Modern Horizons 3 (MH3) Sealed and Prerelease Guide • MTG Arena Zone (2024)

Hey everyone! We’re rapidly approaching the prerelease for Modern Horizons 3 and I am more excited for this set than I have been for one in quite a while. It is a high-powered set with a lot of crazy things going on that require a bit more understanding than usual. I’m here to help you prepare for your prerelease by discussing the process for building your sealed deck in this format as well as providing you with a bunch of tips and tricks to give you a leg up on the competition.

Building Your Sealed Deck

The first step of building your sealed is always to sort out your power cards. This will include your busted rares, mythic uncommons, good removal, and even your build arounds. This lets you know what your pathway to victory is. It also lets you keep an eye out to see if your pool can support the build arounds.

The next step is to pull out all of your mana fixing. This includes the sacrifice lands (landscapes and OG ones), any dual lands, and mana dorks such as Nightshade Dryad. In this set, it also includes Sage of the Unknowable and other cards that can produce colorless mana.

Since there are a lot of cards that require specifically colorless (and can’t be paid for generically by colored mana), you have to sort of look at it like a sixth color. You should be able to support it, but make sure you’re not putting too much pressure on your mana base by doing so.

Now go through the rest of your cards and separate each color into cards you want to play, cards you’d situationally play, and cards you really don’t want to play. This lets you evaluate how deep each color really is and prevents you from thinking a color is good when it is mostly filler.

Next you want to start looking at how each color combination would look. This lets you see how the curves would play out, how the removal suites look, and if the decks have any serious weaknesses. You can then see if you can patch up those weaknesses by splashing.

At this point you need to be honest with yourself about whether or not your deck can get there on power level compared to other decks. If not, then you want to see if you can possibly build a low to the ground aggro deck to go under the greedier decks. You should also keep this in your back pocket as an audible to side board into against decks with a significantly higher power level.

Now you just have to figure out your mana base and you’re on your way to win some packs.

Tips and Tricks

While much more difficult to pull off in sealed, you do want to make sure your cards are on the same plan. There are a ton of cards whose value heavily fluctuates if your deck isn’t focused enough. A lot of the energy cards are fine on their own, but get significantly better with a critical mass of producers.

The Eldrazi decks have felt amazing in draft, but make sure you actually have enough colorless mana to support some of them. I know I have mentioned this in both sections, but you really don’t want to accidently put cards that you can’t cast into your deck.

Sealed tends to be slower since the decks are less focused, that means those really expensive game shifting cards are much more likely to actually hit play. This is especially true with all of those Eldrazi Spawn tokens running around.

Counterspells are another thing that plays better in sealed. They also tend to perform better in a high-power format which means they are doubling down here.

While not relevant in some matches, exile removal does matter in this format. It seems like a small thing, but it’s already come up plenty of times during early access.

Making a mana base is a little more complicated here because of the need for colorless mana and the presence of MDFCs.

If you want to have a simplistic take on MDFCs then the old rule is cutting two land for every three MDFCs and adjust from there. If you want to get more into it, the ones you are hoping to cast are counted as spells while the ones you are less likely to want to cast are counted as lands.

While the mana fixing appears plentiful, you’re still usually better off with two colors and a splash than the straight three colors.

While it is instinctual to pop your sacrifice lands to thin your deck, make sure you don’t still need that colorless mana the common landscape can produce before you do it.

Wastescape Battlemage has been a massive overperformer so far. Just like the old IPA Battlemages, it often ends up as a three for one deal.

Nightshade Dryad is another card punching above it’s weight class. Deathtouch plays very well in this format and it can provide any color or that crucial colorless you might me missing.

A cool thing to remember about the Landscapes is that the cycling colors at the bottom are a visual reminder of what lands they can fetch.

Hope-Ender Coatl is appropriately named because it’s such a huge blow when you get got by it. Be wary of that and Aether Spike when considering if you’re playing into them.

Aether Revolt is one of my favorite cards in the set. Unfortunately, you’re going to have to get really lucky to both open that and enough energy to make it worth it.

Unstable Amulet is one that I underestimated. As long as you have a few other energy sources, it can make a huge difference in both card advantage and providing a bit of reach to end the game.

Don’t play any of the medallions, they are constructed traps.

Both Writhing Chrysalis and Titans' Vanguard have been playing insanely well so they could be pretty big draws into Gruul Eldraz.

It might seem like a meme, but Colossal Dreadmask is a great way to get across the finish line with a grindy deck lacking other ways to go over the top.

Eldazi are colorless, but that doesn’t mean they are artifacts. I’ve seen plenty of people try to use artifact kill on them already.

Per usual, I’ll finish off with the two best pieces of advice I can give you. The first is to get lucky on your opens. It’s not that you can’t win with a mid pool, but it sure does make the day feel better when you bust the nuts.

The second thing is to remember that Prerelease is supposed to be casual. While winning is great, the most important thing is that you have a great time (preferably while winning).

Wrap Up

Thanks for reading! Hopefully this helps guide you to victory this weekend at your MH3 prerelease. Check back tomorrow for my limited review of the Green cards of Modern Horizons 3. Until then, stay classy people!

If you have any questions, let me know in the comments below.

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