Neon Dynasty Cards for Modern
With many of the latest Magic: The Gathering sets, there is always one or more cards well suited to the modern competitive format. For the uninitiated, Modern Magic is a format that allows players to use any printed or reprinted card from 8th Edition onwards with a few exceptions (such as Conspiracy, preconstructed Commander decks, and some Ultimate Masters and Masters 25) and has frequently – updated ban list.
Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty continues this streak with a solid handful of new offerings that can be incorporated into solid modern deck construction. While Kamigawa certainly isn’t as powerful for Modern as sets like War of the Spark or Modern Horizons II, he still has a few cards that are very playable in Modern. Here are the strongest.
ten There’s a lot of potential in the Dragonspark Reactor
While there haven’t been a huge number of decks looking to exploit Dragonspark Reactor yet, there certainly seems to be a lot of potential for this card as a win condition in artifact deck builds. Keep in mind that Modern Affinity decks don’t really need a new win condition and largely rely on blue and white as their base colors anyway.
Maybe the deck for Dragonspark Reactor doesn’t exist yet, and the four mana needed to sacrifice it is expensive. However, this is a card that rewards the player more for artifacts entering the field, and it can deal damage to a player and a creature for the amount of artifacts they have played in this game. . He can easily kill a player, and he can even more easily eliminate a major threat from the field.
9 Summoning Calamity is a real magic bomb
Invoke Calamity is an exciting new addition to any deck with red that can reliably reach up to five mana over the course of the game. There definitely seems to be potential for this spell in Izzet Murktide, Temur Cascade, and maybe even Storm decks.
The high, red-intensive mana cost causes Invoke Calamity, but it’s an instant speed spell that can easily get a player out of many situations. Many players have already pointed out this spell’s potential in Collected Company decks as well as its decent combination with Collected Conjuring.
8 Wandering Emperor is a good inclusion for control decks
The Wandering Emperor is far from the most powerful Planeswalker to be printed in recent years. That said, she’s still a decent inclusion for white-inclusive control decks. At the very least, it deserves to be considered for the sideboard of such a deck.
The Wandering Emperor doesn’t really have a powerful win condition or ultimate ability on its card, but it does provide support for control players who are tired of being attacked. Wandering Emperor has Flash and can produce a +1/+1 counter, a Samurai with Vigilance, or can exile a tapped creature while giving you two life. The Wandering Emperor is an excellent support planeswalker and should not be underestimated.
7 Biting-Palm Ninja is a hybrid creature and hand disruption sale
One of the biggest assets of the color black in Modern is its potential for hand disruption. The Biting-Palm Ninja is a Ninjutsu creature that can exile a single nonland card of your choice from the opponent’s hand upon contact.
Any creature that can reliably disrupt the hand, like Biting-Palm Ninja, deserves special consideration. Although Jund has changed a lot in the last few years, he could still use something like Biting-Palm Ninja which gives you a body and an exile card.
6 Walk of Otherworldly Light is a one-mana exile spell
March of Otherworldly Light adds cheap exile removal spells to the white color cache. Path to Exile is the gold standard for this in Modern, and March of Otherworldly light is nowhere near dethroning Path on this. However, the fact that March of Otherworldly Light can also hit artifacts and enchantments without giving the opponent extra land is a strong argument in favor of March.
The downside is that March of Otherworldly Light must exile white cards from its caster’s hand to be valid. Luckily, Modern isn’t usually filled with expensive spells, so March of Otherworldly Light will rarely require a lot of mana and/or cards exiled from your hand to be good at.
5 Containment Construct increases cycling maps and loot spells
Containment Construct is one of the few uncommon maps in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty that has a lot of potential for Modern. Its effect already makes it an asset in decks that use cycling, madness, channeling, or any other effect that forces the player to discard cards from their hand. It’s a colorless creature that only requires generic mana, so it’s incredibly versatile.
There’s been a lot of discussion already about this card’s potential in Hollowvine decks, especially with another Neon Dynasty card we’ll talk about later. Recycling discarded cards will always have some value, and the combo potential for Containment Construct is strong.
4 The shadow of a thousand faces is an evil clone creature
The Thousand-Faced Shadow is a powerful blue creature with Ninjutsu and costs one mana to play. However, you almost never want to play Thousand-Faced Shadow at its normal mana cost. You’ll want to cast it through Ninjutsu, as it makes an attacking copy of another creature when the Shadow of a Thousand Faces enters the battlefield attacking.
The ability to return it to its owner’s hand and play it again makes the Shadow of a Thousand Faces even more powerful. He has Fly to boot, so he has some evasion to keep him from getting killed when he first goes out in a game.
3 Lion Sash gives white his own recovery stringer
Lion Sash is the Scavenging Ooze creature and gear the color white never knew it needed. There is already a lot of oppression in the white cemeteries, Rest in Peace being one of the most powerful. There are also cards like Relic of Progenitus and Tormod’s Crypt that can be used in any color to slow down graveyard decks.
That said, Lion Sash is more versatile than something like Rest in Peace. Being able to react to the opponent’s graveyard moves is sometimes better than exile both graveyards and be done with it. Additionally, there are decks that use white that want access to their own graveyards, which Rest in Peace and Relic of Progenitus don’t allow. The added bonus of Lion Sash being a creature or powering up a creature makes it even better.
2 Reinforced Ronin is a powerful and evasive threat in the early game
Empowered Ronin is a 2/2 creature for red mana with Haste. This isn’t new to red, and it’s absolutely blown out of the water by a card like Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer (although Ragavan does require Dashing to get haste). Cards like Goblin Guide also leave Empowered Ronin looking a bit usual.
Despite this, Empowered Ronin can still be an advantage for aggressive red decks. It’s red mana for a 2/2 attacker each turn, and returning it to your hand gives it some evasion and is a boon to enter-the-battlefield effects. It can also do a good job in Hollowvine decks, as it’s a guaranteed creature cast every turn.
1 The Channel lands are the most exciting thing about the set for the modern
Without a doubt, the most powerful new cards in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty are the cycle of what has been called “Channel Lands”. This is so because each land has the channeling mechanic that allows them to be activated from your hand, and each has a lower activation cost as long as you have legendary permanents in play.
Practically all five of these lands are scary, but Boseiju, Who Endures, and Otawara, Soaring City being perhaps the two most impressive, as one is a non-basic land destroying artifact, enchantment, or spell, and the other allows a creature to be bounced into their owner’s hand. To top it off, these channel abilities cannot be countered by conventional counterspells. It requires a spell that can counter activated abilities, which are even rarer.
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