MTG Combo: Lightning Bolt + Snapcaster Mage

DuTogira on TappedOut's Third Modern Moot

8 years ago

Chandra seems... wonky.
Her +1 is aggressive. Six damage on a +1? Sounds good for burn if she were cheaper, but still. The fact that the tokens exile themselves at EoT means this ability is not all that useful in control and midrange decks unless the sole purpose of playing her is to close out games; she can't protect herself with them. Since these tokens exile themselves, they can also be easily chump blocked if your opponent is getting too low on health. One +1 leaves her conveniently in Lightning Bolt + Snapcaster Mage range.
Because of her cost and the use of her 0, she seems most relevant in slower decks which have access to recursion. Grixis Control and Twin come to mind. This puts her 0 on the polar opposite end of the spectrum to her +1 though, which means no matter which deck she ends up falling into, one of those two abilities is likely going to be underwhelming.
Her -X is a double sided wrath effect which will often be an Anger of the Gods or less, given her starting loyalty of four. This puts the value of this ability at around 3 mana. This is powerful, no doubt, but is not likely to hit most of the big beaters in modern. Siege Rhino, Tarmogoyf, Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Deceiver Exarch, Primeval Titan, Batterskull,... you name it, if it's a game finishing creature it survies new Chandra. This ult still is rather powerful against aggressive and mid-range lists (new answer to Lingering Souls for twin/grixis?), but it won't win the late game.

Conclusion: I have no clue where new chandra fits. Her +1 is built for aggro, her 0 for control-with-recursion, and her -x is made to fight aggro and midrange, but will not help in the control mirror. She also does very little for establishing board control that Pyroclasm/Anger of the Gods didn't already do for red. This means that any deck which plays her either wants the combined 6 damage +1 and -x wrath effect, or access to the 0 card draw and -x wrath effect. Given that her +1 and 0 are at odds, and the fact that her -x is worth about 3 mana of her cost, any deck which runs her must be willing to pay about 3 mana for either her +1 or her 0.
That seems to me to be too high of a price for either Twin or Grixis to stomach and her 6 CMC means that even though Jund might be able to use all of her abilities she just costs too much for that deck. This leaves her in Skred if anywhere.
I could be wrong and am more than willing to eat my words but... Chandra feels to me like a walker with a late game CMC whose abilities belong in the mid-game. I might have been happier with a 4-CMC chandra whose +1 gave 2 2/1s, 0 just redrew the hand (not with +1 cards), and had the same -x but started with 3 loyalty.