Three drop creatures in this deck are in a weird place. They aren't cheap enough to create an early advantage, but they're also not powerful enough to stabilize a board. That's not to say that they can't exist, but more that they don't at the moment. A printing like Kitchen Finks or Courser of Kruphix would slot nicely into this deck, but alas. For now, what we can get out of our three drop creatures is versatility.
Radha is very matchup dependent. The problem with her is that the matchups where she excels are the ones where removing a three mana 3/3 isn't a huge problem for the opponent. That said, she's good with Kazandu Mammoth et al, and she really only needs to hit one land off the top to be worth it. If you're the aggressor in the matchup, then she's definitely a must-deal-with threat, which is kind of all we can ask for. But again, the awkwardness of the three mana slot is that it's not always going get you value if they have the answer and also not cheap enough to be a good play if it trades one for one. She's also in this awkward place metagame-wise where she's a little more matchup-dependent than you'd like for a maindeck card but also not quite focused enough to be a sideboard card.
Where I've landed with Radha is that if you're gunning for Sultai, conrol, and midrange matchups, a one-of Radha is just fine. If you're spending more of you time on the back foot and facing Gruul, Goblins, and stuff like that, then Radha's maybe not what you're looking for.
Klothys is in a similar spot as Radha, in that having a one-of copy in your list is fine if the metagame calls for it, but it's not quite a focused enough card to be a sideboard card. That said, Klothys is less matchup dependent than Radha, and while it doesn't quite take over the game if left unchecked like Radha can, it provides a unique Uro-fighting ability, is hard to get off the table, and gives you inevitability against control decks. It seems that either gaining 2 life a turn, dealing 2 damage a turn, or exiling cards from the graveyard will be good against almost any opponent. That said, I would never go higher than one copy in the main deck because Klothys is uniquely hampered by the legend rule.
Jadelight Ranger might be the strongest three drop creature available to us, but the reason I don't play it is because of its mana cost. 1GG isn't impossible to cast or anything, but what Jadelight provides is an ability to make land drops and smooth your draws. Ideally our mana enablers are easy to cast, but adding Jadelight to the deck would decrease our consistency overall instead of increasing it. Jund Triome when????
I was high on this card when it was released, but quickly learned that it's not quite what we're looking for. The lesson for Nighthawk Scavenger is that, at least at the moment, you can't just pay three mana for power and toughness. Nighthawk is too easy to remove and also not powerful enough to stop any of the things our opponents are going to be doing.
Having said that, Nighthawk Scavenger might have a place at some point, because the numbers on the card are just so good. In Modern we play Tarmogoyf not because it disrupts the opponent, but because it kills them. If we get to the point where we're looking for threats just to attack people with, then Nighthawk is at the top of the list.
Mammoth has been fantastic. At first glance it doesn't seem like a card advantage card, but you've gotta remember, mulliganning is card disadvantage. Mammoth gives you more keepable hands, which is one of the advantages a deck like this is looking for. Unlike some of the other cards in this category, Mammoth doesn't just attack and block, but it does attack and block perfectly well for the flexibility it gives you. Five damage can kill in four hits, or it can kill a Teferi in one, so it's pretty important they get rid of this thing when it's on the table. Like I've been saying, the three drops in this format aren't going to blow you away with their power, and they're not coming out of the gates super fast, but what they can provide is some flexibility. Mammoth does this very well.
I wasn't writing in the blog at the time, but before the companion nerf, this was a Lurrus deck and it was fantastic. As for nowadays, Lurrus is still just a fine card to have in your deck. 3/2 Lifelink is honestly pretty good against a large portion of the field, and when your two-drops you can rebuy are things like Scavenging Ooze and Chevill, there's a ton of late game value and toolbox-ish gameplay available.
Lurrus runs into a lot of the problems that Legendary creatures have, where you can't really play too many of them. That would be fine, except that to get the most out of Lurrus, we'd like to be playing some specific things that are pretty subpar when you don't draw Lurrus. Dead Weight comes to mind, but you also want to have a lot of two drop creatures, more than you would probably play without Lurrus. Unlike Inscription of Ruin, where if you don't happen to have a creature in your graveyard you can do something else with it, Lurrus really wants to be reanimating things.
I like that Lurrus is a good three drop creature but also a good five drop creature. You have a lot of play with it and it's all powerful stuff that it's doing. But the downsides are pretty numerous, like how we open ourselves up to graveyard hate, how poorly it plays with Grafdigger's Cage, and how the legend rule can get us if we try to play too many copies. In the end, Lurrus is the perfect example of something I mentioned a while ago in a blog post (maybe it was a video? I forget). To get the most out of our cards, while also playing the midrange game of disruption, consistency, and being difficult to attack, start looking not only at tuning one deck but coming up with packages to slot in and out of the decks based on what the metagame is calling for. Lurrus doesn't have to have your whole deck built around it, but a 6-card "Lurrus Package" that includes two Lurrus, one Dead Weight, a Kroxa, and a couple Merfolk Branchwalkers might be a good trick to have practice with when you think the time is right.
Here is a pretty cool Lurrus deck that we can work from.
Deathgorge Scavenger is a little bit like Klothys in how flexible it is, but unlike Klothys the power level of this card is just a little too low. As I write this I have been playing one copy to fight Uro decks alongside the normal four Ooze and one Klothys, and it's been solid enough to keep in. While it does just about everything we want, it's probably just one mana too expensive, seeing how unlike Klothys, if it's really hampering the opponent's game plan then they can just kill it. Definitely a high-floor low-ceiling card.
Bonecrusher is a phenomenal card rate-wise and flexibility-wise, and it takes just about no work to make it good in the deck. Its only real problem is that the metagame right now is just not suited for it at all. Gruul's creatures are often too big for the Stomp half, and the other aggro decks of the format are running stuff like Witch's Oven, Village Rites, Alseid of Life's Bounty, and Skirk Prospector. The control decks can answer the 4/3 with stuff like Baffling End and Glass Casket without even taking damage from its ability, and it trades with Nissa Elementals.
Having said all of that, you still really can't go wrong by playing Bonecrusher Giant. Even if the deck isn't really focused too much on pressuring the opponent's life total, Bonecrusher can just end the game by itself pretty fast if left unchecked. Similarly to Kazandu Mammoth, if you're looking for a good creature to just attack and block with, choose the ones that give you some additional flexibility and consistency in your draws. This deck isn't blowing anyone's doors off in the power level end of things, so consistency and flexibility is where we make up ground.
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As ever, the next set coming out in a few weeks here will likely change things up, but I'm especially excited about Sarulf. I think it will add an important dimension to this deck and we'll have to revisit some of these things. Let me know if you think I missed anything or to give your own opinions. Thanks for reading.
Another great read really enjoy reading these.
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