April O'Neil, Kunoichi Trainee

Her evasion reads cleaner than it plays, because the format's two most common ground stoppers split on either side of the power-3 line. The 3/2 gets locked out: three power, no block. The 2/3 does not, and it stops her every time, three toughness eating a 2/2 with room to spare. So she routes around the creatures built to swing back while the patient two-power walls hold the door. When the board clogs with 2/3s, the scry 2 is the whole card, and that is the floor of the evaluation, not its ceiling.

WB Ninjas wants her most. The Sneak shell asks for cheap evasive attackers and repeatable enter-the-battlefield triggers, and she supplies a legendary body that does both, with the scry rebuying off any bounce or flicker the archetype runs. There she goes P1P4 to P1P6. A straight white aggressive draw in RW takes her three or four picks later, behind the equipment and the harder-hitting bottom end, treating her evasion as a tiebreaker rather than a draw.

Her liability is white's own removal. Grounded for Life kills her for one mana the turn she attacks into tapped territory, and Stomped by the Foot answers her cleanly in the WB mirror. Equipment is the patch for the 2/3 problem: Bespoke Bō pushes her toughness high enough to survive the trade and her power high enough to break through the walls she can't evade. The creatures she already ignores are the power-3 beaters; it's the small defenders that decide whether she's a clock or a scry engine.

A two-drop that wants to carry equipment and saved triggers, which puts her squarely in white-weighted equipment aggro and the rare white Ninjutsu shell. The unblockable-by-power-3 clause is the relevant text: she is a reliable connector against any board built to attack, and a connecting cheap body is exactly what an equipment deck wants to keep swinging. Akiri, Line-Slinger is the cleanest home: a partner pairing already built around cheap evasive carriers, where putting a Bonesplitter or a Sword on April O'Neil and pushing damage past the big blockers is the whole plan. Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh with a white partner reads the same way, evasion on a body that survives combat math worth more than the scry. The scry 2 matters in Voltron because it digs for the next equipment or a combat trick, not as raw card advantage.

This is a Bracket 2-3 card. The body is too small and the scry too incremental for cEDH, and precon decks rarely build the equipment density that makes the evasion matter. Expect a sub-$5 secondary price; precon-budget builds run her without thought, and casual equipment shells include her as the cheap, evasive carrier rather than the curve-topper.

Within those decks she competes for the early-evasion slot against Slither Blade and the one-mana unblockable carriers. She is better than those when the deck wants the scry to find equipment; worse when raw cost is the only metric. In multiplayer her evasion erodes: four players means more small blockers floating around, and the power-3 line that reads clean in a duel gets chumped by a stray token. She is invisible outside white equipment Voltron, which is most of the table.

The most natural target is the 2-mana white creature slot in Boros Energy, where the incumbents are settled and the bar is high: Guide of Souls and the various energy enablers earn their slots by feeding the deck's engine, not by attacking past blockers. April O'Neil does neither. Her scry 2 is real card smoothing, but Boros Energy already runs Lightning Helix and Galvanic Discharge to clear the path it cares about, and a 2/2 with conditional evasion does not generate or spend energy, which is the resource the entire deck is organized around. A two-drop that sits outside the engine is a two-drop the deck does not want.

The power-3 evasion clause reads better than it plays in this format. Modern's relevant blockers are frequently small, sticky bodies (Ragavan, Ledger Shredder, the assorted one- and two-power utility creatures) that fall under the power-3 line and can still interpose. The clause locks out exactly the beaters that were going to be attacking anyway, not the chumps that actually gum up an aggressive board.

So the honest read is structural rather than slot-versus-slot: there is no white aggro deck in current Modern that wants an off-engine evasive two-drop over what it already runs. Mono-white and Boros aggro shells have not been competitive at the format's speed for years, and the energy decks that occupy white's aggressive space want resource generators, not bodies that lean on a scry trigger.

She is legal but has yet to register in tracked tournament play this season, and the structural reason is plain: the deck that would run her does not exist in Modern, and the deck that wears her colors is building around something else.

An evasive two-drop for white aggro that wants a body and a card-selection trigger in the same slot. The scry 2 is the draw; the power-3 block restriction means most beaters can't stop her, though a 2/2 attacking for two does not push the kind of damage an aggressive deck builds its early turns around. White's two-drops in the format already do more, so she sits behind them on the curve. Legal, but yet to register in tracked tournament play this season. Lands in budget white brews and gets cut once better two-drops are in reach.

Released this season, this is legal but has yet to register in tracked Pioneer play, and the structural read explains why. A 2/2 white two-drop with scry 2 and conditional evasion looks like a Mono-White Humans or Boros Heroic piece on paper, but neither deck wants it. Mono-White Humans builds around tribal synergy and curve, where the two-drop slot belongs to creatures that push the aggregate (Thalia's Lieutenant payoffs, Adeline) rather than a Ninja whose type line does nothing for the deck. Boros Heroic wants its two-mana plays to enable Favored Hoplite and Monastery Swiftspear with cheap targeted spells, not a body that asks nothing of the rest of the deck.

The evasion is the problem in context. Can't be blocked by power 3 or greater reads well against midrange, but Pioneer's white aggro decks already close games faster than this body does, and they would rather run more anthem effects or burn than a two-drop that connects for two. The scry 2 is genuine value, but white aggro does not prioritize card selection over board pressure, and the controlling white decks that might want filtering (Azorius Control variants) are not in the market for a 2/2 attacker.

There is no slot competition to map here because there is no slot. The card needs a white tempo deck that values evasive bodies with selection over raw aggression, and that archetype does not exist in Pioneer's current map. Until one does, this stays a Limited and Commander card.

White's aggressive two-drops in Pauper are evaluated against a deep bench: Kor Skyfisher for tempo and value, Thraben Inspector for the body-plus-card, and the various one-drops that fill out Boros Synthesis curves. April O'Neil offers a different bargain, a 2/2 with conditional evasion and scry 2 on entry. The scry is the draw here, since white's card selection in the format usually comes attached to other text or to bodies that don't pressure life totals. The evasion gates on power 3 or greater, which means small chump blockers and utility tokens can still interpose; against the format's go-wide token strategies and Walls builds, that line gets crossed more than the aggressive case wants.

The trouble is that Boros Synthesis already runs a tight curve and doesn't have a clear cut for a 2/2 whose evasion lapses against exactly the defensive boards it most wants to push through. The scry 2 is real card quality, but the deck isn't short on action, and a 2/2 body that can be chumped is not where the archetype wants its early pressure.

A fringe presence so far, registered as a one- or two-of in the white builds that try it rather than a fixture of any of them. Around a tix on MTGO. The honest read is that the slot belongs to Kor Skyfisher and Thraben Inspector, and April O'Neil hasn't displaced either.

A 2-mana white aggro body with scry 2 and conditional evasion, in a format where Black Lotus makes three mana on turn zero and Ancestral Recall draws three for one. White beatdown does not exist here; the closest thing to a creature deck in Vintage is the Workshops prison engine, and a 2/2 that can't be blocked by big creatures does nothing for it. Legal, but yet to register in tracked tournament play. Noise.

A 2-mana 2/2 with conditional evasion and a one-time scry 2. The bar in white's two-drop slot is Stoneforge Mystic, which finds and cheats an equipment, and Mother of Runes, which protects a board through repeated activations. April does neither. She pressures life totals and smooths one draw, which is closer to filler than to a reason to register a creature in Legacy. The evasion gates on power 3 or greater, so any small chump blocker still stops her, and the scry is a single look rather than a recurring engine. Daze on the way in does the rest. Legal, but yet to register in tracked tournament play. Does not clear the bar.