by Johnny Cycles, May 8th, 2024
Hello! Welcome to my second installment of my Modern Horizons 3 Wish List! Our first wish list card was Leyline of Tithes, which you can read about here. Now that we have some hate for the busted Evoke Elementals out of the way, let’s start addressing how to shore up Midrange strategies so that they’re competitive once again in Modern.
What’s Wrong with Modern?
Undercosted, overpowered creatures at the 1- and 2-drop slot backed up by free(ish) removal has all but forced traditional Midrange decks out of the format. Sure, games featuring Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Dauthi Voidwalker, and Orcish Bowmasters can go long, be grindy, and feel like a Midrange match-up, but casting Grief or even Sheoldred, the Apocalypse on turn 4 or 5 doesn’t make your deck Midrange.
Midrange as an archetype wants to turn the corner with its 4- and 5-mana spells (or higher). In order to do this, it can either run a lot of early removal to manage the game, make land drops, and hope to resolve its big threats that will then take over the game, or it can use the early turns to ramp into its 5-drops and overwhelm opponents before they can find an answer.
The state of Modern is such that traditional mana dorks like Birds of Paradise, Noble Hierarch, and Arbor Elf are virtually nonexistent outside of lower tier decks. Looking at the current top decks, only Yawgmoth plays any mana dorks at all.
Wizards appears to have seen this problem and addressed it, first with the printing of Gilded Goose from Throne of Eldraine, and again with Delighted Halfling from The Lord of the Rings. However, both of these mana dorks come with significant drawbacks. Gilded Goose only gives us a single use unless hoops are jumped through, while Delighted Halfling can only color fix for legendary spells. And while this may not seem like a severe limitation, playing early ramp that doesn’t facilitate two spells in a turn ahead of curve is a serious liability.
Turn 1 Delighted Halfling can’t cast either Utopia Sprawl or Lightning Bolt on turn 2.
What is Needed to Fix Modern?
Modern needs Midrange to be a healthy format. Right now the closest thing it has to a Midrange strategy is better labeled Combo – Yawgmoth, Tron, and Amulet Titan. Midrange strategies play an inherently fair game of Magic that allow them to metagame against the best decks, punish risky, but powerful strategies, and keep Modern from becoming a degenerate Wasteland of free spells, 5-color mana bases, and 1-drops taking over games.
Midrange needs the tools to ramp into their late game ahead of curve and hard-to-deal with finishers to close out games (more on this later). And those tools need to survive to allow Midrange a chance. The 2 toughness on Delighted Halfling has proven crucial to it seeing any play, but we need more.
Wish List Item #2
Our second wish list card is a turn-1 mana dork that is all but guaranteed to stick around long enough to get a Midrange strategy out of the gates. Thanks to mtgcardsmith.com for the great looking card!
I won’t lie, I really, really wanted to run out a 1-drop mana dork with hexproof, no strings attached. But I also really want to offer up wish list items that I think Wizards would actually print. They’ve toyed with hexproof on mana dorks enough to show their reluctance to attach it to a 1-drop without major caveats. Up until now, in fact, we only have 2 drops that don’t die to Lightning Bolt, like Sylvan Caryatid and Paradise Druid.
Lost Bird of Paradise is just the tool Midrange (and Combo) decks need to get off to a fast enough start to keep up with all the Ragavan, Nimble Pilferers, Dragon’s Rage Channelers, and turn 1 Griefs. Short of an edict effect or a missed land drop, it ensures Midrange players have access to 3 mana on turn 2. This is essential for a Midrange strategy to be competitive.
At 3 mana, Midrange decks can further their ramp plan with cards like Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner and Domri, Anarch of Bolas, both familiar Planeswalkers to anyone who’s watched my videos. But 3 mana is also the magic number for grindy cards like Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, Liliana of the Veil, and Ranger-Captain of Eos. Finally, at 3 mana, Midrange players can stick a hate piece like Blood Moon before their opponent gets their greedy mana fixed.
Rather than create my dream card of a turn-1 hexproof mana dork, I’ve put a limit on the amount of mana Lost Bird of Paradise can make and how long it has hexproof. Much like Gemstone Mine, players only get three total mana from Lost Bird of Paradise. Further limiting its power, I’ve chosen to make it a legendary creature. This detail fits the flavor of the card, while also preventing players from breaking the format with a bunch of hexproof ramp creatures (not sure this would be a problem, but still…)
Balancing out this limitation, however, I’ve chosen to give Lost Bird of Paradise 1 power and 2 toughness, along with flying (it’s a bird, after all). As a mythic rare, I think its power and toughness are justified, but there are two key reasons I’ve made it a 1/2. First, I don’t want it to die to Orcish Bowmasters or Wrenn and Six at any point. Second, I want Midrange players to be able to block Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. As a 0/1, no one would ever block Ragavan on turn 2. As a 1/2 with the ability to trade with the stupid monkey, players will have to make the hard choice of taking a hit and keeping their ramp plan alive, or slowing themselves down but removing the best 1-drop in Magic from the battlefield.
Why a Creature?
It’s very tempting to make a new Utopia Sprawl and call it a day. Wizards is certainly not above printing cards that are identical to previous ones in everything but name. However, mana dorks have been around since Alpha. They are as much a part of Magic as Counterspell is. They should have a home in each of the major formats.
Variations
I thought a lot about different directions for this card. I considered making a Birds of Paradise with hexproof, no strings attached. With the power creep among creatures that we’ve seen the past few years, I honestly don’t think such a card is busted. However, I don’t see Wizards making it.
I also considered making it a 3/1 flier with hexproof and three feather counters on it that also tapped for a mana of any color. The drawback was that when it became tapped, it would lose a feather counter and its power would shrink by 1. The upside of a card like this is that it would make drawing it late less of a liability. It would also allow for janky mana dork beats in the right spot. The wording of this is a bit clunky, however, which is one reason I didn’t go this route.
Finally, I briefly thought about making it a 0/3 with all the same text, simply to let it block Ragavan without dying.
Likelihood Wizards Prints It
I think it’s very likely we get a 1-drop mana dork with hexproof or ward in the near future. I believe it’s only a matter of time before power creep reaches this support cast. Will it look like Lost Bird of Paradise? Probably not. In fact, I think the most likely pushed mana dork we’ll see will look something like this:
Conclusion
What do you think? Is Lost Bird of Paradise a good mana dork that should be printed? What 1-drop mana ramp would you like to see added to Modern? Would printing such a mana dork improve the degenerate decks more than Midrange? Let me know in the comments or email me at johnnycycles16@gmail.com.
Thanks for reading and watching!
