(Volatile Stormdrake | Art by Xavier Ribeiro)

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Modern Downpour

Hello! Welcome to the Modern Horizons 3 set review for blue–or should I say Commander Horizons? Because a lot of these new cards are going to be great for Commander. Whether it's for 1v1 or 4-player games, this set offers new and exciting cards that will juice up multiple formats. Come with me as we look beyond the horizon for what's in store for the future of Commander.

Mythics

Shadow of the Second Sun

A cheaper Sphinx of the Second Sun that's on a harder-to-remove permanent is pretty significant upgrade. There's been an influx of Upkeep-Matters decks, like Obeka, Splitter of Seconds and The Ninth Doctor, and I can see this slotting in to get additional upkeeps without needing the commanders to be out. It'll let you untap your creatures to hold up blockers or reuse creatures with activated abilities.

Ugin's Binding

The only saving grace to not seeing this card everywhere is needing to cast a colorless spell with mana value seven or greater. Otherwise, we'd have to deal with two Cyclonic Rifts. If you are running big colorless spells, you can have a free board wipe on top of casting your spell. Luckily, there isn't a commander that will trigger this since this can only be played in a blue deck, and the only one that has Devoid is Ulalek, Fused Atrocity, which is five mana.

That being said, this will probably see more play in artifact decks, where casting a big artifact spell for a reduced mana cost isn't difficult to achieve. Ugin's Binding will exile itself, so this won't be as bad as someone recurring Cyclonic Rift over and over again. Depending on how mean the Eldrazi player wants to be, they could bounce all your nonland permanents so they can swing in their creatures with Annihilator and force you to sacrifice your lands. It'll be downright disrespectful and maybe a few choice words will be spoken.

Rares

Amphibian Downpour

An Aura storm could get out of hand in the right deck. Having multiple token copies enter will be excellent for Constellation permanents, like Eidolon of Blossoms and Setessan Champion. And this will slot in nicely into a Eutropia the Twice-Favored deck that can pop off with this card. This card is pretty similar to Asinine Antics with the bonus that Amphibian Downpour forces those creatures to lose all abilities.

Notably, they do become Frogs, so if you're playing a Grolnok, the Omnivore deck and desperately need Frogs, you can turn your mana dorks into said Frogs and then swing to trigger Grolnok. There's also the chance that Eriette, the Beguiler will also want this. The token copies of Amphibian Downpour will retain a mana value of three, so any creature with three or less mv will come under your control, but they'll lose all abilities. They are still good for blockers or removing creatures from someone else's board.

Aurora Shifter

Consistent ways to generate energy counters are key to the success of Energy decks since they're usually generated with enter-the-battlefield (ETB) triggers. Aurora Shifter can copy one of your stronger creatures, presumably one with evasion, to generate more than just one energy counter a turn. It requires some work to get going, but if you copy a Dragon or another big creature that can get through for damage, Aurora Shifter will be a great source of energy.

Benthic Anomaly

Very cool, it's sort of like The Mimeoplasm where you can create your own monster. We could copy a small creature that has unblockable or evasion and then choose the two biggest creatures on board, or grab the three biggest creatures on board to make a massive Eldrazi. And since this creature is a token copy, we can populate it to make a whole board of these Eldrazi. This could be a good inclusion in decks helmed by Cayth, Famed Mechanist.

Copy Land

Copy Land is an interesting way for blue to ramp without artifacts, but you're probably not using this as a way to get one land for three mana. While this can copy anyone's land on the battlefield, you're most likely running this to copy your own Ancient Tomb, Gaea's Cradle, or even a Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. In lands-matter decks, like the new Omo, Queen of Vesuva, this will be great to copy your utility lands or any land that produces more than one mana.

Dreamtide Whale

Vanishing 2 makes me chuckle because this will never go away on its own, right? Getting this down early might lead to that possibility, but I highly doubt it since you can trigger this yourself. Dreamtide Whale is solid in any deck running counters. Getting free proliferate triggers off your opponents taking normal game actions is going to accelerate your game plan.

While yes, opponents could play around it by not playing a second spell, it's still a hard ask. Especially when this can trigger for each player, each time they cast a second spell that turn so this will trigger like crazy on any turn where there's a lot of interaction.

Also, a little behind the scenes here, I just realized it's a 7/5? I was more focused on its abilities, but holy cow. I get this was designed with Modern in mind, but this is pushed for Commander.

Flare of Denial

Free counterspells are always going to be powerful, but this one at least has a more restrictive alternative casting cost. This is better in decks that have expendable blue creatures, like Slither Blade, that can be played in the early game. Flare of Denial works well with Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow that runs a lot of cheap blue creatures. However, this isn't the next Force of Will as it won't be able to counter a spell during the first turn at a higher-powered table like cEDH where someone might start going off before you've even had your first turn. Flare of Denial is good, but not broken.

Harbinger of the Seas

Harbinger is a blue Magus of the Moon that still lets you play out counterspells if needed but is nonetheless devastating if you're running multiple colors. Turning your opponents' lands into islands has a lot more utility to it than Blood Moon as it can allow creatures with Islandwalk to attack any opponent. On top of being good with Cold-Eyed Selkie, this will let your Carpet of Flowers produce a ton of mana–which makes me think this is better in blue-green decks than in mono-blue.

March from Velis Vel

March from Velis Vel can really go off in decks that will have a creature with a static ability or an attack ability that you want to get multiple copies of. But with the restriction of nonbasic land types, this will have to be a specific deck that this goes in. This works well with Omo, Queen of Vesuva since you're giving lands every land type, but outside of that, you'll get more mileage out of this in Gate decks. None of the Desert-themed decks have blue in them, and after Gates and Deserts, you don't have many other land deck themes prominent enough to make this work. If you're in running Nine-Fingers Keene as your commander, you can turn your gates into a Blossoming Tortoise to dig for more Gates.

Nulldrifter

It's effectively a second Mulldrifter but isn't as good in blink or reanimator decks. If you do reanimate Nulldrifter, the Annihilator 1, trigger can be bothersome for opponents, but hard casting this for seven isn't great. However, the decks that will want this are Eldrazi/Big Mana decks that will appreciate casting early for the card draw but later will get to trigger something like Ugin's Binding that cares about big creatures.

Strix Serenade

With creatures like Grand Abolisher and Dockside Extortionist that need to be answered on the stack, this is going to be just as strong as Swan Song. Creatures nowadays are designed to do something as soon as they come in, so having a cheaper Essence Scatter that can hit artifacts and planeswalkers too is going to make it an instant Commander staple.

Volatile Stormdrake

Hexproof from triggered abilities prevents it from being countered by Ward, which is nice. You don't even need to be an energy deck to run this. You can keep the creature if it's small, or let it die to get a death trigger. You can take someone's Esper Sentinel, or their commander since there are plenty of commanders at four or less mana value.

Wonderscape Sage

Having an easy way to return lands to hand so you ensure landfall triggers each turn is solid. And then if you're running several lands with nonbasic land types, this is just a good card draw engine. Even if you're not running nonbasic land types, specifically, you can still use this to discard cards you want in the graveyard. While this is better used in a Landfall deck, I think Wonderscape Sage has a lot of good applications in other decks.

Uncommons & Commons

Bespoke Battlewagon

Bespoke Battlewagon has some decent effects attached to it, if you have excess energy counters you want to spend, but the real value is being able to have a permanent that can repeatedly give you energy rather than on ETB. And it's great in decks that have ways to untap artifacts.

Brainsurge

Decks that focus on top-deck manipulation will want this as their second Brainstorm. Being able to put cards from hand on top of your deck is powerful when it's either to drain your opponents through Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow or to cast it for free with Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign will be great for your game plan.

Consign to Memory

So it's a partial Stifle that can hit colorless spells? Might be good in some metas like cEDH where being able to counter someone's Mana Crypt or their Dockside Extortionist. If you were to run this, I don't think there's any need to Replicate this for more than one. If you do counter with Consign to Memory, what are the chances that the opponent will have two counterspells in hand unless it's cEDH? Sidenote, if you're dealing with a creature or permanent that has a high Ward cost, you can use Consign to Memory to counter the ward, since it's a triggered ability.

Copycrook

Average costing clone, but with Connive, which can be synergistic in decks that want to discard cards to fill their graveyard, draw additional cards for turn, or even in +1/+1 counter strategies. In decks that want either of those or just more clones, Copycrook will fill any role you need.

Emrakul's Messenger

Solid mono-blue ramp. It'll be great in decks that have commanders that reliably draw a card second card each turn. It's an additional token maker for Second-Draw-themed decks and it produces fodder for decks that want to sacrifice creatures or care when creatures die.

Hydroelectric Specimen

A single-use Spellskite that could also be an untapped land is pretty good. Holding up three mana to redirect a removal spell can be difficult, but at the cost of also being a land means you could just swap this for an island and it'd be negligible. The times when this could save your commander from biting the dust will outweigh the times you wish you had a basic island.

Kozilek's Unsealing

This is so strong. I don't know how this is an uncommon. You get mana back for casting bigger creatures and those Eldrazi Spawns can help cast a bigger creature so you can draw three cards. You'd have to be running a deck with a decent number of bigger creatures to make it work, which could slow down your deck, but this makes that gameplan so much easier. Simply rewards you for playing big creatures. You can run this in an Eldrazi or Sea Creature themed decks. This is also perfect for an Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty deck.

Roil Cartographer

Another good energy producer that can draw three cards if you have the energy to spare. And if there comes a point where you're missing land drops, tapping Roil Cartographer to draw three will help you find more lands and keep the engine going.

Sink into Stupor

I'm a big fan of modal double-faced cards (MDFCs) with a land half. Knowing that the back half of a card is a land lessens the mental strain of trying to remember both halves of a card. I'll take an over-costed effect if it means it could be a land in some cases. Sink into Stupor is a more expensive Unsubstantiate that can hit any nonland permanent and it's an easy shoe-in for any blue deck.

Over the Horizon

This set contains cool new cards that I'm excited to run in my decks. My want list keeps growing the more I look through this set. Some cards are strict upgrades to older versions, others beef up strategies that have had less support, like energy, and I'm excited to see what people build from this set.

Let me know your thoughts about these new blue cards down below and I'll see you next time!

Joshua Wood

Josh is a creative writer that started playing Magic when Throne of Eldraine was released. He loves entering combat and pressuring life totals, and to him, commander damage is always relevant. Outside of brewing many commander decks, he can be found prepping his D&D campaigns with a cat purring in his lap.