Murktide Regent | Modern Horizons 2
10, Oct, 24

Modern Horizons Sets Have Taken Their Toll on a Once Fantastic Format

Every year, we start to see the effects of power creep more and more. In Limited, creatures are more efficient than ever. Removal spells like Murder that were once premium picks in draft are now outshined and outclassed by strong beaters with potent enters-the-battlefield triggers.

Similarly, creatures in Standard and Pioneer have simply become more powerful over the years. Even threats that were once considered too strong for the Pioneer format (looking at you, Smuggler’s Copter) are making very little noise at the moment.

That being said, changes in these formats don’t hold a candle to the drastic shifts that Modern and Eternal formats have gone through. This is, in large part, because of overwhelming presence of straight-to-Modern sets. It’s no surprise that Modern Horizons sets and Lord of the Rings have had an enormous impact on the state of the format.

Unfortunately, in my view, these sets have been largely a net negative for Modern and beyond. We’re in very deep now with the release of MH3, and the allure of Modern is nowhere near what it once was for me.

Premier Set Cards Get Pushed Out

Murktide Regent

One of the biggest factors that has made the Modern experience with Horizons sets and Lord of the Rings much less appealing stems from the fact that these new cards are so pushed. To an extent, this is intentional. After all, the goal in printing cards into Modern that don’t also go through Standard and Pioneer is to allow for more powerful design space to be utilized.

The problem is that, when a plethora of cards are slanted far beyond the typical power level of premier set cards, many cards we’ve come to love over the years become obsolete. This isn’t just a power creep issue, because this process happens extremely quickly.

Flashback to the release of Modern Horizons 1 in 2019. All things considered, this set wasn’t too overbearing for Modern. There were a few extreme outliers, like Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis. For the most part, though, the set brought a bunch of upgrades to various archetypes. Wrenn and Six became a Jund staple, and the popular Tarmogoyf archetype was still a solid deck choice. Long-standing strategies like Death’s Shadow were still perfectly reasonable options.

This feeling evaporated with the release of MH2 roughly two years later. This set was completely jam-packed with incredible tools that wiped away some of Modern’s best and coolest cards. Gurmag Angler, once a Modern staple, quickly fell by the wayside in the presence of Murktide Regent. Path to Exile, a top-tier removal spell for control decks for many years, felt completely lackluster with Solitude in the picture.

Entire decks like Rakdos Scam rose out of thin air. With new, consistent combo decks forming like Hammer Time and Cascade Rhinos (thanks largely to the printing of Urza’s Saga and Shardless Agent), players were forced to adapt to succeed. It felt like all of Modern’s past vanished right before our eyes.

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The Trend Continues

The One Ring | The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth

This trend of sudden metagame shifts and power imbalances only got worse when Lord of the Rings came out. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, undeniably one of the best cards to come out of MH2, lined up so poorly against Orcish Bowmasters that some players began trimming some from their decks. Jace, the Mind Sculptor, a card banned in Modern for quite some time before finally getting a chance, quickly became irrelevant because of its inability to compete with The One Ring.

Then, MH3 exacerbated this issue far beyond I ever expected. Even archetypes that were made popular by MH2, such as Hammer Time, fell by the wayside to make way for MH3-driven decks. Now, Modern is dominated by Boros Energy and Ruby Storm which were nonexistent prior to the set’s release.

This isn’t to say that Modern couldn’t use a shakeup from time to time. The problem is that, now, we’re basically at a point of no return. It’s unlikely any non-premier sets in the near future will be strong enough to revamp Modern further. As such, it’s only a matter of time before the format feels stale, and a new straight-to-Modern set transforms everything once again.

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Bans Galore

Nadu, Winged Wisdom | Modern Horizons 3

In this discussion, we haven’t even mentioned the fact that Modern Horizons sets are prone to needing bans to move forward. This is another major knock on Modern Horizons sets. All three of them have required at least one card to get banned in short order.

Going in knowing that there will be specific cards that stick out like a sore thumb isn’t exactly an enjoyable experience. Playing against Hogaak for months was frankly just miserable, and Rakdos Scam post-MH2 didn’t provide riveting gameplay, either.

Somehow, Nadu, Winged Wisdom ended up being one of the biggest design mistakes we’ve seen in a long time. This makes playing in events and buying into decks extremely awkward early on, especially for Regional Championship Qualifier season following MH3.

Furthermore, it can be very difficult to keep up with Modern Horizons releases financially in the first place. The metagame changes out of nowhere that these sets bring force players to keep up with their wallets. Back in the day, buying into decks like Affinity or traditional Tron felt like worthwhile investments. You may spend a decent amount of money up front, but at least you’d have a solid deck for a long time.

Modern Horizons sets have turned this notion on its head. For someone like me who desperately wants to go back to the golden era of Modern before Horizons sets took over, there doesn’t seem to be a ton of hope left.

The good news is that Pioneer has helped fill the gap as a non-rotating format focused on premier sets. A Pioneer Horizons set could have devastating consequences, so hopefully these styles of sets don’t start to become even more overwhelming. MTG is going to continue to evolve as we know it, though, and anything is possible. All we can do is try our best to keep up.

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