Curving Tidehollow Sculler into Wasteland Strangler is a complete blowout in any creature matchup, and Flickerwisp has big synergies with both. Could push the Death and Taxes Archetype in a B/W direction. Also randomly hoses suspended Rift Bolts or makes pathing a low drop less painful since you can make use of the exiled card

As for Modern… well, at least i won’t be spending too much money on BfZ singles. *shrug*

I think you may be being a bit unfair on Retreat to Coralhelm. Splintertwin also “does nothing” on its own, but wins with a Pestermite or Deceiver or gains a ton of value off a Snapcaster. Likewise for Coralhelm, which is kinda badn on an empty board, but wins with a Knight or does wonky stuff with other cards. You’re 100% right about Bant not being the most exciting color combination though. Lacking bolt and Abrupt decay is usually not where you want to be in this format.

While cards like that might be bad in general, I think the Enchantment is actually going to be good, here is why:
At the absolute worst, it gives every land scry 1 (and fetchlands scry2)
Lets you attack past single big blockers (deciever, tas, tarmo, ect)
If you have a dork in play, the enchantment now has the option of becoming lotus cobra
and then at the top end, if you get a knight of the reliquary in play, you get to win the game.
And you get all of the above without actually having to play ‘bad’ cards in your deck, Knight is just a really good magic card on its own, and so is the enchantment.

BFZ looks like a really fun Limited format to me.

The only card i’m initially interested in is bring to light. Travis Woo made a brew fest on channelfireball and it looks like a fun build around card.

I might be the only one on this page to actually like the art on expedition lands, haha! I’m probably biaised though, i just love foil alternate art cards in general.

I don’t care much about standard but BFZ seems underpowered even for that format. My only hope for this set at this point is limited, i hope it is sweet otherwise BFZ will be a massive fail. Still i’m fine with that, i’ve seen the game long enough to know that all sets can’t be homerun. A little break from the trumoil of delve isn’t so bad. There will be plenty of future sets to shake things up, let’s hope the next one is (i’m looking at the rest of the manlands in particular, i hope they will be better than the two we got).

This will not see play in modern, the lifeloss is a thing

Even with that, read the bones is a lot better, because
1 color: read the bones is a lot better,
2 colors: read the bones is strictly better, and
3 colors: there about even because it has been mathematically proven that scry 1 = draw half a card

2B draw a card for each color you spent to cast it in grixis is URB – draw 3 cards. That might be playable. RBG draw 3 cards is 100% playable in jund and will be main decked. WBG draw 3 will see play in junk. Esper won’t play it because 1 fewer card but instant speed and flexible is better so Esper Charm is better. No one really plays BRW or BUG.

It does look that way. Power seems concentrated in high-end, probably unplayable creatures rather than across the board like in Khans or Origins.

As guy who has been trying to make shamans work, do you think he would be good in that? We shaman players have been praying for a 1-mana shaman mana dork since forever

100% with you on this, Jordan. I came into this set with high hopes, and got smacked back down by the cold, hard reality of how lackluster it is from the Modern POV. Allies got the Ally Encampment land and pretty much nothing else (Drana fails the Bolt test, as mentioned above, and anything CMC 4+ is bad for a deck that relies on Collected Company as much as Allies do).

That said, I think that referring to Lumbering Falls as a variant on Treetop Village is too high a praise for what in my view is a middle-of-the-road manland. Sure, hexproof is great, but land hate like Ghost Quarter and Tectonic Edge can still grab it in response to its activation, and (unlike Village) it has no evasion of any kind, which makes it susceptible to chump-blockers. I just think the 2UG activation cost is a bit high – Creeping Tar Pit and Stirring Wildwood are both lower (and almost indisputably better) and Raging Ravine (a much faster clock) is the same cost. I think that decks like Sultai Control or Temur Midrange may like it (and maybe having 2 sets of manlands helps differentiate them from the likes of Grixis Control), but both of those are Tier 3 at most right now. I don’t think this pushes them into the heart of the meta conversation.

Cards like Retreat are “traps” because they don’t do anything on their own. In those colors, I’m assuming you’re running Hierarch to power out 2nd turn 3-drops. Wouldn’t you rather Retreat be a Geist most (all) of the time?

(For the record, I think Geist is bad and Bant is a very weak color combo in Modern due to the absence of Lightning Bolt.)

To be fair, that land is really good for the deck. To be fairer, this set absolutely blows.

Goblins can’t complain too much as we just got piledriver, but I really wanted to see a haste-rally goblin at 2 mana – instead its at 4 making it garbage for both allies and goblins.

Vampires – I’m not even sure what this deck would need to get better in modern – probably a one mana relentless rats variant or a 2 mana lord of some sort to complement the virtually-3-mana kalastria highborn and the nocturnus.

Allies – biggest flop is here. We get a good land, and a modest upgrade over cleric/paladin in lantern scout. The other 3 options are all sketchy – gideon may make the cut but if he does he probably comes out of the board for midrange games. Drana provides no immediate impact and dies to bolt. The W 2/1 doesnt fit the game plan very well – we want our freeblades and champs to grow into huge beasts if not dealt with. Adding elite vanguard doesn’t help the hardened scales plan but if we get aggressive enough maybe it makes the cut in some builds.