Honestly, I’m exponentially more excited for MH and its potential than I am for War Of The Spark. I’m having to contain myself excited due to it being released in June.
Given the timing of the set and the fact they are probably planning a new format with Arena, Modern Horizons is probably coming about to expand the number of cards they can reprint in luxury sets. Modern is by far a better format for things holding a price tag than legacy / casual, which is the big reason they probably stopped the masters sets to begin with. Once they run one or two of these horizons sets they will likely have made everything that was legacy legal that sees play modern legal.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Given the timing of the set and the fact they are probably planning a new format with Arena, Modern Horizons is probably coming about to expand the number of cards they can reprint in luxury sets. Modern is by far a better format for things holding a price tag than legacy / casual, which is the big reason they probably stopped the masters sets to begin with. Once they run one or two of these horizons sets they will likely have made everything that was legacy legal that sees play modern legal.
I'm actually of the mind that what you think this set will contain is not exactly what it will contain.
I have a feeling that there are going to be very few *actual* reprints and a lot more functional reprints posing as new cards. There's a ton of stuff in legacy that would simply be too powerful to port over to modern in their current iterations. But it doesn't mean you can't do it by nerfing them a bit.
For example, you can't print a card like Intuition in modern (ignoring the reserved list).
But you could totally print an intuition on stick
Master of Foresight
2U
2U,T: Sacrifice ~this~; Search your library for 3 instants with different names. Target opponent chooses one and puts it into your hand. Put the rest in your graveyard.
1/2
I expect a lot more of the above than actual reprints.
Given the timing of the set and the fact they are probably planning a new format with Arena, Modern Horizons is probably coming about to expand the number of cards they can reprint in luxury sets. Modern is by far a better format for things holding a price tag than legacy / casual, which is the big reason they probably stopped the masters sets to begin with. Once they run one or two of these horizons sets they will likely have made everything that was legacy legal that sees play modern legal.
I'm actually of the mind that what you think this set will contain is not exactly what it will contain.
I have a feeling that there are going to be very few *actual* reprints and a lot more functional reprints posing as new cards. There's a ton of stuff in legacy that would simply be too powerful to port over to modern in their current iterations. But it doesn't mean you can't do it by nerfing them a bit.
For example, you can't print a card like Intuition in modern (ignoring the reserved list).
But you could totally print an intuition on stick
Master of Foresight
2U
2U,T: Sacrifice ~this~; Search your library for 3 instants with different names. Target opponent chooses one and puts it into your hand. Put the rest in your graveyard.
1/2
I expect a lot more of the above than actual reprints.
I can see that happening as well with horizons. Either way, it definitely feels like if they can find a card that can get traction on the secondary market as a modern staple in legacy, they will absolutely throw it into one of these horizons sets.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
not very.....
Modern already has Damnation, a Black Day of Judgement is FAR more likely on a standard legal set than in this.
But Damnation is, as you've pointed out, already Modern legal. It also happens to be in desperate need of a reprint due to its persistently high price tag. However, cards that are currently Modern legal are the only cards that we know WON'T be in Modern Horizons.
Meanwhile, people have been asking for a black Day of Judgment ever since DoJ got printed. There're two reasons it's never seen print in standard: it's just always been too powerful, or it would have been too much to have both black DoJ and white DoJ. Seeing how white sweepers always come first, black DoJ just never got its chance before standard dropped unconditional 4cmc sweepers.
It's true that Kaya's Wrath exists, but WWBB is a long way from 2BB. I think it's very unlikely that we see a sweeper with the latter mana cost in standard any time soon.
Modern Horizons, however, seems like the perfect opportunity to finally deliver on the concept. Damnation already exists, so printing a strictly worse option obviously wouldn't break Modern, it would just provide a budget option for players who need a monoblack sweeper effect. MH will evidently have a generally higher power level than a standard set, so it doesn't need to worry about having a powerful sweeper either.
If MH COULD reprint Modern legal cards, I would assume that they'd just reprint Damnation before designing a new card. But given that Modern reprints are out, a new black DoJ seems like a shoo-in.
If Black gets a DoJ, I would hope it's not an exact replica. I could go for something like "Each creature gets -X/-X where X is it's toughness". It's got some very small up side in that it beats indestructible, but not more than that that I can think of.
I hope black gets a nice unconditional "Exile target creature". It can cost 1B or BB if you want to get uppity about it, but it better have a positive stapled to it because mana. I'm just sort of tired of black being the creature removal color, then it not mattering because all relevant creatures can get themselves out of the grave. Necrotic Wound was close, but doesn't really work.
I'm also excited by the notion that this set is being designed with the idea that more advanced players will be playing it. Do we know if that means they will be doing away with "NWO"? Can commons be more complicated than normal? I hope yes. Not because complexities sake, but because sometimes that uncommon should have been common but because it's "complex" it gets a rarity upgrade. How often is this a thing? I don't know, but I would be interested to see.
The reason Damnation exists is because of Planar Chaos. I don't think they'll just do it again to copy Day of Judgement.
I'd just reprint Damnation in a supplemental product or in standard. Regeneration clause isn't that powerful and DoJ shows that 4 casting board wipes aren't format warping.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Currently Playing: Standard:
Nothing, the format Bores me! Legacy: RBurn (Made on the Cheap!)R RGBelcherRG WSoldier StompyW BReanimatorB EDH: BUGRWSliver OverlordWRGUB BGeth, Lord of the VaultB
I'm also excited by the notion that this set is being designed with the idea that more advanced players will be playing it. Do we know if that means they will be doing away with "NWO"? Can commons be more complicated than normal? I hope yes. Not because complexities sake, but because sometimes that uncommon should have been common but because it's "complex" it gets a rarity upgrade. How often is this a thing? I don't know, but I would be interested to see.
Considering this set is going to straight up skip Standard I would be pretty surprised if they didn't up the complexity of commons and uncommons, also, we know the set is going to feature a lot of pre-8th Edition reprints so those commons and uncommons will be more complex by definition. I also suspect this set will throw a few bones to Pauper players so we can expect some powerful commons in there as well.
If you ask me, this set will reprint some of the commons and uncommons from UMA that didn't make into Modern through that set, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the dog and its friends and maybe other annoying critters to enable a well-loved deck from the past.
not very.....
Modern already has Damnation, a Black Day of Judgement is FAR more likely on a standard legal set than in this.
But Damnation is, as you've pointed out, already Modern legal. It also happens to be in desperate need of a reprint due to its persistently high price tag. However, cards that are currently Modern legal are the only cards that we know WON'T be in Modern Horizons.
Meanwhile, people have been asking for a black Day of Judgment ever since DoJ got printed. There're two reasons it's never seen print in standard: it's just always been too powerful, or it would have been too much to have both black DoJ and white DoJ. Seeing how white sweepers always come first, black DoJ just never got its chance before standard dropped unconditional 4cmc sweepers.
It's true that Kaya's Wrath exists, but WWBB is a long way from 2BB. I think it's very unlikely that we see a sweeper with the latter mana cost in standard any time soon.
Modern Horizons, however, seems like the perfect opportunity to finally deliver on the concept. Damnation already exists, so printing a strictly worse option obviously wouldn't break Modern, it would just provide a budget option for players who need a monoblack sweeper effect. MH will evidently have a generally higher power level than a standard set, so it doesn't need to worry about having a powerful sweeper either.
If MH COULD reprint Modern legal cards, I would assume that they'd just reprint Damnation before designing a new card. But given that Modern reprints are out, a new black DoJ seems like a shoo-in.
even though I agree with you.
I still think a Black DoJ would be a lot more possible on a standard legal set, mainly because a Black DoJ on a "Modern Masters" type of set wouldn't be that much of a hype card, as Damnation is already a thing.
I just think that Black won't be getting any unconditional mass remove spells on this set and that's all.
If they really need more mass removal, they could print something like Toxic Deluge, for example
I still think too many people are getting carried away with the notion that the cards in the set will be largely relevant. I expect the clear majority of cards to be filler (makes it a good limited format, don’t ya know!) as with every other set ever printed. We probably have room for three dozen impactful cards at best.
While I totally agree that the majority of the set will be dedicated to making an enjoyable limited environment, unless they print all the not-currently-Modern-legal cards at rare+ (which is highly doubtful), they'll have to balance those cards into limited at common and uncommon. This will likely* bring up the power of limited. I say "likely" with the idea that the things people are speculating on are things that will greatly influence limited and many of those things are undeserving of a gold or orange set symbol. Those things influencing limited will push WotC to design other cards of equal power level to even out the limited environment; this is cause for more breakout cards that bypass the intent for limited and sneak into Modern playable territory.
If WotC doesn't do a good job of balancing out limited, then boo on them and this set will fail and we can doom and gloom over Modern's demise starting a cascade of wrong doing that leads to the overall failure of Magic as a whole... But we're better than that, d***it! We know at least Maro has some sort of idea what players have been asking for because he's repeated some of it to us through blogatog. With that in mind we can speculate on what we might be receiving as "influenced" by an incredibly broad and abstract communal desire for these cool themes.
Point is that those themes will lift limited up a bit in power. That power rise will create more potential for cards to make it into Modern playable.
There are plenty of nonrare and downshiftable rares from pre-8th edition that are either utility cards or good cards for not just limited, but also constructed. Such as Deep Analysis (which I don't think will appear, it's a wee bit to powerful for modern), Werebear (much more likely), and Exile (also fairly likely), just to name a few.
I fully expect the commons and uncommons to contain a number of much needed reprints for pauper that would not warp modern, such as Oubliette. I also expect that a few of the commons and uncommons have been culled from the Portal sets, a few of those creatures and sorceries are quite powerful for their cost, and some of them could help certain constructed strategies to reach a higher tier and thus provide for a more varied constructed environment. There are a lot of potential from the early sets of magic for the lower rarities, there are several of the Mirage charms I would not mind seeing again.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
It's about time for the reserved list to die, for the sake of Vintage and Legacy (And Commander).
I personally think that this set will have quite a few cards that were given errata when they changed the 'redirection rule' and made Planeswalkers Legendary that are not Modern legal right now.
There are plenty of nonrare and downshiftable rares from pre-8th edition that are either utility cards or good cards for not just limited, but also constructed. Such as Deep Analysis (which I don't think will appear, it's a wee bit to powerful for modern), Werebear (much more likely), and Exile (also fairly likely), just to name a few.
I fully expect the commons and uncommons to contain a number of much needed reprints for pauper that would not warp modern, such as Oubliette. I also expect that a few of the commons and uncommons have been culled from the Portal sets, a few of those creatures and sorceries are quite powerful for their cost, and some of them could help certain constructed strategies to reach a higher tier and thus provide for a more varied constructed environment. There are a lot of potential from the early sets of magic for the lower rarities, there are several of the Mirage charms I would not mind seeing again.
Thats a good point to make. There is likely a handful of impactful Legacy Commons and potential downshifts to common from the early sets that will be welcomed for Pauper, but nothing is coming to my mind that may make a huge impact in Modern (other than Hymn to Tourach which was last seen at Uncommon). I like what Oubliette does and wonder if this will find it's way in a devotion deck in Modern? Rather than what old prints will impact Modern, it's really what downshifts will impact Pauper from this set. I'm sure there are many junk uncommon and rares from pre-8th, that if shifted to common would be playable in Pauper.
I personally think that this set will have quite a few cards that were7 given errata when they changed the 'redirection rule' and made Planeswalkers Legendary that are not Modern legal right now.
I feel like Oubliette's out of color pie for black. A white version would fit the color pie much better.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
I mean we’ve been getting white versions for years now.
Black gets exile effects these days though. There was a time when it was usually ‘black destroys white exiles’. But current standard has infernal reckoning, necrotic wound, grotesque demise, reaver ambush, settle the score, and vraska’s contempt. And the also not-white Hostage Taker, which is exactly this sort of ‘exile by a permanent but can get reversed with permanent removal’ sort of effect.
Speculating is fun but thats about all we got for a while.
Im excited though.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I'm actually of the mind that what you think this set will contain is not exactly what it will contain.
I have a feeling that there are going to be very few *actual* reprints and a lot more functional reprints posing as new cards. There's a ton of stuff in legacy that would simply be too powerful to port over to modern in their current iterations. But it doesn't mean you can't do it by nerfing them a bit.
For example, you can't print a card like Intuition in modern (ignoring the reserved list).
But you could totally print an intuition on stick
Master of Foresight
2U
2U,T: Sacrifice ~this~; Search your library for 3 instants with different names. Target opponent chooses one and puts it into your hand. Put the rest in your graveyard.
1/2
I expect a lot more of the above than actual reprints.
I can see that happening as well with horizons. Either way, it definitely feels like if they can find a card that can get traction on the secondary market as a modern staple in legacy, they will absolutely throw it into one of these horizons sets.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
not very.....
Modern already has Damnation, a Black Day of Judgement is FAR more likely on a standard legal set than in this.
Meanwhile, people have been asking for a black Day of Judgment ever since DoJ got printed. There're two reasons it's never seen print in standard: it's just always been too powerful, or it would have been too much to have both black DoJ and white DoJ. Seeing how white sweepers always come first, black DoJ just never got its chance before standard dropped unconditional 4cmc sweepers.
It's true that Kaya's Wrath exists, but WWBB is a long way from 2BB. I think it's very unlikely that we see a sweeper with the latter mana cost in standard any time soon.
Modern Horizons, however, seems like the perfect opportunity to finally deliver on the concept. Damnation already exists, so printing a strictly worse option obviously wouldn't break Modern, it would just provide a budget option for players who need a monoblack sweeper effect. MH will evidently have a generally higher power level than a standard set, so it doesn't need to worry about having a powerful sweeper either.
If MH COULD reprint Modern legal cards, I would assume that they'd just reprint Damnation before designing a new card. But given that Modern reprints are out, a new black DoJ seems like a shoo-in.
I hope black gets a nice unconditional "Exile target creature". It can cost 1B or BB if you want to get uppity about it, but it better have a positive stapled to it because mana. I'm just sort of tired of black being the creature removal color, then it not mattering because all relevant creatures can get themselves out of the grave. Necrotic Wound was close, but doesn't really work.
I'm also excited by the notion that this set is being designed with the idea that more advanced players will be playing it. Do we know if that means they will be doing away with "NWO"? Can commons be more complicated than normal? I hope yes. Not because complexities sake, but because sometimes that uncommon should have been common but because it's "complex" it gets a rarity upgrade. How often is this a thing? I don't know, but I would be interested to see.
"Reveal a Dragon"
I'd just reprint Damnation in a supplemental product or in standard. Regeneration clause isn't that powerful and DoJ shows that 4 casting board wipes aren't format warping.
Currently Playing:
Standard:
Nothing, the format Bores me!
Legacy:
RBurn (Made on the Cheap!)R
RGBelcherRG
WSoldier StompyW
BReanimatorB
EDH:
BUGRWSliver OverlordWRGUB
BGeth, Lord of the VaultB
Considering this set is going to straight up skip Standard I would be pretty surprised if they didn't up the complexity of commons and uncommons, also, we know the set is going to feature a lot of pre-8th Edition reprints so those commons and uncommons will be more complex by definition. I also suspect this set will throw a few bones to Pauper players so we can expect some powerful commons in there as well.
If you ask me, this set will reprint some of the commons and uncommons from UMA that didn't make into Modern through that set, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the dog and its friends and maybe other annoying critters to enable a well-loved deck from the past.
even though I agree with you.
I still think a Black DoJ would be a lot more possible on a standard legal set, mainly because a Black DoJ on a "Modern Masters" type of set wouldn't be that much of a hype card, as Damnation is already a thing.
I just think that Black won't be getting any unconditional mass remove spells on this set and that's all.
If they really need more mass removal, they could print something like Toxic Deluge, for example
Will be cool to start thinking about which abilities they could have.
If WotC doesn't do a good job of balancing out limited, then boo on them and this set will fail and we can doom and gloom over Modern's demise starting a cascade of wrong doing that leads to the overall failure of Magic as a whole... But we're better than that, d***it! We know at least Maro has some sort of idea what players have been asking for because he's repeated some of it to us through blogatog. With that in mind we can speculate on what we might be receiving as "influenced" by an incredibly broad and abstract communal desire for these cool themes.
Point is that those themes will lift limited up a bit in power. That power rise will create more potential for cards to make it into Modern playable.
"Reveal a Dragon"
I fully expect the commons and uncommons to contain a number of much needed reprints for pauper that would not warp modern, such as Oubliette. I also expect that a few of the commons and uncommons have been culled from the Portal sets, a few of those creatures and sorceries are quite powerful for their cost, and some of them could help certain constructed strategies to reach a higher tier and thus provide for a more varied constructed environment. There are a lot of potential from the early sets of magic for the lower rarities, there are several of the Mirage charms I would not mind seeing again.
---
Numquam evolutioni obstes. Solum conculceris.
Pascite draconem, evolvite aut morimini.
Thats a good point to make. There is likely a handful of impactful Legacy Commons and potential downshifts to common from the early sets that will be welcomed for Pauper, but nothing is coming to my mind that may make a huge impact in Modern (other than Hymn to Tourach which was last seen at Uncommon). I like what Oubliette does and wonder if this will find it's way in a devotion deck in Modern? Rather than what old prints will impact Modern, it's really what downshifts will impact Pauper from this set. I'm sure there are many junk uncommon and rares from pre-8th, that if shifted to common would be playable in Pauper.
Nahiri, the Lithomancer in modern? that would be cool.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
Black gets exile effects these days though. There was a time when it was usually ‘black destroys white exiles’. But current standard has infernal reckoning, necrotic wound, grotesque demise, reaver ambush, settle the score, and vraska’s contempt. And the also not-white Hostage Taker, which is exactly this sort of ‘exile by a permanent but can get reversed with permanent removal’ sort of effect.
I think we’re likely to see the last sorcery magus (green) in commander 2019 than this
But hey maybe they will do all 5 for modern
Out of the color pie or not that card needs a reprint, big time.