Modern Horizons 2 EDH Set Review: Gold/Multicolored
Hello everyone, welcome to the Commander's Herald Modern Horizons 2 EDH set review! We're continuing things with the black cards in the set. There's some wacky cards in the Modern Horizons 2 EDH side of things, so let's dive in!
More Modern Horizons 2 EDH Set Review Content
New Commanders
Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar
Nothing like starting an EDH set review with a ridiculous card name! Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar is a madness commander, both in pronounceability and function. Sure, we ostensibly have Miss Anje Falkenrath to lead madness decks, but 99% of the time you see her she's just being used to filter down to a super exciting and original Worldgorger Dragon combo or something. Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar legit wants you to be discarding cards for profit beyond just hitting a game-winning combo, and that's interesting.
The downside here is that you're not in colors that make food easily, or that copy food tokens. Worse, her ability to use them as creature removal is fairly redundant in colors that excel at removing creatures. Still, she's an absolute flavor win, pun intended, and the value generated by always having access to her "partner" in The Underworld Cookbook is nice. All told you're building her it's for fun or flavor and not for strength.
Carth the Lion
If you're looking to make a superfriends deck that isn't five colors, Carth the Lion is an excellent choice. Plus he continues a long and storied tradition of giving white's design space to green, but doing it way, way, way better. That's always nice to see. Nature is healing.
There's a lot of cards that interact with Carth in powerful ways, too. Helm of the Host is going to let you roll up loyalty really quickly with multiple Carths in play. The Chain Veil and Doubling Season are obviously strong in any superfriends list. And green has access to all kinds of proliferate effects, including things like Planewide Celebration. Having access to black makes these all very easy to tutor up or draw into as well. All in all, the compact nature of a two color deck might well make this the best option for a superfriends list.
Garth One-Eye
Finally, a card that makes Deadeye Navigator playable. Get used to blink shenanigans making infinite Black Lotus tokens before casting a Braingeyser for a gazillion to draw you out. That's all Garth One-Eye is going to get used for. That said, there's already a gazillion ways to go infinite out of the zone. What's one more? Plus it's kinda cool to see a Lotus pop up in EDH even if it's a token.
Flavor-wise he's a homerun, reproducing some of the most iconic cards from back in Alpha. They also made him cost actual WUBRG to cast vs copping out like they've been wont to do in recent years with cards like Kenrith the Returned King. Forcing an actual possible downside to having access to every card and color is appreciated. I just wish he cast spells written on medallions stored in a satchel, which is something I vaguely remember him doing in the book I read in 1996 but am too lazy to go look up right now.
General Ferrous Rokiric
gives you a 4/4 whenever you cast a Boros Charm or Master Warcraft. That's pretty good, if perhaps a touch workmanlike. The hexproof from mono-colored isn't nothing, either. A quick check of EDHREC shows 4 of the top 5 most popular targeted removal instant spells as mono-colored. It also dodges 3 of the top 5 sorceries and 5 of the top 5 enchantment removal spells.
Amazon also currently has a good deal on tokens for the deck.
Grist, the Hunger Tide
Congrats to whomever had "planeswalker commander that can be regenerated with Swarmyard" on their Modern Horizons 2 EDH set review bingo card, because Grist, the Hunger Tide gets you there. It's aggressively costed, can be your commander, is a rules nightmare, is easy to recur from the graveyard, and has dope artwork; what's not to love?
Okay, there's a few things. For starters, there's only 145 legal insects to run in your deck, and 137 of them are pretty terrible. You're also probably going to need to run some amount of topdeck manipulation to best utilize the +1 ability. Luckily Sensei's Divining Top and Sylvan Library are universally great cards. In the 99 it's going to do work too, self milling and removing threats, and decks like Meren of Clan Nel Toth can very easily bring it back to play.
Lonis, Cryptozoologist
Everyone has a friend who whenever some weird corner case mechanic is released tries to brew around it. It's nice to see "hey imma build a clue deck" guy finally get reward with Lonis, Cryptozoologist. The deck is probably straightforward; jam a bunch of mana dorks, maybe mass blink them, and sac those clues to steal swole beaters and value cards from your opponents. Inspiring Statuary is going to be an all-star here too. The new Rise and Shine is also a possible backup win condition particularly given green's suite of Overrun effects.
Piru, the Volatile
Turning the old Legends elder dragon upkeep cost into a gameplay mechanic on Piru, the Volatile is inspired. Yeah, eight mana in Mardu is a ton, but if you live that long you can probably gain 100 life pretty easily with just one missed up upkeep. Throw in a Repercussion and you probably kill a few people. Piru is also in reanimation colors making it fairly trivial to repeatedly cast her and let her die if that's your strategy.
Sythis, Harvest's Hand
Sythis, Harvest's Handis a really good card, but I think there are better options in the zone for an enchantress deck. That's not to say it's not good there; it absolutely is. But given the riches we've been given in recent years (Armored Skyhunter, Calix, Destiny's Hand, Satyr Enchanter, Season of Growth, Setessan Champion, Siona, Captain of the Pyleas, Sram, Senior Edificer) it's less vital to have that engine in the zone than it once was, particularly given how easily green can tutor up creatures. That wasn't always the case. I recall getting Eidolon of Blossoms in Theros and being thrilled at getting that 5th option. Today though it's super easy to have 1-2 in your opening hand. As a result having a readily accessible win condition that protects itself in the zone like Sigarda still feels significantly more useful than casting Sythis and hoping you can protect her.
She should be hard jammed in any enchantress list however, and even if I don't think she's the best option in the zone she's still going to be very good.
Yusri, Fortune's Flame
You either like Yusri, Fortune's Flame or hate it, depending on how you feel about coin flipping. There's not much middle ground there. It'll be fighting with Okaun, Eye of Chaos and Zndrsplt, Eye of Wisdom for a place atop the same deck, too. No matter which you pick however, the other will go in the deck.
Lifelink options like Loxodon Warhammer or Witch's Clinic will also do a lot to make losing flips be a non-factor. Expect to see Krark's Thumb and the usual coin flip suspects to pop in price again as well, particularly Frenetic Efreet as it goes infinite.
New Modern Horizons 2 Mythics
Dakkon, Shadow Slayer
Dakkon, Shadow Slayer enters the battlefield with loyalty equal to the number of lands you control, which is a nice callback to his OG Legends card. He scouts, he kills creatures, and he forges artifacts in reference to making the Blackblade. All are useful abilities, and all are flavor wins. Three mana is a really aggressive cost, too, so that's useful. Expect to see him in esper artifact decks as a recursion option and just general value engine.
Geyadrone Dihada
Geyadrone Dihada was Dakkon's nemesis in one of Magic's earliest storylines, and like him her card reflects her abilities in the story. She also remains consistent with what we've come to expect from a Grixis planeswalker. Steal stuff decks like Marchesa, the Black Rose might have a home for her, as might Nicol Bolas, the Ravager lists.
New Modern Horizons 2 Rares
Master of Death
Surveiling is always useful, as is recursion, and Master of Death does both. Both tribes on this card also tend to take advantage of putting cards in the yard, so I expect to see Master of Death showing up in zombie lists and in decks like Kess, Dissident Mage. It also makes for a really attractive Skullclamp target.
Moderation
Moderation seems like the kind of card you don't want, unless you're one of the 750+ people on EDHREC playing Ephara, God of the Polis. Ephara decks often try and spread their spells around as much as possible anyway, so Moderation doesn't have much downside there and is almost all upside.
Priest of Fell Rites
Priest of Fell Rites sacrifices itself to bring a thing back to the battlefield. Those are two things a lot of decks want to do, and that's before we get to the ability to do it all again with Unearth. Cleric decks are probably a little disappointed this is a warlock, but most everyone else won't care. It's just a lot of value for a 2/2 body for WB.
Territorial Kavu
Territorial Kavu is another aggressively costed creature. He'll rarely be larger than a 3/3 in most landfall decks, and will more often than not be a 2/2, but hating graveyards and rummaging are always useful options to have on attack.
New Modern Horizons 2 Uncommons and Commons
Arcus Acolyte
is a 2/2 with reach, lifelink and outlast. That's a lot of value on an uncommon. It also gives each other creature you control without a +1/+1 counter on it outlast for a hybrid G/W mana. That last line of text might be what makes the card EDH playable. There's plenty of counter decks out there that run cards that themselves don't get +1/+1 counters by default, and Arcus Acolyte gives you a repeatable way to stick that first counter onto your Corpsejack Menace so it can take advantage of it's own ability.
Combine Chrysalis
Combine Chrysalis turns all those clues, foods and treasures into 4/4 beasts with flying at the cost of 2GU. That seems a little steep, but the fact that it passively gives your tokens flying offsets it somewhat. I think more often than not I'd rather just run Eldrazi Monument here. Still, UG to give your tokens evasion is worth a slot in some decks.
Ethersworn Sphinx
Ethersworn Sphinx is going to be a 2 mana 4/4 with flying that potentially cascades into 9 drops. I said potentially, because you could also hit that one drop with her. Still, in an artifact heavy list this is probably a decent piece of value given how easy it will be to achieve the full affinity reduction.
Lazotep Chancellor
Lazotep Chancellor is another zombie wizard that is interesting to both zombie lists and Kess, Dissident Mage decks. Both always want cards in the yard, and giving you a body that gets bigger is a nice payoff.
Ravenous Squirrel
Ravenous Squirrel gets straight jammed into every Chatterfang, Squirrel General deck, and maybe shows up in something like Korvold, Fae-Cursed King where it can get flush with counters just accidentally as the deck does what it does.
A Second Horizon
That's going to wrap up coverage of the gold and multicolored cards from the Modern Horizons 2 EDH Set Review. If you'd like to share your thoughts on any of these newest additions to our EDH card pool, sound off in the comments below, and thanks for reading!
