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Modern Horizons 1 and Modern Horizons 2 secured a place inMagic: The Gatheringhistory as some of the most memorable sets of all time, for better or worse. These sets are perhaps most well-known for the power creep they introduced into the game, but on a positive note, they delivered some of the most fun Limited environments ever crafted.
Modern Horizons 3 aims to deliver everything introduced by its predecessors, including a rich and diverse Limited format based on novel and non-traditional archetypes. It takes a familiar yet unconventional approach to its Limited format, maintaining the usual two-color paradigm while grouping different decks into overarching buckets and themes.
The Eldrazi Decks
Eldrazi are a key feature of Modern Horizons 3, andbring with them the return of the devoid mechanic. That combined with other mechanics like evoke and emerge means many of the Eldrazi have color identities that distinguish them from the purely colorless Eldrazi.
Interestingly,there is no blue-red Eldrazi archetype, which makes green the pivot color between the two existing Eldrazi decks.
Blue/Green: Eldrazi Ramp
Simic (blue-green) ramp is familiar territory for most Limited formats, so the core concept of this deck should be easy to pick up.Find ways to accelerate your mana, then drop game-winning threats far ahead of schedule while your opponent’s still setting their plans in motion.
The primary source of ramp for this deck comes from Eldrazi Spawn tokens, 0/1 creatures that can sacrifice themselves to produce a colorless mana. Not only do these put you up a mana for the turn, but the mana they produce is alsoessential for casting some of the colorless-specific Eldrazi spellsat the top-end of the format.
Simic’s hallmark cards are a pair of Eldrazi creatures, Snapping Voidcraw for excellent ramp, and Wastescape Battlemage for disruption. Planar Genesis is also a valuable ramp tool with great late-game utility, and Simic’smodal double-faced card (MDFC)slots into this deck perfectly as a valuable ramp target.
There’s exactly one hybrid-colored MDFC per color pair. Some play into their deck’s themes well, while others are generically good. They’ll be desirable for any player able to use them.
Blue-green’s the best home for most of the expensive creaturesthat cost seven or more mana, and even has a few powerful uncommon payoffs with Kozilek’s Unsealing and Path of Annihilation, which reward you for casting high mana value spells. If you’re attempting to castone of the big Eldrazi titanslike Emrakul, blue-green’s the place you want to be.
Red/Green: Devoid Beatdown
Gruul (red-green) can certainly make use of random Eldrazi Spawn tokens, but this deck’s more interested inbeating down with large midrange creaturesthan it is in trying to reach expensive late-game plays. It makes the best use of some of the lower-cost two-drop and three-drop Eldrazi creatures writhing around.
Red-Green has two phenomenal ‘gold cards’(technically colorless because of devoid). Writhing Chrysalis offers an immense amount of valuefor a common, and can just be a large beater if necessary. Titans' Vanguard is the payoff you’ll want most, pumping a field of colorless creatures into sizable threats that grow larger with every attack.
Gruul’s MDFC is Stump Stomp, which is a solid removal spell for any deck that can cast it. That said, any deck running green or red is likely to draft it highly, sodon’t expect it to wheel at most tables. Unfortunately, Gruul’s only rare is Rosheen, Roaring Prophet, a card that doesn’t fit the context of the set well and isn’t a real push into this color pair.
As for strategy, try to play to the board with colorless creatures as much as possible in the early game, then try to close out with efficient removal and four or five-mana curve-toppers. Remember’devoid' is your best friend here, making most of your creatures play well with yourcolorless-specific payoffs.
Devoid makes a card colorless regardless of the symbols in its mana cost. A red-green devoid spell won’t work with color-specific text on cards like Emerald Medallion or Flare of Duplication!
The Energy Decks
Energy counters area type of resource that go on players rather than creatures.Most cards that produce energyalso have built-in ways to use them, though that’s not always the case. Energy decks spanthe Jeskai (blue-white-red) wedgein Modern Horizons 3, and offer various approaches to aggro-based decks in the format.
Red/White: Energy Aggro
Boros (red-white) is doing in Modern Horizons 3 what it does best everywhere: attack.It’s the de facto low-curve aggro deckof the format, just a little moreenergizedthan normal. And it’s about as simple as it usually is, though there’s a bit of a balance here with finding extra sources of energy for your deck.
The main question is how to use your energy. Most cards that require energy also produce some amount, but only enough to use their abilities once or twice. Red-white’s goal is to maneuver into a position where you onlyneedto use those abilities once or twice to close out a game, orfind ways to siphon energy from less important cardsinto your splashier payoffs.
For example, cards like Inventor’s Axe and Solar Transformer produce energy upon entering, but their built-in ways to use energy aren’t exciting. Ideally, you can land these cards and get value out of themwithoutusing energy on them, thenpreserve the energy they created for a more impactful payoff.
Boros has two excellent multicolored cards designed to convert energy counters into damage. Conduit Goblin gives you two shots ata haste-and-pump effectfor other creatures, and Scurry of Gremlins can facilitate a huge attack, though it’s a bit heavy on its energy requirement.Amped Raptor is one of the best cards in the entire set, and it’s at its absolute best in red-white.
Blue/White: Energy Tempo
Azorius (blue-white) wants to use energy to playa tempo game.It’s not a particularly well-defined deck in the format, or at least the cards in the set don’t advertise an explicit blue-white strategy the same way green-black cards scream +1/+1 counters. That means it’s up to the player to get creative and work out a winning strategy in these colors.
The Azorius signpost cards are designed tochip in for damage while keeping you alive. Emissary of Soulfire blocks well while turning a creature of your choice into a great solitary attacker, and Riddle Gate Gargoyle starts hitting in the air early while swinging a race in your favor with lifelink.
The blue-white rare,Genku, Future Shaper, is a phenomenal drawinto this color pair. It doesn’t exactly synergize with the theme of the deck in a meaningful way, butit’s so inherently powerful on its ownthat it’ll pull you into blue-white, and you can shape the rest of your deck around it. The MDFC Suppression Ray is also pretty specific to this deck, and likely to fall into your hands.
Blue/Red: Energy Spells
Unsurprisingly, Izzet (blue-red) is the same old spells-based deck it usually is, with energy counters throwing a wrinkle in the typical gameplan. It’s still all aboutamassing a suite of powerful instants and sorceriesand using the spell-based payoffs sprinkled into the set to turn those spells into a win.
Because of the energy subtext, this deck cares much more about instants and sorceries that produce energy over bigger, splashier spells.Galvanic Discharge and Tune the Narrative are the most important piecesof the puzzle, and blue-red will play as many copies of each one it can get its hands on.
As for payoffs,look for prowess creatureslike Pinnacle Monk and Triton Wavebreaker, as well as the gold common Cyclops Superconductor. Try to get as many of these on board at the same time,then fire off a flurry of cheap spellsto make a lethal force of creatures.
Izzet also has a useful buildaround in Izzet Generatorium, a decent on-theme rare counterspell with Invert Polarity, a great MDFC in Rush of Inspiration, and even a transforming planeswalker that fits the deck in Ral, Monsoon Mage.There are a lot of tools here to make the deck tick, on top of the usual pile of instants and sorceries you’re already running.
The Modified Decks
Modified is a blanket termthatrefers to creatures with any sort of counter, aura, or equipment on them. While most modified decks inthe Abzan spectrum (black-white-green)are focused on building up large threats, there’s some variation in the way these decks play, and they’ll often weave together into focused three-color piles combining the best from each archetype.
Green/White: Modified Beatdown
Selesnya (green-white) uses modified payoffs as a textural element to a typical beatdown deck.It’s a traditional curve-out decklooking to get on board early, stack buffs on its creatures, and take out the opponent with a few big threats. Cheap creatures are a priority, so you’ll have creatures on boardto target with your auras, +1/+1 counter effects, and so on.
Some versions of the deck can be a bit all-in and have a glass cannon feel to them. Cards like Lion Umbra and Colossal Dreadmask can put a single threat over the top, but having that threat answered will set you back quite a bit.Prioritize picking up a few protection spellslike Dog Umbra and Revitalizing Repast here.
Watch out for instant-speed ways to modify creatures. These can possibly shift a combat step or cause a +1/+1 counter ability to trigger at a critical moment.
Selesnya’s multicolor cards get straight to the point, with an on-theme MDFC in Strength of the Harvest, a go-wide modified payoff in Golden-Tail Trainer, and Faithful Watchdog as a simple two-mana 3/3 that comes in pre-modified.Creatures that enter play with counters already on themare a huge boon to the strategy.
Outside the general beatdown creatures, be cognizant of other modified payoffs,as well as ‘free’ ways to modify your creatures. Envoy of the Ancestors and Guardian of the Forgotten are solid modified payoffs, while bestow creatures like Glyph Elemental and Nyxborn Hydra work perfectly here. There’s even an amazing aura-based rare for the deck in Pearl-Ear, Imperial Advisor.
Black/White: Modified Sacrifice
Orzhov (black-white) puts a twist on the modified theme; you’re still searching for ways to modify your creatures, but instead of employing an aggro beatdown plan,you’re looking to grind out the gamewith efficient removaland sacrifice effects. Recursion plays a big role here, allowing you to loop some of your most important pieces.
The multicolored cards demonstrate the plan well enough. Ondu Knotmaster’s fairly intuitive, butObstinate Gargoyle’sa little trickier to evaluate. It doesn’tlooklike a great card, butit’s the perfect sacrifice fodder for this strategy. Persist makes it come back with a -1/-1 counter, which counts as modifying it, and that counter can be ‘reset’ with another +1/+1 counter effect.
This is the best deck for sacrifice effectslike Accursed Marauder, Eviscerator’s Insight, and Lethal Throwdown, though you’ll want expendable bodies to make the best use of these effects. Retrofitter Transmogrant is a key card here, since it’s easy sacrifice fodder and comes back into play pre-modified for further payoffs.
Enchanting an opponent’s creature with an auradoes not cause that creature to become modified, which matters for Dog Umbra and other aura-based removal spells.
Green/Black: +1/+1 Counters
Golgari (green-black) is a standard +1/+1 counter deck, a theme we’ve seen for this color pair in sets like Zendikar Rising and Kaladesh/Aether Revolt. The strategy’s straightforward —stack +1/+1 counters on your creatures— though many of the payoffs have abilitiesthat trigger when counters are put on them.
Adapt is a big player for this archetype, and appears on ten green and/or black creatures in the set. Of those ten, six have abilities that care about the placement of counters on them, meaning the deck’s less focused on makinggiant monstersand more focused on reaping value from the triggers on these creatures.
Adapt only puts +1/+1 counters on a creature if it has none already. Try adapting creatures early to guarantee you get the value from their abilities before putting extra counters on them.
The common and uncommon multicolor cards all pull their weight here,with Cursed Wombat being the real draw into the deck. It essentially gives you up to one extra +1/+1 counter for free each turn, and is worded in a way that triggers your other creatures twice. The MDFC Revitalizing Repast is also excellent, though the green-black rare, Wight of the Reliquary, isn’t ideal for the deck.
As far as gameplan goes,this is a slower attrition-based deckthat can make a few hefty threats over time, but takes a little while to get going. It relies heavily on drawing specific engine pieces each game, so it can certainly falter if the cards don’t line up right, but the basic gameplan is simple, and there’s tons of support for the archetype.
Standalone Archetypes
Blue-black and red-black don’t fall into any of the buckets that encompass the other archetypes in the format, but they’re still heavily supported themes that have enough overlap with other elements of the environment. These decks have explicit payoffs that shouldn’t be desirable to most of the other decks players will be drafting.
Blue/Black: Draw-Three
The Dimir (blue-black) cards in this set wear the color pair’s theme on their sleeve, boldly announcing thatyou’ll want to be drawing three cards per turnas often as possible. It’s a bit of a win-more archetype, sincedrawing tons of cardsis usually a payoff in itself, but it doesn’t hurt to have extra rewards for doing so.
When drafting this deck, you shouldmake sure you have a clear avenue to victory. Loading your deck with too much draw and not enough payoff could put youin danger of milling out, so you’ll need an even balance of draw power and draw payoffs to be successful with Dimir.
Two copies of Tamiyo Meets the Story Circle can be an effective plan to prevent milling out!
Your key gold cards are Horrid Shadowspinner and Sneaky Snacker, the former of which enables the entire deck and all its payoffs, the latter being a persistent threat that can come back multiple times in a game if you’re meeting the requirements. The rare Psychic Frog can also contribute to the gameplan reasonably well.
This is a clear A+B deck,meaning you’ll need enablers and payoffs, or draw-three effects and actual rewards for doing so. The rewards are fairly obvious, with cards like Kami of Jealous Thirst and Mindless Conscription directly calling out the archetype’s theme and serving the deck well.
Then there’s the actual draw spells, which can be straight-up draw-threes like Unfathomable Truths and Roil Cartographer, or smaller draw spells meant to complement the card you’ll naturally be drawing every turn. Deep Analysis, for instance, combines with your draw step to make a build-your-own draw-three.
Red/Black: Affinity For Artifacts
Rakdos (red-black) isan explicit artifact deckwith the ability to push tons of damage, or play a prolonged, grindy game. It makes use ofliving weapon equipment, affinity for artifacts, and a host of other artifact-specific mechanics that all make a return in this set.
Red-black also has the largest showing of cards that are meant specifically for this deck, and don’t slot in elsewhere. That meansit should be pretty obvious at a Draft table when red-black is open. Frogmyr Enforcer, Furnace Hellkite, Junk Diver, and Etherium Pteramander are just a few examples that basically have one home, here in red-black.
This color pair has an awesome roster of gold cardsacross all rarities. Cranial Ram is an absurd common if you support it with enough artifacts, and Imskir Iron-Eater is a potent reason to push into this deck. Pyretic Rebirth’s also an excellent removal spell and recursion tool, though it’s easy to splash in other decks and might get poached by another player.
Word of warning for this deck: There will besome good artifact destructioncirculating the tables. Between Angel of the Ruins, Collective Resistance, Witch Enchanter, and more,sideboard games can be a little tough for an artifact deck. Meltdown even makes an appearance in the set, which is basically game over if you ever encounter it while playing this deck.
