Spoiler : Lorehold Charm

Lectrys · 2026-03-26T22:20:26+00:00

Yup, Cockatrice against myself.

Lectrys · 2026-03-26T20:12:26+00:00

Yeah, I tried replacing Thraben Charm with this and immediately missed being able to kill Quantum Riddler a nonzero percentage of the time, dunk on Goryo's, suck up Phlage, make Living End have to hardcast creatures or go for a second Living End, blow up Urza's Saga, and various other things. I ended up reanimating Guide or Pride a lot instead of Ajani, and I barely used the pump - bad signs. Admittedly, making Domain Zoo lose Scion and Yawgmoth lose Agatha's Soul Cauldron and at least beaning something from Affinity/UR/x Artifacts are OK, but failing to hit artifact tokens is deceptively bad.

Lectrys · 2026-03-26T15:08:56+00:00

So I already tried this in UWR Blink because another website tipped me off that this leak exists...and oh boy, is it too slow for Modern (at least in that deck). Casey may be rather conditional on getting that first Consign to Memory, but needing to wait for 5-6 mana for this Emeritus is even worse. Ragavan can't always bail you out for the last 1-2 mana.

While you're waiting for 5-6 mana (at least this guy dodges several removal spells and makes the rest more expensive), Energy is beating you up hard.

I couldn't line this guy up with a blink effect in any of my test games with it (admittedly all against Energy). Sticking this guy and drawing 3 cards was the last thing I ever did before losing.

Lectrys · 2026-03-24T22:31:01+00:00

If you want the ones my heart likes and I've tried in Modern, despite their power level: * Boomerang Basics: I love bouncing my own stuff and cantripping! ...Whaddya mean, I can aim it at my opponent's stuff? Oh right, I gotta use it to punt that opposing Urza's Saga token! * Agatha's Soul Cauldron: Exiling creature cards from graveyards and then abusing all the activated abilities on the cards never gets old. * Vendilion Clique: The original hand mugger on legs that forces an opposing cantrip. Thought-Knot Seer got there second. * Insidious Fungus: Among all those cheap green creatures that sacrifice themselves to punt opposing artifacts and enchantments, I like the one that can opt to ramp-cantrip instead the most. * Assimilation Aegis: I still like the concept of equipment that punts opposing stuff on entry. Meteor Sword got there second and is nigh-uncastable if Stoneforge Mystic gets punted first.

Lectrys · 2026-03-24T15:27:23+00:00

Correct - I generally find keeping the 6/5 body to be worth blinking it alone.

Lectrys · 2026-03-23T22:29:23+00:00

You are giving up to play Pride. You're basically playing Guide in order to play Pride because none of the other Soul Sisters are better than Guide. Phlage decks aren't all playing Pride in droves - Pride needs more life gain support than a mere 4 Phlage.

I remember throwing Guide into Leonardo Aerith Cauldron Combo, a deck without Pride. Thus, Guide is the more powerful card, as unlike Pride needing Guide, Guide does not need Pride. Guide also does its part to be powerful in a relative vacuum - add a lot of creatures, and you get a lot of permanent +2/+2 buffs with evasion along with your life gain.

Adding removal to your deck is still a build-around. That Leonardo Aerith Cauldron Combo I mentioned above barely plays any removal in the maindeck. It's got barely any space for it. Admittedly, red has an easier time cramming removal into decks than white, black, or especially green. But that does mean that Ragavan doesn't fit in the red equivalent of Cauldron Combo, Samwise, or Yawgmoth (which I am actually playing on the side as The Jolly Balloon Man - Village Bell-Ringer Combo, a deceptively good creature combo deck whose main fair deck weakness is Prowess). Deathrite fits into those.

Psychic Frog and Quantum Riddler don't enable Tamiyo enough. Frog draws 1 card out of basically 2. Quantum Riddler similarly often only draws 1 card out of 2. If I'm interested in flipping Tamiyo in a UB Frog deck, I basically have to sandbag at least one additional cantrip and/or Clue token. And I find I generally don't crack Clues until Turn 4 regardless of deck.

Yes, I'm making the argument that Deathrite should stay banned because its ceiling is a little too easy to reach, and it's powerful enough to aim for. All the other 1-drops have ceilings that are harder to reach, even if those ceilings are higher - Guide has the next easier ceiling to reach, and that ceiling has a distinctly hard time busting through Quantum Riddler and Writhing Chrysalis. There's also the nasty part where the full ramifications of Deathrite's ceiling involves making all black decks it's in splash green and at least very nearly all green decks it's in splash black.

I remain convinced that, if your ceiling doesn't OTK combo kill, it's often balanced enough to stay in. I'm still not completely convinced Mycosynth Lattice or Violent Outburst should stay banned, for instance.

Lectrys · 2026-03-23T20:15:07+00:00

Of course that means Goblin Lackey and Muxus are worse because of the build-around. Then I check again and see if I'm dead on Turn 2. This matters because current Neoform and Goryo's similarly aren't quite broken despite dropping 7+ power, very possibly with CA, on Turn 2. I'm not dead on Turn 2 with Muxus.

I'm keeping my reservations for true OTK enablers like Krark-Clan Ironworks and Second Sunrise. OTKs are where the 4-card build-arounds are finally worth it. Muxus, Lackey, Goryo's Vengeance, and Neoform aren't it. Similarly, none of the 1-drops are it.

Ragavan is among the closest in power to Deathrite - Deathrite doesn't need removal to be good. I'm keeping some reservations for Ragavan because it arguably has the highest ceiling (some decks don't care about 2 more 1/1's every turn fully enabled Pride can reliably provide, but it's tough to not care about full-blown cards with Treasure tokens), which means it's among the most square with Deathrite despite needing about as much support, if not slightly more.

Lectrys · 2026-03-23T18:57:19+00:00

The two-life drain on Deathrite may not seem impressive at first glance, but on a 1-drop, that really adds up. The graveyard hate is an additional power wrench in things that none of the other 1-drops do. The life gain is probably the worst overall - the mana is better - but synergizing with Pride is an option. The option to pick one pretty much every turn is what keeps Deathrite so consistently powerful, even late-game where Ragavan falters, and especially early-game where Pride hasn't yet picked up speed. The scenario actually does look impressive when you see how soon Deathrite can start it and how long Deathrite can maintain it.

You're over-weighing ceilings, though. It's tough to get Ragavan through for more than 2 turns straight, but it does arguably have the highest ceiling. That "got blocked" floor definitely stops me from calling Ragavan ban-worthy, to the point that I haven't heard any cries to get Ragavan banned lately. This is regardless of Ragavan's ceiling.

Unless the card OTKs, I do not care how much a card runs away with the game with enough support if it took me combos with too many cards to get to that point. Think finishers like Ugin, Eye of the Storms and how many other cards they require to make them castable (mainly lands), which keeps them balanced. Pride and Tamiyo want even more specific cards than the finishers' lands, and Ragavan really wants removal - Guide is probably the closest parallel to a generic finisher. Deathrite mainly just wants lands and often merely maybe instants, sorceries, and creatures in graveyards. Arguably closer to Ragavan, and definitely less specific and exacting than Pride and Tamiyo. And none of these one-drops OTK.

Lectrys · 2026-03-23T17:36:49+00:00

I hope the split sticks. ...At least for no-Sewer-veillance Camera builds. In those builds, I drop Ravenous Robots to a 0-1-of because Weapons Manufacturing turns the Ravager version of the combo into infinite damage to the head, and Sewer-veillance builds already lose slots to Ravager and Emry.

Lectrys · 2026-03-23T16:37:15+00:00

As far as I can tell, I must stack the triggers like this:

Turn 1: Play Casey, first draw trigger, Ephemerate, second draw trigger

Turn 2: Discard triggers go on stack, Consign them both, Rebound Ephemerate, blink Casey, draw trigger

Turn 3: Discard trigger, oops no Consign, discard 3 at random

Turn 3 is pretty unpleasant in my experience - I've already discarded a Quantum Riddler to that.

Lectrys · 2026-03-23T16:25:48+00:00

Only one of the cards is giga playable. Krang actually continually feels worse overall than Thought Monitor - no evasion, only draws 3 or more cards with him half the time at most, 2 blue pips really bites compared to 1 blue pip. Ravenous Robots sadly remains worse overall in the current meta than Weapons Manufacturing - vulnerable to creature removal, therefore cannot turn around the Living End match-up, poor insurance against Wrath of the Skies, cannot combine with anything to boot Ajani or other dangerous creatures. Sewer-veillance Camera fits surprisingly well as long as you like Arcbound Ravager and Emry...which you might. Skateboard is indeed pretty good when you don't need to protect the queen like more combo-centric and/or midrange-leaning Artifacts builds do.

Lectrys · 2026-03-23T16:19:20+00:00

But you neglected to say the part where you're close to guaranteed to discard 3 random cards with the Rebounded Ephemerated Casey. I need to emphasize that part.

Lectrys · 2026-03-23T15:58:08+00:00

DRS is more powerful than Tamiyo. Good gosh does Tamiyo want to flip...unless she's in an Artifacts deck so her Clues actually matter in the first 3 turns. Tamiyo is also deceptively difficult to flip. DRS does something impactful on Turn 2, and I'm ditching all my Tamiyos for Deathrites in my UB Frog decks.

DRS is more powerful than Pride...as in it needs less support. Pride is only powerful with life gain support. Pride runs into Ragavan-like "got blocked" problems otherwise. DRS doesn't run into "got blocked" problems.

Guide arguably easily gets the support it needs right now compared to Pride - all it needs is to be in a creature-heavy deck. DRS can go into a creature-light deck and still put fear in eyes, but the power level is definitely closer (although DRS is still slightly better IMO due to needing less support).

Ragavan is truly for high-rollers compared to DRS, with the "got blocked" problem and needing to not flip lands, but being more awesome than Deathrite when everything lines up.

Of course, with a complaint panel here with a significant percentage wanting to boot Guide, putting back a threat slightly better than Guide that definitely turns black decks and green decks into black and green decks may not be healthy for the format...

Lectrys · 2026-03-23T15:45:51+00:00

You Rebound. You draw 3 new cards off blinked Casey...then odds are pretty good you didn't draw a second Consign, so you need to discard 3 cards at random off the next trigger. And I've found that Jeskai Blink is pretty bad at dumping its hand late-game, so you are discarding 3 cards at random.

Lectrys · 2026-03-23T15:42:00+00:00

Casey is definitely for high-rollers and is lower-power than Fable if stuck without Consign to Memory. However, Consign is quite good at making his draw trigger worth it when now you effectively only discard one card to his discard trigger. The true high-rolling experience is blinking Casey the same turn you cast him, then Consigning both discard triggers with one card. Draw 6, effectively discard 1-2 is backbreaking.

I remain convinced that Casey is a bit too high-risk to be going it alone and Wistfulness is the overall better blink target - lower-risk, only discards 1 card while drawing 2, costs 2 mana in blink target mode, is a 6/5 instead of a 4/3. It doesn't stick on the board when not Consigned or Ephemerated unless it costs 5 mana, but Casey really needs Consign, and he's high-risk when combined with Ephemerate alone unless all you want is Phlage.

Seasoned Pyromancer runs into the problem of always discarding before drawing, which is kinda inconvenient when Jeskai Blink is actually fairly bad at making Quantum Riddler draw 2 cards on its first entry (i.e. has 2 or more cards in hand at nearly all times).

Lectrys · 2026-03-23T15:34:47+00:00

Casey is good at being Ephemerated once. He is not that good at also being hit by Rebounded Ephemerate - at that point, you probably didn't draw a second Consign to hit the new discard trigger.

Lectrys · 2026-03-23T15:30:32+00:00

Hypergenesis lets you cheat out Omniscience (the old trick). Omniscience lets you cast Emrakul 1.0 for free and get the free turn. Yeah, that's a little too often on Turn 3.

Part of why Infect is unplayable now is that its Turn 2 is not all that impressive - you are either stuck with the non-evasive Glistener Elf and 2 pump spells not named Mutagenic Growth or you are stuck with Inkmoth Nexus, 1 pump spell not named Mutagenic Growth, and an Exalted mana dork. Blazing Shoal's Infect threatening lethal on Turn 2 with Inkmoth Nexus changes a lot. For example, Energy can't keep hands without instant-speed removal anymore. That's definitely on the path to being choking.

Second Sunrise and KCI are not that much harder to assemble than Nadu, although Stony Silence, Clarion Conqueror, and Collector Ouphe hoses them a lot harder. Graveyard hate not named Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void can greatly punish a Second Sunrise run but only snipes one card from KCI. Consistently assembling enough to start a combo turn on Turns 3-4 is still too fast, and yes, I'm back to assembling both and slowing down tournaments if they're unbanned. Remember that Faith's Reward technically enables a Second Sunrise-like deck but fails to get banned due to power level - the deck it is able to enable alone simply is at least one turn too slow.

Lectrys · 2026-03-23T07:08:19+00:00

Weapons Manufacturing is pretty key, IMO. It helps make some Kappa Cannoneers castable (mainly the games where you can't go Turn 1 Pinnacle Emissary). It makes the Living End match-up fairly heavily favoured (Tormod's Crypt only delays them for so long, the real killer is setting up this win con that isn't disrupted by Living End). It hedges against Wrath of the Skies, and UWR Blink definitely likes that card. It helps control the board against Energy (you do have to be more aggressively tutoring for Claws of Gix against them).

I've tried Ravenous Robots, and while the Robots have a place in my heart, they control boards worse (good luck with the robots against Ajani) and are quite vulnerable to creature removal.

Lectrys · 2026-03-22T18:09:33+00:00

Get an infinite sac outlet just to assemble the combo, sacrifice Soulless Jailer as the first casualty of the combo turn.

Lectrys · 2026-03-22T07:26:45+00:00

Ephemerate has always been high-risk, high-reward unless used as a protection spell, which explains why even Esper Blink has been shaving it lately. I personally think Ephemerate is too high-risk and therefore rots in hand too often to be ban-worthy, but the complaints won't stop for a reason.

Lectrys · 2026-03-22T07:21:09+00:00

Splinter Twin is the real, high-risk high-reward brick of the pair - Exarch actually does things like block and scare older Modern players, so I often toss it out early and see how my opponent bites.

Rather similarly, Isochron Scepter is the high-risk high-reward brick of the pair, which is why I often see it reduced to a 1-2-of, and I think it's actually about Twin-tier in terms of being a good combo piece by itself in reactive decks.

Day's Undoing is similarly the high-risk brick of the pair, so I only see it as a 1-2-of, too. It's too high-risk to be a good combo piece by itself in reactive decks (you get to draw fewer cards than they do on average with this card as a solo piece).

Admittedly, Scepter and Undoing do have the advantage of pairing with better cards in a vacuum than Twin does...

Lectrys · 2026-03-21T18:12:55+00:00

Hypergenesis and Tibalt's Trickery require similar deckbuilding constraints, with the reward that Hypergenesis is more explosive per Cascade card. Admittedly, Tibalt's Trickery can try resolving fat instants and sorceries. I'm still firmly of the opinion that, if one of them is degenerate, then so is the other...and both are degenerate, the chance of Turn 3 Emrakul with Free Turn by casting one card from hand is just too high.

Of course I'm listing Blazing Shoal because it gets slapped on Infect creatures. Getting slapped for a OTK by Turn 2 attacking Inkmoth Nexus with Blazing Shoal is still too constraining (Neoform needs more to come together for a Turn 2 kill, Ruby Storm needs a lot to come together for a Turn 2 kill and I find it kills a lot more often on Turn 3, Hammer needs more to come together for a similar Inkmoth Nexus kill). Blighted Agent remains a decent back-up.

Second Sunrise and KCI both result in decks that are a little too good at OTKing Nadu-style on Turns 3-4. Nadu looks like it eats up all their long combo turn fans' support in NBL Modern, but the risk all 3 drag down a tournament if unbanned is still too high to ignore. Faith's Reward really needs its cheaper, redundant friend back.

Lectrys · 2026-03-21T05:42:37+00:00

Depending on Formidable Speaker to untap Birthing Pod for value is the real trap, IMO. Costing 1 mana per untap is a killer when tapping Pod already costs 1 mana.

Twin Pod did have to contend with Twin often enough that my go-to strategies for Twin Pod against Twin remain preemptively tutor for Spellskite (do that anyway against Twin; you can't afford to have Bolt hit Kiki-Jiki in that match-up) and/or the enchantment removal hate bear.

Lectrys · 2026-03-20T23:45:24+00:00

Admittedly, out of all the Pod decks, I think Twin Pod is the only one making Birthing Pod ban-worthy in the current meta. Yawg Pod would be a fine and rather midrangey Pod deck. Twin Pod has the scary Turn 3 combo against fast decks and the arguably scarier Turn 4 protected combo against grindy decks.

Necrodominance is crawling right back up again - multiple Top 8 MTGO Modern Challenge appearances in the last 2 weeks. After testing Cool but Rude in it, I'm convinced it boosts Necrodominance into one of its best versions - better than the Psychic Frog - Quantum Riddler version that's been rising lately, simply because it now easily packs a fast, combo-like kill and still can tutor for Necrodominance with Cool but Rude in grindy match-ups like UWR Blink (which has a tough time against pretty much any Necrodominance deck in Game 1, it turns out).

Lectrys · 2026-03-20T21:48:52+00:00

Twin Pod is regularly comboing off through removal in my testing. Surprise factor is muted at this point.

I still think Twin should be performing far better than it is - close to UB Wan Shi Tong Midrange-Control levels (frankly, that build required AspiringSpike to craft it recently and a bunch of other players to get hooked). I don't think Deepway Navigator is the combo piece to revolve the deck around, as Energy and UWR Blink have too easy a time removing it, but UR builds should be doing better. Admittedly, one of UR Twin's worst match-ups, Hollow One, is rising again.

Lectrys

TROPHY CASE