MTG Salvation

5
Blast Zone

4
Finale of Promise
Finale of Devastation

3
Narset, Parter of Veils
Liliana's Triumph
Dovin's Veto
Teferi, Time Raveler
Ashiok, Dream Render
Karn, the Great Creator

2
Contentious Plan
Finale of Revelation
Bolas's Citadel
Dreadhorde Arcanist
Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin
Angrath's Rampage
Domri, Anarch of Bolas
Neoform
Saheeli, Sublime Artificer
Emergence Zone

1
The rest

Opinions on specific cards:

• Tomik, Distinguished Advokist: much better in Legacy where Lands is a deck.
• Finale of Revelation: this thing has "untap five lands" on it so some combo deck is gonna use it. If you've ramped up to six basic lands, you can go Heartbeat of Spring -> Early Harvest -> Finale for 13 (or transmute Muddle the Mixture and Finale for 10) and untap five lands. Although if you had six lands, wouldn't it be easier to cast Primeval Titan?
• Narset, Parter of Veils: combos with Day's Undoing, but fine just hating on opposing cantrip-heavy decks without resorting to combos. She replaces herself with her -2, though that puts her in Bolt range.
• Narset's Reversal: Returning a Grapeshot to hand means you can cast it again, but unlike Remand or Unsubstantiate, this doesn't get discounted by Baral, Chief of Compliance. Also, Remand loots with Baral, and Unsubstantiate can get rid of pesky hatebears.
• Wall of Runes: if anyone cares about the Defender combo deck (Staff of Domination + Overgrown Battlement/Axebane Guardian and enough defenders), this adds a body to the count and scrys 1.
• Bolas's Citadel: the hard part is getting lands out of the way. It's not really a one card combo since you need to gain life (which means either Aetherflux Reservoir or having a deck full of life gain cards).
• Bolt Bend: Not as good as Stubborn Denial since you can't Bolt Bend an attempt by your opponent to combo off, doesn't stop board wipes, and does nothing against spot removal if you're the only one with creatures on the board. Ricochet Trap gets played in cascade Living End only because they can't play spells with CMC < 3.
• Dreadhorde Arcanist: overrated, I don't have high hopes when it's an attack trigger for CA (Glint-Sleeve Siphoner). I think it's neat that you can Become Immense it, then have it copy the BI on attack though.
• Finale of Promise: easy 2-for-1, triggers Arclight Phoenix/Thing in the Ice/prowess, casts Living End...seems like a pretty strong spell. Could replace Snapcaster Mage in Phoenix.
• Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin: another Goblin Rabblemaster/Legion Warboss-style card to put in your SB against combo/control, or as a finisher for Blood Moon lock decks.
• Arboreal Grazer: an option for Amulet. I don't think it's good as Amulet is more about storing mana for future turns then ramping immediately. This is reflected in their choice of Coalition Relic over Explore - T3 Relic, charge counter leads to T4 remove counter, play untapped land, tap everything for 6 mana, whereas you can only get to 5 if you had Explore instead of Relic. Likewise, if you end turn 2 with Sakura-Tribe Scout, Amulet and 2 lands in play, you can play double bounceland next turn for 6 mana. This sequence isn't possible if you end turn 2 with Grazer, Amulet and 3 lands (having spent the extra land drop on turn 2 because Grazer forces you to) instead.
• Finale of Devastation: fixed GSZ. Good for assembling creature combos, whether it's Devoted Druid + Vizier of Remedies or Heritage Druid + Nettle Sentinel, and finding finishers once you've got your combo.
• Domri, Anarch of Bolas: it's +1/+0 for a net 2 mana, seems below the curve. Also lets Narnam Renegade trade for big creatures.
• Neoform: overrated, I played Beck // Call Elves and the problem was blue mana because Heritage Druid didn't produce it and Simic is a pretty bad color combination (you don't want to touch blue at all, but Beck//Call forces you to, so you sigh and play it anyway until something better comes along). In Devoted Vizier decks, assembling the combo gives you infinite green mana, then what? You don't have blue to Neoform into Duskwatch Recruiter, and you can't Neoform your 2-drops into 2-drops anyway. Neither of these problems exists with Chord of Calling, Eldritch Evolution, or the new Finale of Devastation.
• Teferi, Time Raveler: combos with Possibility Storm/Knowledge Pool, though it's a fine PW just for value without combos. At worst he'll bounce something and cantrip.
• Ashiok, Dream Render: It doesn't affect spells and abilities controlled by you, so unfortunately there's no fun to be had with Field of Ruin or Path to Exile. Nevertheless, it's quite hard to remove since it survives Bolt and isn't a creature. It hates on graveyards too, repeatedly even, so it's not like Nihil Spellbomb where you blow it once and they just Loot next turn to get their engine going again now that your Spellbomb is gone. Ashiok will stop them completely unless they can do everything in one turn.
• Dovin, Hand of Control: My gut feel is that you should just play Damping Sphere over this. Costs less and hates on the same things.
• Saheeli, Sublime Artificer: better in Legacy/Vintage due to cards that they have but we don't (Moxen, Force of Will). Just like the obvious comparison Monastery Mentor, which is a commonly played card there but not in Modern.
• Karn, the Great Creator: playable, but overrated. When Karn does anything at all, it's one of three scenarios:
1) Your opponent is playing an artifact deck, and his static is winning you the game.
2) You've just searched up and played Mycosynth Lattice, and his static is winning you the game.
3) You've just used him as a colorless Mastermind's Acquisition to get some artifact lock piece against your opponent.
1) depends on what your opponent is playing, 2) costs a lot of mana, and 3) costs a lot of mana too. 4 mana to tutor an artifact in the worst case is not a great rate. There are prison decks that use Whir of Invention to tutor for lock pieces, sure, but those decks are built with cheap artifacts to pay for Whir as well as to keep their hands empty if the lock piece is Ensnaring Bridge.

• Ugin, the Ineffable: if your deck is full of 2-mana artifacts that cantrip (Elsewhere Flask, Ichor Wellspring, Prophetic Prism, Kaleidostone, Guild Globe), having a 2-mana reducer lets you cycle through it. Semblance Anvil does this at negative CA, and Krark-Clan Ironworks did this before it got banned, so now Ugin gets to join the fun as a super expensive cost reducer. This deck still has the same problem as Bolas's Citadel.
• Blast Zone: Clearly a good card, a little mana-intensive and slow perhaps, but helped by the fact that it's a land and the first counter is free. Tutorable with Primeval Titan, recurrable with Crucible of Worlds/Life from the Loam, can't be hit by Meddling Mage or Kitesail Freebooter...lots of good things about this card.
• Emergence Zone: for combo decks, this threatens a kill if your opponent ever taps out, at the cost of having 2 less mana to work with during that turn. Having less mana means you're more likely to fizzle. There are some other things it enables relating to summoning sickness, like endstep Empty the Warrens and attacking before they have a chance to play sorcery speed board wipes, or endstep Footsteps of the Goryo Griselbrand so you get one attack before Yawgmoth's Bargaining. The problem is, combo decks don't have room for colorless-producing lands, since they need most of their lands to cast cheap colored spells like Serum Visions or Faithless Looting, so this is SB material at best, but you can play other cheap cards in your SB to beat counters/removal such as Dispel or Silence and those reduce the amount of mana you have on the combo turn by 1 instead of 2.

Most of the PWs are basically enchantments that can be attacked (aren't they all?). Those that have an ability that cantrips (i.e. the blue ones) are better.

Card: # of decks on mtgtop8
As always, data includes MTGO 5-0s which are not chosen at random, so take the numbers with a pinch of salt.

Tithe Taker: 4
Benthic Biomancer: 17
Pteramander: 39
Sphinx of Foresight: 0
Cry of the Carnarium: 3
Drill Bit: 0
Pestilent Spirit: 0
Spawn of Mayhem: 4
Electrodominance: 19
Immolation Shaman: 0
Light up the Stage: 69
Rix Maadi Reveler: 1
Skewer the Critics: 108
Growth-Chamber Guardian: 0
Incubation Druid: 0
Rampage of the Clans: 2
Wilderness Reclamation: 6
Absorb: 37
Bedevil: 2
Biomancer's Familiar: 0
Deputy of Detention: 126
Dovin, Grand Arbiter: 0
Emergency Powers: 0
Growth Spiral: 9
Gruul Spellbreaker: 4
Judith, the Scourge Diva: 3
Kaya, Orzhov Usurper: 33
Lavinia, Azorius Renegade: 4
Prime Speaker Vannifar: 8
Rhythm of the Wild: 7
Incubation//Incongruity: 1

It's time again for the quarterly "hits and misses from the previous set", brought to you by yours truly.

The big winners were Skewer the Critics, Deputy of Detention, and Light Up the Stage. Deputy has seen play in the two premier Aether Vial decks (Humans and Spirits), while the red spells have been a godsend for Burn and mono-red Phoenix. While Light up the Stage has seen plenty of play, at GPs the Light decks have been outclassed by their counterparts - Light Burn by traditional Boros and mono-red Phoenix by Izzet Phoenix. Eidolon of the Great Revel punishes opponents for cantripping to find their action; playing Light up the Stage in the same deck is hanging yourself with your own rope. Mono-red Phoenix is less consistent than Izzet Phoenix due to the lack of Serum Visions.

Moving down the list, we have Pteramander and two surprises. Pteramander goes into Izzet Phoenix, combining desirable attributes from Monastery Swiftspear (can be played on turn 1) and Bedlam Reveler (2 mana total for a big beater). Lately, Phoenix has been moving back to Snapcaster Mage and Pyromancer Ascension in the flex slots though.

The two surprises are...Absorb and Kaya, Orzhov Usurper! Despite both cards being released to lukewarm if not negative reception, Absorb has managed to find a way into some UW Control decks as a 1-of, and Kaya has been mainboarded in Esper and Lantern Control. I'm honestly quite surprised at Kaya; Faerie Macabre is not normally a playable card and neither is Isolate, but put them together on a 3-mana card that lets you use both effects more than once and...they are? Anyway, Ashiok from War of the Spark follows the same template (2 repeatable hate effects on a 3 mana walker), so if you want to look like a genius and/or speculate on cards, there's your pick.

Digging a bit deeper, we've got some good news and bad news. The good news is that Ravnica Allegiance spawned multiple new deck archetypes. Well done! The bad news is they could charitably be called tier 3. Nevertheless, it's instructive to look at these decks and find out why they're stuck in that rut.

Electrodominance: the shell for this deck is Electrodominance/As Foretold + Living End/Ancestral Vision. Casting Living End or Ancestral Vision gives you a huge amount of resources and, in Living End's case, can be enough to win the game shortly.
Where did it go wrong? The devil is in the details. You need to play cyclers to revive with Living End, and as a result you can't play actual cantrips with card selection, like Serum Visions. Secondly, Faithless Looting decks are pretty popular, and Living End is two-sided. They can play one creature to pressure you while discarding a few more to Looting so that they've still got a board if Living End hits.

Prime Speaker Vannifar: this Pod variant brought a lot of attention to itself (they always do - remember Evolutionary Leap and Eldritch Evolution?), along with a spike in Scryb Ranger's price. It had the same Bolt-proofness as Sai, Master Thopterist, but for a 4-drop meant for Modern play, it damn well have.
Where did it go wrong? Vannifar decks are a lot like Bubble Hulk decks:
1) you need to memorize a long sequence of tutor targets to search up
2) those targets are kind of bad, and you wouldn't play them in your deck if not for the fact that you need them for the kill
3) if any of those tutor targets is anywhere but in your library, tough titty. Sometimes if you draw one of the pieces you can hardcast it and combo off anyway. Other times that piece costs 5 or 6 mana.
And that 4 toughness? With the continued dominance of Phoenix, decks (including Phoenix itself) have been turning to Flame Slash to get rid of Thing in the Ice and Crackling Drake. Suddenly that 4 toughness doesn't seem so invincible.

The key lesson from Electrodominance and Vannifar is that the refrain "you win as soon as you resolve X/untap with X" is often not true on closer inspection. There's usually some kind of additional setup needed, like having certain cards in the graveyard or library, and that costs you percentage points.

Growth Spiral, Wilderness Reclamation: the terrors of BO1 Standard made it to Modern, where they continue to... make matches go to time . The deck plays out quite similarly to blue Scapeshift: you play a bunch of ramp so you can Cryptic Command on turn 3 and feed your eventual wincon, or Remand to stall them without going down on cards. It even has a tutor (Mystical Teachings) to match Bring to Light.
Wilderness Reclamation in Modern has the leg up against other midrange/control decks; the high density of 4-CMC cards (and Mystical Teachings' flashback) means you'll out-topdeck them every time, and all that ramp allows you to out-mana them every time.
Where did it go wrong? Well, aggro decks. Especially that pesky Burn which got another Bolt to add to its arsenal. The comparison to blue Scapeshift is apt as it traditionally has not been a good choice in an aggro-heavy meta.

As for flops, Humans is still sticking to Gaddock Teeg over Lavinia, Azorius Renegade in their SBs. Being a Human isn't all that matters (just ask Deputy of Detention). And there can be no bigger flop than Sphinx of Foresight, a card which posed us the question, "Would you play Mystic Speculation if it cost 0 mana?" And the answer was no, because scrying 3 doesn't make up for the fact that you're effectively 1 card down.