The set may end up being good, but the flavor does not resonate with me, though. But that's okay. Not everything has to be for me. I have no reservations about the cards themselves. I'm sure they'll be fine.
How does The Little Mermaid, Hansel & Gretel, King Arthur etc not resonate?
I mean, don't get me wrong, I really am glad that WoTC is willing to experiment and bounce around all over the place flavor-wise from the very dark and gritty and gruesome and adult themed to the opposite side of the spectrum and everything in between. VARIETY is a great thing. I'm glad they are willing to experiment with all sorts of different flavors and vibes of all different sorts.
That being said, given that there are like 10 million+ MTG players, several million of whom are adults, and with people of course having a wide variety of different personal tastes from one another, I'm surprised that people are surprised that a Little Mermaid/Hansel & Gretel/targeted-at-kindergarten-aged-children type of vibe/flavor wouldn't be what ALL MTG fans are personally into or really resonate with.
Just to be clear: I'm definitely NOT implying that whole tired/incorrect shtick about MTG itself being a just-for-little-kids game. Of course not. The opposite, if anything. Right from the very beginning onwards, it seemed to be targeted mostly towards teenagers-AND-OLDER (adults, included, that is) rather than extremely-young-children in the 4-year-old-to-7-year-old range which is more of what the Little Mermaid/Hansel & Gretel lines up with (there's always exceptions of course, but on average I mean). MTG seemed to be appealing to people a decade older than that sort of stuff, with a very PG-13/nearly-R rated vibe, with all its adult style grittiness and darkness and full blown gruesomeness and whatnot in large portions of lots of the sets. And its blatantly-not-just-for-little-kids vibe wasn't even JUST to do with the artwork of its black cards, for that matter, but even just the general tone of even the non-gruesome creatures/spells of all the other colors and artifacts as well. It just really had a relatively mature theme for a LOT of the cards, probably the majority of the cards, in most of the sets. And it was like that for a loooooooong time, only starting to shift a little bit towards being a bit tamer/younger-vibes in more recent years, and even then, still not to a Little Mermaid/Hansel & Gretel level of shift for the most part, other than the once in a blue moon sort of thing like with Lorwyn or something maybe.
This is a big part of why so many adults didn't age out of MTG over the years/decades, even though many of us did age out of stuff like The Little Mermaid/Hansel & Gretel types of fairy tales/nursery rhymes as we grew out of young childhood and became teenagers/adults, by comparison.
I mean, if you just go back and look at the vibe of the card art in sets like Tempest and Stronghold for example, let alone basically all of the sets of the early 2000s, it's SERIOUSLY pretty dark and gritty, like not even just PG-13 but flirting with almost being R-rated level of dark and gritty for a lot of it. You can browse the card art from those sets on scryfall, or your collection if you collected back then if you forgot what these sets used to look like for much of MTG through the years. Even the earliest sets, which grabbed up about 5 or 6 million MTG fans (many of whom are still arouund) in those first couple years for that matter were far from being all that light and cutesy for the most part, even if it did get even a bit darker and gritter-yet in the next few years after that, on average.
But, here's the thing, though. Just like Kolbane said he's totally cool with this, even if it doesn't happen to personally resonate with him, well, I feel the same way, in that regard. That's the double-edged sword of variety. But it's a double-edged sword that is totally WORTH IT. You win some, you lose some, but at least you get tons of variety, which is fun in and of itself, let alone meaning that it doesn't get stuck on ONE thing over and over that you DON'T like (or like but then get bored of eventually), and then you're just permanently continuously stuck with that. At least with variety you'll have something to love some significant percentage of the time, and so will everyone else, some percentage of the time. So yea, that's cool, and I'm glad they are willing to experiment with all sorts of different stuff like they do.
Anyway, I'm (honestly) glad that you and the others who like Fairy Tale types of flavor are going to get to enjoy the set. I know how pumped I get when a new set is coming out that DOES resonates with me, I've gotten the chance to experience that numerous times over the years, myself, so, I definitely know how fun and exciting that is. So yea, by all means, enjoy!
I would reserve judgment for now. You might even be getting your R rated, adult themed set. The real Grimm stories are quite horrifying unlike the sanitized children's versions. Depending on where they go, it might make kaladesh the set look like the sanitized magic set by comparison.The real stories are very dark and veer toward calculated murder, suicide, sexual themes, etc. It could be one of the most R rated sets magic has done recently. We already, for example, see goldilocks slaughter the 3 bears and make them into trophies. It could even get as rapey as some of the art of innistrad first trip suggested. I wouldn't count on Disney version or even the relatively sanitized ixalan block where they glossed over things like rape and slavery. Depending on where they go and how it's received, it might even color wild west world that's on the short list. Its been pretty well spelled out that there won't be racist elements, but I personally wouldn't be surprised if we possibly see adult themes like prostitution that haven't been touched since Magic's early days. Being marketed toward an older audience than, say the new transformers card game, they might even want to try out some adult themes. Now, that doesn't mean it has to be sexist, though. Just like how Magic ramped up the hunky guy art, there's no reason we can't have guys be the damsel in distress role, prostitute themselves, be drugged and raped by women, etc. That's how you truly avoid being racist, sexist, etc.
Split cards have 2 mana costs. Its that the total cmc is the total and they only have one mana cost on the stack because you're only casting half. It's pretty decent with split cards and silly with the 5 split card in silver border land. It's not broken or anything but it sure could be big if you can cast it in dredge.
Isn't it weird how much tribal we got in Modern Horizons and now M20? I would think it's because the upcoming set has a big tribal component, but Modern Masters doesn't even affect that, so... Is it just some new approach to make the game more beginner-friendly? I'm not even sure if I like it or not, and this coems from someone who loves tribal. It's just so strange.
If you read mark Rosewater's blog, most requests are for tribal cards. Its simply filling requests that aren't problematic. The hydra, for example, functions quite well as a hydra lord, heroic lord, or generic beat stick.
Is this going to get banhamered in EDH lol. Super powerful.
Why exactly? It's an 8 drop that. can draw cards in a 2 card combo or deter attacking you. There's plenty of 2 card combos that win the game, not just draw some cards. Now, it can draw at a decent rate with its ability, but that costs mana.
Its not really even that innovative. The reason they didn't do it in Cold snap is because of a standard card that added mana to your mana pool equal to enchanted permanent's mana cost. Snow in the cost wouldn't make snow mana because snow isn't a type of mana like colorless is. It means mana from a snow supertype permanent. Splice onto instant and sorcery is a little innovative as well. This isn't the core set. If you can't figure out snow in the mana cost, the untap symbol, or something like that, modern horizons isn't a set for that person. They're not introducing any brand new keywords or doing anything weird just to be weird like tapping enchantments, special land equipment, cards that do weird un set type things, etc. This and the rock are simply cards you cast for mana like any other card. It has a few abnormal corner cases, but it's otherwise a normal magic card.
Extremely novel is really weird stuff like force of savagery or bridge from below. This is simply a grizzly bear you play in snow decks. It doesn't make you do anything really weird to make it a playable card.
Realistically, how many modern playable cards would anyone want to enter the format at once? I thought the whole point of modern was to have a non rotating format that's free from the reserved list. If we got a modern horizons set every year or two that injects 50 cards into the format, it's effectively just standard where your old ***** is technically still playable. That's like yugioh where there's really one format where 99.99% of cards are "playable" but realistically there's maybe a standard worth of unbanned cards you can play at a tournament without looking silly.
As for the card, its a rampant growth for non green commander that people have been begging Mark rosewater for. I doubt they are going to print a mox diamond/chrome for modern. They want the format to be reasonably slow unlike legacy.
I really think it's better than force of will. Now, is it better in 100% of cases? No, it's not but force of will is kind of bad in lots of cases too. Exiling a blue card from your hand is a seriously heavy cost and this can be reasonably cast for mana instead. It also exiles which is big. Yeah, there are a few 100% creature combos and just a couple that can be played when it isn't your turn (barring something that lets you cast anything as an instant) but the vast majority of things that you would really want force for are noncreature anyway and most things you'd want to counter on your turn are better handled with a flusterstorm, negate, etc. anyway. Force of will is a catch all answer like a swiss army knife, but you also pay through the nose in either mana or 2 for 1 for it too. It certainly has its place, but if you're playing one in commander, I expect you'll want both. After all, you're probably seriously in blue and are probably running a suite of counters anyway.
A zero minus ability planeswalker will probably be very rare because that's what makes walkers special and not just a legendary artifact/enchantment you can attack.
Well, he said not all walkers one other time. Serra might be an exception considering how easily she ultimates. She could very well be the only walker in the set without a static/triggered ability and was hand picked for that as much as nostalgia. A walker is going to have be hella strong to forego the immediate value of a trigger or the ongoing value of a static ability IN ADDITION to free loyalty activations.
There's also issues that the tutor ability has to be costed into the card, partners were collated into packs in a way they can't do in a standard legal set since the printrun is too large, and War also already has special collation for 1 planeswalker per pack.
As for the card, its a rampant growth for non green commander that people have been begging Mark rosewater for. I doubt they are going to print a mox diamond/chrome for modern. They want the format to be reasonably slow unlike legacy.