Five- and zero-color decks are the obvious holes left. It would be interesting if they took a year to develop some of the cool mechanics they've created in 5 Commander and 2 Conspiracy sets the past few years; lieutenants, planeswalker (and perhaps other non-creature?) commanders, voting cards, dethrone, monarch, and commander-matters cards (like Bastion Protector). I left partner off the list, as I imagine they would want to gauge feedback before doing more of them. The problem would be that it would be more of a greatest-hits feel than a consistent mechanical theme, so they would likely avoid it; but it would be nice to have a few more examples of the mechanics that have worked well.
If EMA is a big hit (and all signs point to it being so), then EMA2 will probably be on the product schedule in 2 years or so. If so, I would love to see the cards that they held out of this set, like:
Mana Drain
Urza lands (even though they are Modern-legal, I see them more in an eternal reporting than a Modern Masters one)
So we have two basic lands (#183 and #184) and 10 extra commons (as reported by Sam Stoddard). There are usually 10 Mythics, 35 rares and 60 uncommons in a small set. That leaves seven cards unaccounted for ....
C'mon, Urza Lands! (Not gonna happen, but that would be a beautiful Christmas present.)
Someone with better Gatherer-fu than I may know, but for the past few years, Wizards has been numbering brand-new cards at the start of the collector's number run. So, in CMDR15, all 56 new cards are numbered 1-56 in WUBRG order. Card #57 is the first of the reprinted W cards.
If WotC holds to the every-other-year pattern, MM 2017 will be eligible to have cards from Innistrad and Return to Ravnica block. That is ten full years of Magic cards, and runs the risk of being diluted with cards from older sets (like Lorwyn and Kamigawa) that are simply in there to help with limited gameplay.
What other options might there be for reprinting Modern staples? Perhaps they could...
1. Lop off two years when they add two years. That would drop Mirrodin and Kamigawa out of consideration.
2. Make a kind of "Ravnice Remastered" set, by taking the bulk of the reprints from the six Ravnica sets and seasoning them with highly-anticipated reprints from Innistrad. (Liliana of the Veil...)
3. Given the new storytelling focus, make MM 2017 a place to reprint more planeswalkers than ever before. No one is clamoring for more Tibalts, but more Vensers and Koths (and maybe even Dack Faydens down the line if they want to stretch things?) would be welcomed.
What others tacks could they take with their very popular reprint series?
The digits of its collector number (#232) add to seven, also.
I'll give it a try in my UginTron deck. I don't think it will knock anything out permanently. but it's worth trying when you have lots of mana potentially available.
I agree that 4-color is an obvious hole, but I discarded it because of one thing: the need to design 3 legends of 4 colors. Maro has said many times how hard it is to design a 4-color creature; designing 3 of them to be commanders or alternate commanders seems insurmountable.
They could do a single 4-color commander and a pair of new 2-color legends, but the would not be able to be alternate commanders without ripping apart the decks.
I hold out hope that they'll come up with a way around this eventually.
Given that DTK was changed from enemy-colored pairs to allied pairs early on, and given that this increases the already three-to-one ratio of allied versus enemy color paired legendary creatures, I wonder if this year's Commander product will be enemy-colored-pair decks. Since we now know fall's set will return to Zendikar, and the enemy fetchlands will almost certainly be in that set if not any time sooner, it seems like this year would be a perfect time to go with pairs. (We've already had shards, wedges, and monocolored decks for the last three iterations.)
It's explained in the article. They wanted the Gatecrash colors to have more time in Standard, since the RtR pairs were introduced earlier and have had more time in Standard.
In a limited way, this is a repeatable Sword to Plowshares. Lots of people were happy to trade life to eliminate a troubling creature in the 'good old days.' StP is more versatile, of course, as the Alms Beast cannot hit flyers and unblockables, but I think it's worth experimenting with.
Mana Drain
Urza lands (even though they are Modern-legal, I see them more in an eternal reporting than a Modern Masters one)
What else would you like to see?
C'mon, Urza Lands! (Not gonna happen, but that would be a beautiful Christmas present.)
What other options might there be for reprinting Modern staples? Perhaps they could...
1. Lop off two years when they add two years. That would drop Mirrodin and Kamigawa out of consideration.
2. Make a kind of "Ravnice Remastered" set, by taking the bulk of the reprints from the six Ravnica sets and seasoning them with highly-anticipated reprints from Innistrad. (Liliana of the Veil...)
3. Given the new storytelling focus, make MM 2017 a place to reprint more planeswalkers than ever before. No one is clamoring for more Tibalts, but more Vensers and Koths (and maybe even Dack Faydens down the line if they want to stretch things?) would be welcomed.
What others tacks could they take with their very popular reprint series?
I'll give it a try in my UginTron deck. I don't think it will knock anything out permanently. but it's worth trying when you have lots of mana potentially available.
They could do a single 4-color commander and a pair of new 2-color legends, but the would not be able to be alternate commanders without ripping apart the decks.
I hold out hope that they'll come up with a way around this eventually.
Any thoughts?
It's explained in the article. They wanted the Gatecrash colors to have more time in Standard, since the RtR pairs were introduced earlier and have had more time in Standard.
Yeah, very similar to how the Miracle cards had slightly different borders.
And the flavor is awesome.