Will Shardless Agent Be Good In Modern?

The long awaited Arrival of Shardless Agent

Shardless Agent, the once for commander only card, turned legacy powerhouse, has recently been spoiled by Wizards of the Coast as an inclusion in the new Magic: The Gathering set Modern Horizons 2! This card has been one that had been requested to be injected into Modern by the community for sometime, and that time is now. The only question that remains is will Shardless Agent be good in Modern?

READ MORE: Modern Horizons 2 Spoiler Gallery

A Short History of Shardless Agent

To understand where Shardless Agent may fit into the Modern format, we need to go back to the past and see how Shardless Agent was utilized in it’s star format, Legacy. In times past, one of the premier decks in Legacy was Shardless Bug. This deck was a control deck that leveraged Shardless Agent to cascade into efficient creatures like Tarmogoyf Tarmogoyf Tarmogoyf's power is equal to the number of card types among cards in all graveyards and its toughness is equal to that number plus 1. , Deathrite Shaman Deathrite Shaman {T}: Exile target land card from a graveyard. Add one mana of any color. (Activate only as an instant.)
{B}, {T}: Exile target instant or sorcery card from a graveyard. Each opponent loses 2 life.
{G}, {T}: Exile target creature card from a graveyard. You gain 2 life. and Baleful Strix Baleful Strix Flying, deathtouch
When this creature enters, draw a card. . It also sported a few Planeswalkers in Jace, the Mind Sculptor Jace, the Mind Sculptor +2: Look at the top card of target player's library. You may put that card on the bottom of that player's library.
0: Draw three cards, then put two cards from your hand on top of your library in any order.
−1: Return target creature to its owner's hand.
−12: Exile all cards from target player's library, then that player shuffles their hand into their library. and Liliana of the Veil Liliana of the Veil +1: Each player discards a card.
−2: Target player sacrifices a creature.
−6: Separate all permanents target player controls into two piles. That player sacrifices all permanents in the pile of their choice. , and a smattering of removal, hand disruption and counter magic. In the end, you’d amass enough value from Jace and Tarmagoyf to close the game out. Eventually the deck transitioned into 4 colors, incorporating Bloodbraid Elf Bloodbraid Elf Haste (This creature can attack and {T} as soon as it comes under your control.)
Cascade (When you cast this spell, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card that costs less. You may cast it without paying its mana cost. Put the exiled cards on the bottom in a random order.) as another way to power out your board presence and cast multiple spells in the same turn.

The deck eventually fell off a bit in popularity, and now with cards like Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath When Uro enters, sacrifice it unless it escaped.
Whenever Uro enters or attacks, you gain 3 life and draw a card, then you may put a land card from your hand onto the battlefield.
Escape—{G}{G}{U}{U}, Exile five other cards from your graveyard. (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its escape cost.) and Leovold, Emissary of Trest Leovold, Emissary of Trest Each opponent can't draw more than one card each turn.
Whenever you or a permanent you control becomes the target of a spell or ability an opponent controls, you may draw a card. , Shardless Agent sees little play in Legacy now a days.

Replicating Shardless Bug

To me, the first logical step in finding a home for Shardless Agent is to try and replicate the Shardless Bug of Legacy. We have a fair number of the cards from that list, and fine replacements for many other cards.

This list offers us a solid creature base that we can cascade into, our control Planeswalker suite, hand disruption, and a little bit of counter magic in Force of Negation Force of Negation If it's not your turn, you may exile a blue card from your hand rather than pay this spell's mana cost.
Counter target noncreature spell. If that spell is countered this way, exile it instead of putting it into its owner's graveyard. . We can from here build our sideboard to accommodate for the metagame. Our early game of Goyf, Ice-Fang Coatl Ice-Fang Coatl Flash
Flying
When this creature enters, draw a card.
This creature has deathtouch as long as you control at least three other snow permanents. , and Shardless agent should generally be a great way to keeps alive, with our back up options of Abrupt Decay Abrupt Decay This spell can't be countered.
Destroy target nonland permanent with mana value 3 or less. , Assassin’s Trophy Assassin’s Trophy Destroy target permanent an opponent controls. Its controller may search their library for a basic land card, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle. , and Fatal Push Fatal Push Destroy target creature if it has mana value 2 or less.
Revolt — Destroy that creature if it has mana value 4 or less instead if a permanent left the battlefield under your control this turn. . Another important piece of this is keeping our opponent’s hand rather threat light with Thoughtseize Thoughtseize Target player reveals their hand. You choose a nonland card from it. That player discards that card. You lose 2 life. and Inquisition of Kozilek Inquisition of Kozilek Target player reveals their hand. You choose a nonland card from it with mana value 3 or less. That player discards that card. . Force of Negation allows us to be able to play our hand and commit to the board, while keeping some protection up against nasty combos or removal. Since we are playing a bit more mana than the Legacy version of the deck, another option may be to play the newly added, but increcibly versatile card, Counterspell Counterspell Counter target spell.

READ MORE: Will Counterspell Be Too Good in Modern?

What this deck lacks is a way to reliably set up the top of our library for our cascade hits; We lack Brainstorm Brainstorm Draw three cards, then put two cards from your hand on top of your library in any order. . Jace is currently the only way to be able to do this, and being at the top end of our curve, and generally a must answer threat, this isn’t great. Opt allows us to dig through our deck with a small amount of selection, but doesn’t quite fill that void of being able to stack the top of our library that Brainstorm provides.

Shardless Agent’s Combo Potential

There are other routes that we can take Shardless Agent, as cascade is already an established mechanic if the format. Another card that was spoiled in Modern Horizons 2 that lines up really well with Shardless Agent is Glimpse of Tomorrow.

Glimpse of Tomorrow is a cheaper, more competitive version of a 8 Mana Sorcery, Warp World Warp World Each player shuffles all permanents they own into their library, then reveals that many cards from the top of their library. Each player puts all artifact, creature, and land cards revealed this way onto the battlefield, then does the same for enchantment cards, then puts all cards revealed this way that weren't put onto the battlefield on the bottom of their library. . We can utilize Shardless Agent to abuse Glimpse of tomorrow by Cascading into it and casting it for free as a finisher. Naturally, we want to build our deck with mostly permanents, and traditionally the best ways to cascade in Modern are going to be sorceries or instants. Shardless Agent helps solve this issue by being a creature that’s the same mana cost as those spells. Here is a Rough Draft list -3 Glimpse of Tomorrow.

The mana base is modeled similarly to Amulet Titan, which accounts for some combo finishes with Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle This land enters tapped.
Whenever a Mountain you control enters, if you control at least five other Mountains, you may have this land deal 3 damage to any target.
{T}: Add {R}. or Slayers’ Stronghold Slayers’ Stronghold {T}: Add {C}.
{R}{W}, {T}: Target creature gets +2/+0 and gains vigilance and haste until end of turn. and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn Emrakul, the Aeons Torn This spell can't be countered.
When you cast this spell, take an extra turn after this one.
Flying, protection from spells that are one or more colors, annihilator 6
When Emrakul is put into a graveyard from anywhere, its owner shuffles their graveyard into their library. . Our goal is to produce permanents on the battlefield, by means of Tireless Tracker Tireless Tracker Landfall — Whenever a land you control enters, investigate. (Create a Clue token. It's an artifact with "{2}, Sacrifice this token: Draw a card.")
Whenever you sacrifice a Clue, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature. and Primeval Titan Primeval Titan Trample
Whenever this creature enters or attacks, you may search your library for up to two land cards, put them onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle. . Then we cast Shardless Agent and our only cascade hit is Glimpse of Tomorrow. This should allow us to flip our board of lands, creatures and clue tokens into more lands, creatures and clues. If we hit an Eternal Witness Eternal Witness When this creature enters, you may return target card from your graveyard to your hand. , we can get back our Glimpse of Tomorrow from our graveyard. We have a couple of enchantments to include here as well, in As Foretold As Foretold At the beginning of your upkeep, put a time counter on this enchantment.
Once each turn, you may pay {0} rather than pay the mana cost for a spell you cast with mana value X or less, where X is the number of time counters on this enchantment. to allow us to cast a Glimpse from our hand for free, whether it be in our hand naturally, or the one that we get back from Eternal Witness, and Rhythm of the Wild Rhythm of the Wild Creature spells you control can't be countered.
Nontoken creatures you control have riot. (They enter with your choice of a +1/+1 counter or haste.) mostly to give our creatures haste, but making our creatures uncounterable can be useful as well.

We are about to enter a new era of Modern when Modern Horizons 2 releases on June 18th, 2021! There’s a lot of crazy powerful cards in the set, but will Shardless Agent be good in Modern? With Cascade being one of the most powerful mechanics in the game, I think that there’s a lot of potential, and this card is generally loved by a lot of the community, so I expect that this card will definitely make a splash in the format.

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