Tainted Pact and More (and More!) This Week
Tainted Pact Rocks Historic… Wait a Second, New Headline
So Tainted Pact was recently reprinted in Strixhaven. The good thing (if you can say that) is that it spawned a new archetype. By last weekend the most popular strategy in Historic was a mostly singletons deck playing two copies of Tainted Pact and two copies of Thassa’a Oracle.
The simplest way of thinking about this deck is that — in a deck with almost no doubles — it was easy to remove your entire library and cast Thassa’s Oracle to win the game. You could also essentially “Demonic Tutor” for whatever card you needed [as the deck was full of cool tools].
We’d say more about this engine but before we went to the mics this week, they had already banned Thassa’s Oracle. So you can still use the engine to win with Jace, Wielder of Mysteries. Which is slower than Thassa’s Oracle, but — if we learned anything from Inverter of Truth decks — still a serviceable combo kill spell.
We’ll call this a “developing story” and move on to Moder Horizons 2.
Grief from Modern Horizons 2 will Give a Lot of Grief
- Grief
- 2BB
- Creature – Elemental Incarnation
- Menace
- When Grief enters the battlefield, 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.
- 3/2
Short story: Grief seems superior in most ways to Unmask. Unmask was a high Extended and Standard performer in years past, and remains a Vintage option even today. For full mana, Grief leaves you a 3/2 creature with Menace. That’s a heck of an upside.
It’s a Bridge from Below-triggering tool regardless, and (presumably in Modern) a nice combo with Ephemerate.
Think about the dream draw (turn one). You play a white-producing land and Evoke Grief. Before too late, you target it with Ephemerate. So yo get multiple triggers and keep the 3/2 instead of not ever seeing it.
Mondo combo Batman? You get a heck out of white mana on turn one, and there is even the Rebound coming next turn for even more card advantage!
Speaking of White Mana…
For those of you who only know Mike as a Red Deck zombie… He’s probably cast more Eternal Dragons in formats past than any other mage. This Eternal Dragon update is his favorite of the Modern Horizons 2 reveals to date; though our hosts differ as to how much better it is than the seven mana version.
What do you think?
Let us know after you check out “Tainted Pact and More (and More!) This Week”:
