Modern Masters FULL Preview

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

Happy indeed as it is Friday and the end of the work / school week for most and later this evening, unwind with a few FNM matches of Magic: the Gathering at our local gaming store, OMG! Games.  Sounds good - more so, if the horrific winter storm clears up in time.  Here is a pic of what it is like outside right now (early afternoon) here in Barrie, Ontario, where a trailer of Georgian Bay is eliminating any kind of visibility.  In this rather murky image, there is a City and beautiful waterfront.  

Anywhoos, if we can't convince the sled dogs to go out tonight, we'll stay in and look over all the cards in the soon-to-be-relased Modern Masters 2017 set.  Today's article on MTG Realm summarises what one can expect with the new set.  For the full card image gallery, pop on over to the Wizards of the Coast site (being hosted on a server in Seattle, where is is abundantly more cheerful outside).

Big news - Damnation receives its first reprint in a set.  Also of note, is that both Snapcaster Mage and Cavern of Souls become the first cards originally printed as a rare in a standard set printed after mythic rares were introduced, to be reprinted as a mythic rare.  This set looks pretty much awesome and we're looking forward to draft and collect.  There is a total of 249 cards (101 commons, 80 uncommons, 53 rares, 15 mythic rares) to be assembled in a variety of awesome shapes 'n' forms for limited.

From today's article from WotC staffer Sam, it appears that the Modern Masters 2017 features the following limited archetypes:

White-Blue - Blink

Blue-Black - Instant Control

Black-Red - Unearth/Sacrifice

Red-Green - Token Go-Wide

Green-White - Populate

White-Blue-Black - Control (with Creatures)

Blue-Black-Red - Graveyard

Black-Red-Green - Sacrifice

Red-Gree-White - Token Aggro

Green-White-Blue - Splicers

Many Modern format gamers are quite interested in Changes in Rarity, as this does drive (to a limited point) the prices of card singles.  Here is the quick 'n' dirty summary of rarity changes -

Common to Uncommon : Compulsive Research, Molten Rain, Vithian Stinger, Terminate, Azorius Signet, Dimir Signet, Rakdos Signet, Gruul Signet, Selesnya Signet, Orzhov Signet, Izzet Signet, Golgari Signet, Boros Signet, Simic Signet

Uncommon to Common : Magma Jet, Burning-Tree Emissary, Gnawing Zombie, Augur of Bolas

Rare to Common : Mortician Beetle

Rare to Uncommon : Goblin Assault, Inquisition of Kozilek, Sedraxis Specter

Rare to Mythic : Snapcaster Mage

Mythic to Rare : Falkenrath Aristocrat, Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius
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Here at MTG Realm, we are definitely interested in new illustrations provided by Wizards of the Coast.  The last Modern Masters set had about 5 new card arts if we recall correctly.  You should be quite pleased to learn that we have identified about 14 new card arts I have taken note of so far :

Abyssal Specter - Daarken
Agent of Masks - Allen Williams
Cavern of Souls - Richard Wright
Compulsive Research - Sara Winters
Goblin Guide - Filip Burburan
Might of old Krosa - Lars Grant-West
Molten Rain - Sung Choi
Past in Flames - Anna Steinbauer
Ranger of Eos - Ryan Pancoast
Serum Visions - Izzy
Snapcaster Mage - Ryan Alexander Lee
Stony Silence - Mark Poole
Terminate - Lucas Graciano

Urbis Protector - Magali Villeneuve

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