The Rise and Fall of Modern (Magic: the Gathering's Biggest Competitive Format)

After they banned birthing pod,I quit magic for more than a decade and now that I'm back it still hurts to much to go back

Just make a community-run modern format that excludes the Modern Horizons sets. Unfortunately that's what we seem to have to resort to as a playerbase to restore modern to what it used to be.

I have been wanting to play modern in a competitive way since forever, but the prices are just way too over the roof. I just agree with what you said here in the video

Beautiful video, I wish I had seen it when it came out. The only thing I disagree with is faithless looting. To me it always felt like a long time coming. It felt like red brainstorm to me for a long while.

Interesting catching this video today. I was thinking wouldn't it be nice to have a format without the sets printed just for modern...

At first i thought magic was out of their minds. Grief is still a little touchy. I've learned all they were trying to do is slow games down. Fury really shouldn't be doublestrike, Grief should have only allowed one discard per evoke. But they had to make these cards hands down playable if they wanted everybody to list them. That was the intention btw.

Power creep was present in magic before as well, but it was like over 5 years you can see a power increase, now you can see one with every new set. Nothing makes me more sad in games than insane power creep. A minor power creep is fine, but not what's currently happening

Would be good to revisit this after mh3 and a PT. Maybe even now since lotr did change a lot of the format in terms of staple cards.

2019 pre War of the Spark was one of my favorite times in Modern. Phoenix was dominant, but there was still a healthy metagame around it. Tron, Lantern, Shadow, Burn, Dreadge, UW Conrol, Humans, and GB Rock were all solid, had play against each other, and consistently shared top 8 spots at GPs and SCG events.

This is exactly why I stopped playing Magic

Horizons sets aren't the evil, WotC's handling of them has been. If you were to take out the following cards, people would look at MH sets as the best things to happen to modern.
- Hogaak
- Astrolabe
- W&6
- Urza's Saga
- Ephemerate
- the Evoke Elementals (but Fury and Grief specifically)
- Ragavan
- Unholy Heat
(Obviously, thr LotR set belongs in yhis discussion too. Specifically,ToR and Bowmasters.)

And I think that's about it. No one minds that Enchantress, Merfolk, and Asmo decks are a thing. In fact, the format is better because they are here. We need a company that will see cards like these and instead of chasing $$$ think about the impact they will have on the format.

Just want to to come in here and say that this opinion has aged well and seems to be reinforced the longer time goes on.

I actually wanted to try Magic again but I wonder if it's even the same game I used to play. I started with Beta, Unlimited, antiquities, The Dark and Arabian Nights.

Is it still the type of game where you have to throw money at? I remember when things like the black lotus, Moxes etc...
It got so bad that my deck was stolen and that's when I quit.

Pay to win is cancer. Thats the real issue.

Greed kills this game.

The banned list could be worked on as well. IMO there should be NO turn 2 or debatable even turn 3 combos.

Modern is an absolute travesty and it's 100% because of MH1 and MH2. Greed and arrogance by Wizards fucked the whole thing. Tragic. Pioneer is the only glimpse of hope for accessible eternal formats.

I've had to quit, not because I want to but because I can't afford it, and if I work more to afford it I have no time to play

Basically, FIRE design led to insane power creep. God I hate new Magic sets. All the cards are Full text boxes.

Hear me out… 60. Card. Commander.

Uh?! Uh?!

No, i wanna go back to pre modern horizons.

or rather, ban all modern horizons cards in modern, ban bowmaster and ring, and bring back tournament coverage. stop with the flood of product so that players can be excited for spoilerseason again

Hasbro forgot that the appeal of an eternal format was that it was eternal

It's all about making that money. They don't really care about the players.

Go play legacy

Welp, Modern Horizons 3 is coming later this year. May the lord have mercy on our souls.

Shame i just called a local place that use to get 20-40 people on a monday night to they said. " it may or may not fire ". Sad.

Modern has officially fallen. It was waning but Modern Horizons 2 has finished ot man, the whole meta revolves around MH cards, always.
There's not a deck that doesn't have at least one MH or LoTR card in it, you might go searching on MTG Goldfish right now or scryfall to prove me wrong, that you actually might find a deck without a card from those sets. I doubt it. Even if you would have to search for it, proving my point that the meta revolves around these sets, based on what Wizards feels like prinitng. Even then, the deck would probably contain some stupid standard card, like a companion or leyline binding or something similar.
This is the problem, modern was supposed to be and was a solid format but with the printing of very powerful and downright just stupid cards (Uro, Oko, Once upon a time, field of the dead etc.) in standard and similarly powerful MH cards it has now become an abominaton.
It is neither the old modern nor standard, it somewhere between, where it is affected by new sets being printed into it as much as standard and ironically unlike standard you cannot be like "I'm glad that rotated out."
Modern is essentially just now whatever MH has in it plus some modern cards and the OP standard cards. Guess why that is? Well all of those cards are expensive, also they are very necessary to play certain decks.
You might think I am some 2018 boomer rambling here, you might be right, still even thought Eldrazi tron was annoying and dredge was strong (I hate dredge) as well as phoenix. Don't tell you wouldn't want to return to the era when decks actually played their iconic cards.
When jund played Lilliana of the veil, bloodbraid elf and Dark confidant.
When red decks played a playset of bolts instead of unholy heat and didn't play DRC or that pesky monkey that we alll actually hate: Ragavan.
When every single green deck didn't have to have endurance and force of vigor (and also maybe veil of summer) in its sideboard.
When every blued deck didn't have to have subtelty and force of negotiation.
Days before seasoed pyromancer, wrenn and six and other similarly powerful (and expensive) MH cards.
Days where fringe strategies at least somewhat had a chance.
Days where no decks had the one ring in it just for the sake of playing it because it is that good.
Modern is now reduced to a liquid state. Pioneer is the next best thing and what many call "the new modern" and perhaps in a way it is, but it's just not the same.
I'm really thinking of boycotting MH3 just because of how MH has ruined modern. Or maybe establishing a playgroup that would play something like it's own format, kinda like premodern called "non-MH/LoTR Modern" or some other name. It would exclude these external sets, and include all the old modern sets as well as the standard sets and would have the same banlist like the regular modern.
Perhaps that is the only option, or... just sucking it up and accepting that the modern meta will be dictated by whatever comes out of MH.
If you agree or would be interested in joining the group for the "old school modern", then feel free to respond and we can get in touch.
Much love to you all, I hope the OG modern will make a return some day, the current metagame somewhat resembles what Modern used to be. Which is somewhat of a glimmer of hope I suppose. If you disagree with me, just whenever you see a Modern deck or go to Mtg Goldfish page, ask yourself this question "would this deck exist without MH?"
Then you might see my perspective and where I am coming from.
Thank you if you read this far, again much love and let us stay hopefull.

I used to adore modern. Now i just play pauper (a format I hope to God wizards doesn't find a way to monetize), cube, and play 2018-era modern decks with friends. With the exception of my pauper decks, everything I run is proxied. Wizards can kick rocks as far as I'm concerned—MH1 and 2 shattered any trust I had in them, as well as any hope for their ability to maintain magic healthily in the longterm. And all for a quick buck :(

Hope it was worth it, Hasbro!

They didn't just reprint the old staples but made them completely irrelevant in the next set. Made new staples that got even pricier in lower supply.

Fully agree.
Well, not fully maybe. I’d say modern was also pretty great before 2018, with Eldrazi being a very brief mistake (it only lasted for one PT and change).
I really, really, really dislike the MH sets. Both for the actual cards in them and for the concept behind them, along with the FIRE design philosophy of regular sets at the time. Almost all the old modern decks have been destroyed by now. Old staples like Goyf, Lilly and Snapcaster have been reduced to laughable junk rares. I still have my old burn deck which is fringe playable (upgraded with Canyons, an example of an acceptable card to introduce to modern), but I just don’t want to buy into new decks, for fear of having them get banned or made irrelevant with future releases.

Me when they show MTG players playing. What the fuck am I looking at.

Completely vacuous video. "FAITHLESS LOOTING WAS BANNED SO IT WAS THE END OF AN ERA." Come the fuck on.

My experience is that it's all commander now. If you don't play commander, then you play mtg arena.

Ironic that sets specifically designed for Modern turned out to ruin the format.

There needs to be a new format of singleton modern up to the journey into nyx border change.

Classical modern highlander

The only difference between Standard and Modern these days is that Modern allows for cards specifically made for Modern. Otherwise Standard is based on the last THREE YEARS of sets. That’s fucking INSANE for new players to play into.

I am thinking about switching to pioneer. But will they print pioneer horizons at some point?

So basically Ha$bro and WotC only care about short term gains and not a sustainable game....

It doesn't matter anyways, Commander is the exclusive future of MtG and that format is completely unsustainable as the main format for MtG. Rule 0 will not keep it held together forever and it is not good for wotc with the extreme rise in proxying that it is causing.

We need to go back to a standard first focus, where cards are made specifically for standard and only standard, then have 1-2 nonrotating formats and EDH that only get to use standard cards. Thats really the only long term sustainable model.

Mh3 is already out by the time I watched this video.lol😂

It sucks I have to spend 300 more bucks just to stay relevant in a format. And all my old staples are useless now.

This video perfectly represented the downfall of paper in general. 60% of the players in my state stopped playing after Kaladesh. The entire IP of Magic became like Fortnite and started making crossover skins of cards and non-canon characters like it's the Multiverse.
Happy I got out.

WotC killed modern and MTG with it.

Alchemy horizon ruined the best format

Who else hates modern horizons?

It's honestly UNREAL how badly Modern Horizons wrecked the entire format

Watching this after MH3 lol

This is why I left MTG, among a bunch of other factors all caused by WOTC themselves. Terrible company.

Watching this a year on after Nadu summer almost makes it more sad. Ultimately modern's become an innaccessible format, its no longer the best of standard, its MH block constructed.

Was this video made by AI?

The massive problem with modern imo is that it turned from "best of standard" to "Modern Horizons Block Constructed"

Look at the top decks of the format and almost every single card outside of the mana base entered the format not through standard, but a direct to modern set, be it MH1-3 or Lord of the Rings

Eternal formats should always have been only the collateral of standard and draft

WARNING: In this video I share my opinion.