Modern Horizons 2 is coming.

No wait! That's not a warning!

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— Jim Davis (@JimDavisMTG) March 18, 2021

Modern Horizons is easy to pick on.

The first "straight to Modern" set ever, it caused a major upheaval in one of Magic's most stable and beloved formats. Modern has long been one of the most played formats in Magic, with tons of viable decks and strategies. Furthermore, it was beloved because it didn't always require a ton of upkeep. New cards would come and go occasionally, but for the most part the deck you played in 2013 was reasonably viable in 2016 with a few updates.

Modern Horizons, alongside a disaster year of Standard printings/bannings, completely upended that. 2019 and 2020 have been a nonstop rollercoaster of upheaval in all formats, with constant bannings and new printings putting things in a permanent state of flux.

The good news is it feels like we are at the end of that wild ride, but of course the fear is that we'll be getting right back on again with Modern Horizons 2. As such, today we're going to look at the good and bad of Modern Horizons, which will give us a good idea of what would make Modern Horizons 2 a hit.

What We Don't Need

We'll start with the negative, because that's just what Magic players go for. Seriously, if you want some Magic content creation advice, just make a stupid meme in total hindsight that alludes to Wizards of the Coast not knowing what they're doing (see above). Works every time!

With a set that doesn't need to go through the traditional path of Standard, Wizards of the Coast had the freedom to be far more liberal with power level in Modern Horizons. Cards like Lightning Skelemental, Hexdrinker, or Seasoned Pyromancer would probably be too much in Standard, but in the much more powerful environment of Modern and beyond they are just solid cards.

The issue, of course, is the times they turned the knob a little too far.

It's not that Wrenn and Six, Hogaak, or Arcum's Astrolabe are bad designs. The novelty of a playable two mana planeswalker is actually pretty cool, despite how obviously busted it is with Wasteland and fetchlands, but it should probably start on two loyalty not three. If Hogaak doesn't have trample and/or is a straight Golgari card rather than a hybrid it's probably fine. Arcum's Astrolabe is a tough one to balance because it should probably cost 1.5 mana, but you get the idea.

I've been through most of these in my article Fixing the Design Mistakes of 2019, so I'll stop there.

The point is that it feels really bad to unravel a decade of Modern format development because development wanted to err on the side of "bombastically crushing" rather than "this card is good." Completely upending very established formats with $10 booster packs, only to end up banning the chase cards in said $10 booster packs, while leaving said formats in chaos is not a sustainable or healthy model.

This isn't exactly a hot take, so let's move on.

What We Do Need

The truth is that despite all the problems that Modern Horizons caused, if you remove the five most egregious cards it is a wonderful set that accomplishes almost everything it set out to. Aside from an incredibly enjoyable Limited format (that I got to enjoy at the highest level at Mythic Championship IV), Modern Horizons also adds a ton of awesome cards to Modern, Legacy, Cube, and more. It had awesome new cards, fun callback designs and updates to previous cards, and a small but excellent slate of reprints.

My pick for the home run of Modern Horizons is Force of Negation, perhaps the perfect card for Modern.

Modern has always had the issue of "two ships passing in the night." There are a ton of viable decks, but many of them are linear and just trying to do their own thing without interacting. Because the interaction wasn't good enough, it was often better to just put your foot on the gas and try to race. Force of Negation is a great step for allowing decks to interact, while also being a safety valve when some sort of turn two kill deck pops up.

Force of Will is the glue that holds Legacy and Vintage together, but also gets used for evil to defend combos and big plays. Because Force of Negation is locked to your opponent's turn it mostly needs to be used defensively, which should be its primary function. It's also card disadvantage, but it allows you to interact at a cost - It just hits all the right buttons.

Adding lands to Modern is tough, because the power level needs to be higher than what we'd normally see in Standard to make a dent in the established duo of Fetchlands and Shocklands. However, by skipping Standard we get to see some exciting ones. Continuing the Horizon Canopy cycle is awesome (despite the fact that I think these would be okay in Standard), as it's a great risk versus reward land that only some decks are interested in. Prismatic Vista is also awesome and a great fetchland alternative for decks that are interested in basic lands.

While they missed high on Arcum's Astrolabe, which sort of spoiled the fun at first, the snow theme in Modern Horizons was a big hit. In a lot of ways, it ends up being a "basic lands matter" theme, as snow lands are by far the most important snow permanent, but that's a great thing to prop up in a world of various dual lands and multicolored decks. I always like cards that care about something, and snow brings about an interesting risk versus reward when it comes to your mana base.

The tribal stuff is also awesome, as tribal decks are always very fair and fun Magic. Because they're so creature-based it's hard for them to be oppressive (just play more removal/sweepers), and they play to the board and always provide for interactive games. I of course was super excited about the Goblin bonuses, but adding to things like Slivers and Zombies is a lot of fun too.

The counterpoint here is the absolutely egregious Plague Engineer, a maindeckable hate card for one of the most fair and balanced archetypes and one of the worst designs in the entire set.

Beyond the more thematic stuff, there's just a ton of fun cards and callbacks too. Something like Seasoned Pyromancer isn't setting the world on fire, but it's a great value card that can provide synergy too. Giver of Runes, Archmage's Charm, Hexdrinker, Unsettled Mariner... these are all just fun and exciting cards for their given archetypes.

Beyond the new cards are the reprints, which allow even more of Magic's history to enter the Modern format.

Cards like Fact or Fiction, Eladamri's Call, and Unearth are really fun parts of Magic's history that are at or just below the bar of Modern, which is perfect. Some decks will want them, but they aren't so powerful that they change anything drastically. They also have serious nostalgia and fun factor too!

Meanwhile other more focused reprints give current decks brand new tools to work with. Goblin Matron joins the goblin party to give us most of what makes Legacy Goblins awesome, while a simple card like Carrion Feeder has always been an awesome synergy card. The return of the Onslaught cycling lands is also sweet when viewed in the context of Life from the Loam or other new cycling designs.

I could go on and on, but the reality is that aside from the outliers, Modern Horizons really was an absolutely awesome and fun set. It is a little bit to take in all at once, but once the problems were removed Modern does feel like an even deeper and more exciting format with an unbelievably expansive and deep card pool.

Lessons Learned?

Which brings us to the crux of Modern Horizons 2:

Has Wizards of the Coast learned their lessons from 2019-2020?

Has Play Design taken the problem steps to remedy the mistakes that they've been making in the last few years? Can we reign in the problem cards before they hit the public and curtail what has felt like two years of non-stop bannings across all formats?

Because if so, we're probably in for a treat.

Going over the set list of Modern Horizons a few years after the fact really hammers home how much cool stuff is in this set. There's a ton of cards I've already brewed with and yet even more than two years later I still haven't gotten a chance to try all the ones I'd have liked! Nether Spirit is legal in Modern! Future Sight is legal in Modern! That's sweet!

Consider me cautiously optimistic for Modern Horizons 2.