The announcement on August 7 brought a surprise for Modern players. Wizards took a card off the format's ban list: Preordain, one of the best cantrips ever printed! Will it see play in today's environment? Will it shake up the format? Let's consider the implications in theory—and in practice!
General Thoughts
I do think the unban will remain largely inconsequential. We haven't seen many decks go heavy on cantrips in recent times, and there are a few reasons for it. First, cantrips take up space in your deck. While they do increase consistency, you can run into the issue of cantripping into a cantrip, essentially just spinning the wheels and not affecting the actual game. On top of that, they are terrible against the new menace of the format that is . This card already proved itself as one of the best, and now it gets a further boost.
Last but not least, not that many blue decks in Modern can benefit from Preordain. There are and Rhinos, but they cannot play Preordain due to their cascade restriction. There is Izzet Murktide, and that seems to be the first home for the card. After that we soon run out of options among the established top dogs.
That said, this unban may allow other decks, previously tier three or lower, to resurface. While a boost to fair decks, I reckon it can also give a helping hand to blue combo strategies that so far lacked the selection to make them consistent enough. Let's look at a few decks that I believe benefit the most from the change.
Murk and Shadow, Breach and Brand
| Dimir Shadow
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The first deck I want to discuss is Dimir Shadow. It revolves around very efficient interaction and cheap threats in and . Preordain is a boon to the twin interests of a low curve and running only as many lands as is absolutely necessary. I have seen players toy around with a number of lands roughly between fourteen and seventeen. Some players even add to the mix to further skimp on the land count.
Preordain also fuels Murktide so it does not make your cantripping completely "empty." While no immediate board presence is presented, the Regent will benefit from them before long. I really like the premise behind the deck, and it could be one of the biggest winners of the unban.
| Izzet Murktide
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Izzet Murktide is the most obvious choice when it comes to Preordain decks. It already was pretty cantrip dense before, so there has been talk whether there even is room to include another. However, Preordain offers a unique benefit that cards like or don't, namely the card type. In the past, players have played purely to increase the sorcery count and, consequently, turn on delirium more easily for and . Now the deck can play a legitimate card that's one of the best cantrips ever while and at the same time fill the quota.
I would expect the deck to stay even more low to the ground going forward and always to start on four Channelers. Speaking of, Channeler with Preordain offers absolutely insane library manipulation, allowing you to go as far as four cards deep. Murktide will now play a control role less often. It will rather have more of those games reminiscent of strategies, deploying an early threat and protecting it, never drawing the wrong half thanks to its card selection.
| Izzet Breach
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My beloved Combo. While at first I didn't think Preordain would boost the deck, after a bit of consideration and hivemind work the conclusion is that it might actually turn out to be the best home for it. First, it's a combo strategy, which intrinsically gives cantrips more value. Then it is a deck with blue legends, so there will be a bit of extra blue mana floating around, which is best spent filtering your draws. This particular list could also experience the wrong-half problem with the plethora of interaction it runs, and this is where Preordain shines. While the deck hasn't had issues with delirium, another card type doesn't hurt either.
You might notice that there is no in the list, which is borderline blasphemy. However, in the world of , where incremental card advantage is rendered useless, it's more efficient and easier on the mana to find specific pieces to your plan than to be up one card.
| Neobrand
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Using to turn into has been a strategy for a long time but not been part of the main stream in ages. It's a typical glass cannon that wants to win very fast and won't do much if it fails at that. It preys on fields where people don't expect it and run little interference.
Preordain fits this deck particularly well, as it wants to devote the first turn(s) to setting up anyway. Now it has access to a second, better cantrip to dig three cards deep in search of the perfect combination. The deck needs very specific pieces to come together, so you want as strong of a glue as you can possibly find. A well-known Neobrand aficionado, Ari Zax, has already written out a thread specifically regarding the deck in the Preordain world.
The deck even runs main-deck to actually be able to win through Orcish Bowmasters. I keep my fingers crossed for Neobrand to take down the next Modern tournament.
Closing Thoughts
All in all, I have high hopes that this unban will make waves in the format after all and won't turn out to be totally inconsequential. Modern has been highly interactive and grindy with , and maybe a hyperfocused combo strategy can sweep them out of nowhere.
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, not of Cardmarket.
