General Baseless Speculation: Will Modern Masters be a good draft set?

Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
The original pitch of "Faeries versus Dredge versus Storm" sounded pretty terrible (vis a vis the Poison Principle). The actual spoilers look a bit more reasonable (so far).

Given WOTC's track record with cube, what are your expectations? Will they put legitimate design muscle into an actual retail product?
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Given how few commons we've seen thus far, it's going to be hard to say. I will say that while a few cards look interesting (Pestermite, Echoing Truth) quite a few seem pretty parasitic (Spellstutter Sprite, Desperate Ritual)

All I know is I'm pissed speculation has driven the price of a box up to x4 MSRP before we even knew what was in it. Guess I'm not getting any, am I wizards?

Fuckin hate this shit. I'm tired of product coming out almost specifically for me, but being swiped up by value traders because they only make fucking 50 of them, worldwide.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Also wow they just spoiled like 40 cards. I checked yesterday and it was at ike 19 spoiled!

Loving some inclusions: Doubling Season!!!!!
They can't print it anywhere else, and it's a casual dreamboat with a 20$ price tag because of planeswalkers. Happy to see it here.
Bridge from Below surprised me. Wasn't it banned from the outset?
Kitchen Finks, Spell Snare, Manamorphose are all nice, good to see those prices come down.
The Kamigawa Dragons coming back is sweet, I've been looking for a foil Yosei FOREVER, and Kokusho might make it back in to my cube, since grave titan might be coming out.

Yeah even after that we have like 9 commons, one of which is desperate ritual. I know they're spoiling the mythics first because that's whats going to sell this set, but it's still annoying :p
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Today's preview article on dredge in Modern Masters has me hopeful. Life from the Loam and Stinkweed Imp are already cards that a lot of cube designers run, and Worm Harvest is an excellent payoff for going through the trouble of digging. Masked Admirers won't win any awards for power level, but it synergizes well enough with graveyard shenanigans, albeit slowly.

Call me an optimist, but I'm really looking forward to this set. I'm going to find a way to draft it, through hell or high water.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
where are thoughtseize and hierarch? the latter is more concerning since how the hell are you gonna print a bant card with exalted in anything other than a supplemental set -- if thoughtseize isn't here i'd guess it'd be in theros
 
Calvin Chan

Calvin Chan

I'm gonna say it will be a mediocre draft set. With the poison principle, the archetypes are so far out there that most people will probably be playing "XY stuff".
I hope they sneak in some interesting inter-archetype synergies though.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Value storm, via a flurry of suspended spells ticking down!

I'm intrigued. Tell me more.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
i want some damn fixing at common then it'll be great. idgaf which common lands they print so long as they're bouncelands and there's 10 of 'em
 
CML

CML

Contributor
zaiem was sanguine enough about the draft format that he bemoaned the ridiculous prices on twitter. on the other hand he thinks there exists such a thing as an 'amazing development team' with max mccall. really?? it's like tryna win an NBA championship with ray allen
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
My theory is that most people won't evaluate MM critically, as the limited supply means that many people won't be able to draft it enough to get beyond the novelty.
 
VincePendrell

VincePendrell

It will be available on MTGO (as unredeemable product) so I guess the format will be played plenty fot it to be properly evaluated.

Either way, I do like what they are trying to do here and the fact that the format has been thought top down from the staples they were trying to make available is pretty neat. I don't think it is that different from what we are trying to do with our cube themes, except that what we had shown right now are cards that are a bit too focused on specific strategies (needs more overlap, though).
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Ah, yeah, I didn't really think about MTGO. I mean, I knew, because everybody has been tweeting about phantom drafts, but in my mind I was still thinking about the comments from people who say "I signed up for one of my stores two MM drafts!"
 
CML

CML

Contributor
jason: remember though that the mtg advertising schtick is 'make a good second impression' now. i.e. i hated dgm at first and then i convinced myself i liked it (when i was right that it sucked all along). think of it like one of the game's methods of picking up a woman -- first, snare her interest whatever way possible; second, let her think you're awesome; give her a clean slate on which to idealize you; third, you can do whatever you want.

it's funny since here in seattle have a local mtg writer who is immensely talented (jesse mason). his articles taking down rich hagon and mike flores (killgoldfish.com) are classics of their genres, but when he skewers flores' misogyny ("mike flores lives in a world where people are prone to cheap psychological tricks"), he's also skewering the cynical and crass commercialism of mtg brand managers, except for he's friends with the latter. the only difference between his friends and enemies in other words is his own cognitive bias. dovetail it with the narcissism and misogyny tropes in the "girls" conversation if you want to.

i'm full of awesome ideas these days, you guys are the best
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
anyone else irrationally excited about Modern Masters 2?

despite being confirmed to be all reprints, and Etched Champion pointing to a poison principle-y affinity/metalcraft archetype again, i am still super stoked
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
the set goes up to New Phyrexia, meaning the two additional blocks over last time are Zendikar and Scars, along with M10 and M11 (please god no Baneslayer Angel)

and yes, the only two confirmed cards so far are Emrakul and Etched Champion. it's in the video in the mothership article
 
Lucre

Lucre

@Jason
I think we might be likely to see counter themes and stuff that is closer to what the eldrazi domain cube was like (maybe?) if they are making a set to be a draft hit.
We may also see more crossover with the last one than you'd think.

My main wonder is if they are going for hard sell themes like MM or softer more nebulous interactions like VM. I also wonder if we are likely to see cliques or goyfs make an appearance, they'd be well met I think.

I cannot believe the price tag, magic is fuckin hilarious. It would be incredibly cool if this became like a mixed format with MMA and MMA2.
 
GenericZero

GenericZero

Colorless Mythic Cycle basically confirmed. 3 Eldrazi, 1 Karn, 1 Wurmcoil.

This set is expensive for a set that won't even have goyf. I foresee a possible unbanning & reprinting of everyone's favorite mindsculptor...but that's just baseless speculation.
 
James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
I'm still annoyed about Goyf and Bob being mythics in the last one. I thought the main point of MMA was to put more of these into circulation.
 
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