Hey everyone, and welcome to another Modern Musings!  The end of 2017 is here, and with it comes the End of Year Lists! Today, as the title suggests, we are going to be talking about the future of Modern in the form of my Modern Wish List.  This is a list of things that I would like to see happen to the Modern format in 2018.  Some of the things on this list are more things that I would personally like to see rather than something that I think would improve the format overall.  This is also just a wishlist for Modern, so things that only apply to other formats, like abolishing the reserved list, will not appear on my list, even though that is something Wizards should definitely do.

5.  Print New Cards Specifically for Modern

Wizards could probably do this in Modern Masters or even another supplementary products if they want, but it would be nice to see modern get the same kind of love that legacy has gotten with cards like True-Name Nemesis and Flusterstorm.  This would free up Wizards so they could print powerful cards for Modern without absolutely destroying standard.  I think that this could make Modern an even more interesting format, giving that Wizards the power to mold the format more directly.  Say they think that Tron is getting too good: print a new Ghost Quarter land.  They could probably print such a set once a year, or once every other year if they want to take it slow (like in Modern Masters!).

4. Unban the Artifact Lands and Bloodbraid Elf 

I think that it’s about time we got these cards off the banlist as I think that there really is very little reason to have them on there at this point.  The more I hear people discuss the artifact lands, the more I’m convinced that they wouldn’t be too good anymore.  Affinity’s mana base is already very good and very tight, and adding these lands might actually make the deck weaker to artifact hate like Stony Silence or Shatterstorm.

As for Bloodbraid Elf, I think it that since the time that it was banned, modern has sped up considerably.  I still think that BBE would be a powerful addition to decks like Jund and R/G Land Destruction, but overall would not push those decks over the edge.

3.  Make Lands a Real Deck

Please, Wizards, we’re so close to having a real lands deck in Modern, it just needs a few more cards.  R&D if you’re reading this, I know you can do it.  Amonkhet and Hour of Devastation gave us so many cards that interact with lands in a meaningful way in addition to having a ton of awesome lands.

2. Print more Colorless Cards

I really loved the colorless mana mechanic in Oath of the Gatewatch and besides from breaking Modern with ridiculous Eldrazi, I think that there is a ton of design space here as it is effectively the sixth color many have been asking for.  The other thing that I liked about this mechanic is that it changed the way we thought about mana bases, as sub-optimal lands like the pain lands suddenly became very good because they were able to tap for colorless.  We saw the rise of colorless-only decks in Modern after the Eye of Ugin banning via Eldrazi Tron.  I think that overall the invention of colorless-only cards was a good thing for Modern as it brought some older cards that were previously useless or underplayed to the forefront of competitive play, which is the hallmark of a great mechanic.

1.  Some Sweet Brew Wins the Pro Tour

This is my top wish for 2018.  There is nothing sweeter than when someone comes out of left field with a deck no one has seen before and wins the Pro Tour.  With Modern being such a large and diverse format, this is actually a distinct possibility.  In fact I can guarantee that there is some combination of cards that we haven’t seen before that can be competitive with existing tier-1 decks.  The fact that I brew for Modern all the time has made me realize there’s still a ton of unexplored space out there and it’s opened my eyes to some really wacky decks.

Anyway that all for this week, what do you want to see happen in 2018 for modern? Do our wishes overlap? As always let me know what you think in the comments, or tweet me @ultdoom5.

One Response

  1. Matt Gilligan

    I don’t see a logical reason to unban he artifact lands, Affinity is still a top teir deck and it doesn’t need to be better, the cards also provide a long term design problem Wizards.

    Reply

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