Modern Horizons 3 (MH3) Limited Set Review: Colorless, Artifacts, and Lands

Hey everyone! Are you prepared to broaden your horizons before crushing some dreams in the newest set? That’s right, it’s somehow already new set time with Modern Horizons 3 preparing to drop on MTG Arena on June 11^th.  I’m not getting much time outside of the content creation dungeon with this crazy release schedule, but at least my wife promised to slide food under the door every time I finish an article.

Per usual, I’ll be grading the entire set for limited purposes. Maybe one day I’ll get to see sunlight again, but today is not that day.

Here’s the usual grading scale:

• 5.0: Disgustingly powerful and basically unbeatable. Either answer it the turn it comes down or just pack up your cards. (Gruff Triplets, Virtue of Persistence, The Eternal Wanderer)
• 4.5: Incredible bomb that still gives your opponent a slim chance. (Virtue of Loyalty, Imodane's Recruiter, Realm-Scorcher Hellkite)
• 4.0: Great rare or the absolute best uncommons and removal. (Faunsbane Troll, Gumdrop Poisoner, Talion's Messenger)
• 3.5: Great role filler or removal that you never cut. (Candy Grapple, Hearth Elemental, Torch the Tower)
• 3.0: Good playable that I’m basically never cutting. (Shrouded Shepherd, Spellscorn Coven, Sharae of Numbing Depths)
• 2.5: Decent playable and the bar I hope nearly every card in my deck to reach. (Evolving Wilds, Archon's Glory, Flick a Coin)
• 2.0: Mediocre filler that normally is your 20-23rd card(s). (Mintstrosity, Ice Out, Grabby Giant)
• 1.5: Replaceable, overall bad filler. Could also be decent sideboard cards. (Titanic Growth, Scarecrow Guide, Territorial Witchstalker)
• 1.0: Bad filler. Gets cut most of the time. (Dark Tutelage, Kindled Heroism, Impact Tremors)
• 0.5: Very unhappy to main deck this, but maybe it has fringe sideboard applications. Cards that “could” be situationally decent, but bad in most situations. (Smothering Tithe, Rhystic Study, Mana Flare)
• 0.0: Unplayable in every possible situation. They rarely print cards this bad these days. (Hew the Entwood, One with Nothing)

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Colorless

Breaker of Creation

Rating: 4.0/5

Some people might be down on this since it can trade with a couple of bears, but by the time that has happened they are already down two other permanents from the Annihilator 2 attack. Even without getting tricky, that is still a four for one.

While the hexproof from every color seems like it would ensure you do get to attack with this, there are devoid removal spells running around. Losing your eight drop to a Fanged Flames or a Ghostfire Slice feels terrible, but that’s the price of doing business here.

I almost forgot to talk about the life gain. Did you know that lands are colorless permanents? That means this gains a whole bunch of life when you drop it letting you stabilize from any attempt to go under you.

Devourer of Destiny

Rating: 4.0/5

While this can’t take out it’s Eldrazi brethren, it does exile any colored permanent. That’s a pretty nice addition on a body this big even if it is a bit pricy. The downside is that you need double colorless so I’d recommend investing in some Eldrazi spawn to ensure that it can happen.

The beginning of the game ability is similar to Sphinx of Foresight, but a little more restrictive since you can only keep one card. It’s mostly a nice addition so you get some value out of having your top end in your opening hand.

Drownyard Lurker

Rating: 3.0/5

This functions as either an enabler or a payoff for Eldrazi. A 7/7 just dwarfs everything that isn’t Eldrazi and Vigilance means they have to deal with it to get through. There is no shame in cycling this away to get an Eldrazi spawn token because it’s probably leading to you doing some other crazy thing with eldritch horrors.

Echoes of Eternity

Rating: 1.5/5

This is mostly a meme card that sometimes does bat poop crazy stuff. It’s very difficult to cast and does nothing up front. Don’t get me wrong, it can do all the stuff and things. The main thing is that if you’re dropping big old Eldrazi, shouldn’t that be enough on its own.

Eldrazi Ravager

Rating: 3.0/5

I feel like I’m repeating myself when I keep reminding people that you need colorless mana so you have to be careful about playing this in a generic deck. It also loses a ton of value if you aren’t producing Eldrazi spawn tokens both to drop this early and to allow you to bring it back easily.

Annihilator is a great mechanic, especially if you manage to ramp this out on the play. The only way they have a decent out on it is if they are in the business of making Eldrazi tokens as well.

Emrakul, the World Anew

Rating: 4.0/5

The cast trigger means that even if they counter this, you are still stealing their entire side. That is extremely difficult to come back from in limited. You obviously need to go harder on the ramp then any other cards in the set because twelve mana is a very hard ask. Like most Emrakuls, you’re probably winning if you manage to cast it.

Glaring Fleshraker

Rating: 2.5/5

It’s not that I don’t like this card, but I’d really prefer to play Eldrazi Repurposer for the bigger body and the upfront Eldrazi spawn token.

Herigast, Erupting Nullkite

Rating: 3.5/5

Dropping this as a massive flying top end that refills your hand is a great way to erupt across the finish line.

Emerge is huge on this by letting you drop it for a much more reasonable cost than the nine spot. There’s a huge difference between paying nine mana for Kozilek, the Broken Reality and nine mana for this.  

It That Heralds the End

Rating: 3.5/5

This grade is assuming that you’re all in on the Eldrazi deck. That means you’ll have easy access to colorless, make plenty of Eldrazi spawn tokens, and have some expensive drops that would love to be a bit cheaper. If you meet all those qualifications, this card could be absurd. There are also plenty of decks this is unplayable in.

Kozilek, the Broken Reality

Rating: 4.5/5

In most formats you’d be questioning your ability to cast a nine drop. This is not one of those formats. You really want to go hard on making Eldrazi spawn because it both facilitates dropping this sexy beast and they’re suddenly 3/3s when he hits.

You can even draw some cards while turning your cards into (potentially flippable) 5/4s to beat down hard. There’s a lot going on here, but it’s right in the intersection of both fun and powerful.

Kozilek’s Command

Rating: 3.5/5

Double colorless is considerably more of an ask than single colorless. It usually means you need to keep an extra landscape around instead of fixing your mana. Some decks it won’t matter in, but I dinged this a little bit because of that.

Of course, you can completely ignore that if your deck pumps out Eldrazi spawn like they are going out of style. In that case, this is more like a 4.0.

With all that said, this is still very powerful. Exiling a creature and making five spawns is a pretty huge swing. Even exiling a creature and drawing a card with a huge scry is pretty sweet.

Null Elemental Blast

Rating: 0.5/5

You should never be running this in the main and it is even questionable out of the sideboard. Some of the multicolor cards have devoid making this an even sadder option.

Nulldrifter

Rating: 3.5/5

The fail case of Divination means that you at least have a fallback on this. It feels like seven mana is the new six in this set so this is a perfectly reasonable way to take over late.

Twisted Riddlekeeper

Rating: 3.5/5

Dropping this around turn five is a massive swing in the game even though the emerge requires specifically a colorless, a blue, and the emerge sacrifice. This only says permanents so you can actually shut down their lands from untapping to help lock them out of the game. You’ll usually be hitting creatures, but it’s a cool option to have.

Ulamog, the Defiler

Rating: 4.0/5

Another of the big boys coming down showing that they don’t mess around. While it’s rarely going to lead to decking, the ETB ensures that this will be chonkier than normal with a disgusting amount of Annihilator going on.

Warped Tusker

Rating: 3.0/5

Similar to Drownyard Lurker in that it’s providing both an enabler and a payoff for Eldrazi decks. While I prefer the 7/7 body on that one, the reach is a great way to ensure you’re stabilized for your big monsters to take over.

Wastescape Battlemage

Rating: 4.0/5

For those of you who didn’t have the pleasure of drafting IPA, let me assure you that Battlemages are busted. This is no exception; it is much better than most people think.

Artifacts

Disruptor Flute

Rating: 0.0/5

I’d highly recommend against playing this. Too narrow and doesn’t even completely lock them out of it.

Idol of False Gods

Rating: 1.5/5

This is really slow, but if you’re all in on the Eldrazi spawn deck, it can do a bit of work.

Solar Transformer

Rating: 3.5/5

I love this card because it does all the things I want to be doing in this format. Cheap ramp, produces colorless, makes energy, and fixes your mana. Unless I’m a low to the ground aggro deck, I always want this card.

Vexing Bauble

Rating: 1.0/5

This is a constructed card with very narrow limited applications. If you’re playing a heavy artifact deck, this can actually be pretty decent. In most decks it’s just a cheap cycler.

Winter Moon

Rating: 0.0/5

Not going to happen. You might think it’s cute to sideboard this in against someone with a bunch of nonbasics, but even then they can sacrifice their landscapes to get basics.

Land

Archway of Innovation

Rating: 2.0/5

While the cost of adding this to your deck is rather low, the possibility of it being a tapped land if I don’t control an Island still matters. The payoff on this one is pretty bad compared to the other ones. I’m tapping two lands to give my next spell improvise so I need to have a minimum of three artifacts that I’m tapping to make it mana positive. I need to be in a really artifact heavy deck with some expensive Eldrazi payoffs to make that happen.  

Arena of Glory

Rating: 3.0/5

This one is at least more often to come up than Archway of Innovation even if exerting a land to give something haste is just alright.

Monumental Henge

Rating: 3.5/5

This is going to range from do not play this at all to this grade based off of the number of historic cards in your deck. There are plenty of legends and artifacts in this set so you should usually be closer to this grade.

Shifting Woodland

Rating: 4.0/5

Delirium isn’t too difficult to hit when there is a whole cycle of ten common sacrifice lands. You don’t even have to get creative between those, creatures, instants, and sorceries. This turning into whatever crazy thing is in your graveyard (possibly Eldrazi) can be a massive swing.

Snow-Covered Wastes

Rating: 1.0/5

If you absolutely need a colorless producing land and somehow can’t get any that have other abilities than I guess this might do it for you.

Spymaster’s Vault

Rating: 4.0/5

There being barely any cost to this with the possibility to dig into your deck while potentially adding a decent amount of +1+1 counters is huge.

Ugin’s Labyrinth

Rating: 3.0/5

You thought I was going to say this was unplayable garbage, didn’t you? Here’s the thing, there are a ton of spells that cost seven or more in this set. Starting out with a two mana land is a huge early game swing and you weren’t going to be casting that huge drop for awhile anyway so you’re not even really down a card. There is a ton of variance here, but the ceiling is huge compared to the floor of just being a colorless land.

Urza’s Cave

Rating: 1.5/5

A slight step up from Wastes, but you can still usually do better.

Landscapes

Rating: 3.5/5

I love these because it means all your memes won’t remain dreams. You can fix like crazy, sacrifice for synergies, add colorless for Eldrazi, and can cycle them away late. Speaking of the cycling, the cycling costs provides a nice visual aid to show you which lands they can fetch.

Fetch Lands

Rating: 3.0/5

Nothing against these classic lands, but I prefer the common ones over them. The colorless option really matters and the third color is great as well. They’re still wonderful and I’ll pick them high. I just have a preference.

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Wrap Up

Thanks for reading! I’ll be back tomorrow with my limited review of the Multicolor cards from Modern Horizons 3. Until then, stay classy people!

If you have any questions, let me know in the comments below.

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