One of the most exciting cards to come out of Eldritch Moon is Eldritch Evolution. Within hours of the card being previewed, people were discussing turning Allosaurus Rider into Griselbrand or Kitchen Finks into Kiki-Jiki. But there’s another deck in Modern that’s great at cheating on costs and has the opportunity to abuse this card in a big way. Take a look at Joel Larsson’s take on Eldritch Evolution:

Evolution Affinity ? Modern | Joel Larsson

• Creatures (28)
• 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1 Griselbrand
• 1 Salvage Titan
• 1 Steel Overseer
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine
• 2 Myr Enforcer
• 3 Frogmite
• 3 Memnite
• 3 Signal Pest
• 4 Arcbound Ravager
• 4 Ornithopter
• 4 Vault Skirge

• Spells (15)
• 3 Eldritch Evolution
• 4 Cranial Plating
• 4 Mox Opal
• 4 Springleaf Drum

• Lands (17)
• 1 Forest
• 4 Blinkmoth Nexus
• 4 Darksteel Citadel
• 4 Glimmervoid
• 4 Inkmoth Nexus

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This take on Eldritch Evolution is super exciting for a number of reasons. Firstly, you can just win without relying on Eldritch Evolution. One of the biggest weaknesses of other takes on the card is that they are overly dependent on drawing exactly the right combination of mana creatures, Allosaurus Riders, and Eldritch Evolution. This deck can just cast Cranial Platings and Steel Overseers and win, regardless of whether you ever find an Eldritch Evolution.

Secondly, it’s not hard to imagine casting Eldritch Evolution on turn two, between Mox Opal and Springleaf Drum. This gives the deck yet another kind of explosive potential. The addition of yet another angle to Affinity makes it even harder to hate the deck out of the game. Now, not only do you have to worry about blisteringly fast early starts, monstrous Myr Enforcers, and finding long-term answers to creature lands; you also have to worry about opening yourself up to an Eldritch Evolution that can just end the game.

So what role does Eldritch Evolution play in this deck? The most obvious is allowing you to turn a Myr Enforcer into the likes of Griselbrand, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, or Iona, Shield of Emeria. This gives you a way to lock out combo decks that can race you, or to trump opposing Infect or Affinity decks. But you don’t have to live the dream for Eldritch Evolution to be good. You can also just turn Frogmite into Wurmcoil Engine or Salvage Titan in matchups where you need to grind through many removal spells. But that’s still not the end. You can also turn excess Ornithopters or creature-lands into Arcbound Ravager or Steel Overseer.

The raw power of the Affinity decked backed by the additional versatility, explosiveness, and potential consistency provided by Eldritch Evolution is something that I can’t wait to see in action. Any time there’s an incentive to explore new space in an established archetype, particularly one as powerful and linear as Affinity, that’s when you know it’s time to pay attention. The new angles of attack may be a way to trump some of the bad matchups and hate cards, or it may be too cute in most metagames. There’s only one way to find out how good Eldritch Evolution really is, and I can’t wait to see it in action.