When I read the article I though a MoR reprint would be great, but immediately worried her ability to protect herself might make her to powerful in Modern. Taking away her ability to protect herself makes her less powered and stops her being the ultimate chump blocker … and one of the applications for such a “fixed” Mother would be randomly hosing Twin and Infect strategies (and any fringe deck that tries to win by “suiting up” its creatures through spells or creature abilities, like Boggles on Kor Spiritdancer, Kiki Chord, etc.) .

I always wanted to play Flametongue Kavu in Kiki pod…

As a UB Tezzeret player, I would be ecstatic to see Baleful Strix in Modern. Far too many games get decided for me on whether or not I cast Damnation t3 or t4, and K-Command just made my life that much more difficult. 4x TfK is already my favorite draw, and getting some decent artifacts will go a long way to help it!

On the current metagame, I’d expect a Strix reprint to:
1. Slot in current Grixis Control lists, but then;
2. Creating a whole new archetype, as you said, leaning heavily on Strix, Thirst for Knowledge, and possibly more Kolaghan’s command for recursion and massive card advantage in grindy games (ironically, Kommand is also very good *against* Baleful Strix), and who knows where that list would evolve into, and;
3. Give UBx Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas control just the card it needs to >>reliably<< bridge the early to the midgame and have a shot a consistently beating top decks, and maybe climb into tier 2-ish.

I was just joking, Exploration would totally break Amulet Bloom for many reasons XD homever as a Bloom’s fanboy I still hope for a nice card allowing you to play extra lands printed in Batle for Zendikar because hey it would work great with landfall!

Fact or Fiction will probably show up in a future article. There’re a lot of blue card-draw spells deserving this kind of spotlight, and FoF is a big one. I’d want to think about it more in relation to Twin and Scapeshift, but I think it could abstractly be a nice addition to Modern.

One thing a lot of players forget is the number of viable, but unplayed, sweepers in Modern. We have access to Wrath, Damnation, AND Verdict, and yet we rarely play them in decks. Mother would change that calculus and encourage greater diversity among removal spells. The big danger with Mother, and the thing we would want to test, would be Mom’s power in Abzan. That’s a deck which definitely needs zero help.

I would love to see Impulse, but it seems unlikely with the recent Anticipate printing. Opt is much more reasonable though, and you can expect to see me discuss this card more in the future. Dack would also be amazing, and totally fair given the Modern card pool.

You can bet I’ll add another white card (maybe two!) to a future reprint article . White is really underpowered in Modern compared to other colors, and it needs some strong cards to be more viable. Chant would be cool here, and I think Priest is a very real possibility in a near future. I’d also love to see Eternal Dragon and can see them bringing this guy back in a future cycling-themed set. Dragon might not be the most helpful card in Magic for white mages, but it’s an interesting start for a UW Silumgar’s Scorn-style Dragon deck (along with Ojutai and others).

Very nice synergy there. It might open up some space for more Rakdos or Mardu-colored decks to be viable in the format, which would be nice because these are often policing decks running discard, removal, and Blood Moon.

Hmmm not so sure about this. I think we want to keep Amulet Bloom about where it is right now, and Exploration is a pretty strong effect. I like the idea of opening up more ramp decks in Modern (Nic Fit style), but I don’t think Exploration is the way to do that. At least, not the safe way to do that.

Yeah, that would be awesome. UB Tezzeret is a cool strategy and it’s too bad it doesn’t see Modern play. A big reason for this is the relative weakness of TfK in the current cardpool and UB Tezzeret’s inability to effectively handle early threats. Strix would definitely help in that regard (maybe even Blood too!).

Yep, that makes a lot more sense. I do agree that Path is “the best removal but the one you least want to play” and certainly stinks against early and/or cheap creatures, it was just phrased weirdly. Thanks.

Having played with and against mother of runes since the card was printed, I have to disagree–the key part about mother of runes that most people forget is that since it’s an activated ability, you can respond to it. There is almost always a ton of outplay potential when mom is on the table in a fair creature deck matchup. You also have to remember that mom is inherently weak to board wipes, and pushing her into the format could indirectly help control by increasing the overall utility of board wipes in the metagame.

Mother though… I’m not sure I can get behind that. Not just because it’s incredibly powerful, but mainly because I feel like it’s incredibly unfun to play against, and would lead to a ton of very frustrating games.

It strikes me as that same kind of uninteractive gameplay style that hexproof provides, which people generally hate.

As you said, there are tons of cool cards that could see a modern reprint, my personal favorites are Dack Fayden, Opt and Impulse

Harm’s Way is Modern-legal. I’d be down for the return of Rebels – their stats are comparatively tame by current Standard/Modern creature guidelines, so I think it’d be all right.