General Modern Horizons

Peter LaCara

Peter LaCara

WotC announced today that they are making a set with new cards that will be skipping Standard and going straight into Modern.

We have two preview cards so far.

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This guy looks extremely cool as a sac outlet, and I like the Cabal Therapy mini-game as repeatable over several turns.

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I'm sorry, Venkman. I'm hyped beyond capacity for rational thought.
 
anotak

anotak

cabal therapist looks absurdly unfun

if that's what they have for a first impression then yes i also have a quite bad feeling about it
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
I'm assuming the new and improved FFL has extensively tested the new cards in modern. I'm not terribly concerned stuff is going to break, and I completely agree with Velrun, for cube we get to choose any card we do like! I expect this set to be full of cool commons and uncommons that would be right at home at my cube's power level :)
 
ravnic

ravnic

Wow, I really wonder what kind of new cards we will get there, especially at lower rarities. Will it be draftable?

My first concrete wish is, that they print Mongrel into modern and add some new green madness goodies for the draft archetype :D
 
japahn

japahn

Velrun said:
You can’t have bad feelings about extra options :)

You can always choose not to include any of the new options in your cube(s)
Click to expand...

It's mostly a bad feeling about modern and paper magic. Sounds like they are cashing in by creating reprint equity with the combination of a high "MSRP" and broken cards that could not be in standard. With the information we have, it looks like a classic short term gain for long term loss. I imagine this was pitched internally as a way to keep paper relevant in the face of Arena, but will actually backfire and hurt modern and paper by making the format less accessible, accelerating power creep and reducing people's familiarity and invalidating their decks too quickly by changing it a lot at once.

Maybe I'm being too pessimistic, we don't have much information yet, but that's what it is. A feeling.

Oh, and for cube I fear we will get some cool cards which will end up costing way too much due to scarcity. It also feels bad to have a new "option" that costs $200.
 
silasw

silasw

japahn said:
It's mostly a bad feeling about modern and paper magic. Sounds like they are cashing in by creating reprint equity with the combination of a high "MSRP" and broken cards that could not be in standard. With the information we have, it looks like a classic short term gain for long term loss. I imagine this was pitched internally as a way to keep paper relevant in the face of Arena, but will actually backfire and hurt modern and paper by making the format less accessible, accelerating power creep and reducing people's familiarity and invalidating their decks too quickly by changing it a lot at once.

Maybe I'm being too pessimistic, we don't have much information yet, but that's what it is. A feeling.

Oh, and for cube I fear we will get some cool cards which will end up costing way too much due to scarcity. It also feels bad to have a new "option" that costs $200.
Click to expand...

The print run isn't limited. If your local store tries to gouge you, don't fall for it.
 
Velrun

Velrun

I guess.

Your logic at least makes sense to me now! :)

I thought we were talking cube-related because that is what I personally use this page for but I forgot other formats exist too and should be taken into consideration too :p Even on a page dedicated to cube.

Magic has always been about change. That has been the one defining quality (at least according to Mark Rosewater but I agree with him.) of this game and Modern Horizons is just the newest change. I expect paper Magic to die some day but I do not expect it to die this or the next decade.
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

japahn said:
I have a bad feeling about this.
Click to expand...

I think it's only going to be bad if they reprint True-Name Nemesis or actual Force of Will into modern. Modern actually needs something similar to Force of Will in my opinion, just not force proper.

My biggest fear with this set is that it will make modern feel to much like Legacy, which voids the primary reason to distinguish between the two formats.


I am entirely optimistic that this will provide some new archetype enablers for cube. Cabal Therapist already looks like something that can help to enable low-impact aristocrats archetypes.

If this is anything like Battlebond, it won't be all that hard for us to get our hands on some sealed product or the singles we're going to need for our cubes, especially if not all of the cards end up being new staples. I don't think they'd make a set about printing "new cards for modern" and not juice the thing with power, so it could legitimately be worth buying a booster box of this.
 
Velrun

Velrun

When they say..

“Modern Horizons contains 249 new-to-Modern cards (254 total), with a mix of reprints not yet legal in Modern, and new cards.”

..does that include Basic lands? :p ”Reprints not yet legal in Modern”
 
anotak

anotak

so i've sort of wondered if they want to kill modern long-term, and it would make business sense to do it in a way to where they make short-term profit by killing it
 
shamizy

shamizy

I'm excited for new cube cards, I strongly dislike the entire concept of this product however. It's going to be so prohibitively expensive to pick up anything new that becomes a staple card at higher rarities. Such blatant cash grabs are just gross to me.
 
vennythekid

vennythekid

Onderzeeboot said:
I'm assuming the new and improved FFL has extensively tested the new cards in modern. I'm not terribly concerned stuff is going to break, and I completely agree with Velrun, for cube we get to choose any card we do like! I expect this set to be full of cool commons and uncommons that would be right at home at my cube's power level :)
Click to expand...

Lol are you serious? This is the same group that missed Felidar Guardian in a single set, not the last 15 years of cards. Something out of this set is going to be broken out of the gates.

I'm pessimistic mostly because Modern has systemic issues (in play, strategy, and in price/availibility) that can't be solved by introducing a bunch of pushed cards. I sense a "she swallowed a spider to catch the fly" effect about to happen.
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

vennythekid said:
Lol are you serious? This is the same group that missed Felidar Guardian in a single set, not the last 15 years of cards. Something out of this set is going to be broken out of the gates.

I'm pessimistic mostly because Modern has systemic issues (in play, strategy, and in price/availibility) that can't be solved by introducing a bunch of pushed cards. I sense a "she swallowed a spider to catch the fly" effect about to happen.
Click to expand...

They've completely re-structured the way the FFL works in the last couple of years. "Development" no longer consists of just designers trying to playtest- it's actual Recent Pros who are on the brand new Play Design team. This set clearly isn't trying to fix the card availability problems with modern as much as it is trying to introduce new archetypes to the format. I think it is now coincidence that one of the first cards revealed for this set is an aristocrats enabler coming only a month after the release of Judith, Scourge Diva and Teysa Karlov...

shamizy said:
I'm excited for new cube cards, I strongly dislike the entire concept of this product however. It's going to be so prohibitively expensive to pick up anything new that becomes a staple card at higher rarities. Such blatant cash grabs are just gross to me.
Click to expand...

Judging by the way this product is being marketed, the line of sets this has come from (Conspiracy, Battlebond, Unstable type sets instead of MMA and UMA), I do not think supply is going to be an issue. If this set is really full of great cards for modern, then it is going to have a lot of people buying it and WOTC is going to keep printing it until no one wants it any more.

Maybe 5 years from now some cards will be super expensive, but by that point, I'm sure we will have seen the return of masters sets or some similar replacement product.
 
japahn

japahn

silasw said:
The print run isn't limited. If your local store tries to gouge you, don't fall for it.
Click to expand...

But it's still limited to the prices offered by distributors + some profit a store needs to take. If the distributor offers packs for $6, the store won't sell them for less than $6.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
vennythekid said:
Lol are you serious? This is the same group that missed Felidar Guardian in a single set, not the last 15 years of cards. Something out of this set is going to be broken out of the gates.

I'm pessimistic mostly because Modern has systemic issues (in play, strategy, and in price/availibility) that can't be solved by introducing a bunch of pushed cards. I sense a "she swallowed a spider to catch the fly" effect about to happen.
Click to expand...
I'm referring to Play Design, which is the team currently responsible solely for testing sets with a competitive mindset, i.e. their only purpose is to keep game wrecking stuff out of Standard (and now Modern, I presume). The Felidar Sovereign combo was actually the direct reason to form this team, so no, this isn't the team that missed Copy Cat, this is the team that's supposed to catch future Copy Cats.

As for the rest of your misgivings about Modern, I do agree the format has the systemic issues you describe. I feel they haven't been nearly aggressive enough in the fetchland reprint policy. The whole point of creating Modern (well, one of the main points) was to create a new, available format, and their miserly reprint strategy has caused card prices to explode all over again. I don't think Modern Horizons in and of itself needs to add to that problem though, at least not on release. If they have a broad power band, the booster price will distribute itself over a lot of cards, meaning individual card prices shouldn't be too inflated. Of course there are going to be a few mythics that will command a premium, I'm curious to see how high the prices will go in a set that doesn't garner any interest from Standard players though.
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

japahn said:
But it's still limited to the prices offered by distributors + some profit a store needs to take. If the distributor offers packs for $6, the store won't sell them for less than $6.
Click to expand...

For that to effect the overall availability of the set, that would require:
-All of the Distributors to be selling the set for $6 a pack.
-Amazon (who appears to get cards directly from WOTC) to be selling the set for $6 a pack.
-For there to be enough demand of the product for stores to be able to sell the set $6 a pack.

Consider this. The individual contents of a regular booster box (36 packs) should cost approximately $144. Yet, most stores sell boxes of MTG cards for $100. Why? Because people don't want to pay $144 dollars for cards, and on the internet, you can buy a box for 100 bucks or less. I'm not saying that means this set won't be price gouged, but what I am saying is that it would require a huge amount of cooperation from multiple different sources for this set to cost more than it's worth. I seriously doubt Amazon cares about
ACD Distribution, WI​
's bottom line, and it doesn't actually make Amazon any more money to try and gouge the price if that means they would have more competition. If you don't like the prices at your LGS, buy the cards from somewhere else.
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

Onderzeeboot said:
Of course there are going to be a few mythics that will command a premium, I'm curious to see how high the prices will go in a set that doesn't garner any interest from Standard players though.
Click to expand...


I'd recommend looking at the mythics from Battlebond. There are some really powerful new cards there, but none of them don't cost more than 15 bucks.
 
japahn

japahn

TrainmasterGT said:
For that to effect the overall availability of the set, that would require:
-All of the Distributors to be selling the set for $6 a pack.
-Amazon (who appears to get cards directly from WOTC) to be selling the set for $6 a pack.
-For there to be enough demand of the product for stores to be able to sell the set $6 a pack.

Consider this. The individual contents of a regular booster box (36 packs) should cost approximately $144. Yet, most stores sell boxes of MTG cards for $100. Why? Because people don't want to pay $144 dollars for cards, and on the internet, you can buy a box for 100 bucks or less. I'm not saying that means this set won't be price gouged, but what I am saying is that it would require a huge amount of cooperation from multiple different sources for this set to cost more than it's worth. I seriously doubt Amazon cares about
's bottom line, and it doesn't actually make Amazon any more money to try and gouge the price if that means they would have more competition. If you don't like the prices at your LGS, buy the cards from somewhere else.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying it will be price gouged! I think the "MSRP" is $10, based on the fact that Online it's $7. Distributors selling at $6 is not a cartel, it's a normal price point, based on the price (say, $5.50) Wizards sells to them for.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Look, modern being what it is, I'm giving this whole thing the side eye. My cube just isn't modern powerful.
But in terms of health of the format, could they really make things worse? :p
 
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