Modern Horizons 3 Timeless & Historic Decks & Set Review (Part 2)

Hey everyone! With Modern Horizons 3 dropping soon and it being the set I’ve been the most hyped for, I’m doing a detailed full constructed set review going over all of the playable cards and their potential homes and applications in both Timeless and Historic.

I’ve already done part 1 which includes a lot of heavy hitters so I definitely recommend checking it out if you haven’t yet. Moving into part 2 I’m going to be doing more of the same along with a bunch of decklists I’ve been theorycrafting. Let’s get into it!

New Modal Double-Faced Cards

As previously mentioned in part 1 when discussing Disciple of Freyalise, we’re getting a bunch of new MDFCs in MH3 which is a big deal for a few decks. I’ll be going over notable ones whenever they appear in future theorycraft decklists but I’m not going to go over all of them in this part since I imagine they’ll be used for two main purposes.

Firstly these are a huge boost for Goblin Charbelcher decks which don’t run any lands in order for Goblin Charbelcher to always kill the opponent when activated. One of the biggest weaknesses of Goblin Charbelcher in both Timeless and Historic was that you were limited to 8 untapped MDFCs assuming you remained in your two colors which really affected your ability to curve out. I believe we’ll be getting two full cycles of mono-colored untapped MDFCs for each color which means you can now run 24 untapped lands as well as potentially 4 duals which is a big boost to consistency as well.

This is where I’ll be starting with Belcher running the full setup of untapped MDFCs to guarantee that you can curve out and maximize your fast starts. The tapped dual MDFC Revitalizing Repast is also a consideration especially since this is a deck that wants triple black for Beseech the Mirror and double green for Channel, but the deck is running a bunch of mana fixing artifacts to mitigate that so I don’t think it’s necessary, and having all of your lands enter untapped will speed up your clock by a turn a lot of the time which can make the difference between winning and losing.

I’m still a bit skeptical about the viability of Belcher with the addition of Grief but you can run 4 Leyline of Sanctity in the main to try and counteract that somewhat.

The other main use for the new MDFCs will be if you’re slightly short of the colors required to pitch to the evoke elementals (which I covered in part 1) since you can replace a couple of lands with the new untapped MDFCs to up the count slightly.

One of the new MDFCs that I wanted to highlight is Witch Enchanter which is one of the best out of the ones I’ve seen so far since it can enter play untapped as a land, the other side isn’t too expensive, and it’s an effect that’s useful to have access to in the maindeck.

I’m not sure exactly which deck would want to run this but it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a mono white or two color deck that could run this as a land that can destroy artifacts and enchantments and also pitches to Solitude.

Additionally this seems like a great addition to the wishboard of Grizzled Huntmaster decks like Naya Winota where it doubles up as a fetchable untapped land, and a fetchable answer to artifacts and enchantments.

Grist, Voracious Larva

We’re also getting a cycle of very cheap creatures which can transform into planeswalkers such as Grist, Voracious Larva. Having deathtouch means that the floor of this card is reasonable and it will have some impact on the game even if it never flips, but it’s not too difficult to get it to flip and the planeswalker side is pretty good.

The +1 ability enables you to defend the planeswalker especially if the token gets deathtouch, and it mills which enables your graveyard synergies – this should synergize well since you’ll need to be running graveyard synergies of some sort to flip Grist, Voracious Larva in the first place.

The -2 ability to destroy an artifact or enchantment is also really big, and the -6 is very impactful too. I think it can be easy to look at the planeswalker side of this and dismiss it as not that strong because we’re used to planeswalkers that have much more powerful effects, but it’s important to remember that this is a planeswalker you get for the very small investment of 2 mana off a 1 drop creature so the amount of value you get here compared to the mana investment is really good if you can consistently flip it.

In terms of good enablers to flip it you have midrange options such as Jet Collector, Reanimate, Unearth, and Lurrus of the Dream-Den, and in more high synergy decks like sacrifice you have cards like Bloodghast, Forsaken Miner, Cauldron Familiar and Young Wolf.

Ajani, Nacatl Pariah

The floor of this card getting a 2/1 and a 1/2 for 2 mana is already pretty reasonable, and the planeswalker side is very strong off a 2 mana creature if you can flip it, especially if you’re running a deck with red creatures. This one definitely seems more difficult to flip because you either need to be running sacrifice outlets (which don’t seem to synergize well with the sort of deck that would want to run this) or it relies on your opponent killing or blocking your cats which they can obviously choose not to do.

I think the best shell for this is probably in Domain Zoo since both Wild Nacatl and Nishoba Brawler are both cats, and Nishoba Brawler in particular is often a must kill threat which would enable you to flip Ajani, Nacatl Pariah.

Additionally Zoo is a very aggressive deck meaning that even if the opponent prioritizes killing Ajani, Nacatl Pariah itself to prevent it from flipping when Nishoba Brawler dies, you still get a 2/1 in addition to your other creatures to apply pressure, and if it does flip, Zoo does run red creatures like Territorial Kavu and sometimes Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer which makes the 0 ability very potent.

This is a non-conventional build of Domain Zoo that I’ve been theorycrafting including Ajani, Nacatl Pariah and is built around Break Out, Amped Raptor, and Lurrus of the Dream-Den.

You do give up some pretty notable cards to run a version like this such as Leyline Binding, Stubborn Denial, and more expensive options like Oko, Thief of Crowns so there’s definitely an opportunity cost, but this version should be more explosive in theory whilst still having Lurrus of the Dream-Den as a great tool to grind into longer games if the opponent is able to stabilize.

Amped Raptor seems like it’d fit really well into Zoo since it’s a deck that wants to be getting onto the board as quickly as possible and highly values it’s powerful 2 drops like Territorial Kavu, Nishoba Brawler, and Tribal Flames so potentially getting one of those plus a 2/1 on turn 2 can lead to some really explosive starts.

You do need to make some deckbuilding considerations for this to hit consistently such as cutting the aforementioned Stubborn Denial but you can run Thoughtseize instead which fills a very similar role and gives the deck more proactive 1 drops in what is otherwise a very 2 drop-skewed list.

One other small anti-synergy here is that if you hit Amped Raptor off Break Out you don’t get the ability since you didn’t cast it from your hand, but I think it’ll be relatively rare that Amped Raptor will be the only creature you hit off Break Out, and hitting Break Out off Amped Raptor is probably the most explosive turn 2 you can have which adds to the very powerful list of good hits you have off Amped Raptor.

Speaking of which, Break Out is the other main card this list is built around which has proven very effective in current builds of Zoo at speeding up the deck since hitting a Territorial Kavu or Nishoba Brawler and giving it haste represents a ton of damage out of nowhere.

Additionally with both Break Out and Amped Raptor helping to find your 1 and 2 mana creatures more consistently, I’ve chosen to run an all-creature sideboard including Haywire Mite against Blood Moon, Juggernaut Peddler against control and combo, Orcish Bowmasters against Brainstorm decks, and Remorseful Cleric as graveyard hate.

Sorin of House Markov

This is another really sweet one that I think will be at its best in a Sultai shell alongside Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath and Oko, Thief of Crowns. The best curves with this sort of deck would probably be Grief + Reanimate, Thoughtseize, Fatal Push or Deathrite Shaman on turn 1, into Sorin of House Markov on turn 2, into Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath on turn 3 which then immediately flips Sorin of House Markov which enables you to use the -1 to deal 3 damage to a creature, or +2 to make a food.

Alternatively you can also curve Sorin of House Markov into Oko, Thief of Crowns, +1 to make a food and then use Sorin of House Markov to defend Oko, Thief of Crowns since it has good defensive stats. Then the following turn you can crack the food to flip Sorin of House Markov which can then -1 to kill something and then each turn cycle you can +2 Sorin of House Markov to make a food and +1 Oko, Thief of Crowns to turn it into a 3/3 making it really difficult for any fair deck to beat you.

Additionally the -1 ability on Sorin of House Markov being able to go face gives you solid reach in the lategame and could work as a finisher in decks where you’re focused on gaining a ton of life in a single turn, so you could maybe run this in a deck like Angels in Historic to one shot the opponent (although Angels has been pretty bad in Historic for a while and I’m not sure this will be good enough to fix that).

This is my initial build for Sorin Sultai midrange with full playsets of Sorin of House Markov, Oko, Thief of Crowns, and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath to try and maximize those fast starts.

Sorin of House Markov can be awkward to draw in multiples but I’m also running the Reanimate package with Grief and Troll of Khazad-dûm (since it’s relatively easy to slot in and should provides access to some very strong starts at very low opportunity cost) and so you can pitch excess copies of Sorin of House Markov to Grief if needed.

Outside of that the list is relatively straightforward with Fatal Push as early interaction, Deathrite Shaman to ramp into our powerful 3 drops, and Once Upon a Time to increase consistency and help set up those Sorin of House Markov into Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath curves.

The list is also incidentally running enough green cards to pitch to Endurance which seems like a nice option for graveyard hate in a midrange deck since it also doubles up as a threat if you hardcast or Reanimate it.

Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student

This seems very powerful to me and provides a ton of value for the very low investment of 1 mana. The front side looks decent as a value generator providing you clue tokens each attack which can obviously help you flip it, although in Timeless I imagine you’ll mainly be interested in using Brainstorm to flip it without needing to invest mana to crack clues.

It’s also a Wizard which is very relevant if you’re interested in running Flame of Anor, and I could see this being a good Wizard to run in a controlling shell alongside Snapcaster Mage, Tishana's Tidebinder, and maybe Harbinger of the Seas. In Historic Izzet Wizards has been one of the best decks for a while now and while this is a powerful wizard, it looks much too slow for what the deck wants to be doing, and I think Snapcaster Mage is a better sideboard option for grindy matchups so I think it’s much better suited to a control deck.

Then the planeswalker side also looks like it fits into a controlling shell better with the +2 ability providing some protection and the -3 ability helping you to rebuy interaction from the graveyard. Again this might seem low powered compared to what you’re used to seeing on a planeswalker but don’t forget you’re getting all of this for just 1 mana!

This is where I’ll be starting with Wizards control which has a lot of good quality cheap interaction, is great at enabling Flame of Anor, and Harbinger of the Seas in the maindeck should help a lot against 4/5 color midrange and Titan which are traditionally two difficult matchups for control.

The awkward thing about running Harbinger of the Seas in a control deck is that you need to prioritize red fetch lands to consistently find a basic mountain so Harbinger of the Seas doesn’t lock you out of your red spells which means you can’t utilize Mystic Sanctuary, and running the single basic mountain can be awkward when you need double blue on turn 2 for Mana Drain and Counterspell.

If this does end up being a problem you could potentially just run Blood Moon instead (you wouldn’t want 4 in the maindeck since it’s bad to draw in multiples and doesn’t further your proactive gameplan in any way), but Harbinger of the Seas being a Wizard which enables Flame of Anor, and being a much more maindeckable card since it does something proactively makes me think it’ll likely be better if those mana issues aren’t as big of a problem.

Another card I considered here was Flare of Denial since sacrificing Snapcaster Mage, Tishana's Tidebinder and sometimes Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student isn’t bad but I think for Flare of Denial to be good you want to use it early in the game where the opportunity cost of holding mana open for a counterspell is much higher and you wouldn’t be able to use this early without Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student which we either want to generate value with or flip into a planeswalker so I’m not sure it fits here as well as a deck like Merfolk for example.

One other new card I’m running here is Galvanic Discharge which I think is the next best option for cheap red removal after Lightning Bolt if you can’t get delirium online easily for Unholy Heat. At its floor it’s basically a Lightning Bolt that can’t go face but if you use it to kill a smaller creature and store up energy you can then use it to kill bigger creatures if you draw another, or flash it back with Snapcaster Mage for example.

Ral, Monsoon Mage

This is a really cool card but definitely feels like the weakest of the bunch and I’m not sure exactly what deck would be interested in this.

Typically these cost reduction 2 drops are used in storm decks but the majority of storm decks in Timeless revolve around Dark Ritual where this doesn’t help, and in Historic you could run this in place of, or in addition to existing options like Goblin Anarchomancer or Baral, Chief of Compliance but you run the risk of killing yourself off the coin flips if you start at a low life total and those style of storm decks haven’t been that good recently and will likely struggle even more as the power level increases with MH3.

Kappa Cannoneer

This seems like an incredibly strong finisher in artifact synergy decks and I expect it to be a big boost to the archetype in Historic since I think the non Lurrus of the Dream-Den builds could really do with another top end payoff in addition to Thought Monitor since Nettlecyst has felt pretty slow recently. The ward 4 on this is huge and will essentially act like hexproof for the majority of games, and once it’s in play this will be able to grow and close games out incredibly quickly.

Even though this is a very strong card I don’t have high hopes for it in Timeless because I don’t think the artifact enablers we have access to are fast enough at the moment without cards like Mox Opal for example – in Historic where the format is slower I do think this has a good chance however the problem with these artifact decks are that they’re very easy to sideboard against once they’re a known entity with multiple cards sideboard options that can completely wipe your board like Brotherhood's End, Divine Purge, and the new Meltdown.

Having said that Kappa Cannoneer itself dodges all of those so if you can accelerate into this before they cast their hate card it could still solo the game for you. Overall I think this has a chance to be a big card in Historic assuming the format doesn’t speed up so much that the artifact enablers aren’t quite fast enough, or people are loaded up on sideboard hate.

Winter Moon

This is another interesting hate card similar to Blood Moon, and this is another one that I imagine will be pre-banned in Historic since it’s so hard for any multicolored deck to play around without fetchlands. This being a mana cheaper than Blood Moon and colorless is a really big deal since this sort of hate card is most impactful the earlier you can get it down, but it does come with a very big deckbuilding restriction.

For this not to hurt you you’d need to be running almost all basic lands which even in a mono colored deck would deny you good utility lands. Additionally with the addition of this and Harbinger of the Seas I think people will learn pretty quickly that you should be running a decent number of basics and prioritize fetching them early when you can, and if they do, this card loses quite a lot of potency. Overall I think the juice probably isn’t worth the squeeze with this card assuming people learn to fetch basics early since the deckbuilding restrictions are so high.

Wight of the Reliquary

This is another really cool card that looks powerful to me but definitely requires buidling around somewhat. The big upside of this over the classic Knight of the Reliquary (other than being a mana cheaper) is that it enables you to ramp since you can sacrifice a creature on turn 3 to get an extra land. I can definitely see this being good in Historic but it’s more difficult to turn its ability into a way to win the game without a land like Field of the Dead so I think I’ll mainly be exploring Timeless for this one.

The first idea I have for this card is to run it in a midrange shell with a land toolbox that is looking to eventually get Field of the Dead online, however the difficulty here is trying to figure out what the rest of the deck should look like because you need both interaction to buy time for your midrange gameplan to take over the game, and creatures to sacrifice to Wight of the Reliquary too.

Grief seems great assuming you can run enough black cards to enable it (because it works as both interaction, and a creature that’s good to sacrifice it when you evoke it), Orcish Bowmasters seems nice too since you’re pretty happy to sacrifice the orc token to it, and Bloodghast synergizes incredibly well since it immediately comes back from the graveyard when the land enters play, however Bloodghast doesn’t really fit well into regular midrange decks.

Because of this I’m excited to try Wight of the Reliquary in a midrange deck that’s running Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord + Vein Ripper which definitely could be too lost in the sauce but it would give you another good use for Bloodghast, Vein Ripper gives you a payoff for ramping with Wight of the Reliquary, and you can pitch dead combo pieces to Grief as well.

This is definitely a bit off the wall and I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up being just worse than the Dark Ritual variants of Sorin Ripper decks and slower than Titan Field decks but it sits in an interesting middle ground where it has the late game inevitability but is much better able to interact than Titan Field, and is less glass cannon than Dark Ritual Sorin variants so I’m excited to at least try it out.

As previously mentioned we’ve got the full playset of Orcish Bowmasters, Bloodghast, and Grief which seem like the best creatures to sacrifice to Wight of the Reliquary, and they all seem great sacrifice fodder for Flare of Malice too which is another card I want to try here.

I think there’s a chance that might not quite be enough sacrifice fodder though in which case you could run more Khalni Garden or replace Flare of Malice with Fatal Push, but ideally you don’t want to run lands in multiples since it delays Field of the Dead, and Flare of Malice being free and being able to take out bigger creatures and planeswalkers seems like a big upside if you can enable it.

Speaking of which Field of the Dead incentivizes us to stick with singleton lands wherever possible which also works nicely with your 1 of utility lands which can be fetched with Wight of the Reliquary such as Bojuka Bog as graveyard hate, Phyrexian Scrapyard as a way to pitch Vein Ripper to Reanimate, Khalni Garden to provide sacrifice fodder for the following turn, and sideboard options like Cavern of Souls to hardcast Vein Ripper or Grief against counterspell decks and Ghost Quarter against Ugin's Labyrinth.

Additionally this is a list that gets to run Once Upon a Time alongside the Sorin combo which should increase consistency since it lets you dig for Vein Ripper. Overall this is one of those lists that could have too many different things going on, but would be so sweet if it ends up working out.

The second home you could consider running this in is similar to a more conventional Titan Field deck where you can sacrifice Arboreal Grazer or Kami of Bamboo Groves and tutor up Field of the Dead or utility lands, but I’m generally not as high on this idea since that deck is already very pushed for space so I’m not sure what you’d cut, one of the advantages of Titan Field is it’s pretty resilient to early interaction and Wight of the Reliquary gives them good targets for their early removal, and it would slow down the deck and make it more midrangey which makes the deck worse in my opinion.

Volatile Stormdrake

This is a really interesting creature that doubles up as a removal spell allowing you to trade a 3/2 flyer with any opposing creature that costs 4 or less, or trade a 3/2 flyer to kill any creature that costs 4 or more. Giving the opponent a 3/2 flyer is a pretty big downside on this so for the most part I think this would only be used in situations where a conventional removal spell isn’t an option.

The first of these is as a tutor target as part of a creature toolbox such as Chord of Calling to allow you to answer any problematic creature the opponent might have – most Chord of Calling decks are unlikely to be running blue but I still think this could be worth running in the 75 since there’s no other alternative that can answer creatures of any size that cost less 3 or less.

The only other reasons I can think of why you would run this over a regular removal spell is if you were either running mono blue where options for creature interaction are very limitied, or if stealing the opponent’s creature is significantly more impactful than killing it but I can’t really think of any existing creatures where that’s the case so I imagine this will only really see play in creature toolboxes.

Powerbalance

This is a essentially a color shifted Counterbalance which is a very strong card, but I feel like for this card to be good you need to be able to consistently manipulate the top of your library and I’m not sure we have enough tools to be able to do that even in Timeless.

The best card for this is Brainstorm but we don’t really have much past that – Dragon's Rage Channeler alongside instant speed spells can help but that doesn’t feel very consistent so I feel like we’d need at least one more tool to help.

We are getting a new Brainstorm variant in MH3 in Brainsurge but 3 mana seems so much for this effect so I’d be very surprised if it’s good enough for Timeless, and we’re also getting Jace, the Mind Sculptor via the Bloomburrow bonus sheet but that won’t release until after MH3 so we’ll have to wait to see if that’s the missing piece needed to enable Powerbalance.

Then in Historic I’d be very surprised if this is good enough unless there’s some library manipulation cards I’m missing. Overall this seems like a sleeper card to me where it’s missing redundancy at the moment but will be very powerful once we get access to more good library manipulation.

Wrath of the Skies & Unstable Amulet

We’re also getting some other energy payoffs in MH3 (and I’ve seen a few extra spoiled since I started writing this so I’ll be going over those in part 2).

Wrath of the Skies looks pretty powerful to me especially if decks with a variety of card types emerge – running this alongside Tune the Narrative as a cantrip enables this as a sweeper that’s capable of wiping the entire board for just 2 mana which is great if the opponent has a fast start, or you want to be able to sweep the board and hold open mana for additional interaction like a counterspell.

This is likely competing with Divine Purge since they both fill similar roles but this not giving the opponent the opportunity to replay the swept cards, and being able to destroy bigger permanents means there will be a lot of metagames where Wrath of the Skies would be the better option. Having said that Divine Purge barely sees any play in Timeless and Azorius Control in general isn’t very popular there but this could be a nice option for Historic.

Unstable Amulet seems like a nice tool to help grind into longer games if you’re running a lot of energy enablers. This is a card that I strongly considered in my Amped Raptor list from part 1 but I figured that deck probably wants to be focused more on applying pressure rather than grinding into longer games, but this does seem like a good option if you did want more tools against slower more interactive decks in energy synergy lists.

The passive ability is worth noting too since you could use this as a combo finisher if your deck storms off by casting cards from your graveyard or exile such as Underworld Breach decks.

Medallion Cycle

This is another cool cycle we’re getting access to in MH3 (this is the red one and we’re getting one of each color) but I’m not sure any of these are likely to see much play immediately. The main use I see for these is as enablers in storm decks but Timeless storm decks are largely built around Dark Ritual which these don’t help.

In Historic there are a few storm combo decks that could be improved slightly by Ruby Medallion such as Underworld Breach + Birgi, God of Storytelling decks where Ruby Medallion can be used in the Goblin Anarchomancer role whilst being less vulnerable to interaction.

Having said that Historic storm decks haven’t been particularly good recently and I don’t think Ruby Medallion is enough of an upgrade to move the dial on those sorts of decks unfortunately.

Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury

We’re getting a third in the cycle that started with Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath and Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger, and this one seems worse than Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath to me but potentially better than Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger in certain matchups.

This is obviously a very slow card especially by Timeless standards, but it acting as a removal spell can help to offset that somewhat against creature decks compared to a card like Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger which doesn’t impact the board at all.

In terms of homes for this I think it’s probably too slow for Timeless for the most part – I could maybe see it being run in a multicolored midrange deck as a 1 or 2 of if you need a slightly higher density of red and white cards to pitch to Fury and Solitude but I’d be surprised if it sees much play anywhere else.

In Historic where the format is slower and more creature focused I think this has more of a chance but I’m not sure it has many great pre-existing homes yet. I could definitely see the argument for running this in Boros Burn as a 1 or 2 of in the maindeck, or in the sideboard to give you extra reach and help you grind into longer games but you’d be giving up Lurrus of the Dream-Den in order to do so which comes at a pretty big cost.

Additionally you could run it in Jeskai Control but you’d probably need to give up running Archmage's Charm in order to be able to escape it, and it would mean you’d need to tap out to cast it in most situations which would leave you without counterspell backup which is very risky in a number of matchups. Overall I think this is probably too slow for Timeless and could have a chance in Historic but there aren’t really many good pre-existing homes for it.

Mogg Mob & Warren Soultrader

We’re also getting some nice extra support for Goblins in MH3 which I’m really excited about since it’s one of my all-time favorite Historic decks. Goblins hasn’t really seen any play in Timeless so I’ll mainly be focusing on Historic for these.

Goblins decks built around Muxus, Goblin Grandee have had a rough time in Historic recently since they need to be very creature-heavy in order for Muxus, Goblin Grandee to be consistent which means they can’t afford to run much interaction and because of that they tend to really struggle against decks like Izzet Wizards and Yawgmoth.

Munitions Expert helped this problem somewhat but was usually too slow against Wizards and could be disrupted if the Yawgmoth opponent already had their namesake card in play. Mogg Mob looks like it could help this problem a lot by being able to immediately kill any creature from the Wizards deck, or pick apart smaller creatures from the Yawgmoth deck whilst retaining a high creature count for Muxus, Goblin Grandee.

Another big problem for Muxus, Goblin Grandee builds is running Goblins that can help you ramp into it – Skirk Prospector has always been the best card at doing this but is a magnet for removal and is only a 4 of so you won’t always see it. Wily Goblin was a decent option as well but the next best alternatives like Goblin Warchief and Goblin Anarchomancer are very vulnerable to interaction and very slow in the case of Goblin Warchief.

Warren Soultrader should really help with this being able to come down on turn 3 and sacrifice a couple of Goblins immediately even if the opponent has interaction which then provides you two treasures going into turn 4 enabling you to cast Muxus, Goblin Grandee the following turn.

Both of these cards also work very well with Agatha's Soul Cauldron which is a card I’ve been experimenting with in Historic Goblins for a while now mainly trying to go off with Krenko, Mob Boss and First Day of Class so getting two more generically good Goblins that have nice abilities to copy with Agatha's Soul Cauldron should be a big boon to those builds and I’m really excited to revisit them.

Finally I’m sure there are a lot of three card combos with Warren Soultrader but getting them to be a part of a functional deck when drawn separately is always tricky with those styles of deck so I’ll definitely be starting by experimenting with Goblins since that archetype always has a solid plan B.

This is where I’ll start with Historic Muxus Goblins but there are quite a few ways you can build it. Traditionally the weakness of Muxus, Goblin Grandee is that you’re often reliant on being able to kill the turn Muxus, Goblin Grandee comes down but in order to achieve that you previously had to run some expensive clunky cards.

Originally the kill condition was Krenko, Mob Boss alongside Goblin Warchief and Goblin Chieftain but that requires an incredibly high curve where you need at least eight 3 drops (probably twelve alongside Goblin Matron or Fable of the Mirror-Breaker etc.) plus four 4 drops, and all of these cards are very slow and vulnerable to removal so this build is already way too weak for current Historic.

The next option was running Sling-Gang Lieutenant alongside Pashalik Mons which can ping down the opponent by sacrificing your whole board – this is better since the package is much smaller and the cards are more individually resilient, but it still requires you to run 4 drops and really struggles to beat Vein Ripper which I expect to still be popular post-MH3.

With the addition of Warren Soultrader I’m hopeful that we can have an even lower to the ground Muxus, Goblin Grandee win condition via Warren Soultrader or Skirk Prospector alongside Battle Cry Goblin where you can sacrifice two goblins to activate Battle Cry Goblin to give your board haste and buff its power, then after blocks sacrifice the blocked creatures to buff your unblocked creatures even further.

This was achievable before alongside Skirk Prospector but wasn’t really consistent enough since you can only run 4 Skirk Prospector so I’m hopeful getting redundancy for that effect via Warren Soultrader enables this to kill consistently. Battle Cry Goblin is only a 4 of as well but we can search it via Goblin Matron so I’m hopeful that there’s now enough redundancy for this to work, and if it does you would no longer need to run any 4 drops which makes the deck a lot less clunky.

Rundvelt Hordemaster is a notable exclusion here which was cut for Wily Goblin because I think you need a higher density of Goblins you’re happy to sacrifice in order for Warren Soultrader to be effective – Rundvelt Hordemaster is a great card and works very nicely with the extra sacrifice that Warren Soultrader provides but we just don’t have enough good sacrifice fodder without running Wily Goblin in my opinion.

If Mogg Mob ends up underperforming I could see replacing that with Rundvelt Hordemaster which would then make the curve even lower, and could enable you to run Boggart Trawler in higher numbers.

Speaking of which Boggart Trawler is another new addition which is essentially a tutorable untapped land and graveyard hate via Goblin Matron in this list. It being a land is also a really big deal alongside Muxus, Goblin Grandee since consistently hitting your land drops is really important so you can cast Muxus, Goblin Grandee in the first place, but you also need a high density of Goblins for Muxus, Goblin Grandee to be effective and Boggart Trawler is a really nice answer to that problem.

In this list I don’t think you can afford to run more than 1 as a tutor target since you need 23 red sources for Mogg Mob to be cast on curve and it only taps for black, but if you cut Mogg Mob for 3 Rundvelt Hordemaster, you could run 4 Boggart Trawler alongside 21 lands, and you’d have effectively 25 lands and 39 Goblins which would result in incredibly consistent Muxus, Goblin Grandee hits, and would make siding in non-creatures much less of a problem.

Emperor of Bones

This is a really cool card that provides another option for reanimating. The main use for this card will be reanimating big creatures via its adapt ability. This works in a similar way to Goryo's Vengeance where the creature gets haste but you have to sacrifice it so if you’re using Emperor of Bones I think you’ll probably want to be using it to reanimate either Atraxa, Grand Unifier or Griselbrand to make use of the hasted attack and still get value when its sacrificed.

Because of this you could potentially use this alongside Reanimate in Timeless if you wanted to be able to run Atraxa, Grand Unifier (which you can’t really use with Persist), but this has the same problem that Priest of Fell Rites has in that it’s pretty slow and very vulnerable to interaction.

In Historic you could use this alongside Priest of Fell Rites to maximize your chances of reanimating Atraxa, Grand Unifier on turn 3 but I think that would make you much weaker to removal than other builds running Persist or Unburial Rites, and you’ll obviously be very weak to graveyard hate too.

If you’re planning on using this as a way to reanimate smaller creatures fairly then I think Jet Collector is the much better option in both formats, especially because Emperor of Bones can only be used once unless you have other ways to put counters on it.

One other upside of this is that it does provide incidental graveyard hate which definitely isn’t the main selling point here but I imagine it will be useful in some spots. Overall I think this is a cool card but it’s very vulnerable to both graveyard hate and creature removal and I think we probably have better options in both formats.

Basking Broodscale

This is a notable addition to Historic since it fills a very similar role to Scurry Oak which has a couple of combos.

Firstly is the combo with Rosie Cotton of South Lane which enables you to put infinite counters on Basking Broodscale or Scurry Oak and make infinite tokens, and secondly is the combo with Heliod, Sun-Crowned and a lifegain enabler like Soul Warden which enables you to put infinite counters on Basking Broodscale or Scurry Oak, make infinite tokens and gain infinite life.

The combo with Rosie Cotton of South Lane is pretty appealing here in theory since you can curve Basking Broodscale on turn 2 into Rosie Cotton of South Lane on turn 3, but the big issue with Basking Broodscale in both of these combos is that the tokens it makes are 0/1s meaning you don’t represent lethal the following turn if the opponent has a blocker for Basking Broodscale.

With Scurry Oak you make infinite 1/1s meaning you can usually attack for lethal during the next turn, but the 0/1s from Basking Broodscale can’t do this. They do enable you to make infinite colorless mana but you would then need another card in order to win from there which is a big hit for consistency so unfortunately I don’t see this card replacing Scurry Oak any time soon, and Scurry Oak combos haven’t been that great recently either.

Flusterstorm

This is a really nice sideboard option for blue decks to counteract storm combos. Regular counterspells can often stop storm decks in their tracks but it can sometimes be tricky to know which spell to counter, and if the opponent has redundancy for the card you counter then they can usually win through the first one.

Flusterstorm is basically a failsafe counterspell in these spots since you can wait for the storm player to go off and cast their finisher like Tendrils of Agony and then use Flusterstorm to counter each instance of it. I think this will be particularly useful for multicolored midrange decks like Sultai and Up the Beanstalk that are great at outgrinding midrange decks but can struggle against combo decks like storm.

Chthonian Nightmare

I initially misread this card and thought you had to pay X mana as opposed to X energy so it’s definitely better than I initially though but I’m still not sure I’m completely sold on it. If you’re using it alongside energy enablers to reanimate bigger creatures then that seems like a lot of setup for something which can be achieved a lot easier by running the Reanimate or Persist package since you’d need cards that produce energy, and a creature in play to sacrifice.

If you’re using it fairly to produce value and bring back smaller creatures then I think Jet Collector does a very similar thing with much less setup – I get that paying energy as opposed to mana can make Chthonian Nightmare more efficient at doing this but you’re likely to run out of energy relatively fast without extra energy enablers, and you need to sacrifice a creature each time. Jet Collector is much more vulnerable to interaction though so that could be a reason to run Chthonian Nightmare instead.

Finally there could potentially be an infinite combo with Chthonian Nightmare and creatures that produce energy when they enter the battlefield where you can loop them over and over, however there don’t seem to be enough good creatures that do this but the full set’s not been spoiled yet as of writing this so the missing pieces could still be out there.

Overall I’m not a massive fan of this card unless you really want a more resilient Jet Collector style effect that requires more steps, or there’s an infinite combo with creatures that produce energy – out of all of the cards so far this is the one where I feel I might be missing something though.

White Orchid Phantom

I really like this card since it’s rare to get this sort of effect for this cheap, and it’s attached to a body too meaning you could potentially maindeck it if certain lands like Ugin's Labyrinth are very popular, or you’re running a hatebear style deck.

The main lands that you’d be interested in targeting with this are Ugin's Labyrinth (which also removes the card they imprinted with it) and Field of the Dead (although if they’re running the Titan Field deck then this probably won’t be very effective since that deck is good at fetching it in multiples and you’re probably in trouble if they’ve already resolved Primeval Titan).

Because of this I’m not sure this will see that much play immediately but if Ugin's Labyrinth is everywhere or more powerful nonbasic lands get added then this is definitely one to bear in mind.

Barbarian Ring

This seems like a nice upgrade for burn decks in both formats and I imagine will replace Ramunap Ruins. Getting seven cards into the yard should be pretty easy by the time you would want to crack a land for extra damage, having to pay 1 as opposed to 4 is a huge difference, and this can hit any target so it can be used to take out creatures and planeswalkers too!

Kozilek's Unsealing

This is another card I’m not particularly high on – 3 mana cards that don’t do anything the turn they come down need to be incredibly powerful in both formats and this doesn’t really feel like it does enough to warrant that.

You could potentially run this in a deck that runs multiple 7+ mana creatures that can be cast for cheaper such as affinity with Myr Enforcer, Thought Monitor and the new Frogmyr Enforcer but it’s not an artifact itself so doesn’t enable these if you don’t already have the discounts online, it does nothing if you don’t have one of those in your hand, and Myr Enforcer and Frogmyr Enforcer aren’t great cards when you don’t have Kozilek's Unsealing so it seems both slow and win-more.

The other way you could look to use this is in a creature-heavy ramp deck where you cast Kozilek's Unsealing, then cast a 4 drop the following turn which produces two 0/1s which then enable you to cast a 7 drop the following turn to draw three but I can’t think of any deck that wants to be running multiple 4 drops and 7 drops to enable this without being massively clunky so I don’t see this one being good in either format.

Kudo, King Among Bears

This is a really cool card that can be used as a buff to your board in go wide decks like convoke whilst also shutting down the abilities of all of your opponent’s creatures. Even though I like this card I don’t think it’ll be very good unfortunately since it only really fits into Historic convoke which is already a very tight list and doesn’t run green, and even if you did run it it seems very weak to any interaction which would be a blowout in combat.

Thief of Existence

This seems like a nice sideboard card in Ugin's Labyrinth decks which can hit a pretty nice variety of targets such as The One Ring, Oko, Thief of Crowns, Up the Beanstalk etc. which can also be cast on turn 2 via Ugin's Labyrinth.

It’s also on a decently sized body and the opponent doesn’t get the exiled card back when it dies so this seems pretty good to me. I’m not sure you’d really want to maindeck outside of very specific metagames since there’s a number of decks where it’ll have no good targets but I’ll definitely consider it in the sideboard of Ugin's Labyrinth lists.

Conclusion

So that’s two parts down with two or three more to go, and the fact there are so many cards that are playable to some degree is really exciting, especially since a lot of the most powerful look like they need to be built around which could lead to a massive influx of new decks. There’s still a lot of powerful cards to discuss so I’ll see you soon for part 3, thanks a lot for reading!