Modern Horizons 3 is here, and with it come some incredibly powerful cards, great new card art, and reprints.
The latest set introduces Flip-walkers, more Eldrazi Titans, and Flare Spells while also highlighting nostalgia through the return of the old cards with Special Guest reprints and Retro Frame Prints for modern cards. Fetch Lands also feature in the set, which will hopefully lower their current market value to make them more accessible. Below, we cover the highlights, most notable cards, and the best hits to find in your packs.
Table of contents
Flip-Walkers
The newest Modern Horizons set brings with it five new Flip-Walkers. These are legendary creatures that require the player to fulfil a specific task, which, once achieved, will transform the creature into a powerful planeswalker. Below are all five of the new Flip-Walkers.
Ajani, Nacatl Pariah | Ajani, Nacatl Avenger
Grist, Voracious Larva | Grist, The Plague Swarm
Ral, Monsoon Mage | Ral, Leyline Prodigy
Sorin of House Markov | Sorin, Ravenous Neonate
Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student | Tamiyo, Seasoned Scholar
Eldrazi Titans
The most powerful Eldrazi cards in all of Magic: The Gathering, Eldrazi Titans strike fear into your “friends” at the table. The always-noted drawback is the huge mana cost, but if you can make one stick for long enough to get a couple of attacks in, it’ll be game over. Here are the three new Titans in the Modern Horizons 3 Expansion.
Emrakul, The World Anew
Emrakul, the World Anew is a powerhouse Eldrazi that dramatically swings the tide of battle. Stealing your opponent’s creatures and boasting Flying and temporary protection from spells and permanents makes it an incredibly powerful card. However, its high mana cost and self-destruction upon leaving the battlefield make it a high-risk, high-reward play. Discarding it with Madness at instant speed can be a gamble, but it offers surprise value. Ultimately, Emrakul, the World Anew is a win-more card for aggressive decks that can handle the cons.
Ulamog, The Defiler
Ulamog, the Defiler, is an Eldrazi titan that inspires dread. Costing 10 mana, it cripples opponents by exiling half their library when cast. Ward, with a sacrifice of two permanents, protects it from removal spells, and entering the battlefield with +1/+1 counters based on the highest exiled card’s mana value makes it a tough challenge to take down. To make matters worse, Ulamog boasts annihilator X, where X is the number of +1/+1 counters on it. Ulamog offers unmatched board control and an overwhelming threat to those who can manage its power. It’s not going to be a fun time for anyone who has to play against it.
Kozilek, The Broken Reality
Kozilek, the Broken Reality, twists the very fabric of the game. This 9-mana Eldrazi titan warps reality upon arrival, forcing opponents to manifest cards from their hand – essentially turning them into mystery creatures. Kozilek draws a card for each manifested card, fueling your own resources. Plus, you can also target yourself, allowing you to manifest cards from your hand, which provides synergy to other manifest-based decks. However, it doesn’t stop there; Kozilek grants your other colourless creatures a significant power and toughness boost, solidifying your board presence. Considering all facedown cards are 2/2 and colourless, this could prove extremely damaging for your opponents. While its high mana cost demands some strategic planning, Kozilek’s buffs offer a unique and potent edge.
Fetch Lands
Fetch Lands are some of the most sought-after land types in all of magic. Because of this, they’ve always been far too expensive, at least for our casual commander tastebuds. Players who play all formats of Magic: The Gathering that Fetch Lands are legal in will rejoice, as these reprints will help to lower their prices.
Fetch lands sacrifice themselves, allowing you to search your deck for a basic land and place it on the battlefield untapped. What is the cost of doing so? Only one life. Absolutely worth it every time.
As an added bonus to these, any decks that care about filling your graveyard will see even more upside to Fetch Lands. Furthermore, Fetch Lands are very important when utilizing Landfall abilities as these trigger “whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control.” There are five in Modern Horizons 3, and all are in the allied colours.
Flare Spells
Five “Flare” Instant spells (one in each colour) have been introduced with Modern Horizons 3, and they seem particularly powerful, especially in Aristocrat decks. Their power comes from their shared card text: “You may sacrifice a nontoken creature (of that card’s colour) rather than pay this spells mana cost“.
The effects range from zero mana ramp, copying target spells, or even countering target spells. Cards that can be played for free have always been popular in Magic: The Gathering because of their tempo advantage and the flexibility of not having to keep lands untapped, which is invaluable. We expect these cards only to rise in value until they receive reprints in future sets. All five Flare spells are shown below.
Special Guests
Special Guest cards are powerful reprints of older cards and can be found in Booster packs. All of these cards have received the borderless treatment, and half of them have a foil option. You can check out all the Special Guest cards available in Modern Horizons 3 below.
Borderless Profile Cards
Borderless Profile Cards return in the Modern Horizons 3 set, and we are huge suckers for borderless art cards in Magic: The Gathering.
Like with all cards, some are cooler than others, but we love the pastel background colours and side profile artworks of some of our favourite legendary creatures in the set. While these might be a little outside the price range for us trying to purchase the cards, we can always sit back, admire, and hope that we pack one of these stunning cards. Here are some of our favourites:
Ripple Foils
A cool new Foiling has been applied to some Borderless Profile cards in the set. The Ripple Foil effect looks great and shows multiple foiled circles and diamonds across the card. They are exclusive to Modern Horizons 3 Collector’s Edition Commander decks and will likely have a high resale value in the future.
These cards seem to be thicker than the old foils. Hopefully, this will help prevent the pringling/bending of foils seen in past expansions. But only time will tell if it’s had the desired effect. You can view the example of the Ripple Foil below, but it’s hard to showcase the true beauty of one of these cards in an image.
Medallions
A powerful card effect now and forever will always be mana discounts. The longer you’re able to keep effects like this on board, the more you’ll be able to snowball on your opponents, making you hard to beat. Fortunately, Modern Horizons 3 adds reprints of Medallions, which aim to do exactly that.
There are five Medallions in total, one for each colour. They are artifacts costing two colourless mana to get on the board but offer a 1 mana discount for each card played in that mana colour. You can check out all the different Medallions below, alongside their Borderless options.
Retro Frame Prints
Modern Horizons 3 features a special subset of cards with a visual throwback to the classic Magic: the Gathering aesthetic: Retro Frame Prints. There are 75 Retro Prints in Modern Horizons 3:
- 11x White
- 11x Blue
- 12x Black
- 13x Red
- 10x Green
- 5x Multicolour
- 6x Colourless
- 7x Land
If you want to check out all of the cards, you can do so via the official Magic website. A few of our favourites are in the image below.
That’s everything you need to know about the Modern Horizons 3 set in Magic: The Gathering. Are you considering picking up some cards? They are more expensive than usual, but they are definitely one of the better sets in recent times.
Make sure you check out our Guide Hub for more articles like this one, and if you want to know if you can sell some of your Modern Horizons 3 cards, you can check out the 10 most expensive cards from the set here.
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