Well technically it’s called Modern Horizons 3 because it still has cards that broke Modern. But well, I see the set in a different way, equally not liking it.
So it all goes back to 2006’s Time Spiral trilogy. It was an art gallery of Magic, specifically Dominaria, where all the crazy ideas got a chance to be tried, like basically every keyword up to that point, some colorshifted cards that would prove to be horrible mistakes and many future ideas we still haven’t arrived on. Which means that the vast majority of people just doesn’t have the braincells to figure it all out, but the few that can (they play Magic for a decade at that point) enjoys everything about it. So would that be a right thing to put as the one block of Magic sets for the whole year? No. But maybe it can be something to the side.
About many years later, they would have a slot for a set like that each year. At first, it was for side decks of giant Magic cards, then it was for reprint sets with a few chase cards and a bunch of draft chaffs irrelevant to Pauper, then it was for sets that have cards that directly affect the drafts, then finally they landed on Time Spiral 2, not one big bell or whistle, just all the smaller bells and whistles. It was called Modern Horizons because you know Time Spiral is Modern legal too, I guess.
Modern Horizons succeed at making a lot of new innovate designs that no longer needs to be as esoteric as the ones back in TSP, but then it obviously failed at balancing because a lot of cards turned out to be stupidly broken. This was certainly during a really controversial era of MTG balancing, the whole Play Design, FIRE Design was thrown around so much it just felt right to be angry. Especially at how NotC sell these packs certainly not at $4 anymore since they killed of the MSRP (finally brought it back now), it felt these decisions had to connect somehow.
But well, money speaks and with that, 2021 has the second Modern Horizons. Frankly a lot of the strengths and weaknesses persist really, but hey at least they reprinted the enemy fetchlands, that was a whole rallying cry back in 2020. I guess Modern Horizons could just be the biannual rotation now, but turns out 2023 has an UB set instead, which has a certain really broken namesake card that NotC cowardly didn’t ban for ages, and I look at it and just be like “cowards could have made MH3 and maybe I’d tolerate that better than this bland mess”.
Which they did instead in 2024. Frankly a lot of the strengths and weaknesses still persist really, and 2025 won’t be having another due to all 6 main draft sets being Standard legal, allegedly to balance better (because NotC has better experience with just Standard’s card pool rather than Modern’s mess) but who truly knows, technically you could reprint a chunk of these MH cards in Standard and I don’t think they’d break anything.
Honestly I’m willing to trade a UB set in 2027 for MH4. Through I have a dying feeling Pioneer Horizons is coming for real any time now. Then we’ll have a new format starting in Eldraine (with preemtively banned cards obviously), keep building the staircase from Standard to Vintage to be more and more complicated.
Why do I call MH3 is mocking nickname? Because obviously looking at the broken cards you obviously see the cynical attempt at cards strong enough to rotate Modern only openable in $10 packs. But now look at the wider picture. Which character is on the box? Which archertypes got overlapped between the color pairs? How do the arts make you feel? Which planes are of the most broken cards? Suddenly it feels much further from its Time Spiral roots than the last 2 MHs.
You may notice that MH1’s box has Serra on it, you know this Dominarian character enthusiasts only have heard in flavor texts really, now I guess most casuals just see a pretty Magali piece, which is part of the goal of Modern Horizons in the current MTG context really. Then MH2’s box as Dakkon Blackblade on it, this legend from the literal first set to have Commanders in it. Granted the magenta background behind him felt horribly unfitting, since maybe you know MH2 more for the Set Boosters box with some squirrels on it, at least you can trace that to MaRo if you read his design lore enough.
And now look at MH3’s box and it has… Ajani, this overrated planeswalker that last appeared in like a stupid counterspell in MOM showing him getting cured meanwhile some more deserving characters like Tamiyo don’t. I know the Boros card from Alara, which came from 2008, is pretty old, and that’s what actually got referenced in this set. But like well that’s hinting at something bad for MH3, it lost a lot of the uniquely nuanced Dominaria power of the previous MHs in favor of crap you can see in any other set. I may be overexaggerating out of elitism but…
For this set, I’d invite you to look at the draft archertypes instead of the mechanics to see what the set actually focused on. First off, the three pairs of Jeskai all use energy, obviously to different pacings. Then there’s two pairs of Temur (they can’t use Izzet since energy took that) which used the design mistake that are colored Eldrazis of BFZ. Then the three pairs of Abzan takes on Modified, not exactly the first thing you think about Neon Dynasty and I think this set agreed with these cards set on frankly any planes that used +1/+1 counters really. The last two archertypes are UB card draw control and BR artifacts affinity, they’re the only disconnected one of the bunch, allegedly could add their common enemy to make a big mana deck and an aggro deck respectively.
That’s certainly the kind of design you expect more of a Standard set where keywords are in fact limited and you kinda want to carve a bit more depth from splashing third colors instead of just being able to have however much depth you wish from just the cards. Which is what the first 2 MHs did, none of the archertypes overlap or even if they do how they overlap is really up to interpretation. Which made for the set to be a lot more diverse functionwise and flavorwise.
So what you ended up with is needing to design 2 big piles of cards based on the same two jokes, and whatever room is left can be more interesting I guess. And that definitely shows, like on the second Mulldrifter reference in Modern Horizons, or the second Siege-Gang Commander reference, or the second Dreadmaw reference, or just straight up referencing previous Modern Horizons characters (there’s two of them, both in green Imao). Looking at these repetitive jokes makes me feel really sad, like do NotC really have ran out of ideas that quickly with their current day restrictions, or they really justify these stuff with “oh the enthusiasts you know yall definitely want these jokes every set so we have to do it”.
Oh right this set also got horribly leaked. Honestly in retrospect it’s 2/3rd of Aftermath’s deserve.
It’s probably the biggest amount of Mythics in one set in a while: 25 whole cards. Due to five DFCs being added in addition to the usual 20 SFCs. Note up here I won’t be counting the reprints, they’re their own slots.