Werewolves are likely never going to be a competitive tribe in Modern. Mechanically they are too clunky with their flip mechanic and it’ll be hard to ever give them enough enabling to make them decent. But they have definitely improved with each set. Werewolf creatures come at three levels, distinguished by mana cost.
Our one stops are simple. Village Messenger
and Reckless Waif
are 1/1s that become big for their cost. Unimpressive but straightforward.
Our two drops consist of lords. Kessig Naturalist
has a niche ramp ability that can accelerate our hand and maintains this ability when it flips into an anthem. Mayor of Avabruck
is probably our best lord as he is an anthem on its front and back. Howlpack Alpha is also an army in a can, slowly bolstering your board with buffed wolf tokens.
Our three drop slot is where all the flip control werewolves lie. Tovolar, Dire Overlord
comes with a fantastic draw ability that works for both halves of our creatures and works from both halves of Tovolar. What really makes Tovolar powerful is that he is a Moonmist with suspend 1 so long as you control three other werewolves. This means we just need to control three werewolves to maintain transformation. He loses this ability when he flips but should he revert to Human, flipping back is an inevitability. Then his backside gains a Kessig Wolf Run ability which is great for dumping your mana (including that from Lord of the Ulvenwald
) and giving you something to do when you don’t want to be casting spells at night. Geier Reach Bandit
is passable on the front side as a Bloodbraid Elf in stats. When it flips it becomes an incredible flip enabler allowing us to automatically flip into the backside when we play a front. Werewolves function by having undercosted backsides on mediocre to middling fronts. This gives us one mana 2/2s and 3/2s, two mana 3/3 lords, and three mana 4/3s and 4/4s. Our last flip control is Immerwolf. This three mana anthem but also protects your werewolves from reversion, locking them in their powerful werewolf forms. Tovolar, Dire Overlord
is a periodic flip all but once he flips, new werewolves will come in on their fronts. Geier Reach Bandit
makes those new werewolves enter flipped. Immerwolf makes our flipped werewolves immune to day and night flipping.
Werewolves are a fun tribe that likely will never have the capacity to be a true tribal competitor of the format. They have thoroughly unimpressive one drops and a mechanic which makes them very inconsistent. For werewolves to really get there, I think the fronts need to be serviceable creatures on their own. A different kind of Human tribal deck that is competitive for its ability to just snap off an alpha strike kill out of no where.
