Interview: Designing Magic: The Gathering Modern Horizons 3

For the entire time I’ve been a fan of Magic: The Gathering, which started at some point during the UK’s various staggered lockdowns, fans have revered Modern Horizons 2 as one of the greatest sets to grace the TCG. Not only has its value never dropped, but every content creator I follow has nothing bad to say about it, often using boxes for giveaways.

That’s why, when Wizards of the Coast announced Modern Horizons 3, I knew I needed to get in on it and pay attention. It would hopefully be the new standard for sets in Magic: The Gathering until Modern Horizons 4. Now that it’s out, we know that this set absolutely lived up to our extremely high expectations. The Commander Precons are great, the Collector Boosters are fantastic, and the set is just great fun to play with, build decks around, and admire in a collection.

So when offered the chance to sit down with senior game designer Michael Majors and product architect Mike Turian, I wanted to ask about everything: the goals for Modern Horizons 3, the designs, the story implications and more. Here’s everything we learned about the set from two of its designers.

What makes the Modern Horizons sets such massive cornerstones of MTG expansions for you?

Michael Majors: “There are multiple components. One is that I’ve always loved Modern. It has a deep card pool that enables and rewards creative deck building. That has always been my favorite part of Magic, figuring out ways to combine disparate pieces or diamonds in the rough in exciting ways that result in a sum greater than its parts. Giving folks more toys to add to their metaphorical sandbox is a real highlight for me, and I take a lot of joy in providing interesting ways for people to express themselves through the cards.

“The second is that Modern Horizons, by nature, not formally connected to a particular plane or story, gives us the opportunity to make both creative allusions and rich mechanical mashups that would be considered out of place or potentially too complex in a normal frontlist release. The product line was originally pitched as a ‘Time Spiral 2,’ a block known as a love letter to fans of Magic way back in 2006. Since then, there’s been a lot more Magic made that’s available to reference and draw upon. Modern Horizon’s creative conceit, which I often refer to
as ‘canonically out of place and time,’ gives us a ton of freedom to combine interesting ideas and reintroduce old characters.”

What were the team’s goals when sitting down to create Modern Horizons 3?

Michael Majors: “The short version was try not to break Modern too badly.

“Joking aside, there were a lot of challenges and expectations that needed to be managed. Tradeoffs are always going to be a reality. We had received ample data and feedback at that stage that Modern Horizons 2 was probably too pushed, and while fans of Magic love cracking open and playing with powerful cards, we needed to pivot in a slightly different direction. From the beginning, I knew we couldn’t “compete directly” with Modern Horizons 2.

“Early on, there was exploration done to find some lapsed themes that were a part of Modern and Standard previously that fans could be excited about if they were brought back. This resulted in some cornerstones of the set – Eldrazi, and Energy, as well as some one-off designs that aren’t intended to overwrite the usefulness of cards that folks already own but give them new options to play with.

“From the beginning, I intended Modern Horizons 3 to target three primary audiences – competitive Modern players per the set’s namesake, Commander players, and folks who have nostalgia for Magic’s history. A looser goal was that many of the most exciting cards in the set could overlap with multiple portions of these audiences. Some examples of this are the energy rares referencing powerful cards from Magic’s past, Necrodominance, and Birthing Ritual.

“The internet likes to joke that the Horizons product line is ‘Commander Horizons,’ but again, products like these require tradeoffs. Nobody would end up happy if the product had 200 shots at Modern, not only for its overall implications on the format but the simple reality that it would be impossible for the format to absorb that much content.

“On a micro level, Modern Horizons 2 providing a bevy of both powerful individual rate cards as well as many strong answers to those rate cards. For the most part, we didn’t focus as heavily on MH3 on providing more answer cards, with some exceptions, but wanted to give more power back to synergy cards, engines, and other lapsed strategies from Modern’s past. A good example of this is the MDFC Flip Planeswalkers. They’re individually powerful cards but shine the brightest when incorporated in some specific types of strategies – Spell-based combo, Graveyard strategies, Sacrifice decks, and Life Gain, to name a few possibilities.”

Did you use Modern Horizons 1+2 as baselines or reference points when putting this set together? Or did you look at MTG as a whole?

Michael Majors: “Absolutely, both! I admit, after having done all three of these sets, I’ve used a lot of my ideas, but grounding the set in more firm mechanical space (Energy, Eldrazi, Modifications) as well as getting fresh perspectives from team members helps a lot for creating more awesome and nostalgic content for folks.

“We also give ourselves a lot to work with – essentially all of Magic’s history! In this case, we even went into Magic’s future – sort of. While Modern Horizons 3 is releasing after Murders of Karlov Manor, of course, I loved the concept of using Collect Evidence on a graveyard-based card so much that we even pulled a mechanic forward from a set that hadn’t come out yet while we were designing Modern Horizons 3 for Detective’s Phoenix.”

Are there any particular moments in the Modern Horizons 3 story that you’re particularly excited about?

Michael Majors: “As noted previously, MH3’s story larger takes place out of time and space, but we do get to capture a few specific moments and characters that are always awesome to see. The headliners are the MDFC Flip Planeswalkers – seeing their spark moment, as well as the Eldrazi, most notably Emrakul, the World Anew back dropped against the Innistrad moon that would become her prison. Some other highlights include seeing Shilgengar, Sire of Famine – the Elder Demon that Sorin’s family makes a pact with, as well Genku, Future Shaper – Tamiyo’s husband with whom they run an orphanage.”

The Eldrazi seem to draw upon the unknowable gods and ancient creatures from the entire cosmic horror sub-genre. How do you approach such powerful beings and bring them in line with all MTG cards so they’re not as overpowered as they would be in real life?

Michael Majors: “The mana system of Magic does a lot of work for us! They are way more powerful than the normal creatures you might see in Magic, but that’s the beauty of the game, you really must work for them. The question is where and how do you strike a balance of making players excited and satisfied by working so hard to cast these extremely powerful creatures. We want to make their arrival on the battlefield feel like an event that players will talk about – something worthy of their reputation.”

Unlike most sets, Modern Horizons 3 seems to draw a line at where MTG expansions have reached and pulls mechanics from them to help push the game forward. Which ones are you most excited about in Modern Horizons 3 specifically, and why?

Michael Majors: “Energy! It’s cool and both tricky to develop and play with. I viewed it as a large opportunity to make cards that we can’t traditionally make – as an alternate resource, Energy really puts pressure on players to build around it synergistically and gives more freedom to us as designers to concentrate power among a very specific portion of the card pool. We wouldn’t really be able to make direction allusions to Recurring Nightmare or Alluren without severely powering them down, but using a restriction like Energy, we can make powerful cards worthy of their callbacks.

Magic: The Gathering isn’t all card mechanics and playing the game, though, a decent chunk of the fan base consists of collectors who just want to pick up the cards and own them, Magic: The Gathering Arena players, and those who just want to watch others play but understand the cards on a deeper level by owning them. I’m certainly guilty of having purchased Commander Decks and not played with them yet.

What was the inspiration for the Ripple Foil effect in this set?

Mike Turian: “We are always looking to find new, striking foil treatments for Magic. Ripple Foil has an amazing sheen to it, much like looking out at a ripple in a serene lake. With Modern Horizons 3 being a celebration of Magic, we went out and searched for a treatment that would amplify the beauty of the artwork. Ripple Foil had that quality of being striking and making the already amazing art stand out even more.”

We’ve not seen Collector Commander decks since the launch of the Warhammer 40K sets. Why did you want
Modern Horizons 3 to have these?

Mike Turian: “When we set out making the first Modern Horizons set, we knew that it would appeal to players of the Modern format, and it did. What also happened was our community of Commander players got excited by the cards in Modern Horizons 1 too. We saw this happen again in Modern Horizons 2. As it turns out Commander players love powerful and appealing cards. So, when we were planning out Modern Horizons 3, it made sense to be able to create cards with the feel of a Horizons set that were focused on solely the Commander audience. With the Commander decks being part of MH3, we were able to create new designs that had the feel of being part of Modern Horizons 3, without having to worry about how they played in Modern.

“From there, the Collector editions of Commander decks had been quite popular with Warhammer 40,000 and with MH3 we saw a chance to combine the new Ripple Foil treatment with the cool new Commander-focused designs. The reception for the Collector Commander has already been so positive, I’m glad we could bring it all together for Modern Horizons 3.”

If you’re allowed to reveal it, what is your favorite card, or cards, that you worked on from the set and why?

Michael Majors: “Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd. I’m very biased. She’s based off my dog. The thought process was essentially: people like dogs. I have a corgi; and we’ve never done a corgi. Ok, how would I show a corgi in Magic’s language? They’re herding dogs. Flickering things is like herding. If she herds your things, she gets a treat. And here we are.”

What would you like players, both long-time fans and newcomers, to get out of Modern Horizons 3 as they pick up cards and sit down to play?

Majors & Turian: “Have fun and explore the possibility space. I’ve absolutely loved watching content creators brew with the cards even this early, and the fact that some of the cards don’t have so-obvious homes gives me a lot of joy as a deck builder. Whether you have nostalgia for the references and mechanical mashups of Modern Horizons 3 or not, we hope that players everywhere love playing with the cards.”