How Will Modern Horizons 3 Impact Modern?

It’s a tricky job identifying Constructed playables from Modern Horizons 3, because (at least in theory) they all are!

Even the more potent sets we’ve seen in recent years are mostly made up of cards that will clearly never make the cut in Standard, let alone Modern. They’re a couple of turns too slow, or they don’t have a sufficiently impactful effect – or they do, but it’s something three other Modern staples already do better. But there’s almost no chaff of that sort in Modern Horizons 3, with every card designed from the outset to meet Modern’s high standards.

The effects aren’t just intriguing because of their power; they’re deliberately chosen to fit into the dominant metagame decks – or to bring a beloved fringe archetype into the spotlight! With every card practically pleading its case to players as the next Hogaak or Yawgmoth, it’s challenging to sift serious metagame disruptors from the hyped pretenders. 

Statistically, at least some of these niche cards will inspire radically new archetypes. But it’s hard to guess which jank decks are only one rare away until we see them in action. So instead, I’ll start with what are (to me) the cards I feel like are the safest bets: ones where the underlying mechanics make them inherently attractive even more than their actual text.

THE LANDS OF DO-AS-YOU-PLEASE

There’s no more reliable way to guarantee a successful Magic card than to make it a land. Whether its a utility land, a creature-land, or just a very good mana source, exceptional lands are invariably format-defining. That’s certainly the level of impact I expect Shifting Woodland to have once it hits Modern tables.

As Modern Horizons 2 proved, delirium is a low bar to clear and has plenty of other good payoffs for building around it. The big reward here is to suddenly convert a land into a combo win condition for a remarkably low 4 mana!

The possibilities are only limited by which cards your deck can get into the graveyard. You can make Woodland the focus of your deck, attempting to turn it into game-ending permanents like Omniscience, Griselbrand, or Phage the Untouchable. Throw in Sunken Citadel, Blossoming Tortoise and Mirran Safehouse and you have a decent support package going for your key land.

If your deck already runs powerful combos, Shifting Woodland can become a stand-in for whatever piece you’re missing. Turning into Yawgmoth, Valakut or even Kiki-Jiki uncounterably at instant speed seems like some very handy utility. Even random midrange decks might be interested in Woodland for late-game party tricks: turning into The One Ring to draw cards, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse or Orcish Bowmasters to punish card draw, or Solitary Confinement to survive… most things.

Considering that’s the floor for a card which can slot into virtually any deck playing Forests (and some that aren’t) without displacing another spell… this can’t help but be one of the strongest cards in the set.

Not as eye-catching but just as certain to find a home are the new enters-untapped MDFC lands. Again, the big appeal is just adding something to your deck without taking anything away; obviously land slots are still finite, but an untapped colored source is still something a lot of decks can make room for. 

The effect doesn’t even need to be especially good at that point for the card to be playable, but it does help that some of these are genuinely useful. My favorite MDFCs are the ones which let you sneak what would otherwise be sideboard interaction into your maindeck: land destruction, disenchant, or graveyard hate. 

Of course, that’s not the only merit of MDFC lands. For certain strategies it’s enough that they simply tweak your deck’s land-to-spell ratio, or add additional colored cards to fuel pitch spells, or let you reduce your own life. Both fair and unfair decks will want to play more MDFCs, and it will be interesting to see whether being mono-color or costing 3 life becomes the limiting factor for them.

THIS AETHER’S REVOLTING!

Kaladesh block is far enough in the past now that many readers may not have experienced it firsthand. While innovative in a lot of ways, it unfortunately combined a massive spike in the power level of card designs with the debut of energy – a “parasitic” mechanic that only synergized with itself.

The result was a one deck metagame which rapidly wore out its welcome and gave energy a bad reputation among the playerbase. But it was always a case of bad implementation more than an outright bad mechanic. I’ve argued more than once that Magic needs this kind of alternate resource, one that isn’t mana but isn’t given to you “free” like discarding from hand or paying life.

Unfortunately, the flavor limitations and balance concerns have made it difficult for WotC to revisit energy and expand its card pool – until now! There are tons of energy cards in Modern Horizons 3 and almost all seem playable to some degree. It is interesting to note the different levels of commitment to energy themes each card seems to imply!

First off, we have cards like Wrath of the Skies, Volatile Stormdrake and Guide of Souls. These cards generate their own energy at a rate comparable to what their effects consume, and provide enough benefits that you could reasonably run them into an existing deck like UW Control or Convoke Aggro without needing any other energy support.

Going deeper, there are some cards which seem to form a natural energy package within a color or theme, and whose benefits are generically good enough to build into various midrange shells – the same way Unholy Heat, Dragon’s Rage Channeler and other delirium cards started showing up in decks together after MH2.

I’m looking at aggro decks with Amped Raptor and Galvanic Discharge, or Tune the Narrative with Unstable Amulet or Static Prison in slower strategies. This sort of deckbuilding works especially well with energy, as you can use “excess” energy from early spells to build power for when you really need it.

Lastly, there are some cards here which look absolutely good enough to serve as the centerpiece of an energy-focused combo deck – or to help resurrect an existing one like Aetherworks Marvel. I particularly have my eye on Primal Prayers. For one, this turns many creatures from Kaladesh block into Burning-Tree Emissary; in a situation where you’re able to chain-draw or cast creatures from the top of the library, Primal Prayers looks like a 2GG Primal Surge!

But if you’re concerned about running 2016 draft chaff in 2024 modern, you could try a more A+B combo with Prayers and Greenbelt Rampager. So long as you spend the initial energy from Prayers itself (to cast Corpse Knight, for instance) then your Rampager can bounce and re-cast itself for infinite ETB triggers.

Or maybe it’s plausible to combine both of those ideas into the same build. The key to take away here is that energy has an extremely high inherent power level, and cards that are good at generating OR using it will only rise in value after this set expands its possibilities.

OVER THE HORIZONS

Scanning through the spoilers for Modern Horizons 3 I can say I feel more comfortable than I did with either of its predecessors – though you could consider that damning with faint praise.

Perhaps it’s not that Modern Horizons 3 is conservatively designed, but simply that we already live in a Modern landscape reshaped by powerful Horizons cards. Instead of slowly evolving as a few outliers trickle in from each Standard set, the format is now defined by a single, massive shakeup every couple of years from these direct-to-Modern products.

Being able to buy a set where you know most of the cards are at least relevant to your format does have an appeal, but the regular, massive disruptions to the format are hard for me to justify. Modern’s selling point for a lot of players is its stability; the chance to invest financially and emotionally in a deck knowing it won’t be obsolete in 12 or 18 months. But when these Horizon sets effectively introduce a biennial rotation schedule, that sense of security goes out the window. 

It’s fun to be excited for powerful new cards you can use as a Constructed player. I hope we can all find the energy to maintain that excitement for the hundreds of powerful new cards about to hit with Modern Horizons 3.