Note: This is my first thread in the CSCD subforum, so this template is cribbed with the utmost respect from the MM2017 opening post.
MODERN MASTERS 2019* * As designed by Sliver Lord
Intro
With the release this month of MM2015, and the clear implication of more to follow, designing future MM releases has become an idea of interest for many of us. Many expect the every other year release pattern to continue, making 2017 the natural next release. I think it’s at least as likely that this be becomes an annual release, and 2016 doesn’t have enough new cards to interest me, so I’ve decided to jump straight to 2019. That means we’re looking at a span of 8th Edition to Origins. I’m trying to use this as stepping stone to an actual custom set, where I can experiment with limited archetype balance and so on without simultaneously having to juggle 220 or so new card designs.
I think that the first 2 MMs have had a pretty awkward tension between filling reprint demand and being sweet historically inspired limited formats, making them an imperfect product on both fronts. This design assumes that by 2019 WotC has decided to decouple these goals into two separate products, and the Modern Masters moniker has stuck with the limited formats. In plain terms, this means financial aspects won’t be a consideration. This is also convenient since the set will not in fact be printed, but will in fact be, hopefully, drafted (by my playgroup).
Design Guidelines
Unknown total card number at this time (249 nonland and ??? land)
Foil slot replaced by a DGM/FRF style land slot.
Ten draft archetypes, one for each color pair.
Aiming for ~17 commons, ten uncommons, eight rares and 1 mythic in each color.
One common, two uncommons, one rare, and 0-1 mythic in each guild, agnostic on gold/hybrid.
Only sets from Eighth Edition through Magic Origins.
Mechanics appearing on exactly one card is acceptable (not mandatory, but not disallowed).
Banned cards can be included if they could reasonably be unbanned by 2019.
Cards from pre-8th or supplemental products can be included in they could reasonably be printed by 2019 (note that I’m trying to keep this and the previous to a minimum).
I've actually got a first draft which is off by 2 rares, 1 white uncommon, 5 black uncommons, and (basically all of) the land. I plan to hold off posting it for around two days so initial discussion can be a little broader. Mostly I'm interested in what people think of the archetypes and any cards that come to mind as a particularly good fit.
If you're going to be supporting artifacts, I'd suggest dropping one common from each monocolor to give you that many extra slots to devote to colorless.
What exactly does this "land slot" imply? Are they high-valued picks like fetches/shocks/filters, or more common fixing like karoos/refuges? Would utility lands be included, too? It's an interesting idea, though, and I like the conceit. I guess it would work in the same way as the "draft matters" pack slot in Conspiracy did, wherein the rarity of those cards indicated how often they showed up relative to each other.
If you have 15 mythics and only five are monocolored, where are the other 10 coming in? I think there are many more monocolored mythics that warrant reprinting than multicolored ones.
I'd throw Ancestral Vision on the list of cards that'll likely be unbanned. I'd be very surprised if that's still banned by 2019. On the contrary, the artifact lands are waaaaaay too dangerous to be taken off the banlist: if you do, affinity immediately becomes a juggernaut. (Heh, bad pun.)
Only one card per mechanic? You're gonna run yourself thin on some of your archetypes, particularly if flashback and prowess are two of the ones you have listed. Archetypes look solid, otherwise: they're simple, but simple often works well. I'd be a bit concerned about the slivers, though, particularly how densely you're going to be including them in non- colors.
I like your idea of using Modern Masters as a vehicle to reprint supplementary product cards. There's no avenue for Wizards to print cards straight into Modern, like they have with Legacy and the commander preconstructed decks, and I know that's something MaRo's said they wished they had. Dreampod Druid in particular is a good catch: I'll have to bring it up in the MM3 thread.
Isn't bringing in banned cards and non-legal cards against the spirit of this product?
Including cards in MM2015 which are banned at the moment is against the spirit of the product; including cards which were banned is fine. Notably, Bitterblossom. I think it's very likely that Bloodbraid Elf will be modern legal in 4 years, so I have no issues including it. I am less sure that the artifact lands will be legal, but I think they easily could be. Similarly, I consider Ancestral Vision to be in the pool of "cards it would be fine to include" although I don't think I want it. Stuff like Hypergenesis, Treasure Cruise, or Mental Misstep I would not consider legitimate includes.
The idea with the other three is similar - their inclusion implies they got a standard legal reprint sometime in between now and 2019. Scavenging Ooze, for instance, was not modern legal using MM2015 sets, but it will be using MM2017 sets, and I think it has a pretty good shot of appearing. This rationale does make me sort of antsy, which is why I'm trying to keep it to a minimum. I feel like these three pull a lot of weight at the moment (particularly deathreap, since I didn't like any other uncommon appropriate Golgari cards), but if a good opportunity emerges to cut them I'll take it.
May be a bit early to be including Origins, lol. I wanted to be very clear that I was fine including Origins cards as they get spoiled but not BFZ ones (since that's how I expect actual MM2019 to work, should it exist).
If you're going to be supporting artifacts, I'd suggest dropping one common from each monocolor to give you that many extra slots to devote to colorless. The set skeleton is still +-1 in most cases. I do have 8-9 colored cards at common in the artifact theme, whereas MM2 only has 4-5.
What exactly does this "land slot" imply? Are they high-valued picks like fetches/shocks/filters, or more common fixing like karoos/refuges? Would utility lands be included, too? It's an interesting idea, though, and I like the conceit. I guess it would work in the same way as the "draft matters" pack slot in Conspiracy did, wherein the rarity of those cards indicated how often they showed up relative to each other. The land slot has its own rarities. In DGM for instance, the land slot had guildgates at common, shocks at rare, and Maze's End at mythic. Basically, since I can't logistically support a foil slot, this is my way to lock in the land as fan at 1 and give myself more total cards in set without diluting their frequency too much. Currently I plan to have some mix of Shocks/filters at common/uncommon, some members of the WWK and Innistrad block cycles at rare, and some utilily or five color one-ofs sprinkled throughout.
If you have 15 mythics and only five are monocolored, where are the other 10 coming in? I think there are many more monocolored mythics that warrant reprinting than multicolored ones. Well, 1-2 per monocolor. Currently I have 7 monocolors total. Since I've decoupled the financial aspect, I wanted most mythics to suggest one particular archetype.
I'd throw Ancestral Vision on the list of cards that'll likely be unbanned. I'd be very surprised if that's still banned by 2019. On the contrary, the artifact lands are waaaaaay too dangerous to be taken off the banlist: if you do, affinity immediately becomes a juggernaut. (Heh, bad pun.) I don't think the artifact lands could come off right now, but I think these (Modern Banned Series VideoRecap Article) suggest they are close enough to probably come off after 8 new blocks have raised the overall modern powerlevel.
Only one card per mechanic? You're gonna run yourself thin on some of your archetypes, particularly if flashback and prowess are two of the ones you have listed. Archetypes look solid, otherwise: they're simple, but simple often works well. I'd be a bit concerned about the slivers, though, particularly how densely you're going to be including them in non- colors. Gosh I phrased that poorly. I mean that it is acceptable for a mechanic to appear on exactly one card -- I won't feel compelled to try to fit a second if no second card fits well. Most featured mechanics will be on multiple cards.
I like your idea of using Modern Masters as a vehicle to reprint supplementary product cards. There's no avenue for Wizards to print cards straight into Modern, like they have with Legacy and the commander preconstructed decks, and I know that's something MaRo's said they wished they had. Dreampod Druid in particular is a good catch: I'll have to bring it up in the MM3 thread.
Crazy idea, but what I would do if I were making this set:
10 draft archetypes, but based upon Shards and Wedges instead of color pairs. It's one of the only ways to reasonably reprint and justify mechanically reprinting tri-color cards, makes sense with Khans, and will allow for some appropriate reprints from Shards of Alara.
One archetype I would definitely want would be Morph - things like Unblinking Bleb, Secret Plans, in honor of Khans.
Another would probably involve deck manipulation / scry.
Another would involve Auras / Heroic.
That's all I can think of for now though.
I don't think there are a lot of tri-colored cards which are a great loss, although I haven't gone through them methodically. Siege Rhino, and ...?
Even with 5 tri-color factions it's nigh impossible to have adequate fixing to support the tri's without having people end up in some sort of 4-5 color hodgepodge. 10 tri-color factions seems to exacerbate the problem significantly. Maybe it's a solvable problem, but it's one I'll leave to some other custom MM. Note though that UR is really URb by nature of the archetype, a high number of UB decks should end up UBw, and more sliver decks than not will probably be UGw(xx).
Morph formats are foundationally different from non-morph formats. Notably, Grey Ogres have to be at least sort of respectable. That's very far away from MM1/MM2 powerlevels, or what I'm aiming for.
I've decided to upload stuff in batches, Mythics and Green Commons going up now.
Edit: One issue I want some comments one -- currently I have Sliver Hivelord at mythic. Would Sliver Legion additionally at rare be overdoing it?
MODERN MASTERS 2019*
* As designed by Sliver Lord
Intro
With the release this month of MM2015, and the clear implication of more to follow, designing future MM releases has become an idea of interest for many of us. Many expect the every other year release pattern to continue, making 2017 the natural next release. I think it’s at least as likely that this be becomes an annual release, and 2016 doesn’t have enough new cards to interest me, so I’ve decided to jump straight to 2019. That means we’re looking at a span of 8th Edition to Origins. I’m trying to use this as stepping stone to an actual custom set, where I can experiment with limited archetype balance and so on without simultaneously having to juggle 220 or so new card designs.
I think that the first 2 MMs have had a pretty awkward tension between filling reprint demand and being sweet historically inspired limited formats, making them an imperfect product on both fronts. This design assumes that by 2019 WotC has decided to decouple these goals into two separate products, and the Modern Masters moniker has stuck with the limited formats. In plain terms, this means financial aspects won’t be a consideration. This is also convenient since the set will not in fact be printed, but will in fact be, hopefully, drafted (by my playgroup).
Design Guidelines
UB: Artifacts
BR: Sacrifice
RG: Beats
GW: Auras
WB: Tokens
BG: Ramp
GU: Slivers
UR: Flashback
RW: prowessy stuff
Uncommon (0/10) —
Rare (0/6) —
Mythic Rare (1/1) — Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Uncommon (0/10) —
Rare (0/6) —
Mythic Rare (1/1) — Vendilion Clique
Uncommon (0/10) —
Rare (0/6) —
Mythic Rare (2/2) — Liliana of the Veil, Griselbrand
Uncommon (0/10) —
Rare (0/6) —
Mythic Rare (1/1) — Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Uncommon (0/10) —
Rare (0/6) —
Mythic Rare (2/2) — Tarmooyf, Primeval Titan
Uncommon (0/20) —
Rare (0/10) —
Mythic Rare (8/8) — Venser,the Sojourner, Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, Falkenrath Aristocrat,Huntmaster of the Fells,Ajani, Mentor of Heroes,Sorin, Lord of Innistrad,Ajani Vengeant, Sliver Hivelord
Uncommon (0/?) —
Rare (0/?) —
Mythic Rare (0/?) —
Uncommon (0/?) —
Rare (0/?) —
Mythic Rare (0/?) —
Interested in Custom Card Creation.
My Cube:Cardinal Custom Cube
A custom version of a third modern masters: MM2019
(filter->rarity to see in set rarity).
Oh, and for reference the banned cards I plan to include are:
Bloodbraid Elf
Seat of the Synod
Vault of Whispers
Cards not currently modern legal:
Metallic Sliver
Dreampod Druid
Deathreap Ritual
Interested in Custom Card Creation.
My Cube:Cardinal Custom Cube
A custom version of a third modern masters: MM2019
(filter->rarity to see in set rarity).
- Main Cube
- No Brains, All Feelings Cube
Including cards in MM2015 which are banned at the moment is against the spirit of the product; including cards which were banned is fine. Notably, Bitterblossom. I think it's very likely that Bloodbraid Elf will be modern legal in 4 years, so I have no issues including it. I am less sure that the artifact lands will be legal, but I think they easily could be. Similarly, I consider Ancestral Vision to be in the pool of "cards it would be fine to include" although I don't think I want it. Stuff like Hypergenesis, Treasure Cruise, or Mental Misstep I would not consider legitimate includes.
The idea with the other three is similar - their inclusion implies they got a standard legal reprint sometime in between now and 2019. Scavenging Ooze, for instance, was not modern legal using MM2015 sets, but it will be using MM2017 sets, and I think it has a pretty good shot of appearing. This rationale does make me sort of antsy, which is why I'm trying to keep it to a minimum. I feel like these three pull a lot of weight at the moment (particularly deathreap, since I didn't like any other uncommon appropriate Golgari cards), but if a good opportunity emerges to cut them I'll take it.
I don't think there are a lot of tri-colored cards which are a great loss, although I haven't gone through them methodically. Siege Rhino, and ...?
Even with 5 tri-color factions it's nigh impossible to have adequate fixing to support the tri's without having people end up in some sort of 4-5 color hodgepodge. 10 tri-color factions seems to exacerbate the problem significantly. Maybe it's a solvable problem, but it's one I'll leave to some other custom MM. Note though that UR is really URb by nature of the archetype, a high number of UB decks should end up UBw, and more sliver decks than not will probably be UGw(xx).
Morph formats are foundationally different from non-morph formats. Notably, Grey Ogres have to be at least sort of respectable. That's very far away from MM1/MM2 powerlevels, or what I'm aiming for.
I've decided to upload stuff in batches, Mythics and Green Commons going up now.
Edit: One issue I want some comments one -- currently I have Sliver Hivelord at mythic. Would Sliver Legion additionally at rare be overdoing it?
Interested in Custom Card Creation.
My Cube:Cardinal Custom Cube
A custom version of a third modern masters: MM2019
(filter->rarity to see in set rarity).
Siege Rhino, Mantis Rider, Dig Through Time, Monastery Swiftspear, Courser of Kruphix, Satyr Wayfinder, Eidolon of Blossoms, KTK charms, Eidolon of the Great Revel, Swan Song, Valorous Stance, Wingmate Roc (at rare?), Jeskai Ascendancy, Aspect of Hydra, Gray Merchant of Ashphodel, Battlewise Hoplite, Dragon Mantle, Favored Hoplite, Master of the Feast
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice