Modern Musings: Modern Horizons

Hey everyone! Welcome to another Modern Musings!  Today I’m going to be talking about Modern Horizons and what it means for the future of Modern, including which cards I hope to see in it and which I don’t.

What is Modern Horizons? 

Modern Horizons is a 254 card set + 1 buy a box promo filled with all new Modern cards and includes reprints of cards from non-Modern legal sets.  What this does mean though is that for the first time WOTC gets to inject product directly into Modern without printing it in Standard first.  Myself and many others have been begging WOTC for a product like this for many years and it feels great that they finally listened.  The main reason many are so excited for this set is that it affords WOTC greater leeway to print powerful cards.

What I Would Like to See Out of the Set

I would like to see some cards that slow down the format a bit.  Right now Modern is fast.  Like, really fast.  It’s fast enough where many times it doesn’t really matter what your opponent is doing.  Many decks are very linear style aggro decks like Izzet Phoenix, Dredge, or Hardened Scales.  You do see the occasional Blue-White or Jeskai Control deck, but what’s most frustrating is that very frequently you are simply playing some combination of a deck that abuses Mox Opal, Ancient Stirrings, and/or Faithless Looting.  So it would be nice to see some new cards that break up this play pattern a little bit.

As for reprints, here’s what I’d like to see put into Modern:

Containment Priest would be a wonderful addition to fair white creature decks and would be a great answer against Phoenix and Dredge.  It’s possible that this would just make humans the best deck again, but it would be up in the air as this is boltable after all.  But other than Humans, it would give normal white creature decks a welcome boost.

I think that Counterspell is long overdue in Modern and would go far in helping the format become a bit fairer.

Reprints I’m Tentative About 

There are a few cards that I’m on the fence about whether or not I actually want to see them in Modern or not.  This list is just comprised of two cards: Daze and Force of Will.

Daze: Free counterspells are very very good and Daze is up there with the best of them.  While it sets you back a turn when you play it for its free cost, usually you play it in aggressive delver decks that play a number of 1-drop threats.  I’m tentative about it because it might push the format even farther into the land of the degenerate, giving the linear aggro decks or combo decks ways to protect themselves when they tap out going for the win.

Force of Will: This is just a smidge too powerful for Modern I think, and would turn Modern into legacy-lite. This just turns some matchups into contests of who draws more Force of Wills.  It’s possible that it slows down the format, but it’s also possible it makes the format worse, giving decks like Infect or Storm the ability to protect themselves a bit too well.

Reprints I Hope We Don’t See

Wasteland: Just no.  This would completely warp the format beyond all recognition.  Though I’ll admit I’d probably be the first to play the crucible of worlds – wasteland deck that would emerge, it would be fun for all of about an afternoon then be miserable.

Invigorate: Infect does not need a super powerful free pump spell, especially if they choose to not have Daze or Force to combat it.  This would definitely push infect right back into tier 1 if not tier 0.

Predictions

As for what we will actually see in the set I have some predictions:

• Shardless Agent
• Baleful Strix
• Mono-Colored Fetches
• A Lesrac planeswalker card
• Possibly more Snow Support

Of my predictions, I most hope that we see mono-colored fetches.  Hopefully at uncommon.  This would go a long way to making Modern more affordable as a format.  This is actually I think one of the absolute best things that Wizards could do to help out its player base.  At uncommon, it would cap how expensive these cards could get, at least for a while.  I think this could potentially be one of the more exciting things that they could do for the game.

Anyway, that’s all I have for this week, let me know what you think about Modern Horizons in the comments, and see you next time!