MTG Salvation

Blood Sun to get rid of the Lotus Field's drawback?

Quote from SyntheticDreamer »

Quote from Thorshammer813 »

This will be an 8 of purchase for me. A playset for a modern/legacy deck, and one apiece for my edh decks.

If even ten percent of players want more than one playset, this thing will be just as expensive as the "actual" fetchlands.

This will be at minimum a $20 card. No doubt in my mind.

It won't be too far behind some of the regular fetches, honestly. Sure, this only gets basic lands (including Wastes if that's your thing) but it still basically lets you play with a 56-card deck.

Not just wastes, it also gets snow basics... too bad we don't seem to be getting a snow wastes...

I'm pretty sure the list is wrong, since it says the urza lands, and I'm pretty sure we were already told that besides basic lands, there are no reprints that are already modern legal.

I wonder if they'll come up with a new interesting mana-fixing land, maybe something like:

Reverse-scry Realm
Legendary Land
t: Add , if you do, each opponent may scry 1.
t: Add one mana of any color, if you do, each opponent may scry 3.

I really hope they do some interesting things with sorcery and enchantment card types in particular, a lot of those are harder to get modern viable ones through standard, due to lack of proper hate in mono-colored decks for enchantments, and for sorcery spells, just power level for the mana cost differences in how it works compared to instant speed spells in modern compared to standard. Planeswalkers, creatures, lands, and instants all seem to make it through to modern with current standard design principles much easier, although I could be wrong.

I'm also wondering about how much multi-color will be in the set. I actually hope they lean on mono-colored and are relatively light on the multi-colored stuff, even if I do want some nice multi-colored stuff, like, say, enemy 'command' spells (Kolaghan's Command being an ally color example).

I also hope they do some fun stuff with creature types on the creatures that aren't specifically designed to slot into specific tribal decks, playing around with more rarely seen creature types and getting good art for them and doing interesting art and flavor for it that might be more rarely seen in standard or upcoming Standard sets that are more flavor restrictive (due to specific worlds) or more generic fantasy (for semi-beginner products like core sets).

Quote from idSurge »

1. Print Swords to Plowshares, Daze, Planar Void and Counterspell in Modern Horizons.
2. Print additional fair cards in Green, White, Black.
3. Print some new combo's that have a payoff card that cannot be cast before Turn 4 with regularity.
4. Unban Stoneforge Mystic, Splinter Twin, KCI
5. Ban Terminus

I don't think we need quite Swords or Daze or Planar Void. Counterspell is certainly in line with what we need, but I think we could get a 2 drop variation on swords (perhaps giving life based on CMC rather than power if they want to mix things up), something like void would also be fine at 2 cmc, just black's version of Rest in Peace that doesn't rely on leyline opening hands, and I think there are a variety of ways more useful than daze they could deal with the sort of early plays and emergencies that is made for. Heck, counterspell itself isn't neccesarily needed, something that counters cmc 3 or 4 or less would probably do the job as well (I don't think prohibit would be sufficient though). I really hope they do things properly for Horizons and get things like that though.

I don't think KCI is the best unban choice, seems a little too eggsy, but I suspect Stoneforge and Twin would be fine if the answers in the format were set up right in Horizons, and some more turn 4 combos besides twin would be nice as well. I'm not sure terminus needs to be banned so much as that there should be options good enough that control decks don't rely on luck, or things get banned until proper 4 cmc sweepers or some of the partial 3 cmc ones become sufficient.

As implied by others, combo should be the fastest type of deck in the format, if allowed to goldfish, but slightly unreliable in that speed, with the target win turn if slightly disrupted being turn 4, with pre-turn-4 wins being extremely unlikely and generally only possible if allowed to goldfish, but still unlikely even then, aggro should be slightly slower but more reliable, winning no earlier than turn 5, with turn 4 wins possible with average draws if allowed to goldfish, and pre-turn-4 wins basically impossible even with goldfishing, or at least far less likely than combo. Control decks should never be winning before turn 6, although most of the time if they are going to win is likely determined around turn 5 outside of control vs. control mirror matches and similar such situations, based on how much they've disrupted the opponent's gameplan and built up advantages. These turn points are only valid if Modern remains a 'turn 4 format' rather than wizards deciding to allow it to be a turn 3 or turn 2 format or something.

Still it should go something like this, combo is fastest, and defeats aggro more often than it loses to aggro, because aggro isn't quite as fast and doesn't have as much disruption to stop the combo from going off. Combo loses more often to control because it is weak to disruption, despite it's speed (control currently has trouble with this side of things due to insufficiently broad answers and relatively weird combo state in the meta). Control loses to aggro because aggro is more reliable and less vulnerable to disruption thanks to more redundant cards that basically do the same thing and don't rely on specific combinations, but still faster than control can handle even when disrupted.

Currently however, a lot of the wins are pre-turn-4, and a lot of the decks are some weird hybrid of combo, tempo, and midrange that are oddly redundant and reliable for any of those archetypes, and win in ways that more closely resemble aggro-strategies, but get their power from things closer resembling combo strategies, but too reliable and fast for them to be fair as combo strategies in the current format based on the 'turn 4' rule ideal.

Buffing answers could help control gain an edge, if the answers are properly set up and deal properly with the combo elements of the existing decks, and make real aggro needed to take down those control and have the space to invade the format without being overwhelmed by faster combo.

I'm not really sure about all this though, since I'm still a little fuzzy headed due to being sick.

I also hope that Horizons enables new archetypes more than it powers up existing decks, although I wouldn't mind also powering up some of the lower tier existing decks. I also hope it increases diversity in some types of decks that don't see much diversity in higher tiered play, like encouraging big-mana decks to include more green ramp rather than just tron type stuff, encouraging more different control decks enough that more different ones survive later rounds of tournaments and there isn't such a limited pool of top tier ones keeping the archetype in the top tier, barely able to keep up with the format's many combo and aggro and such decks, and some more stuff to clearly differentiate tempo from midrange again, as the lines between the two have become blurred and leaning towards 'good-stuff' type deck design with power level of cards or limitations in card pools for proper synergy in certain areas overwhelming strategy synergy.

Horay for Modern Horizons, hoping some of these are in it for reprints:

Counterspell
Force Spike
Wall of Blossoms
Containment Priest
Innocent Blood
Undermine
Diabolic Edict
Tribute to the Wild
Impulse
From the Ashes
Angel of Finality
Stranglehold
Crawlspace
Bind
Skyshroud Elite
Wild Growth
Flametongue Kavu
Skyshroud War Beast
Lobotomy

It was touched on in the post about the multiple individual different sweepers in an earlier post, but it is often the case that you might want multiple slightly different sideboard cards that all do similar things in certain matchups. Besides avoiding surgicals, some of them might be useful in some matchups but not in others, while others might be more better generally but useless in a few key matchups where that kind of effect is still useful, just because of the specific cards they are up against having defenses against that sort of thing or whatnot. Some of these could also be sideboard cards against other decks but less optimal or useless in some of the matchups that the kind of card is typically there for.

For instance, an anti-artifact section of a sideboard set of slots could have a mix of one copy each of Fragmentize, Kataki, War's Wage, Revoke Existence, and Stony Silence. Not all will be slotted in against the same decks or cards you might be facing, they all play slightly different roles and are good against slightly different decks, and not all might be sideboarded in against every deck with artifacts of note, but some might also be slotted in against non-artifact decks because, say, they are good against the enchantments in it for fragmentize and revoke, or because you are countering expected opponent sideboard cards that are typically artifacts against your deck.

Another example is someone might play their Relic of Progenitus from the sideboard out of a bunch of anti-graveyard cards of different sorts (perhaps including surgical extraction and Leyline of the Void), not because of hating on a graveyard, but because of it's card draw, against some deck that makes you want to do more card draw enough to use it in some fringe situations.

To that end, where it fits your deck, I'd see single copies of most of your sideboard cards being beneficial, even if you have multiple cards against a type of strategy you might be facing. This is less of a good plan if you really know the metagame you are facing and it's not very diverse, but in a highly diverse metagame, it might be a good idea.

For Containment Priest, they don't even have to print an exact copy of it. For instance, they could make a variant that isn't human type, making it a Kor or an Avatar or something that isn't as common, dodging issues that putting it in a creature type like spirit or human for Modern would have. It doesn't have to have the exact same P/T either. Could easily be something like a 1/3 or a 2/1, or maybe a 1/2 with flying or something. Flash is probably still needed though, as with the 1W mana cost, for it to do it's job properly.

Things I'd hope for entering Modern from sets like this:

I'd hope for Containment Priest or maybe a non-human variant on it to avoid more human tribal power ups.

Wall of Blossoms, as well as a blue variant on that theme (Blossoms, Wall of Omens) possibly with flying/reach as an extra since defensive creatures and card draw are already both in blue's color pie (whereas card draw isn't as much in white's, and defensive creatures isn't as much in green's).

A just plain U hexproof creature, so that the other half of Slippery Bogle to the Gladecover Scout exists.

Counterspell and/or a counter that counters things 3 cmc or less. If not counterspell, then I'd expect the 3 cmc or less targeting one to be UU, if both, then I'd expect the cmc 3 or less one to be 1U.

Flametongue Kavu.

Blue and White's versions of pushed 1 drop prowess creatures to go along with Monastery Swiftspear, blue's focused towards tempo, and white's probably focused towards white weenie.

Some more strong blue 'removal' along the lines of transformation effects that result in the target getting exiled (not just destroyed) and the opponent getting tokens in it's place, or auras that turn a creature into something else while it's enchanted, either or both at instant speed (flash on the auras), around 2 cmc.

Some new variants on white removal that are modern viable, like perhaps a Swords to Plowshares based design that is 2 cmc and perhaps only gives a specific amount of life, or an amount of life that is related to the CMC rather than the power.

Undermine and Force Spike.

In every color, some stronger nonbasic land hate than they'd be willing to print in Standard, possibly leaning on things that effectively replace it with basic lands, focused around the 2 cmc target area, in order to fight more against things like Tron in various decks giving new sideboard options.

In other colors besides white, black, or colorless, more low CMC grave hate, green might restrict use of graveyards like making them effectively hexproof, blue and green might shuffle stuff back into libraries, red might exile while granting incidental damage to certain sorts of targets. Doesn't need to be as strong as white's version, but should be still modern sideboard viable.

More Modern viable 'command' type spells in colors or color combinations whose versions don't really see play in modern (modal pick two type things) besides blue or rakdos colors.

More modern viable modal pick one spells (charms and the like) in all the mono-colors, particularly focused on making generic sideboard effects also have a main-board effect attached to make main-board worthy spells that can serve some minor, highly in-color, sideboard type effects, like artifact removal in red, enchantment and/or grave hate in white, fogs and/or flying hate in green, etc.

3 cmc mono-blue instant speed draw 2, rather than just Esper Charm getting such. Possibly also for some other color combations with blue besides esper getting this sort of effect. This is mostly for the objective of being able to hold up mana and either use a removal/counter at instant speed, or if there are no worthy targets, using the draw spell at the end of your opponent's turn, also possibly to just threaten the removal/counter.

Innocent Blood, Diabolic Edict, and Tribute to the Wild.

From the Ashes and Stranglehold.

Stronger/more indirect enchantment and/or artifact hate for black and red, along the lines of things like Aura Barbs, except at 1 or 2 cmc range (red of course would focus only on enchantments for this, while black would focus on both, since black can't deal with either type of permanents, and red can't deal with only enchantment permanents), this stuff would be designed to be modern sideboard worthy using in-color effects powered by opponents having permanents you can't deal with.

A lot of modern worthy stuff in white, black, and green with incidental life gain, but not stuff designed for control decks, but for deck types that are meant to be strong against aggro.

More modern viable flash or haste creatures at 3+ cmc (flash in all colors and haste in colors that have it in pie).

More specific cards that have built in discard or counterspells hate that are appropriate to have such, in black, white and/or green for the discard hate, and in blue, green and/or red for the counterspells hate (so the source color self-hate and the enemy color hate), particularly for things that specifically hate on common modern strategies of the hated color source of the type of hate. (Loxodon Smiter-ish things are kinda the aim here, but tied to some more kinds of things, like burn spells, sideboard spells, certain types of removal, etc.)

Edit: Also, lots of fringe sideboard stuff in all colors that is hard to justify printing in Standard due to the things it is hating against not existing in most Standard environments.

This looks better overall than Geomancer's Gambit. Nice card!

https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/core-set-2021-preview-basic-lands/

Those are some nice land art of the basics

Although they had a opportunity to reveal garruks homeplane and they blew it

Here is the 31 choice spell and talk about swiss army knife.

Colossal Whale not that colossal anymore

Quote from lookingupanddown »

EDIT: Where did the may clause for putting the +1/+1 counter go?

It ran away with the may clause from Ajani's Pridemate and joined the circus. Apparently someone at WOTC has a vendetta against may clauses. I'm not claiming anything like "dumbing down the game," but it can definitely negatively affect some games of Commander (for example, to force growth with a Meekstone in play).

Oh lots of way to get the better version (draw 3 and nothing on bottom)

• God-Eternal Kefnet
  
• Snapcaster mage
  
• Golos, Tireless Pilgrim
  
• Abbot of Keral Keep
  
• Bolas's Citadel
  
• Etali, Primal Storm
  
• Gonti, Lord of Luxury
  
• Sunbird's Invocation
  
• Chandra, Torch of Defiance
  
• Diluvian Primordial
  
• Future Sight
  
• Melek, Izzet Paragon
  

Cascade cards

And many more

This has potential in formats my friends

Quote from Mikefon »

As long as Looting powers up different types of deck (as hogaak/dredge and phoenix are), Wizzie won't ban it.
There won't be any emergency ban. It would crash the already small confidence some people have in Wizards. At end of August probably Hogaak summer will end and a new meta will come. Then Eldraine come and we will reset the meta again. Stagnant is not what modern has been recently!

DRS was played in Jund, Pod, dredge, elves, etc. and it got the ban.

Quote from icehippo »

Another ban on a tier 1 combo deck. Why does wizards refuse to allow combo to be anymore than tier 2 at best? Pod, Twin, Bloom, KCI, now Bridge. Sends a strong message that combo has no place in the modern format.

The format lacks the tools to deal with combo. If Combo is winning 60% of its matches, through hate, that is not a balanced place to be.

Pod/Twin died for reasons that are no longer applicable, not because they where combo.

Bloom died for going off too early, and some nice twitch clips that showed it to be absurd.

KCI died for winning too much, through hate, on an axis that was quite difficult to interact with even with Split Second text. I mean...come on.

Bridge was nerfed, not killed (yet/yet to be confirmed) because even with a format's worth of hate, free, 'colourless' instant speed hate, it was carrying a dominate pre-turn 4, win rate.

This isnt about Combo not being allowed to be tier 1, but being Tier 0.

T1 Colossus Hammer
T2 Ancestral Blade
T3 Saheeli, Sublime Artificer, Blade becomes the Hammer, swing for 11