More than anything else, I’d like to see Wizards print some ubiquitous support for tribal decks. Something to make up for the catastrophe of Plague Engineer. I totally get why they printed that card, but UGH!!, so much collateral damage.

I don’t know about the tutor cycle though…modern already has Eladamri’s Call which is just Worldly Tutor where you get to pay one Mana to draw the card right away and it’s obviously not a busted card. I think Enlightened Tutor would actually be the most interesting out of the cycle though. For one mana and going down a card, it lets you more competitively and consistently have access to your engine card, but all the decks I can think of that would consider running E Tutor are fringe at best…honestly the “most” played deck I can think of where it would be a relative slam dunk would be Jeskai Ascendancy combo, but it’s not like that deck is exactly tearing up the place right now.

Mystical Tutor is kind of interesting too, if only because I think the combination of getting to run 4x Mystic Sanctuary and 4x Mystical Tutor means that there might be a viable modern deck built around the interaction with those two cards and Counterbalance.

Honestly, the only tutor I would absolutely not print into Modern is Vamp, mainly because I could see it making Shadow decks too dominant, as a Traverse the Ulvenwald-style effect that makes sure you can always find one of your (relatively) few threats and even makes you lose two life.

In general, I think this time around I’d rather see them push the power level in the set more via reprinted cards than new ones, because while yes, you are picking this card up and dropping into a different format/metagame/etc., the cards are all *known* quantities which I believe makes them easier to try to test and contextualize into Modern, because we already know what decks using this card look like and how they tend to work. So for instance with a card like Doomsday, while Modern already has the decks win condition in Thassa’s Oracle legal, it doesn’t have the depth of one-mana cantrips and the free/fast mana (Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual, LED, what have you) that lets you both cast Doomsday and win in the same turn with a very small amount of resources actually in play. The best I can come up with for Modern off the top of my head needs 5 mana to start and a Street Wraith or Edge of Autumn already in your hand, which would let you build a pile of any combination of 0-mana cyclers and Manamorphoses ending with an Oracle, and that’s not really THAT far off from what Ad Naus is doing so, who knows…should be interesting though.

I actually considered a lot of those while making my list. I was thinking a lot like you were, looking for cool staples from old formats. I had to implement my rules to make the list coherent, and then actually pick which cards to argue for.

The tutors didn’t make it because they’d make Modern feel too Legacy. Vamp is a really good, skill testing card, but reduced variance and tutoring is Legacy’s thing. Not that I wouldn’t be beyond thrilled to get more use from my Recruiters.

Doomsday’s interesting since it’s never existed without Dark Ritual. Much like Necropotence, I think it could be merely ok in formats without Ritual. However, it didn’t make the cut for being too contextually similar to Ad Nauseam.

Lackey has always been just barely acceptable in Legacy, even before Muxus. Mana acceleration being a bit of a problem in Modern, I wouldn’t take the risk. I wouldn’t go for High Tide for the same reason, despite the tools to break it being far weaker in Modern.

Grindstone was on my initial list, but I cut it after considering the risks. It probably wouldn’t see play in a red Prison/Combo deck since there’s no Sol lands. Instead, it would likely be another tool in Urza’s arsenal, and Whir makes the combo easier to assemble. It’s close, but I just don’t like the idea of Urza messing with Painter’s Servant and Grindstone.

I completely forgot about Dualcaster Mage. Mostly because Historic is a format I avoid because to me it’s the encapsulated argument of why WOTC shouldn’t try to dictate format composition. There’s some decent opportunity there.

And I’m a firm no to Monarch. After some experience in Pauper, it just creates a lot of problems in two player games.

Off-hand, I’d love to see Grindstone, maybe Imperial Recruiter/Recruiter of the Guard, possibly some of the Mirage-era tutors (I feel that Enlightened is the safest, probably followed by Worldly and then Mystical/Vamp), Doomsday, High Tide, Careful Study, and Goblin Lackey.

I also really want them to go through supplemental products as well, because there are tons of cards in there that seem interesting in the context of modern. Dualcaster Mage being the first I think of, because it’s weird that an archetype exists on Magic Arena that you can’t even try to play in Modern.

And finally, I have absolutely no idea if it would be a good or bad thing for Modern, but bringing the Monarch mechanic into Modern could be interesting.