Modern Horizons 3 Set Review

Alrighty, let's get ya hooked up with the official gallery and the readable one.

There's a lot of hype for MH3, and I get why: the last Modern Horizons sets have helped shift metagames across multiple formats. Making a dent in a format like Legacy or Vintage is difficult but the sets still did it, plus it's fun to see what happens when the designers decide to amp things up a bit. 

I see a little less of that, this time around. Don't get me wrong, there are some very powerful effects here! But I don't see cards with the same kind of obviously high power level that I did when the incarnation cycle from Modern Horizons 2 was printed, or Hogaak from the original. 

This might be due to the elevation of Eldrazi and all the things that the set is trying to do to make that work. Remember, this is still meant to be a draftable set! So if you open Kozilek, the Broken Reality, they want to give you the ability to play it. 

So sure, Emrakul, the World Anew is powerful but I doubt anyone's going to use the Madness ability to get that into play anytime soon.

Instead, one thing I'm seeing is a lot of flexibility in the cards being put out here: a lot of cards and mechanics with multiple options, and using energy to help restrain the power level so players can't just go big mana and make games drag out.

Of course, out in the bigger ecosystem of Magic who knows what kind of power is being unleashed. Is Pearl-Ear, Imperial Advisor going to create a deck akin to the Hammertime ones? Could Harbinger of the Sea make merfolk a legit powerhouse? 

It's certainly possible! I will say that there are exciting possibilities available; affinity decks getting some help from Black and Red, the Allied fetchlands, and a whole new suite of double faced spell/lands. 

The reprints seem solid, too, even for a player as entrenched in the game as I am, there are some good cards I never got ahold of, usually due to cost, as with K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth, but others just weren't in a play set, as with Nadier's Nightblade. 

So all in all I think this is one of the better sets: it is going to tilt the applecart but doesn't look like it's going to upend it, and offer players access to some cool reprints to boot!