Modern Horizons 3 spoilers are here, and Wizards of the Coast has kicked things off with some very big boys. It seems like the Eldrazi titans, hungry eldritch beings from between worlds, may all have new cards in the upcoming set, and Wizards has shown two of them off in the debut stream today, on May 21.
Our favorite of the two is Ulamog the Defiler, whose effect is just so scary and thematic. The new Ulamog exiles half an opponent’s library when you cast them, and then uses the number of exiled cards to power itself up.
On ETB, this Modern Horizons 3 Eldrazi card gains a number of +1/+1 counters equal to the highest mana value card in exile, and then gains the infamous Annihilator MTG keyword. Specifically, it gets Annihilator X, where X is the number of counters on it.
In the right scenario your opponents’ could be sacrificing eight or more permanents whenever you swing at them, which – outside of a dedicated treasure or token deck – is going to get very unpleasant very fast.
This Ulamog also has a decent MTG Ward ability, which should increase your odds of actually getting to swing with it. We still can’t see this working out that often in the fast-paced Modern format (maybe you could play it in Tron) but we’d like an Ulamog, the Defiler as a top-end for our Commander decks, yes please.
Kozilek, the Broken Reality might be even more powerful than the new Ulamog, though it’s a subtler kind of power (only slightly subtler – this is still a 9/9 we’re talking about). Its abilities are a little confusing, so let’s start with the simplest.
All your colorless creatures get a lopsided +3/+2 buff. That’s pretty great on its own for an Eldrazi, or otherwise colorless EDH deck. It can potentially represent an enormous amount of extra stats on the board – your Eldrazi spawn get to be 3/3s!
Ensuring you’re able to make the most of the buff, Kozilek also lets you Manifest two cards from your hand, putting them onto the field as 2/2s (so 5/4s with Kozilek) that you can still play at a later date for their mana cost.
Or specifically, you choose up to two players to Manifest, and then draw the number of cards that were Manifested. This flexibility is really nice. You can get up to 27 power and toughness worth of stats just off Kozilek alone, strip cards from your foes’ hands, and dig deep into your deck with card draw.
Like other Eldrazi MTG cards we’ve seen in the past, neither of these titans work so well if you cheat them into play or reanimate them. You’ve got to hard cast them to really see the benefit.
In case you were naughty and opened your presents before Christmas (looked at the grainy leaks before spoiler season) there is one exciting new Eldrazi that didn’t get spoiled ahead of schedule.
It’s Uzalek, a cursed fusing of Ulamog and Kozilek, which you can check out in the link below, along with the other Modern Horizons 3 commanders.