Is modern horizons commander horizons?
Spoilers, Rumors, and Speculation forum
Posted on June 3, 2019, 7:16 a.m. by Kurppa
Whenever i bring up modern horizons, there's atleast someone who says something like "it only has like 7 cards that are going to see actual play" or "lmao more like commander horizons!". I don't play modern, but I do watch a lot of deck techs (mostly mtggoldfish) and brewing videos so I know something. but i want to hear "educated opininons" if you can call them that.
I think - compared to a normal set - it has atleast 3x as many cards that are going to see play in real decks, in sideboards or even in the mainboard. And besides, you can play almost anything in commander, especially if it's power level is high. i know "3x as many" is extremely vague but atleast it seems like it to me.
but what do you guys who play modern frequently think? is it good or bad for modern? how many cards are going to see play? is it commander horizons? i'd like to know. remember to keep it civilized, and thanks in advance for answering.
Well, given that they were designing all those new cards specifically to be put into that set to be playable in modern, they really made sure that most are not really modern playable. Lets look at all the mythics:
Hexdrinker , Morophon, the Boundless , Serra the Benevolent , Yawgmoth, Thran Physician , Sword of Sinew and Steel , Sword of Truth and Justice , The First Sliver , Mox Tantalite , Unbound Flourishing - none of these have any place in modern deck. The swords are worse than existing ones, hexdriker is a vanilla 2/1 for 1, the sliver and morophon is expensive, serra and yawgmoth cost too much and do too little, does nothing until turn 3, where the mana acceleration rarely matters. However, all of the above, except hexdrinker, will be used in commander more.
The mythics made for Modern are Echo of Eons (still very good in commander), Kess, Dissident Mage (a reprint of legacy and commander staple), Ranger-Captain of Eos , Seasoned Pyromancer , Urza, Lord High Artificer (increbile in commander) - of the the mythics that may impact modern, only 2 are likely not to impact commander.
So, in the special set for modern, a total of 2/15 mythics have some chance to impact the format, while 13/15 appeal more to commander players.
The list expands a bit with the rares, but outside of the Horizon lands, the pickings are slim.
June 3, 2019 8:01 a.m.
Of course are not all cards modern playable. All sets has to have bad cards as well, and if 5-10 cards will show up in modern then thats a lot in my book. The "modern-bad" cards in the set are cards that are better in commander where you can play cards that are a little more expensive. Still, i dont think this is a commander set just because of that.
June 3, 2019 9:18 a.m.
I think the framing is backwards here - you should always expect to see more cards from a recent set impact Commander than the 1v1 set it's printed for. Commander was literally designed to eat up the flavorful mythics WotC kept printing that were too slow or specific for standard, modern, or legacy. It has many more playable decks, archetypes, and it literally plays more cards than any other format because it's singleton.
This also isn't an outlier set if you think of it as a standard set with a power-level too high for standard, which is what they're doing. Like the above comments say, most sets only have a few high-impact competitive cards, and many other cards designed for limited balance or for different types of players.
Take WAR for example (and it's a high bar, because it's the most impactful set on constructed since probably Kaladesh). In standard, the impactful mythics are
Liliana, Dreadhorde General
,
God-Eternal Oketra
(arguably),
Finale of Promise
, and
Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God
.
Which leads to my final point: across all formats, almost all of the impactful cards from WAR are rares or uncommons. That's because mythics are designed to be storytelling, flavorful cards that showcase the set mechanics. WotC also tries not to make mythics the only powerful cards in the set on purpose because of their rarity - see also how they're trying to handle Buy-A-Box promos.
There are cards in Modern Horizons that will probably spawn new decks ( Dead of Winter , Wrenn and Six , Urza), and cards that existing decks will happily take ( Unsettled Mariner , Force of Negation , Flusterstorm , Plague Engineer , all of the lands, lots of uncommons).
TL;DR: It's not surprising that EDH 'takes' a lot of mythics - that's how mythics are designed, and that's what EDH does. Playable rares/uncommons are usually a much better indicator of a set's success, and Modern Horizons seems pretty on par for constructed sets.
June 3, 2019 10:01 a.m.
I think a lot of people were expecting Modern Horizons to revolutionize the format, which I think was a silly assumption. Wizards is pretty happy with Modern as the turn-four format, so there was no reason to expect anything gamebreaking.
What we did get, however, was a whole bunch of tech for budget Modern decks and some tribal strategies. Cloudshredder Sliver is pretty fantastic, and might push Slivers up the competitive ladder.
Wall of Blossoms is a solid card that will see play, just as Wall of Omens does.
Scale Up is a fantastic card for infect.
Fact or Fiction is a pretty nifty card that will be enjoyed by combo players.
Flusterstorm and the aptly named Weather the Storm will be great sideboard tech against storm.
Cards like Dead of Winter and Ingenious Infiltrator will help snow and ninja tribal be more viable.
Giver of Runes is pretty playable.
A couple of the "Force of" cards are quite nice for Modern.
Shatter Assumptions is solid anti-Tron tech.
Unsettled Mariner is pretty cool.
I am sure there are plenty of playable cards I missed, and many of the non-optimized cards will still find their home in more budget decks. Overall, there's whole lot more Modern tech than we would expect in a Standard set. The fact that there is also great Commander tech shouldn't be an issue; I personally think it is great that there's a whole lot of exciting tech for several different formats.
June 3, 2019 10:09 a.m.
Last_Laugh says... #7
Pauper/Commander Horizons is probably most accurate lol. Both crowds got spoiled with this set.
The good thing is that what Modern will use is all rare and under so there's like 8x the supply. I'm sure WotC did this on purpose to avoid another chase mythic with an outrageous price tag. I'm sure design teams are sick of reprinting Tarmogoyf as an example.
June 3, 2019 10:47 a.m.
The set was not just designed to help high end decks get better. It was to help other lower tier decks be able to compete a little better. Which I think the set did. To say modern is a turn 3/4 format ignores the fact that there are many people who wont or cant spend a thousand dollars on card board. I have seen Fnm matches that went to time, due to the lack of tier 1 decks being played. This is not a bad thing, not everyone wants to play the same deck. So all the spiked wanted a lot of new tech for their tier 1 decks are disappointed that they only got a few new toys.
Wizards stated they were gonna print a set that was too powerful for standard, but not too powerful for modern. People seem to think too powerful for standard, automatically equates playable in tier one in modern. That is not always the case. Standard is not usually as fast as modern. So a card that would see play in standard as an all star, might be non playable in modern.
People tend to forget that wizards is a business that is looking to make money. And if this product is successful, it will make another like it (in 2-3 years).
June 3, 2019 1:28 p.m.
ToolmasterOfBrainerd says... #9
I think this set will be really impactful in modern. Personally, I'll be jamming with Force of Negation and possibly Kess.
I expect Giver of Runes to see heavy play, but I think I'm in the minority in that camp.
Eladamri's Call is a powerful tutor. I have no idea what it's going to do in modern. I expect it to enable something. 2 mana tutors tend to be really good.
Wrenn and six will see play.
Some kind of aggro loam deck might exist. People will try it.
People will play a cycle deck for at least a month. With astral drift and the cycle lands, you cannot have expected anything more as far as support.
Goblin engineer should be amazing. It's probably better than whir. I expect it to do something. If it doesn't break modern now, then I think it will someday.
Scale Up should revive infect. It'd be nice to see. Infect is good at policing other non-interactive decks.
Slivers have a lot more options. They could maybe become playable. I have no idea. But I've faced modern slivers before. With this much additional support it could go from playable pet deck to tier 2 or 3.
Unsettled Mariner will see play. I know my merfolk friend is planning on playing it.
I will find some way to play Ice-Fang Coatl .
This is not an exhaustive list. There are plenty of modern playables to go around. There may not be much for the current best decks, but quite frankly, if there were broken cards for the current best decks, then we'd see bannings. Also, in my opinion, the modern metagame sucks right now. Awful gameplay. It might be diverse, but I don't care about diversity when the metagame consists of balls to the walls synergy decks, UW control, and Tron. I can't wait for the shake up.
June 3, 2019 4:37 p.m.
Rabid_Wombat says... #10
In a few years Wotc will make Modern format "from Modern Horizons onwards" so it's really the start of a big "reset button" from Wizards.
June 4, 2019 1:27 a.m.
ToolmasterOfBrainerd says... #11
Rabid_Wombat I doubt horizons will be the starting point. If anything, the first set on MTG arena (can't remember what it is) is a more likely starting point. Then they can truly kill mtgo
June 4, 2019 1:30 a.m.
Rabid_Wombat says... #12
ToolmasterOfBrainerd "It's a new horizon!" Don't you see what they did there?
That new dual land cycle and all the solid Uncommon/Commons is what tipped me off.
The fact is that Wizards needs to be earning more of a profit margin from Modern, which is the most popular format. Right now most of the cash goes to the secondary market which is bad for WotC - MH1,MH2 etc.. will stop that as they will print tons of them and reset the format. Just wait and see ;)
June 4, 2019 1:42 a.m.
Hexaflexagon says... #13
They'll probably make Frontier into an offical format instead of resetting Modern. As you said, Rabid_Wombat, Modern is one of the most popular formats and so resetting it would anger the player base and even make some players leave, as they don't want to invest into Legacy (too expensive) or Standard (having to drop 300-400 bucks a year adds up).
June 4, 2019 2:03 a.m.
thanks for the answers everyone! Now i have some fuel to destroy my friends in debates about the set! ok i'm just kidding. i like seeing a good variety of answers and opinions, and this really changed my perspective.
please do add on other comments, i'll keep tabs on this. have a nice day :)
smackjack says... #2
7 playable cards is alot from one set. I think the problem is that people were expecting 250 new playable modern cards..
June 3, 2019 7:26 a.m.