Cori-Steel Cutter was one of the many new Tarkir: Dragonstorm cards that players were watching right out of the gate. From the moment it was spoiled, it looked like this card had huge potential. While many of the new cards haven’t had enough time to make an impact on constructed formats, Cori-Steel Cutter is already doing a victory lap.
A new Standard legal rare impacting a non-rotating format is a big victory. Cori-Steel Cutter has already 5-0’d leagues in Modern and Legacy after being legal on Magic Online for two days. That is almost unheard of, but once you see what this card is doing, it’s actually not that shocking.
MTG Cori-Steel Cutter
Cori-Steel Cutter is equipped to win the game independently for the low cost of two mana. Well, you need other spells to cast, but in Modern and Legacy, Flurry is absurdly easy to trigger. Flurry grants you a Monk with Prowess, which will become very big very quickly in focused strategies. Better yet, Cori-Steel Cutter attaches itself to every new Monk and grants Trample and Haste. Just a few triggers can start to apply serious pressure to an opponent’s life total. Better yet, you can also trigger this on your opponent’s turn.
Considering all of this, it makes a lot of sense that Cori-Steel Cutter is quickly seeing success in both Modern and Legacy. This is a very difficult threat to remove traditionally as taking care of the monks doesn’t solve the problem but only delays it. In the meantime, you can sit back and use your spells to combat your opponent’s plans.
Cori-Steel Cutter in Modern
A ton of different archetypes are seeing success with Cori-Steel Cutter, many of which struggled to keep up in the post-Breach ban metagame. It’s great to see new Standard cards give old archetypes a new chance at glory.
The most prevalent archetype with Cori-Steel Cutter seeing results at the moment is Prowess. This deck has gained and lost popularity over time, but the rise of Boros Energy made life for this deck tough. Now, this equipment gives Prowess more game against single-target removal spells.
While this deck is capable of dishing out massive damage quickly, you need creatures that can grow with your spells to survive. Cori-Steel Cutter fixes this problem by, essentially, becoming a very difficult-to-remove Prowess threat. If you let it stick around, creating multiple Monks scales out of control quickly.
Cori-Steel Cutter is even seeing success in Jeskai Ascendancy builds. Popularized after a Modern Last Chance win, Jeskai Ascendancy is one of the decks trying to replace Underworld Breach, utilizing the 8-Mox package with Emry, Lurker of the Loch and Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student. This deck lacked finisher potential if you couldn’t get the combo together, which is much easier to interact with than the banned menace. Cori-Steel Cutter gives you another way to pressure your opponent.
This bizarre list from Coffeee is even going out of its way to search for Cori-Steel Cutter with Stoneforge Mystic. It certainly looks a lot more experimental than everything else mentioned, but Cori-Steel Cutter does seem to synergize well with Mox Opal. Personally, this looks like it might have a difficult time against Energy, thanks to Goblin Bombardment.
Finally, Cori-Steel Cutter is seeing some play in Murktide lists in Modern, but these still seem to be in the testing stage compared to other decks. Murktide has traditionally been Dimir in recent times, but players are starting to splash red for Grixis or use Izzet for Cori-Steel Cutter and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, who has gained a lot of momentum in the current format.
Cori-Steel Cutter in Legacy
Cori-Steel Cutter is seeing some success in the Legacy format in Delver-style decks as a sticky threat. This can help Delver deal with decks that are traditionally bad matchups for it, namely Cradle Control, which Twitter user _INF_ managed to steal a set against.
Delver continues to have good matchups against unfair decks like Omnitell and Oops, which both have massive stocks in Legacy at the moment. That said, it tends to fall behind other decks that play a similar role to it. Dimir Tempo, namely, generally does exactly what Delver does, but better than Delver does it.
Cori-Steel Cutter gives Delver strategies a threat that’s comparable to Necrogoyf in potency. It also matches well into the Goyf since it can basically chump-block forever and deal damage when necessary. It’s not unusual for one-offs like this to see Legacy success, however, especially in leagues, so this could just be a flash in the pan.
Cori-Steel Cutter in Other Formats
For the time being, Modern is the format that Cori-Steel Cutter is showing up the most in. The card is seeing some modest Standard play as well, but it appears that Modern has the best tools to take advantage of the Cutter.
As for Pioneer, there is definitely potential for Cori-Steel Cutter. Izzet Phoenix decks seem like the perfect home for the card. Sadly, very few Pioneer tournaments get played, so it may take some time to see if this card has an impact or not.
In Standard, Cori-Steel Cutter is seeing a modest amount of play in Red and Gruul aggro decks. While less copies are being played in Standard than in older formats, the decks are playing 2 Cori-Steel Cutters are all performing very well at the moment. The Red one, in particular, top 8’d an early Standard Challenge.
Cori-Steel Cutter, for reference, is already at a $13 asking price. This card’s early dominance is no secret.