On February 22nd of last year, Dice Masters was changed. That’s when it was announced there would be rotation, and a split between Modern and Golden Age formats. The cut off line was DC Dice Masters War of Light. Everything set before War of Light was not Modern legal. This is also when it was announced that Half-Elf Bard: Greater Lords’ Alliance would be banned from Modern play. It was a big day, and one a lot of people were excited for. But with most games of this nature, that have multiple releases every year and a thriving competitive season, rotation is something that usually happens yearly. So, coming up on the one year anniversary of the announcement of the first rotation, what might we see if and when a second rotation is announced? Let’s speculate!
If rotation in 2017 included all sets Modern legal dating back to September of 2015, then the cut-off date could simply move up exactly one year to the September of 2016. If this is the case, we would lose:
War Of Light
Amazing Spider-Man
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Faerun Under Siege
World’s Finest
Civil War
The Doctor Strange Team Pack and Green Arrow & The Flash were both released in September of ’16, making them just sneak in to that cut off.
It’s worth noting that the first rotation pulled 6 releases out of Modern legality, and if based on the same timeline, 6 more sets would rotate out again. So, what would change? What big cards would we miss (or say “good riddance” to) from these sets?
There’s a lot from War of Light. Some of these cards might not be as powerful as they once were, but I think they are still on people’s radars when it comes to team building:
Lantern Ring: Limited Only By Imagination
Raven: Azerath, Metrion, Zinthos!
Parallax (global)
Wonder Girl: Cassie Sandsmark
Guy Gardner: Blinding Rage
Vicious Struggle: Basic Action Card
Amazing Spider-Man doesn’t have much to contribute. Many of the cards were just too situational. Blink: Exile could have been good, but the cost of 2 masks just seemed too steep at times. And Carnage: Cletus Kassidy would be great against Attune teams, but buying a 5 cost character to counter your opponent’s 2 cost character is not the best plan. Spider-Man: Tangled Web could be a lot of fun with the continual additions to the Spider-Man team affiliations. I think the only cards that may leave a hole in the meta by leaving are:
White Tiger (global)
Slander: Basic Action Card
The TMNT Box didn’t bring much to the table in terms of characters. The Foot Ninja may have had a meta defining impact, however they were limited by their max dice of 3. Pizza had a niche of being the only 1 cost Basic Action for a while, but there are other 1 cost actions now. The only real meta card is:
Casey Jones: Mutant Hunter
Faerun Under Siege brought a new way of playing the game between the rare Dwarf Wizard, common Elf Thief, and the already banned Half-Elf Bard. Let’s just dive right in:
Dwarf Wizard: Paragon Zhentarim
Elf Thief: Lesser Harper
Half-Elf Bard: Apprentice Order of the Gauntlet
Beholder: Lesser Aberration
Dragons
Golems
Ring (global)
Blink-Transmutation: Basic Action Card
Cloudkill: Basic Action Card
World’s Finest seems too new to be eligible for rotation, since we’ve only had 2 full-sized DC sets since then. But here it is. I personally will be excited to see some of these cards leave Modern. And conversely, I’m sad to see some of these cards go that had potential and just never seemed to find a place in the competitive meta, like Superwoman and Mr. Mxyzptlk. Not to mention all the Bat Family combos that seemed to run rampant at various local events, but never quite clicked on a bigger stage:
Batgirl: Babs
Kryptonite: Green Death
Oracle: Master Investigator
Oracle: Internet Interference
Ultraman: Kryptonite Powered
Civil War, one of my favorite comic book events, never quite seemed to live up to the hype. A lot of fun cards and keywords, and I really like playing with the Thunderbolts and New Warriors teams. But they were never quite good enough. I always thought the common Speedball would be a nightmare for my opponent to deal with. Here’s what we’ll miss:
Namorita: Aquatic Beauty
Rocket Raccoon: Not a Raccoon
Luke Cage (global)
Ronin: Lone Warrior
Ronin: Between Employers
The Front Line: Basic Action Card
And don’t forget any Organized Play cards that we will lose as well. There’s only a few that jump out at me:
Iron Fist: Immortal
Scarecrow: Legion of Doom
In addition to the Modern rotation,. I mentioned before that this is when it was announced that Half-Elf Bard: Greater Lords’ Alliance would be banned from Modern play. Are there any other cards that would remain Modern legal that are potentially deserving of being banned? For me, there’s only 2 potential cards that would be worth looking at banning. I’m not even saying they should be, but I think there at least needs to be conversation:
Shriek: Sonic Beam
Yaun-ti Pureblood: Epic Humanoid.
So, what did I miss? Any other cards you’re sad to potentially see leave Modern? Maybe there’s a few cards you just can’t wait to see rotate out. Also, if you could ban any one Modern card, what would it be? Let us know in the comments section. Be sure to stick with us, as we will let you know once we hear anything concrete about Modern set rotation. Roll on.