Hello 7point Highlander players,
The first Modern Horizons set had a huge impact bringing us Wrenn and Six, Force of Negation and Prismatic Vista. My MH1 set review was 95 cards long. This time it's 123 cards! There are 303 cards in MH2. 53 of those are reprints. Therefore I've reviewed almost half the set. This thing took me ages. Strap yourselves in.
With two fetchlands and a Thoughtscour/Mental Note, this comes down turn2. Most of the time it will come down turn3 or 4 with some kind of protection.
Fatal Push, Lightning Bolt and Abrupt Decay don't kill it. We may see more maindeck Red Elemental Blasts and Pyroblasts.~ will win the game all by itself and its nature is to be surrounded by disruptive instants and sorceries. It will be hard to race and hard to kill. Adjust your choice of removal spells.
A lot of decks rely on the graveyard these days. Development could've erased the sacrifice ability or made ~ a 0/1 and it would still be excellent. I had to read the sacrifice ability three times to confirm that I didn't need to spend mana on the spell.
The void counters are annoying to keep track of but necesary in case of Reanimate, Lurrus, Renegade Rallier, etc.
If you're a control player you might think that shadow, i.e. not being able to block, makes ~ bad against aggro but aggro decks still touch the graveyard with Skullclamp and most importantly they run removal, which ~ can become.
Hymn to Tourarch and ~ combined is going to effect mana bases, and players will be thinking twice about which land to fetch EoT in case they draw either. You may want to consider Sunken Ruins, Graven Cairns, Twilight Mire and Fetid Heath. Maybe not Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth though because it can help your opponent.
Let's look at the better combos and compare how each tutor performs. I'm only listing the combos I know that are practically two pieces and can win through two removal spells before turn five:
~ has influenced all formats it's legal in and by now everyone knows first hand how good it is.
Lurrus, Hullbreacher, Dauthi Voidwalker, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Deathrite Shaman, Joffrey, Cersei, Walder Frey, Meryn Trant, Tiwyn Lannister, the red woman...
The name is worth it alone.
It's all about the wizardcycling. You need to be tutoring for a combo to make up for the two lost mana. Thassa's Oracle is the big one. If you already have Thassa's Oracle, you can search for Spellseeker, which searches for Demonic Consultation/Tainted Pact.
Like a green Preordain or Ponder. Fuels delirium, delve, escape, ability triggers, etc.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is proven.
In today's metagame I'd prefer my removal to hit Murktide Regent and Ethereal Forager but if you already have enough answers for those two, then this is great. Obviously the more colours you have access too, the more things ~ can exile.
If you really push the rummage trigger with madness or phoenixes for example, then you can get away with ~ in two colours but obviously the more colours the better.
Turn1 fetch a triome, turn2 fetch a dual land and cast a 4/4 flier for 2 mana, 3 mana if you count the triome entering tapped. Pretty cheap.
Green creature decks have been desperate for a card like this, i.e. a card you can find with Green Sun's Zenith that kills a creature. ~ also adds utility to Eladamri's Call and Birthing Pod.
You'll need about 16 one or two cost spells that effect the board, then about 25 lands, then Doubling Season and Deploy the Gatewatch. That leaves 16 slots for planeswalkers. That's ≈90% to hit with Carth, easy. Next question is if there are 16 ≤3 mana planeswalkers for a good curve:
Very cool. She behaves a bit like a 4mana 2power flying haste lifelink.
Best in midrange decks with lots of disruption. The disruption can handle the big opposing creatures or combos, then Abiding Grace and your 1mana dudes can handle the rest. You want your dudes to be threatening enough that they must be blocked or removed. That way Abiding Grace will grind you the win. Here are some good options:
I think this only playable in a deck that can operate at instant speed. In those decks you can use ~ to deny especally powerful ETB triggers. Regular proactive decks can't hold up 2 mana every turn waiting for an opportunity that may not come.
I reckon this is maindeckable.
As miserable as land destruction can be, I am very glad that WotC acknowledged the issue of snow-covered lands obsoleting regular basic lands by printing another deterrent.
I'll build Rat Colony or Shadowborn Apostle one day! I actually attempted a Relentless Rats a couple weeks ago but it was too difficult to keep the Relentless Rats count high and also have enough 1 and 2 drops for a good curve. Rat Colony has 99 problems but a curve ain't one.
~ looks like garbage. Why would anyone want this? Well I've been having fun with Food Chain on and off for a couple years and ~ is a great way to bank mana until Food Chain hits the battlefield. There are nine better options:
Easy to dismiss due to it's relatively expensive cost but ~ seems powerful to me. Potential for an infinite combo but I don't think the pieces exist yet.
Dillon Kikkawa is running this Red Black aggro. That's enough evidence for me.
Redundancy for Erratic Explosion. Setup an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn on top of your library for 15 damage to their face.
Not powerful but decent value.
Teams up with Naban, Dean of Iteration to become the harpists from Kung Fu Hustle.
Amazingly Eternal Witness is still very playable in Highlander. This is due to the strength of the things she can return. ~ is one mana more, which is a big increase; think of the difference between Grim Tutor and Diabolic Tutor. But if we're talking about returning Ancestral Recall or Time Walk, then ~ is acceptable.
I have a UW Dream Halls combo deck that is just a bunch of versatile disruption, big card draw spells and a Brain Freeze. It runs Relearn. This is a strict upgrade thankyou. The deck is about tier 3 but it can definitely win games.
I haven't seen a successful mill deck, but I haven't seen many people try.
Another 1mana creature that creates a token when it dies. Now we have:
Nonblue decks are hungry for disruption against the popular Thassa's Oracle decks. Currently the best black discard against them are Hymn to Tourarch, Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, Duress and Collective Brutality. Discard effects have diminishing returns but at least Tourach himself is a 2/1 pro white if the opponent has no cards.
You need to be dedicated delirium aggro to make this work. You need all your spells to be super cheap to get delirium ASAP.
This little guy is underrated.
"Suspend Gargadon" no longer means to suspend Greater Gargadon. Very confusing when I run both in my All In Balance deck, which is remarkably cheap at $350 total, and very fun to play.
Playable Warp World. Very fun. Compose your deck of maximum permanents and run all the best token creators to get value.
Obsidian Charmaw is why you can't have nice things.
I found Gravebreaker Lamia slightly too slow for finding Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis. Being one mana cheaper may make Vile Entomber viable though.
Dies to Wrenn and Six, which is a massive blowout, but if he survives in a deck full of multicolour spells then he will quickly win the game.
Merfolk have about five 2mana lords and still aren't tournament successful. Squirrels have a long way to go, but if they ever get there, ~ will be part of the action.
Yeah I can see it in some kind of persist combo or aristocrats deck. Or even a Krark-Clan Ironworks deck.
A unique card. Very cool.
I've seen mono red storm lists in Highlander. Making all those rituals cost 1 less would be worth it.
Argothian Enchantress has always been the best enchantress by a mile, followed by Enchantress's Presence, then Green Sun's Zenith for Argothian Enchantress. After that there is a huge gap and then all the 3mana ones that die to creature removal. ~ sits somewhere in the middle of that huge gap.
Entering tapped is a huge cost in Highlander. That mana you lost could've been a Ragavan or a Tasigur or a Swords to Plowshares. You get that lost mana back with Tolarian Academy though. Therefore they're good with lots of tutors for Academy.
See the above paragraph on ETB tapped artifact lands except this one dies to Armageddon.
I love Skullclamp, I'll happily run every playable tutor for it in my deck. Sometimes that leads to a situation where you have an empty board and you draw an equipment tutor but all you really want is a creature. In aggro decks, Batterskull is not what you want. You would much rather run Mistral Charger Barbed Spike. I've run Ancestral Blade in that role before and it was fine. Barbed Spike is an upgrade on that, Wrenn and Six blowouts withstanding.
Some nice punishment for blue cantrips. I think you can maindeck this without any support as long as you're an aggro deck. It gets a lot better if you increase its power.
Six mana is easy to achieve with Tolarian Academy. This may be a one shot kill for all-in artifacts.
Or as my friend likes to call it, Thot Monitor.
It's easy to imagine having 6 artifacts on turn 4, casting this and cascading into a 5drop. ~ is excellent payoff.
Stoneforge Mystic just got scarier. Obviously more powerful than Batterskull one on the battlefield, but less castable. I wouldn't rely solely on Stoneforge Mystic. I would only run ~ if I had some way of casting it, e.g. Gaea's Cradle or Tolarian Academy
I respect this in Mishra's Workshop decks when the metagame is heavy on graveyards, e.g. 6 months ago when Underworld Breach and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath were popular.
Sacrifice crappy tokens and trinkets late game for potentially powerful cards on top of library.
You'll need to be hyperaggressive.
Infinite with Ivy Lane Denizen.
Barely playable but proliferate is very powerful with planeswalkers or multiple creatures with +1/+1 counters.
Worthwhile even if it dies immediately, otherwise you win.
More nonlegendary reanimator action. Development's intentions were quite clear: they don't want more Emrakul and Griselbrand in modern, which I'm grateful for in Highlander as well. Similarly this doesn't find Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis.
If green white is big in your meta, then sure. Even better if you run creatures with ETB triggers.
Not good against the mono colourless deck because they still run colour sources, e.g. Seat of the Synod et al, Tolarian Academy, Mox Opal. Check out Thomas Bot's proven build with nine colour sources.
Sideboard in Sneak Attack/Through the Breach against creature decks. Wipe their board and gain 7+7n life where 'n' is the number of creatures you kill.
| Demonic Tutor | Wishclaw Talisman | Profane Tutor | |
| Thassa's Oracle + Demonic Consultation | Turn 3 | Turn 4 | Turn 4 |
| Flash + Protean Hulk | Turn 3 | Turn 3 | Turn 4 |
| Underworld Breach + Lion's Eye Diamond + mill | Turn 3 | Turn 3 | Turn 4 |
| Yawgmoth's Will + Tendrils of Agony + rituals | Turn 3 | Turn 3 | Turn 4 |
| Channel + Lich's Mirror | Turn 3 | Turn 3 | Turn 4 |
| Time Vault + Manifold Key | Turn 3 | Turn 4 | Turn 4 |
| Aluren + Imperial Recruiter | Turn 4 | Turn 5 | Turn 4 |
It's clear that Demonic Tutor and Wishclaw Talisman are faster overall than Profane Tutor, but are they so different to warrant their respective point differences? I don't think so. A turn 4 kill will still race the average aggro or ramp curve.
Here are some other factors that add to the comparison equation:
- DT and Wishclaw have the added flexibility of allowing a turn 4 kill even if cast turn 3, whereas Profane Tutor must be suspended turn 2. However, if you simplfy this as DT or Wishclaw working for your first 9 cards drawn and ~ working for your first 8 cards drawn, that's not a big difference.
- Turn 2 DT gets underneath Opposition Agent, whereas ~ will always be vulnerable.
- ~ is vulnerable to Teferi, Time Raveler because you'll be unable to cast it in your upkeep.
- ~ is better against Duress, Inquisition and Thoughseize whilst suspended.
- Wishclaw must win the turn it activates and therefore you have 1 less mana to protect your combo turn.
- Wishclaw is vulnerable to artifact hate.
- In rare situations you can cast DT and combo off in the same turn. This is advantageous because you can hide how close you are to comboing and your opponent may add to the board rather than hold up disruption, whereas ~ is conspicuous.
The points committee aim to keep the format fun. Archetype diversity is a contributor to the fun of the format and therefore combo is a valued presence in the metagame, especially for deck builders. However, combo decks are typically uninteractive and less fun to play against. Also, if a combo is difficult to stop, e.g. Thassa's Oracle or Flash combo, which aren't even effected by Abrupt Decay or Scavenging Ooze, then this creates a situation where players are strongly incentivised to play blue for counterspells and black for discard. This reduces archetype diversity.
You know a card's good when it earns an acronym, especially this quickly.
3 power flying is just enough to significantly pressure a life total by itself.
The card selection gives DRC the chance to protect itself by finding counterspells.
Delve and escape cards are very strong; DRC fuelling the graveyard makes it a perfect addition to many already strong decks.
Aggro, Tempo, Midrange, Control. DRC goes in all these archetypes. Aggro already ran fetches, creatures and instants. Now it just needs to add Urza's Bauble, Mishra's Bauble, Seal of Fire, Tarfire, Gitaxian Probe and a couple more sorcery removal spells and delirium is a reality. Once you add the baubles then Lurrus becomes even more appealing.
His little glasses remind me of this excellent Overwatch trailer.
The hype skyship keeps on sailing. Everyone is asking if he's worth a point. He's pilfering wins, wallets and formats everywhere.
Deathrite Shaman recently gained a point for its efficiency and pervasiveness. Deathrite and ~ are both 1mana threats that produce mana, yet one is pointed and the other is not. This begs analysis. Here are my thoughts:
- ~ has a higher ceiling. If he hits a powerful card he can effectively win the game, which is crazy for a 1drop.
- ~'s floor is much lower. If the opponent has a ≥3 toughness blocker, Ragavan can't attack.
- ~ dies to any 1 power blocker. Ultimately you're happy if you trade anything for your 1mana creature, but compare that to Deathrite, which is practically always fully functional due to the large number of fetches and Wastelands.
- When you take the average of the floor and ceiling of both cards, Deathrite's mezzanine is higher.
- ~ only goes in red decks, whereas Deathrite goes in green and/or black decks. Players will splash a Bayou to access the offcolour ability of Deathrite.
- ~ feels worse to lose to because luck is involved, but this goes both ways, i.e. making games fun and/or creating good stories.
- It's still not clear to me whether pointing Deathrite Shaman was the correct decision. On one hand there's all the praise written above, and on the other hand it was fun and did an admirable job of disrupting graveyard bullshit. In the case that the committee wrongfully pointed Deathrite, Ragavan would have less of a case for pointing.
~ is most likely to hit on the second turn, especially on the play, in which case you'll have 3 mana to cast what you flip. On the third turn, if you have removal for their blocker you'll spend at least 1 mana on it, in which case you'll again have 3 mana to cast the flipped card. What I'm getting at is that even though decks with a higher curve are less likely to stop ~, they're also less likely to have their spells pilfered.
~ is a lot better against decks without blockers. Encouraging creature magic is a good thing. It may not make up for Ragavan being too strong but it helps.
~ is one of the few playable 1mana coloured legendary creatures for Mox Amber. Joining Isamaru, Kytheon and Zurgo. A 33% increase is huge.
Even though ~ gets bounced by an opposing Karakas, he's only 1 mana, which is the cost of tapping Karakas. Most legends are garbage against Karakas but ~ can squeeze their mana if they have no blockers.
Two Melbourne locals, Isaac and Brennan have a great Ragavan story. The sweeter details are lost without hearing it directly from them but basically Isaac had a Defense Grid forcing Brennan to Tainted Pact in his own turn, leaving 1 card left in his library for a Thassa's Oracle win the following turn. Isaac untaps, Brainstorms, and the third card is Ragavan, which he dashes in to remove Brennan's final card and Brennan loses in this draw step.
Imperial Seal recently dropped from 3 points to 2 points, which was a risk by the points committee. Imperial Seal only does dirty deeds dirt cheap, and its retail price is not. Ragavan serves the committee's decision well by exiling the top card that sorcery speed tutors find, e.g. Personal Tutor for Channel and Sylvan Tutor for Protean Hulk. All very dirty.
~ is ridiculous in an artifact deck but players have worked out that you don't need to be an artifact deck for ~ to be good. If your curve isn't high you can keep up on tempo using your other cards then let the uncounterable card advantage from ~ win you the game. You create a construct in chapter II and III, search for your artifact and then just beat down with the constructs that are at least 3/3's. Assuming the constructs take a spell each to deal with, you're up 2 cards. Making the constructs bigger than 3/3's isn't hard; There are plenty of low commitment artifacts that are fine maindeck like Urza's Bauble, Mishra's Bauble, Arcum's Astrolabe, Scrabbling Claws, Phyrexian Furnace, treasure/food/clue generators, Baleful Strix, Nihil Spellbomb and more.
Here are some general situation where players are running ~:
- They're running nonbasic land search effects and ways of returning lands from graveyard, e.g. Strip Mine lock decks. ~ also finds Zuran Orb for the combo in some builds.
- They're running delirium cards such as Dragon's Rage Channeler. They're already running Mishra's Bauble and Urza's Bauble to help with delirium. Add a Scrabbling Claws or Nihil Spellbomb in there are and you're practically always going to have something to find with ~, and when it sacrifices you get an enchantment in your graveyard for delirium.
- They're running Sol Ring or one of the 5 Moxes. These really make ~ feel free because they effectively replace ~ as a land in chapter III. If the situation calls for it you can tap ~ for colourless with the chapter III trigger on the stack rather than creating a construct. This will boost you an extra mana in addition to the Mox/Sol Ring mana.
- They're running Skullclamp.
- They're running Lion's Eye Diamond for Underworld Breach or Auriok Salvagers combo.
- They're running Black Lotus.
- They're running Voltaic Key and Manifold Key for Time Vault.
- They're running an artifact strategy (the situation where ~ is best).
Artifact strategies got a huge understated boost from ~ being printed. They were already running ways of searching for Tolarian Academy and Mishra's Workshop, e.g. Expedition Map, Crop Rotation and Sylvan Scrying. Those same search effects now find a huge uncounterable threat that generates card advantage. We're talking 6/6, 7/7, 8/8 constructs.
~ is great against artifact hate. It functions underneath Null Rod, Stony Silence and Collector Ouphe. Even if the opponent sits on their Shatterstorm a turn to catch the second construct, the hit from the first construct is about a third of their life total.
The best way of dealing with ~ is to Nature's Claim it immediately but there aren't enough enchantments and artifacts going around to justify that spell choice. Qasali Pridemage is a good card in general but that would be like Fulminator Mage, not impressive.
Wasteland deals with ~ of course but it must tap to activate and the ~ player still gets to tap it once. Therefore the Wasteland player ends up two mana down.
Due to a strange rules interaction Blood Moon is a good way of dealing with ~. Basically the ruling is that 'saga' is an enchantment subtype and therefore Blood Moon doesn't overwrite that because Blood Moon only overwrites land subtypes and whatever's in the text box. The 'saga' enchantment subtype will cause the card to sacrifice if the card has equal or more lore counters than the number of chapters it has, and since Blood Moon removes all the chapters, ~ will get sacrificed.
~ finds sideboard cards like Grafdigger's Cage and Tormod's Crypt.
I believe ~ is worth a point based on power level.
Cool, that they got Mark Zug back. At first I thought the flavour text was appauling but I suspect it's next level.
Goblins is the best deck that I have built. I wrote a primer article for it on 7ph.com. It's a little out of date but 95% same ideas. As explained in the article, I've chosen a combo focused build rather than aggro, and once you remove the aggro goblins from the deck there aren't many good 1drops. Ignoble Hierarch was a fantastic printing for me.
Not only does it boost me to my powerful and plentiful 3drops, it also pumps Goblin Lackey and Warren Instigator.
I generally avoid sorcery speed removal because you lose a lot of opportunities that instants provide, but of course there is a level of effectiveness that outweighs those lost opportunities; Damn is at that level, in a control deck especially.
"...can't be regenerated..." is an ode to Wrath of God. These days the only regeneration visible from my window is Goblin Chirurgeon, Welding Jar...uhhh that's it.
Cephalid Illusionist + Nomads En-kor + Dread Return etc is another wizard combo. None of the En-kor are wizards though; If you're really keen you could add Trinket Mage and Shuko as a wizard to combo with Cephalid Illusionist.
Another wizard combo is Sea Gate Stormcaller + Neoform into Dualcaster Mage, some clones and a haste giver. Once again Spellseeker is a conduit for the spell half of that combo.
~ was printed in Strixhaven as one of the mystical archive cards before its 'original' printing here in MH2. I chose to include it here instead.
Can supplement Twilight Mire, Flooded Grove, Fire-Lit Thicket and/or Wooded Bastion to effectively get green mana out of nongreen producing lands. This is especially useful for Survival of the Fittest where 100% green mana is ideal.
~ can save you (and your opponent) some life with Ancient Tomb, horizon lands and fetchlands.
Possible shenanigans with Living Lands and Life and Limb.
The most popular removal at the moment is Swords to Plowshares, Fatal Push and Lightning Bolt. ~ covers many threats that those three don't deal with, e.g. Skullclamp, Birthing Pod and most planeswalkers.
Exile is very nice. Especially against Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath.
As power creep creeps ~ gets better as mana values decrease.
I empathise with new Highlander players that see this card and immediately think "that requires many dual lands and many dollareedoos". Unless you bought into dual lands before 2014, you were a victim of speculators and the boom of the commander format going mainstream.
~ is clunky at removing cards from graveyards but that's pure gravy because you already have a ≈4/4 for two mana. In the metagames I play in (webcam and Melbourne), delve spells, Uro, Lurrus, Dreadhorde Arcanist and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy are very popular and scary. Any graveyard hate is welcome. The rummage ability is gravy as well.
No one runs Armageddon anymore, so you don't have to worry it killing your ~, but you will have it shrunk by Blood Moon occaisionally.
You may find it worth running a single triome so that ~ can be a 5/5 even if you don't have a 3rd land.
If you have some powerful blue creatures that you'd like to protect with hexproof, then ~ is excellent.
Cheap dragons get me thinking about Descendants' Path.
~ has a huge mana cost. This opens up opportunities like Erratic Explosion, Calibrated Blast and Morbid Curiosity.
"Oh I love to have a beer with Bruna. I love to have a beer with Brun'. We drink in moderation..."
There are so many strong cards in this set; That is causing many cards to be overlooked. ~ is easy to break, you just have a good mix of cheap instants and cheap other things. Two spells every turn cycle will be more than the average opponent is casting and you will quickly recover from the tempo loss of casting ~, then bury your opponent in card advantage. The downside is you won't be able to have counter battles against combo or control. To make up for this you'll need to be proactive with your disruption, e.g. discard spells or mana disruption or hate bears.Moderation can also do weird things like support a Solitary Confinement.
I've run ~ in a couple Hogaak builds with Bloodghast and it has performed excellently. ~ fuels the graveyard, provides Skullclamp fuel and is generally a good card.
I had an opponent try Spell Pierce it. An easy mistake to make.
Wrenn and Six
Kaya, Orzhov Usurper
Richard Kane Ferguson's still got it.
Perfect.
Some hefty colour requirements but 'fetch + dual land' mana can handle them, and we have Oath of Nissa to help out.
You want four lands so that he survives the -3 but in a pinch you can cast and neg him on three.
Even though his ultimate is only effective with artifacts, he is still good with no artifacts in deck.
Fuels delve.
Exiles Uro.
Very hard to kill. ~ will shut down the biggest creature then the opponent needs 5 power amongst their other creatures to kill her immediately, which is unlikely.
~ is relatively low impact if she gets Dreadbore'd the following turn; only getting in one Brush with Death.
The -3 can surprise steal opposing planeswalkers as they're about to ultimate, which is game winning.
The ultimate is game over and will happen a surprising amount because she protects herself very well.
The dude abides.
There might be some blink tricks you can do with ~ to draw multiple cards.
Immune to most removal and therefore good with equipment.
Messes with Gifts Ungiven and Storm decks.
~ hitting Urza's Saga and Mishra's Workshop is good for the format.
I have fond memories or running land destruction decks and I'm tempted to revisit. Sinkhole sees surprisingly little play.
...but that's the beauty of Highlander, even the 10th best option is good enough.
Food Chain has crossover with Aluren combo, i.e. heaps of ETB draw creatures. Despite the recent printing of Acererak the Archlich, Cavern Harpy and friends are still my preferred Aluren kill in Highlander because Cavern Harpy can be found with Imperial Recruiter and Recruiter of the Guard. What I'm saying is that Cavern Harpy returns ~, which is good. Sometimes you gotta play it fair and beat down with Harpy and sometimes you have Aluren/Food Chain and can pay all but 1 life to find the combo.
~ works excellently with Necropotence. Turn three Necro, turn four Feast and activate Necro down to 1 life, EoT gain it all back, wipe their board and sculpt your hand.
Lots of triggers with and against Wheel of Fortune/Memory Jar/Balance because it doesn't have the 'or more' clause.
You don't run this in any deck. You need to abuse it somehow:
- Puts away combo pieces you need in your deck, e.g. Mogg Bombers for Flash + Protean Hulk
- Sets up miracles
- Sets up cascades
- Sets up Erratic Explosion/Calibrated Blast
- Sets up Descendants' Path
- Sets up Spellshift into Enter the Infinite
- Sets up Timesifter and powers Tolarian Academy
Let's take a moment to admire Conch Horn:
Fixes your mana plainscycling for a dual land and then eats a removal spell when eternalised.
Late game you may prefer to hard cast it because fliers with >4mana value and >3 toughness are hard to deal with.
Powerful trigger wizards include:
Snapcaster Mage
Dreadhorde Arcanist
Boros Reckoner (goes infinite with ~ if you give this indestructible)
Powerful shaman triggers include:
Young PyromancerI've seen Micheal Billinghurst run Archaeomancer to good effect with Time Walk.
Like Eternal Witness, ~ is a psuedoloop with Ephemerate.
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is a rare sight these days, so she's not a major concern.
The simplest way to approach building a mill deck is like a burn deck, just put all the best mill cards on a curve and try mill them as soon as possible. I presume this is a bad approach though because 1mana mill cards mill about 4 cards, which is roughly 8% of the cards you'll have to mill to win. Lava Spike does 15% of the opponent's life total. The comparison is bleak for the simple approach. An appoach which is more likely to succeed is to use the enchantments like Fraying Sanity, Psychic Corrosion, Teferi's Tutelage and Sphinx's Tutelage combined with cheap disruption and only the biggest mill cards like Archive Trap and ~.
May need a couple more to really get those death triggers happening in Aristocrats.
Michael Leslie took a shot at building Aristocrats when Lurrus of the Dream-Den was printed. Since then the companion rule changed but I don't think that kills the deck at all (because everyone else needs to pay 3 for their companion too :/ ). It looks like he's made a couple minor updates because Skyclave Apparition, a relatively new card is in there.
Leslie's not running any of the white 1mana dudes that create a dude when they dieI asked him abouth that and he said that not being able to cast them off Gaea's Cradle made them a worse when going crazy with Skullclamp.
~ is 1BBB kicked; You should minimise lands which don't produce black.
~ gains +1/+1 counters from his trigger. Occaisionally you may get someone with a Kolaghan's Command in combat giving him a +1/+1 counter.
The combination of his protection from white, his colour black and getting his 3rd counter for >3 toughness makes him very difficult to kill.
~ gets big with Wheel of Fortune.
Until now red was looking at Fire Imp or Ghitu Slinger for similar function. 1 damage from Mogg Fanatic et al doesn't kill enough creatures because Wrenn and Six and Liliana, the Last Hope have scared away all the X/1's except mana dorks, Ragavan and Dark Confidant.
Grim Lavamancer is the red creature that has done the job so far. However, the opponent can kill Lavamancer before it punches in, and it taxes the graveyard, and it only has 1 power.
~ has the flexibility of multikicker. I've been surprised that no one has picked up Vengeful Rebel or Wasteland Strangler.
- Game swinging potential against Reanimate or planeswalker ultimates.
- Gives the opponent creatures for Oath of Druids.
- Good in swarm strategies.
- Good with Polymorph.
- Is an instant and therefore good against counterspells.
- 3 life + tokens is very effective against aggro, even though the tokens enter tapped.
~ resolves turn five if suspended turn two, therefore you don't want to run anything that costs >4.
Even if you aren't on a land destruction strategy, ~ is a great sideboard card against artifact decks for killing Tolarian Academy, Mishra's Workshop and Urza's Saga.
Spell slots are hotly contested in 5 colour decks, therefore ~ may also need another kind of synergy, e.g. reward for instant/sorcery density, or simply being aggro where burning the face is desirable.
Note that you wouldn't run this with cascade or anything else that casts things for no mana.
Note that you wouldn't run this with cascade or anything else that casts things for no mana.
That zombie creature type is nice for Gravecrawler, which I've found very good in Hogaak decks.
Zero mana creatures are typically reserved for combo decks or hyper aggressive artifact decks; the kind of decks that don't want a grindy card like ~. Therefore we're aiming to turn on ~ with mana dorks.
One mana instants are better than usual with ~ because if you tapout to get the trigger, you still have the option of casting 1mana instants with the treasure token.
~ can trigger in each end step, so if you really want to maximise it you can run a bunch of flash creatures, but I don't think that's necessary to make it playable.
Each token is an artifact; very powerful with Tolarian Academy, Arcbound Ravager, Nettlecyst, etc.
I like this with Codie, Vociferous Codex alongside Crashing Footfalls and Ancestral Vision. Good to have a few so you don't run out.
Ancestral Vision is only run in the most controlly control decks because it is so slow to act if drawn later. Gaea's Will has the same timings as Ancestral Vision except it is weak to graveyard removal, and most control decks aren't green. Therefore, I only expect it to see play in decks that can cheat cast it, despite it being quite good if suspended naturally on turns 1, 2 or 3.
R.I.P. Crusade
From personal experience Glorious Anthem is too slow in Highlander but Honor of the Pure is good.
Mono green is often using mana dorks to jump from 1 mana to 3 so this is a little awkward on the curve but still strong in mono green.
I like to simplfy complicated things so I can understand them better, and once I understand them at that level, I'll go deeper. The simplification here is you choose to flip 2 coins everytime; On average ~ will deal 2 to you and your opponent (from combat) and draw you a card. That's a good deal. Dealing damage to yourself reduces the time you have to make use of the extra cards, so you want your average mana cost to be low. Otherwise you can extend the game by gaining life.
How many coins you choose to flip is very interesting and is based on your percieved position in the game. I could go deep right now thinking about it, or I can assume that ~ is going to cop a Lightning Bolt in the ass and save me the effort.
Nice with Death's Shadow.
One day I'll build a Krark's Thumb deck. It's been at the back of my mind for a while.
I tried this guy in Goblins but he was surprisingly ineffective because there are some mono black goblins and goblins without generic mana in their cost. Most of the goblins in my list cost 3 mana, so when I cast ~ on turn2, a lot of the time I would cast a 3cost goblin for 2 mana with a mana left over and more 3 cost goblins stuck in hand.
It lets you cast Muxus, Goblin Grandee earlier, which is good.
I can imagine ~ in a combo deck where it pays for an expensive activated ability that wins the game, e.g. Myr Incubator.
I can imagine a brief metagame window where artifacts are popular and you could run maindeck artifact hate and ways of turning your opponent's things into artifacts.
Back in 2004 Affinity was the best deck in Standard and some guys at my first LGS built a deck they called Trogdor, that ran 4x Oxidize and 4x Viridian Shaman maindeck. Bad times.
These days we have the tools for endless card advantage, regardless of colour choice. If you're heavy on card advantage, cards like ~ are excellent at regaining tempo.
The owner can put the spell back on top if they want. Therefore ~ is not an 'answer', but against escape and delve spells it's pretty close.
Excellent with Ephemerate.
This effect is worse than drawing cards. You need 3 copies plus the original to be better than Painful Truths.
Storm is in the market for a backup kill:
Gives storm combo a different angle of attack.
Massive mana boost in dedicated enchantment decks. Goes infinite with Freed from the Real and Pemmin's Aura
Replenish for 2 mana, crazy. Just run a bunch of mill/looting, Argothian Enchantress and all the best enchantments you can find.
INCARNATIONS
You can flicker ~ in with its trigger on the stack using Ephemerate.
~ can be returned with Thunderkin Awakener. This series of incarnations may make elemental tribal, playable, if it wasn't already.
Similar to Solitude's comments, i.e. the option of tempo early for an extra card or more value later when hardcast.
If you're mono blue with Lutri as your companion you can run ~ as removal if you're desperate.
Good against extreme combo where you don't care about card advantage.
Against hybrid combo decks it may be risky to evoke this because their midrange/control plan may grind you down. If you're going second, casting ~ on your turn4 may be too slow to hit their key combo card, therefore some acceleration can help you hit the sweet spot.
Eat your heart out Simian Grunts.
Endurance is the most exciting of the incarnations for me personally because it is an excellent nonblue answer to Thassa's Oracle + Tainted Pact/Demonic Consultation. I could write a whole article on ways to attempt to combat Thoracle combo because i've put a lot of thought into it. This is a set review however, therefore not the place; And it's not the time either. That time was February 2020 immediately after Thoracle's debut and domination of Highlander nationals. Today I'm too late, pain and results have been the teacher instead. With that said I must still give ~ its dues:
Other maindeckable nonblue disruption is either discard, which is tempo negative and can be undone by a reanimate/flashback effect, or it is something weird that requires weakening your deck against other matchups, e.g. Gideon of the Trials, Earwig Squad or an accelerated Blood Moon.
~ is a near perfect answer:
- It is hidden
- It costs 0 mana so you can apply pressure, forcing them to go for the combo without waiting for their own discard to check your hand
- It lets them commit their resources, i.e. casting Thoracle and Pact/Consult, which makes it hard for them to set up the combo again.
- It also leaves them with a library of only several cards.
Of course it isn't perfect. It requires a heavy green commitment, about 14 other green cards to consistently evoke it. The Thoracle player may Thoughtseize/Inquisition/Force of Will you. The Lurrus versions of Thoracle often runs Nihil Spellbomb, which can target their own graveyard so that they still win with the Oracle trigger. They may have cast a delve spell before they combo'd off so there's no graveyard to stop the Oracle trigger winning. On top of all that, the Oracle combo only takes up 2 slots in the deck, which means they're still a good deck without comboing off. Therefore, holding ~ and another green card in your hand, hoping that the opponent goes for the combo, may reduce your resources too much and you simply lose to Lurrus value or a giant delve threat from other versions.
Outside of anti-oracle applications, ~ has a nice reachy butt against Dragon's Rage Channeler, Delver of Secrets, Brazen Borrow, etc. However, if you pass with three mana up and your companion is still in your sideboard, it's going to be suspicious.
STORM
- Tendrils of Agony is clearly the best but sometimes it gets exiled.
- Brain Freeze requires a high storm count.
- Ignite Memories is at the mercy of the opponent's hand.
- Empty the Warrens can be outclassed by a few creatures.
~ won't be outclassed on board like Empty the Warrens can, but it is much harder to cast; It's 5 mana instead of 4 and can't be cast easily with Seething Song, Pyretic Ritual or Desperate Ritual. I haven't played storm so I can't be sure whether ~ is playable.
Elves can run ~.
A good Summoner's Pact option.
Aggro builds employing Hidden Herbalists and Burning-Tree Emissary can summon ~ early on.
~ goes in the same decks as Erayo, Soratami Ascendant, provided they can produce GG.
ENCHANTMENTS
ARTIFACTS
You also effectively get the mana back if you cast Armageddon, Ravages of War, Burning of Xinye or Jokulhaups. However, there aren't enough of those effects to effectively build around and they are expensive to cast.
I've been thinking lately that the most colours you want in an artifact deck is two, or three if you have green. However, this series of 10 lands will make me re-evaluate.
It bothers me that artifact lands don't have distinct borders like enchantment creatures do.
Power Depot having modular is good with Arcbound Ravager and Throne of Geth.
Makes Cranial Plating look bad.
Living weapon is good against Dack Fayden compared to other artifacts because you still control the germ.
I think ~ is the best 3drop in the monobrown deck; Better than Metalworker, better than Scrap Trawler.
~ also creates double artifact, which is pretty cool for Tolarian Academy and Cranial Plating, etc.
White artifact Lurrus aggro was already a good deck. MH2 has helped it a lot.
Beauty and the Beast vibes from the art.
Oftens costs just U, the same colour as Tolarian Academy, which I keep mentioning in the artifact section, very insightful.
There's a balance, you want cheap artifacts to fuel affinity/metalcraft/Tolarian Academy but you also want big things to cascade or ramp into. Walking Ballista, Hangarback Walker and Stonecoil Serpent are excellent in the artifact deck because they fit both of those roles, however they are bad with cascade. If you do whiff into an X spell, you still get a 4/4 flier for cheap though.
The more salamander's in my life, the better.
In my last set review I explained why I think UW or Bant Artifacts is a really strong. TL;DR Portable Hole and tutors for it.
Admittedly I haven't seen a Myr Enforcer cast in Highlander, but affinity for artifacts is a critical mass mechanic. There needs to be enough payoffs to reliably have them in hand for it to be worth running heaps of cheap crappy artifacts. Before MH2 we had Frogmite, Myr Enforcer, Thoughtcast and arguably Broodstar. Now we also have ~, Thought Monitor and Ethersworn Sphinx.
Great in Elves where you have lots of nontoken elves entering and lots of mana to crack those clues.
I also like her in Artifacts where she fuels Tolarian Academy and Academy gives you the mana to crack those clues.
Nice against Dack Fayden because like Batterskull, you still control the germ.
HARDENED SCALES
To improve outlast you want to give your creatures vigilance or untap them somehow, or use the +1/+1 counters outside of combat, e.g. Walking Ballista.
A joke compared to Walking Ballista, but the golden rule of Highlander is:
4 times fewer modular creatures in Highlander than Modern but they may print more.
REANIMATOR
We may see a divergence in Reanimator decks, i.e. legendary vs. non-legendary.
If they have heaps of dudes you choose 'creature' and hope they don't have removal for three turns. Otherwise you choose instant, sorcery or planeswalker dependent on what you think their outs are and hope you got it right.
~'s ETB and attack trigger makes it great with Sneak Attack and Through the Breach.
~ is just as fast as Entomb regarding the set up of a Strip Mine lock with Life from the Loam, therefore I expect it to see action there.
I'm a huge fan of Bloodghast against control decks and I love the combination of Bloodghast with Skullclamp. ~ is laughably worse than Entomb but I'm still happy to run it in a deck built to abuse Bloodghast. I'm talking Birthing Pod, all the tutors for Skullclamp and maybe even Contamination.
~ multiplies some sideboard cards like Ancient Grudge and Memory's Journey. There are others but they're less desirable, e.g. Ray of Revelation, Turn the Earth and Coffin Purge.
One of the bonuses of playing Reanimator is that a lot of popular removal is bad against the big fatties you're bringing back. If you run ~ in your Reanimator deck you're exposing yourself to Lightning Bolt, Fatal Push, etc. I suppose some builds are already do so because they run Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. In for a penny in for a pound.
The Oath of Druids builds don't want ~ obviously.
Creature combo decks may want this as proactive backup.
Reminds me of the Mutt Cutts van from Dumb and Dumber:
Incompatible with Oath of Druids bar some crazy token build. It's more suited to Recurring Nightmare where you have plenty of crew.
~ won't be able to imprint Emrakul, the Aeons Torn unless it enters instant speed in response to Emrakul's trigger.~'s imprint trigger doesn't target, making it better against targetted graveyard removal if you can manage to get more big creatures in your graveyard than they can exile.
Two huge inclusions for my Merfolk deck, especially Tide Shaper, a sorely needed 1drop. Below is my current list:
The madness mechanic has an identity crisis: Most of the cards are supposed to go in aggro strategies but the mechanic itself is more suited to control where you have removal to regain the tempo lost from playing spells which loot/rummage. I've tried building madness a couple times without success. I think it's all about hitting the right ratio of looting, madness and disruption within a Blood Moon resistant mana base. I'll try again soon.
Black, >3 toughness, >4 mana value; ~ may be hard to kill for some decks.
Much better than Bone Splinters.
I found Basking Rootwalla too weak to run in an aggressive madness deck. 1 power is anemic and 1G for +2/+2 was too mana intensive. ~ being half as much mana to activate (albeit for 2 less toughness) may be a lot better.
Not much to say here. Chonky aggro madness threat.
I've run Drake Haven in Madness and been happy with it. I've seen Wharf Infiltrator in a couple lists but I can't vouch for that one. ~ would sit somewhere between those two. I'll try squeeze it in next time I try madness.
One of the best madness cards because it regains you tempo that you lose from running looting cards and because Madness decks are short on space - First you need lands, then you need a bunch of discard outlets to consistently have one and then you need the madness cards as payoff. That leaves little room for much needed removal, especially since lots of the madness cards are creatures that can't get through a Tarmogoyf.
Good against swarm decks.
A cascade or Codie deck can run this against Reanimator.
A unique effect. Perhaps High Tide combo would want this against disruptive creatures post board.
You would only run this if you thought it likely you would verse a True-Name Nemesis, Inkwell Leviathan or Griselbrand. Unfortunately in the case of Griselbrand, most of the time they will activate before you gain priority to cast ~, unless they have haste, in which case they're more likely to attack to be on a higher life total before digging for their Force of Will, etc. 
The current metagame is more about creatures but that could change; Maybe a few points changes and some metagaming will lead to a control deck with several planeswalkers.
Outland Liberator is the new premier 'naturalize creature' for decks that can't cast Qasali Pridemage (you run both if you have the space). ~ will find it hard to breakthrough with those two overshadowing it, but I can imagine some situations, e.g. elemental tribal or cascade.
MERFOLK
Some relatively budget fun. Tropical Island being just under half the cost of the deck.
Deathrite Shaman
Cosi's Trickster
Cursecatcher
Kumena's Speaker
Mistcaller
Tide Shaper
Green Sun's Zenith
Coralhelm Commander
Deeproot Elite
Gaea's Skyfolk
Harbinger of the Tides
Lord of Atlantis
Master of the Pearl Trident
Merfolk Branchwalker
Merfolk Mistbinder
Merfolk Skydiver
Metallic Mimic
Silvergill Adept
Thieving Skydiver
Tidebinder Mage
Hullbreacher
Kopala, Warden of Waves
Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca
Merfolk Sovereign
Merrow Reejerey
Realmwalker
Svyelun of Sea and Sky
Thada Adel, Acquisitor
True-Name Nemesis
Wistful Selkie
Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
Mental Misstep
Daze
Force of Negation
Collected Company
Force of Will
Botanical Sanctum
Breeding Pool
Cavern of Souls
Flooded Grove
Flooded Strand
Misty Rainforest
Polluted Delta
Prismatic Vista
Scalding Tarn
Snow-Covered Forest
Snow-Covered Island
Snow-Covered Island
Snow-Covered Island
Zagoth Triome
Tropical Island
Unclaimed Territory
Verdant Catacombs
Waterlogged Grove
Windswept Heath
Wooded Foothills
Yavimaya Coast
Once Upon a Time
Umara Wizard
Glasspool Mimic
SIDEBOARD
Extract
Reef Shaman
Tidal Warrior
Collector Ouphe
Fumble
Masked Vandal
Saprazzan Legate
Riptide Pilferer
Rootwater Thief
Faerie Macabre
Lutri, the Spellchaser
Seasinger
Selkie Hedge-Mage
Chameleon Colossus
Master of Waves
MADNESS
Only playable for its madness cost.
The opponent needs to discard in their very next turn, so you're most likely getting a two-for-one. Players are respecting graveyards these days by running maindeck graveyard removal, therefore ~ may not have much power but that doesn't matter; Your madness cards should negate the discard trigger on your turn whilst whittling down their hand.
Discarding is the preferred mode to not lose tempo or board presence. Reanimator can make use of ~, as can Hermit Druid, Madness, Hogaak and Bazaar of Baghdad decks.
This really shows you how good Swords to Plowshares is.
THIS. IS. ROOTWALLAAAAA!
Can we also take a moment to appreciate how cute frill-necked lizards are:Regardless of its weakness, you still get value from discarding it, which is a lot more than you get from discarding the average playable creature. Therefore, in decks that are all-in on Bazaaar of Baghdad, ~ is great.
Named like a zombie lord but isn't one.
Acts like a Squee, Goblin Nabob for Bazaar of Baghdad decks except it's also fine to cast.Fuels looting effects nicely. Is a zombie for Gravecrawler in Madness; Prized Amalgam fits in their too.
'Asmorano' has pseudo madness because The Underworld Cookbook can be discarded to something later.
If you can manage to generate food ~ is amazing. Oko, Fae Offering and The Underworld Cookbook are the only methods I like currently. Witch's Oven as well if you're going really deep with Bloodghast and lots of tutors for it.
If Thassa's Oracle gets more points and falls off as the best Flash + Protean Hulk package, then Mogg Bombers could return, in which case ~ is a candidate for the ≈5 zero-mana creatures required in addition to the two 1mana creatures for 21 damage.
SIDEBOARD CARDS
Why they thought phasing would be a good mechanic to resurrect makes no sense to me. Just look at the Rulings for this card on Gatherer:
If you're running red, then Angrath's Rampage is maindeckable, but you could run both. If you aren't running many creatures then Innocent Blood could be better.
~ has superceded Liliana's Triumph, which superceded Diabolic Edict (unless you weren't running a Liliana and therefore Diabolic Edict is better for style points). I've seen Geth's Verdict in Red Black Aggro lists. I'm guessing the split second on ~ is more desirable than the 1 life loss.
Unusually the land this finds enters untapped, which helps pay for reequipping if you want.
~ is great against Storm though because it counters Black Lotus, Lion's Eye Diamond, Lotus Petal and anything reduced to zero mana by Helm of Awakening.
~ is great againt Channel combo.
There, I'm finally done. My biggest longest review by far. As customary, here are my picks for bestcards in set in rough power order:
Innistrad: Crimson Vow is only a couple weeks away and I haven't even done my AFR or Midnight Hunt set reviews yet, and their respective commander sets!
Highlander Nationals is scheduled at Cancon 2022 January 22nd-24th in Canberra. The convention is pending virus outbreaks but I'm very hopeful and expect it to go ahead. Hopefully see you there!
Mulch
