Last updated on December 26, 2024
Flare of Duplication | Illustration by Olivier Bernard
There was a time, early in my MTG life, when the Force of Will I pulled from an Alliances booster was the only decent Magic card I owned. To this day, when I get someone with it in a Commander game, it’s everything I want from power-crept Magic. If you’re going to make my Pillages unplayable after being the card for a minute at our LGS back in the day, well, make the moments worth the volumes of cardboard left behind.
Free spells do just that. We think we know what’s going to happen based on the board state, but the little tells we look for, the two open blue mana, the one red or black, those are gone and we have to anticipate based on the moment, the matchup, the decklists. I get that there’s plenty of Magic players who are ready for all free spells to go away forever, but I would disagree. I just want them to be designed well, and the Flares in Modern Horizons 3 are very well designed. Let’s take a look.
What Are Flare Cards in MTG?
Flare of Cultivation | Illustration by Billy Christian
The Flares are a cycle of five cards released in the Modern Horizons 3 MTG set. These Flares are the latest in an occasional series of free spells, but it’s important to note that they are not exactly free. There’s an additional cost associated with these spells even though they get around traditional mana requirements.
The Alliances cycle required you to exile a card from hand, as does Modern Horizons 1‘s Force cycle and Modern Horizons 2‘s elementals, although each set of cards could be cast for a more expensive traditional mana cost in the upper right. The Pact spells from Future Sight cost you mana on the next upkeep, and the Leylines are overcosted anchors in your deck if you don’t draw them in your opening hand, which is less of an issue in the similar but super busted Once Upon a Time.
The easiest costs are the Commander 2020 free spells that just require your commander to be in play – not always easy, sure, but it’s the whole point of the format!
The Flares, though, have a different set of costs, specifically sacrificing nontoken creatures, and that allows them to work in different design space that feels not only fairer, but more interesting as build-arounds.
As I wrote when rating the best cards from the Modern Horizons 3 set, the Flares are all awesome cards which you should absolutely play in Commander, and perhaps even in the format they were designed for, Modern. Let’s take a look at them in our ranking!
#5. Flare of Cultivation
First off, this is a sorcery, so it’s the least flexible of all the Flares and can’t sacrifice the creature in response to removal.
Second, Flare of Cultivation has a fail case of Cultivate, which isn’t really playable outside of Commander anymore, so that’s another issue for this green sorcery.
The third issue is that green usually doesn’t want to sacrifice its creatures, especially when they are likely mana dorks in a ramp deck.
Maybe you can sacrifice creatures that ETB with mana, as you’ve already sort of used them up, like Prosperous Innkeeper or Quirion Sentinel, or Burning-Tree Emissary? But green often needs a devotion count for Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, links in a Birthing Pod chain, or just bodies to mass-pump with Craterhoof Behemoth, so this green card feels like it’s lacking a bit of a home outside one sort of deck, a self-mill lands recursion/ramp deck.
#4. Flare of Denial
I know, free counterspells are where it’s at! But hear me out!
Blue decks don’t generally roll along with sacrificial creatures lying around. Often it’s a big important creature in a control deck, from Dream Trawler to Haughty Djinn. Or it’s the tempo flying creature with the Curious Obsession on it.
On the other hand, Flare of Denial‘s fail case is a Cancel, which is fine enough.
Don’t get me wrong, this is still an amazing blue instant! The decks most likely able to utilize this blue card are decks with a lot of blue creatures, and that tends to be merfolk, spirits, rogues, faeries… and that’s kind of it.
Just remember that you can’t free-cast this off your Snapcaster Mage folks!
#3 Flare of Fortitude
Teferi's Protection at home?
The trouble with Flare of Fortitude is that your permanents don’t phase out, so they can still be exiled with a Farewell. But this white instant can keep your go-wide team alive in the teeth of cheaper board wipes or spot removal.
You’re already packing worse versions of this in your EDH go-wide white decks, cards like Your Temple Is Under Attack, so by all means use Flare of Fortitude!
I can see this finding its way into Modern Heroic decks and maybe go-wide legends decks, especially those that use a card like Ratadrabik of Urborg, which isn’t really a thing at the moment.
#2. Flare of Malice
The top two cards depend on the meta. Flare of Malice is great because black decks tend to have cheap creatures to sacrifice and often get a benefit from that, as in Rakdos Sacrifice. Soul Shatter is a cool effect that’s too expensive for Modern, but I’ve seen people sacrifice creatures to get the revolt trigger on a Fatal Push, and isn’t this just more efficient in those kinds of structures?
Seems like one or two copies of this black instant will show up in decks, maybe sideboards, and of course this is great in EDH.
And if you've read our Modern Horizons 3 Limited Set Review, you know this is the best Flare for MH3 Draft or Sealed formats.
#1. Flare of Duplication
Spell copying is busted. Izzet Turns decks duplicated extra turn spells with clunky things like Galvanic Iteration in Standard. Copying a turn spell by sacrificing a goblin or wizard seems kinda good. And since Flare of Duplication can hit your opponent’s spells as well, that may have utility, especially in Commander.
But in Modern, we may be looking at the rise of storm and storm-style decks after Modern Horizons 3, and if that comes to pass, it’ll be on the backs of spells like this red instant. Even in a prowess deck or a Red Deck Wins pile or a burn deck that plays creatures, yourMonastery Swiftspear that just swung in watches as you cast a Lightning Bolt and then is sacrificed for the copy. The headline isn’t exactly “Free Bolts!” but it’s also not exactly not that.
Best Flare Card Enablers
These instants and sorcery will be good in any deck in Commander, especially with multicolor creatures, and because most are instants and can use a doomed creature as fodder, these have loads of synergies with various good EDH decks.
In Modern or other 60-cards formats where these cards are legal, we’re talking about two specific synergies.
One-Drops
The decks that will want these spells anyway already have a ton of 1-drops. They generally want to do other things with them than sacrifice them for these spells, but these are emergency applications, let’s say. So Dragon's Rage Channeler, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Arboreal Grazer, and whatever else flows from the new archetypes MH3 will enable.
Pitch Elementals
Right now, the good thing to do with a Grief is to use a Not Dead After All on it. I don’t think you’re going to Flare of Malice it usually instead, but there are obnoxious targets like Yawgmoth, Thran Physician and Murktide Regent out there when needs must. But I can also see a world where on turn 2 you sacrifice your Grief to the Flare to remove something and then Feign Death it again for one more discard trigger. That’s kinda gross if there’s space for Flares in the Rakdos Evoke decks, which isn’t a simple question.
Wrap Up
Flare of Malice | Illustration by David Palumbo
Even if, unlike me, you totally hate “free” spells, I think most MTG players can at least appreciate the way these Flares get their alternative cost. Having to sacrifice a nontoken creature not only puts an interesting limit on how easy it’ll be to use these spells for ‘free,' but it also presents a deck-building challenge that may very well spawn new archetypes, and that’s always fascinating.
I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface of the interesting applications of these cards, so if you’ve got a sweet synergy to add, please let me know in the comment or on Draftsim Discord.
Happy brewing with your CommanderModern Horizons 3 cards!
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