Unbanned MTG Payoff Swiftly Revitalizes Dead Archetype!

Monday’s announcement to unban two cards while simultaneously banning nothing came as a shocker to a lot of MTG players. There was certainly speculation that powerful cards like Karn, the Great Creator Karn, the Great Creator Activated abilities of artifacts your opponents control can't be activated.
+1: Until your next turn, up to one target noncreature artifact becomes an artifact creature with power and toughness each equal to its mana value.
−2: You may reveal an artifact card you own from outside the game or choose a face-up artifact card you own in exile. Put that card into your hand. in Pioneer or The One Ring The One Ring Indestructible
When The One Ring enters, if you cast it, you gain protection from everything until your next turn.
At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life for each burden counter on The One Ring.
{T}: Put a burden counter on The One Ring, then draw a card for each burden counter on The One Ring. in Modern might get the axe, especially given the dominance of The One Ring at the Pro Tour. Well, instead, we are presented with an opportunity to try to utilize cards that haven’t been available in their respective formats for many years.

Mind’s Desire Mind’s Desire Shuffle your library. Then exile the top card of your library. Until end of turn, you may play that card without paying its mana cost.
Storm (When you cast this spell, copy it for each spell cast before it this turn.) is a strange Storm payoff that was banned extremely quickly in Legacy after its release in 2003. Storm as an archetype in Legacy has gotten remarkably weaker in recent years, and Mind’s Desire is a relatively specific Storm card that could open the door for some new decks to arise.

Meanwhile in Modern, Preordain Preordain Scry 2, then draw a card. (To scry 2, look at the top two cards of your library, then put any number of them on the bottom and the rest on top in any order.) is unbanned. While not necessarily risky in the sense that the card is obviously broken, Preordain adds a lot of extra consistency to various archetypes. Both of these cards have been legal on Magic Online since Monday and are already starting to make major impacts. Let’s take a look at where these cards have been shining so far.

Legacy High Tide

High Tide High Tide Until end of turn, whenever a player taps an Island for mana, that player adds an additional {U}. is a unique deck that seems to have gotten a huge boost from Mind’s Desire, going undefeated in a Magic Online Preliminary event, piloted by none other than Reid Duke. This deck has been largely absent from the Legacy metagame for a while, but Mind’s Desire may help revitalize the archetype. The deck plays a large number of cantrips as well as Merchant Scroll to help find the namesake card: High Tide. High Tide, for only one mana, lets all your Islands tap for additional blue mana.

From there, you can use cards like Turnabout Turnabout Choose artifact, creature, or land. Tap all untapped permanents of the chosen type target player controls, or untap all tapped permanents of that type that player controls. and Candelabra of Tawnos Candelabra of Tawnos {X}, {T}: Untap X target lands. to untap your Lands and net even more mana. In order to build up your Storm count, Time Spiral gives a nice Timetwister Timetwister Each player shuffles their hand and graveyard into their library, then draws seven cards. (Then put Timetwister into its owner's graveyard.) effect, but also untaps your Lands to net even more mana.

Part of the weakness of a deck like this is that it lacks redundancy, especially given Time Spiral’s unique effect. Mind’s Desire slots quite nicely into the deck as a result, giving you another “payoff” that can further build Storm count. From there, you can cast the “Granted” portion of Fae of Wishes Fae of Wishes Flying
{1}{U}, Discard two cards: Return this creature to its owner's hand. , get and cast Brain Freeze Brain Freeze Target player mills three cards.
Storm (When you cast this spell, copy it for each spell cast before it this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.) , and win the game. There are other ways to utilize Mind’s Desire too, but you definitely want ways to generate excess mana and cast lots of spells. Perhaps one of the most interesting ways to use the card appears with the next deck.

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Unique Take on Mississippi River

Mind’s Desire also appeared in a strange take of Mississippi River. This deck normally plays a ton of Lands that can produce multiple mana, Creative Technique Creative Technique Demonstrate (When you cast this spell, you may copy it. If you do, choose an opponent to also copy it.)
Shuffle your library, then reveal cards from the top of it until you reveal a nonland card. Exile that card and put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. You may cast the exiled card without paying its mana cost. , and Cascade cards that cost six or more mana, allowing for a chain reaction of Cascade spells to build a big board. This version of the deck plays Shardless Agent Shardless Agent 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.) and Violent Outburst Violent Outburst 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.)
Creatures you control get +1/+0 until end of turn. alongside Tibalt’s Trickery Tibalt’s Trickery Counter target spell. Choose 1, 2, or 3 at random. Its controller mills that many cards, then exiles cards from the top of their library until they exile a nonland card with a different name than that spell. They may cast that card without paying its mana cost. Then they put the exiled cards on the bottom of their library in a random order. , with the plan of hitting a massive payoff. One of the best of these payoffs is actually Mind’s Desire, which can end up letting you cast a bunch more spells and win the game relatively easily.

While this deck and the High Tide are very different, they both show the importance of casting multiple spells.

As good as Mind’s Desire is, it can definitely be hated out, which is likely part of the reason the card was unbanned. Cards like Archon of Emeria Archon of Emeria Flying
Each player can't cast more than one spell each turn.
Nonbasic lands your opponents control enter tapped. can quickly put a stop to any plans of casting lots of spells in one turn. While Mind’s Desire is certainly more restrictive of a card and an interesting build-around, Preordain in Modern is very different.

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Adding Lots of Consistency

Preordain is definitely a very strong addition to Modern, and the consistency it brings is significantly better than a range of other cantrips we’ve had. Even cards like Consider Consider Surveil 1. (Look at the top card of your library. You may put it into your graveyard.)
Draw a card. are much worse at both smoothing out your hand and digging for specific cards. Even against decks like Rakdos Scam, Preordain can help make it easier to come back from a quick Grief Grief Menace
When this creature enters, target opponent reveals their hand. You choose a nonland card from it. That player discards that card.
Evoke—Exile a black card from your hand. and Feign Death start by digging for removal.

We can see just how much of a difference the card can make by looking at the decks that are playing it so far. Beyond being a great inclusion for decks like Dimir Control to help guarantee the ability to hit land drops as well as action in the late game, the card helps combo decks dig for missing pieces.

Multiple established combo decks in yesterday’s Magic Online Preliminary events started utilizing the card. An Amulet Titan list cut some various flex slots in exchange for Preordain, which can help dig for additional copies of 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. or Summoner’s Pact Summoner’s Pact Search your library for a green creature card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle.
At the beginning of your next upkeep, pay {2}{G}{G}. If you don't, you lose the game. . Similarly, a Hammer Time list added Preordain, which can help dig for either Puresteel Paladin Puresteel Paladin Whenever an Equipment you control enters, you may draw a card.
Metalcraft — Equipment you control have equip {0} as long as you control three or more artifacts. or Sigarda’s Aid Sigarda’s Aid You may cast Aura and Equipment spells as though they had flash.
Whenever an Equipment you control enters, you may attach it to target creature you control. , as well as Colossus Hammer Colossus Hammer Equipped creature gets +10/+10 and loses flying.
Equip {8} ({8}: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery.) if necessary. The opportunity cost of adding Preordain is so small compared to the consistency it adds for various decks, including combo decks, but there’s one card in particular that benefits a ton from having this card added to the format.

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Dragon’s Rage Channeler Decks

Dragon’s Rage Channeler is a great card, but it’s power lies in your ability to obtain Delirium. Given the prevalence of Orcish Bowmasters Orcish Bowmasters Flash
When this creature enters and whenever an opponent draws a card except the first one they draw in each of their draw steps, this creature deals 1 damage to any target. Then amass Orcs 1. and Wrenn and Six Wrenn and Six +1: Return up to one target land card from your graveyard to your hand.
−1: Wrenn and Six deals 1 damage to any target.
−7: You get an emblem with "Instant and sorcery cards in your graveyard have retrace." (You may cast instant and sorcery cards from your graveyard by discarding a land card in addition to paying their other costs.) , you really want to obtain Delirium very quickly. Many Dragon’s Rage Channeler decks also play Unholy Heat Unholy Heat Unholy Heat deals 2 damage to target creature or planeswalker.
Delirium — Unholy Heat deals 6 damage instead if there are four or more card types among cards in your graveyard. , which gets a big boost with Delirium enabled. A previous issue with decks like Izzet Murktide or Izzet Prowess was that these decks played a lot more Instants than Sorceries. Sometimes it was difficult to get Delirium if you didn’t draw Expressive Iteration Expressive Iteration Look at the top three cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand, put one of them on the bottom of your library, and exile one of them. You may play the exiled card this turn. .

Preordain helps solve this problem. While Preordain is absolutely a better card than Consider to begin with, the fact that Preordain is a Sorcery is very strong for these styles of decks. Of course, as more cantrips get added to players’ decks, Orcish Bowmasters’ stock only goes up, so definitely be mindful when your Rakdos Scam or Dimir opponent has two mana up.

Preordain definitely has a wider range of decks it can go in than Mind’s Desire, while Mind’s Desire has a higher ceiling in its ability to take over a game. It’ll be interesting to see how the Modern and Legacy metagames shift with these new additions solidifying their spots in each format.

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