With just a week to go until Magic: The Gathering‘s most anticipated expansion of 2021 releases, Wizards of the Coast has steadily been ramping up the hype with reveals.
Modern Horizons 2, a sequel to the 2019 original – itself the first-ever set designed specifically for the card game’s Modern format – contains creatures, sorceries, enhancements and artifacts all adorned with keywords both evergreen and long-since retired from Standard. That being the case, the degree to which power levels can fluctuate (and deck recipes vary) is much greater than Magic‘s core ruleset, naturally resulting in a higher appeal rating to veteran fans.
And make no mistake, some of the Legendary Creatures you’ll find in packs of MH2 could well be among the most powerful ever printed, especially Grist, The Hunger Tide. A 3-cost green/black Planeswalker, Grist is able to accumulate loyalty counters at dizzying speed due to its +1 ability, the caveat being that players must mill their own deck to fuel resource accumulation.
Commit to the game plan, however, and the payoff will be an extremely damaging effect with the potential to knock an opponent out of the match in one fell swoop.
Thankfully, users of other colors have plenty of tools at their disposal to put up a good fight, including the red/blue Yusri, Fortune’s Flame. Manage to pull off the Efreet’s best-case scenario (which requires luck with coin flips) and you’ll be able to cast any spell currently in hand for free.
Magic: The Gathering Modern Horizons 2 releases June 18th for tabletop but not Arena, as it has its own non-Standard constructed format in Historic. For all the latest news concerning the latter, see here.
