Sets (MH3) Modern Horizons 3 Previews
- Thread starter TrainmasterGT
- Start date
6 colours is hard to support. There are less cards per colour(combination) and each card can be used in less possible decks. This is a solid reason people eschew a colour or have less guilds/colour combinations than wizards does.
Energy requires a lot of cards, and more is better. This is synergy just like tribal.
Ninjas do not require other Ninjas, but the funny thing is more Ninjas in your deck can make them weaker. This is due to ninjitsu replacing a creature and not adding a creature to the board.
All can be great packages in cube, it is similar to morph. You have to cater your cube to it.
Energy requires a lot of cards, and more is better. This is synergy just like tribal.
Ninjas do not require other Ninjas, but the funny thing is more Ninjas in your deck can make them weaker. This is due to ninjitsu replacing a creature and not adding a creature to the board.
All can be great packages in cube, it is similar to morph. You have to cater your cube to it.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
I mean it was right there in the name all along
As someone who's currently doing this, I can say it's way worse.
If you're running a
deck, for example, there's only two lands that can achieve that. Neither of which can be fetched.The ability for a typical 3 color deck to grab a fetch or two and a shock or two is huge. The only good thing about the current
cards is that they're either additional costs or they're late game plays. This makes the mana less important to hit on time.If MH3 doesn't add a nice cycle of colorless land support, I'll almost surely be adding a ton of Prismatic Vistas to grant sufficient access to Wastes.
Yes I was assuming you'd have to break singleton, didn't make that clear. I'm curious how they'll fix it in MH3. They'll probably a assure colorless land in every pack, like they did with snow lands/mana, hopefully with basic land types for the reasons you mention!As someone who's currently doing this, I can say it's way worse.
If you're running a
The ability for a typical 3 color deck to grab a fetch or two and a shock or two is huge. The only good thing about the current
If MH3 doesn't add a nice cycle of colorless land support, I'll almost surely be adding a ton of Prismatic Vistas to grant sufficient access to Wastes.
Lore-wise, things like a fetchable Forest/Wastes make no sense, which would be one solution they could go with otherwise.
Even a fetchable Forest that doesn't have the Wastes sub-type but somehow taps for is a bit nonsensical and would require a minor rewrite of the rules.
I'm very curious to see how they make it work.
Even a fetchable Forest that doesn't have the Wastes sub-type but somehow taps for
is a bit nonsensical and would require a minor rewrite of the rules.I'm very curious to see how they make it work.
I hadn't considered this, but you're right.
You could slap "Forest Plains" on a pain land and call it a day. No rules rewrites required.Even a fetchable Forest that doesn't have the Wastes sub-type but somehow taps for
I think that a powered up version of Shire Terrace is one strong solution. Make the second part a 0 mana tapped fetch or a one color untapped fetch. Hell, make it a mythic rare and have it create three treasure tokens and a monkey.
true, but it doesnt have the perfectest boy in the art, so?I mean it was right there in the name all along
If a land has a basic land type, it intrinsically taps for that color of mana. I'm not 100% sure putting the
symbol as an option would override that.
It really comes down to how the cards fit together. With something like Ninjas, there's a fairly deep pool of interaction, enablers, and payoffs even though the actual number of cards is small. Colorless doesn't have this yet. One of the reasons why I was specifically calling out the "BFZdrazi" model instead of colorless in general is because of the narrower scope and use case of the cards. It that Hearalds the End is a probably a good card for Eldrazi decks, but it doesn't have many use cases outside of that. Artifacts might be able to do something with it, but that would require a critical mass of colorless creatures in addition to colorless mana production. Compare this to something like Mist Syndicate Naga which can basically go into any proactive blue deck in an appropriately powered Cube and be fine. If they use colorless in a more open-ended way, it could very well be a viable Cube theme outside of dedicated environments! If it's mostly Eldrazi support, then the usability of the mechanic will be more tedious. I'm honestly just hoping they take the former route and give Cube designers some open-ended toys rather than pigeonholing the mechanic into weird Eldrazitron support that may or may not make Modern worse.
One of the main differences is that many of Faerie cards for other decks can be central to those strategies, while Energy cards often are not. Oona's Prowler and Faerie Vandal (plus it's friend Improbable Alliance) can both be the main enabler or payoff for their respective strategies. Prowler is a decent body by itself that can trigger anything that cares about discard, plus bin cards for reanimation/delirium/escape/whatever other graveyard synergy you like. Meanwhile, both Vandal and Alliance can be the payoffs for their draw 2 strategy. When you look at energy, there just aren't a ton of cards that are phenomenal in another deck while also being able to play a key role in turning on an energy strategy. There are a couple of cool cards like Dynavolt Tower that can really work well as a central piece in another deck, but these cards are the exception and not the norm. Many of the reasonable energy glue-ish cards are things like Longtusk Cub, which are fine in other decks but are really at their best in Energy proper. I suppose you could make the argument that a couple of the generic value energy production cards like Rogue Refiner are decent in non-energy decks, provided that the Cube is of an appropriate power level. However, you run the risk of players not wanting to include the random energy cards because the energy counter ends up being an additive distraction.
I'm not saying that energy can't work in Cubes or anything along those lines, just that the pool of energy cards is fairly insular. There aren't a huge number of energy cards that are good on rate, there aren't a huge number of cards that are excellent in other archetypes, and there aren't a huge number of cards that reward you for doing anything other than playing as many sources of {E} as possible. MH3 could definitely fix this, but designs like Scurry of Gremlins which are just weird side-grades to existing cards that ask for a lot of energy production capacity to be interesting pieces beyond the base mode are probably not going going to get there by themselves.
I think you're right on all of these points Brad! Going back to @landofMordor 's original comment, even if MH3 isn't able to diversify the card pool for these mechanics enough to make them useful in a wide range of Cube formats, we will almost certainly get cool support for "set Cube" type formats. I am primarily worried that WOTC is going to squander the potential to bring some much-needed depth to these mechnic's respective card pools while also boosting some fairly toxic archetypes into constructed playability. The question is: will they work to make the card pools for these two mechanics deeper, or will they expand the shallow surface?I think the disconnect here is that you two are focusing on different aspects of the mechanics.
Train is looking at the shallow card pool, whereas Mown is looking at the potential.
Neither archetype is very well fleshed out right now. MH3 might make them more universally playable, but there's likely still shortcomings as well as infrequent future printings to support either.
For cube, you can totally run C and/or E if you focus your design on it. Again, MH3 could push these decks enough that this changes and the decks are more universal.
Both perspectives are correct.
Unless I'm wrong.
Something I'd like to add is that, while both have a shallow card pool, a Horizons set has the most potential to deepen the playable card pool for these decks.
What about Murmuring Bosk as an example? Sure, it creates additional colors of mana, but it's a basic land type that taps for mana not of that land type.If a land has a basic land type, it intrinsically taps for that color of mana. I'm not 100% sure putting the
Right, but colorless is explicitly the lack of color, and basic lands definitionally tap for that color. I'm not judge-level on rules, but I think you'd basically need a forest to have devoid for it to properly tap for colorless and still be a forest.
I see what you're saying, but I don't see why we can't simply add "T: Add C." the same way that Bosk got "T: Add W or B."
Nah, you can just give it "
: Add ". I think you're mixing up rule 305.6 (which grants the basic land types the ability to tap for the appropriate color) and rule 305.7 (which defines what happens when a land gains a basic land type, which includes the loss of other abilities).Or maybe you're mixing
up with snow mana? I can kinda see it...Rule 305.7 sets a land to a basic land, e.g.,Nah, you can just give it "
Or maybe you're mixing
In the spreading seas example the land will be just an island and van only tap for
.You can add a basic land type to a land and it will additionally gain the ability to tap for that mana, e.g.,
So yes, you can add
or even in theory since what a card says trumps the rules, one could have a non-snow card that gives snow mana.
How could this be possible? Snow mana does not really exist, it's just a shorthand for "mana produced by a snow source"
Chris Taylor
Contributor
You can have a pain land with basic types, you just need to city of brass it
Snow ritual B
Instant
Add BBB, treat this mana as though it comes from a snow permanent. (This is snow mana)
Currently, snow mana is only if it comes from a permanent that has the snow supertype.
We actually already have a sorcery card that adds snow mana, Tundra Fumarole. I built a standard deck back in the day that used the mana from Fumarole to reanimate Narfi, the Betrayer King. It sucked because there were better things to be doing in that standard format than screwing around with snow lol.
but then couldn’t this just be a “snow instant”?
Could be, but not necessarily. I said theoretically, it is likely not a great idea but it was an example to show that cards trump the rules.
Ah, the bane of these days. Durdling one turn means death.
this is so sick actually
The paradox of Magic: creatures getting better has made the game worse unless you happen to really like midrange.
