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 11th. 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)
Powerful cards to MTG Arena releases on June 11, 2024 for Timeless and Historic formats! Learn all about Modern Horizons 3 and find all our related articles in our hub.
Basking Broodscale
Rating: 3.0/5
Bears with upside are still solid and this little guy has plenty of it. Getting an Eldrazi spawn out of growing him is a big deal because it gives you an early game house and a way to get up to your top end threats.
Birthing Ritual
Rating: 3.0/5
Depending on your deck construction this grade could swing either way by at least a full point. This has the potential to do some disgusting things and it really depends on your creature concentration, how they line up, the ETBs. It’s also so cheap at two mana that you shouldn’t have a problem slipping it into your curve.
Bridgeworks Battle
Rating: 4.0/5
It’s no secret how much I love MDFCs and this is one of the better ones. It’s an easier to cast Savage Smash which you would be happy playing even if it didn’t have the possibility of being a land. This is one of the ones I would count as a spell and not adjust my land base for.
Collective Resistance
Rating: 2.0/5
This is one of those cards that has so much upside that you don’t mind it being a bit below the power curve when you have to settle for one mode. But those times you do get multiple feel soooo freaking good.
Colossal Dreadmask
Rating: 2.5/5
We’ve all seen the Colossal Dreadmaw memes and made the jokes when this was spoiled. The thing is that having one of these in your deck provides some inevitability if you’re playing a grindy deck. The old 6/6 trample for six does require an answer and then you just keep sending a massive monster every turn. Combine with deathtouch for even more fun.
Disciple of Freyalise
Rating: 3.0/5
Unlike Bridgeworks Battle, I tend to count this as one of my land slots because I’m more likely to play it as one. This can be a huge game changer in a late game standoff where you suddenly draw four to pull ahead.
Eladamri, Korvecdal
Rating: 4.5/5
A Centaur Courser that lets you Future Sight creatures is just a bomb on its own. It’s insanity to add in the possibility to Elvish Piper in creatures from your hand or top of library in an Eldrazi format. I guess I’ll just jump ahead seven mana, seems fair.
Eldrazi Repurposer
Rating: 3.0/5
A solid body with at least one Eldrazi spawn token thrown in is great. Getting the second one if they deal with this is even better.
Evolution Witness
Rating: 3.0/5
Not even in the conversation with Eternal Witness, but can still do a lot especially in combination with other ways to add +1+1 counter to get extra triggers.
Fanatic of Rhonas
Rating: 4.5/5
Am I seriously rating a mana dork this high? You bet I am and you should be ranking it the same. This could be one of those busted cards that you get passed week one because people don’t realize how broken it is.
First off, you’re starting off with a really annoying 1/4 stat line on a two-drop mana ramper. That’s going to require a real card to deal with and unless it exiles this is coming right back a lot bigger and ready to produce a ton of mana.
If they don’t deal with it, then you just play a big creature followed by ramping all the way up to the top of the curve. Having nine mana on turn five off of just this and a random four power creature is extremely unfair in an Eldrazi world.
Fangs of Kalonia
Rating: 1.5/5
You really want to cast this on something that already has +1+1 counters because just putting two of them on at sorcery speed isn’t worth a full card. It does combo nicely with Evolution Witness though.
The overload is sort of an overrun, but those type of cards have fallen off in limited land over the years.
Flare of Cultivation
Rating: 1.5/5
One of the great things about Cultivate was that it only costs one green so it was still easy to pop off when you were running a bunch of colors. Double green complicates that and makes this far less likely to be what you are looking for. It’s also highly unlikely that you are sacrificing a green creature to it, leave that for constructed.
Fowl Strike
Rating: 2.0/5
I’m not going to lie, I laughed at this art far more than I should have. It is just so absurd.
Normally Plummet effects are better left as sideboard cards, but this one doubles as a reasonably costed combat trick that sticks around so at least one of these will be making the cut.
Gift of the Viper
Rating: 2.0/5
I like one mana combat tricks especially when they are versatile. Deathtouch is a wonderful thing in an Eldrazi world or when you’re trampling around with Colossal Dreadmask. The untap and reach is just waiting to pick off an unsuspecting flyer. Sometimes that +1+1 counter is just enough to win a combat and stick around. Lots of options, not a lot of mana.
Grist, Voracious Larva
Rating: 3.5/5
This is a build around because you need other cards to make it work. Retrofitted Transmogrant is the most obvious one, but there are also Quest for the Necropolis and Victimize. If you don’t have any of them, this is still a cheap creature with Deathtouch, but you should value it much lower.
Horrific Assault
Rating: 3.0/5
A one mana bite spell is pretty efficient removal that will help you stay alive until your big monsters come out to play. It also can let you drop one of them and still cast this in the same turn. There are plenty of cheaper Eldrazi such as Eldrazi Repurposer running around to make sure you end up gaining the life.
The Hunger Tide Rises
Rating: 2.0/5
This does provide you with three Insect tokens for three mana, but you have to wait for the infestation to show up. The fourth step feels like one that I would often end up passing on or just sacrificing these to go get a two or three drop. This just doesn’t feel as powerful as a lot of the other things running around here.
Hydra Trainer
Rating: 2.5/5
This is not amazing when it’s all by it’s lonesome, but it can still punch in for a decent amount of damage. What really matters is when this is exerting to add an additional +7+7 to one of your big evasive creatures.
Lion Umbra
Rating: 1.5/5
I was in on this card up until the point that it said that it can only enchant a modified creature. You can certainly build your deck to make that a lot easier, but I really don’t want to draw some big boy pants that I can’t even put on my creature if it’s not already dressed up.
Malevolent Rumble
Rating: 2.0/5
I really like this in Golgari grind decks that are hoping to drop cards like Retrofitted Transmogrant into their graveyard. It’s also fine in ramp decks that just want to make sure they hit their land drops and get a spawn token.
Monstrous Vortex
Rating: 0.5/5
I’m sure there are going to be some instances where this is barely playable, I can even imagine a scenario where I even lose a game or two to it. I’ll never consider playing it because it costs too much, requires you to cast really big creatures (how many of them are realistically in your deck), and you could just hit a one or two drop off of it. Way too many bad variables for me.
Nightshade Dryad
Rating: 3.0/5
I love this little dork. Being able to pay for Eldrazi colorless or fix for any color of mana is so versatile. On top of that it’s got deathtouch so they have to use a real card to deal with it so you can’t just trade for their Eldrazi.
Nyxborn Hydra
Rating: 2.0/5
I’ve said plenty about how much I love bestow creatures. This one is a bit too pricy for what it gives you. Of course, if you top deck it in the late game, it can dominate the board. I’m fine running this as top end if you need a way to finish the game.
Path of Annihilation
Rating: 3.0/5
Some people think this looks like a do nothing, but a better description for this is a “win if you untap with with it” type card. That comes with the stipulation that your deck needs to be pretty focused on Eldrazi and have the right payoffs.
Outside of providing you with two spawn tokens, it lets all your Eldrazi tap for mana without having to sacrifice them. Consider that you cast Eldrazi Repurposer into this, turn five you have access to nine mana without playing any other cards.
Gaining life is a great add on because it lets you come back from the beats you took while you were setting up.
Primal Prayers
Rating: 0.0/5
Don’t try setting up any weird combos with this, that’s a constructed thing.
Propagator Drone
Rating: 3.5/5
I assume if you are playing green, then you are in the Eldrazi business. With this drone, business is good. Sure you could use it as a mana sink to make some more Spawn Tokens, but it’s really that it’s a bear that makes all of your tokens grow out of control.
Signature Slam
Rating: 3.0/5
Obviously, the designer of this card never watched Godzilla vs Kong because that Gorilla got whupped.
As long as you have other modified creatures (and green has plenty of them) this can still kill a creature even if they kill your creature in response. Three mana instant speed removal where you get a +1+1 counter thrown in is a pretty fine deal.
Six
Rating: 4.0/5
I’m trying to figure out the lore because if Wrenn hasn’t met Six in this reality then why would their name be Six if Wrenn just numerically names them.
This is a card advantage machine (as long as you manage to hit lands when you attack) that can turn your extra lands back into your best permanents.
Sowing Mycospawn
Rating: 3.5/5
This will be sowing bad beat stories from the times it randomly locks someone out of a color. Most of the time it will just be a Hill Giant that searches up a land and that’s still good. Notably it’s not restricted to what type of land it grabs and it can come into play untapped.
Springheart Nantuko
Rating: 5.0/5
Haha, this card is so stupid in limited. I don’t really need to explain it outside of only one side of the table will be having fun with this card. They really should have made this a mythic.
Temperamental Oozewag
Rating: 2.0/5
It’s a Colossal Dreadmaw that you can pay for in installments. It also makes the rest of your modified creatures trample which can help force through a bunch of damage.
Territory Culler
Rating: 3.5/5
That body is pretty nice for only five mana. There really aren’t too many flyers sneaking through this chonker. If they hadn’t RIP’d secret reach on Arena, this would have been munching critters like it was its job.
Oh yeah, it has a landfall ability that draws you creatures or lets you dump other stuff into your yard. Luckily, they have those Landscape lands running around to let you double dip on it.
Thief of Existence
Rating: 4.0/5
I wanted to drop this a little bit for the colorless requirement, but this is such a ridiculous card that I just left it here.
Trickster’s Elk
Rating: 2.5/5
Just Elking great, more Elking Elk. Someone needs to have a long Elking talk with Elking Oko about this.
Kind of an odd card that you really don’t want to just play out as a Centaur Courser. It’s much better if you upgrade a creature and then get an elk when it dies off.
Wumpus Aberration
Rating: 3.0/5
That’s a mighty big creature for only four mana, just make sure you don’t slam this early without paying for the colorless part. If you can’t, it’s not like this isn’t still going to matter after they have emptied their hand.
Wrap Up
Green has got some serious beef going on. Even more so than usual with the Eldrazi getting in on the mix. It even has some decent removal in Horrific Assault and Signature Slam. It’s looking like a great color that allows you to commit some serious shenanigans.
Thanks for reading! I’ll be back tomorrow with my limited review of the Colorless, Artifacts, and Land 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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