Modern Times - Rakdos Scam, and the Unbanning of Preordain

Hello folks! In this rendition of Modern Times, we’re talking about the latent impact that Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty has had on Modern through some choice cards pushing Rakdos Scam into the top-end of the meta, as well as a heavy hitter in both Standard and Modern from Dominaria United that Rakdos Scam is keeping high up in the clouds (at least pricewise). Finally, I’ll briefly touch upon our old friend, Preordain, who is rejoining us at the proverbial Modern kitchen table. Let’s delve (or dive if the pun is too much for you) into things! 

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker is an interesting card for Rakdos Scam. It’s kind of a lite version of Seasoned Pyromancer (also played in the deck) with some upside potential if/when it flips into Reflection of Kiki-Jiki. The token generation upon entering into play is decent for three mana, especially when it turns into a draw engine the very next turn.

The “hidden” value in this card comes in its flip. Reflection of Kiki-Jiki pairs really well with the seemingly endless non-legendary creatures with strong ETB (enter the battlefield) effects. For instance, you can Evoke Fury, and in response to the Evoke trigger with its ETB on the stack use Reflection of Kiki-Jiki’s activated ability to make a token copy of Fury with haste that’ll die at the end of turn.

In theory, the earliest you could do this is turn five, so Reflection of Kiki-Jiki has to live a turn without haste before use. But if you pull a move like this off with Fury, you now can deal eight combined damage from your Evoked Fury, and token Fury, which will wipe a good chunk of any opposing board state. What’s more, that token has haste, so you can swing with a cozy 3/3 double striker. All of this costs you a single mana, and a card from hand for Fury’s Evoke cost. 

Some Scam players look at Fable of the Mirror-Breaker as a bloated inclusion in the deck. Some people look at Fable of the Mirror-Breaker as basically extra copies of Seasoned Pyromancer. Some look at it as simply a “win-more” card in a deck that’s already winning… a lot. I look at Fable as the most utilitarian card in the deck. Yes, pulling off a sweet play with Reflection is difficult, but will probably win you the game if you can do it even once. Its front side nets you a token that can block some low-toughness creatures or attack and get you some treasure tokens; it scales up to draw you a couple cards while placing dead cards in your grave at the very worst, or placing a Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger in your grave at best. Oh, and if it’s too late to be useful, it can always be pitched to Evoke Fury. 

Right now, Fable/Reflection sits at $20. I don’t see it going down, but it’s not obvious if it’s going to go up either. As more people pick up Scam decks to play, I would imagine Fable will see some more play, but will its use be as widespread as other core components of the deck, or is it simply better to just play a playset of Seasoned Pyromancers and another Blood Moon? Time will only tell. At the very least, picking up one if you’re on the fence, trying it out, and then reevaluating, might be the best strategy. If you’re dead set on playing Scam, you might as well pick up two or three sooner, rather than later. 

Takenuma, Abandoned Mire

The land cycle in Neon Dynasty was probably the best part of the overall set, at least in terms of contributing to the Modern metagame. Cards like Otawara, Soaring City, and Boseiju, Who Endures are household names in the format. Some people may also recall Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire. And finally, to echo a sentiment fellow writer Jason Alt expressed in his recent piece about some choice Commander Master’s cycles: no one remembers the red one (Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance). 

For a time, no one remembered the black one either, but then of course the Pro Tour happened, and Rakdos Scam became the best deck in the meta overnight, occupying well over 10% of the current meta, if you go by MTGGoldfish’s stats. Turns out, when asking yourself: should I play a deck with Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer or a deck with Orcish Bowmasters, the proper answer is, in fact, both. Short of an emergency ban, this will be the meta we’ll have for at least another year under the new banned list policy WotC has just implemented.

Back to land cycles! Takenuma, Abandoned Mire is an interesting component of the landbase in Rakdos Scam. For four mana, you can Channel it to mill yourself, and return a creature or planeswalker from your graveyard to your hand. The neat thing about this card is that you need not only return what you mill, rather you can simply Channel it to fill your yard (which can help for paying Kroxa’s Escape cost), and return a high-value creature to your hand like Grief, or Fury.

This land is usually only played as a one-of, which is sensible. There’s only a couple legendary creatures in this deck that are regularly in play (mostly just Ragavan) to lower the Channel cost, so more often than not, you’ll pay three mana for this ability instead of four, which is fine, but can still be expensive depending on where you are in the game. 

Right now Takenuma hasn’t moved a ton since the Pro Tour, and is sitting at around $6. Given that Rakdos Scam will be the deck to play (and beat) for the foreseeable future, I would imagine as more people want to build the deck, the demand for this card will rise, making its current price closer to a floor than a ceiling. Now is a good time to buy, given how stagnant its price is. Honestly, it’s a nice, and still underappreciated, component of the Neon Dynasty land cycle. If you really wanted to push it to its limits, you could make an argument for its inclusion in Golgari Yawgmoth, too… but that’s pushing it. Nevertheless, so long as Jund… Uh… I mean, Rakdos, is the top of the meta, then so too will its individual components be. 

Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

This card’s current price is reflective of what happens when the best card in Standard starts to also be the best sideboard card in a Rakdos Scam [mirror] match. Much like the olden days of Jund mirror matches, Rakdos Scam mirrors can turn into real slogs. Sheoldred (the cool one) does a good job at tilting the scales in your favor if you can land her in the mirror match. The ability to gain life off of her when you draw effectively nullifies Orcish Bowmasters’ triggered ability. The life loss she deals to opponents speeds up otherwise sluggish games, and she’s a 4/5 deathtouch-er to boot, nicely topping out Scam’s mana curve. 

Not much else to say. The price of Sheoldred is holding steady at around $75 if you go by the market price, making her the most expensive semi-regularly played creature in Modern (more so than Ragavan and Bowmasters). Even more hilarious is the fact that she’s mostly played as a sideboard card. Now you might say “well, she’s the best card in Standard by some accounts, so couldn’t that be driving the price?” Well, if you look at the data, Sheoldred’s predominant use is in Modern in Rakdos Scam sideboards even more so than in the mainboards of Dimir Midrange in Standard (really shows you the state of Standard).

What’s the future for Sheoldred? Honestly, I can see her going higher. Will she hit $100? No. But Scam and non-Scam decks that can afford to tuck this into the sideboard, or even the top-end of the mana curve in their mainboards (see Golgari Yawgmoth, for example), will want to play this card at the most competitive level. Thankfully, you never need more than one, or at most, two copies. 

Might be worth picking up a copy now, as I can easily see her going as high as $85, or even $90. Is it because she’s worth that much? Somewhat. She’s incredibly powerful, and a terrific answer to Scam in Modern, but she’s also pretty tough to find. With only one printing in the ever-so-popular (kind of sarcasm?) Dominaria United set (not counting the extra print sheet from Phyrexia: All Will Be One: Extras), finding listings lower than the market average is incredibly difficult at the moment, and I don’t see an obvious opportunity for her to be reprinted in the near future (short of making it onto The List or a Mystery Booster).

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker	CardKingdom $20.99	TCGPlayer $17.90
Takenuma, Abandoned Mire	CardKingdom $9.99	TCGPlayer $7.20
Sheoldred, the Apocalypse	CardKingdom $94.99	TCGPlayer $75.14

A Note on Preordain

Back in January, my second MTGStocks article discussed how one should speculate on unbannings in Modern. For brevity, the two most important things one must ask when thinking about what could come off the banned list are: 

1. If a card is on the banned list, would its unbanning enable a deck that heavily skews the play environment?

2. If a card is on the banned list because it was once too powerful for the format, would it still be considered too powerful today?

My argument was (and still is) that if you can say “no” to both those criteria for a specific card, then it’s a solid candidate for unbanning at some point. Obviously, what can be unbanned, and when should cards be unbanned are two very, very different questions. In fact, I would argue that “when” is more important to WotC, than what in this context. 

At the end of my article, I made a claim that two cards were safe to unban in Modern based on my above criteria: Punishing Fire (I still stand by this one)… And, you guessed it, Preordain. My argument for Preordain’s unbanning was twofold: first, its presence in the meta is not nearly as pervasive as it was in its heyday, and secondly, it’s not a particularly powerful card by today’s standards, especially when cards like Expressive Iteration exist.

Back when I wrote this piece, Preordain was anywhere between $0.35 and $0.70, depending on whether you looked at the market or average price. As of the unbanning, it’s now going for anywhere between $2.00, and $2.70 a piece. Such a multifold increase for a common blue card is quite extraordinary. Will this price last? Probably not. I don’t think it will ever go back to its pre-ban low, but the price spikes we’re seeing now are purely because the floodgates have opened and demand is surging for everyone to pick up a playset. Wait a couple weeks, and let the market adjust. 

Currently, the best cantrip in Modern is still Expressive Iteration, and it’s sitting at less than $1.50. I have no reason to believe that Preordain will ever be worth more than Expressive Iteration, and am anticipating the price to settle somewhere around $1.00. Furthermore, you’re not late to the party if you don’t have a playset today. Blue is still not the dominant color in the Modern color pie (not even by a longshot), so hang tight, and just let the demand surge die down, then go and pick up your nice sets of Preordain to play alongside your nice playsets of The One Ring and Temporal Mastery in your Modern-legal Mono-Blue Turns deck (or is that just me?)

A Few Final Thoughts

This is a longer article, so if you stuck it out, thank you. We covered a lot of ground today. Modern after this recent Pro Tour looks like a wild ride. Scam now makes up almost 20% of the meta depending on what data you look at, so the cards that make up that number are positioned to be the largest potential financial movers going forward. The other message here is that cards that shut down Scam are also likely to make some pretty big moves, too, as evidenced by Sheoldred, so keep an eye on those pieces, too, including cards like Blood Moon. It’s the dawn of a new day in Modern, so let’s see what the future of this meta brings!

Check out these articles:

History, Restapled - Lands, Ho; Prices, Low by Steve Heisler

New Horizons: Commander Masters Decks by Matt Grzechnik

Commander Masters Cycles by Jason Alt