Now that spoiler season for Modern Horizons is over, what is the best way to relax? Should you play with the new set? What about collecting and trying to get all the chase rares you want? Me personally? I love getting another spoiler season!
We are in full swing for Core Set 2020 a.k.a. M20. The set seems to have some good cards. So let’s take a look at what cards we can expect to see to do well in each format.
Standard
The scry lands are back! Five of them are, at least: Temple of Epiphany, Temple of Malady, Temple of Mystery, Temple of Silence, and Temple of Triumph. Why would anyone be excited to have tap lands in the format? The added scry is why!
These lands are, in my opinion, the best dual lands for Standard to have. They have just enough power in the sense of being half a draw while also not creating degenerate manabases. For example, look at Innistrad Standard mana bases versus Theros Standard manabases. During Innistrad you saw a lot of four-color decks and even five-color decks, while Theros were mainly two-color with a very lean mana base.
How in the world is a six-mana wrath effect better than the four- and five-mana ones we have now? Planar Cleansing gets rid of all nonland permanents, which is really important in this metagame. I am sure everyone is sick of planeswalkers after battling against Narset, T3feri, and T5feri. If so, this is your card.
Planar Cleansing could be solid and create new decks in the likes of Azorius Control and maybe even Orzhov control. You would have to construct your deck to not be so permanent-based, but with a full sweep like this I think it’s very doable.
Modern
This may be a stretch I’ll admit, but does everyone remember the Jeskai Ascendancy deck? Kykar, Wind’s Fury is a really sweet engine that helps Jeskai Ascendancy continue going off and can be another win condition by itself. The fact it makes an army of chump blockers or could become this fireball-style enabler makes it versatile. Maybe a more realistic deck is Jeskai Flash, which could use Kykar to generate a snowball effect. Even though it is much different than Young Pyromancer, it’s a bigger body and can be more aggressive.
Brought Back is another throwback to an old Modern deck—this time its Eggs. This card could be a sweet replacement for Second Sunrise. You are limited to returning two permanents at a time, but it could add something to the deck that has been missing.
While nobody wants Eggs back—and Krark-Clan Ironworks just got banned—this could also be a cool midrange-oriented combo piece. As an instant, you can get back permanents destroyed during your opponent’s turn. Plus it gives you value with sacrifice effects and fetch lands. It probably won’t work as a ramp spell, but it definitely can do a lot for a deck built to abuse it.
Modern Horizons gave all enemy colors canopy lands. I am sure the Eldrazi players were feeling a bit left out. While I’m not sure that Cryptic Caves is great for Modern or Legacy Eldrazi variants thanks to the five-land clause, the option to redraw could be good as a single value land. Why not use one of the canopy lands instead? The fact that Cryptic Caves adds a colorless can be good to cast Eldrazi cards with the new colorless mana symbol like Thought-Knot Seer. Plus this new land makes mana without inflicting pain. For Legacy especially, Ancient Tomb taxes the Eldrazi life total enough.
I would love to hear your thoughts on these cards, and especially for Standard. If you have a cool list and can get it to me on Twitter I will play it Monday night for the Early Access stream event sponsored by Wizards of the Coast on Twitch.
Zack is a SCG grinder with one ultimate goal: getting to the Players Championship. Based out of NYC, you can find him in other cities every weekend trying to hit that goal. When he isn’t traveling he streams. Follow his journey on Twitter!