Face the incomprehensible horrors of the Eldrazi and unleash your roar like Ajani Goldmane – we got an early opportunity to check out the Modern Horizons 3 set for Magic the Gathering (MTG), thanks to our friends at Wizards of the Coast.
Modern Horizons 3 is the upcoming booster set of MTG and like Modern Horizons and Modern Horizons 2, this set is set to introduce new cards into the Modern and Eternal formats without them being legal in Standard. Not only would this set introduce new cards, but also reprints of powerful cards from MTG’s history to the Modern format. With that being said, let’s have a look at what’s within this expansion, with its Play Boosters, Collector Boosters, Commander Decks, and Bundles.
Starting off, we have the Modern Horizons 3 Bundle, a.k.a. the fat pack – featuring leonin planeswalker Ajani Goldmane as the poster boy with his regal lion glory. In this big box of awesomeness, you can find 9 packs of Player Boosters, a “Powerbalance” card with alternate artwork, 15 basic land cards in Traditional Foil, and another 15 as regular cards, a d20 dice as your life counter, as well as the box itself.
There will, of course, also be Collector Booster in this set as well, where you have a higher chance of pulling Foiled and Rare cards.
Of course, the treasure trove of every MTG set is the cards. Be ready to feel nostalgic, because this set brought in retro frame treatment that pays homage to card designs from Magic’s history. Meanwhile, in terms of mechanics, the big thing of Modern Horizons 3 is the return of new double-face cards (DFC) as well as allied fetch lands – nonbasic lands that grant players ways to fully customize and optimize their mana base. The allied fetch lands themselves are available in 4 different treatments – regular frame, extended-art frame, retro frame, and borderless frame.
As usual, we also have the Commander Decks – this time featuring characters Omo, Ulalek, Satya, and Disa as the Commanders. Omo commands the Tricky Terrain deck as “Omo, Queen of Vesuva” with a playstyle focusing on maximizing every land card for wombo combo potential and ramping up stronger summons before opponents can.
Meanwhile, the deck Creative Energy is Satya’s deck with him as “Satya, Aetherflux Genius“. This deck is described as having a focus on generating energy counters to overpower the board with artifacts and creature effects. On the other hand, Ulalek commands the Eldrazi as “Ulalek, Fused Atrocity” in the Eldrazi Incursion deck, focusing on a playstyle in sacrifice and ramping up from small Eldrazi Spawns and Scions to towering monsters.
As for Disa, she will become “Disa the Restless” and command the Graveyard Overdrive deck. As the name implies, this deck is all about controlling your graveyard, filling it up with all manner of creatures and card types before using them to fuel your counterattack.
As with every MTG expansion, it is always exciting to unpack bundles and packs to unveil fresh new cards with epic art and cool mechanics to mess around with. If you want to know more about the expansion, here are the card types and mechanics you could expect, as well as our special card previews of the double-face card “Hydroelectric Specimen” and “Hydroelectric Laboratory”.
Modern Horizons 3 will be released in full for tabletop on June 14, 2024, and will be available in Play Boosters, Collector Boosters, Commander Decks, Pre-release Packs, and Bundles.