Magic: The Gathering – The 10 Best Cards From Modern Horizons 2

Summary

• Modern Horizons 2 avoids sequel syndrome with powerful, game-changing cards like Murktide Regent and Scion of Draco.
• Academy Manufactor eliminates the need to choose between Food, Clues, or Treasure, providing versatility and value.
• Unique cards like Esper Sentinel and Archon of Cruelty offer white card advantage and immediate value in Modern gameplay.

Magic: The Gathering sets are known to fall victim to sequel syndrome quite often, but Modern Horizons 2 manages to avoid this phenomenon. Mostly. While Modern Horizons 2 certainly took the 'bigger, better, flashier' method of approaching a follow-up to 2019's wildly successful Modern Horizons, it did so at the expense of multiple formats, warping entire years' worth of meta games around the cards introduced in this set.

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Its cards pushed the envelope on every front, producing some of the most duplicitous cards in all of Magic.

12 Murktide Regent

A Delver That Delivers

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Nothing murky about it: This Dragon has one of the best threat-to-cost ratios ever printed. Don't be fooled by the advertised mana cost: Delve makes it much easier to cast, frequently bringing it down to just two mana, and often entering play as a 5/5 flier or bigger.

Murktide's the ultimate finisher for decks looking to cast a flurry of cheap interactive spells in the early stages of the game. It's a win condition that converts all those cheap spells into an onboard advantage, and Murktide only gets bigger as the game continues.

10 Scion of Draco

It's 12 Mana, What's The Problem?

Scion of Draco took a little while to catch on, but it's been moving up in players' estimations slowly but surely. It was only a matter of time before players found a way to consistently make this creature castable for as little mana as possible.

Domain decks were the first ones in Modern to really crack the code on Scion. A heavy fetch-land-triome dynamic could easily put all five land types into play as early as turn two. Leyline of the Guildpact from Murders at Karlov Manor really blew it wide open, making the Scion trivially easy to cast.

Leyline of the Guildpact also makes all your creatures all colors, which means Scion of Draco and all other creatures you control get all the benefits of its ability.

9 Academy Manufactor

The Trinketeer's Best Friend

Foodies, investigators, and plunderers rejoice! Academy Manufactor eliminates the need to choose between Food, Clues, or Treasure, so you can rest easy knowing any one of these tokens is as good as all three at once.

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Manufactor was printed right on the precipice of the 'Treasure overload' phenomenon, a time when Treasure seemed to find its way on every other new card. It wasn't until later that Clues and Food received additional support, but each new instance of any of these tokens is another win for Academy Manufactor.

7 Esper Sentinel

White Card Advantage In Droves

White's relation to card advantage took a turn around the release of this set. A conscious effort was made to give 'the worst color in Magic' more tools to catch up with the other colors. Esper Sentinel overshot a bit.

Sentinel's a prestigious member of the 'Did You Pay?' Club, alongside notable regulars like Rhystic Study and Smothering Tithe. It's usually one mana, but the effect scales with Sentinel's power. A single +1/+1 counter or piece of equipment changes the dynamic, taxing players out of being able to reasonably pay for its trigger.

6 Archon Of Cruelty

Reanimator's Prized Creature

Archon of Cruelty supplanted Griselbrand in most formats as the haymaker 'cheat' creature of choice. Archon's in turn been outclassed by Atraxa, Grand Unifier, but the two are often seen together in the same decks.

Archon's appeal is the immediate value you get just by putting it into play. It shifts the resource race in your favor, and if it sticks around to attack, you get to repeat its trigger again. The card's so powerful Modern players often pack Orvar, the All-Form as a silver bullet sideboard answer to Archon.

5 Dauthi Voidwalker

Void Of Nuance

Certainly a no-brainer on power level, Dauthi Voidwalker's a headscratcher from a design perspective. Why are the stats so pushed? Why is its graveyard hate effect so effortless and universal? Why does shadow incidentally make the card better, not worse? Who can say, really?

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The complaints roll in fast with this one, and that's before you even get to the activated ability, which can cast an opponent's spell for free if it was exiled with Voidwalker's ability. That's a borderline obscene addition to a two-drop that already does so much by just sitting in play.

The void counters remain on exiled cards even if Voidwalker leaves play. That means returning it to play or casting a new one gives you access to the same cards exiled by the first.

4 Grist, The Hunger Tide

Creative Design On A Flexible Planeswalker

Grist occupies a tier just below absurdity, being a merely powerful planeswalker that sees play across a number of formats. Perhaps a success of Modern Horizons 2, it's most prevelant in Modern, where it's a key part of top-tier Yawgmoth decks.

Grist builds a board, removes problem cards, and threatens an ultimate ability that can close out a game. It's also wholly unique thanks to its passive ability, allowing it to be a commander, and making it interact with anything that interacts with a creature card outside the battlefield.

3 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer

A Contender For Best One-Drop Ever

Ragavan's standalone card is the single best example of power creep in Magic. Take the established one-mana 2/1 statline, add a dash of dash, and throw in an ability that, without exaggerating, can swing the outcome of a game on turn one, and you've got an egregiously overpowered one-drop. But monke, right?

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Banned in Historic and Legacy, the only reason Ragavan's allowed to persist in other formats is that the tools are there to take down 2/1s. And take down Ragavan you must; an unimpeded monkey often puts a game immediately out of reach.