Modern Horizons 3 Timeless & Historic Decks & Set Review (Part 1)

Hey everyone! Modern Horizons 3 will be dropping on Arena on June 11th and I’ve honestly never been more excited for a set, so I’ve recently been spending a lot of time going through all of the spoilers, assessing cards and trying to figure out their potential homes and applications which is what I’ll be going into today.

This is going to be a detailed set review series going over all of the most impactful cards in the set and talking about their strengths and weaknesses as well as their potential homes in both Timeless and Historic with some sample theorycraft decklists I’ve been working on.

There are so many cards to talk about since so many of them will be playable so I’m going to be splitting this into three or four parts in order to cover the whole set so I’ll be doing the same again soon in part 2, and will be covering the rest of the set after that – if some of the recently spoiled cards don’t appear here that’ll be why.

Additionally even though this set will be legal in both Timeless and Historic, there will almost definitely be a number of cards that will be pre-banned in Historic – we haven’t been told which ones will be yet so if I think a card is very likely to be pre-banned then I’ll mention that, but otherwise I’ll try and highlight each card’s applications in both formats. With that all out of the way let’s get into it!

Grief

We’re getting the full cycle of pitch elementals as part of the bonus sheet in MH3 which is an absolutely massive addition! I would be really shocked if all of these aren’t pre-banned in Historic so I’ll only be going over the Timeless applications for each of them.

I think Grief is likely to be the most impactful of these since it’s proactively strong in every matchup especially alongside the ‘scam’ support cards as well as Reanimate, and black is one of the most supported colors in Timeless currently so it should be relatively easy to support this in generically strong decks.

If you’ve not seen this card in older formats it’s incredibly strong on turn 1 alongside a way to ‘scam’ it such as Not dead After All or Ephemerate which either blinks or reanimates Grief to give you two activations (or sometimes three in the case of Ephemerate) and leaves you with the creature in play which represents a decent clock starting turn 1.

Additionally we recently had Reanimate added to the format which has mainly been run as a small package alongside Troll of Khazad-dûm, and Grief feels like the missing piece to make this package a lot more potent and consistent since it provides you with another high impact card to Reanimate, and provides you with another way to ‘scam’ Grief on turn 1 as well.

I could also see Grief working well in Dark Ritual + Necropotence or The One Ring decks where you can evoke Grief early on to clear the way for Necropotence or The One Ring which allows you to refuel.

In terms of the effect this is likely to have on the format as a whole, I think it’ll be a hit to high synergy combo decks the most and I do expect it to be very popular especially since the Reanimate package is very easy to fit into a lot of decks.

Overall I think Grief will have a big impact on the format and will be very powerful, but I don’t think it will be as punishing in Timeless as it is in Modern since we have a number of cards that can help recover such as Lurrus of the Dream-Den, Mystic Sanctuary, Up the Beanstalk, Yorion, Sky Nomad, and Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time (which Grief also helps fuel) to name a few.

Fury

This is another card that is likely to have a big impact on the format and will be a big hit to creature-heavy decks such as Yawgmoth, as well as tribal decks like Humans and Merfolk which is a bit of a shame since these strategies are already difficult to run in the face of Orcish Bowmasters.

Having said that I don’t think Fury will be as popular as Grief since it’s not as easy to slot into generic midrange decks but I do imagine that Rakdos Scam and Up the Beanstalk decks will be popular initially since they’re fairly easy to port over from Modern which both tends to run the full playset of Fury so you definitely need to be considering it when build your creature-centric decks.

This is my initial build of Rakdos Scam in Timeless which is fairly close the previous Modern builds but is also running the Reanimate + Troll of Khazad-dûm package and Deathrite Shaman in place of Dauthi Voidwalker.

My main concern with this build is that Reanimate and Thoughtseize alongside fetchlands and shocklands represents a lot of life loss, although we do have Deathrite Shaman that can help offset that somewhat – I did consider running Death's Shadow in place of Deathrite Shaman to capitalize on this but I’m concerned about the viability of Death's Shadow with Solitude being added to the format, since both Solitude and Swords to Plowshares can be used to remove another creature and gain you life will often also kill Death's Shadow.

Overall though this shell has proven to be very potent in Modern so I imagine it should be a solid deck in Timeless as well assuming 4 color midrange or Up the Beanstalk decks aren’t everywhere.

Solitude

This is another big addition to the format that will fit very nicely into a number of shells.

Firstly it’s an integral part of Up the Beanstalk decks as a way to both trigger Up the Beanstalk as well as removing problematic creatures that punish your card advantage engine like Orcish Bowmasters and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse.

Secondly it should be a good tool for control decks as a free spell that can exile a creature in a pinch when you’re tapped out, and is also nice as a card to hardcast to remove a creature and potentially trade with another one in combat.

Additionally I’m excited to try out WBx decks running Solitude and Grief alongside Ephemerate and other creatures that are good to blink (I’ll have an Esper list list leveraging the new Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd below) to really maximize the value you can get off the pitch elementals.

Overall white has probably been the least played color in Timeless recently which has meant that Swords to Plowshares has been really underplayed relative to its power level, and Solitude alongside it should give more decks an incentive to move into white as a splash color which should hopefully bring more diversity to the format.

This is my initial build of Timeless Beanstalk however there are a lot of other potential options within this archetype since it’s very much a midrange deck. The core of the deck is Up the Beanstalk alongside Solitude, Fury, and Leyline Binding as ways to trigger it and snowball card advantage in your favor – past that there are a real variety of options as long as you ensure you have enough red and white cards to pitch to Solitude and Fury (16 of each is what I’ll be aiming for).

Omnath, Locus of Creation feels like an auto-include here since it’s a phenomenal midrange card, works very well with what the deck wants to be doing, and counts as a pitch card for both elementals (as well as Endurance in the sideboard).

For the other red cards I’ve chosen to go with two of the best standalone midrange cards in Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes, and Swords to Plowshares alongside Leyline Binding provides extra interaction and enough white sources for Solitude.

Running Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes over The One Ring means that we hit enough red pitch cards that we can run a non Boros card in the remaining slot which enables us to run one of the best midrange cards in Oko, Thief of Crowns which rounds out the list nicely.

This deck looks like it should crush the majority of other midrange decks but I am concerned about combo and Titan Field since those can both go over the top of your gameplan so those matchups definitely need dedicated sideboard cards.

For Titan Field I’ve opted to go for Alpine Moon since Field of the Dead is the main card you’re scared of – the weakness of running this is that the opponent can use Primeval Titan to fetch Blast Zone to destroy it but that’s quite slow and hopefully buys you enough time to kill the Primeval Titan and take control again.

Additionally Alpine Moon also pitches to Fury and is just better than the next best alternatives in my opinion – Ashiok, Dream Render for example is typically very good against Titan but this list isn’t running any acceleration and casting Ashiok, Dream Render on turn 3 on the draw is often too slow to stop the opponent if they have a turn 3 Primeval Titan or Natural Order.

Figuring out which sideboard cards to run against combo is very difficult since it’s not clear which combo decks are likely to be popular post-MH3 so I’ve gone for Dovin's Veto and Flusterstorm as generically good options against regular and storm combo, but you’ll want to alter the sideboard once the metagame settles and you know exactly which combos you need to be able to beat.

Subtlety

This is another powerful option for blue decks and is one of the only good ‘free’ ways we have of fighting on the stack. Having said that I don’t think there are as many natural homes for Subtlety as the other three elementals we’ve discussed so far outside of Merfolk and maybe some control variants (although Flare of Denial which I’ll be discussing soon fills a similar role). Overall Subtlety is a great option in the toolbox of blue decks but I don’t imagine it will see as much immediate play as the other three.

Endurance

The final pitch elemental is the only one which I expect to mainly see play in the sideboard – I can see this seeing play in the maindeck of Yawgmoth as a Chord of Calling tutor target but outside of that I imagine it will mainly be used as sideboard graveyard hate unless the format suddenly becomes very warped around the graveyard.

We’re spoilt for choice now in terms of options for graveyard hate but this seems like a decent choice if you don’t want to interrupt your curve for a card like Unlicensed Hearse but also need to be able to get rid of the entire graveyard (as opposed to an alternative like Surgical Extraction), plus you can also hardcast this as a threat so definitely consider this one if you want graveyard hate in your green decks going forwards.

Prismatic Ending

This is another nice option in multicolored decks, especially 4 or 5 color midrange like the Up the Beanstalk deck shown above. This is incredibly flexible and can be used on turn 1 so if your deck is multicolored this should be a consideration for removal.

I think this is likely to see less play in Timeless than it does in Modern since we have access to Swords to Plowshares which is the much better option if you’re primarily using this to answer creatures since it’s instant speed, always only costs 1, and is very effective against Death's Shadow decks, but if artifacts or enchantments like Up the Beanstalk start seeing more play then this is definitely worth considering.

Overall this is a very nice option for Timeless multicolored midrange decks to have, and I expect it to see play in the 75 even if it’s only in the sideboard. I don’t expect multicolored decks to be as viable in Historic without fetchlands so I think this is less likely to be impactful there, but we have seen Domain decks in the past and this could be a good option in those decks if they re-emerge.

Dismember

This is a really nice option for decks that are in colors that don’t usually have great options for interaction such as Mono Green (and potentially red decks if you need to be able to answer bigger creatures but can’t enable delirium for Unholy Heat). We’re also getting a good amount of colorless support in this set with the main enabler being Ugin's Labyrinth so there’s a chance a colorless or more likely green / colorless ramp deck emerges which will really value this as a way to interact early.

Additionally the life loss can be utilized in Timeless Death's Shadow decks but as previously mentioned I’m concerned about the viability of Death's Shadow post-MH3 because of Solitude and Swords to Plowshares.

In Historic Mono Green Devotion is already a very powerful deck that really struggled against fast aggressive decks because it didn’t run any interaction and this is potentially an option there – running it would slow down your proactive gameplan and the life loss is a very real downside against a fast deck like Izzet Wizards but it could be worth considering. Having said that I expect Historic to look very different post-MH3 so there’s a chance that Devotion might not be good enough, especially because it’s so uninteractive.

Persist

We recently got Reanimate added to Timeless but dedicated reanimator decks weren’t really viable because you need more than 4 reanimation spells to enable your gameplan and the next best alternatives were just nowhere near as good. Persist however is really good on rate and should mean you can now run focused reanimator decks with 4 Reanimate and 4 Persist.

The one big downside of Persist is that it can’t reanimate legendary creatures so cards like Atraxa, Grand Unifier and Griselbrand are off the table. We haven’t had Archon of Cruelty spoiled yet which would be the perfect card to fill this role (the full set’s not been spoiled yet so there’s still a chance and we could potentially get another good alternative too) but even if we don’t get a better option printed in MH3 I still think using something like Serra's Emissary could be good enough.

As mentioned previously we already have a decent reanimator package in Grief, Troll of Khazad-dûm, and Reanimate so you could expand on that by also running Persist, another big creature and some discard outlets and you’ve got a pretty potent midrange deck with somewhat of a combo finish.

Generically powerful cards that double up as discard outlets like Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, Bitter Triumph, or the new Impetuous Lootmonger are all good options, but I also wanted to highlight Phyrexian Scrapyard which is an Arena only card that is very underplayed in my opinion and should be a great option in reanimator assuming your manabase can support colorless lands.

In Historic Mardu Reanimator has seen play in the past as a hybrid midrange + reanimator deck and running Persist alongside Priest of Fell Rites or Unburial Rites will definitely be an upgrade there, although there’s a good chance it could be too slow or vulnerable to sideboard hate in post-MH3 Historic.

Speaking of which, dedicated reanimator is obviously weak to graveyard hate and Surgical Extraction is especially punishing, but I imagine most Timeless reanimator decks will be running 4 Grief and 4 Thoughtseize which gives you a decent chance of pre-emptively getting rid of that graveyard hate.

Another route you could take with reanimator is pairing the reanimator package with Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord and powerful non-legendary vampires like Vein Ripper and Westgate Regent which makes you less reliant on the graveyard.

Doing this enables you to run a higher density of big vampires which increases the chances of assembling a fast start with Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord and Dark Ritual, but also gives you something useful to do with those vampires if you don’t draw Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord since you can pitch them via Phyrexian Scrapyard, Bitter Triumph, Liliana of the Veil or even Thoughtseize in a pinch, and then reanimate then with Reanimate or Persist.

Grief and Troll of Khazad-dûm provide redundancy for reanimation targets and Grief also gives you a way to ‘cash in’ those big vampires if you draw them in multiples by exiling them to evoke, and Grief plus Reanimate enables you to still have the busted scam starts too.

Flare of Cultivation

We’re also getting a new cycle of free spells in MH3 called the Flare cycle which can all be cast for free if you sacrifice a non-token creature of their respective colors. Similar to the pitch elementals I’d be very surprised if these were legal in Historic since my understanding is that Wizards don’t want high powered free spells in Historic so I’ll only be talking about the Timeless applications of these.

This green one is one of the most powerful of the cycle, and it’s essentially Cultivate which can be cast for free if you sacrifice a non-token creature. The most natural home for this will undoubtedly be the Titan Field deck since the best creatures to sacrifice to this are probably Arboreal Grazer and Kami of Bamboo Groves which Titan Field runs as 4 ofs.

This can lead to some absurd starts where you lead on turn 1 Arboreal Grazer putting Sunken Citadel into play, then Flare of Cultivation to put another basic into play, then on turn 2 you untap with 3 lands, can play a Castle Garenbrig and then cast Primeval Titan on turn 2!

Flare of Cultivation probably replaces Sylvan Scrying in current builds but I don’t feel like 8 creatures (even with 4 Once Upon a Time to find them more consistently) is enough so one other change I would make is cutting Archdruid's Charm and going back to Fierce Empath in that slot – this then provides essentially 16 enablers which seems decent to me.

I was considering that this potentially might not be enough since all of these creatures have ETB triggers which would give the opponent the opportunity to kill the creatures in response which cuts you off both Flare of Cultivation and future Natural Order, but the next best options aren’t anywhere near as good (Cenote Scout and Elvish Rejuvenator are the only two that come to mind – Cenote Scout seems very underpowered and Elvish Rejuvenator would probably result in the deck having too much ramp and not enough payoffs), there isn’t really much room for them, and hardcasting Flare of Cultivation isn’t the worst thing in the world if the opponent chooses to kill your creature which you’ve already gotten value off.

One other change in deckbuilding you need to make to enable Flare of Cultivation is running more basics in the manabase – I think the minimum you’d want is probably 4 but I could see needing more if you wanted the second or third copies of Flare of Cultivation to provide more value.

This is another reason why I’d prefer to run Fierce Empath in place of Archdruid's Charm in Flare of Cultivation builds since in order to have enough green sources for Archdruid's Charm you’d probably need all of your basics to be forests (since you can’t really afford to cut some of the non-green utility lands like Field of the Dead, Westvale Abbey, Blast Zone, Bojuka Bog etc.) which is much more likely to delay your Field of the Dead coming online since it increases your chances of drawing the same land in multiples even if you run 2 snow-covered and 2 regular forests.

This is the build of Titan Field that I’ll be starting with post-MH3 with the above changes made. One notable land I’ve cut to make room for the extra basics is Cavern of Souls since that’s a land that was mainly here as a Sylvan Scrying tutor target and was rarely fetched via Primeval Titan.

My main concern with this build is that it now may not have enough enablers for Natural Order since Sylvan Scrying could act as a Natural Order enabler by fetching Khalni Garden and we’ve replaced it with Flare of Cultivation which obviously doesn’t work as an enabler.

If this does end up being a problem then I’m not sure there’s a clear solution – you could maybe consider replacing 3 Sunken Citadel with 3 Khalni Garden since assembling Sunken Citadel alongside Castle Garenbrig will be less consistent without Sylvan Scrying, but doing that also lowers the consistency of turn 3 or 4 Primeval Titan, and makes turn 2 Primeval Titan impossible so I’d rather not make that swap unless it’s completely necessary.

Another new addition to the sideboard is Affectionate Indrik which I think is important as an answer for Harbinger of the Seas which you can tutor via Fierce Empath and cast with only one basic.

Outside of Titan Field I think Flare of Cultivation can also be utilized well in a more conventional ramp deck that is looking to cast other big spells outside of Primeval Titan.

One other enabler that I think could work very well alongside it is Forceful Cultivator which can be cast very consistently on turn 2 if you run a high density of modal-double faced lands like Turntimber Symbiosis and the new Disciple of Freyalise which would ramp you to 5 mana on turn 3 if you had both Forceful Cultivator and Flare of Cultivation (with a guaranteed fifth land off the Flare of Cultivation).

Another potential way to build ramp could be via Ugin's Labyrinth with a bunch of 7 mana colorless payoffs which also help enable Ugin's Labyrinth. I’d love to combine both ideas but Ugin's Labyrinth doesn’t synergize well with Forceful Cultivator since drawing Ugin's Labyrinth means you won’t be able to cast Forceful Cultivator until turn 3 at the absolute earliest. Either way I’m really excited to brew more in the ramp space!

Flare of Denial

This one is competing with Flare of Cultivation for the best one in the cycle in my opinion and is the very first good free counterspells we’re getting added to Arena! There are some pretty big deckbuilding restrictions with this card since you’d need to be running a deck that runs a pretty high density of non-token blue creatures that you’re happy to sacrifice which isn’t easy for most decks to achieve, but the few that can will really benefit from this.

The first shell that comes to mind is Merfolk since that’s a deck that runs a number of blue creatures they’d be happy to sacrifice such as Shoreline Scout, Silvergill Adept, and Merfolk Trickster. Merfolk also gets another really nice addition in Harbinger of the Seas which makes me very excited to try the deck post-MH3. I’m still a bit skeptical about Merfolk’s viability because it seems very weak against Fury, but Flare of Denial at least gives Merfolk some counterplay to it.

Another archetype that I think could potentially benefit from the addition of Flare of Denial is dredgeless dredge since that has Narcomoeba, Prized Amalgam, and Merfolk Secretkeeper as creatures that are great sacrifice fodder to Flare of Denial, and that’s a deck that has basically no interaction so getting a free counterspell would be huge.

Having said that cutting self-mill enablers makes your proactive gameplan less consistent, and cutting mill payoffs makes your self-mill enablers less consistent but I think it’s probably worth trying to find the room for this since it seems really powerful at protecting your boardstate. Additionally the deck still gets hosed by graveyard hate which Flare of Denial is probably too slow to stop in most cases so this could be a bonus for best of 1 only.

One other home I’ve been thinking about for Flare of Denial is a Wizards control shell running Snapcaster Mage, Tishana's Tidebinder and the new Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student as enablers for both Flame of Anor and Flare of Denial. I’m a little more skeptical about this one since free counterspells are generally less beneficial later in the game and it would be difficult to enable Flare of Denial early in this shell without Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student but I’ll still definitely be trying it out.

Flare of Malice

This seems like another very powerful Flare but again there are pretty big deckbuilding restrictions since you’d need to be running a deck with a high density of black creatures you’re happy to sacrifice. Grief works very nicely with Flare of Malice but you would need a lot more black creatures for this to be effective so I think the best home for it is probably in some kind of Goblin Bombardment sacrifice shell running cards like Bloodghast and Forsaken Miner.

Sacrifice is an archetype I’ve been interested in trying in Timeless but it didn’t really feel worth when Show and Tell was the dominant deck since that was likely a very bad matchup, and there wasn’t really many new tools you got moving from Historic to Timeless.

With the addition of Grief to the format there’s a chance that combo is less prevalent which could make room for a deck like this to thrive, and with the addition of Grief, Fury, and Flare of Malice you have a good number of cards that will likely be Timeless exclusive.

This is also a deck that can utilize Grief better than most by evoking it and then either sacrificing it to Flare of Malice to kill an opposing threat, or sacrificing it to Phyrexian Tower to generate 2 mana on turn 1!

Troll of Khazad-dûm is another card you could consider here to pair with Reanimate but I feel like it doesn’t fit as well in this shell because this isn’t a deck that wants tapped lands and is already running a low land count which makes losing Troll of Khazad-dûm to Grief or Thoughtseize very risky if you’re relying on it to hit land drops.

Another shell that I think could utilize Flare of Malice is dredgeless dredge again since it has creatures like Bloodghast, Stitcher's Supplier, Prized Amalgam etc. that are good sacrifice fodder. As mentioned previously this is a deck where it’s pretty difficult to fit interaction in without diluting your proactive gameplan and I think Flare of Denial is probably more valuable so I imagine this will be best as a sideboard option, although the deck will struggle a lot more in best of 3 because of graveyard hate.

Flare of Duplication

This is a really interesting Flare that I’m not sure has a great proactive home yet, but seems like a potential sideboard option for red decks against counterspell heavy decks. This seems like it could be a very powerful combo enabler but in order to use this proactively you would need a deck with a high density of non-token red creatures, and access to powerful instants or sorceries to copy which I don’t think really exists at the moment.

I think this can be effective in the sideboard of red creature decks though as a way to copy the opponent’s counterspell to counter their counterspell. Red hasn’t really had the opportunity to do this outside of a card like Tibalt's Trickery which is much worse when used fairly, and is also restricted in Timeless.

Having said that red decks already have access to a big selection of planeswalkers, artifacts, and enchantments that are great against counterspell heavy decks if you can get them to resolve, and the card you force through the counterspell needs to be pretty impactful for it to be worth sacrificing a creature for, which on average won’t be the case in a linear red deck so this might not be worth doing either.

Overall I wouldn’t be shocked if this sees no play on release but I’ve definitely got my eye on it going forwards since it’s a powerful enabler if a deck can use it proactively.

Flare of Fortitude

This is another Flare that I wouldn’t be surprised if it saw no play initially since it would require a deck with a high density of white creatures, and would want to protect its board from interaction.

The only two archetypes I can think that would want this style of effect is a deck like Hammer (which already isn’t very good in Timeless, likely gets worse with the addition of Grief, and wants to keep most of its white creatures around) and white aggressive decks (which already struggle because of Orcish Bowmasters and become worse with the addition of Fury).

Additionally sweepers don’t really see much play currently and if they did start seeing more play then Divine Purge would probably be near the top of the list which this doesn’t protect from. There definitely could be a deck in future that would want this but I don’t imagine it’ll see much play on release.

Amped Raptor

This seems like an incredibly powerful card to me, acting like a 2 mana Bloodbraid Elf as long as you make some deckbuilding considerations.

Firstly I think this just slots into any Lurrus of the Dream-Den as a 4 of assuming you’re not running any counterspells or instants and sorceries that cost more than 3. In these sorts of decks you’re always guaranteed to hit and this will act as a 2/1 that casts stuff like Thoughtseize, Orcish Bowmasters, Dragon's Rage Channeler etc. for free which is really strong!

If you choose to build around this more heavily though, the ceiling on the card goes up substantially. We’re getting some other energy support cards in MH3 in Tune the Narrative and Galvanic Discharge, which alongside Attune with Aether are capable of producing 2 energy on turn 1 meaning you’ve got a pretty decent chance of playing one of those on turn 1, into Amped Raptor on turn 2 which then gives you the chance of casting a 4 drop like Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes or The One Ring on turn 2 in addition to a 2/1 which is absolutely insane!

Oko, Thief of Crowns and Jarsyl, Dark Age Scion (which then allows you to immediately recast the 1 drop energy enabler) are also great hits at the 3 drop slot too (which either leaves an energy spare for other cards or can be hit if you run Aether Hub and have it as your second land).

Obviously there’s variance involved here but the failsafe of having 8 guaranteed ways of producing of producing 2 energy on turn 1 (as well as Galvanic Discharge that will sometimes enable it), and a decent number of 1 and 2 mana cards to hit when you don’t have an early energy enablers means the fail rate should be pretty low.

This is where I’m starting with the midrange-focused build – my main concern with this deck is that combo matchups can be tough without counterspells (which you don’t want to run alongside Amped Raptor ) so the two main ways you can try and fight there is either by running permanent based hate cards like I’m running here, or splashing black for discard spells like Thoughtseize which comes with real costs in the manabase both in terms of life total and vulnerability to Blood Moon effects.

It’s hard to predict what combo decks will be popular but I’m optimistic that there should be good enough permanent-based hate cards that you can stay in Temur. Since combo is an issue I’ve also decided to build the deck pretty aggressively so you can present a fast clock against combo and control, and be able to race against other creature-based decks as well.

Running the full playset of Tarmogoyf, Questing Druid, Oko, Thief of Crowns, and Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes means that we’re very likely to apply a lot of pressure off a turn 2 Amped Raptor whilst all being good cards in their own right as well.

Harbinger of the Seas

This is another big addition providing us a Blood Moon effect in blue! Similar to Blood Moon I imagine this will be pre-banned in Historic since it’s basically impossible to play around without fetchlands so I’ll be evaluating this one in the context of Timeless only.

This is obviously very comparable to Magus of the Moon but I think having it in blue is better since it cuts the opponent off red removal like Lightning Bolt that would enable red decks to kill Magus of the Moon. It being a Merfolk is a big deal for Merfolk tribal decks since it not only locks out the opponent’s mana if they didn’t fetch basics early, but it also turns all of the opponent’s non-basics into Islands which in turn gives all of your creatures unblockable if you have a Master of the Pearl Trident in play.

Harbinger of the Seas is also a wizard which could be relevant for Izzet decks running Flame of Anor – this could also be relevant for Merfolk decks since a lot of playable Merfolk (as well as Mutavault ) are also Wizards so you could run an Izzet build to leverage Flame of Anor.

Outside of those decks this is also gives non-red decks access to a Blood Moon style effect which could be relevant for decks that want to improve their matchup against decks like Titan Field so I expect this to see play in the sideboard of certain blue decks as well.

Nethergoyf

This is another really nice 1 mana option for midrange decks, providing you with a Tarmogoyf that only grows from your graveyard but also has recursion in longer games.

Obviously only counting your own graveyard means this will grow slower than Tarmogoyf but the difference between 1 and 2 mana is huge so I imagine this will be a pretty big upgrade assuming you’re running a deck with a variety of card types (which most midrange decks are especially if you’re running Dragon's Rage Channeler and want to enable delirium).

Overall this is definitely a big contender to run as a threat in midrange decks – it is competing with Dragon's Rage Channeler and Deathrite Shaman which a lot of decks will prefer, but past that I think I would prefer Nethergoyf over Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer in most decks unless you need more red cards to enable Fury.

Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd

This looks like another really powerful card and is somewhat reminiscent of Soulherder but better in almost every way.

Firstly being a mana cheaper is huge, and having flash is a big deal too since it makes it more likely that the opponent will tap out and not hold mana open to kill Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd which maximizes your chances of getting at least one trigger off it. It can also be used to blink your opponent’s creatures to clear the way for you to attack or to remove tokens which is a nice upside.

Overall this seems like a really solid payoff for running a bunch of creatures with good ETBs alongside Ephemerate.

This is the shell I’m most excited to try Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd in which is an Esper blink shell with a lot of interesting cross synergies.

Firstly this list makes great use of Grief enabling you to scam it on turn 1 via Ephemerate (which can get you three triggers), and you also have 4 Juggernaut Peddler which is great at disrupting the opponent’s hand so this list has great tools against control and combo.

Additionally you’ve got Solitude and Skyclave Apparition as interaction to keep the opponent off the board, and Diviner of Fates and Satoru, the Infiltrator as card advantage engines.

Diviner of Fates is good at fixing your hand off the ETB, is nice to blink with Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd and Ephemerate, and produces card advantage when you cycle Troll of Khazad-dûm or Lórien Revealed.

Satoru, the Infiltrator provides card advantage whenever you evoke Grief or Solitude, blink a creature with Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd or Ephemerate, or use Reanimate on it or another creature so it’s a great way of pulling ahead if the opponent doesn’t kill it fast.

Speaking of which we’ve also got Reanimate which is great with Troll of Khazad-dûm and Satoru, the Infiltrator, and you can use it alongside Grief on turn 1 to give you another way to scam.

Then in the sideboard I’m running 4 Stalwart Realmwarden which in theory should be a really good card against control and combo decks that rely on non-creatures and blinking it repeatedly could lock the opponent out of the game.

Eladamri, Korvecdal

This is a really cool card that I think can be very powerful in a number of decks. Being able to play creatures of any kind off the top of the library is very powerful and is very appealing for a deck like elves where they’re great at producing a lot of mana fast, as well as Chord of Calling decks where it’s a great tutor target if you’re out of gas and need to refuel.

Then the other ability to cheat creatures into play off the top of the library or from your hand is very strong in its own right and often pairs very nicely with the first ability. For example Timeless Yawgmoth might be interested in this card as a 1 of to tutor off Chord of Calling to cast creatures off the top of your library, and it also gives you a way to cheat your big Natural Order targets like Atraxa, Grand Unifier or Craterhoof Behemoth into play if you draw them which was previously a big problem for the deck.

Additionally Elves is also a Natural Order deck so using this to cheat in your big targets in that deck seems strong too. Having said that both of those decks are likely to struggle post-MH3 because they’re very weak to Fury so the place I’m most excited to try this out in is Historic where both Fury and Orcish Bowmasters aren’t legal (assuming the pitch elementals are pre-banned there), and we’re getting some other really big support for the Elves tribe in MH3!

Priest of Titania

This is a massive addition for Elves since Elvish Archdruid‘s mana ability is one of the most powerful parts of that deck and getting the same effect for a mana cheaper is absolutely huge! Being one toughness means this is unlikely to see play in Timeless due to Orcish Bowmasters and Fury, but this is really big for Historic where Elves has been around for a very long time.

This is also a big upgrade specifically for Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler builds – I’ve tried multiple iterations of this in Historic in the past and it’s felt pretty close but the big problem was that you couldn’t use Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler to rebuy your main mana generators like Elvish Archdruid and Circle of Dreams Druid off the -2 but now with Priest of Titania you can which should really increase both the speed and resilience of the deck.

We’re also getting Wirewood Symbiote which is a card that sees play in Elves in older formats but I’m not sure we have all of the tools to really enable us to abuse that yet.

This is my initial build of Historic Elves post-MH3 with Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler providing the deck with both resilience to removal, and speed by enabling our dorks to tap the turn they enter play. I’m choosing to max out on the 1 drops including Jaspera Sentinel not only to maximize early speed, but also to be able to take advantage of a turn 2 Priest of Titania be getting multiple elves into play and producing a huge amount of mana on turn 3.

Allosaurus Shepherd and Elvish Warmaster remain as your two main finishers but we also have the relatively new Voja, Jaws of the Conclave as a Chord of Calling target that applies a ton of pressure if we don’t have either of those two, or the mana to use them yet. Additionally we’re running Eladamri, Korvecdal as another tutor target that’s great at pulling ahead on card advantage and utilizing excess mana, and can cheat cards like Voja, Jaws of the Conclave into play if we happen to draw them (and we can activate that ability the turn Eladamri, Korvecdal enters play if we have Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler).

Finally another new card I’m running here is one of the new MDFCs in Disciple of Freyalise which can be played as an untapped land for 3 life or can be cast as a creature to help provide a bit of card advantage.

This is really useful in a deck like Elves where you’ll sometimes have starts where you have a lot of mana but not much to use it on, and it makes Eladamri, Korvecdal better since we have fewer actual lands in the deck so we’re less likely to brick on the top of our library since we can either cast it if we have a lot of mana, or cheat it into play via the other ability on Eladamri, Korvecdal.

Psychic Frog

This might look like quite an unassuming card but I think it’s very powerful especially for 2 mana. The fact it provides card advantage every time it connects means it can snowball the game pretty quickly if the opponent doesn’t answer it, and even if the opponent has a blocker you can exile three cards from your graveyard to give it flying (which should be relatively easy in Timeless due to fetch lands) to get around that and allow you to connect.

Additionally the buff ability is a free discard outlet which is a really big deal for any deck with graveyard synergies so it not only allows you to grow it at instant speed to either blow out a blocker in combat or be able to race faster, but it also enables your proactive synergies so I think this card could be very good especially in decks that want to be pitching cards to the graveyard.

Ugin's Labyrinth

This is probably the scariest card from the set and is one of the most powerful lands we’ve ever had added to Arena. Lands that produce more than 1 mana have always been very powerful but they usually come with some drawback that stops them being used too early such as Sunken Citadel or Lotus Field.

Ugin's Labyrinth on the other hand can pretty consistently tap for 2 mana on turn 1 which is insane and can lead to some pretty broken starts like a turn 1 Chalice of the Void on 1, turn 1 Mind Stone if you’re more focused on ramp, or a turn 2 Blood Moon for example.

Before MH3 I would have said that this is probably too difficult to enable since we really didn’t have many playable colorless spells that cost 7 or more and so you’d have to fill your deck with a bunch of uncastable cards in order to consistently enable the imprint, but we’re getting a good amount of enablers in the set that I’ll be going over in a second so enabling it shouldn’t be an issue.

Additionally even if you can’t imprint it’s still an untapped land that taps for a colorless so there really isn’t much risk with this card considering the massive upsides you get if you can imprint it. Then on top of that you can rebuy the card you imprinted with it later in the game once you have access to more mana so this card seems crazy good to me. Even if you couldn’t get the imprinted card back and it entered tapped when it wasn’t imprinted I think it would be Timeless playable so the fact it’s so much better than that speaks to how insane this card looks.

This feels to me like another card that is likely to be pre-banned in Historic since I imagine they’ll also want to keep fast mana like this out of the format so I’m only going to be discussing its Timeless applications.

Ramp will obviously be the best home for Ugin's Labyrinth since it’s a ramp enabler, and requires you to run 7+ mana ramp payoffs but there are multiple ways you could build it. One way is base green utilizing Flare of Cultivation alongside Arboreal Grazer and Kami of Bamboo Groves to provide the fastest starts in terms of acceleration.

As mentioned previously I don’t think Forceful Cultivator works particularly well alongside Ugin's Labyrinth but you could run Elvish Rejuvenator here as a way to ramp which you can cast on turn 2 via Ugin's Labyrinth and then sacrifice it to Flare of Cultivation to ramp again, as well as Once Upon a Time which will help find those creatures to enable Flare of Cultivation, and find Ugin's Labyrinth itself.

Additionally another build I’m excited to try is a colorless ramp list built around enabling the new Emrakul, the World Anew using colorless ramp like Mind Stone and Guardian Idol and discard outlets like Phyrexian Scrapyard as well as colored discard outlets which you can cast off pain lands like Sulfurous Springs which you can still tap for colorless mana to enable the madness cost.

Ugin's Labyrinth Enablers

As previously mentioned we’re getting a bunch of new expensive colorless cards in MH3 and I’m going to go over the ones that I think enable Ugin's Labyrinth the best.

These all have one thing in common in that they all work for the imprint ability but can also be utilized earlier in the game – there are a number of other big colorless Eldrazi being added in MH3 but the ones spoiled so far that cost more than 3 and less than 7 look generally overcosted and don’t help enable Ugin's Labyrinth, and the ones that cost more than 7 but can’t be utilized before you have access to 7 mana look too slow and generally seem worse than alternatives we already have.

Drowner of Truth

This is probably the best enabler and should be a 4 of in any Ugin's Labyrinth in my opinion since it both enables the imprint, and can be played as a land so even if the other side of the card didn’t actually do anything it would still be worth considering. The creature itself isn’t anything to write home about but it is a big body that provides you with additional sources of ramp so it provides you with an additional mana sink that will have some impact on the game if you flood out, but the fact this is an imprint enabler that can otherwise just be played as a land is the main upside here.

Devourer of Destiny

This is a nice imprint enabler that actually has a pretty big impact when cast and is quite similar to Meteor Golem or Cityscape Leveler. The creature alone is probably overcosted for 7 mana in Timeless but you also get this extra ability to essentially scry 4 if this is in your opening hand which is huge for consistency.

We’ve seen from Once Upon a Time how big these free start of the game actions can be, and while this doesn’t put the card into your hand or look quite as many cards deep, it should still be great at smoothing your draws, helping find your key cards like Ugin's Labyrinth, and you can run it alongside Once Upon a Time to really maximize consistency which is really big in a ramp deck where drawing too much ramp or too many payoffs is often an issue.

Nulldrifter

Finally we’ve got Nulldrifter which works as an imprint enabler and can be used as a Divination for 3 mana so provides you with some nice utility before you get all the way up to 7 mana. Both effects at 3 and 7 mana are definitely overcosted for Timeless (as well as playing into Orcish Bowmasters) but the fact that this imprints to Ugin's Labyrinth and provides utility at both points on the curve means that this is a nice enabler that’s unlikely to be stuck in your hand like most other 7 mana options would.

Having said that I do think this is the worst of the three so if another better option gets spoiled then this is probably the first enabler I’ll be looking to cut, but I think it’s still a decent option and I do think you’ll want to aim for around 12 enablers alongside 4 Once Upon a Time to consistently enable Ugin's Labyrinth on turn 1.

Emrakul, the World Anew

This is one of the new Eldrazi that I’m most excited to play with since its effect is really powerful and you can cast it way ahead of curve by using the madness cost. This card provides a really interesting deckbuilding puzzle where you want basically all of your mana sources to produce colorless but you also need discard outlets and ideally some other ramp to be able to use a discard outlet and pay the madness cost in the same turn.

As mentioned previously I think you should definitely be on Ugin's Labyrinth if you’re running this since it can both ramp into it and imprint to it, and Phyrexian Scrapyard seems great here since it taps for colorless and acts as a discard outlet to set up the madness cost too. I’m still trying to figure out what the rest of the deck will look like – I think having extra discard outlets shouldn’t be too much of an issue since you can run a bunch of pain lands which will tap for your off color whilst still tapping for colorless mana but I’m unsure what the best options are yet.

Ideally you’d want a card that can wait a turn to discard such as Faithless Salvaging or Fable of the Mirror-Breaker so you have access to all of your mana to pay the madness cost but it’s going to be difficult figuring out what the rest of the deck should look like because you need to make the deck functional even when you don’t draw Emrakul, the World Anew. Either way I’m definitely excited to brew with this one since it seems incredibly strong if you can consistently cast it for its madness cost.

Conclusion

So that’s part 1 done and there are already so many cards spoiled that I’m really excited for and have multiple brews in the works for as well. Part 2 will be coming soon with more evaluations and a bunch of decklists I’m theorycrafting, with part 3 and potentially part 4 following depending on how many cards are still yet to be spoiled, and once the set drops I’ll be playing Timeless non-stop and should hopefully have a bunch of new deck guides to share.

Overall I’m really liking the power level of most of the cards from this set – there’s some incredibly strong cards in here but most of them need to be built around to be effective which should hopefully lead to a lot of new emerging decks and a relatively diverse metagame. Thanks a lot for reading and I’ll see you soon for part 2!