General Wishlist for MH3 Archetypes: What’s Yours?

[Parthenopaeus_V]

Hi all!

I’ve not done a whole lot of cubing in the last year - my paper cube is in dire need of an update, and I’ve mostly been playing board games or working on my own game Coalition. However, I still like to keep an eye on new spoilers and this forum. So, taking inspiration from a similar question in the Pauper subreddit:

Both Modern Horizons sets so far have delivered tons of goodies for cube. What mechanics and/or archetypes would you like to see supported in a theoretical MH3? What color combinations would you like to see them appear in? What would be some cool cards for these archetypes that would work well in your cube?

Off the top of my head, I’ve got:

1. Awaken. I love lands-based shenanigans. Unfortunately, Awaken hasn’t made an appearance since its debut in BFZ, and most of those cards are boringly overcosted or underwhelming. I’d probably put this in Temur colors - GU and GR are great homes for land strategies, while UR could potentially overlap with a Prismari-style “big spells” theme.

2. Retrace. Again with the lands and instants/sorceries. Honestly, this and Awaken might eat up too much similar design space to be in the same set. Both provide mana sinks and land shenanigans on instants/sorceries. Jund is an obvious home for this, what with Red discard shenanigans, but Red already has some of the coolest retrace cards. I think a Sultai twist on this would actually be pretty sweet. GU and GB could go deep on lands with loam-style recursion, but a controlling UB self-mill shell would work great with Retrace as well. Draw extra lands? Pitch em for value!

3. Powerstones. A super-duper interesting mechanic from BRO. Unfortunately I don’t find most of the Powerstone cards exciting enough to cube even in artifact-heavy environments. I do love the play patterns, though - especially the way they play with activated ability mana sinks. I think Jeskai or Esper would make an interesting home for this. Assembling a rube goldberg value machine sounds like a ton of fun. This mechanic would need another artifacts-based strategy to mesh well with, though, the way it did with Unearth in BRO. What could be a good fit for this?

Hope y’all are doing well here! Happy cubing!

 

[blacksmithy]

this is a fun thought experiment!
some stuff in my cube that is mostly propped up by customs right now is what id hope for. maybe...
-more Lorehold "card leaves graveyard"
-more Death's Shadow variants
-more "play opponent's stuff" (at ragavan power levels)
-Exalted/attack alone
-cascade/topdeck (NOT miracle)
-loop de loops

 

[MilesOfficial]

Not for Cube, but I do love snow, and I wish there was a more clever way to implement them / snow costs without it being "just play snow-covered basics instead of regular ones".

For cube, I'd like:

Additional Trinket Support
One of my favorite parts of MH2 was the love for the silly little artifact tokens (, , , etc.). At that time, we only (lol) had Food, Treasures, and Clues. Now that we can add Blood, Powerstones, and maybe even Incubators, there's just a little bit more silliness to be had. I'd prefer cards that don't call out multiple types specifically, but more benefit from sacrificing artifacts, little tokens ETB, etc., and, of course, generating more of them. I'd really like very pushed Thraben Inspector equivalents, the crab one we got last time was a good start.

Cards that like to be in graveyards
I love recursion and treating the 'yard like it's an additional resource. A mechanic like Escape (or just Escape!) is great because it's also self-correcting to a degree. I also adore Disturb, but the DFC nature of those cards is a bit annoying from a few perspectives, so perhaps the Escapes and Aftermaths (besides their somewhat ugly frames) of the world are better suited for cube.

 

[Zoss]

Delirium again! It missed the mark a little bit in MH2 apart from DRC, but it's always an interesting puzzle.

Cycling doesn't need mechanical support, it's just good on it own. Needs more cards, though

Dash is another fun puzzle.

Adventure just needs more good cards.

Seconding Retrace and Cascade.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Oh, that’s a cool thought experiment!

1. Historic. Both white and black have plenty of cards that care about artifacts already, and it’s also home to plenty of cheap, playable legendaries. Teshar, Ancestor’s Apostle is a sweet four drop, and I’ve found that D’Avenant Trapper performs quite well, but the mono black options are truly abysmal. This mechanic is cool, and it deserves way better support.

2. Landfall. For years I’ve been trying to find a satisfying keyword to build around in this color pair, but WotC declines to adequately support any of them before hopping over to a new one, despite all of them being variations on ramp. Tatyova, Benthic Druid is a sweet card, and while there are plenty of good options in green for landfall, the number of satisfying options in blue is, well, basically zero.

3. Heroic. I love heroic, and it fits the color pair really well. Currently my lineup consists of Tenth District Legionnaire, Anax and Cymede, Feather, the Redeemed, Illuminator Virtuoso, and the much less exciting Arena Athlete. I wish there were a few options available in that had better base stats and were synergystic with a go wide strategy. I love Hero of the Pride, but a base 2/2 just sucks compared to other options available. At least give it lifelink, or something. Sure, I can custom everything, but it would be nice for WotC to slightly up the base, having to run a bunch of self-targeting spells already is a deckbuilding burden anyway. And that's something else a heroic set could improve, especially when we're talking Modern Horizons levels; good self-targeting spells.

 

[Velrun]

Off topic for a brief moment

My wish for MH3 is that they would stop doing Modern Horizons and all these other products. In my opinion this is what makes Magic a worse game than it use to be.

Okay enough bitter for now. On with your wishes and on topic discussions

 

[Onderzeeboot]

That is an interesting opinion, albeit one I don't entirely agree with. For a cube curator with no active stakes in Modern the sets are all upside imo. Modern Horizons is a great playground for WotC to slightly push power level without wrecking the Standard format. I much prefer them to the old Masters sets. I love MH1 and MH2 for cards like Prismatic Vista, Changeling Outcast, Prismatic Ending, Master of Death, and Dragon's Rage Channeler. Some or all of these could probably have existed in a Standard legal set, but a) they don't have the power level budget to include as many pushed designs in a Standard set as they do in the Modern Horizons sets, and b) it's not as easy for them to revisit this many existing mechanics in a Standard set, because there's an implicit expectation for new mechanics with each new Standard sets. Thus, Horizons sets often include designs that more easily meet a typical cube's power level, and often strengthen existing mechanics so they are easier to support at an appropriate density. They do so at a much faster rate than the original pace Standard, Master, and Commander products could. The only "downside" is that they tend to impact the Modern format quite heavily, but I'm not sure that is an actual downside (except in obviously broken cases like Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis). It breathes new life into the format, and allows WotC to print direct to format solutions for existing problems as well as additional support for undersupported strategies/archetypes.

That said, both sets caused an upheaval in the format, and for players who liked the "eternal" aspect of Modern (that is, you get to keep playing your pet deck for a long time), both MH1 and MH2 definitely killed their fair share of decks. I can see how that totally put some players off, and made them resent the sets.

 

[Velrun]

Simple put, for me it’s all the extra sets Wizards produce each year. I don’t want them to cut down on Standard legal story-driven sets that introduce new planes to explore with new art style or continue the lore on existing planes. No it’s all the extra sets and among them are the Horizon variants. This also includes many of the Commander products. Most of the Secret Lairs. All of the Alchemy sets. It’s a personal opinion that we have too many sets. And I find the Horizon variants to be by far the worst products.

 

[Taamas]

[...]
2. Landfall. For years I’ve been trying to find a satisfying keyword to build around in this color pair [...]

You might be looking for flash! I discovered this avenue when playtesting my cube and then went deeper into it with the last update, and it also is the most mentioned keyword when Wizards' designers talk about overlap between green and blue. And, to not go offtopic too much, I'll say I would like to see this explored by our dear official card designers and publishers, in MH3 or elsewhere, and I also would like to know if this has been done before and I missed it.

 

[ravnic]

Madness
It's the classic color combination for this archetype and it needs more support next to black an red. I'm still cubing 100% of all existing green cards with that mechanic ...

Treasures or artifact tokens in general
I think there is potential for an easy to include deck here, it would just need a handful of cool designs including payoffs that are powerful enough.

Spells Matter
I don't like pair archetype in my cube, because I don't want 'virtual gold cards', so I run spells as mono blue. But if there was some support in black, it could maybe turn into a sweet triangle archetype centered in blue.

I would also love them doing cool stuff with Embalm. I currently only run Honored Hydra and it's so cool. Just like with every flashback variant, I adore designs the most, where the graveyard cast is cheaper than the regular one, opening these cards up for strong synergies with discard and self mill.

 

[blacksmithy]

more spellslingers in black would be really cool, that's a good one

 

[LadyMapi]

Give me Conspire or give me death.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Give me Conspire or give me death.

You've got a choice LadyMapi!!!

 

[LadyMapi]

I'll take the cake, please.

 

[Erik Twice]

Cards that like to be in graveyards
I love recursion and treating the 'yard like it's an additional resource. A mechanic like Escape (or just Escape!) is great because it's also self-correcting to a degree. I also adore Disturb, but the DFC nature of those cards is a bit annoying from a few perspectives, so perhaps the Escapes and Aftermaths (besides their somewhat ugly frames) of the world are better suited for cube.

This is it for me, too. We have all the enablers and tricks in the world, but not enough cards that actually want to be discarded or played from the graveyard. At least for my power level.

 

[blacksmithy]

This is it for me, too. We have all the enablers and tricks in the world, but not enough cards that actually want to be discarded or played from the graveyard. At least for my power level.

100% agree, "cards that wanna be discarded" is one of my largest categories of customs

 

[Velrun]

This is it for me, too. We have all the enablers and tricks in the world, but not enough cards that actually want to be discarded or played from the graveyard. At least for my power level.

Wow, so accurate. Never thought about this before even though I often had the same problem. This actually never occured to me. I hope they give us more now.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Oh, right, I sometimes forget I run two customs for that purpose!

 

[ravnic]

They should simply make flashback evergreen and madness decidious.

Change my mind.

 

[Velrun]

They should simply make flashback evergreen and madness decidious.

Change my mind.

Easily and with pleasure
You will get bored after a few sets in a row with the same mechanics. Imagine after 3 years of the same shit. Imagine after 10 years of repetitive gameplay.
Consider your mind changed

 

[MilesOfficial]

Easily and with pleasure
You will get bored after a few sets in a row with the same mechanics. Imagine after 3 years of the same shit. Imagine after 10 years of repetitive gameplay.
Consider your mind changed

I do not get bored of 1 MV 2/1s, sorceries that return creatures to the battlefield from the graveyard, nor do I tire of new versions of Thrill of Possibility we get each expansion - you could say it's the thrill of possibility.

 

[Rusje]

Easily and with pleasure
You will get bored after a few sets in a row with the same mechanics. Imagine after 3 years of the same shit. Imagine after 10 years of repetitive gameplay.
Consider your mind changed

You mean you will get a flashback?

 

[ravnic]

Flashback feels just like an essential gane mechanic. I wouldn't get bored by removal spells as well
* Miles was quicker

And if you think I'd get bored by casting stuff for madness, you don't know me!

 

[Velrun]

I have failed

 

[Zoss]

You will get bored after a few sets in a row with the same mechanics. Imagine after 3 years of the same shit. Imagine after 10 years of repetitive gameplay.
Consider your mind changed

I have failed

I agree intellectually that keeping sets mechanically distinct is important, but I'd rather seem some "honorary evergreen" mechanics like Surveil, Cycling, Madness, etc. made officially evergreen rather than have to suffer through things Kogla and Yidaro trying very very hard to not have the word "Cycling" on it for little upside. I also struggle to think of a set that wouldn't be improved by sprinkling things like the Tranquil Thicket cycle in as appropriate.


And besides, we already have mechanics that show up in every single set like flying, trample, and haste and those don't grow boring ! (Or at least I don't find them boring). Charging Monstrosaur and its ilk are always interesting game pieces (when scaled appropriately to the power level of the set, etc.), IMHO.