The most frustrating thing about modern these days is that so many of the matchups are just down to luck. There are so many matchups that are higher than 60/40 for a given deck, and any universal answer for those decks involves giving up matchups to other 60/40 decks.
Gone are the days where you earned wins through skill, preparation, and deck knowledge. Predicting the meta and gambling on the right deck is the best way to win in modern.
Twin vs Affinity is given to be 65/35 for Twin. As an Affinity player I prepared for the match-up properly, and never lost to them ever since. Surely if your build stops at the netdecking step, you're not likely to win but there are just so many silver bullets and polyvalent cards in the modern pool to "fix" bad matches-up that as a competitive player you can't honestly consider your results as luck...
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Okay, congrats, you can now beat 1 deck that you have a bad matchup against. So what about the other 5-10 common decks that your twin hate is useless against? Also, you need to understand that this thread isn't a discussion about Affinity, and rather a discussion of the format as a whole, which includes a wide variety of decktypes.
The point isn't that you can't fix a matchup through the sideboard, anybody with a brain knows that, it's that with such a high volume of linear decks with very different strategies, you are more or less rolling the dice on which deck you'll face. And the problem here specifically is that there either aren't enough versatile hate cards to deal with all these strategies, or there aren't enough main-deckable cards that can effectively combat these linear and non-interactive decks. I'm sure some people enjoy it, but I prefer to play a game where I can win with skill (and a little bit of luck). Rolling the dice gets boring an mindless after a while, and ruins the game for a lot of people.
The most frustrating thing about modern these days is that so many of the matchups are just down to luck. There are so many matchups that are higher than 60/40 for a given deck, and any universal answer for those decks involves giving up matchups to other 60/40 decks.
Gone are the days where you earned wins through skill, preparation, and deck knowledge. Predicting the meta and gambling on the right deck is the best way to win in modern.
Another thing that's worth mentioning here is that all-in combo decks in legacy are fast enough to beat aggro without outside help. For decks like Twin or scapeshift that aren't the fastest combos, they will often flat out lose to modern aggro decks like Affinity, Burn, Zoo, etc if they don't have some control elements.
In Legacy, you can't race combo with Aggro, so the combo decks only concern themselves with pushing through disruption such as discard / counters instead of trying to slow down a more fair attack.
My favorite card of all these may actually be Starfield. It gives enchantment decks some powerful card advantage, a win condition, resilience to removal, and combos great with Commune with the Gods and similar cards.
I'm tempted to make a GW enchantress style deck now with this.
Protean Hulk by far, it's just sitting there bidding its time, the second a new "unforeseen" card is released by wotc it will return and ravage modern.
Perhaps, but one of the issues hulk combos tend to have is that they're required to have a ton of dead cards without the hulk itself, often because you can't afford to get stuck with your combo cards in hand when hulk dies.
You can't unban Sword of the Meek if Thopter Foundry is legal. That'd break the format in two and nobody would like the half playing Thopter and Sword, least of all the people playing the mirror half the time.
Yes, because a two piece combo that dies to commonly played cards and doesn't instantly win the game would ruin the format! Oh wait.
If you've played against Thopter combo you understand how thoroughly it trumps any other creature-based strategies. Yes, it would not beat Twin going off or infinite life gain from CoCo. Well, most of the time. However it would make grinding into the combo the best thing you could do in the format and people would develop lists that were able to grind into the combo with excellent consistency.
You have to have played games where a Batterskull equipped with a Jitte lost to Thopter Sword or Emrakul on the board lost to Thopter Sword to understand how ridiculously powerful it is when backed up by protection. Abrupt Decay and Krosan Grip can both manage it but it's still an overbearing control combo when you get it going and people would do that.
This format is semi-paralyzed by a 2 card combo that wins at Sorcery speed but that requires some risky navigation to go off. Thopter Sword is just as deadly at much less risk and it plays better within the constraints of the game. It has a lower mana cost to deploy and better redundancy (since sword is a free return from the GY most of the time) and it leaves more mana open for protection.
Wait, so a 2 card combo can beat slow creature decks that dont have an answer to it? And you think this will completely screw up the metagame? Your rhetoric of "combo beats a deck" is no different than splinter twin combo, or scapeshift. Yes, when a combo deck gets its combo online, they generally win. Why should this mean that sword of the meek is ban worthy? You can't even start to get the combo assembled prior to turn 4, and even after that point, it's still vulnerable to a wide variety of hate that is not only in sideboards, but also maindecked.
Honest question - have you tested thopter-sword against any of the current tier-1 or tier-2 strategies? Because if you have, you would realize it's an easy unban.
From the article: "First, we have a rule of thumb about Legacy that we don't like consistent turn-two combination decks, but that turn-three combination decks are okay. We modified that rule for Modern by adding a turn to each side: we are going to allow turn-four combination decks, but not decks that consistently win the game on turn three."
WotC wants Modern to be a non-rotating format that is both distinct from Legacy and lower in power level than Legacy. And as a result, the turn four rule was born.
It's worth noting that many Modern decks goldfish wins before turn four. It's just that those decks either aren't consistent, or they are easily disrupted.
The problem is, formats become screwed up when the aggro decks are faster than the combo decks. There is no incentive to play combo when a deck like Burn is just as fast on a consistent basis, and much more difficult to hate out. This is why the metagame has become all about non-interactive decks.
I've played this format since the start - I actually took part in testing of the format before it was even a legitimate format. I don't comment nearly as much on these forums as I used to, but I still try to take a part here.
With that said, It's hard to have an interest in Modern anymore, and as someone who loved mtg, losing interest in modern means losing interest in the game to me.
Here is the issue - Modern is a 60/40 format. By 60/40 format, I mean that your matchups will be extremely dependent on what deck you face, and not the play of the game itself, or general strategy. It's like gambling - you go to a tournament (or mtgo for that matter), and you roll a dice. One day, tron may be the lucky card, another day, burn may be the lucky card. You don't really have much control over whether you are winning or losing, since most of your matchups are extremely skewed one way or another. But you can get lucky some times.
This is the problem - mtg has never thrived when it was a game exclusively about luck. If I wanted to gamble, I would go to a casino, or play poker. The premise of MTG that makes the game exciting is the strategy, deckbuilding, etc etc.
Even in old extended before modern, there was more diversity in the format despite the overpowered decks that existed. Still doubt me? Google the results for GP austin of old extended. This format had Zoo, Thopter Depths, Hypergenesis, Combo Elves, Dredge, All-In Red, Next Level Blue, Cruel Control, Counter-Top, Tezzerator, Living End, Burn, Scapeshift, and Hatebears all as decks that placed despite a much smaller card pool. This format was crucified as being not diverse enough, and not interactive enough. But the stupid thing is, it was more interactive and diverse than the current modern metagame, despite having a smaller card pool.
The problem is that Wizards has encouraged and promoted linear non-interactive strategies, since that supposedly turns new players away from the game. I was annoyed with Geist of St. Traft when it was released. It was a punch in the gut to anybody who wanted to interact with an opponent - a cheap and easy trump card that has no good answers to it outside throwing down a bunch of creatures yourself. Then they needlessly started pushing other non-interactive strategies like Burn, all while banning stuff from decks that WERE interactive.
One of the things that makes zero logical sense in my mind is this stupid concept of a "turn 4 rule". This entire thought is corrupting the format completely. Why? It screws the format over because it makes it completely fair for aggro decks to win on turn 4 regularly, but if a combo deck can win turn 4 consistently or faster, it needs to go. Give it some thought - Burn wins consistently on turn 4, and can occasionally manage a turn 3 win. It is VERY Difficult to hate out (partially due to the 8 maindeckable skullcracks that they found it necessary to print), and can answer just about anything. In Legacy, decks like this typically lose to faster, yet less resilient combo decks. Fast combo decks in most mature meta games for eternal formats keep the very non-interactive decks in check. Without the presence of fast combo decks, the non-interactive non-combo decks start to dominate the metagame.
There is literally zero incentive to play a combo deck right now that isn't a control deck in disguise, since decks like Burn and Affinity are faster, much more difficult to hate, and much more consistent than just about any combo deck in the format. This completely throws off the format's balance, and is the reason why the format is full of non-interactive decks.
If you look at the modern metagame, you have a few things your deck needs to be able to beat: Burn, Twin, Affinity, and Junk. If you can handle those, you're probably gonna be alright. Is Sun Titan not an excellent card to build around in those matchups? You can have a play set of finks to clog the board and choke removal against all these decks, and Sun Titan recurring finks is a powerful play even if your Sun Titan gets exiled. You can bring back blade splicers and flickerwisps for similar value trains. For twin, you can have ghostly prisons in the side or even main and keep them in play to an annoying degree. With gift of immortality, he is literally unkillable by individual 'destroy' or 'sacrifice' cards, and his body crushes Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Siege Rhino, and Gurmag Angler into the ground on attacking and defending. The only time sun titan isn't the biggest creature is against tron and bloom titan, where you can splash red for blood moons and/or fulminators to ruin their day.
Is there a shell that can properly abuse this guy? I don't think classic junk and jund need to have a monopoly on value grinding.
Looking at the opponent examples you provided (burn, twin, affinity, junk), Sun titan is mediocre in only 1 of these matchups - junk.
I like sun titan, but it's slow. It's a great card once you get it online, but being a 6 mana sorcery speed card means it's pretty bad in any matchup against fast decks, control mirrors, or vs. combo decks. Just about all the examples you provided are win-more, where a Sphinx's revelation would likely be just as strong. The best shells historically have been UW control or Gifts control. If modern were more about grindy, creature based matchups, Sun Titan would be a boss, but that's not what this format is right now. Can it work as a top end in a control deck? Sure, but I definitely would not say it's going to dominate the format ever.
Ulting Jace AOT into cruel ultimatum should already be GG. Wanting to hit another planeswalker is so overtly win-more that you should be somewhat ashamed of trying for it. One more mana than cruel ultimatum is a big deal when we're already the only deck trying to ever cast a spell with more than triple color requirements in the format. Yes, Nicol Bolas is nuts on the table against any fair deck. No, I don't think you should ever in a million years plan to play him; jam some grave titans if you want to beat midrange.
The problem, is people play Nicol Bolas because they like the card, not because it makes the deck better overall. Cruel Ultimatum itself is a better card at 7 mana than Nicol Bolas is at 8 mana. If anything, you would be better playing another copy of cruel in your 75, but you don't need more cruels if built correct.
But just for practice, if you're entirely behind Nicol Bolas maindeck, please enlighten the thread on which matchups maindeck Nicol Bolas helps out against :).
It's bad because it occupies a very awkward spot on the mana curve. It gets better when you have more instants and sorceries in hand to cast, but it costs 4 mana, so you'll end up playing all of your instants and sorceries on turns 1-3. By the time you cast him on turn 4, there's not much left in your hand to trigger him.
2 simple rules for evaluating engine cards:
1) If it rewards you for every subsequent spell you cast, it MUST be cheap. 1 or 2 mana is best, 3 might be passable, 4 is too expensive. E.g. Young Pyromancer, Myth Realized, Pyromancer Ascension, Soul sisters
2) If it rewards you for every spell that you've casted up to that point, it can be cheap or expensive. Being expensive doesn't invalidate this kind of engine card - in fact most of the time these cards are expensive. E.g. Past in Flames, Grapeshot, Faith's Reward (when SS was legal), Regal Force (in Legacy Elves)
I don't think you're entirely wrong, but you're also looking at this as too much of an "engine card". By the definition of "engine card", you would assume it's a card a deck is built around ala Birthing Pod. Exemplars is NOT an engine card - it's just a good creature that happens to get better with any instant or sorcery you may have. I'm not arguing for or against it in any deck - I think it has potential as a niche card in spell-heavy midrange decks. But - I do think your argument is flawed.
Lots of good playables in this set - here are my thoughts on cards that could see modern play.
1. Collected Company - Obvious good card is good statement here. This really fits into just about any green deck with enough 1-3 drops to make it effective. It can be abused simply by putting goyfs into play, or in a more dedicated deck based around it using Eternal Witness to bring collected company back after you put witness into play. I don't know which decks this will go into specifically, but this WILL see modern play sooner rather than later.
Narset, Enlightened Master - I like Narset a lot in UWR control decks. Starting with 6 loyalty is no joke, and going up to 7 right away is going to make her very tough to deal with. In a counter-burn style control deck, giving cards like Electrolyze, Cryptic Command, or even just Lightning bolt rebound will end games quick, and she gives these decks a means to gain card advantage without having to rely on Revelation and a tons of mana.
Ojutai Exemplars - At 4 mana, creatures have to be extremely good to see lots of modern play, or they simply have to be very good in specific matchups. Exemplars is nice since it can very easily counteract the burn-centric nature of the format. This card once again, will probably slot into UWR midrange style decks as a top-end choice that act both as a defensive card, as well as an offensive beater. Being tough to kill is just another boon to this, with the ability to exile it off a thought scour or lightning bolt. I don't imagine this will see tons of widespread play, but it will definitely be a strong consideration in the 4 drop slot over creatures like Restoration Angel, depending on the deck and matchups the deckbuilder wants to be good against.
Myth Realized - I'm not entirely sure what to think of this card. It's definitely powerful - especially in UW decks or WR decks that can pack lots of cantrips. With that said, it's probably not a pure aggro card, at least in a format like modern. I would guess this will see play, if for only the fact that it can turn into an 8/8 without tons of effort for only 1 mana.
Shorecrasher Elemental - I really like this card, and see the obvious potential for it's combination with Blue-based devotion decks. With that said, blue devotion is probably simply better as merfolk, so I don't see this creature as having a strong deck to slot right into, outside perhaps a niche finisher in something such as Blue Moon.
Commune with Lava - At first, I saw this as a worse epic experiment, then I saw that it was an instant, allowing you to use it EOT. I can potentially see this in more controlling versions of Storm, which sacrifice some speed for resilience and consistency. For most decks however, simply playing something like Epic Experiment, or Sphinx's revelation will likely be better.
Impact Tremors - I'm very surprised this is a common. It certainly is a niche card, but as others have mentioned, it's a great fit in norin-style decks, giving them a ton of inevitability and direct damage.
Avatar of the Resolute - I can see Green-based stompy decks becoming much stronger with the addition of this card among others. This easily pairs with other strong cards like Experiment one, or some of the Unleash creatures from RTR (amongst others).
Sarkhan - He's good, but I don't think he's as strong as others would believe. 5 mana at sorcery speed in modern has a lot of tough competition, ranging from Keranos, to Batterskull. He might see a small amount of play, but it will be very niche at best.
Atarka's Command - I hate that this card gives even more maindeck protection for Burn against life-gain. With that said, this is good in burn even if I can't stand wizards' thinking on cards like this.
Khologan's Command - Very strong versatile card with an efficient cost. Not much else needs to be said. This will be played in Cruel control, and can potentially slot into other RB decks depending on what pops up.
Ojutai's Command - I actually like this card a ton, but the one question it brings up is how it will fit into decks when Cryptic Command is such a dominant card in the same mana slot. I can see both seeing play, but this would likely only be a 1-2 of.
Secure the Wastes - This is a really powerful card, simply put. It scales very well, is an instant, and is even playable as early as turn 3. This will definitely be strongly featured in tokens, and will probably pop up in other decks as well.
Okay, congrats, you can now beat 1 deck that you have a bad matchup against. So what about the other 5-10 common decks that your twin hate is useless against? Also, you need to understand that this thread isn't a discussion about Affinity, and rather a discussion of the format as a whole, which includes a wide variety of decktypes.
The point isn't that you can't fix a matchup through the sideboard, anybody with a brain knows that, it's that with such a high volume of linear decks with very different strategies, you are more or less rolling the dice on which deck you'll face. And the problem here specifically is that there either aren't enough versatile hate cards to deal with all these strategies, or there aren't enough main-deckable cards that can effectively combat these linear and non-interactive decks. I'm sure some people enjoy it, but I prefer to play a game where I can win with skill (and a little bit of luck). Rolling the dice gets boring an mindless after a while, and ruins the game for a lot of people.
Gone are the days where you earned wins through skill, preparation, and deck knowledge. Predicting the meta and gambling on the right deck is the best way to win in modern.
This leads to a lot of problems against the format's red decks, which is a high percentage of the metagame.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/modern-archives/221837-modern-scapetwin-scapeshift-splinter-exarch-combo
Don't forget how important Green Sun's Zenith was. That deck was so fun.
In Legacy, you can't race combo with Aggro, so the combo decks only concern themselves with pushing through disruption such as discard / counters instead of trying to slow down a more fair attack.
I'm tempted to make a GW enchantress style deck now with this.
Perhaps, but one of the issues hulk combos tend to have is that they're required to have a ton of dead cards without the hulk itself, often because you can't afford to get stuck with your combo cards in hand when hulk dies.
Wait, so a 2 card combo can beat slow creature decks that dont have an answer to it? And you think this will completely screw up the metagame? Your rhetoric of "combo beats a deck" is no different than splinter twin combo, or scapeshift. Yes, when a combo deck gets its combo online, they generally win. Why should this mean that sword of the meek is ban worthy? You can't even start to get the combo assembled prior to turn 4, and even after that point, it's still vulnerable to a wide variety of hate that is not only in sideboards, but also maindecked.
Honest question - have you tested thopter-sword against any of the current tier-1 or tier-2 strategies? Because if you have, you would realize it's an easy unban.
The problem is, formats become screwed up when the aggro decks are faster than the combo decks. There is no incentive to play combo when a deck like Burn is just as fast on a consistent basis, and much more difficult to hate out. This is why the metagame has become all about non-interactive decks.
With that said, It's hard to have an interest in Modern anymore, and as someone who loved mtg, losing interest in modern means losing interest in the game to me.
Here is the issue - Modern is a 60/40 format. By 60/40 format, I mean that your matchups will be extremely dependent on what deck you face, and not the play of the game itself, or general strategy. It's like gambling - you go to a tournament (or mtgo for that matter), and you roll a dice. One day, tron may be the lucky card, another day, burn may be the lucky card. You don't really have much control over whether you are winning or losing, since most of your matchups are extremely skewed one way or another. But you can get lucky some times.
This is the problem - mtg has never thrived when it was a game exclusively about luck. If I wanted to gamble, I would go to a casino, or play poker. The premise of MTG that makes the game exciting is the strategy, deckbuilding, etc etc.
Even in old extended before modern, there was more diversity in the format despite the overpowered decks that existed. Still doubt me? Google the results for GP austin of old extended. This format had Zoo, Thopter Depths, Hypergenesis, Combo Elves, Dredge, All-In Red, Next Level Blue, Cruel Control, Counter-Top, Tezzerator, Living End, Burn, Scapeshift, and Hatebears all as decks that placed despite a much smaller card pool. This format was crucified as being not diverse enough, and not interactive enough. But the stupid thing is, it was more interactive and diverse than the current modern metagame, despite having a smaller card pool.
The problem is that Wizards has encouraged and promoted linear non-interactive strategies, since that supposedly turns new players away from the game. I was annoyed with Geist of St. Traft when it was released. It was a punch in the gut to anybody who wanted to interact with an opponent - a cheap and easy trump card that has no good answers to it outside throwing down a bunch of creatures yourself. Then they needlessly started pushing other non-interactive strategies like Burn, all while banning stuff from decks that WERE interactive.
One of the things that makes zero logical sense in my mind is this stupid concept of a "turn 4 rule". This entire thought is corrupting the format completely. Why? It screws the format over because it makes it completely fair for aggro decks to win on turn 4 regularly, but if a combo deck can win turn 4 consistently or faster, it needs to go. Give it some thought - Burn wins consistently on turn 4, and can occasionally manage a turn 3 win. It is VERY Difficult to hate out (partially due to the 8 maindeckable skullcracks that they found it necessary to print), and can answer just about anything. In Legacy, decks like this typically lose to faster, yet less resilient combo decks. Fast combo decks in most mature meta games for eternal formats keep the very non-interactive decks in check. Without the presence of fast combo decks, the non-interactive non-combo decks start to dominate the metagame.
There is literally zero incentive to play a combo deck right now that isn't a control deck in disguise, since decks like Burn and Affinity are faster, much more difficult to hate, and much more consistent than just about any combo deck in the format. This completely throws off the format's balance, and is the reason why the format is full of non-interactive decks.
-Goblin Matron, Lackey, Piledriver, or Ringleader would all give modern vial goblins a boost.
-Fact or Fiction would give Ux control a big shot in the arm. It would also enable some potential reanimator / solar flare shenanigans.
-Argothian Enchantress would make enchantress a viable tier 1-2 deck.
-Veteran Explorer for Nic-Fit style decks.
-Unearth / Reanimate would give strong viability to reanimator style decks.
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Looking at the opponent examples you provided (burn, twin, affinity, junk), Sun titan is mediocre in only 1 of these matchups - junk.
I like sun titan, but it's slow. It's a great card once you get it online, but being a 6 mana sorcery speed card means it's pretty bad in any matchup against fast decks, control mirrors, or vs. combo decks. Just about all the examples you provided are win-more, where a Sphinx's revelation would likely be just as strong. The best shells historically have been UW control or Gifts control. If modern were more about grindy, creature based matchups, Sun Titan would be a boss, but that's not what this format is right now. Can it work as a top end in a control deck? Sure, but I definitely would not say it's going to dominate the format ever.
The problem, is people play Nicol Bolas because they like the card, not because it makes the deck better overall. Cruel Ultimatum itself is a better card at 7 mana than Nicol Bolas is at 8 mana. If anything, you would be better playing another copy of cruel in your 75, but you don't need more cruels if built correct.
But just for practice, if you're entirely behind Nicol Bolas maindeck, please enlighten the thread on which matchups maindeck Nicol Bolas helps out against :).
I don't think you're entirely wrong, but you're also looking at this as too much of an "engine card". By the definition of "engine card", you would assume it's a card a deck is built around ala Birthing Pod. Exemplars is NOT an engine card - it's just a good creature that happens to get better with any instant or sorcery you may have. I'm not arguing for or against it in any deck - I think it has potential as a niche card in spell-heavy midrange decks. But - I do think your argument is flawed.
1. Collected Company - Obvious good card is good statement here. This really fits into just about any green deck with enough 1-3 drops to make it effective. It can be abused simply by putting goyfs into play, or in a more dedicated deck based around it using Eternal Witness to bring collected company back after you put witness into play. I don't know which decks this will go into specifically, but this WILL see modern play sooner rather than later.
Narset, Enlightened Master - I like Narset a lot in UWR control decks. Starting with 6 loyalty is no joke, and going up to 7 right away is going to make her very tough to deal with. In a counter-burn style control deck, giving cards like Electrolyze, Cryptic Command, or even just Lightning bolt rebound will end games quick, and she gives these decks a means to gain card advantage without having to rely on Revelation and a tons of mana.
Ojutai Exemplars - At 4 mana, creatures have to be extremely good to see lots of modern play, or they simply have to be very good in specific matchups. Exemplars is nice since it can very easily counteract the burn-centric nature of the format. This card once again, will probably slot into UWR midrange style decks as a top-end choice that act both as a defensive card, as well as an offensive beater. Being tough to kill is just another boon to this, with the ability to exile it off a thought scour or lightning bolt. I don't imagine this will see tons of widespread play, but it will definitely be a strong consideration in the 4 drop slot over creatures like Restoration Angel, depending on the deck and matchups the deckbuilder wants to be good against.
Myth Realized - I'm not entirely sure what to think of this card. It's definitely powerful - especially in UW decks or WR decks that can pack lots of cantrips. With that said, it's probably not a pure aggro card, at least in a format like modern. I would guess this will see play, if for only the fact that it can turn into an 8/8 without tons of effort for only 1 mana.
Shorecrasher Elemental - I really like this card, and see the obvious potential for it's combination with Blue-based devotion decks. With that said, blue devotion is probably simply better as merfolk, so I don't see this creature as having a strong deck to slot right into, outside perhaps a niche finisher in something such as Blue Moon.
Commune with Lava - At first, I saw this as a worse epic experiment, then I saw that it was an instant, allowing you to use it EOT. I can potentially see this in more controlling versions of Storm, which sacrifice some speed for resilience and consistency. For most decks however, simply playing something like Epic Experiment, or Sphinx's revelation will likely be better.
Impact Tremors - I'm very surprised this is a common. It certainly is a niche card, but as others have mentioned, it's a great fit in norin-style decks, giving them a ton of inevitability and direct damage.
Avatar of the Resolute - I can see Green-based stompy decks becoming much stronger with the addition of this card among others. This easily pairs with other strong cards like Experiment one, or some of the Unleash creatures from RTR (amongst others).
Sarkhan - He's good, but I don't think he's as strong as others would believe. 5 mana at sorcery speed in modern has a lot of tough competition, ranging from Keranos, to Batterskull. He might see a small amount of play, but it will be very niche at best.
Atarka's Command - I hate that this card gives even more maindeck protection for Burn against life-gain. With that said, this is good in burn even if I can't stand wizards' thinking on cards like this.
Khologan's Command - Very strong versatile card with an efficient cost. Not much else needs to be said. This will be played in Cruel control, and can potentially slot into other RB decks depending on what pops up.
Ojutai's Command - I actually like this card a ton, but the one question it brings up is how it will fit into decks when Cryptic Command is such a dominant card in the same mana slot. I can see both seeing play, but this would likely only be a 1-2 of.
Secure the Wastes - This is a really powerful card, simply put. It scales very well, is an instant, and is even playable as early as turn 3. This will definitely be strongly featured in tokens, and will probably pop up in other decks as well.