Modern Master 2 has been out on Magic Online for a week. I’ve played something like 27 drafts. I’ll come out and say it. I don’t love this format. It feels uninspired, clunky, and not really well thought out. I’m comparing this set directly to MM1.
Modern Masters 1 was a really amazing draft set. I wasn’t super huge on the sealed format, but it was deep enough to be vastly different than the draft format. I think that speaks to how well thought out the set was. Each color combo had an exact thing that it wanted to do but it had enough flexibility to branch out and do other stuff.
But enough about MM1. Modern Masters 2 just feels like a conduit for reprints. That’s fine! I’m all about reprints. Hell, lift the reserved list and print some Moxes! Seriously though, at $10 a pack it feels like shit to open a pack and receive some random draft trash. I could complain all day about MM2 and why I think it’s an opportunistic cash grab but there’s one way to make sure that it doesn’t go down like this again in 2 years.
Just don’t buy it.
I know that sounds simple and really blunt and I’m sure you’re worried that if you don’t buy this set they won’t do MM3. But rest assured that set is gonna happen either way. The success of GP Las Vegas insured that. Modern is a fun format and it is exciting. Players like it, and the value gained from their cards post rotation from Standard. If you want to change how the next set is made, you need to voice your disdain for this one.
Case in point, we haven’t returned to Kamigawa, we probably won’t ever. There’s a terrible stigma with that plane that the players made clear. Core sets are going the way of the dodo bird. Players didn’t like them… any of them. We dealt with these things because we love the game and because WOTC listens to us when we all feel the same way about something.
How is it that I don’t like it, but I’ve played it so much?
That’s simple. Online the packs are much cheaper. 30% cheaper. And I don’t have any modern staples online. I’d like to get in more tournament practice online for Modern and Legacy. Right now Modern Online is at it’s cheapest. If you want to buy a deck online in this format, it’s never been a better time to pony up. I’m upset, but I’m not stupid. The prices on these reprints are down now, but in a year they should climb steadily to their previous costs. Look at Vintage Masters. Staples for Legacy and Vintage slowly recovered their prices. So yea I hate the draft format, it’s linear and there’s no gotcha deck like storm or dredge it’s just jamming guys into guys and hoping that your guys have more quality or quantity than your opponents guys. Combat tricks are so rampant that its better to wait til you opponent cant block or dodge removal than to use it to create you ideal board state. Here I go complaining again. That said, I’m 66% precent with this format online, better than most times I move into MTGO. so there’s that. Simple isn’t always better, though. The losses I take feel cheap, and from the hate my opponents deal me, They hate it too.
I had a guy I split with, and wished GL in a 8-4, call me a bad player in the first round of the next draft as I mangled him with a Goblin War Painted, Apostle’s Blessing’d Viashino Slaughtermaster with a Daybreak Coronet that I had just Might Leaped for 18 damage… He was at 14 I was still at 20. The salt was so real he couldn’t keep it to himself. That’s not indicative of a fun draft format. I not only didn’t interact with him but when he tried to interact with me, I just paid 1W and said NOPE. Of course he was upset. That’s just one scenario where I won but my opponent was angry.
TL;DR
I liked MM1 Better. I hope that WOTC sees how much we liked that and fixes the price problem, playability of the set and the experience of the losers of the next MM set.
Or IDK JUST PRINT ENOUGH OF IT AND DONT MAKE VENDORS RAISE THE PRICE BECAUSE ITS HARD TO GET.
Zac Clark