by Johnny Cycles, June 1st, 2024

Summer is upon us, which means two things (plus one announcement). First, Modern Horizons 3 (MH3) is almost here. The fully spoiled set looks to shake up the Modern format once more. We get more free spells (yay???), a fresh influx of Eldrazi (because Eldrazi Winter wasn’t as bad as all that, right?), and a return of Energy (who doesn’t want another resource added to the game with no way to interact with it?).

If my sarcastic parenthetical asides didn’t clue you in, I’m not overly excited for MH3. It seems like Wizards asked its designers to return to each of their provenly bad ideas from the past 10 years and design a set around them. Will they get it right this time? Will Eldrazi be reasonably priced and powered? Will Energy not break the format the way it did in Standard? Will even more free spells make Modern more diverse and fun, or simply leave players priced in to playing the same cards, regardless of archetype? Guess we’ll find out post June 14th.

Modern Horizons 3 Musings

But are there no cards that have me excited?

This 4-drop Giant Shaman might find a home in my Hydra Tribal deck. I’m also excited to try him out in a Gruul deck with 4 copies of Banefire. I’m undecided on the support pieces yet, but I have a few different directions in mind, so stay tuned!

It’s not Leyline of Tithes, but it’s arguably better. Yes, our opponent can still take it from us with Grief on the play, but this is ameliorated by the fact that we can tutor this hate piece up with Urza’s Saga and that it replaces itself if unneeded.

But, since we aren’t really dedicated Urza’s Saga players, what’s our real hope for this card? That enough people play it to start pushing the Evoke Elementals out of the format entirely.

Is this very likely?

Nope.

It’s no Lost Bird of Paradise…or turn 1 mana dork even, but it might be good enough.

The introduction of the Medallion cycle of cost reduction artifacts into Modern is very intriguing. First, let’s say what they’re not. They’re not turn 1 mana dorks that survive a suite of commonly played removal spells. They’re not another Utopia Sprawl with a different name.

What are they? They’re more reliable semi-ramp spells that are more difficult to interact with than a traditional mana dork. They synergize well with Urza’s Saga Constructs and any sort of Affinity strategy (though I’d be surprised to see them played in the current Affinity decks).

At the 2-mana slot, are they better than Farseek or Sylvan Caryatid, neither of which see play in Midrange decks looking to ramp, short of Scapeshift and Jeskai Ascendancy combo?

I’m curious to see if they find a home in any deck. I also plan on testing them out in some of my Midrange strategies.

There are still a lot of cards that speak to my janky heart…

Despite my reservations about how MH3 will break Modern in new and annoying ways, I’m also truly excited about a lot of the new cards. We’re getting some flavorful, powerful, and fun new toys, while also gaining tools that might could support new (or oldish) archetypes.

But I said summer brings two things, right?

The second is the end of the school year. Gone are my 5 hours of time in the morning to make content for this website. Furthermore, I’m starting a part-time job that will cut in to the amount of time I have to work on cyclesgaming.com. Right now, my plan is to stick to my usual schedule of weekly articles with accompanying game play. However, I don’t foresee being able to add a bunch of extra articles and videos in between these, the way I have been able to for a few weeks now.

That being said, you never know! I’ll keep posting videos between articles when I have them, so be sure to check out my YouTube channel for those. And if you like the content, click that subscribe button! Content creators need 1,000 subscribers before they can start receiving revenue from YouTube ads. The best way to ensure cyclesgaming.com keeps providing y’all with all its sweet, janky content is to subscribe and tell your friends to subscribe.

Pioneer Curious?

What about that aforementioned announcement? After hearing from commenters on some of my Modern jank, I’m going to give a few of my decks a whirl in Pioneer. It’s been many years since I played that format and I’m sure there’ll be a steep learning curve, but I’m excited to try out Dragons and Hydras in a meta lacking MH2 cards…

It may seem an odd time to branch out into a new format with the release of MH3 right around the corner, but Modern is going to look very, very different in a month’s time. The decks we play and the decks we play against may already be a thing of the past by then. This is a good time to let the format settle a little and try out something new. And, to be honest, I’m a little tired of losing to the same broken Modern cards again and again. Let’s see how something like Hydra Tribal does in Pioneer!

The Usual  Blurb

My goal is to publish an article between Wednesday and Friday every week. I am a stay-at-home dad of three, though, so there may be weeks that life gets in the way. I’ll rotate the topics each week in the following order: Modern-Commander-Pioneer-Fiction. Whenever possible, I’ll publish articles and videos when they’re ready. Now that I am making videos, I hope to upload gameplay of each of the Modern decks I’ve already written about, as well as new ones I’m testing. For these reasons, there will be weeks when more than one article and/or video gets posted. Published articles are pretty time-intensive, hence the once-a-week-schedule, but the matches I play along the way will get posted to my YouTube channel as I go. Be sure to check there if you’re looking for a match but it isn’t yet on the site.

Schedule

June 7th – Keeping Modern Janky – 2-drop Lukka Surprise

June 14th – Commander – 5-color Giant Tribal with Esika, God of the Tree

June 21st – Pioneer Curious – Dragons or Hydras (vote in the comments!)

June 28th – Fiction – Chapters 19-20 – Charleston and the rest of the Podkind finally find out their Purposes

 

If there is a topic you want me to write about, a deck you want me to try out, or if you want less of one thing and more of another, let me know in the comments or email me: johnnycycles16@gmail.com. If you enjoy the site, please let your friends know via word of mouth or social media or messenger pigeon, if that’s your preference. This is a new site that needs all the clicks it can get! Also, be sure to check out my Facebook page and YouTube Channel!

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