What would Modern be like if we limited fetch lands to 4 per deck

[Caveman Clay]

We say fetch lands-  limit them to 4 per deck total, Could this help with cost of fetch lands, and make it more balanced for new and young players in modern.

[TheWakaEmu117]

It would make every deck that plays them way less consistent and the mana would be a lot more awkward. There are probably a lot of pros and cons to this but I can’t name them off the top of my head. It would be interesting to see how it affected the format for sure but I don’t know if it would for better or worse

[Soren841]

Cost is about supply and demand.. mostly demand. Only being able to have 4 in a deck wouldn't change pricing.

[ORCH1D]

It won't change the price of the fetchlands that much - they are still heavily played in legacy, commander etc - but it will change the price of the decks. A lot of decks use 8-12 fetchlands and so, it could reduce the price of a deck by anywhere from $40-$500 depending of the deck, which could bring in new players with less income.

However, what it will do is change the metagame. Some decks are punished a lot more by the reduction to 4 fetch lands than others. Humans and Tron run hardly any fetch lands and so won't be affected, but Jund and Jeskai control run a tonne and so might have to cut colours for consistency, and Death's Shadow might not even be possible. Since Tron and Humans are already dominant decks, this could make the format more restrictive.

But, hey, who knows.

[WWolfe]

I doubt it would change the price, you still have them being played in other formats. It would just weaken the decks that depend on them for consistency in Modern and cut down on the amount of contenderable (I know that's not a word but...) decks in the format.

The only thing that would lower the price very much would be another reprint. Compare the prices of the ones reprinted in the Khans block to the ones that weren't.

[Soren841]

 The word ur looking for is viable 

[Jcook84]

It would not change the price of the cards. All (or at least 99%) of modern decks run fetches. Also I'm not sure that contenderable is a word....

[WWolfe]

The word ur looking for is viable 

That's the word I was looking for. I may have had one too many frosty beverages at that point.

[burn your face]

There are a lot of modern decks that don't run fetches. I don't think wizards has ever done something like this. They either ban a card or they don't. They don't play  with cycles of cards. I might be wrong though. I don't think it makes sense to mess with the legality of cards to bring the price of a format down. If they want to make modern cheaper, reprint fetches a lot.

[WWolfe]

The closest WOTC has came to something like this is the restricted list in vintage.

[Soren841]

Restricted list is similar but a bit different. That's specific cards 🤔 plus, it's because they don't have a banned list.

[WWolfe]

Restricted list is similar but a bit different. That's specific cards 🤔 plus, it's because they don't have a banned list.

Precisely!

[bradcoish23]

I think making major changes to any format is never a good call once the format is well established. That being said, I think if WotC ever sanctions a new "eternal" (I know that is not technically correct to call modern eternal) then they should consider banning cards that search decks from the outset. This would never happen, but it would prevent a lot of shuffling and hold down some abusive decks from surfacing over time. If the player base knows in advance that something would be banned then it is so much better.

I personally think it is a good time for WotC to look at a new non-rotating format and to get out in front of the possible issues it may have. Arena is the perfect vehicle to promote the new format (start where arena's card base starts). They could look at all the issues that developed over time for modern and take preventative measures at the outset of the format.