and/or other bombs with high mana value.

The biggest problem with Ugin's Binding is that we need to discard or cast it to generate value, and in most decks where it could go, the slots where this spell fits seem much more of a win more than a necessity, unless our game plan involves casting many creatures and then hastening them with Reckless Bushwhacker.

Volatile Stormdrake has a relevant body and ability that, in addition to interacting with the Energy mechanics, can also protect itself from abilities such as Solitude.

Another relevant point of this card is the way it can turn into a removal for Atraxa, Grand Unifier or even Emrakul, the Aeons Torn in blue while still accumulating four energies in the process.

Kappa Cannoneer can greatly leverage Affinity and bring to other artifact-oriented strategies, such as Hardened Scales, the possibility of having a relatively low-cost, highly resilient threat that can create a two-turn clock or less with the right sequencing of artifacts and +1/+1 counters.

Potential staple in any artifact-based archetype and, perhaps, could even add another initiative and/or alternative game plan to Urza, Lord High Artificer lists.

Shrieking Drake has some good interactions with MH2's Elementals and other creatures with effective ETBs, as well as being another way to start a loop in the Primal Prayers deck and is also a one-drop that allows reusing another creature in the Nadu, Winged Wisdom combo.

It's a card with a lot of potential that hasn't been used yet, especially since two of its best enablers are available in Modern Horizons 3.

Sorin of House Markov is a good payoff for decks that have infinite life loops due to its ability to deal that same amount of damage to the opponent and can be found with a dozen cards like Chord of Calling or Collected Company.

As a win condition, it seems noticeably less relevant than the Heliod, Sun-Crowned combo with Walking Ballista, but it can benefit from other infinite life combos that haven't done much in Modern currently, or even enable new strategies around this theme.

Fell the Profane is a removal that also serves as a pitch for Grief and certainly has room to find a slot or two in Rakdos Evoke and/or other archetypes where the Elemental continues to fit, in addition to being another excellent support for All Spells and a way to speed up Glass Cannon decks like Belcher.

Just like Fell the Profane, Boggart Trawler's abilities do enough for the card to deserve maindeck space, especially in a Metagame where more graveyard-oriented lists stand out.

Flare of Malice is a powerful removal that will almost always hit the target you need it to. Whether it's a Grief or an Atraxa, Grand Unifier or a Scion of Draco, the new removal can deal with several threats from the current Metagame while feeding on a dozen important creatures, like Orcish Bowmasters.

Furthermore, its mana cost is not high for its effect and, just as we can complement it with Grief (by sacrificing it to return it to the battlefield with Not Dead After All), and we can also use it as a pitch for the card in situations where it is not so relevant.

Potential staple, second-best card in the Flares cycle for Modern.

Marionette Apprentice can easily replace Blood Artist in Yawgmoth, Thran Physician decks since it is much harder to counter with Orcish Bowmasters, being highly resilient against specific pings and Unholy Heat without Delirium.

Its interaction with artifacts can also give it a home in other strategies, plus a 2/3 for two mana with a relevant effect makes it a more appropriate option for a beatdown plan.

Potentially the most broken card in the set, Necrodominance is a callback to one of the most powerful cards in Magic history, Necropotence.

While we see a lot of speculation about it in Legacy due to plays involving Dark Ritual and effects that allow sequencing a Storm with Borne Upon a Wind after drawing several cards, it seems noticeably more “fair” in Modern, where we can use it as a powerful value engine in black Midrange and/or even to extract maximum value from cards like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse.

However, we cannot ignore the combo potential of being able to draw up to 19 cards in a single turn, and this mix could lead Necrodominance to break Modern if ways to exploit its abilities appear.

Nethergoyf is probably the Dragon’s Rage Channeler of Modern Horizons 3 and should appear in a dozen archetypes or even enable new strategies on its own.

It interacts incredibly well with the format's existing Delirium package, and interacts with Urza's Saga to have three card types at once, in addition to possibly finding space in archetypes like Rakdos Evoke and Death's Shadow while being highly splashable if necessary.

It's certainly worth some testing and should become one of the main threats in the current Metagame.

Ripples of Undeath has good interactions with Delirium while helping to filter the top and pay life with some frequency to enable Death’s Shadow. The enchantment type interacts with Nethergoyf and Dragon’s Rage Channeler, and we can recover some specific cards that it puts in the graveyard with Six.

It may not be as good as Sylvan Library, but it has the potential to find a home.

Warren Soultrader has a lot of combo potential and players are already speculating ways of trying to use First Day of Class with Putrid Goblin in some Goblins shell, but there are other proposals and archetypes where this new creature can find a home., for example, it has the means from looping with Gravecrawler to dealing infinite damage with Marionette Apprentice or Blood Artist.

There aren't many proposals for Buried Alive in Modern, but there is a proposal for Rakdos Phoenix, where we use the spell to put Arclight Phoenix in the graveyard to, on the next turn, sequence spells like Manamorphose and others to return them to the graveyard could be a good starting point.

It can also do some interesting things with Victimize, like fetching Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Deceiver Exarch to bring them back together and start a combo-kill.

Toxic Deluge teams up with Path of Peril and other cheap sweepers as a safety valve in case go wide strategies go too far. It's excellent for decks like Rakdos Evoke and Death's Shadow, but it can fit into any archetype where other sweepers wouldn't deal well with the threats we need to remove without worrying about cost restrictions.

Ral, Monsoon Mage looks like the worst of the Flip Walkers cycle. Its abilities are not intuitive with Storm mechanics and, normally, require the player to first sequence their spells before casting it, in addition to not having the necessary consistency to define when we are going to transform it.

Flare of Duplication is the most uncertain of having a home among all the cards in its cycle. It can do simple things, or very broken ones, and we don't have an absolute scope yet of its potential in Modern other than being a good safety valve when we want to protect some combo spell, like Indomitable Creativity or Goryo's Vengeance from a possible Counterspell.

Amped Raptor is a great quality two-drop that has a lot of potential in several fair strategies in the format that are willing to pay its deckbuilding concessions in addition to being an excellent payoff for the set's Energy theme.

For two mana, this new creature will always bring some high-impact spell, be it a Lightning Bolt, a Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer or even a Wrenn and Six on the right lists, and if be complemented with other cards with the mechanic in the same way Dragon's Rage Channeler was with Unholy Heat.

Decks like Jund Saga and Death's Shadow can certainly benefit from this card, but I also imagine that archetypes like Prowess, Burn and other strategies with a low mana curve will find in Amped Raptor the possibility of extracting a lot of value while putting a 2/1 with First Strike which, despite dying to Orcish Bowmasters, blocks Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and other small creatures.

If a more aggressive variant of Eldrazi emerges, Eldrazi Linebreaker will be one of the best payoffs in a curve that has historically been very improvised with cards like Matter Reshaper.

Like other creatures, this can also be copied by Eldrazi Mimic to generate powerful snowball effects, and allows for some explosive turns when creating multiple tokens with Kozilek’s Command.

Galvanic Discharge is the Unholy Heat for Energy and can, together with Amped Raptor, help enable an archetype based on this theme and/or make it splash proactive archetypes that can take advantage of both cards.

Its ceiling is lower and less consistent than that of its predecessor, but a Strangle at Instant-Speed ​​certainly deserves some testing in certain decks and can expand the space other cards will gain in the format.

Another Energy enabler, Unstable Amulet is essentially an artifact that, by itself, “draws” a card and, at its ceiling, can draw a card every turn. Being an artifact certainly brings some interactions with other cards and its ability to deal damage when casting exiled spells has some interactions with Galvanic Relay that can, together, establish new Storm variants.

Laelia, the Blade Reforged isn't as efficient as Fable of the Mirror-Breaker at generating value for three mana in Midrange decks, and unless we find ways to cast her very early, she'll likely remain outside the Midranges.

On the other hand, Laelia has a powerful interaction with Cascade, where the mechanic says to exile cards until you find a spell with a lower mana value than the spell cast and, therefore, Laelia gains a +1/+1 counter for every time Cascade exiles a card, and if there are no lower-cost spells, it can become a combo-kill.

Meltdown sounds like an excellent safety valve in case Affinity grows too much in the format, in addition to being a good protection in case Urza’s Saga lists become prevalent and/or take over the Metagame.

It shouldn't become a staple, but it will certainly have space in the Sideboards when the Metagame requires this type of card.

The Elves package came in really strong in Modern Horizons 3, especially with Priest of Titania to accelerate the deck's ability to sequence multiple creatures in one turn, while we can reuse it with Quirion Ranger, released in MH2.

Eladamri, Korvecdal is a bonus version of Realmwalker and can offer some important plays, especially when revealing a Craterhoof Behemoth from the top, but even these supports seem to do little to put the Elves in evidence in a Metagame where decks have increasingly preyed on strategies like this, and even if we manage to sequence spells with Leaf-Crowned Elder or any other means of drawing cards, Elves are still severely punished by Orcish Bowmasters.

Grist, Voracious Larva is probably the strongest among the Flip Walkers: its way of transforming is easy to achieve, its body as a creature is relevant to holding the game and all the skills on its Planeswalker side are extremely relevant to several matchups, with an Ultimate capable of winning the game with combos and/or extracting an absurd amount of value with its creatures.

Decks like Yawgmoth, Dredge, and other recursive strategies can make the most of Grist, and Six is another card that benefits greatly from its inclusion in a list, given the interaction of both in a list.

Modern has a history with free spells and extra mana, so what can we expect from a spell that, in addition to being cast for free, accelerates our mana as early as the first turn?

Flare of Cultivation seems extremely harmless at first glance, but its combination with cards like Arboreal Grazer and/or green creatures that already serve as ramp in the first turns can create several situations where players start the second turn with four mana (the first land drop, the extra drop from Arboreal Grazer, the basic land sought by Flare of Cultivation and the land from the second turn, also guaranteed by this spell), essentially allowing you to make much more explosive plays while leaving the opponent far behind.

This combination is very comparable to the situations that Modern and Legacy face today with Grief, where it is common for players to start the game with two fewer cards in their hand because their opponents started with Grief and Reanimate or Not Dead After All - except that, in this case, instead of taking resources from the opponent, the player can perform more actions during a single turn, which greatly favors combo decks and/or Big Mana.

My biggest concern when it comes to Modern is that strategies like Golgari Yawgmoth and Amulet Titan are already prevalent in the Metagame and extremely resilient against hate, as well as being very difficult to play around. So, it's possible that both will become too fast and too consistent to leave Flare of Cultivation in the format for long.

Birthing Ritual would be a decent replacement for Birthing Pod if it allowed searching instead of just looking at seven cards at the top, similar to how Enigmatic Incarnation does in Pioneer, and without the possibility as clear way to break the format through tap and untap effects while allowing the construction of a very efficient (and potentially dangerous) toolbox.

Fanatic of Rhonas certainly brought some hype when it was revealed, but I can't imagine a deck in the current format that could make the most of its abilities, even if it enabled itself on its own if played from the graveyard.

Aluren is a card that defined archetypes in Legacy, where Cavern Harpy reuses ETBs, leading to “drawing” the entire deck with Coiling Oracle until finding Acererak, the Archlich for the combo-kill.

Primal Prayers has the same potential: Guide of Souls and Acererak, the Archlich start a loop that eventually leads to infinite damage. Despite being extremely exhaustive in Magic Online, this combination is the one that requires the least number of pieces to work.

Other options include Greenbelt Rampager with cards that care about creatures coming into play, like Altar of the Brood (which can be fetched by Urza's Saga) or Corpse Knight, to win the game, being another three-card outlet that leads to infinite loops.

Additionally, we can use creatures like Shrieking Drake or Kor Skyfisher to get similar results with Aetherflux Reservoir or any of the cards above, creating providing a solid she that can, without enchantment, reuse the ETB of other creatures to generate value and/or create the ideal setup for the combo.

Six is a powerful value engine in the green that, in a vacuum, we can compare to Fable of the Mirror-Breaker for the amount of added value we can extract from it every turn.

Its abilities guarantee land drops, allow us to reuse any permanent in our graveyard, interact absurdly well with cards like Life from the Loam and survive Lightning Bolt and Fatal Push without Revolt, in addition to blocking diverse creatures and generating favorable exchanges.

It can be a staple, or just a one-of to look for with Chord of Calling in decks like Golgari Yawgmoth, as well as being another valuable creature for archetypes like Jund Saga.

Sowing Mycospawn may have a slot in specific archetypes, but its biggest function today seems to serve as a hate against other Eldrazi decks while helping to accelerate mana to cast a Titan and/or other gigantic creature.

Tron might be interested in it, but four mana seems like a lot for its maindeck effects.

Thief of Existence is another three-drop that complements a curve where Eldrazi lists struggle to have good threats while also being an excellent answer against a dozen of the current format's problematic permanents, such as Teferi, Time Raveler, Wrenn and Six, Amulet of Vigor, among others.

It may be worth the maindeck, but it is possible for it to enter the Sideboard for games where it really matters.

Double-faced multicolored lands can have some impact on specific archetypes, and some of them are useful enough to merit some slots: Drowner of Truth is another resource for Ugin's Labyrinth which also doubles as a land, while Revitalizing Repast can be used in specific decks as protection and pitch for Grief and Endurance, while Waterlogged Teachings is noticeably better than Mystical Teachings in the current Metagame.

Nadu, Winged Wisdom is one of the best cards to build around in MH3. Its ability has a powerful interaction with Shuko and other cards that target creatures with its abilities, such as Omnath, Locus of the Roil or Retreat to Coralhelm, as well as creatures that return others to the owner's hands, such as Sidisi's Faithful or Zephyr Sentinel.

Just like Primal Prayers (where Nadu can also close combos with loops between Shrieking Drake and Zephyr Sentinel with Guide of Souls), Nadu is the type of creature that has many ways to build a list around it, and one of the most interesting might involve using cheap creatures with triggered abilities or Equip to reveal the entire deck until Thassa's Oracle ends the game.

Finally, Nadu is a 3/4 with Flying for three mana, being a very relevant body for the current Metagame and extremely resilient against removal.

Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury interacts with the battlefield and holds the match long enough to be cast for its Escape cost without any difficulty.

Like its predecessors, the titan is too strong not to have decks built around it - after all, in addition to being a Lightning Helix for three mana, it is a threat and a win condition at the same time, and establishes a two-turn clock if there are no blockers in play, or helps keep the opponent's board in check while attacking.

Phlage not only deserves space in Goodstuff, but can also enable new variants of Turbo Xerox aimed at using the Titan alongside other cards to cast it early, or even archetypes like Burn and, possibly, versions of Azorius Control that carry a slight splash to red and use the new creature.

Psychic Frog is a powerful Tempo card that offers a lot of value whenever it connects against the opponent, while in turn being an excellent pitch for Grief or Force of Negation.

It's hard to imagine a home for it today in a format dictated by Orcish Bowmasters (although it protects itself incredibly well), but it wouldn't be surprising if, by chance, decks with blue and black and a proactive proposal found a home for this frog where it will keep the resources flowing while also feeding Murktide Regent very early - even though its second ability is counter-interactive with Delve.

Wight of the Reliquary should have much more impact in Legacy than in Modern because of Dark Depths. However, with Shifting Woodland potentially being one of the most broken cards in the set, the possibility of bringing it into a creature-oriented shell with a card that is pitched to Grief could give it a good slot in Metagame.

The Medallion cycle doesn't seem to do much in Modern, but just like in Legacy, access to Ruby Medallion and the abundance of red rituals we have in the format could help establish new Storm variants in the format, despite still lacking some key pieces to have the same potential it has in Legacy.

Disruptor Flute is absolutely everything a Sideboard hate needs to be: flexible, colorless, goes into multiple strategies and against multiple archetypes, and works for more than just one specific situation.

We can use it in the most varied situations in the competitive Metagame, such as to respond to a Yawgmoth, Thran Physician that has just been cast, or to guarantee, in response to a Summoner's Pact, that Primeval Titan will not be cast that turn, or to respond to Planeswalkers or any specific card with activated abilities at the time they are cast.

Such flexibility will make many lists run at least one copy of this card in the Sideboard, and it should replace Pithing Needle and similar in most lists that don't run Urza’s Saga.

Vexing Bauble shouldn't be as defining in Modern as it should become in Legacy, where free spells are part of the main safety valve against some of the format's main broken strategies.

In Modern, free spells tend to be what break the Metagame, as exemplified by the string of recent bans in the format's history, with Fury, Violent Outburst, Mox Opal, Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis, Once Upon a Time and the Cascade rules change, and cards like Vexing Bauble are an excellent safety valve to prevent these degenerate strategies from breaking the format once more.

The new artifact will be present in Sideboards whenever ways to play spells without paying costs become very present in the competitive scene, and may deserve permanent space in Urza's Saga decks as a one-of that, in the worst case, can be sacrificed to draw a card.

Winter Moon is another safety valve the format needed to avoid the prevalence of Five-Color Goodstuff lists in the future Metagame - a problem the format had that led to the banning of Yorion, Sky Nomad, and today it can serve to hold the Domain Zoo and Creativity lists that tend to appear in the format.

It is also an acceptable hate against Amulet Titan, but I believe that the archetype can play well enough around this artifact and not have as much difficulty against it as it would against Harbinger of the Seas or Blood Moon.

Frogmyr Enforcer joins Sojourner's Companion and Myr Enforcer to increase the consistency with which Affinity can power Ugin's Labyrinth and Kozilek's Unsealing. It's also one more for the long list of 4/4s that can be played for free and create a strong board in a few turns, especially if sequenced with Simulacrum Synthesizer and/or Kappa Cannoneer.

Ugin's Labyrinth is the first non-type Sol Land in Modern, and while it will see play in Eldrazi decks, its potential to accelerate archetypes like Affinity is another point of concern.

Despite not being included in as many lists, the new land is possibly one of the cards that can leverage archetypes with a problematic history in Magic, and it will be necessary to monitor how much they will change the format and how the Metagame will adapt.

And speaking of Sol Lands, Phyrexian Tower wasn't a reprint you'd expect in a Modern set, but given the relatively average impact the card had on Magic Arena's Historic and Timeless, it's acceptable to consider that it is worth a test in the format.

Decks like Golgari Yawgmoth certainly benefit from its inclusion, but Rakdos Evoke lists and other strategies with Grief and Orcish Bowmasters can include a copy or two to speed up some key cards, like sacrificing Grief with Evoke on the stack to cast Dauthi Voidwalker or ramping Sheoldred, the Apocalypse on turn 3.

Cephalid Coliseum is historically a great enabler for Dredge, an archetype that disappeared from the format since Modern Horizons 2 brought Dauthi Voidwalker and other maindeck graveyard hate that are very difficult to interact with for this archetype.

Barbarian Ring can find a home in Prowess decks while it can also work in Burn to give more reach with its land drops, in addition to its Threshold cost being easy to reach with cheap spells and fetch lands.

Monumental Henge is the most expensive and perhaps the least efficient of the one-color land cycle in MH3, but digging for Historic cards could give it some use in Control variants or even in Heliod Company, where all combo pieces can be found by it.

Archway of Innovation seems promising in theory, but Improvise is not as efficient when casting big spells like the Eldrazi, and there are more efficient options with more solid cores to “cheat” in mana costs.

Perhaps players will find some way to take advantage of its ability, but this land sounds redundant and win more even in an artifact-oriented shell.

Spymaster's Vault is easy to fit into any archetype with access to swamps in the current format, given that its ability interacts very well with removals from Rakdos Evoke or Mono Black variants and also offers another win condition for Yawgmoth and other strategies focused on sacrifice, where loops like Warren Soultrader with Gravecrawler makes a creature attack for a huge amount of damage or even draw the entire deck to win with Thassa's Oracle or other similar means.

Potential staple as a one-of in black Midranges and should replace other utility lands like Mount Doom or Castle Locthwain.

Arena of Glory has interesting interactions because we can use its mana between two different creatures to give Haste to both with a single land. This interaction can be useful for decks like Domain Zoo to have Territorial Kavu attacking the turn it comes into play, or even in more aggressive Death’s Shadow lists.

It shouldn't become a staple, but its ability is impactful enough to deserve some testing, including with cards that don't have as much presence in the current Metagame and do something when they attack, like Goblin Rabblemaster.

Shifting Woodland has a lot of potential to be broken in Modern due to the ease we have in enabling Delirium in the format and the fact that this land pays its own cost. In theory, we want to use it to copy something that has immediate impact without necessarily needing to be cast or enter the battlefield, with ideal examples in the Metagame today being Omniscience and Griselbrand.

There is a lot of speculation around how much this land can impact the Metagame and create archetypes on its own with Unmarked Grave and Buried Alive to prepare the setup, with the most famous currently being to use it to copy Omniscience into the graveyard, find a card that searches for spells from outside the game to get Emrakul, the Aeons' Torn and cast it for free.

Obviously, spells like Enter the Infinite can fit into this theme, but they could sound win. more if we have other methods of adding consistency to the combo, in addition to Shifting Woodland also serving as a complementary strategy for decks like Amulet Titan (which has some ease in reaching Delirium) or in the Reanimator/Creativity variants, where we can copy Archon of Cruelty to attack with the land every turn.

The number of interactions that this land offers is massive and, consequently, players will test all types of themes until they find the right shell for its archetype where it can - or cannot - break Modern like Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis did.

Taking a more in-depth look at the set, we realize that Modern Horizons 3 may have chosen a different design perception than its predecessors, but its power level is equally high and should greatly impact the way certain archetypes behave in the competitive Metagame.

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

Thanks for reading!