The writing is on the wall at this point: Treasure Cruise is wearing out it's welcome in Modern and the format as a whole is suffering because of it.

While some people like playing budget Vintage, the proliferation of U/R Delver in Modern has gone to the same precipice that we saw with Jund before the ban of Bloodbraid Elf and Deathrite Shaman.

Wizards really only has two options at this point: ban Treasure Cruise or decide that Modern doesn't really matter as a format. With rumors of Modern Masters 2 coming down the pipeline, it's doubtful they're willing to give up on Modern just yet, even if the new PTQ structure does very little to promote it.

A World Without Boats

So Modern pretty much just snaps right back to the way it was before Khans of Tarkir, right? Well, not exactly. There's a number of elements in play that can drastically effect the format and create opportunities for financial growth.

First of all, there's the obvious:

Each of these lands repositions various decks and strategies simply by existing. Many strategies were put into a position where by being the colors they were, they were basically forced to play with Vanguard cards that said -2 or -4 life with none of the upsides.

Just look at Wooded Foothills. It makes an immediate impact in a number of decks: Scapeshift and the Primeval Titan based Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle decks are both greatly aided by the existence of Wooded Foothills.

They were previously forced to use off color fetches like Misty Rainforest or Scalding Tarn to provide access to the mana they needed to operate. It easily allows you to go beyond 8 fetches in Temur decks without limiting your ability to get basic lands.

Windswept Heath easily slots into Birthing Pod decks, which were previously using the now defunct Marsh Flats--not an ideal situation when your deck consists of 7-8 mana dorks and a strong desire for a basic forest on turn one.

Simply by playing Windswept Heath, all Birthing Pod decks were more or less given +2 life every game. While this doesn't seem seem that dramatic, 2 life is often a mountain of opposition for fast decks. Just look at Burn or Zoo.

The combination of these two cards also creates something that didn't exist before: a mana base that you actually wouldn't mind playing in a Zoo deck.

Before Khans of Tarkir, it was a very painful prospect to be playing any Naya based aggro deck because you couldn't search for the lands you wanted when you wanted them.

By being forced to play with awkward fetch bases like Verdant Catacombs and Arid Mesa, you were often starting at a virtual 14 or 16 life. Wild Nacatl has very particular tastes when it comes to mana, and Verdant Catacombs was just not very accommodating.

And his doesn't take into account Nacatl's friends, Kird Ape and Loam Lion. Managing an opening hand that featured multiple copies of these guys along with a Lightning Helix made for some decisions.

Flooded Strand finally removes the pain of Arid Mesa from the Azorius or Jeskai decks that have been ever present since the format's inception. Searching out islands without paying a penalty makes playing additional copies of Cryptic Command a boon instead of a risk.

Blue/white Tron decks can rejoice in their ability to weather Blood Moon just a little bit better while still employing some form of virtual dual land.

Bloodstained Mire was the card I was most excited about initially, rounding out Jund's mana base with another black-based fetchland made those turn-one plays of Thoughtseize and Inquisition much more powerful because it became less critical to turn your Marsh Flats into a dual land.

Sometimes the necessity of casting a turn one Thoughtseize put your starting life total at 15--a prospect that was often met with horror when your opponent's hand revealed a grip full of burn spells.

Unfortunately, discard spells like Thoughtseize became significantly less powerful when your opponent followed up with a Treasure Cruise a few turns later. If I'm casting Treasure Cruises, I would love for every card in my deck to say "discard this to have opponent discard a card and lose two life."

Ironically, Polluted Delta is the red-headed stepchild in Modern. The premiere blue/black deck, Faeries, basically wants nothing to do with it. And the non-premiere blue/black decks mostly don't exist (sorry, your Grixis control deck is still bad).

Cards on the Peripheral

Picking out which decks are immediately affected by the reprinting of allied fetches is easy: just find any deck playing an off-colored fetch and sub in the desired fix. But when you take a second look at these lands, they also have a tremendous impact on single card strategies.

Knight of the Reliquary is one of those cards that plays great with a friend. A turn one fetchland into a Ignoble Hierarch followed by a turn two fetchland into KotR is an all-star classic play across a number of formats past and present. Guess who just got an upgrade?

By rounding out every three color combination with 4-8 new fetchlands, Knight of the Reliquary based strategies receive a huge shot in the arm. While this strategy might be a bit slow in the world of Delver of Secrets // Delver of Secrets + Ancestral Recall Treasure Cruise, in a world where these decks are less omnipresent, Knight becomes significantly stronger.

Just as much as the fetchlands givith, they taketh away.

Blood Moon has been Modern's Tier 1 "Hhaha got you" cards for a long time now.

Entire decks have thrived on the backbone of this card and his little brother, Magus of the Moon, screwing over greedy mana bases. Why would you want to play fair Magic when you can just cast one card and win the game for free?

Unfortunately, however, Blood Moon got a lot weaker with the release of Khans. Every deck has access to on-color fetchlands and the ability to search up the exact basic lands they need to feed whatever mana appetites their spells bring with them. Access to basics is enough to weaken Blood Moon from an "easy win" to "probably dead card" when your opponent's are savvy enough to play around it by searching up basics.

Heir to a Throne

As much of an oppressive dick Treasure Cruise has been in Modern, its step child Dig Through Time is heir to the throne of format warping cards.

If/when Treasure Cruise gets banned, if Dig isn't given the preemptive axe, we're poised to see a surge in blue-based combo decks, namely Scapeshift and Splinter Twin.

Blue/red Delver decks are the perfect foil for these combo decks as their steady clocks combined with a suite of countermagic and the ability to "reload" after a flurry of spells has been enough to keep this style of decks in check. But with no Treasure Cruise, the incentive to cast Gitaxian Probe and friends becomes much lower.

Prospects

There's a ton of room for financial shakeout if Treasure Cruise is banned. Given the fact that Wizard's hasn't acted yet gives me the impression that they are perfectly fine with a "wait and see" approach to Modern, delaying Banned List changes until set releases.

This opens up the possibility that Dig Through Time decks will have a couple months to take over before taking the brunt of the banhammer. This means cards like Valakut, Scapeshift, and Splinter Twin have some room to make a small run.

Cards like Blood Moon won't necessarily tank because of fetchlands existence, but they certainly become less exciting over time as their effectiveness diminishes.

I am bullish on Knight of the Reliquary. I really feel she is a great long term pickup, seeing as the price has already recovered from its double reprinting and has multi-format appeal, seeing play in Legacy, Modern and Commander.

There are very few three mana creatures that can hold a candle to Knight of the Reliquary in Modern, and bringing all fetchlands into the fold makes this card much more likely to start seeing significant amounts of play.

Additionally, the ability to search out lands means that with every new set there is a great chance for Knight to "break" the same way Stoneforge Mystic did with the printing of Sword of Feast and Famine and Batterskull.

Beyond that, Modern is an incredibly diverse and deep format that I've only glanced the surface of today. Khans wasn't given much of a chance to saturate the format because its existence has been punctuated with Jeskai Ascendancy and UR Delver, so many of the cards haven't yet had the an opportunity to make themselves contenders in the format.

What other decks or card strategies gained significantly from Khans that I missed? What's taken a hit?