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At Pro Tour M15, Director of Global Organized Play Helene Bergeot sat down with Rich Hagon to discuss next season's grand prix schedule. Besides learning that she has an extremely charming accent, there is one thing that stuck out to me:
Let me zoom in on the important part for you:
Hmmm. Three concurrent Limited GPs, taking place well after the release of the third set of the Khans of Tarkir block, but before M16's release. We see two GPs at a time relatively often, but I can't think of any time when three have been going on at once.
With Grand Prix Las Vegas—remember that one? The huge Modern Masters GP in 2013?—capping out at nearly 4,500 attendees, this seems like Wizards of the Coast is basically screaming at us: "Modern Masters 2 is coming next summer and we are going to have three GPs in order to properly accommodate the fervor this will cause in the community!"
This was certainly my first thought, and Twitter blew up shortly after Helene's interview, so I'm not the only one. This more or less feels like early confirmation to me. I'm not sure why the cities in question are still to be determined, unless WOTC believes saying that there will be another GP Vegas in May 2015 is too obvious, but really, could this slide be any more obvious as it is?
I cannot fathom a world in which this is anything other than a Modern Masters 2 spoiler. If you have another theory, please share below in the comments so that there is empirical evidence of how wrong you were when the official announcement is made.
And one more thing: this probably means no Zendikar fetch land reprints in Khans of Tarkir block. Those are the big-ticket items that will help MM2 be as much of a success as MMA, and WOTC is on record as wanting less shuffling in Standard tournaments. Expect to see different dual lands in Standard with fetch land reprints next May. Of course, we can keep hoping for Onslaught fetches in Khans!
I keep hearing that WotC doesn’t like shuffling in Standard, but there are an inordinate number of cards in M15 that allow library searching (and thus shuffling). Has WotC been on record RECENTLY as wanting to limit shuffling, or is that perhaps an outdated stance? It seems odd that they’d put so many search cards into the core set if they really don’t want people to have to shuffle repeatedly.
I mentioned this over in Jason’s announcement for the GP Promo.
What you missed here too is that Season 1 has 2 Modern GPs and then none in Season 2. Then over the month after this triple event there are 3 different Modern GPs.
Sounds like something of a modern masters set to me.
I think Wizards wishes that there was a good way to eliminate shuffling, but they also know that its too ingrained in Magic at this point.
Modern is built on the fetch-dual plan. It’s the best way to get colors to play your spells. It would be a gargantuan task to redesign that, and you would have to ban Fetchlands just because they shuffle. Then you have Pod, PtE, a bunch of Tron cards, and a huge stack of fringe cards that people enjoy like Teachings, Knight, etc. Not like Wizards cares, but Vintage, Legacy, and EDH spend even more time shuffling than Modern.
TLDR; Wizards has accepted that shuffling is part of the game that Magic has become. There is no stopping it, so… bring on the Fetch reprints!
I would consider Legacy Masters as a possibility- it doesn’t seem as much of a stretch for them after MM and Vintage Masters online. They can still throw in a bunch of needed Modern cards- fetches , Lili and another round of Goyf etc. as needed. I agree that MM2 is much more likely.
Legacy Masters. They have never made a ‘part 2’ to any set, only returns and that flavor doesn’t work with this set because its supplemental. Conspiricy 2? I doubt it. As designers replicating is pretty boring, it would really have to be about the numbers. They Made Vintage Masters and Modern Masters, so I think it will be Legacy Masters. There are a ton of cards ready to become mythics (Force of Will, Wasteland, Sneak Attack, Show and Tell, Lilliana of the Veil, etc). Dual lands are not necessary- just because you want them does not need they need to put them in, they didn’t put fetches, shocks, or filters in Modern Masters.