Are you a Quiet Speculation member?
If not, now is a perfect time to join up! Our powerful tools, breaking-news analysis, and exclusive Discord channel will make sure you stay up to date and ahead of the curve.
Modern Top 5 is a long-running article series in which I use a set of pre-defined metrics to rank the best of breed in different categories. Past contests have included utility cards, hosers, enablers, beaters, and planeswalkers... come to think of it, though, most of those contests are due for an update! Today's brand-new entry pulls double-duty as a way to close out our comprehensive Modern Horizons 2 spoiler review, and goes deep on my picks for the top five best cards of the set.
Modern Horizons 2 is no ordinary set, and this is no ordinary Modern Top 5. To go as deep as possible on the picks, we'll split the article into two meaty halves, going over places #5-3 today and unveiling the two grand finalists tomorrow. But first, the metric!
Setting the Metric
Leave it to me to have already designed a perfectly usable metric for this evaluation: the original power/flexibility/splashability scale introduced four years ago, which lends itself well to general overviews like this one for a whole expansion. Here's an explanation of that, for those of you who haven't seen it in just shy of half a decade.
No Modern Top 5 would be complete without a metric. Since the top cards in a given expansion can include any type of spellāplaneswalker,Ā hate,Ā beaterāweāll aim to use the most general metrics possible. I think those happen to be the ones established in the seriesās first entry,Ā Modern Top 5: Utility Cards. Here they are again.
- Power: The degree ofĀ impact theĀ card tends to haveĀ for its cost.
- Flexibility: The cardās usefulness across diverseĀ situations and game states.
- Splashability:Ā The ease with which Modern decks can accommodate the card.
Power and flexibilityĀ will be ratedĀ by considering bothĀ a cardās floor (the least it will do) and its ceiling (its best-case scenario). For example,Ā Lightning Boltās power floor is higher thanĀ Fatal Pushās, as Push is dead when opponents have no creatures while Bolt can go to the face.
Splashability will be rated by considering how many existing Modern decks can accommodate the card and whether theyāll want it. For example, despite its lack of a color identity,Ā Ghost QuarterĀ doesnāt fit into BGx midrange decks. These decks can easily runĀ Fulminator MageĀ as mana disruption instead, and prefer not to miss a land drop if they donāt have to.
Each metric will be rated out of 5, giving cards a total rating out of 15. As ever, the usual disclaimer stands: just because a card scores low or doesnāt make the list means little in terms of its overall playability. After all, splashability is a metric. Some of the strongest cards in the format in terms of raw tournament wins are themselves rather limited in terms of which decks can employ them.
Incarnations Need Not Apply
While the better Incarnations do score enough points on these metrics to make the Top 5, we've already ranked and gone over them in detail, and I wanted to cover them as a group. But for reference, I'd score them as follows in terms of overall points:
- Grief: 8/15
- Fury: 8/15
- Endurance: 9/15
- Subtlety: 11/15
- Solitude: 12/15
That means the latter two would edge out the picks in today's article. As we saw yesterday, this cycle is unmistakably quite pushed and very powerful. With that out of the way, though, let's check out MH2's top non-Incarnation cards.
#5: Sudden Edict
Overall: 9/15
Power: 3
Two mana to remove a creature? Yawn! This is the format of Path to Exile, Fatal Push, and the infamous Lightning Bolt. But there are some things even Path can't take out, such as a cheated-in Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or a full-grown Hexdrinker. Edict doesn't ask questions, as it doesn't care what your opponent might have to say: if they only have out one creature, it is 100% getting off the table, even if they're smugly gripping Counterspell. Split second makes the card a strict upgrade to Diabolic Edict, a card played in Legacy to this day for its renowned versatility.
Flexibility: 3
Edict is flexible in that it can potentially remove anything, which is more than any other instant in Modern can say for itselfāeven Emrakul, the Promised End, with its derpy "protection from instants," is Edict food. But it's still held back by a couple factors. For one, it costs two mana, which lowers its potential use in many situations relative to something like Fatal Push. And second, removing one key threat with high accuracy is dependant on opponents not having other creatures they can sacrifice instead. That sits this card somewhere in the middle for me flexibility-wise, but make no mistake: it's Edict's potential flexibility in certain scenarios that will guarantee it long-term Modern play as of Horizons becoming legal.
Splashability: 3
Sudden Edict is no harder to splash than Tarmogoyf, but players may lack incentive to do so. For example, white decks have less use for Edict since they've already got Modern's other premier removal, like Path to Exile and Prismatic Ending. Other strategies still prefer efficient removal to cards that can delete an Emrakul. For these reasons, the card seems mostly destined to show up in the sideboards of black-heavy midrange decks and black-featuring combo decks, which it will for maybe ever. It's absolutely coming in for matchups where players want all the removal they can get, but also provides a blanket check to strategies that were previously tough to stop, such as those focused on sneaking in a hit with Griselbrand or Emrakul ASAP.
#4: Urza's Saga
Overall: 10/15
Power: 5
Urza's Saga did not receive much press compared to the set's more straightforward goodies, but I believe it's quietly among the best cards in Modern Horizons 2. Part of what makes players allergic to Saga is its weirdness: there is just no precedent for a card like this, let alone an enchantment land. As sometimes happens without precedent, early designs can prove busted in application (see also: Lurrus of the Dream-Den; Skullclamp; Tarmogoyf; Jace, the Mind Sculptor).
Power level illustrates how much the card does for its cost. Saga is a zero-mana play that, when sequenced properly, locks in a pair of massive beaters and tutors a critical artifact from the deck. Being a land, it's also incredibly difficult to interact with meaningfully, being immune to the likes of Abrupt Decay, Prismatic Ending, Thoughtseize, and more.
Here is an example sequence that will see plenty of action in artifact decks going forward. Take for granted that the Saga player makes their land drop each turn.
- Turn three: Play Saga, tap it to do something else
- Turn four: Tap Saga and two lands to make a Construct
- Turn five: Draw for turn, tap Saga and two lands to make a Construct tutor Basilisk Collar, equip it to the first Construct, and attack for a life swing of 6+
Much of Saga's power lies in its reliability, and the above constitutes what I'd consider a pretty comprehensive plan for a card whose floor is literally being a land that taps for colorless. One strike against Saga is that it will be traded in for an artifact every time; there's no option to keep it around as a land. But because of how saga enchantments work, players can still float a colorless in the main phase of that last turn to make their big play, and the mana it would normally cost to cast a one-mana artifact is on the houseāif we're talking raw mana numbers, Saga is a Sol Ring on that final turn. I've found that being smart about which turn Saga is deployed, rather than just slamming it right away, allows for enough planning that trading it for a choice one-drop is almost always a big benefit.
The natural next question: how good is Construct? Without any other artifact support, that lifelinker (and its partner blocker) will be a 3/3 on the turn it crashes into the red zone. With just a single additional artifact, even Darksteel Citadel, it grows to the much larger 4/4, and things just scale up from there. When chaining multiple Sagas, they rapidly become enormous. In an artifact-heavy shell, the ability to pump two massive tokens out of a land that's also tutoring up a critical card will make Saga among the better cards in the deck, both to open and to draw into at any game stage.
Flexibility: 4
Even though it "only" taps for colorless, Saga offers pilots oodles of versatility. Sure, players can always just make two big dudes and go to town with a Collar. But there are unending variations on this sequence: players need not make a Construct every turn if they have other things to do with their mana (although waiting to plop down Saga until one's other options are more or less depleted extracts maximum value from the land), and they can search up any number of powerful artifacts. Among the juiciest:
Basilisk Collar- Grafdigger's Cage
- Relic of Progenitus
- Pithing Needle
Beyond whichever trinkets are best in the mainboard, any of these cards can be run at a single copy in the sideboard to be playing a functional five copies in game 2, four of which can't be countered or discarded and will come into play directly from the deck (essentially with suspend 2) without charging players a single mana. And for specific decks or more niche uses, there are plenty more intriguing artifacts to choose from.
Key cards in specific decks:
- Amulet of Vigor
- Animation Module
- Colossus Hammer
- The Rack
Niche options and bullets:
- Bomat Courier (we're gonna be attacking anyway)
- Expedition Map (keep them Sagas coming, or turn Saga into a tutor for lands)
- Mishra's Bauble (Urza's Saga: the rich man's Horizon Canopy!)
- Nihil Spellbomb (for those in black who like their graveyards)
- Brittle Effigy (heavy-duty creature removal in a pinch)
- Zuran Orb (sorry Burn)
That's a huge array of possible Saga searches, and the pool will only grow as Wizards continues printing Magic cards. Deploying Saga with some foresight lets players very reliably access an otherwise highly surgical piece of disruption on just the right turn, a godsend for the decks that can fit the land.
Splashability: 1
Here's where Saga drops the ball. Few decks in color-hungry Modern can afford to sleeve up colorless lands, and Saga also requires players to include one-drop artifacts that might not see play in the build otherwise. So besides meshing with a few very specific strategies, Saga demands significant commitment while deckbuilding.
Because maximizing Saga is a mana-intensive affair, it plays exceptionally well with mana rocks, as these also happen to grow the Constructs. Realistically, though, any artifact-heavy deck that's not too demanding color-wise will love packing 2-4 of these. I'm thinking Urza, Lord High Artificer decks as well as ones that could use the bodies as blockers or a Plan B, but will mostly be drawn to the tutor effect, like Lantern and 8-Rack. And then there's the combo with Titania and Zuran Orb, which may also spawn a deck.
Another home for Saga is Eldrazi, both the colorless aggro strains I'm known for (where Saga shines bright for the bodies; more to come!) and Eldrazi Tron (where it will at the very least be run as a target for Expedition Map), but I imagine may creep up in number as players start to realize it's the best last land they could drop onto the battlefield). Being able to search up Basilisk Collar makes Saga very appealing for decks already locked into Walking Ballista.
#3: Prismatic Ending
Overall: 11/15
Power: 3
Remember, we're measuring power by impact for cost. Much of the time, Ending won't provide an enormous swing on this metric: one mana to remove a one-mana spell; two mana to remove a two-mana spell; and so on. You'll always trade with opponents on mana, unless they cheated out their card that costs between one and five (not likely), and unless they in fact paid an additional cost for their card. Some examples of the latter: they tutor up a creature with Eladamri's Call, essentially making it cost an additional GW; they take themselves down to 8 life for Death's Shadow, a steep condition if the payoff creature gets removed; they gut their own graveyard for Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger, or sink extra mana into kicker, as with Tide Shaper.
But generally, Ending trades with opponents on mana to hard-remove a permanent. Which isn't necessarily bad; people snipe one-drops with Abrupt Decay all the time, while Ending will never overcharge for that kind of effect. It's just deece.
Flexibility: 5
Here's where the points come rushing in. Modern deckbuilding has always been about striking a balance between artifact hate, enchantment removal, cards that interact well against planeswalkers, etc. Being able to target any permanent is the crux that brought Brazen Borrower into the fold of format playability despite its clear drawbacks. And it's the condition that ensures Prismatic Ending will go down as one of the most fearsome pieces of removal in the format.
I remember when Isolate was spoiled and the Modern players I associated with all wondered about its playability here. "It removes Death's Shadow, but also Aether Vial!" "No more worrying about turn one Expedition Map!" "You could nab a Utopia Sprawl!" "Shame about Chalice of the Void, though..." No more! Prismatic Ending (while admittedly slower, at sorcery) does indeed exile Chalice of the Void, as X is payable whether or not players want to remove a high-cost card, and Ending says "or less," letting it remove 0-cost permanents. But it also removes literally everything else. Choke. Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Scourge of the Skyclaves. Batterskull. The Batterskull token, for one mana mind you. And all it asks are two things:
The same amount of mana spent by opponents (in terms of tempo, Ending is almost always a wash)- That players can produce enough different colors to make full use of converge (in a three-color deck, I'd call it a significant upgrade to Abrupt Decay, and the more the merrier)
It's true that Ending is a sorcery, and that quirk makes many clunkier removal options better in certain scenarios. If this card was an instant, I would give it a 6.
Splashability: 3
The balancing act of converge will limit Ending's widespread adoption. Not only is the card white, traditionally one of the weakest colors in Modern, but players must commit to multiple other colors as well if they want to tap into the sorcery's true power. I do think Ending is good enough to splash for, but not so much that all decks lacking white entirely will want to eschew on-color solutions to problem permanents such as Maelstrom Pulse or Abrade. Ending is by no means a death knell for all utility removal options. But in the decks that can swing it, absolutely.
Making a Splash
There's no doubt these cards will rock the Modern format. But a couple still remain that I'd peg as even more worthy of splashing, discussion, and... dare I say it... fear. Join me tomorrow for an in-depth discussion of the two best cards in Modern Horizons 2!
In terms of straight-up effects, Fury can often have the most impactful, offering casters a pair of Forked Bolts. These can dismantle an enemy board with the utmost precision, dealing one to a dork, two to a creature, and another two a minused walker, for instance; all the excess damage goes to the dome, of course, which makes Fury very low-commitment. Indeed, I imagine it will often be cast as a kill spell with some trample.
Being green, Endurance has the most aggressively costed body of the cycle. A 3/4 with reach and flash is one dangerous spider, taking out any of Modern's Stage 1 creatures as they dash naively into the red zone as well as pricier utility threats that don't know any better (including, say, Lurrus of the Dream-Den). The threat of Endurance from green decks will have players thinking twice before they come in with the team, and make casting spells in the second main phase more important than ever.
Aether Gust has proven itself a fixture of the Modern tournament scene, popping up in sideboards everywhere even now that Uro's long gone and Tarmogoyf has been 
Seal of Removal: Seal of Fire was already played in prowess decks, and I imagine storing Unsummon on a get-it-now prowess trigger will be very exciting for those same mages. After all, Unsummon is a more reasonable Modern card than Shock. (Don't @ me. Just cuz I've always wanted to say that.)
Suspend: Temporary removal, just like Unsummon. Except it's not quite like Unsummon, because the creature can't be cast the following turn; delay-wise, it's more like Reflector Mage. Of note, the creature gets haste when it returns, and opponents don't have to spend mana recasting it, making it worse than Mage or Unsummon when it comes to sapping tempo. I'd say most of Suspend's potential comes from its interaction with Teferi, Time Raveler, which forces the card to just stay exiled. Very likely to see play in decks that both a) run Teferi and b) might want to hit their own creatures with Suspend to double up on ETB triggers or protect against removal.
Bone Shards: Very flexible removal spell that is sure to see use in strategies that like discarding (Hollow One, Dredge, etc.). Off the bat, Shards strikes me as a significant upgrade to Lightning Axe. Sacrificing a creature seems like a steep cost, but since discarding remains a possibility, it's straight upside over Axe. You can drop a 1/1 Elemental token for this thing and keep that Bedlam Reveler in hand!
Vindicate: The known and feared Vindicate, at last in Modern. Goodbye, Malestrom Pulse! And goodbye, Steam Vents!
Bone Shredder: Fleshbag Marauder upgrade for creature toolbox decks.
Mishra's Factory: The best manland comes to Modern, giving Mutavault a run for its money in decks that don't need the tribal synergy. Granted, that's not many, but Factory also gives Blinkmoth some competition in Affinity and related artifact decks. I mean, it's juts so big!
All that support don't come for free. Leave it to Wizards to rain on our fun. Or, rather, give us the tools to rain on someone else's.
Dress Down: Now that's more like it. Kiss your creature combo turn goodbye. Plus a cantrip even when it's not useful, and when is it not useful? Against most decks, Dress Down provides at least a Stifle, stopping a Kroxa trigger or a Confidant reveal or a Hierarch from tapping in the main phase or a Scourge of the Skyclaves from existing. Yes, it murders Scourge of the Skyclaves and then cantrips. Yes, it turns Death's Shadow into a 12/12 for the turn. Yes, grow big Goyf. A+ from ya boi.
Void Mirror: Tron can still cast their spells using Forest, or the mana from Chromatic Sphere. But they need to tap Forest to cast another Chromatic Sphere, so I'm not sure this card is totally blank against them. Granted, it's much better against decks like 
Obsidian Charmaw: This one's for the mainboard, especially in those red 
Break the Ice: A Sinkhole retrain for our time. Can we really not have Sinkhole? As things stand, this one feels a bit niche.
Sanctifier en-Vec: Rest in Peace on a stick that singles out black and red. But most valuable things being dumped are black and red. Arclight Phoenix, Prized Amalgam, Stinkweed Imp, Bloodghast, Hogaak... oh wait, wrong Horizons. Yeah, this card will see hella play. Unlike blowing up lands for two mana, protection is actually broken, perhaps especially on a Rest in Peace that can't be Nature's Claimed, Abrupt Decayed, Lightning Axed... bruh, how does Dredge even kill this thing?
Dauthi Voidwalker: Might as well have Leyline of the Void on a stick, too. This one's a lot worse than Sanctifier, but not without its potential. Black could always use more hosers. That second ability seems like a whole lot of text for nothing.
Blessed Respite: Gaea's Blessing, meet Fog. Soothing Rest, meet The Sideboard. Rest is a versatile card that ironically fails to fulfill a key goal of Gaea's Blessing in the decks that side it where it's legal, which is to not lose against Mill. We'll miss the cantrip, too.
Flame Blitz: So you hate planeswalkers. Boy, have we got the card for you! Blitz is the one-mana walker sweeper that just keeps on sweeping. And if opponents don't have any, it can just be cycled. Value! Or if you already resolved one. Value! Or you could just cast that second one and deal 10 to all the walkers every round. You do hate planeswalkers, don't you?
Blossoming Calm: Seems like decent Burn hate on paper: best-case scenario, you counter a Boros Charm, then gain 4 life over the course of two turns. That's 8 life for one mana. But wait... what about Life Goes On? Indeed, the decks that can support it will favor Life Goes On, which doesn't need opponents to target them with a juicy spell to get off. But Calm is more splashable and has the benefit of stopping big plays like Grapeshot and even effects like Liliana of the Veil's -2 or a Glimpse the Unthinkable, giving it wider applications in Modern generally than just stopping Burn.
Lonis, Cryptozoologist: Lonis investigates whenever a creature enters the battlefield, which isn't the toughest condition to meet. With that being said, it's a lot harder than existing options (see below). Where the Legend really shines is with its tap ability, which converts those many clues, formerly mana sinks, into mana and card advantage, flipping the script on their usefulness and letting players cast an opponent's cards for free.
Fae Offering: Generating one of each token is exactly where those serious about this archetype will want to be. Given Modern's wealth of versatile options, including Mishra's Bauble, Manamorphose, Noble Hierarch, and the like, it won't be too tough to meet Offering's condition on most turns, turning this unassuming enchantment into a potentially value-laden enabler.
Academy Manufactor: Um, let's start over: generating three of each token is exactly where those serious about this archetype will want to be. Manufactor turns Fae Offering, and especially simpler set-up cards, into nightmares for opponents to dismantle; in other words, it gets the ball rolling big-time.
Existing options: Modern has its share of cards that play nice with these theme. I'd say best of all is the already-played Tireless Tracker, which combines with fetchlands to pump out a grip of clues. I wonder if Standard all-stars like Goldspan Dragon and Galazeth Prismari won't be suitable payoffs here too, given their absurd potential when combined with these newer cards. Overall, though, the token theme strikes me as a little cute and a little durdly, and if it comes to be, will be floated mostly by Ragavan.
Sterling Grove: The first reprint on our list, Grove gives players access to a toolbox element, and as we know there's no shortage of surgical enchantments in Modern. That means Grove is something of a themed Demonic Tutor, and it also provides the buff of granting shroud to important pieces in a lockdown. At two mana, it's sure to be a staple in the deck, at least in its early stages.
Enchantress's Presence: Another reprint, Presence is the classic draw engine for Enchantress decks, taking its name from Argothian Enchantress (at this time, still not in Modern). At two mana, this one is sure to be a staple in the deck well into its old age. When Presence stops being good, the deck itself stops being good. And yeah, this is the hyper-aggressive, hyper-punishing Modern, so that may or may not be out of gate.
Sanctum Weaver: At last, a newbie! Weaver is Serra's Sanctum on legs, with the added benefit of making any color mana. Of course, Sanctum is much better, as it costs no mana and can't be Bolted; Modern may well be on its way to becoming Legacy-lite, but not without the caveat of Wizards deciding which cards to exclude from the format. I wouldn't hold my breath for Sanctum and its cycle-mates Gaea's Cradle and Tolarian Academy (okay, this last one is banned even from Legacy).
Sythis, Harvest's Hand: And here's our Argothian Enchantress retrain! I'd say losing shroud in Modern definitely hurts more than the lifegain helps, but we can't call this two-mana Nymph quite a strictly-worse version. In multiples, that life gain will surely add up into a win a nonzero percentage of the time.
New deck? Affinity? New deck? That's right, folks: 
Ethersworn Sphinx: Cascade is a lot better than draw 2. Right? Right...? Well, maybe not! In the build of post-MH2 Affinity I've been seeing pop up in casual online rooms, Sphinx tends to cascade into a mana rock or an Ornithopter. After all, the deck is mostly made up of cheap enablers. The value is still potentially there, and it does replace itself at worst. But I anticipate the main draw to Sphinx will be the slight velocity it provides (you might as well be drawing most of the time) and the massive 4/4 flying body.
Existing options: I mean, you know themāOrnithopter, Memnite, Frogmite. The decklist practically writes itself. The tuning is where things will start to get interesting: Chromatic Star & company, or no? Dispatch vs. Glavanic Blast? Do we run Sphinx at all? How about them tapped artifact lands? Uh... can Wizards unban Seat of the Synod already?! Is Cranial Plating even worth casting in 2021? (jk.)
As 
Svyelun of Sea and Sky: This card doesn't look much like a Merfolk at all, at least in terms of strategic cohesion. But that's okay with me, and potential Svyleun's strength: it gives the deck a desperately needed Plan B. Unlike Merfolk's other threats, Svyelun is perfectly fine to be on the battlefield by itself, and indeed threatens to walk away with games unmolested; indeed, I even saw one out of UW Control the other day. That means potential to claw back into games and defeat board stalls, something Merfolk has traditionally sucked at. And it's not like Svyleun is bad in Merfolk itself: giving all your guys ward makes it considerably harder for opponents to dismantle the pumps-and-islandwalk synergies, incentivizing them to deal with this bulky bad boy first... and good luck with that, if it's indestructible!
Inevitable Betrayal: This one may find its way into all Suspend sideboards, as it can steal key creatures out of Tron or other big mana strategies. Wurmcoil Engine or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn sure beats making a pair of 4/4s off Crashing Footfalls, and potentially anything else the Suspend deck wants to be cheating.
Glimpse of Tomorrow: New dimension #1, and in my eyes the most likely to spur a new build into being. Glimpse wants players to commit a ton of permanents to the board (mana rocks, etc.) and then cheat out the title card to effectively cascade into Emrakul, Omnipotence, or whatever else. So it's literally Warp World, an eight-mana sorcery that 
Gaea's Will: New dimension #2, Gaea's Will is a retrain of Yawgmoth's Will, one of the most broken spells ever printed. We may see Will at the heart of a Storm-esque deck with an Electrodominance package or even as a way to just generate a bunch of value in the mid-game for other Suspend decks. I'm the most excited about the possibilities with this one. Of course, it may also end up being a flop.
Resurgent Belief: New Dimension # 3: A suspended Replenish. Belief also has combo potential, albeit in a totally different kind of shell. This deck could run self-mill or enchantment Entombs to set up a lock, or even just tempo- or value-generating enchantments like Omen of the Sea and Seal of Removal, or perhaps a mix of both. An interesting thing about Belief is that its Suspend mode actually isn't so much to ask, costing just two mana and charging two upkeeps before resolving, so it may see play without Electrodominance and the like to push it out early or on demand.
Both of these mechanics have seen Modern play on the most powerful cards respectively featuring them: Tribal Flames; Traverse the Ulvenwald; Grim Flayer; Wild Nacatl; Tarmogoyf. Er... okay, so the last two technically lacked the keywords, but you get the idea. Since the mana is so good in Modern thanks to the fetch-shock norm, and delirium is relatively easy to splash thanks to enablers like Bauble and Manamorphose, all of these cards are liable to see some play, both in and out of dedicated decks.
Scion of Draco: Two mana for a 4/4 flier that gives all your creatures useful keywords? Talk about pushed. Players will need all five basic types to pull that off, but given that Tribal Flames has incentivized Zoo decks to splash every color 
Territorial Kavu: This guy is amazing as well. Even better than Draco, if you ask me! Part of what makes Kavu so appealing is that it's a terrific rate even without the full five basic land types, so four-color aggro decks can make good use of him, too. Still, it will definitely appear alongside Draco in revamped domain decks. It's cheap, huge, and provides both card filtering and incidental graveyard hate. What's not to love?
Dragon's Rage Channeller: Which brings us to delirium. Four card types is a lot to ask on a 
Bloodbraid Marauder: Flashier than Channeller, as it's got Bloodbraid Elf's text box for half the cost. But keep in mind that delirium generally asks players to stuff their decks with air like Mishra's Bauble, weakening the potential hits, and that Marauder can't cascade into two- or three-drops, which will make the value it generates a lot lower on average than what Elf can come up with. Still, it should slot right into the delirium aggro deck.
The Underworld Cookbook seems fine to lock in a discard outlet. You can thank this card (
Damn: Black-heavy control and midrange with access to white. That means you, Esper Control! On power level: it's past due Wrath of God received an upgrade. And black some no-questions-asked two-mana removal. Two birds with one stone.
Defile: Anything Swamp-heavy. 8-Rack? Urborg, welcome into the fold!
Esper Sentinel: Humans. Not very aggressive, so potentially a sideboard card, but extremely powerful a lot of the time, especially with built-in synergy to grow it. I've seen "Rhystic Buddy" thrown around as a potential nickname; co-sign.
Flame Rift: Burn. I will note that in this more-combo-oriented-than-Legacy Modern format, 4 damage to each player might not be optimal; in racing scenarios, it's often less impressive than even Skullcrack, which provides a 3-point swing compared to Rift's 0-point swing. (Lightning Helix is king in these scenarios, generatingĀ a 6-point swing; Helix-or-Rift metagames, anyone?)
Shardless Agent: Suspend, but also random UGx midrange decks, and maybe Urza shells. This card will be find a ton of homes. Run with 4 Bloodbraid Elf for Modern 
These are very likely to see play in some capacity, but in newer shells, or in ways we haven't yet seen. Reverse-alphabetical this time. U mad?
Upheaval: A Commander favorite sure to be built towards as a one-card combo finish. Likely to be fringe, in the same way that Blue Tron is fringe, but to nab a result here or there. For the Spikes scratching their heads, Upheaval's big ticket is that it also bounces lands, acting as a heavy-duty reset button.
Murktide Regent:Ā Blue Tombstalker. Possibly not good enough in Modern. We have Scourge of the Skyclaves now, as well as, say, Pteramander.
Kaldra Compleat: Gives Batterskull some competition in terms of juicy Stoneforge Mystic picks. I even ran into a fully-invested white build trying to slam these as fast as possible via not just Mystic, but Quest for the Holy Relic. And all because 
Imperial Recruiter: Now this is a high-profile reprint! Previously, Recruiter was going for hundreds of dollars based on Legacy demand alone. It really gets anything, and isn't restricted to type like Goblin Matron, meaning this creature will see play in all the fish, value, or toolbox decks that could want it and are down to splash red.
Ignoble Hierarch: I'm itching to see the shells Ignoble Hierarch inspires. Mid-sized Jund aggro? Good ol' Jund Rock, but with dorks? Who knows! All that's for certain is that this evil (not to mention smelly) Noble Hierarch will see heaps of play.
General Ferrous Rokiric: Hexproof from monocolored spells means he's immune to Bolt, Push, Path, and even Collected Brutality. Then he's making huge bodies whenever a multicolored spell gets cast, including Manamorphose and, like, Burning-Tree Emissary. Oh, and Mantis Rider. Yeah, this guy's a Human! Maybe he should be in Shoe-Ins.... or maybe he'll helm a new multicolored aggro deck more focused on getting opponents dead than disrupting them. Think Voice of Resurgence and Siege Rhino. And Jegantha, the Wellspring!
After all I've said, there is a temptation to declare Izzet Prowess Tier 0, something I've never done before. I will resist this temptation and everyone reading should do so too. Izzet Prowess isĀ nothingĀ like Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis or Eye of Ugin-powered Eldrazi. The deck is slightly different from the previous few months when it was Tier 1, but not outstandingly so. Plus, it's taking over the top slot from another deck that just spiked out of nowhere. There's no reason to think that this spike won't also go away.
to the baseline. And May's baseline average points is 1.58, meaning that Izzet's performance was slightly below average given its population. To be Tier 0, I'd expect any deck to take down sufficient Top 16 or higher slots to stay above the base. Not necessarily sky-high, but well above the baseline.
Observation #1: Red decks are popular online
Observation #4:Ā There is a correlation between price spikes and decks falling off
that consistently just squeaks into Top 32 the same weight as one that Top 8ās. Using a power ranking rewards good results and moves the winningest decks to the top of the pile and better reflects its metagame potential.
Finally, we come to the average power rankings. These are found by taking total points earned and dividing it by total decks, which measures points per deck. I use this to measure strength vs. popularity. Measuring deck strength is hard. Using the power rankings certainly helps, and serves to show how justified a deckās popularity is.
Sultai Control was the best-performing deck relative to its popularity in May. What is Sultai Control? I'm using the descriptor as a catchall term for slow, answer-heavy BUG decks. Each deck was pretty different from the others, united only in speed and strategy. Which may have contributed to its good performance. It didn't actually make the power tier, and so isn't included, but Grixis Death's Shadow did the worst of any deck I've ever had in these articles. Its average power is 1; its presence in the population tier can therefore be attributed to its pilots stubborn dedication to their deck and not to any real success. Which is a paper-player attitude, and not something I'd count on from MTGO players.
For starters, 
I know I'm not the only one who began frantically searching Gatherer for Vampires when they spoiled Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord. Nor the only one crestfallen to discover that the best threat to cheat out was actually Morophon, the Boundless, which doesn't do much on its own. But man does it do much paired with a whole tribe.
Of course I was going to start with the Merfolk. The most important Merfolk printed since Master of the Pearl Trident, no less. Iām neither joking nor exaggerating. Rishadan Dockhand, a 1/2 for one with islandwalk, is better than any other one-drop Merfolk printed since Cursecatcher. I 
all-Merfolk, all-the-time plan, Cursecatcher was a solid creature and piece of disruption. Over the years, the creatures got better and the spells got cheaper and suddenly Cursecatcher just didn't do much anymore. To have a chance, Merfolk needed something interactive at one mana, not more beef. The lords had that locked down.
That out of the way, how does being on a creature affect Port's power and playability? On the one hand, the ability to keep opponents off mana is powerful in Modern too. By which I mean Porting Tron. Porting Tron lands is awesome, and will feel far better than Porting Cloudpost in Legacy because it will happen more often. Dockhand isn't a land, so it doesn't tie down your own mana as much as Port. Thus, Dockhand won't harm your own board development as much as Port. However, this comes at the price of being a creature and therefore far more vulnerable than a land. Relying on Dockhand to save you is asking for heartbreak.
Next up is something I never expected to see in Modern: manaless discard. Grief is a more powerful but less flexible Entomber Exarch if actually paid for. However, its evoke cost turns Grief into Unmask. Or as Unmask was intended to be used, anyway. These days, Unmask is mainly used by 
Grief can only ever be used to disrupt opponents, not to advance one's own unfair gameplan. But critically, evoking Grief creates card disadvantage. Thoughtseize is a 1-1 trade whose value comes from trading up on card quality and mana value. An evoked Grief is -1 card (the exiled black card), then the discard is a 1-1 trade. It's harder to say if a 4-mana 3/2 menace is better than the discarded card. Free is much better than costing something, but that only actually matters if you then do something with the mana that's saved. And given the density of black spells that will be necessary to make Grief reliably free (using Force of Will 
Which is why Unmask never saw much play. The reason that Reanimator and Dredge are the only decks that consistently play Unmask in Legacy is that they don't care about throwing away cards. All that matters is setting up their broken thing, and if that happens, they should win. Thus, it's worthwhile to 2-for-1 themselves to ensure their opponent can't disrupt them or to get the needed card into the graveyard. Fair decks have never made use of Unmask because they have to care about resources. Records are thin because Unmask is from before the internet was widespread, but I could only 
Still, that strikes me as the best-case scenario, and constructing a deck to do so consistently makes me question how well it functions outside of that specific play pattern. The 
Immediately after Grief was spoiled, there was speculation that it was part of a cycle because it was an incarnation. That's a 
Cabal Coffers: AnotherĀ OdysseyĀ block reprint. It's much better now that Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Dryad of the Ilysian Grove exist and let Coffers see play outside of mono-black decks. It's much,Ā much worse because the opportunity cost of playing lands that don't make mana themselves is so high in Modern.
me to ask why you need to use Dakkon to cheat in the artifact rather than just cast it? Or Refurbish it several turns earlier? Surveiling every turn is decent, especially as a way to set up graveyard synergies, and exiling creatures is very good. But is either enough for Dakkon to see play?
Parsing the Modes
Plus, making a Treasure is actually better than just "sometimes costing one less." It's ramp. Simian Spirit Guide was just 
Kolaghan's Card Advantage
Not true of Prismari Command; only the mode pairing it shares with Kolaghan's Command will actually plus one indiscriminately, and that's also the most conditional of Kolaghan's card advantage parings, as it requires the opponent to have very specific permanents in play. Prismari's other commands of create a Treasure and draw two, discard two are a wash in terms of card economy, although the former generates an interesting ramp dimension and the latter provides card selection. Prismari Command is simply not a card advantage spell, and comparing it to Kolaghan's Commandāone of the format's premier card advantage spellsātherefore runs the risk of selling the newer Command short. To Prismari's credit, 
Summing Up
