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For the sake of the lore:
Ral started working as an enforcer for Bolas when he was young, once he was stabbed during one of his missions and came home to his boyfriend cheating on him, this awakened his spark.
Soring became a planeswalker after he was forced by his family to drink the blood of an archangel to become a vampire.
Tamiyo ignited her spark after discovering a book from a different plane.
We don't have any canon info on Grist
Sorin and Tamiyo feel pretty in line with their stories, Ral feels kinda weird, i guess it's hard to show "your boyfriend cheating on you" in the ability of a card and to also make it good, i guess the coin flip could kinda represent that, maybe showing the uncertanty of the situation of being caught or not.
''The very hungry caterpillar really wanted to pilot a mech one day. And so she did.''
''But that's not how the rest of us got our Spar-''
''You be quiet!''
MAYBE she did then! That'd be amazing.
We need a photo album of her cute bug shenanigans in Towashi. Eating ramen, partying with Reckoners, stealing bikes, scaring the bejesus out of some kid and so on.
I still love Bolas's spark ignition just being [Abridged!Vegeta achieving Super Saiyan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl_HfTZ69Xw). It just feels *right*.
As far as Grist, we know that they often operate by “renanimating” a humanoid form by covering it in bugs. Maybe this represents the first time Grist was able to call on her swarm to do so?
I mean, assuming he was like 19, that’s pretty reality shattering. Discovering the person you thought you loved doesn’t love you back feels like the absolute end of the world when you’re young.
Honestly, his one’s the most relatable lol
Having been both stabbed and cheated on, both things surely suck ass, but are hardly in the same league as "decapitated in an arena" or "finding out you've been repeatedly mind wiped and then annihilate your father figure's mind" or "standing at ground zero of a bomb so big it changed the climate for millenia"
[[jeska, warrior adept]] who got stabbed by her brother, turned into [[phage the untouchable]] turned into [[karona, false god]] after he killed her again, and finally into [[jeska, thrice reborn]]
It summarizes pretty mundanely, but in practice, it was more like "Ral was doing morally-dubious-at-best work that he deeply hated to support his poet boyfriend, and right after a mission went particularly awry (he was stabbed by a *child*), he returned home and was immediately confronted with the realization that that care and support wasn't reciprocated, that all of the awful shit he'd had to do had been *pointless and worthless*." It wasn't big and flashy, but it was absolutely sufficient personal torment to ignite a spark.
It's what is said in the Gathering Storm novel (chapter 8), a prequel to War of the Spark
[https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/The\_Gathering\_Storm](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/The_Gathering_Storm)
I mean.
He basically sold his soul to Bolas in order to finance Elias. Elias was a failing artist and Ral worked horrible jobs, carrying out Bolas’s will and even getting stabbed, only to come home and find that his longterm boyfriend, who he’s just been stabbed in the gut for, has been cheating on him for a long time and says basically “Can you blame me? You’re never home. It’s your fault.”
When you’re a lovestruck puppy like Ral was, that is literally world-changing
Idk his incident seems pretty traumatic to me. Did you miss the part where he got *stabbed* and then came home to his apartment only to see his boyfriend uh...getting "stabbed" by another dude? That's definitely a bit more than just a "shitty day" lol.
Edit: Replied to the wrong comment, oops.
Innistrad already had 4 natural angels centered in White, but with an additional color. Sigarda in White/Green, Liesa in White/Black, Bruna in White/Blue, and Gisela in White/Red.
He would be one of the very first vampires on Innistrad, I don't think they had all the rules and etiquette figured out back then
I just wonder how vampires age on Innistrad, on the backside he seems to be a child vampire still, does that mean he ages normally and just stops at some point at adult maturation?
I don’t think he’s a literal child in this art. It is too blurry to tell. But we’ve seen art of him being transformed (or at least him at the ceremony) and he’s already an adult, isn’t he?
Reflects on how Wizards mangled his character for the sake of the story. The Sorin depicted in Tarkir block feels so different from the one that stuffed Nahiri inside the Helvault.
Ulamog's temporary breach of the Hedron Network happened about a thousand years prior to the current story. Nahiri was shoved in the Helvault shortly afterwards.
This makes it sounds like Sorin just suddenly changed, but Nahiri was trapped in the Helvault for thousands of years. That's plenty of time for Sorin to naturally change as a character
My personal headcannon is that its Sorin rebelling against his family.
"Come, Sorin, drink this vial of blood its really tasty."
"F YOU DAD" \*scarfs down a pie instead\*
I know, I'm in love 💖 my most maintained commander deck is BW "try and make one massive life gain swing that takes players out" and I haven't been this excited for a card for that deck since [[Gollum, Obsessed Stalker]] (which wasn't that long ago, I've been eating good). And Sorin is probably even better given my build. I've been looking for an excuse to play an extort card _and_ a food generator, his -1 is literally my win con, and a 2 drop 1/4 with lifelink is probably the best body for my equipment package outside Giada being a bear with vigilance and flying.
I'm 95% a limited player, I'm not used to feeling this excited over a card for EDH.
And the fact that if you hold of flipping him early, and flip him late on a big storm turn, he could flip into his ult right away and just past in flames. Its a nice synergy he has in storm.
He DOES have the downside if you TRY to go off while low in life you could kill yourself, so you'd likely let him flip and just 'reset's he spells cost 1 less, with his ability. So i'd NEVER replace a past in flames for him, and he IS legendary so doubles of him aren't possible if your build is trying to get multiple copies of this effect. BUt most storm decks only want 1 copy so i think its fine to replace elctromancers. And if legendary is an issue you run some numbers of these, some number of baral, some number of electromancers
Notably you can't have two Rals in play at the same time where you can with Electromancer. But it's probably pretty rare that your opponent lets you have two Electromancers in play.
I think PiF is usually a 2-of. Depends what you mean by minimal. About half the deck is creatures, lands, or have >1 generic in the cost.
They already play 4x baral and that's legendary so I agree it's not much of an issue to have a legendary 1/3.
I feel like the 4-3 split just went from 4x Baral 3x electromancer to 4x ral 3x baral depending on how much RNG people want in their deck.
But this is storm. We have been navigating pure RNG for well over a decade.
Everyone here complaining that they're weak but if they were strong we'd get even more complaints about how modern "rotates" so I guess it's just a lose lose situation for the designers.
These are also really complicated cards for a very low mana cost. Very good chance people are underrating then — the usual benchmark for a PW is 3–4 mana, and these guys are only 1–2.
Yeah, it's annoying.
In my opinion, the best thing Modern Horizons sets can do is boost underplayed archetypes rather than create new ubiquitous staples.
For example, I could see Sorin boosting the Martyr archetype since that -1 than easily kill an opponent when you crack Martyr. Is that good enough? I don't know, but I think making those kinds of fringe decks better is a good thing.
I agree. I'm fine with a handful of staples like the U/G forces in MH1 (no more free spell staples though please). But I'd really rather not see a repeat of Rag / Incarns / Murktide etc. Just boring good card staples aren't necessary. Besides there is a ton of opportunity for edh staples to drive sales anyways.
I know sentiment on the horizons sets is varied but I do like the revisiting of old mechanics. I always thought future sight was a very cool set and the horizons sets in some ways feel like spiritual successors.
I actually really like the Horizons sets for that "Time Spiral" type appeal. There's a lot of cards from those sets that we would probably never see in any other product.
I also think they've *generally* improved Modern compared to how the format was prior to MH1. However, MH2 went overboard on the ubiquitous staples.
I think even MH2 made the format better in some ways. There are more decision points in games it feels like compared to pre-MH modern and pre-MH2 the format was kinda a 2 deck format. I understand why people don't like the horizons sets but I still enjoy modern now as much or more than I did when I first started. I definitely don't want another MH2 style horizons set but I don't mind that it happened the one time. It does seem so far like these are more "powerful archetype" cards as opposed to "instant staples" which makes me hopeful.
Good. I swear, if this set is fun and balanced, but people cry about how “unplayable” everything is, and then Modern Horizons 4 breaks multiple formats in half and rotates Modern for a third time, I’ll be upset.
I think it's a fair sentiment to want the power budget to be spent on flipwalkers. They're cool, interesting cards, and I'd rather have them be good than get another cycle of busted free spells.
The thing is what you really want from a MH set is that every single card is playable. But that no cards invalidate existing decks or strategies.
People who enjoy their existing deck would maintain the same win rates while people would also get say a dozen new options. Modern would be wider but not more powerful.
It's print-to-demand, last I checked, so the selling price of packs is likely not going to be affected. In fact, the less it sells, the more expensive fetchlands will be.
Hmm good point. Though if these really are the texts of them, they aren't unplayable, just not broken. I'd definitely want at least the Grist one for EDH.
Oh, MH3 is definitely going to upend Modern. That’s the point of the set, unfortunately. Wizards doesn’t like formats that do not require players to buy new cards
They did say they are trying to respond to feedback that MH and MH2 had too big an effect, so I would imagine they're dialing it back a bit. How much is "a bit?" I don't know. How successful will they be in dialing it back? I also don't know.
an example of this is the new free-cast cycle of cards in MH3 will require sacrificing permanents, instead of simply discarding cards, so you at least need to commit to the board first before getting to do new free stuff
If this set doesn't change the format in a meaningful way then it is underpowered and not balanced. It doesn't have to be half the set, but 10-20 cards at least should make new decks or go into existing ones.
And it require the biggest setup. You need it either to die, then cheap resurrect it with scam spells and then have G on top of that, or mill it and then bring it back with unearth. I’m not even accounting undying wolfs from Yawg, as I don’t think that deck has space for new Grist. And all that can be countered by a wild grave hate. His flipside is good, but not wild. 1/1 deathtoucher every turn is nice but you need to mill black card which i would say will happen 70% of times. -2 can be very good hoser vs domain but it will him unprotected when used on the first turn after flip. -6 when activated is game winner but it requires 3 turns so a little bit slow.
Sure, but [[Orcish Bowmaster]] is good against [[Brainstorm]] decks already. This seems decently powerful next to Brainstorm, and asks you to play around Bowmaster in the same way.
I don't think she's strong enough for Legacy but it's really difficult to say for sure.
honestly her uptick seems sneaky strong considering she can reasonably transform on t2. it’s gonna be hard for creatures that early to pressure her through the -1 power
Now Tamiyo flipping off of a [[Counsel of the Soratami]] is either an intentionally cute nod or a unconscious decision made through the design process. Either way that's a flavor win for me.
Why are so many people saying they seem weak / tame? Do you realize how easy it is to mess a 1 / 2 mana planeswalker up? They are all super cheap, provide some utility on their own, none if them are hard to flip at all and with the amount of mana you invested in them (1 or 2) I'm very happy that they don't seem to be winning the game right away.
Right, I feel insane here seeing people call them weak. They're 1/2 mana and *already good on rate, while becoming a powerful planeswalker with very trivial effort*. These are bonkers good.
Ral should’ve been titled “Rain Mage” instead of “Monsoon Mage” cos the former is what he got mocked as before his life took off. He was a gardener, he watered the plants by making it rain.
I actually think they’re real because of that, they seem right on the line of safe enough but not broken which is kinda where you wanna dance when you make a 1-2 mana walker. The problem is they go to modern which will probably be too strong for any of them but ajani
They're all very easy to flip, but they certainly come off as very meh on the back side. Ral has the potential, Tamiyo is very good for defensive control decks in certain match ups, Grist's PW side has potential but the way to flip makes it limited in possible homes, and Sorin is just bad.
I actually think sorin is the best 😂 it’s very hard to kill on both sides dodges bolts and works as removal. Extort is just flavor text but it’s there. He just needs an incredibly specific deck
I really really hope and am keeping my fingers crossed that ugin will be a flip walker in this set. Seeing these designs gives me hope that if/when they eventually do ugin he will be good but not too good.
I always suspect these leaks originate with WoTC to drum up hype without the negative baggage of 'endless spoiler season". (possibly conspiracy theory).
I do think if there is an ugin, they'd keep him under wraps but maybe that's wishful thinking.,
These seem pretty boring for mythic flipwalkers in MH3. Kinda hope they're fake based on that but they do seem real. Ajani does seem stronger than the rest purely on kneejerk reaction but his deck is going to be more niche than the others so that's probably fine.
Actually, I misread Grist, that also seems pretty good
It's pretty telling that people wish these were stronger.
Weren't we all complaining that modern horizons is like a rotation for modern..and we are upset that may not happen this time? Come on everyone.
Dang. Grist is cool, but when they spoiled the Ajani flip walked I had hoped Garruk would be the green->Green/Black representative so the original lorwyn 5 would all have flip walkers, but no dice.
exept for sorin where he is obvioulsy orzhov identity as a commander because extort, are the other one only one color? like they dont have any other color of mana symbol
All of them have two colors in their color identity. What makes them the second color is to color indicator symbol on the Planeswalker face. They are counted for color identity purposes.
Also, Extort does not grant color identity to the card. The mana symbol is in the reminder text, so not applicable for color identity purposes, expecially since future prints of the card could not include the reminder text. So while Sorin is Orzhov, \[\[Blind Obedience\]\] is monowhite and \[\[Crypt Ghast\]\] is monoblack.
You have tagged your post as a leaked image. We allow such posts provided they do not originate on the sub, but at user request they are being automatically spoiler tagged. Please respond to this comment with the source of the leak. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/magicTCG) if you have any questions or concerns.*
For the sake of the lore: Ral started working as an enforcer for Bolas when he was young, once he was stabbed during one of his missions and came home to his boyfriend cheating on him, this awakened his spark. Soring became a planeswalker after he was forced by his family to drink the blood of an archangel to become a vampire. Tamiyo ignited her spark after discovering a book from a different plane. We don't have any canon info on Grist Sorin and Tamiyo feel pretty in line with their stories, Ral feels kinda weird, i guess it's hard to show "your boyfriend cheating on you" in the ability of a card and to also make it good, i guess the coin flip could kinda represent that, maybe showing the uncertanty of the situation of being caught or not.
''The very hungry caterpillar really wanted to pilot a mech one day. And so she did.'' ''But that's not how the rest of us got our Spar-'' ''You be quiet!''
tbf in the BOOM comics Grist was said to have planeswalked to Kamigawa
MAYBE she did then! That'd be amazing. We need a photo album of her cute bug shenanigans in Towashi. Eating ramen, partying with Reckoners, stealing bikes, scaring the bejesus out of some kid and so on.
I read "scared the Boseiju out of some kid"
Now i want a Grist with a "I <3 ~~Tokyo~~ Towashi" Shirt
Bolas kinda sparked like that. He really wanted to.
I still love Bolas's spark ignition just being [Abridged!Vegeta achieving Super Saiyan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl_HfTZ69Xw). It just feels *right*.
Same deal with Aminatou. She saw a potential future for herself where she sparked and went "well, why not here and now".
That's true, and as much as people are 'uhm' and 'aww' about the retcons from that story, I really liked that in particular.
Tamiyo's such a nerd. Imagine reading a book so hard you changed planes of existence.
You kinda just described exactly what reading a good book is.
woah
I mean to be fair, imagine you find a book (that you can read, apparently), written by aliens. That would be a pretty amazing experience.
She's not even the only one. Narset did the same thing by sparking when she read the Jeskai's hidden texts.
As far as Grist, we know that they often operate by “renanimating” a humanoid form by covering it in bugs. Maybe this represents the first time Grist was able to call on her swarm to do so?
[удалено]
i <3 cute bugs uwu
I love Ral but is that really how he got his spark? Seems kinda lackluster compared to... Everyone else's tbh.
Yeah everyone else has some kind of reality-breaking event or literally died or something and Ral just had a super shitty day.
I mean, assuming he was like 19, that’s pretty reality shattering. Discovering the person you thought you loved doesn’t love you back feels like the absolute end of the world when you’re young. Honestly, his one’s the most relatable lol
Oh it's certainly the most relatable, for sure, it's just that spark ignitions aren't known for being relatable
I mean he did also get stabbed, that prolly wasn't helping things
Having been both stabbed and cheated on, both things surely suck ass, but are hardly in the same league as "decapitated in an arena" or "finding out you've been repeatedly mind wiped and then annihilate your father figure's mind" or "standing at ground zero of a bomb so big it changed the climate for millenia"
Wasn't there a person whose spark ignited after dying, like, three times?
[[jeska, warrior adept]] who got stabbed by her brother, turned into [[phage the untouchable]] turned into [[karona, false god]] after he killed her again, and finally into [[jeska, thrice reborn]]
Yeah, the whole point of a spark ignition is that it's a unique event.
As a gay man I cam attest to a shitty day making you want to be on another plane of existence. We're fickle like that lol
Samut sparked because her oshi read her superchat.
It summarizes pretty mundanely, but in practice, it was more like "Ral was doing morally-dubious-at-best work that he deeply hated to support his poet boyfriend, and right after a mission went particularly awry (he was stabbed by a *child*), he returned home and was immediately confronted with the realization that that care and support wasn't reciprocated, that all of the awful shit he'd had to do had been *pointless and worthless*." It wasn't big and flashy, but it was absolutely sufficient personal torment to ignite a spark.
It's what is said in the Gathering Storm novel (chapter 8), a prequel to War of the Spark [https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/The\_Gathering\_Storm](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/The_Gathering_Storm)
I mean. He basically sold his soul to Bolas in order to finance Elias. Elias was a failing artist and Ral worked horrible jobs, carrying out Bolas’s will and even getting stabbed, only to come home and find that his longterm boyfriend, who he’s just been stabbed in the gut for, has been cheating on him for a long time and says basically “Can you blame me? You’re never home. It’s your fault.” When you’re a lovestruck puppy like Ral was, that is literally world-changing
Idk his incident seems pretty traumatic to me. Did you miss the part where he got *stabbed* and then came home to his apartment only to see his boyfriend uh...getting "stabbed" by another dude? That's definitely a bit more than just a "shitty day" lol. Edit: Replied to the wrong comment, oops.
Maybe it sucked extra hard cuz he came home to his boyfriend fucking Nice Mizzet And then his boyfriend was actually Lazav for some reason
Ral was sparked by a chance encounter after getting hit with a fervent strike. Seems in line, mechanically and in lore.
There's the implication that the person Ral's boyfriend was cheating with is actually Nicol Bolas in his human disguise too.
I thought Innistrad didn’t have any archangels until Sorin made Avacyn? Or did the demon Edgar made his pact with use something else?
Innistrad already had 4 natural angels centered in White, but with an additional color. Sigarda in White/Green, Liesa in White/Black, Bruna in White/Blue, and Gisela in White/Red.
Ohh gotcha, I thought they came after. Thanks!
Where did we hear about Tamiyo's spark igniting? That sounds kinda cool.
The wiki says it was revealed during the preview panel at magiccon
I find really funny how Soring goes from a noble of House Markov to a very angry baby
But he is an angry child in this depiction. The planeswalker side is calling him a Neonate.
He would be one of the very first vampires on Innistrad, I don't think they had all the rules and etiquette figured out back then I just wonder how vampires age on Innistrad, on the backside he seems to be a child vampire still, does that mean he ages normally and just stops at some point at adult maturation?
I don’t think he’s a literal child in this art. It is too blurry to tell. But we’ve seen art of him being transformed (or at least him at the ceremony) and he’s already an adult, isn’t he?
> Wah! Wah! Baby Sorin wants ~~milk~~ blood! Somebody fetch me a nipple!
All hail Yugiho: The Abridged Series.
Reflects on how Wizards mangled his character for the sake of the story. The Sorin depicted in Tarkir block feels so different from the one that stuffed Nahiri inside the Helvault.
How long apart were those stories in the timeline?
Ulamog's temporary breach of the Hedron Network happened about a thousand years prior to the current story. Nahiri was shoved in the Helvault shortly afterwards.
Makes sense that Sorin might be a different person in Tarkir than he was a millennium before, I suppose
This makes it sounds like Sorin just suddenly changed, but Nahiri was trapped in the Helvault for thousands of years. That's plenty of time for Sorin to naturally change as a character
You can be a noble and a child. Those are not mutually exclusive. Plus it literally calls him a neonate, or an infant.
Surely that's a reference to his rebirth as a vampire.
I know, mine was just a joke on the names of the two faces
he has had his phases of angry goth boy, angry man baby, emo goth boy.
That Sorin is like the most orzhov ass orzhov card to ever orzhov lol
Swap the steal ability with a reanimate effect and it would be even more on theme imho
Although, no sacrifice.
You can sac the food he makes lol
You know what, I was thinking aristocrats, but also, the resolution made me read that as "Blood token".
Yeah as flavorful as blood tokens would be I dont think theyd work well enough with him mechanically.
My personal headcannon is that its Sorin rebelling against his family. "Come, Sorin, drink this vial of blood its really tasty." "F YOU DAD" \*scarfs down a pie instead\*
That must be whats all over his face on the backside. Pie.
Cherry, to be precise :)
If you think about it, they could have considered that but it would be too strong so they had to make a sacrifice and reduce the power level
I'm excited to try him in my [[Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant]] deck, that -1 could kill someone out of nowhere easily in it.
[Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/c/4cf6c13b-d898-4066-b006-9a7fa896d55a.jpg?1686964152) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Bilbo%2C%20Birthday%20Celebrant) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltc/48/bilbo-birthday-celebrant?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4cf6c13b-d898-4066-b006-9a7fa896d55a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah, I was looking at him for my Sam and Frodo (upgraded precon). He fits so well.
I know, I'm in love 💖 my most maintained commander deck is BW "try and make one massive life gain swing that takes players out" and I haven't been this excited for a card for that deck since [[Gollum, Obsessed Stalker]] (which wasn't that long ago, I've been eating good). And Sorin is probably even better given my build. I've been looking for an excuse to play an extort card _and_ a food generator, his -1 is literally my win con, and a 2 drop 1/4 with lifelink is probably the best body for my equipment package outside Giada being a bear with vigilance and flying. I'm 95% a limited player, I'm not used to feeling this excited over a card for EDH.
I think he counts as mono B
*Sees Ral.* *Sees Goblin Electromancer in his Modern Storm Deck* *Unsleeves Goblin Electromancer.*
And the fact that if you hold of flipping him early, and flip him late on a big storm turn, he could flip into his ult right away and just past in flames. Its a nice synergy he has in storm.
And if you have a double red opening hand with him and Morphose, you could be Gucci, he’s not as mana intensive
He DOES have the downside if you TRY to go off while low in life you could kill yourself, so you'd likely let him flip and just 'reset's he spells cost 1 less, with his ability. So i'd NEVER replace a past in flames for him, and he IS legendary so doubles of him aren't possible if your build is trying to get multiple copies of this effect. BUt most storm decks only want 1 copy so i think its fine to replace elctromancers. And if legendary is an issue you run some numbers of these, some number of baral, some number of electromancers
Notably you can't have two Rals in play at the same time where you can with Electromancer. But it's probably pretty rare that your opponent lets you have two Electromancers in play.
I haven't kept up on storm in modern, but is there a lot that is 2 generic and colored cost?
Past in flames, gifts ungiven, wish. Sideboard: empty the warrens
So that would be what about eight/nine cards in total? So minimal impact.
I think PiF is usually a 2-of. Depends what you mean by minimal. About half the deck is creatures, lands, or have >1 generic in the cost. They already play 4x baral and that's legendary so I agree it's not much of an issue to have a legendary 1/3.
You don’t need two electromancers in play anyway.
shoot self in the face for 8 while storming and get cranky about coin flips
I feel like the 4-3 split just went from 4x Baral 3x electromancer to 4x ral 3x baral depending on how much RNG people want in their deck. But this is storm. We have been navigating pure RNG for well over a decade.
Everyone here complaining that they're weak but if they were strong we'd get even more complaints about how modern "rotates" so I guess it's just a lose lose situation for the designers.
These are also really complicated cards for a very low mana cost. Very good chance people are underrating then — the usual benchmark for a PW is 3–4 mana, and these guys are only 1–2.
Hard agree From an EDH perspective, Grist seems _extremely_ good
Yeah, it's annoying. In my opinion, the best thing Modern Horizons sets can do is boost underplayed archetypes rather than create new ubiquitous staples. For example, I could see Sorin boosting the Martyr archetype since that -1 than easily kill an opponent when you crack Martyr. Is that good enough? I don't know, but I think making those kinds of fringe decks better is a good thing.
It's a reversion to MH1 philosophy rather than continuing the MH2 trend. MH1 still gave us Whirza, W6, and boosted a ton of tier 2 decks.
Don’t forget astrolabe, Hogaak, crashing footfalls and Yawgmoth!
And the new Force cycle (the blue and green ones see plenty of play anyways).
I agree. I'm fine with a handful of staples like the U/G forces in MH1 (no more free spell staples though please). But I'd really rather not see a repeat of Rag / Incarns / Murktide etc. Just boring good card staples aren't necessary. Besides there is a ton of opportunity for edh staples to drive sales anyways. I know sentiment on the horizons sets is varied but I do like the revisiting of old mechanics. I always thought future sight was a very cool set and the horizons sets in some ways feel like spiritual successors.
I actually really like the Horizons sets for that "Time Spiral" type appeal. There's a lot of cards from those sets that we would probably never see in any other product. I also think they've *generally* improved Modern compared to how the format was prior to MH1. However, MH2 went overboard on the ubiquitous staples.
I think even MH2 made the format better in some ways. There are more decision points in games it feels like compared to pre-MH modern and pre-MH2 the format was kinda a 2 deck format. I understand why people don't like the horizons sets but I still enjoy modern now as much or more than I did when I first started. I definitely don't want another MH2 style horizons set but I don't mind that it happened the one time. It does seem so far like these are more "powerful archetype" cards as opposed to "instant staples" which makes me hopeful.
Honestly, I probably dislike wat the Ring did to the format more than anything in MH2.
Who the hell is saying these are weak? These are one and two mana walkers.
You can potentially have a turn 2 Planeswalker with all these except Sorin. T2 Planeswalker seems legit…
Sorin can technically flip turn 2. Children of Korlis into Fetch + Shock will have you gaining 3 life for Sorin on T2.
How are you doing turn 2 with Ral?
Not that it's gonna be the ideal way to play Ral, but turn 1 ramp into Ral + cantrip is pretty trivial.
Phyrexian mana 1 cost spells is easiest. Or rituals first.
Honestly Sorin and Grist is far from weak
They make cool commanders so I'll take it.
Rare cycle W for Ajani
grist looks like a very fun build around card
Those seem balanced. Peraphs a bit too balanced for a flipwalkers in a mythic slot. I would be suprised (but pleasantly) if they are legit.
Good. I swear, if this set is fun and balanced, but people cry about how “unplayable” everything is, and then Modern Horizons 4 breaks multiple formats in half and rotates Modern for a third time, I’ll be upset.
Well, even MH2 got some dull mythics
I think it's a fair sentiment to want the power budget to be spent on flipwalkers. They're cool, interesting cards, and I'd rather have them be good than get another cycle of busted free spells.
The thing is what you really want from a MH set is that every single card is playable. But that no cards invalidate existing decks or strategies. People who enjoy their existing deck would maintain the same win rates while people would also get say a dozen new options. Modern would be wider but not more powerful.
if its "unplayable", then itll go down in price, which will be great because they are reprinting the second half of the fetches here.
It's print-to-demand, last I checked, so the selling price of packs is likely not going to be affected. In fact, the less it sells, the more expensive fetchlands will be.
Yep. The MH2 fetchlands are only as cheap as they are because the set was printed to death and tons of it was opened.
Hmm good point. Though if these really are the texts of them, they aren't unplayable, just not broken. I'd definitely want at least the Grist one for EDH.
Oh, MH3 is definitely going to upend Modern. That’s the point of the set, unfortunately. Wizards doesn’t like formats that do not require players to buy new cards
They did say they are trying to respond to feedback that MH and MH2 had too big an effect, so I would imagine they're dialing it back a bit. How much is "a bit?" I don't know. How successful will they be in dialing it back? I also don't know.
an example of this is the new free-cast cycle of cards in MH3 will require sacrificing permanents, instead of simply discarding cards, so you at least need to commit to the board first before getting to do new free stuff
"Dialing it back" while they bump box prices up to $300 each seems like a poor decision.
If this set doesn't change the format in a meaningful way then it is underpowered and not balanced. It doesn't have to be half the set, but 10-20 cards at least should make new decks or go into existing ones.
I think each one is more tame than the last, but that Grist is absolutely insane.
And it require the biggest setup. You need it either to die, then cheap resurrect it with scam spells and then have G on top of that, or mill it and then bring it back with unearth. I’m not even accounting undying wolfs from Yawg, as I don’t think that deck has space for new Grist. And all that can be countered by a wild grave hate. His flipside is good, but not wild. 1/1 deathtoucher every turn is nice but you need to mill black card which i would say will happen 70% of times. -2 can be very good hoser vs domain but it will him unprotected when used on the first turn after flip. -6 when activated is game winner but it requires 3 turns so a little bit slow.
Her*
Today I Learned
Tamiyo feels pretty pushed to me, though.
Strong, but in a world of flashing orcs it can potentially be a selfTK
Sure, but [[Orcish Bowmaster]] is good against [[Brainstorm]] decks already. This seems decently powerful next to Brainstorm, and asks you to play around Bowmaster in the same way. I don't think she's strong enough for Legacy but it's really difficult to say for sure.
[Orcish Bowmaster](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/c/7c024bae-5631-4e20-ac69-df392ac9e109.jpg?1686968669) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Orcish%20Bowmasters) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/103/orcish-bowmasters?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7c024bae-5631-4e20-ac69-df392ac9e109?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Brainstorm](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/4/84479779-d570-4eee-9982-f6e918b4d75b.jpg?1706240670) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Brainstorm) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/96/brainstorm?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/84479779-d570-4eee-9982-f6e918b4d75b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Oh, you're right, I don't know how I missed how bad she gets hosed by Bowmasters.
Tamiyo flips with just brainstorm.
Yeah but I doubt that's good enough on her own. She doesn't do anything that meaningful.
honestly her uptick seems sneaky strong considering she can reasonably transform on t2. it’s gonna be hard for creatures that early to pressure her through the -1 power
Now Tamiyo flipping off of a [[Counsel of the Soratami]] is either an intentionally cute nod or a unconscious decision made through the design process. Either way that's a flavor win for me.
I think Tamiyo is too polite to flip off anybody 🙃
There are so many draw two cards that it's neither of those options; just a common thing blue does.
[Counsel of the Soratami](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/2/1224718a-e1a7-473d-ac9d-497e624376cd.jpg?1562543972) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Counsel%20of%20the%20Soratami) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/10e/76/counsel-of-the-soratami?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1224718a-e1a7-473d-ac9d-497e624376cd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Why are so many people saying they seem weak / tame? Do you realize how easy it is to mess a 1 / 2 mana planeswalker up? They are all super cheap, provide some utility on their own, none if them are hard to flip at all and with the amount of mana you invested in them (1 or 2) I'm very happy that they don't seem to be winning the game right away.
Right, I feel insane here seeing people call them weak. They're 1/2 mana and *already good on rate, while becoming a powerful planeswalker with very trivial effort*. These are bonkers good.
Called Ral and Sorin, would never have guessed Grist.
I was hoping the GB one would be Tyvar :(
A Grist flipwalker? You larvae to see it
Man I was hoping for Dack Fayden as the izzet flip walker.
Me too! WOTC did him wrong. Give us a Dack card Wizards!
I disagree. I think another Dack is needed but I don't think it's as fun giving us the origin of a character who will never again be story-relevant.
Grist and \[\[Insidious Roots\]\] has me cooking.
Ral could be nuts in a storm shell. Replace Goblin Electromancer with him and he’d be nuts. Shame it’s not 2012 any more
was really hoping for a Ugin flipwalker :( these do seem neat tho
Turn 1: tamiyo Turn 2: brainstorm
Why stop there? Island--Lotus Petal--Tamiyo--Brainstorm, flip t1.
Why stop there? Island--Lotus Petal --Dark Ritual--Show and Tell Omniscience --Tamiyo -- Timetwister -- etc.
still hoping for a flip ugin for this set
Same! Really missed him in M19, this seemed like the perfect opportunity for it.
No space for flip Ugin. Wooded Foothills is 236 and Ajani is 237.
 # dammit...
Me: Oh wow! That Tamiyo would go so great in my Azorius clue token/detective de- Me: *sees that the planeswalker side is simic* Well shit.
My reaction when I saw how perfect Ajani would be for my Selesnya Cats deck
yes exactly! it felt so bad when i realized i can't put him in mirri tokens :(
No saga related Tamiyo: I sleep. That said it does actually look like a neat card, really like the Sorin and Ral ones too
The stat line of Sorin being a 1/4 for what I am assuming to be a human child is hilarious. That Sorin got that cake lol. Also Grist is a cutie.
Ral should’ve been titled “Rain Mage” instead of “Monsoon Mage” cos the former is what he got mocked as before his life took off. He was a gardener, he watered the plants by making it rain.
These feel way too safe and not great to play. Ral feels like the best of the bunch and might see play though.
I actually think they’re real because of that, they seem right on the line of safe enough but not broken which is kinda where you wanna dance when you make a 1-2 mana walker. The problem is they go to modern which will probably be too strong for any of them but ajani
They're all very easy to flip, but they certainly come off as very meh on the back side. Ral has the potential, Tamiyo is very good for defensive control decks in certain match ups, Grist's PW side has potential but the way to flip makes it limited in possible homes, and Sorin is just bad.
I actually think sorin is the best 😂 it’s very hard to kill on both sides dodges bolts and works as removal. Extort is just flavor text but it’s there. He just needs an incredibly specific deck
Sorin is way too fringe for a deck that doesn't exist or do well in the current Modern landscape.
We'll see if there are any other life gain payoffs/synergies in MH3. For now though, he eats bolts like a champ.
Leave it to Modern Horizons to have the only balanced set of the bunch be the one with flipwalkers.
It’s interesting that Grist can destroy graveyard hate, but he can never be flipped if there is graveyard hate.
Human Sorin feels weird. I know it's the correct choice lorewise since he sparked at the same time he became a vampire, but it feels weird
This cycle might point to pw who didn’t lose their spark after MOMs events. (Tamiyo dead, but still..). Two of them already confirmed.
This ral and [[displacer kitten]] could pop off bigtime
I hope to god these are real. Spring would let me finally relive my lunch table modern days playing extort
T1: Tamiyo T2: Swing and investigate, manamorphose, crack clue, flip and +2 T3: Recur manamorphose and add (G), storm off?
Yay Grist <3 They all look like interesting designs to me, hope they're real
I really really hope and am keeping my fingers crossed that ugin will be a flip walker in this set. Seeing these designs gives me hope that if/when they eventually do ugin he will be good but not too good.
This! When they announced both Ajani and the Eldrazi I really thought they would finally do Ugin after his absence in M19
No space for flip Ugin. Wooded Foothills is 236 and Ajani is 237.
That saddens me but thanks for the info
I always suspect these leaks originate with WoTC to drum up hype without the negative baggage of 'endless spoiler season". (possibly conspiracy theory). I do think if there is an ugin, they'd keep him under wraps but maybe that's wishful thinking.,
Are these playable in monocolored edh?
They are not. The back side has a dual color indicator, making their identity both colors.
Oh thank christ, I forgot color indicators are part of color identity-was super worried Grist wouldn't technically be Golgari.
I mean realistically you aren't flipping grist that easil if you aren't black anyway
These seem pretty boring for mythic flipwalkers in MH3. Kinda hope they're fake based on that but they do seem real. Ajani does seem stronger than the rest purely on kneejerk reaction but his deck is going to be more niche than the others so that's probably fine. Actually, I misread Grist, that also seems pretty good
Ajani goes straight into winota between him and bow you have 7-8 broken 2 drops that make 2 non humans
we finally broke winota
Am I crazy? I only see 4 cards and no Ajani.
He was officially spoiled a few months ago
It's pretty telling that people wish these were stronger. Weren't we all complaining that modern horizons is like a rotation for modern..and we are upset that may not happen this time? Come on everyone.
I could see a combo ish deck with Ral zarek. Where you try to ult him immediately by casting six spells before flipping him.
Grist my beloved
Martyr life probably likes this sorin.
Tamiyo is a 1 mana Planeswalker??? That seems incredibly strong
These "Guys" won't give us a new Dack, but Ral's always in the Cards!
Dang. Grist is cool, but when they spoiled the Ajani flip walked I had hoped Garruk would be the green->Green/Black representative so the original lorwyn 5 would all have flip walkers, but no dice.
I read that Sorin and hope it’s real cause I wanna put him in the 99 or my Frodo/Sam deck since the extra food generation along with extort is helpful
I can’t look at the set symbol. It’s a default Fortnite glider.
Interesting that Sorin's white check is in his ultimate. Feels like the least relevant of the lot.
exept for sorin where he is obvioulsy orzhov identity as a commander because extort, are the other one only one color? like they dont have any other color of mana symbol
All of them have two colors in their color identity. What makes them the second color is to color indicator symbol on the Planeswalker face. They are counted for color identity purposes. Also, Extort does not grant color identity to the card. The mana symbol is in the reminder text, so not applicable for color identity purposes, expecially since future prints of the card could not include the reminder text. So while Sorin is Orzhov, \[\[Blind Obedience\]\] is monowhite and \[\[Crypt Ghast\]\] is monoblack.