Modern Horizons Reprints / Tinfoil Hat Edition
Spoilers, Rumors, and Speculation forum
Posted on March 21, 2019, 10:35 a.m. by sergiodelrio
So apparently a lot of people are assuming that we'll get cards like Force of Will , Counterspell , Daze , Wasteland or Containment Priest and my personal thought is there is no way in hell.
Let me start off with a couple of premises that I will base my reasoning on. My first assumption is that reprints will require the disability to be reprinted in Standard for whatever reason (or at the very least be rather unlikely to be reprinted). Secondly, they will not reprint any cards that will potentially speed up the format or otherwise increase the overall power level. And last but not least, I think it's likely that they're focusing on extending the format horizontally (no pun intended, but interesting coincidence), supplementing existing T2/T3 decks, rather than printing cards that could potentially push existing decks over the top aka vertical progress of the format.
I do believe that we'll get at least one counterspell, but it will be more in the Force Spike area (we already have Mana Tithe for example). RND is not a fan of "free" spells anymore, and I believe they don't want an extended bluffing component in the format. I heard a lot of voices saying FoW wouldn't have much impact on Modern because there aren't a lot of unfair decks, but by that metric they might as well reprint it in Standard. The actual Counterspell would push Modern in a direction where permission would be unconditional, and that would be vertical progress.
Containment Priest is also one of those cards that would be rather weak in Standard, so why waste a slot on it when it could go in basically every set?
What I do think will happen is that we'll get a couple of themes that will consist in part of existing (keyworded) mechanics which won't be reprinted in Standard, supplemented by new cards with those mechanics. Also tribal support in the same way.
There will be little to no powerhouse card reprints whatsoever. Why? Because people can buy the old cards from the secondary market. Therefore, in order to actually sell the product, the juicy cards on the stronger side will most certainly be new cards, so people must actually open the packs to get them.
Change my mind ;)
SynergyBuild says... #3
There are three reasons some powerhouse non-new cards would be printed:
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The first is specifically to appease the community's need for reprints. Simple to explain, not a huge revelation.
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The second is for limited playing. Powerhouse uncommon reprints like Swords or even a Force Spike could just occur to make playing limited more enticing. How many times do you get to play Force Spike in a draft?
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The last is to sell product without hoping their cards are too backbreaking. If they want to reprint legacy staples, to lower prices, they can, however I'd imagine someone in Finance at Hasboro knows it won't affect sales of the product that much. The big thing is that if they are scared of ruining modern, which if the power level of the new cards is too high they might, having safe cards they have designed prior would be in their best interest. It is a safe option, not something I have seen them do a lot of, but not something they haven't done or won't continue to.
Also, for your theory on them printing Containment Priest into standard, there are only so many cards like Scapeshift or Crucible of Worlds they can fit. Those cards for the eternal formats that don't affect standard have an issue. They don't affect standard. They can't make 30% of a standard set's rare slots have no effect on standard AND not have flavor that goes with the set, so they only can fit ~5 cards for eternal formats max per set. Often 3 or less. I just don't see that occurring often.
Hope I could change your mind a bit. This is really interesting to chat about so I am glad you asked the community!
March 21, 2019 11:16 a.m.
sergiodelrio says... #4
@SynergyBuild thanks for your comment!
To adress your bullet points one by one:
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Any other reprint would do. This is not tied inherently to introducing a card to Modern.
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I think you might have misread my point on this... I actually believe Force Spike is a good candidate for reprint, and StP might be fair game as well (although a little more unlikely imho)
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The thing with reprinting Legacy staples to bring their price down is, Modern Horizons is print to demand... they need to save their legacy premiums for limited print run sets.
As for Containment Priest, your point is somewhat valid... but that creature being a human still makes me think it'd be better off in a Standard reprint. But they might just use it in MH anyways.
March 21, 2019 11:29 a.m.
Chasmolinker says... #5
I take it you saw my new deck.....
"I think it's likely that they're focusing on extending the format horizontally [supplementing existing T2/T3 decks]" This is my hope. The 2 spoilers we've seen so far seem made for BW Tokens which fits right into the T2/T3 realm. Sure they're playable elsewhere but BW tokens seems to get the most out of both cards. I worry that they will pull a Masters 25 move and print a powerhouse like
Force of Will
to give a recognizable "face" to the set. That being said, we have pseudo
counterspell
in standard offering tribal support in the process.
FoW
in standard breaks the NWO by having a free counter spell causing serious bad feels for newer players. Modern is growing faster and faster every year. The T4 format is no longer. Having FoW in the format could remedy that to some degree. It's not as necessary as it is in Legacy, not yet anyway, but it could be a solid check valve in Modern to keep T1/T2 shenanigans at a minimum.
SynergyBuild has a good point about printing dud Rares into Standard. Reprints that do nothing in standard are printed at common or not printed at all.
March 21, 2019 11:50 a.m. Edited.
sergiodelrio says... #6
@Chasmolinker thank you for commenting as well!
I did indeed see your deck and almost posted something like this as a comment, but then I figued I'd rather have a forum discussion, so good call ;) I did consult other speculations also tho, and the same cards kept coming up.
Force of Will is the face of Legacy. They will not casually print it into Modern to stop non-existing combos and at the same time pushing its monetary value down to unseen lows, as, again, MH is print to demand. I just don't see them burning their joker up like that. If anything, we'll see a NEW card that is between FoW and Disrupting Shoal and/or a NEW card that is between Mana Leak and Counterspell from a power-perspective.
March 21, 2019 12:03 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #7
Sorry I was unable to respond quickly, however here is my delayed response:
Any other set may not do, as legacy reprints are not made. When was the last printing of Recruiter of the Guard , Sanctum Prelate , Thalia, Guardian of Thraben , Life from the Loam , etc. Eternal Masters, Ultimate Masters, and some of the other Masters sets were a great addition to the reprints, but now that masters are gone, where are they gonna put them?
Also, legacy reprints don't need to be kept expensive, they sell packs. That is all they need to do.
March 21, 2019 12:50 p.m. Edited.
sergiodelrio says... #8
@SynergyBuild no problem ;)
I don't see why the first two cards you listed shouldn't get reprinted... They don't violate my premises, do they?
As of the other two, I hope you're aware that cards already legal in Modern are confirmed to not being reprinted in MH.
March 21, 2019 1:03 p.m.
SeekerofSecrets says... #9
I 100% think that we will get Counterspell , it would only replace 2-3 of the current 2 mana counters in UW control? I think that people over value it, it's essentially Mana Leak for UU up until about turn 4/5. I would also liked to see some playable version of FOW but I doubt that we will actually get FOW.
I would really love to see a nerfed Gush / Treasure Cruise . I want to play a traditional tempo deck so bad and I think that something like this (along with some free counter) would make it viable BUT I understand how risky and format warping that can be so I doubt we will actually get it. I honestly have no idea what it would even look like if we did get it.
I really want to see a weaker fetch land printed, maybe something like
tap: create a colorless mana tap: Pay 1 life: search for a mountain (or plains, ect....)
if they aren't going to reprint fetches to make them accessible then there should really be some kind of budget alternative that can be replaced later.
March 21, 2019 1:31 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #10
sergiodelrio my point was that they haven't reprinted some major legacy staples in a while, nothing else.
March 21, 2019 1:39 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #11
Also, your premise was that there would be little/no powerhouse reprints. I just doubt that, so my two examples, a powerhouse tutor and hate piece, do vioalte your premise.
March 21, 2019 1:41 p.m.
sergiodelrio says... #12
@SeekerofSecrets thank you for your comment!
You said it yourself, Mana Leak comes with the risk of being a blank in the late game so it comes with an inherent risk from a deckbuilding perspective, because the decks that want to play it usually want to go to the late game. Counterspell has no opportunity cost in that regard. A similar problem arises if you compare CS to Negate ... if it runs into a creature deck, and modern has lots of them, it's another potential blank. These cards aren't autoincludes. Therefore I still think Counterspell is too strong for modern, because it would in fact be a brainless autoinclude and make some other cards actually irrelevant, which I don't believe WotC wants.
March 21, 2019 1:48 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #13
sergiodelrio You are right on how Counterspell would affect modern, definitively, however, you made a mistake. WotC doesn't care. Either that or they are too dense to tell.
March 21, 2019 1:51 p.m.
sergiodelrio says... #14
@SynergyBuild I think we're discussing semantics now.
I should have made a distinction between top tier power cards, and cards that are very good (and maybe even cheap vs expensive $ in that regard). After all we have Chalice of the Void , Gaddock Teeg and Ranger of Eos .
I'd argue the cards in question don't exceed the power level of Modern and I do think we will get good cards, just not the iconic powerhouse, format definig Legacy cards ( Wasteland Strip Mine Force of Will Karakas ).
I'd also argue that on this specific matter, WOTC do care... heck they employed people to actually playtest Modern, and I also think they want to keep a clear distinction between Legacy and Modern.
March 21, 2019 1:58 p.m. Edited.
SeekerofSecrets says... #15
Sure Counterspell > Mana Leak in the late game but Cryptic Command > Counterspell in the late game as well.
I would also argue that Counterspell blanks against the current creature decks that we have. UW control exists because of Terminus , having Counterspell in hand while your opponent has a cavern and vial on the field feels awful
It definitely is not a auto include over what we have currently though. If 3 color tempo (death shadow is the closest thing we have now?) Ever wants a 2 mana counter that double UU in the early game can create for some awkward situations. Remand is still essential for tempo decks and 1 mans counters are still important for t1 interaction.
March 21, 2019 2 p.m.
SeekerofSecrets says... #16
Wow scratch that didnt realize that terminus wasnt played (I'm on storm so never see the board wipes) but still they have access to Supreme Verdict and Wrath of God
March 21, 2019 2:03 p.m.
sergiodelrio says... #17
SeekerofSecrets well, throwing Cryptic Command into the equasion doesn't really make sense to me tho, as it is exclusively a lategame card and comes with the same inherent deckbuilding concerns as Mana Leak and Negate, just from the other side of the road.
It's also not a meta question. When you run into a deck that plays an uncouterable creature, you blank with any counter, so you'd be siding out your mainboard Leaks and Negates anyway. I'm just saying that people would replace other 2 mana counters with CS with absolutely no opportunity cost.
Death's Shadow is not the kind of deck that plays 2 mana counters.
March 21, 2019 2:18 p.m.
SeekerofSecrets says... #18
I see, I'll agree that it will largely replace Negate , Mana Leak , and Logic Knot all of which are laughably week against the current metta any way..... I guess I just don't see that as a bad thing, it's like saying that it's negative that every red deck plays Lightning Bolt . We will still see other types of counters so i don't have a problem making countering a spell a less awkward at times. I simply don't think that it will be over powered in modern, I could be wrong so I guess will see in a few months.
I would say that with a metta shift shadow could switch to a more tempo deck and we could see a recurrence of 2 mana counters in the list (hypothetically) but if not grixis delver or some new tempo list could become viable where it would matter.
March 21, 2019 3:02 p.m.
sergiodelrio says... #19
@SeekerofSecrets we'll most definitely see in a couple months :D
In my opinion, as mentioned before, cards that are "strictly better" or directly replace other cards that actually get played will not be printed because I anticipate a more "horizontal" approach to extending the card pool. And I'm almost positive that's how they're gonna sell the whole "Horizons" aspect of things to us once spoiler season is over. But who knows, they might not do that at all or make an exception with Counterspell .
I also want to point out that, from a monetary standpoint, they're much better off keeping the reprints down and make a great variety of "hommage" cards that fill a power gap between formats. The reason is that with doing so, they actually extend their target audience beyond modern, so they end up selling even more packs. Why reprint counterspell, when you could invent something like "UU-counter target non-enchantment spell" or something less narrow than existing spells, but not quite counterspell, at common. Everyone would eat that up.
All I'm trying to advocate here is for people to not get their hopes up too much, as I think they'll be disappointed.
March 21, 2019 3:23 p.m.
SeekerofSecrets says... #20
I think that the few slots that they have reserved for reprints will be used to fill in a few gaps here in there like Counterspell but I think that your right, the majority of the big name cards will be new cards which I'm 100% for! If they continue the trend of printing cards to boost lower tiered decks we could see a beautiful compromise. They could potentially finally give the players what they want while also pushing product so we'll see!
March 21, 2019 3:41 p.m.
Is Circular Logic too good for modern? Does the Phoenix deck almost rule it out?
March 21, 2019 5:34 p.m.
sergiodelrio says... #22
@DruneGrey Phoenix deck wasn't around when Horizons was made so probably ok imho
March 22, 2019 2:09 a.m.
Chasmolinker says... #23
I think it's a lock that we see Slow Fetches in Modern Horizons. Double or nothing that we get enemy colors.
CastleSiege says... #2
Makes sense. I've been saying the same thing.
March 21, 2019 11:07 a.m.