Kozilek, the Broken Reality – Modern Horizons III
Date Reviewed: June 24, 2024
Ratings:
Constructed: 4
Casual: 5
Limited: 4.63
Multiplayer: 4.13
Commander [EDH]: 4.25
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Modern Horizons III offers a bit of an alternative reality in envisioning what would happen in a world no longer bereft of The Tentacling, seeing as how two Eldrazi titans got burninated and the third is trapped in Innistrad’s moon. They may be dead, but they live on in our hearts, and Kozilek, the Broken Reality is the first of the three new titans on the docket. He’s maybe the “weakest” of the trio…but don’t let that fool you. He’s still very dangerous.
Kozilek’s thing has usually involved card advantage, and he lives up to that here, picking up to two players to put two cards from their hand on the board as 2/2 colorless creatures. Note that you do not need to target yourself…and you draw one card per manifested card. If you hit yourself, this is card neutral, to a point, as you get two bodies and two cards in had. But if you hit an opponent, you also get to draw up to 2 more cards and effectively force a discard; while they can still un-manifest the card if it’s a creature, this can devastate opponents with scant resources.
Speaking of devastation, Kozillek’s passive ability is one to not sleep on. If you take the manifest on yourself, Kozilek brings a 9/9 body…and two 5/4 bodies. For nine mana, 19 power on the board is pretty crazy, and this also can end a game if you have colorless threats on board. The passive buff makes even lowly Eldrazi Spawns a threat, and this can benefit colorless artifacts. It may not be flashy, but this is a lot of stats.
Kozilek, the Broken Reality is maybe the weakest of the nine titans in terms of cheating him into play, but don’t let that fool you. He’s a massive, immediate threat even without combat keywords, and he can enable a devastating swing out of nowhere. While I do think he wants a bit more support than his comrades, you’re still going to get what you pay for.
Constructed: 4 (it’s the cheapest titan by 1 mana, and while it may not immediately end a game, it has a lot of threat potential)
Casual: 5
Limited: 4.75
Multiplayer: 4.25
Commander [EDH]: 4.5
I’m actually quite impressed how even after more than a decade, the most common reaction to seeing a new version of one of the Eldrazi titans is still “can they do that?!”. Kozilek, for example, adds so much power to your side of the table that he wrecks even the curve established by other Eldrazi. An opponent getting to manifest things – and thus presumably flip them later – can lead to some hilarious threats to both you and him, like if they put down a Ravenous Chupacabra-style creature. Yet most of the time, you’ll get more out of it than anyone else will, not least since they’ll have to let you draw a crazy number of cards to do anything cute (assuming you decide to manifest too, and why wouldn’t you?). As if all that wasn’t enough, he’s also worded in a way that makes him go with pretty much everything: I once lost a game to a deck with Forsaken Monument and zero Eldrazi, and I have a feeling this version of Kozilek could do similar things.
Constructed: 4
Casual: 5
Limited: 4.5
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4
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