Now that we’re almost a week deep into Modern Horizons 3 preview season, many of the previously leaked spicy cards have been officially confirmed. One of the most exciting among these is Warren Soultrader, perhaps the best combo enabler MTG has seen in a while. This is the kind of card that’s hard not to go infinite with in a given game. As a result, the community has been going full brewing mode, dreaming up insta-win scenarios with this card in mind.
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Warren Soultrader – An MTG Combo Powerhouse
It takes a special kind of card to whip MTG players into such a frenzy. One read of Warren Soultrader is all it takes to make you a believer, however. It’s a three mana 3/3 at a base level, which isn’t a terribly exciting start. It does come with three very relevant creature types in Zombie, Goblin, and Wizard, though, which will come in later.
The real juice in this moldering Zombie orange is, of course, the ability. By paying one life and sacrificing a creature, Soultrader lets you create a Treasure token. This is all simple enough, but the devil is in the details. This ability doesn’t require Soultrader to tap, so it can be used as soon as it enters play. It also has no timing restrictions, which lets you use it at instant speed.
Free, instant-speed sacrifice outlets have historically been very powerful in MTG.
Ashnod’s Altar
Ashnod’s Altar
Sacrifice a creature: Add {C}{C}.
and
Phyrexian Altar
Phyrexian Altar
Sacrifice a creature: Add one mana of any color.
have both seen extensive eternal play. The ability to trade in small creatures and tokens for resources at any time is excellent, letting you fizzle opposing removal spells and gain value in the process. Soultrader does have a downside in that it requires you to pay life, but there are ways around that.
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Recipes For Disaster
Naturally, sacrificing creatures for no mana opens up the door for a wide range of infinite loops and combos. There are plenty of those in Modern already, but some Soultrader combos can end things as early as turn three if the cards align.
Probably the best of these combos, and the one that most players are talking about, is the one with
Gravecrawler
Gravecrawler
This creature can't block.
You may cast this card from your graveyard as long as you control a Zombie.
and
Blood Artist
Blood Artist
Whenever this creature or another creature dies, target player loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
. In a Mono-Black deck, you can play Gravecrawler on turn one, Blood Artist on two, then Soultrader on three. Provided your opponent doesn’t remove any of these creatures, you can end the game immediately as soon as they’re all in play.
To start this loop, just sacrifice Gravecrawler to Soultrader’s ability, thus triggering Blood Artist’s drain. This will offset the life payment from Soultrader, and deal one to your opponent. Next, use the Treasure token to recast Gravecrawler from your graveyard, which is possible since Soultrader is a Zombie. Rinse and repeat! It’s not a hugely resilient combo, but Gravecrawler can easily come back itself, and the other pieces are valid targets for
Unearth
Unearth
Return target creature card with mana value 3 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Cycling {2} ({2}, Discard this card: Draw a card.)
and
Lively Dirge
Lively Dirge
Spree (Choose one or more additional costs.)
+ {1} — Search your library for a card, put it into your graveyard, then shuffle.
+ {2} — Return up to two creature cards with total mana value 4 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.
if they do get removed.
Alternatively, you can try a similar line with
Cauldron Familiar
Cauldron Familiar
When this creature enters, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
Sacrifice a Food: Return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
and
Samwise Gamgee
Samwise Gamgee
Whenever another nontoken creature you control enters, create a Food token. (It's an artifact with "{2}, {T}, Sacrifice this token: You gain 3 life.")
Sacrifice three Foods: Return target historic card from your graveyard to your hand. (Artifacts, legendaries, and Sagas are historic.)
. Every Treasure you make with Gamgee out will also create a Food, which in turn will let you bring back Familiar from your graveyard, and drain your opponent. Sacrifice Familiar to Soultrader, and the loop is complete.
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Fair Game
These are just two options, but Warren Soultrader is so powerful that there are many other infinite combo paths to take. Beyond that, though, the card could very well see Modern play in a fair few decks as well. Modern Horizons 3 has a serious graveyard theme going on, with cards like Chthonic Nightmare and
Spymaster’s Vault
Spymaster’s Vault
This land enters tapped unless you control a Swamp.
{T}: Add {B}.
{B}, {T}: Target creature you control connives X, where X is the number of creatures that died this turn. (Draw X cards, then discard X cards. Put a +1/+1 counter on that creature for each nonland card discarded this way.)
coming in hot. For decks that treat their graveyards like second hands, these cards, and Soultrader, are ideal additions.
Take Yawgmoth, for example, probably the most notable graveyard-centric deck in the current Modern meta. Soultrader can come down on turn three in this deck and serve as an insurance policy against exile-based removal and board wipes. It can also work as a very acceptable ramp piece, turning an early
Young Wolf
Young Wolf
Undying (When this creature dies, if it had no +1/+1 counters on it, return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with a +1/+1 counter on it.)
or
Strangleroot Geist
Strangleroot Geist
Haste
Undying (When this creature dies, if it had no +1/+1 counters on it, return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with a +1/+1 counter on it.)
into two extra mana for later use.
The fact that Soultrader is both a Goblin and a Zombie also gives it scope for use in Typal decks based on both. It’s probably better suited to Zombies, since they tend to have more ways of recycling sacrificed creatures. Goblins can go wide with ease, however, and may appreciate a card that can convert their hordes into X-spell burn mana at instant speed. Neither deck is a real player in Modern right now, but given the support Merfolk and Elves are getting in MH3, that could change soon.
Overall, Warren Soultrader is an exceptionally powerful card, whether you’re playing fairly or not. It may not become a new format staple, but the sheer threat of a three-mana card that can end the game on a whim is not something you can ignore.