For the first time in a long time, I've gotten excited about a format other than Commander. On May 24th, Wizards announced the formats for this years Magic Online Community Cup which included the usual suspects "Standard", "Scars block draft", and a new format entitled "Modern". This new format has every non-promo card printed in magic history with the modern frame. (This includes every card printed in 8th edition and Mirrodin block on forward.) for example,
this Dark Ritual is not allowed because it was never printed as a non-promo with the modern frame.
However, this Serra Angel is allowed because it was printed with a modern frame later.
Modern is similar to the "overextended" format proposed by many players, earlier this year. (It has a card pool that never rotates, it's starting point is after the cards in the reserve list were printed.) Though it differs from overextended at it's starting point. Overextended would have started at the set Mercadian Masques which would have been problematic as it has cards like brainstorm and the above mentioned dark ritual. Both are very powerful cards which don't fit with the way Wizards wants Magic to be played now. There are several other cards in that set alone (Black Market and Counterspell come to mind) which make the case for Modern starting at 8th Edition. But my point to all this is that Modern is the best of both worlds. It starts at a time that they can reprint whatever cards they want (Unlike the original dual lands or various great cards that are in high demand but can't be reprinted.) which will make for relatively lower prices such as in extended or standard. (Just imagine if the Ravnica duals go up to twenty dollars a piece, Wizards could reprint them in a product like the upcoming commander sets and make an almost unlimited supply.) It will also never rotate, like legacy.
Because Modern is missing some key powerful cards present only in legacy, it will have many potent and varied strategies. Look at this deck list from the mothership. That's Affinity, a deck known for it's power and speed. Here's a list from Tappedout. That's an equipment deck that uses two of the best man-lands of all time and one of the greatest planeswalkers of all time to take advantage of the equipment fetching power of Stoneforge Mystic. It creates a relentless assault of creatures with protection from whatever color you're playing and gets through with advantage from Elspeth, Bitterblossom, and Confidant.
Those are just two great decks that can be played in Modern. Powerful decks from the past may also be playable again. Jund, Faeries, Caw blade, Valakut, Swans, Zoo, Prismatic Omen, Mythic, and Teachings all will be powerful, but not nearly as they were in their small cramped standard and extended environments. Though, they will most likely not compare to the deck archetypes being thought up as we speak.
As it is right now, Modern is just an experiment. If you don't want to play in the same stale Extended and Standard environments all the time, you have to support Modern in some way. Go to official Wizards forums and help tune decks or at least talk about it. Use your twitter and use #WeWantModern and talk about how much you love this idea. If you like Extended, Legacy, or Standard, don't be afraid to openly support Modern for fear of it replacing one of them. (Wizards says they are not wanting to do anything of that sort.) If you want to play Modern at FNM, Grand Prix, Pro Tour, States, Nationals, or Worlds, then you have to be vocal about how much you WANT to play it. If you want your experience with Modern to extend beyond reading play-by-plays at the Community Cup, then please be vocal about how much you want to play in this format. It will be for the good of all of us if we all just declare "We Want Modern" .
Well, that's all I've got for today. As always you can follow me here or on Twitter. @KuromanKuro And if you like what you read then go ahead and Digg/follow me.
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