Comprehensive Brewer’s Guide to Modern Horizons 2, Part 4

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:00:00] You are listening to Faithless Brewing magic together in podcast for the spike road each week, we design new decks for tournament play. We put our creations. This has and share our findings on the air. Today. We present the fourth and final installment of our brewers guide to Modern Horizons. Two will the format be broken on week.

Number one, we’ll find out all this edition of the fleet, this room podcast. Thanks for this thing and enjoy the show.

David Robertson: [00:01:01] hello and welcome to the Faithless Brewing podcast. I am David Robertson joined as always by the CEO of the Faithless Brewing podcast. He is caved in online, Daniel Schriever. What is going on in?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:01:13] Hey, y’all doing well, David. Good to see you. How you doing?

David Robertson: [00:01:16] I’m well, uh, hopefully everyone had a happy and healthy, uh, Memorial day.

Beautiful. A time to be alive. It feels like all the states are kind of finally opening up. Minneapolis just actually announced that they were. Abandoning their mass mandate today. They were one of the last two holdouts along with St. Paul in the states. So starting to get back to normal

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:01:35] classic news. Yeah, it feels like high summer here.

We just found this great Southern chicken and waffles place that serves like a vegan chicken. And I’ve been like, thinking about it all day. It was good. I felt like the season has arrived. The traditional

David Robertson: [00:01:48] Southern vegan recipes are flying off the grill.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:01:54] Exactly. I mean, I didn’t grow up vegetarian, but I feel like I’ve transitioned to it at the right time.

I mean, I don’t want to call them fake meats, but the replica plant-based foods, however, they’re branded now are just, they’re getting really, really good.

David Robertson: [00:02:07] Yeah. Paul McCartney talks about like that in the early seventies, when he and his then wife, Linda McCartney transitioned to vegetarianism, they literally just like ate carrot sticks and stuff.

When they would travel to Eastern block countries or Japan or whatever. Yeah.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:02:22] I mean, my family is, he is on my mother’s side and it turns out that there’s like a really strong vegetarian tradition where they have like a lot of like really intricate, detailed replica, essentially all your favorite Chinese cuisines, you can get a pretty close.

So we based our site on based replica of that. So I think I was there a couple of years ago, visiting some family and it just like opened my eyes to the wide world of cuisines. That can be possible if we just like work for a little bit. So we just need to put a little, put your back into it, put some effort into it.

Yeah. We don’t need to settle for carrot sticks anymore.

David Robertson: [00:02:56] I am heavily invested in multiple of the plant-based meat programs as a financial investor. So although I have not adopted your lifestyle, I am a fiduciary early, uh, supporting you for those of us who got in on the Oatley stock IPO. We are close to retirement.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:03:16] I thought she meant like those, you know, vegan chicken hustlers on shark tank or whatever. We’ve made 30,000 breasts of vegan chicken and, uh, mark Cuban. We’ll sell you half of them right now.

David Robertson: [00:03:27] Mark Cuban is maybe the largest fraud in the history of America, except for possibly Steve Ballmer. I mean, these guys just are obviously stupid.

Don’t understand the basics about their own technology and it’s just hilarious. Shout outs to the Mavericks, by the way, for pissing away their two old lead while mark Cuban is crying on the sideline.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:03:43] I see a comment here in our life. Chad says don’t sleep on Ilan. LOL well said.

David Robertson: [00:03:50] I mean, at least he makes us thing.

I don’t care for Elon Musk, but he makes a thing, an actual device you can purchase and use. Let me know the next time, uh, a mark Cuban designed anything is in your house or brings you an email for joy or utility. And, uh, I will give you a big wet kiss. All right. Enough of a ragging on the stupidest billionaires in America, we have a lot to get to, uh, first, a little housekeeping at the top.

We would like to give a big thank you to our two newest patrons, Kyle EY and master shake. I think of equity and hunger force. Welcome to the Faithless Brewing Patrion. Just a quick reminder, if you enjoy the show and we’d like to support us, you can go to patrion.com, backslash Faithless, Brewing, and join up, and you can even join the discord.

Multiple people in this chord now are listening to us live, could hear all the foibles and a backstage drama that accompanies each recording of the episode.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:04:43] 15 minutes of us fiddling around with the tech settings, trying to figure out like it’s not doing it. The Internet’s not doing the thing.

David Robertson: [00:04:51] And we are, of course, in our new format releasing two episodes a week.

We even did a bonus episode earlier this week, looking at even more Modern Horizons to previews. There’s so many previews are trying to go in depth on most of the cards that are going to be irrelevant and modern or just whatever intensely nostalgic, uh, did not have justice to do them in how quickly they released them all.

So Damon and Dan released or recorded an episode earlier this week. I don’t know when that will be out this episode, Dana and I will be looking at the last handful of cards. I think the last 50 or so cards are going to drop after this episode is recorded. That should be, this one should be released about Friday and then Sunday, we will be looking at our first brews from Modern Horizons because Thursday of this week, the third, it is officially on magic online.

And we will be looking at the underworld cookbook it’s associated master and sort of some of the madness sub theme that is implanted in a Modern Horizons too.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:05:49] Yeah. Whew. That’s a lot. That’s a lot going on. It’s been a super compressed week. I don’t know how your week went following along with these previews dropping day by day.

But I feel like I peaked early in the week and then the last three or four days, I’ve been kind of exhausted. Oh my gosh, there’s so much going on. They’ve pushed everything in this set and by the hundred and 50th card or so that it felt like it was good enough for modern. I was like, okay, there’s too much for us to possibly tackle all of this.

David Robertson: [00:06:16] So with that said, let’s, uh, let’s kick it off here.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:06:19] All right. Uh, I’m going to start us off with a curated list of cars that I think are interesting to think about as brewers, they maybe pose new questions or they provide new tools that invite us to build decks in ways we couldn’t do before. So we’ll start off in blue.

Tell us about the merch tight of regions.

David Robertson: [00:06:36] Merck tied region five to blue creature, dragon. It has delve and flying. It is three three. When it enters the battlefield, it gets a pulse and plus one counter for each instant and sorcery card exiled with it. And then while it’s in play, whenever an incident or sorcery card, it leaves your graveyard.

Put it plus one plus one collar on merch, tied regions. So similar to some of the other Dell threats in terms of costing seven Manoj, similar to the original Dell threat, the black one, the eight man of fly, fly flying. But obviously this has an unlimited upside. If you want to think of it that way.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:07:08] Right.

Tomb stalker is probably the closest comparison to Merck tied to regions, because it will always be the two pips of the color tomb stalker hasn’t been seen. It’s been the Mia and modern for a decade or so. I don’t know. I don’t know. When was the last time a tomb Docker was cast against the U, but the current has not impressed.

Does that mean that Merck tide region will also just be a big Derby flier or does shifting it into blue? Make a difference? Does the fact that Merck tie region could come down as potentially a 66 or 77? Uh, I think it can max out as an eight eight, and then if you follow up with another Merck title Regent or something else that continues the exotic cars and their graveyard, there’s potentially no limit on how big this creature could be.

Does the creature type dragon matter?

David Robertson: [00:07:50] I don’t think the creature type dragon matters that much. The printing of commerce bell kind of gets rid of the dragon matters deck. Otherwise this would have been a cool addition is like the eighth and ninth dragon. Um, I think that it costs seven is the important thing instead of eight.

Uh, the one really matters the zombie fish, which we see a lot of in traditional Grixis does shadow you five-oh with it’s, uh, well days ago or something, um, matters. And the fact that it’s blue and blue has to have the better, a free pitch spell cards from both of the Modern Horizons matters a lot. Is it good enough?

I mean, playing the first one of these in a deck that isn’t using a lot of graveyard, if you’re looking at like the blue, red prowess list, it seems pretty free to me. I know a lot of times they were playing the three, four pro X creature. To discard your hand and draw three. This could be played in that slot very easily.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:08:39] What if I’m like Townsville based blue deck? Am I in the market for just a big, giant Tarm ugly flake creature? Or should my general rule of thumb be if I wasn’t previously interested in a creature finisher, I’m not interested in this either. It doesn’t draw cars, it doesn’t cast anything.

David Robertson: [00:08:54] I think you’d want to actually build this in a deck with something with thought scour, where it’s coming down quickly.

It’s possibly turning on stubborn denial. Um, something like that. I think it’s actually gonna be hard to play this in Grixis dash shadow because of the blue blue. And you normally want to leave sovereign denial up. It’s not trivia for Grixis dash out. I have three blue sources in play until the game is in its later stages.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:09:16] Mm, last home that occurs to me here is, uh, Damon and I were talking in our, in our bonus episode about calibrated blessed, which really benefits from having high CMC stuff in your deck. Sino Draco was the card that’s caught my eye, but Merck tie regions I think would also be a natural fit for a deck like that.

So potentially, you know, we could use every part of the Buffalo here, whether we’re just trying to get size or whether we are interested in the fact that it has a high Manoj cost, um, who knows?

David Robertson: [00:09:46] Yeah, it would surprise me if calibrate a blast has actually a deck, but if it is, I agree with you. I think this is a great card for that type of deck.

Even sees the, um, flashback, calibrate a blast from the graveyard to get another plus one plus one column.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:10:00] There you go. There you go. All right. Let’s move on. Uh, suspend single blue instance. Thanks. I’ll turn it crease here and put two time counters on it. If it doesn’t have suspend it, gains suspend the flavor, texts time moves in mysterious ways.

David Robertson: [00:10:18] Yeah. I like this quite a bit. I, I think that there’s a possibility to try to build, um, lists where you are like hard locking your opponent with Tafari. This works with that two men artifact that was in our first spoiler episode that counters a spell. If you haven’t paid any colored manna for it. Um, there have been other to ferry builds with the six-minute artifact that also locks your opponent out.

And just in general, I think this is better than void snare or whatever. Like the blue, red promise lists are playing to get rid of pro black creatures. This actually delays that creature coming into play for longer.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:10:50] Yeah. Let me push back on that for a sec, because I’ve, I’ve seen people expressing that, that of course suspend permanently getting rid of the clutter for potentially to combat steps.

One or two combat steps is worth more than balancing it to their hand. But when you, or snag something and put it in their hand there, they need to commitment again until the creature. Whereas with suspend, they don’t. So it’s like punching through for slightly more damage, but, um, it’s not necessarily the best temporal play if the game is going to last a few more turns.

David Robertson: [00:11:22] Yeah, I agree. Uh, there’s certainly going to be circumstances where one is better than the other. Um, but my suspicion is, especially since the creatures are often bouncing costs one or two Manoj, by the time it matters when you’ve got multiple creatures on the board that are attacking with, through them, I’m guessing the extra combat setup and the two men is going to matter a little less.

But then again, the other one does the damage. I mean, it is a, a Burnsville of a sort. So, um, It’s close.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:11:46] I actually think seal of removal is better than either of these two, because seal of removal is super temporal efficient and it lets you pre-pay for the effects. Whenever you’re trying to get a good prowess turn, you can always just play the seal of removal, get your bonus, get your damage in.

And it’s just like a much more versatile. So either protect your own creature or bounce something of the opponents. So I’m not like immediately convinced that suspend is a good ensemble replacement, but I like it. The other things talking about where you’re using it with temporary time Avalara as a permanent exile effects.

This templating is the same one that works for release to the wins. So if you want to play a, Valki got of liars suspend to hide the Valkyrie and then get back a Tybalt in two turns, you could do that too.

David Robertson: [00:12:26] Yeah, I think that is just way too slow. Uh, especially with Connersville and the format. I think the whole format is gonna get way cheaper.

So you’re about to be just going to get counted for two Manoj.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:12:38] All right. So, uh, let’s look at another speculative blue card dress down in champions. One of the blue with flash when dress down, enter the battlefield draw card. Okay. That’s a good start. Creatures. Lose all abilities at the beginning of the next end.

Sip sacrifice, dress down. So it’s a humility that lasts for the span of a turn or for the span of a few phases, depending on when you play it. If you want it to last for a full turn, you have to do it say on the opponents and step or on your own end step, then it will be in play for the next half turn cycle.

But if you’re just doing it mid combat or something, it’s only going to last through combat

David Robertson: [00:13:17] unique card. The fact that it also works with Lurrus as just a buy backable effect over and over again is, is also very interesting because I mean, I think at this point Lurrus is, is like a legitimate problem in the format.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:13:30] Yeah. I agree. Especially with all these like one and two Medicare cards, every single card, you see someone tweeting out a new deck lists online. It’s like, oh no, here’s my new, new version of this staple, modern deck now with Lurrus because we have this new one of threats. Oh, okay. Can we just unprinted Lurrus please.

I wouldn’t mind the power creep and Modern Horizons too so much. If we just got rid of companion,

David Robertson: [00:13:55] it just interacts with a bunch of cars and a bunch of different ways. It makes dash shadows 13, 13 until the interterm. It stops the sort of dry, a tightened for a turn. It stops Heliod for a turn. It stops like an Emrakul and iLet trigger.

So if you’re just above 15 life with the blue red lists that are trying to just throw Emrakul at you probably actually can’t kill you. Stops gristle brands stops Taulia. If you’re like a storm, Techtronic go off like in humans where things are uncountable, it stops meddling maids from having an ability when it enters play.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:14:24] Yeah. I think all the defensive uses don’t interest me that much because opportunity costs of putting it into your deck. All of these scenarios, envision that we have a card in hand and two men available. And that card probably should have just been a counter spell or something else. So why are we playing dress down if we’re just trying to stop the opponents temporarily, but you can maybe sell me on the desk shadow angle.

If we’re trying to use this as a can tripping version of a torpor orb, um, or a hush Springer or something like that.

David Robertson: [00:14:53] I mean, I think you want to be able to use it proactively either with Kroxa or, um, does shadow, but then the fact that like this car, that functions is like a, whatever you want to call it.

Plus seven plus seven, draw a card is also ability to stop. All these combo decks is just like a crazy amount of, of utility. And then the fact that you just can rebuy it again and again with Lurrus. So it’s not like, oh, if you don’t, they blocked it that turn. So it doesn’t do anything. It’s like, well, just I’m going to buy it back on the next turn.

After Lurrus resolves.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:15:23] It also works with the new evoke elementals, the mythic cycle. Uh, if you want to stack your trigger is such that the effect happens first. You know, you, you flashed it in subtlety for free counter their creature spell, and then before you have to sacrifice, actually, no, that doesn’t,

David Robertson: [00:15:37] yeah, it doesn’t work.

You actually have to put it in play. So once, once the abilities are on the stack, you can’t do anything. So for instance, for Kroxa, you have to resolve this first, then cast Kroxa. You don’t get your, uh, discard trigger, but crooks does not go to the graveyard, but once, once those triggers are on the stack, then grief or whatever has to complete its circle of life and to the graveyard.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:15:58] That’s true. Yeah. I guess my read on this is that it’s a little bit too fidgety to be like a serious build around, but it’s a pretty cool effect and an interesting use of the humility template. To grant it just for a turn.

David Robertson: [00:16:10] Yeah. Also, you know, they are pushing it and chanter this theme. So this is another enchantment, if such a thing exists.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:16:16] That’s true. All right. Here’s, here’s one for the old timers like you and I it’s upheaval for blue. Blue is sorcery return all permanents to their owners hands.

David Robertson: [00:16:26] It’s kind of like the earth finisher back in the days of Dr. Teeth. I always thought it was weird. This was not actually legal and modern. So I think this is a good addition to the format.

I think there’s a little bit of like boomer hate and people thinking this card won’t be good. It certainly is a card. You can build your deck around quite easily. And functionally, when it resolves, I think you can win the game. I think the problem is there’s just a lot easier six man of build arounds to win the game.

And if you want to think of bring delight as a finding your one have to sacrifice all your lands and put Balakot and six mountains in play as a five man, win the game, then maybe that’s. Even easier to build around the no people

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:16:59] for listening as to were not alive back then, why does upheaval win the game?

How do you make your deck convert upheaval into a finisher?

David Robertson: [00:17:06] Well, in theory, what you do is you resolve upheaval with some extra manta floating. You functionally return, whatever four or five, six lands and whatever features your porn is attacking you with to their hand. And then you get to, you know, maybe replay your first land of that turn, replay a threat or another car that lets you play all your cards out.

Your opponent is just stuck with this hand. That’s just lands now. So to recoup their board advantage on their next turn, they basically draw a card, play a land, and unless they have a one drop, they don’t have anything else to add to the board. The way that at one back in the day is that the talk would turn those cards in hand and graveyard into a large amount of power.

There weren’t effective one mental ways to kill it back then. So it would just get in and do lethal damage.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:17:52] So if I need all this men, uh, it’s not really a six-minute play it’s I don’t know, a 10 minute play and eight men to play depending on what the followup thing is that you’re trying to resolve after your upheaval.

That makes me feel like only Urza ducks are capable of generating the kind of men, uh, and board presence that it would actually need to take advantage of this.

David Robertson: [00:18:12] Yeah, I think that’s right. And I think we’ve seen the Urza decks already have like combo ways to win. I mean, they can play the tutor, spell the find artifacts, you know, the combo with Urza to win that again, don’t cost the nine man that you’re describing and you got people bounces like Urza token and stuff.

So you have to rebuild as well. Huh?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:18:32] All right. It’s sticking down with a throwback cards, another one from invasion, block, fire and ice. This is a split card from the first series of split cards. So there’s no few is here. You just choose one half or the other fire is one and a red instance deal. Two damage divided as you choose among any number of targets.

Ice one in a blue instant tap, target permanent. So ice will always have a targets. You can always target their lands and get your catch up that way. If fire is not what you’re looking for,

David Robertson: [00:19:01] just ice ice says, draw a card. You just didn’t read that part, but correct. Thank you. We just assume that that’s the case.

It was rare at the time for cards and just have catch-ups built in, which was a weird thing that they were not very generous with. 1520 years ago.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:19:16] So the rule of fire and ice has shifted. Um, obviously it hasn’t been seen in competitive play in ages, but back in the day it had a converted man, a cost of two, and you could put it on an ice Cron, or now it hasn’t been, I’ve heard of manic cross of four, so it doesn’t work with the sector, but it does work with cascade.

And for better or worse, cascade has been reduced a little bit with the introduction of Charlotte’s agent. So all the lessons that we had to learn during the two weeks of Tybalt cascade, when called home dropped about how can you build a deck that still does something when none of the cars in your deck technically have CMC below three, we can now introduce a firearm to that equation and say, do we want access to this effect?

Or is it just not on the power Modern?

David Robertson: [00:19:59] Well, I don’t think it is on the modern power level, but if you are doing the shirtless agent thing and you’re not living ending, then you have to play cards like this. Um, just to buy you time to do your thing, and then hopefully your thing is enough to win the game.

Cause it still is something, but you know, to man up, maybe kill a one-minute creature, which is kind of where we’re at with prowess creatures is yeah. That, that doesn’t get it done. Right. I mean,

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:20:22] well, right. I guess I’m just wondering if these cascade decks are hurting for playable because if there are knots, I mean, if you can just get by with bunkers or giant brazen bar where dismember, I’ve seen people proposing dead and gone as another split card, if those are good enough, maybe just don’t bother with fire and ice.

David Robertson: [00:20:42] Yeah. I mean, I don’t think you can play this member in these decks that aren’t playing black though. Like if your goal is to stay alive, just remember it does not do a good job doing that. If you always have to pay for life, it’s like, oh, thank God I killed her one drop, but I could have done up to four damage to me.

Oh wait. I also fetched a shock land. So I just did seven damage myself on my first turn.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:21:06] All right. So limited application for fire and ice. That’s what I’m hearing.

David Robertson: [00:21:08] I think if the Charlotte’s agent, uh, decks, whatever they are that go all in that aren’t playing, living end exists, they will play some number of fire.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:21:16] Nice. Right. Um, moving on we’re we’re still in the ancient cars, although this one is a little bit weird in the modern contexts, Imperial recruiter, first printed in portal three kingdoms. This was briefly a 200, $300 cars until it was finally reprinted in one of the masters sets. It’s two and a red for a one, one human advisor.

When Imperial recruiter enters the battlefield, searched your library for a creature card with power two or less reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle.

David Robertson: [00:21:45] Yeah. The human advisor part is kind of interesting. Do you see this as playable in humans? Like would you rather have this instead of militia bugler?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:21:53] I don’t think so. I guess trying to think of like what you would tutor up a year, so you can get a failure Lieutenant. Is that the thought

David Robertson: [00:22:01] that’d be, my guess is Lieutenant or in a pinch, like it lets you get meddling major. If you know, they’re going to raft the next turn. Um, so are your disruptive elements, whatever those might be  against storm?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:22:15] Yeah, that’s an interesting thought. My instinct is that humans as an archetype is just going to be squashed in the short term. It’s just not going to be able to keep up with everything else going on in the format, especially all of the new removal spells that are being introduced in Modern Horizons to everything from dam, which is like a split card terminates and wrath of gods too.

We talked about fury last episode, as a player can use this on a creature. I think that that style of tribal agro is going to be in for a tough go of it for a couple of weeks. But on the other hand, Imperial recruiter is very good at assembling creature combos.

David Robertson: [00:22:52] Yeah. So first of all, I just, I don’t think Ferry’s is going to see any play at all.

I don’t think that card is very good, but uh, oh, you’re wrong. David’s you’re wrong. The, the combos of this confession are very interesting. Um, the, the one that immediately comes to mind, uh, in its color is the Kiki Jiechi combo. It can fetch either pester, termite. I don’t know why you’d fetch that if you had to, but, um, the one for in blue, there’s a one foreign white that combos with Kiki Jiechi it can fetch the, um, the one for cats that bounces any permanent.

So there’s, there’s a wide swath of targets that it can fetch to, uh, ultimately combo out if that’s what you’re in the market for. You think you’ll have time to do that, though. We’re talking about resolving a three drop, finding another three drop, resolving that three drop, and then like a four drop or a five dropped a combo with it.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:23:39] I think so. I mean, my overall hunch is that the format is going to slow down, I guess it all depends. Like, I think you’ve mentioned counter spell a few times and I get the sense that you think counter spill will be like the leading the shift in the meta-game. I feel like Charlotte’s agent is much more likely to lead a shift in the meta-game Charlotte’s agent decks tends to beat Kyra’s decks, just in a head to head fight.

And the more you push towards the sort of value resource resource resource for day decks, the less I’m interested in spending any amount of men are on a one for one. So if it’s a star, this meta game, then yeah, I do think having impurity recruiter to keep my deck turning on on turns three through six or whatever is going to be important.

David Robertson: [00:24:19] I have not seen a single Charlotte agent deck proposed by anybody that doesn’t just get absolutely rinse by blue, red prowess. So I hope everyone out there is still got their ruined caps on because your turn three play Charlotte’s agent thing is, is not gonna fly. Turn one. Dismember is also not, not that good.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:24:39] I mean, they wouldn’t say that about Timo cascade as well, and you can make it work. It just takes a little bit of a tweaking and tuning. All right, well, we’ll move on next one here. Goblin bombardments. This one’s a classic. I want to say it’s from Tempest. Does that sound right?

David Robertson: [00:24:56] I will defer to you on that one.

I don’t know what said it was in one of

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:24:59] I read in chairman’s activated abilities, sacrificing creature, goblin bombar mint deals, one damage to any target. So this is the gold standard for a sacrifice outlets. We’ve talked about this in the past when we were. Did an episode on whoa, stridor from Thoreau’s beyond death.

We were so excited that they were finally re-introducing the free repeatable sacrifice effect in part, because they’d been so stingy with that effect in the last decade or so now I think they’re just throwing up their hands and saying, okay, if you want it, you’ve got it. Here’s the bombardment. This is as good as you’re going to get.

David Robertson: [00:25:31] Yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of loops. Obviously this card see, saw brief amount of play in legacy, Sam black designed a really cool sort of zombie sacrificed deck around it. I’m not surprised that in a set that he was a consultant on, he probably told them there wasn’t anything too broken that this car will be doing in modern, sees a lot of play in EDH as like the ultimate finisher.

Once you set up a bunch of loops. Yeah. I mean, like you say that there’s, there’s not any extra design space here, so they just reprinted it as is.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:25:56] Yeah. They’d been teasing us with like weak bombardment, various over the years,

David Robertson: [00:26:00] specifically ones that like, even if it only costs one to play, but it costs one to activate the fact that you just don’t get to kill your opponent.

When you go off is made it basically unplayable.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:26:10] So we’ll be looking at combo loops with persist or with Madeira or who knows what else? Anything that has an infinite loop, where you might’ve needed a viscera Sier before now you have this, you also have the ability to put it into an actual goblins deck, for example, uh, which does have a process loop with crumb gully.

But the other thing that GABA man does is it just gives you a little bit back. Anytime spot removal is pointed at your creatures and that of,

David Robertson: [00:26:36] yeah, it surprised me of goblins played this a lot since they kind of have creatures that do this already, the format of black one, it’s like part of the combo that can also be hit with their various goblin tutoring effects.

But it is such a powerful card. I mean, you’re never that wrong to have like it as a one-off or something.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:26:53] All right. That was a nice trip down memory lane with all these reprints. Now, in some sad news, tell, tell us about the Faithless salvaging,

David Robertson: [00:27:01] Faithless salvaging Dan’s new favorite card, one in a red instant discard, a card, then draw a card.

It has rebound. So that means if you cast a spell from your hand, it gets exiled as it resolves. And then during your next upkeep, you can cast this card from XL without paying its manta cost. So this card is obviously much weaker. It rummages instead of Lutes and it’s too manna to only do it once. But I actually think this is going to see some play really well.

If you just think of their end of turn casting this, and then in your upkeep, you cast it for free. So assuming you hit your third land drop, it’s gotta be trivial to cast two more spells, and then you get your Phoenix.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:27:41] So you’re looking at a turn three, ArcLight, Phoenix, maybe two, or like, if you need to say as if, if you draw well,

David Robertson: [00:27:46] you know, God-willing.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:27:49] The templating here says, discard a card, then draw a card. That’s not an additional cost to cast. So you will be discarding again on the rebound. The only way in which you’re not going down a card for this is if you’re empty handed, if you’re empty handed and you cast the faith of salvaging this second, uh, the second trigger will actually net you a card.

So that’s something, I guess.

David Robertson: [00:28:11] Well, if you’re empty ended for both of these spells, isn’t it just to manage, draw two cards.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:28:15] So you’re thinking it’s the last card in your hand when you cast it.

David Robertson: [00:28:18] Yeah. If you just draw that card, you play it on your turn, you know, whatever you play. So your lightning bolt then on your upkeep, you are you’re empty end again, it rebounds just another draw, spell.

Obviously those are great situations to be in, but that’s not nothing.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:28:32] Oh, that’s true. Yeah. Okay. I don’t know. I’m still like a little bit tilted by the flavor. Texts says all of us left our broken beliefs. Which feels like a personal attack on not just our podcast branding, but on everyone who’s ever protested that faith was losing was unfairly.

Am I crazy here? Am I reading too much into this?

David Robertson: [00:28:55] I think it was specifically designed to taunt you, this is, this is the card with Faithless in the name though. So this is what our podcast is all about. Faithless salvaging

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:29:03] do split her twin. Next. Some really crappy splinters are inquired, but flavor texts are just openly trolling.

People who want splinter twinned to be on band

David Robertson: [00:29:12] keeping Jeanie’s legal. The spirits went on band is literally nonsensical. You can just play people. Five-oh people top eight with just winter twin. They just don’t play the card. Splinter twin. There’s a card that is exactly a splinter going. Just one more manna.

You just have to play a card that’s immune to both, or it’s not fair. I don’t understand.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:29:30] Correct, David. Then we haven’t seen the last of Faithless salvaging. Perhaps they will make its way into some of our necklace.

David Robertson: [00:29:35] I mean the one concern I have is there’s just a ton of really good graveyard hate printed into this set.

So, um, the kind of things that Phoenix, you know, the kind of environments for Phoenix is good. It’s kind of easy to neutralize with a bunch of the cars that they’ve added. So,

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:29:50] yeah, that’s a good point. All right. Shifting gears, we have a different style of red card obsidian charm, or three red red for a creature dragon for, for flying.

When I’m sitting in Chama enters the battlefield that destroy target non-basic land and opponent controls also obsidian Charma costs one less to cast for each land. Your opponent controls that could produce colorless men on lands that produce colorless manna. Obviously the Tron lands come to mind. Um, I’ll draw the temple.

There actually aren’t that many, besides that in modern, that I can think of typically most, most megabases bases are just fishes and sharks.

David Robertson: [00:30:28] I will say with the particular counter spell, you will see more people playing some of those filter land from, I don’t even know like where you can pay a blue turn, a blue, green, blue, blue, or green green.

Yeah, that’s true. So this blows those up. This blows up a mistress factory. If like Murphy tribal, which you’re trying to push in this set is a thing. Uh, it blows up Urza does. Saga

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:30:55] true. And it blows up everything. It blows up any, any land, but it is from Kevin of souls,

David Robertson: [00:31:01] et cetera. Yeah. Kevin or souls. Yeah. I don’t think this is actually a sideboard card because it’s really not that good against Tron on the draw and winning that magical game three is, is the thing you want your sidebar cards to be able to do.

But I think this is main DECA bowl and red green Ponza because it’s a lot more on plan than some of the other dragons. That they are playing and it also can sometimes just come down super fast, you know, if your Arborelle thing, and then they’ve got to close lands and playoffs and you have a four, four flying that also is, is on plan to attack your opponents manna.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:31:34] It has a weird relationship with blood moon where blood moon is your primary of denial in Ponza Charma does not destroy basic lands. So it’s almost across purposes with blood moon. It is nice if you can ramp it out and disrupt them early, but it’s not like closing off angles and the way that blood moon and followed by pillage on their basic forest is doing.

David Robertson: [00:31:55] Yeah, I agree. I don’t think you were replacing those cards. I think you just replaced the, some of your top end. This would be like a two over or whatever. Right.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:32:01] And yeah, I think you make a good point. This is not for sideboards for the same reason you wouldn’t CyBorD and stone rain against Tron. I mean, you could, but you probably shouldn’t.

David Robertson: [00:32:09] Yeah. Like it’s going to feel great on the play, but then there’s that game three and that sucks.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:32:14] Yeah. I guess this could also replace goblin, dark dwellers and that red, white Ice-Nine special. And you have like, your wind condition is two golden heart dwellers and two make with type snackable.

David Robertson: [00:32:25] Yeah. I mean, I liked our build of it more, uh, just personally with sort of the, um,  Emrakul package.

So this is not that interesting to me and that deck, because I prefer the bill that we pursued. Yeah, fair.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:32:41] Should we shift over to black?

David Robertson: [00:32:42] Yes. So Dorothy void Walker, black black creature Delfi rogue shadow. So for people who aren’t familiar, this creature can block or be blocked only by creatures with shadow.

Very strange texts. If a card would be put into an opponent’s graveyard from anywhere instead, exile it with a void counter on it, then it may tap sacrifice a Dorothy void Walker choose an exiled card. An opponent owns with a void Connor on it. You may play at this turn without paying its a cost. And it is a two man of three two.

So the possibility here is that you could do some crazy things. If your opponent has a spicy car, that might be a in exile.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:33:21] It took me a few readings to realize that when you tap on sacrifice, Dolphy void worker and you don’t have to pay mental on the car that you choose. So it’s potentially not just cards, selection, but it’s like a big temple play if you’ve happened to like thought to use something expensive from their hand.

David Robertson: [00:33:37] Yeah. So, I mean, I think the play pattern, right? His thoughts he’s on turn one and protect your avoid Walker, play it onto her and to put something in their graveyard somehow and turn three. And then in theory, you can play a much more powerful car than the three-two itself. How often is that going to be the play?

I couldn’t say that. Certainly as a possibility to, you know, get a five minute Planeswalker or carne or something

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:34:02] it’s really strange. This is just a really strange card because you have to be willing to spend black, black on a creature that does not have haste. It doesn’t even block. So it’s just going to get in for some chipped image.

It has some elements of graveyard hate. As long as the void Walker is on the battlefield, your opponent is not going to be filling the graveyard up at all. It’s all going to go into the void. Uh, but then at a certain point you’re asked, so like wants this three, two on Blockable, but also wants to trade it for a random card for your opponent’s deck.

I’m having a hard time, like picturing the deck where this will all come together.

David Robertson: [00:34:34] Obviously the ceiling on this car is incredible. The reality is that there’s not that many cards, that not many creatures you pay two or more for, and all of modern that fail the bowl tests that do not have come into play abilities.

And this sort of has a common, a playability, like you say, because it’s allegedly like graveyard hate, but it’s the fact that no other card really meets those requirements. I mean, that’s a big red flag to me.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:34:56] It’s creature type is rogue, but it doesn’t work with Feazell the enforcer. Cause it like stops the graveyard from filling up.

It’s very strange.

David Robertson: [00:35:04] Well, I guess it gives you a lot more shots at hitting like the nuts with the void counters.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:35:08] Yeah. That’s true. Somewhere in their deck. They’ve got something that costs more than two, like, oh, maybe not. It’s a Lurrus decks

David Robertson: [00:35:16] kill or buy back void Walker.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:35:21] Let’s take a brief look at persist.

We talked about on March grieve. Previously persist is the other half of that combo. This is the enemy. It’s one on the black forest source rate target non legendary Creaser card. And your graveyard is returned to the battlefield with a minus one minus one counter on it. This is one of the cheaper renovation effects we’ve seen.

Gloria’s vengeance obviously also cost too, but that is limited to two legendaries. So it’s almost like you can’t or shouldn’t put Gorgas, vengeance and persists in the same deck. There’s also the card priest of fellow rights from Modern Horizons too, which is a reanimation of the fact that you can prepay for persist is probably the cleanest of all these two men art and your kitchen comes back done, but it’s smaller.

So I guess my question for you, David, is what are you looking to get out of this card, uh, when you’re building this notional ReAnimator deck, are you expecting the game to just end, as soon as you pull it off? Or are you satisfied with something a little bit smaller, more of just like a value play that pulls you ahead?

David Robertson: [00:36:17] Yeah. Uh, I think, uh, I think a value play is fine. I wouldn’t surprise me if just the, I mean, the fact that they just build in these obvious combos that only interact with each other kind of is, is a little silly, but it is what it is. I mean, even getting back like a Titan is actually really good, uh, for that kind of effort.

I mean, we’ve played all kinds of ramps, bells that don’t really do anything just to get Titans out earlier. Um, they’ve got some big boom booms in this set already that are enticing targets. And I mean, even just the fact that if you’re playing grief or whatever, you’re, you’re just sending a lot of creatures with like reasonable coming to play abilities to your graveyard.

Um, so in the fail case where you don’t get to put a powerful creature in a graveyard, just, just getting that back is, is fine. Right? Two men, two, one thoughts, ease is, is actually really good.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:37:07] It was felt like specifically gristle, Brandon Emrakul were problem cards and that they got us conditioned to think that cheating something into play should equal an immediate win.

And that’s just not that interesting. So if they weren’t going to outright ban Griselbrand or Emrakul, I guess the other way to approach it is to give this weird weirdly specific non legendary clause to your renovation and in tomb effects, maybe that’s okay.

David Robertson: [00:37:30] Yeah. I mean, they’ll see a lot of play together forever, so that is maybe less interesting as well, since you’ve just got these guards glued to each other with identical text, identical restrictions,

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:37:40] part of the games passed in two men reanimated just with one more men.

I don’t think that’s

David Robertson: [00:37:45] the persistent fact is a lot closer to enemy dead.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:37:48] Sure, sure. But yeah, it was not like they invented a whole cloth, a two card combo. Like this is a part of medics paths that I think people have been calling for. They want to see more of a ReAnimator I don’t know, possibility, at least in modern.

And I still think it’s like a super tolerant or every color has free graveyard hates as much as they want. We’ll move on. Tell me about to rock dread chanter

David Robertson: [00:38:10] rug, dread chanter, one in a black legendary creature human cleric protection from white. It has kicker black black. When it enters a battlefield at the kicker cost was paid.

Target opponent discards, two cards at random generic tax. Whenever an opponent discards a card, put a plus one plus one counter on Taurog and it is a base to one. So what do you think about this card?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:38:31] I want to like it just out of respect for Toronto as a historical character in the Turlock, obviously is the car being referenced here.

He cast him to Toronto when he entered the battlefield, if you kicked him, but ticker is one of the least friendly mechanics for doing any kind of shenanigans. It means you’re paying everything up front. So if they have a counter spell you’ve committed format to Toronto and you haven’t done anything back out of it.

It also means that you’re not going to get value from blinking this or reanimating this because you won’t have the option to pay the kicker. Then there are some cars that let you pay the kicker in weird scenarios. I think Louis is the big one, but for the most part, you know, if you want the exciting half of Toronto, you’re looking at one black, black, black, and that’s a lot of bad on if you’re satisfied with the front half of Toronto, namely the two, one protection from whites that weirdly grows large.

If you cast a, I don’t know, like a Bernie inquiry or something then yeah. I mean, this is a pretty cool car with upside. It could see a home and like a waste, not deck, maybe eight wreck or something. Maybe gen-ed.

David Robertson: [00:39:28] Yeah. I mean, it works with Lurrus, which is like more important than most of the text on most of the cards, this entire set.

The fact that it’s kicked version is basically like a blood raid. Alpha’s kind of interesting to me, like blood right off, hitting him to Taraq was a thing you could do in legacy, like five years ago, a gentleman’s legacy, if you will. And the fact that, like you say, Lurrus lets you keep kicking it. So it’s just like a huge ManaCymbal late in the game.

Like you’re just cast at your opponent has a commerce. Well then the next turn, you’re gonna try it again. And if they don’t have a commerce, well then it’s going to just undo all the work that, you know, whatever Jace or whatever’s trying to, uh,

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:40:00] interesting. So you’re looking to cascade into this, pay the kicker, play with blood right off.

David Robertson: [00:40:05] I wanna play with Lurrus, but it gives Lurrus like a man, a sink in addition to Lurrus itself. So you can play this on too, as like an aggressive card and you know, whatever thoughts, he’s your opponent and it’s protection from white. So it’s resistant to. To ferry or whatever, but then on for you just, it gives you this like actually very scary threat.

You’re pouring Kansas. Like I wrath a God and kill your karma golife and your dark confidant. And like, if your response is this, I kind of like the, the ability to always sort of hit my head, a truck with my blood, right. Alpha equivalent. I don’t care as much about the three to haste.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:40:39] Huh. So you’re a little bit higher on this card.

David Robertson: [00:40:41] I mean, I think the fact that it works with Laura means it’s going to see some play. People are going to try it. If you look at the like Jabber rock Jabber, walkies playing like a black green list that has the ability to pretty effortlessly add the black, black, black, which as you pointed out is a pretty restrictive casting cost.

Uh, that’s an interesting place to start. I think John, I think is a little harder because adding red, you know, you can’t have that many lands that don’t make black with before this. You’re not really getting paid off for the best version of this.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:41:08] Speaking of black, black, black, let’s take a look at makers of the bridge.

This is black, black, black for a four, four creature human wizard. It has the text of bridge from below. That means that whenever a non token creature is put into your graveyard from the battlefield, you get a tutus on B token. However, whenever a Creaser is put into an opponent graveyard from the battlefield, you have to sacrifice your bridge from below or in this case, you have to sacrifice your, make us with a bridge.

I guess the idea here is that, um, the only way for someone to stop this bridge from spewing, all the zombies from the underworld is to like, have someone heroically die and then go down to the underworld and break the bridge or something. The big difference of course, bridge from below operated out of your graveyard only make, so the bridge operates on the battlefield. Only

David Robertson: [00:41:54] cards seems really bad to me. I mean, black, black, black for a four, four is fine. The ability to effortlessly kill it at any point, if you like have to kill one of your points, creatures, and then it’s just like a bunch of other cards. I think there’s a three man, a two to human, right? That whenever a human dies, you get are two too.

So I’m not sure what this is really doing, unless there’s some kind of combo that you’re building. And if you are, this seems like a very fragile piece.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:42:18] Well, the Zach Ryl necromancer, I think that’s the card you’re referring to. That’s the lick a little bit anemic as a Creaser, you’re paying for a gray ogre and then hoping to kill some of your humans to get more Kroger’s maybe to the bridge.

There’s at least a four, four.

David Robertson: [00:42:31] Sure. Well, I mean, if they sacrifice their likes, the Crow tribe, elder, they it’s turned that’s turned into the world’s greatest two for one.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:42:38] Yes, but I mean, that’s like a very specific interaction. Also make us the bridge, not caring about creature types means that you can find the best tools for the job, whether that’s blood gas, whether that’s, I don’t know, culture unfamiliar or something who knows what it’s going to be.

I think like there’s no actual comparison between mega the bridge and.  at least now that being said, you have to put this in play and it’s a lot of manna and it’s kind of fidgety, so probably not going to make it. But I think it’s actually a pretty cool card to give another chance in the sun on a much fairer implementation.

David Robertson: [00:43:11] Yeah. I mean, bridge from below is one of the worst design magic cards of all time. This operates like a normal magic card. So that’s a step in instruction or the fact that it operates like a normal, a magic card means it is I think unplayable our level.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:43:24] Well, if that’s the case, then maybe this next card will be more to your liking.

Cause this one you can just play for free. How about a solid to you? Tell us about the white MiFID

David Robertson: [00:43:33] solitude are white mythic free spell three white white flash. Lifelink when it enters the battlefield exile up to one other target creature that creatures controller gains life equal to its power evoke XL white card from your hand three, two.

So mirrors source supply shares a card from alpha and beta revise, et cetera. Three two Lifelink is actually like kind of a meaningful body. We’ve seen, Lurrus actually matter quite a bit. And flash matters a lot. Uh, one of the weaknesses of the red card is that it does not have flash. So this is a card that can be used to break up creature combos.

It can break up, uh, your Kiki GKE combo. You assembled in a pinch. You can tap out in the face of whatever the Heliod combo, et cetera. Uh, I think this car is going to see a lot of play. I don’t think any of these freestyles are well-designed, but I do like that this at least isn’t like a great, a fem rate on turn one target because your opponent probably isn’t going to have two creatures in play to a swords, right?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:44:32] Big grief. The black evoke elemental was the first one that they previewed. And that’s the only one of the four that’s really proactive in its effect. Um, so that when you FMRI grief to get extra triggers, you’re pulling ahead every time that resolves, no matter what the board’s state is, as long as they have cars in hand, You’re getting something good out of grief, but every other one that we’ve seen solitude fury, the red one, the blue one is a counter spell, the green one, tucks graveyards.

These are defensive tools, reactive tools. They kind of have diminishing returns. The more times you get that effect in a row. That being said, I, this card still is a little bit offensive just in terms of like the raw stats, the five minute mode for this is better than any implementation of this. Like, remember the card Luminar primordial or it’s like, oh, we cast the swords to plowshares when, when you play it, isn’t that cool.

And it only costs seven Mina for six or something. It’s all too. It’s like, okay. Yeah. Three, two flashlights link. Sure. And also exiles your plans, creature.

David Robertson: [00:45:31] Yeah, I mean, five minutes is a loss, but you know, it’s a nice fail case. The fact that this is probably not going to get jumped up in your hand and can be used to be that bridge card to get you to, you know, your wrath or to, to protect the Planeswalker, which I think is going to be a common use.

You know, Planeswalkers add so many cards to your hand and, uh, all you want to do is just protect them and this lets you do it for free. So, you know, you just resolve Jace on four with, without doing anything. And then they kind of have to attack Jace with everything. What if you have a bunch of solitudes in your hand?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:46:01] So we’ve seen the whole cycle now. I guess we can throw endurance into the mix here. That’s one green green for a three for elemental incarnation. Also with flesh and it’s ETB effect is you target a player and they have to put their graveyard on the bottom of their libraries. So you can use that usually to stop like a dredge opponent from going off, but in a pinch, it can also save you from a mill deck.

And that one’s a little more, castable at three four for, for three minutes. So now that we’ve seen all five in the cycle, how are you feeling about the introduction of these into modern as a whole?

David Robertson: [00:46:32] I mean, you need a way to sell packs. I think the better ones will do that. The green one, I like, because it reminds me of Simeon grants, which was a total pet card for me back in saga.

What was the one with the hammer? Legacy. I think ours is legacy punishing your power for casting spells playing creatures or having cards in their hand. I don’t think it’s something we should be doing for free, but you know, you got sell packs. I mean, free, free effects are very powerful. Um, that’s a, you know, modern is moving towards a legacy light, you know, there’s a lot of, I think Dan did a good job kind of listing some of the legacy if you’ll allow the word, uh, or some of these older effects, we’ve kind of been wanting, pushing the power level down.

The in tune effect is only to man out. The persist is only two Manoj. These cards are all free counter spell, right. Is cheaper than the Congress we’ve been playing. So I think just, there’s a lot of downward pressure on the man ACOs in the format. Um, yeah, just mimicking the ultimate curve of legacy.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:47:25] Right. Right. And then combined with that, I feel like the Caslin costs, the full price costs of all of these elementals. It’s like one too cheap. Like this just feels a little too cheap, five manna for this. If it were six men, that’d be like a little more okay with it. Because then when they hard cast it and get a clean two for one.

I at least know that as my faults, you know, if I’m losing to a six minute play is my fault, but if I’m losing to a five minute play, I’m not sure whose fault it is. Cause it feels like too

David Robertson: [00:47:51] cheap. I dunno, five man, a three to kill a creature that seems about right,

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:47:56] but as life. So like, you know, this situation, you’re probably on some kind of control deck or a deck looking to take control by extending the game.

Um, so you’re pitching early to get out of the emergency situation and you’re pulling your head with plans, walkers. And then the last thing you need to do is pad your life total and lo and behold solitude does all that for you on the backside.

David Robertson: [00:48:15] I do like that. This keeps the templating of sorts of Ploughshares, uh, where you can Xcel your own creature.

Um, that’s a play that I’ve made a lot of my life, like sorts of Paul sharing. Some creature of mind to just by time, uh, to your point. I mean, yeah, I think this is a super powerful card. Discouraging opponents from playing creatures, I think is just not something we shouldn’t be doing, but you know, just that they didn’t consult me for this set.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:48:39] I feel like Sam black did a 30 with this like, oh, Brad Nelson had tweeted something. When, when they previewed the first black one, there was like, man, this card, when I saw it today, I thought, how could they print this? And then I remembered that, oh, actually I tested this. And it was fine. Who knows how that tweet is going to age?

I mean, they had a team of four trying to break it. Now we have the entire modern population trying to break these who will win. I’m not sure. I mean,

David Robertson: [00:49:02] I think it’s fair to say maybe these cars won’t be broken in the sense that as you say, most of them are defensive. And so it won’t be obvious that the card is broken, right.

It’s not like an Earl level threat or Omnath or whatever. But it discourages a lot of like play style. So you know, that that’s a different thing than saying to the card is broken, but like we talk about the bull test. It’s going to be really hard to pay like three Manor for a creature that doesn’t draw a bunch of cards if they can just solitude it away for nothing.

So, yeah, I think probably this is just like where you want to be. Like, if at least if they just spent two cards, they might as well just get a one drop from you, kill you. They blow up your rag, a van. They have to turn zero.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:49:44] I’m telling you, this is why fury is going to be so good. You’re only about that card. It’s going to be so good.

David Robertson: [00:49:49] You have to cast it. Sorcery speed. It gets to kill one rag van on turn one, just like solitude

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:49:55] you cast turn to, and you just erase whatever they played on their first three returns.

David Robertson: [00:49:59] Well, they’re not gonna be playing in creatures because of all the other stuff

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:50:03] I have to what choice did they have?

They were problematic. Well, in any case, we’ll have to see you on this. Uh, let’s take a look at another creature that can be exiled by solitude. We got Esper Sentinel, single white man, a for a one, one artifact, creature, human soldier. That’s all very interesting. We don’t see one ones very often these days, we don’t see humans that often anymore, and we certainly don’t see artifact, creature, humans.

What does Esper Sentinel do? It has a texting effect. It says whenever an opponent cast their first non creature spell each turn draw card, unless that player pays X where X is as per sentinels power.

David Robertson: [00:50:42] Yeah, I love this card. I don’t like taxing effects where you can’t cast spells. I think that is like a very unfun play style.

This style, which is reminiscent of a bunch of cards through magic history. I’m trying to think of the blue and Chapman two in a blue. And if you don’t pay one, you get to draw. It’s super expensive in EDH. I just sold a bunch of them. I didn’t realize how expensive they were.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:51:04] Rustic studies

David Robertson: [00:51:05] Ristic study. Yeah, this is that. So it appeals to people in EDH because that effect is actually very powerful, but they still like to play their spells. So you’re not preventing anyone from playing anything and they can whatever gang up on you. And you have a bunch of cards in your hand, and then this is a human. So it can slot into the human’s deck and some number, uh, combining it with value.

It means they’re basically never gonna be able to pay the tax. You can increase its power pretty easily. It actually is okay against lightning bolt. You’re either going up a card or you’re actually trading positively on manna, which is pretty rare for most one drops, even cards like Wrenn and Six that normally you’re just like, oh, that sucks.

You know, these one ones are bad against LABA, dart and running sex. This is actually lines up. Okay. With them.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:51:44] Are you interested in trying to boost the Esper sentinels power or not really?

David Robertson: [00:51:48] I mean, you can, if you want to, like, I’m going to put it in a deck where you’re playing the one, one human that adds plus one plus one counters.

But I think it just slots into humans as is it’s like a one or two over maybe like a sideboard card. Like I said, you combine it with all, yeah, you, you can Buffet’s power with Lords. It is an artifact. So just like maybe a reasonable car to have lying around to also be like a Montessoris for your Urza or whatever.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:52:13] I see ManaCymbal in the chat here asking about master of Ethereum as a way to boost the power on your Esper Sentinel.

David Robertson: [00:52:20] I mean, this is just going to die. I’m just saying, at least it dies and it gives you a car before it goes like they’re going to bolt this. Well, you just get a card out of it. So I don’t think you’re going to have these long games or the extra power is going to matter.

They, the, the, the pressure on manta cost is really high in modern right now. So if they don’t kill it right away, they’re going to just end up. You’re going to get the draw cards, even if its power is only one. I think like people are playing on curve very consistently.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:52:46] Yeah. So this will be a good example of why I think fury there, the red elemental is going to be such a problem.

If I come up with a brilliant Texas style deck, any number of creatures that you can think of as per Sentinel into Thelia into stone forest mystic or whatever, just gets completely wiped off the map by a single fury on turn three. And then they have all that managed to do something else. Who knows. I mean, yeah, if it’s exactly a late nibble format, like it has been for 10 years or however long model has been around then yes.

The more as per sentinels and folios, you have the better off you are fighting against spells. But if there’s another way around that, if it’s just, I’m going to play solitude theories and blink your stuff, or erase yourself with creatures, then it’s going to be a sad time for taxes specifically and as presentable as well.

David Robertson: [00:53:33] Yeah. And th this is like the kind of card that will go in and out of favor, right? Like when there’s lots of spells around, it’s fine. When, if your opponent is winning the turn that it casts a bunch of spells at once, right? This is not a good card against the storm, for instance. And as a present enough of a clock, you know, maybe humans is like, look, it doesn’t matter how many cards you have in your hand, and you can’t deploy your threats and time to kill your opponent.

Even if this draws two or three cards is still not worth it. Cause it’s just not a big enough deal on turn one. I’m certainly not a humans player. So maybe, maybe that’s the bigger question than anything. Or maybe humans, like you say, it’s just unplayable in the face of a lots of this removal. And so even though this is maybe an addition to humans, it just brings it up to tier like 3.5.

And so we just don’t see much of it, but I really just liked this design. I think this is how they should be designing taxing effects.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:54:17] Yeah. It was very cool. I think I like Silverquill silencer for the same reason. It’s like kind of a Punisher, but it’s almost like both players mutually agree to make this exchange.

Like yes, they have the option to kill it. And you’re both okay with it. Who has rights? Well, I guess we’ll find out in the subsequent turns. Right. Let’s just take a quick peak at two more cards. This next one is a throwback query and arranger single dream for a creature elf ranger. Think this is the first time it has had the arranger subtype and its long years of existence.

It has the activated ability return it forest. You control to its owner’s hand, colon untapped target creature activate only once each turn. So returning the forest is the cost of activating the ability. Then the effect is you could untap something. So this is a car that has been used as part of the manna engine in an elf deck with a low land count, because if you didn’t have.

Another land to play for the turn. It’s almost like there’s no drawback to bouncing a land. It’s actually a benefit to return a forest, your hand, to get a second use out of it. And not only do you get to do that, but you also get to untap your, what would it be? A priest titanium or something?

David Robertson: [00:55:25] Yeah. I mean, even just the landlord, right?

It’s, it’s functioning as a it’s one man, a play it’s adding two men of that turn. Right. So you’re going up a Manor for the turn with haste. If you want to think of it that way. Yeah. Part of the very explosive elves deck, elves is still a deck that you can play in legacy. The elves archetype has been a little underpowered and modern.

One of the biggest threats to it is Modern Horizons. One, a plague engineers just Coles the entire deck. And they’re like, that’s just a hard ceiling on what the duck can do. All these other pressures on one toughness cards. You know, we talk about Ryan six, we talk about lava dart. They just all line up really well against the, all the cards that work really well with query and ranger.

So I think this is a cool addition to the format. It’s certainly not like too powerful, but I don’t think Elvis can ever kind of overcome the fact that the format just comes ready-made with some serious guide rails for what that deck can never. Yeah. True. All right. Last card, Thermo taxi, Dan talked to us about the Domo taxi.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:56:22] So it’s a two minute artifact of vehicle to generic manner. That is it’s a zero is zero vehicle, and this is the strangest vehicle we’ve ever seen. It has imprint as dermal taxi enters the battlefield imprint of card onto it, I guess, by exiling a creature card from a graveyard could be your graveyard could be your opponent’s graveyard.

So flavorful, the, I guess what’s happened is, is you find a carcass. And you take it to the taxidermist and make a dermal taxi out of it. So now the creature is, is a vehicle. This hollowed out mammoth or something that is a picture on the art. How do you crew the vehicle? Well, it doesn’t have a traditional crew cost.

Instead. It says you crew it by tapping to untapped creatures. You control it doesn’t matter what their power is, but it’s the quantity of creatures. You’re tapped. You need two distinct creatures to power up the dermal taxi. When you do that, the dermal taxi becomes a copy of the imprinted card. Now this effect only lasts until the end of the turn.

So in order to get your dermal taxi running around, you need to like have a lot going on. You just have to set up the graveyard, somehow cast or more taxi imprint, the cool thing onto it. Then follow up with two creatures and have them stick around in play long enough to fire up the dermal taxi. They’re making you work for this so much that I’m trying to figure out if there’s some broken thing here that they’re, they’re trying to make it a little bit harder to do, and I’m not actually not quite sure what they have in mind.

David Robertson: [00:57:39] It’s also weird that it’s a vehicle. But it doesn’t actually have a crew cost. I mean, it has a functional equivalent of crew, but it doesn’t actually use the word crew.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:57:47] Right. It’s super strange,

David Robertson: [00:57:48] very odd. You know? So like if you crew it, if you had some effect that crude it, you know, there are cars that just like a vehicle is crude.

It’s just a base zero, zero. So it doesn’t do anything. There’s no like way to cheat and crew it for free. You have to do the activated ability thing. So it’s just a very weirdly designed card. One thing I kind of like is in a deck with a lot of small creatures, this is actually like a cool way to fight.

If there is a ReAnimator deck, they like, they put their card in their graveyard and then you just like play dermal taxi is like a hate piece that also lets you like activate that creature later. Right? You’re you’re playing humans. Okay. Somehow human survives, all the, all the terrible things we think the format’s going to do to it.

You just like, bring this in as a anti graveyard piece. You want to play rest in peace. So you just like dermal taxi there. Yeah. Whatever that six, six creatures they, they, uh, have in this set that draws a card and makes them discard a card and you gain through life and they lose your life or whatever.

You put it under the taxi, they can’t reanimate it. And then eventually we should just have two creatures. You get to do the like crazy thing.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:58:44] That would be hilarious. So are you looking to build around this yourself, like as a, as a ReAnimator effect for a non-black deck, for example?

David Robertson: [00:58:53] No. I mean, the man is awesome in the format.

I don’t think we need to play this cuddle list if I could do so they preprinted the ReAnimator like list for us. We don’t have to do all this extra work. I don’t think we’re getting paid off enough to do so.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:59:05] Kind of have a haste. Like if you discard something on term one and play dermatitis on term two, you’re ready to attack potentially on the next turn.

If you do have seasoned, Pyromancer puts a token or something to fire up the taxi.

David Robertson: [00:59:17] Yeah. And I think you really do need to play like citrus supplier, um, seasoned Pyromancer those are the kind of cards where they’re active coming into play is filling up your graveyard with something just so that you have the bodies lying around.

So you just don’t have a lot of precision either. Right? You have to play these big creatures. You have to. Susan Pyromancer them into the graveyard. Then you have to like, have a dermal taxi in play after that. It just seems like there’s a lot of moving parts there.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:59:43] It’s just a fun car to look at. Feel like we had to talk about.

David Robertson: [00:59:46] Yeah. And then at the end, like, all right, you activate it. They just like blow it up with their, a white free smell and just like, well, that was seven cars of my effort. I noticed you did that for no man.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:59:58] Well played, sir. Turn back to you. Shall we go to sideboard? Yes. All right. Well, I think we’ll leave it here.

We’ve now done. I think four different shows looking at previous or Modern Horizons and we still haven’t hit all the cars. I mean, there’s, there’s so many, this set is just completely stuffed it stuff like a dermal taxi is stuffed. Up and down the set, there’s something efficient for every possible tier three archetype.

And I think for that reason, we’re going to just have to keep going piece by piece and revisiting these things as they come up. So in that spirit, our next show on Sunday is going to be a look at one of these packages. You can brew around specifically the madness and discard. Package starring under roll cookbook and as more on the Martika dice and a cooler card.

So check back on Sunday and we’ll see you. Then this concludes the fourth and final installment of our brewers guide to Modern Horizons to tune in on Sunday for our first brew session of a season, featuring the underworld cookbook support for this podcast is provided by brewers like you. If you’d like what we do, you can join our community@patrion.com slash Faithless, the discord access, all this content and more that’s all for today.

Stay safe and we’ll see you next time.