Absurd MH3 Leaks Reveal 'Fixed' $250 Commander Card!

We’re not really sure what happened, but Modern Horizons 3 cards are now all over the internet. The set wasn’t supposed to have its first look until late May, but now cards have been leaked left and right. Of course, since these are leaks, we’re not entirely sure that they’re real, but they certainly look real enough to be the actual thing.

If you would rather wait for these cards to be officially revealed you may want to turn back. For that reason, consider this a spoiler warning.

Without further ado, let’s take a look at some of the most bizarre leaks that have hit the internet for Modern Horizons 3!

A ‘Fixed’ Gilded Drake

This doesn’t really seem like a Modern card, but Volatile Stormdrake could be an interesting addition to Commander. Gilded Drake is a premium cEDH option because of how problematic it can be for opponents if you steal their Commander. Thanks to the Command Zone rules, killing or removing a Commander through conventional means generally just delays it. Taking control of their Commander can be a really difficult problem to solve, as your opponent generally needs to waste a piece of removal on it to reset it.

The big new flaw with this card is that, outside of Energy decks, Volatile Stormdrake cannot keep control of creatures with a mana value higher than four. The alternative is fine, sacrificing the creature in an emergency, but you’re essentially giving your opponent a threat in exchange for their creature’s death. In Commander, this can be totally fine, but this is incredibly risky in a two-player format like Modern. That said, for two mana, this removal option could be ok in certain scenarios.

In a format like cEDH, a majority of the major threats are small creatures anyway, which should allow Volatile Stormdrake to function, more or less, as a Gilded Drake. The card could see Modern play, but it’s rather difficult to tell. Commander players should get excited for Volatile Stormdrake.

A New Storm Tool

Necrodominance is abusable. Considering that Necropotence was too, this shouldn’t come as a big surprise. If you can win the game in your end step, you want to use this card.

Your maximum hand size won’t matter much if you draw a ton of cards out of the blue and win before you discard to hand size. Players already see big potential for this card in Legacy Storm strategies. A similar thing could work for Modern Storm, as long as you can win at instant speed.

One card that players suggested utilizing alongside this is Borne Upon a Wind from Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth. This would essentially allow you to draw as many cards as possible, and cast everything in your hand, utilizing a mass amount of resources to attempt to win the game in one go.

It will be interesting to see how well a modernized Necropotence does in a format that is already incredibly powerful.

Kor Spiritdancer With Affinity

Pearl-Ear, Imperial Advisor is definitely a staple for Voltron Commander decks but is a bit difficult to assess as far as Modern goes. Part of the reason for this is that Boggles decks don’t really exist in the state of the current metagame. This card’s mana value as a threat is also expensive for a deck like that, which complicates things further.

If you can resolve this card and immediately cash in on its Affinity effect, Pearl-Ear could have legs. That said, this seems really easy to blow out – it’s just too expensive. For that reason, I would be apprehensive about its competitive relevance, but there could be some bonkers Auras released in Modern Horizons 3 that make this card look a lot better.

Thief of Existence

Thief of Existence adds a new Thought Knot Seer-esque effect to Eldrazi Tron strategies. This card does need green to cast it, which could add some complications to using it. Either way, the ability you get for this creature is decent. You essentially get to rip a permanent off the board instead of a card out of hand and allow an opponent to replace that card once your creature leaves. Considering that Eldrazi decks aren’t too popular at the moment, I’m not sure how much play this will see. Thief of Existence also isn’t powerful enough to cause a resurgence in the archetype, at least in our opinion, but is a decent tool that could pull people towards picking it up again. This seems like a decent inclusion.

Echoes of Eternity

Echoes of Eternity is definitely a new staple for colorless Commander decks everywhere. This may be the strongest colorless payoff we’ve seen so far. Copying any colorless spells as well as colorless abilities, This card single-handedly doubles the efficiency of any colorless thing you try to do.

Because this is essentially a Doubling Season-esque effect (lots of value later, but no immediate impact), and an expensive prohibitive one at that, I would be very surprised if this card sees play outside of Commander. A six-mana spell that does nothing on its own is not a card that typically sees competitive play, but is incredibly popular in longer Commander games.

Nulldrifter

As much as I love the name of this card, I’m not very interested in it. Nulldrifter definitely has its spots. Being able to draw two cards on cast makes the card advantage that this card can provide difficult to stop. Even on cast, however, a Divination in Modern is just not good enough.

Drawing cards on cast instead of ETB, while having its benefits, also has its downsides. Nulldrifter doesn’t play well with common Scam tools like Ephemerate and Not Dead After All. Sure, you can get a 4/4 flier with Annihilator 1, which is interesting, but you won’t be drawing two more cards from the exchange since you did not cast Nulldrifter. Mulldrifter, the obvious reference card, would draw four cards in this scenario while presenting a much less interesting body. Nulldrifter also costs more to hard cast, which is another point against it.

Shilgengar, Sire of Famine

Shilgengar is the most bizarre card amongst the leaked new Modern Horizons 3 cards. This card seems unusable competitively outside of decks that want to include Angels, and is only really usable for its secondary ability. If you can get its secondary ability, this card is absolutely terrifying.

Shilgengar will likely do its best work in Orzhov Angel Commander decks, but could also do well in Aristocrat synergies that care about tokens. this is ultimately a sacrifice outlet, even if the Blood Token payoff is mediocre outside of Shilgengar’s secondary ability. There will definitely be Commander decks that want this card, as the payoffs, when done right, can be quite powerful.

As far as constructed play goes, five mana for this ability is too expensive in my opinion.

This is Disgusting

We won’t talk about this potential leak too much… because we have way too much to say about it. Don’t let the downside fool you, Flare of Denial is an incredible counterspell, and could give rise to archetypes like Merfolk, and even Dredge. We’ll take a deeper dive into this in a future article, but Flare of Denial is a card that we’re not sure if Modern really needs.

That said, the reprints revealed through these leaks are somehow even more terrifying. I have no idea who thought Brainstorm would be a good thing to add to Modern Horizons 3, but if these leaks are the real deal, that card is coming.