We Pay The Teller Off In Gold

Hey folks, had a couple of follow up thoughts from the previous post, plus some observations from the first couple of days of this set.

Invasion of Azgol is awesome. My first experience with it is casting it on turn three and my opponent immediately conceding. It's not going to be that good all the time, but for a two mana card, the amount of power it has is pretty incredible. High ceiling, high floor, doesn't take a ton of work to pull it off. I think that you should play four if you have an aggressive slanted Jund or Rakdos deck.

I'm not 100% sure how to build around it yet. I haven't been that impressed with Grim Flayer in Explorer, at least not as much as I have been in Pioneer. The short answer is that there are more Bonecrusher Giants in Explorer, the long answer is that Pioneer is a format where games are less about value battles and more about setting up engines, and in that case, Grim Flayer is great at finding the tool you need to break up an opposing engine, but not great at actually giving you value, and not great at not getting beat up value-wise by Bonecrusher. The idea was that a four-power creature is perfect for attacking the Invasion, and that's true. However, while the perfect four-power 2 drop may not exist, things like Bonecrusher itself has been excellent at flipping battles, as has Evolved Sleeper alongside any other creature on turn 2. I've been playing about 10 or 11 copies total of Scavenging Ooze, Canterbloom, and Bloodtithe Harvester. I am also wondering if there's a way to make Chevill work alongside Invasion, but that's a post for another time. Also, maybe Reckoner Bankbuster? Or Heart of Kiran?

Invasion of Ikoria has been sweet in Modern. It's not changing the world or anything, but having a big gigantic creature for four mana that completely dominates a board and closes the game quickly is a great ability to have, especially because the Invasion itself is a flexible card you can do other stuff with. I think the hatebear toolbox aspect of Invasion of Ikoria isn't really what I'd hoped it would be, because the best stuff in Modern doesn't usually get absolutely hosed by a single creature. That said, a couple singleton Dauthi Voidwalker and stuff like that in the board isn't the worst idea ever. What has been as good as I'd hoped, or maybe better, is Zilortha just dominating the game when it comes down. Plus, there's other flexibility outside of the hate bear aspect, like finding a Dryad Arbor, or a Ragavan, or just going after a Tarmogoyf if it looks like you can flip the battle.

Outside of that, nothing too much to report, other than that Deeproot Wayfinder has potential and is not a bust. I haven't had a chance to try it myself, but I have seen some lists online that have done well with it in Modern and Legacy. Now, there are also a couple of cards that I didn't mention in the previous post that I'd like to go over.

Sheoldred is likely to find a place as a sideboard slot in decks where you're looking for a good five mana card as a midrange hammer, but are trying to cover a wider range of decks. Glorybringer has its applications, as does Elder Gargaroth, Angrath, Lolth the Spider Queen, etc. I also like The Eldest Reborn, especially when I'm playing Jegantha. In non-Jegantha decks, I wouldn't be surprised if Sheoldred was just the best thing going in that slot. It has a certain amount of immediacy that we're looking for, like a Planeswalker or Glorybringer does, but also has the ability to take over a game if you untap with it like Gargaroth does. Eight cards in the graveyard isn't a gimme, but in the late game it should be fairly likely to happen, and 4/5 menace is a great stat line.

One of the problems I run into every time I try and tune this deck is that I have a hard time figuring out which three-drop cards I want to play. Liliana, Riveteers Charm, Fable of the Mirror Breaker, Kolaghan's Command, those are some of the best, but I also really miss playing stuff like Inscription of Ruin, Murderous Rider, Courser of Kruphix, and Briarbridge Tracker. Tons of options at that slot, and they all have their merits. What interests me about Nahiri's Warcrafting is that you can cast it on curve as a removal spell just fine, but it scales up nicely later in the game. So, in reality it's a four drop, in the same way that Courser is, except you can cast it early if you want to. Shoot your creature, find a land, make my land drop for free, that's a fine turn four. However, you also have the ability to wait until even later and start digging for action. On six mana, Warcrafting a creature and finding something like a Fable or even just some two-drop creature, now we are cooking. So you get all this flexibility baked into a card that's just sorcery-speed Hero's Downfall, plus you can pop off your own battle if you have nothing else going on. I think there's potential here, a low-risk/high-reward card that can smooth out the top end of the curve. I'm currently playing a Jegantha build, but if that changes, then I think this is worth a slot or two. Also, it was like 30 cents, so I spec bought 58 copies. I hope they're good!

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That's it for today. I think the thing I'm most excited about actually is the Invasion of Ikoria in Modern, that seems sweet. This point in the baby's life is not ideal for Magic content creation, but she'll be more independent soon. Thanks for reading.