Modern Horizons 3 Set Review: Red | Magic: the Gathering

#mtg #magicthegathering #modernhorizons3
Preorder Modern Horizons 3 from Card Kingdom using my link: www.cardkingdom.com/nizzahon
It's time for my Modern Horizons III set review! In this video I give my thoughts on every mono-black card in the set.
What my grades mean:
I use a letter grade system, and my grades usually fall into a bell curve (Very few A’s and F’s, lots of C’s.)
A - Bombs that are always your first pick, they completely warp the game in your favor, and they easily pull you into their color(s). You always first pick these. These are cards you are ecstatic to have in your deck. Most sets have 15-20 of these. Tend to mostly be Mythics or Rares, though sometimes an Uncommon gets there.
(Unstable Glyph Bridge, Zoetic Glyph, Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal)
B - Premium removal spells and highly efficient creatures, often worth first picking. Still strong enough to pull you into their colors, but not quite as game or draft warping as A’s are. These are cards you feel good about having in your deck, and you would play several copies of most of them. Mostly Uncommons and higher, but there are usually 5-10 commons that get there too.
(Oltec Cloud Guard, Inverted Iceberg, Join the Dead)
C - Filler. These are cards you neither feel good or bad about having in your deck. You play them if you’re in their colors, but they don’t tempt you to go into their color at all. Usually includes reasonably efficient creatures, good combat tricks, and removal spells. These appear at all rarities, but are most frequently Common. (Ironpaw Aspirant, Brackish Blunder, River Herald Guide)
D - Playable in an emergency. These are cards that you don’t feel so good about playing, but in a pinch, sometimes you just have to play them. These are often inefficient vanilla creatures or overly narrow cards. These appear at all rarities. (Frilled Cave Wurm, Glowcap Lantern, Seeker of Sunlight)
F - Unplayable. These are cards that you should never play. There are very few of these in modern Limited formats, but they do appear at all rarities, with the most usually appearing at Rare and Common. These are cards whose effects are pretty much useless or overly narrow. (The Enigma Jewel, Canonized in Blood, Hit the Mother Lode)
There are two categories of cards that I give two grades to: Build Arounds and Sideboard Cards.
Build Around: These are cards that need special synergy to be at their best - synergy that won’t just come naturally. For these cards, I give one grade indicating how I think the card will perform in a typical deck of that color, and another grade if you manage to get there on synergy. (Gargantuan Leech, Terror Tide, Throne of the Grim Captain)
Sideboard Cards: These are generally cards that are Ds or Fs in your mainboard, but can perform much better out of the sideboard - at least as a C or higher
(Tectonic Hazard, Malicious Eclipse)
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[@RowanNagy97]

Red having so much cheap removal and powerful 1, 2, and 3 drops definetly makes it look like red-based aggro will be big in this set

[@michaelcollins4534]

Finally the best color in magic

[@sethzard]

?? Blue was yesterday morning

[@sQuibleable]

Goblins! Goblins! Goblins!

[@dickhammerbush172]

Gotta get your hands on it first, gobhole

[@michaelcollins4534]

@@sethzard 😴

[@Sm00thWizard]

Playing with a grip of fire is just to good

[@dyne313]

I like how you put the devoid cards into their respective videos based on their color identity. Devoid may apply in game, but it doesn't apply to Nizzahons videos. (Also it just makes sense because you still need the colored mana to cast them).

[@RowanNagy97]

Devoid cards have always been placed with their color identities (Devoid doesnt change identity) for collector number and thus on databases like Gatherer or Scryfall; but a small, new change is that all cards are now placed by their identity as of I believe The Brother's War, not just Devoid (you might notice there are now sometimes colorless artifacts with colored abilities amongst the colors now, instead of down in the colorless on databases)

[@giancarlodisalvo1784]

C+ for the dragon is criminal

[@lanychabot-laroche135]

This color has more B than C cards. Looks by far the best color to draft.

[@spark1128]

From just reading the cards in the set this feels like the best color to me, all of the energy uncommons seem insane in multiples

[@RowanNagy97]

A general rule of thumb is that the color wirh the best 1 drops or the best 1-3 mana removal is rhe best color and red in this set is the best for both of those

[@soggytoast111]

I don't really understand the rating on Ral - this seems like an F to me in limited. There is no way you are ever going to be able to cast enough spells to actually get this card to do something useful. I mean the "big payoff" for flipping him is to maybe ping a small creature. And then you are left with a useless +1 ability that you probably won't even have anything left to reduce, if it would even matter at all if you do. So you have like a 1/3 body that randomly does damage to yourself, and then if you are "lucky" you can trade the body to ping once... I don't get what the upside is supposed to be.

[@Shimatzu95]

The amouth of energy cards in this set gave me this thought. will we see an energy variation of phyrexian mana at some point? And if we do, how broken would it be as there would be a buildaround at least?

[@johngleeman8347]

The lizard wizard! :D

[@sgjuxta]

I like Flare of Duplication a bit better than C+, at least in a predominantly red deck just for its mode of "sac the creature your opponent targeted with a removal spell to kill their best creature for free."

[@RowanNagy97]

That's still just a very situtional removal spell, in which case, you'd rather be running any of the many cheap low-rarity removal spells in this set (including red's very efficient damage spells in this set)

[@NizzahonMagic]

I would be less surprised to see the Flare be worse than a C+ than I would to see it be better than a C+.

[@togglebott7748]

This might be the best removal suit in ANY magic set jfc

[@Amascut]

Really unsure on Ral and the Implicit Maze. Card just seems far too slow even in a limited environment. How often will a Spellgorger Weird matter on turn *7*?! I like the mini sweeper and the exile draw but none of these abilities justify the 5 mana cost to me. Maybe I need to play with it, but I’m struggling to understand.

[@XiaosChannel]

Ral seems okay in late game since he can hit face and draw cards

[@MrKHall2002]

My inner Shivan Dragon wept

[@joshhudson9839]

Red looks great just on paper. I think RG looks like the strongest archetype, its common and uncommon signposts blow all the other signposts at their respective rarities out of the water and it has a load of insane uncommon like spawn-gang commander, propagator drone, some colorless eldrazi and more. Seriously though titan's vanguard and writhing chrysalis are unbelievable for their respective rarities. Vanguard in particular looks better than potentially all of the rares and mythics.

[@Konarcoffee]

Amped Raptor is worded in such a way that the exiled card can be cast for energy at any point in the game right? Not just when it enters the battlefield?

[@stricks8382]

Sadly it's missing the "as long as it remains in exile" clause. So you have to cast as you resolve the ability.

[@Konarcoffee]

@@stricks8382 Thank you, that's good to keep in mind

[@andyspendlove1019]

15:40 just thinking about when SaffronOlive said on Twitter that this card should’ve cost 3 mana instead 😂

[@RowanNagy97]

For constructed play it would need to cost 3 yea; anything above 3 mana is unplayable for a low toughness sweeper because it can't get under aggro decks and this card is not good in constructed if that first ability isn't actually hosing aggro decks in time; it'd be ridiculous in limited at 3 though obviously

[@Blackvolttage]

I think its good but that a- rating is crazy. I would never pick that over the eldrazi that give haste to stuff for example. I could see it being a a- if it actually costed 3 mana. For 5 and double pip im not eager to p1p1 this card for example. It will be the pick a lot of times but clearly not in the lower bomb range.

[@RowanNagy97]

@@Blackvolttage Yea A range cards are, by Nizzahon's own definition usually cards that: 1) You would always p1p1; and 2) ALWAYS add value in a non-situtional way that your opponent cant 1for1 trade their way out of. This card doesn't always do something impactful, can be 1for1 traded out of (in the sense that it doesn't leave behind anything if the sweeper wasnt useful and its removed after or even on your opponent's next turn); and Isn't an easy p1p1 a lot of the time with a situational use-case and a double pip

[@andyspendlove1019]

@@RowanNagy97 if it cost 3, we’d 100% have a new Fable of the Mirror Breaker on our hands. It’s incredibly comparable to that card

[@RowanNagy97]

​@@andyspendlove1019 That's the thing about some kinds of card effects - they're hard to balance. At 3 mana, it WOULD be a heavily played saga like Fable of the Mirror Breaker, probably even too good, because it'd be close to existing low-toughness sweepers used against aggro decks (with the notable downside of being 2 damage instead of the standard 3 damage sweeper for 3 mana which can matter a lot) + with a ton of later upside. At 4 mana, it would see no constructed play because needing 1 more mana and potentionally 1 more turn to sweep the board is all the difference in the world against an aggro deck so it wouldn't actually be able to replace that slot in decks no matter how much value the later turns are also providing. Just like Quick Study sees no constructed play but a 2-mana instant draw-two would be absurdly powerful; or Lightning Bolt vs. Lightning Strike (outside of Standard), and so forth.

[@rwed13]

pinnacle monk is farting on the world

[@n3croticism]

Is there any reason why the token created by Ral and the Implicit Maze has a mana cost? Tokens usually have no mana cost, unless they are a copy of something else.

[@RasmusVJS]

Because "Spellgorger Weird" is a real card, of which the token is a copy.

[@RowanNagy97]

@@RasmusVJS The longer answer would be "because that is the new design philosphy about printing tokens of real cards as also seen on the new Tarmo tokens in the Graveyard Overdrive deck", the game has had made many real card tokens that use a real card's name and has never done this before. A lot of people are acting like this is obivous but its not, this IS new to THIS set.

[@bezretmet]

eldrazi linebreaker can come down as early as turn 2 in modern. if you play a turn 1 it that heralds the end and turn 2 linebreaker thats 8 dmg on turn 2 with lethal on turn 3

[@NizzahonMagic]

Yep! This video is about Limited though, so that's why I didn't discuss that.

[@bezretmet]

@@NizzahonMagic yeah sorry linebreaker and eldrazi are very high on my wishlist for modern so got excited but the combo IS technically possible in limited if you get lucky with the draft :p

[@cax1175]

I hope Nizzahon turns his opponents to dust with Eldrazi at once on stream.

[@Nobody-xe9fc]

Laelia reprint! 😮

[@richgunning8311]

Is it me or does ghost fire slice give ghost of sparta vibes?!

[@dyne313]

Is Sarpadian Simulacrum the best Raging Goblin ever printed. The Power Creep is real.

[@dyne313]

Legion Loyalist might be better, giving your entire attacking team First Strike and Trample and unblockable by tokens is pretty good.

[@TheHive616]

It's kinda strange that the Spellgorger Token has an implied Mana value... I wonder when that'll come into play

[@parkerdubois5855]

Its just because spellgorger weird is an actual magic card, at least printed in that ravnica plainswalker set, not sure if it originated there, thats its casting cost.

[@TheHive616]

@@parkerdubois5855 i know, but the card that first printed "Llanowar Elves" as tokens didn't have the Mana value listed, this is the first time a token has had an implicit mana value. Just wondered why it would be necessary.

[@TheHive616]

@@parkerdubois5855 Llanowar Mentor... Makes Llanowar Elves as a token, does the exact same thing. I hope you see what I mean, maybe they wanted to do something in the future to allow Tokens of a certain kind to have an implicit mana value despite not being cast that way, I was only wondering if there might be a reason related to this current set.

[@dustinlee9872]

Likely is related to emerge costs being reduced from the token.

[@TheHive616]

@@dustinlee9872 awesome, that makes sense, cause emerge is part of limited again with this set... Thanks, that probably solved it

[@brianregan5933]

The amount of genuinely scary non basic lands in this set makes me think, considering that the "unblockable" aspect of sundering eruption is playable enough anyway, that we mighrt end up valuing that land destruction more than normal. Three mana destroy a land with genuine upside, that's also an MDFC? I think that's an auto pick in most packs

[@NizzahonMagic]

There aren't that many genuinely scary nonbasics in this format, though. The MDFCs are good for reasons other than what they do as lands, the landscape cycle sacrifices to grab other lands. There's the rare cycle, and some of those are certainly good, but they aren't so plentiful to make land destruction significantly better.

[@joshhudson9839]

Sundering eruption probably gonna be a real feels bad card in this format. Getting lesser hazardous blast that you never cut and just having looming around is potentially pretty scary, I expect it to probably be better than hazardous blast was in ONE tbh and that card was a big part of the reason that format was so maligned.

[@Jack-uh2db]

@@joshhudson9839tons of limited formats had cards like hazardous blast. Hazardous Blast was insanely good in ONE because it was so aggro, not the other way around

[@joshhudson9839]

@@Jack-uh2db I think it's a bit silly to claim hazardous blast didn't make the format worse.

[@JackOropeza]

Set Preview

[@jackiespaceman]

Is this the first token with a mana value? That’s such a weird thing

[@RasmusVJS]

Nope. Copies of cards have mana values, even though they are tokens.

[@jackiespaceman]

@@RasmusVJS no I mean the saga that says “create a 2R creature token”

[@RasmusVJS]

@@jackiespaceman And that token is a copy of the card "Spellgorger Weird".

[@jackiespaceman]

@@RasmusVJS right, but it’s not a copy of an existing card, which is why I was confused. It creates a token creature. That creature isn’t actually copying an existing creature.

[@jackiespaceman]

@@RasmusVJS “There are already a few cards that make a token that's named after and mostly identical to an actual card, but nonetheless has no mana cost. E.g., • ⁠[[Ajani, Strength of the Pride]] • ⁠[[Roxanne, Starfall Savant]] • ⁠[[Rohgahh, Kher Keep Overlord]] & [[Rosnakht, Heir of Rohgahh]] So making a token of a real card isn't new. Giving it the original card's cost is new.”

[@dakotadoyle7573]

players: so how many red burns spells will this add to modern? WotC: Yes

[@ab-mc2nq]

1:50 this card doesn't give you energy

[@The29Dave]

Red getting the short end of the stick as usual