Fallen Empires and Homelands were enough for me to take a 6-7 year long break from the game, and M14 and Theros are much worse than those sets.
Statements like this are how you know you're losing perspective, and it's time to step away from the internet and come back when you've cooled down and no longer feel like comparing sets to Homelands.
Art and lore wise Theros seems really impressing, but so far none of its mechanics made me "wow". I think devotion could be fun...
Protip: whenever you declare something to be the worst set ever, at least wait until it's fully spoiled, if not you can look like an idiot when you end being wrong. Last year there was a guy that spammed the forums calling Magic 2013 the worst set ever and insisting on that no a single card from it was playable. I really hope he feels ashamed everytime his face is stomped by a Thragtusk or a Thundermaw Hellkite...
Yes, Magic 2013 was bad, but "not a single playable card"? The same way, wait a little until Theros is spoiled and played before decreting it the worst set ever. It could be, it could be not, but nobody will know until it's seen in action. Scars-Innistrad standard was dominated by Delver of Secrets, but when it was spoiled, nobody said "hey this looks powerful", the most common responses were "limited filler" and "it will never transform". Believe or not, this is *grasp* a game, and a game should be *grasp* played in order to be able to judge it.
I didn't declare it the worst, I said it's easily in the top runnings for being worst, two different things.
I never said there wasn't ONE PLAYABLE CONSTRUCTED CARD, My harping was on the Dual lands that CLEARLY weren't designed as rares and clearly weren't designed for modern (which is what this set was touted as being the first set designed with modern in mind...) These duals are just BAD...Sure, scry 1, big deal... Did New Benalia ever see any REAL competitive play? I'm seriously asking that question because I LOVED that card when it came out, it felt like an uncommon and was appropriately powered. These new lands are not Rare-Quality... I'd rather have Nimbus Maze or even the Filterlands again rather than these...
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I didn't declare it the worst, I said it's easily in the top runnings for being worst, two different things.
You still said that when more than half of the set isn't spoiled yet. You can't judge a set by seing so few cards. Maybe the set has a few format warping cards that haven't been spoiled yet and you're remembered as "that guy that said Theros was one of the worst set ever when it had so broken cards as such, such and such!".
I never said there wasn't ONE PLAYABLE CONSTRUCTED CARD, My harping was on the Dual lands that CLEARLY weren't designed as rares and clearly weren't designed for modern (which is what this set was touted as being the first set designed with modern in mind...) These duals are just BAD...Sure, scry 1, big deal... Did New Benalia ever see any REAL competitive play? I'm seriously asking that question because I LOVED that card when it came out, it felt like an uncommon and was appropriately powered. These new lands are not Rare-Quality... I'd rather have Nimbus Maze or even the Filterlands again rather than these...
And I tend to agree with you, the new lands seem lackuster, but it's difficult to judge them before playing with them. I never said you were wrong, I just said that you were too premature with your judgments.
Ummm I like about the set but since I am not a standard player, and I am really looking to see some good pieces for Legacy/Modern, but this set doesn't have a lot of them.
I like the set but I just don't wanna buy a box or so.
So I think I'm actually being pleasantly surprised by Theros. The power level of the cards seems to have been flattened somewhat and I'm really looking forward to playing with Scry. I basically stopped playing Standard this past year after it just got too simplistic: basically pick a ratio of creatures to removal and hope for favorable matchups and draws.
How does Theros change that? All I see from this set is picking a bunch of creatures and then adding 8-10 spells...
I'd gladly read the dissenting opinions of 10 Valarins before having to wade through the vapid musings of sycophants.
Huh? Why?
Dissenting opinions are certainly valid, but not more valid than the opinions of people who like the set.
We're not sycophants merely because we enjoy the game.
EDIT:
There is nothing in this set that appeals to any of the things that drew me to Magic in the first place... M14 and Theros are much worse than those sets.
The beauty of this game is that it keeps changing. If there was really not a single card in either of those sets that appealed to you at all, maybe you should take a break.
The new duals weren't designed for Modern but they certainly were designed for Standard. Ultimately, you can't expect every new expansion to push the power level of Modern, and as the Modern format ages, it'll get harder and harder for them to impact it (Much like it is in Legacy). I do see some cards with Modern potential, though. Fleecemane Lion, like someone in another thread said, is pushing it 'dangerously close to the point where you can just play a bunch of GW creatures and Wilt-Leaf Liege and have a good deck'.
Also, yeah, if you're comparing a new set to Homelands... you've lost all sense of proportion. Sure, you might think it's bad, but it's not that bad, considering that, say, the format will be at least tolerably entertaining in Limited.
How does Theros change that? All I see from this set is picking a bunch of creatures and then adding 8-10 spells...
There'll be a real cost, in RTR-THR Standard, to playing a three-colour deck. This means that raw card power will be more easily overtaken by synergy, since you can no longer jam three fifths of the best creatures in the format into the same deck. Devotion is also a very synergistic mechanic; cards with Devotion can be absurd in the decks they go into, but impossible to just slam into a midrange shell and go for it. Also, Thragtusk will be out of the format, so hooray.
I'd gladly read the dissenting opinions of 10 Valarins before having to wade through the vapid musings of sycophants.
You'd simply rather have to deal with people you agree with than be confronted by an opposing view you might not want to immediately dismiss because you might have a hard time understanding how someone might have a different opinion than yours
Considering dissension as a factor of appreciation of an opinion I'd say is rather vapid itself
I really don't understand the issue people have with the new duals.
Greedy mana bases are bad for the game people! When people can play 3 color decks without much drawback, it reduces diversity within the format. The fact that Theros is pushing mono color is awesome! I've been waiting years for a block to do that. I think people have been spoiled by the ridiculously good mana fixing that's been in previous sets. Check lands, fetches, shocks...Shocks are so strong on their own, adding another powerful cycle of duals makes mana fixing way too strong. The new scry lands have what every cycle of duals should have (a legitimate drawback). I'm fine with very powerful duals (like shocks) being printed every once in a few blocks, but certainly not every block like it seems some of you expect.
We just had a block that emphasized multicolor, what's wrong with a block that emphasizes mono color? The only gripe I have with the new lands is that they're rare, but I don't think Wizards will ever stop printing lands at rare even though in my opinion they never should, with the exception of legendary lands or lands with very unique effects.
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Dissenting opinions are certainly valid, but not more valid than the opinions of people who like the set.
We're not sycophants merely because we enjoy the game.
Certainly, I agree.
The reason I used the term sycophants is to describe the people whose arguments for something essentially boil down to trusting R&D and their arguments are variations of: you are not the audience for this card, or it's necessary for limited, or WoTC is a business and needs to make money.
These arguments are unimaginative and essentially meaningless in the context of a discussion about a card, set, mechanic whatever.
For example, the audience argument can be asserted as true for any card and requires an excessive burden of proof to be shown as false. I saw a guy at FNM once get VERY excited (like jumping up and down in his chair giddy) about casting a Havengul Runebinder. If we're discussing whether the Runebinder is a good card or not and I say it's not, then someone attempting to argue that I'm not the intended audience is technically right, but his argument is meaningless to the discussion.
You'd simply rather have to deal with people you agree with than be confronted by an opposing view you might not want to immediately dismiss because you might have a hard time understanding how someone might have a different opinion than yours
Considering dissension as a factor of appreciation of an opinion I'd say is rather vapid itself
What the? I can barely even parse this let alone understand it.
I really don't understand the issue people have with the new duals.
Greedy mana bases are bad for the game people! When people can play 3 color decks without much drawback, it reduces diversity within the format. The fact that Theros is pushing mono color is awesome! I've been waiting years for a block to do that. I think people have been spoiled by the ridiculously good mana fixing that's been in previous sets. Check lands, fetches, shocks...Shocks are so strong on their own, adding another powerful cycle of duals makes mana fixing way too strong. The new scry lands have what every cycle of duals should have (a legitimate drawback). I'm fine with very powerful duals (like shocks) being printed every once in a few blocks, but certainly not every block like it seems some of you expect.
We just had a block that emphasized multicolor, what's wrong with a block that emphasizes mono color? The only gripe I have with the new lands is that they're rare, but I don't think Wizards will ever stop printing lands at rare even though in my opinion they never should, with the exception of legendary lands or lands with very unique effects.
As long as that multi-colored block is still in Standard, we should be able to play 3 color decks. Maybe you will get your wish next summer. Hell look at the multi-colored cards in Theros. This is not a mono colored set.
On the duals, I cant see them being played in standard until shocks rotate. Shocks are heads and shoulders above the new CITP tapped lands.
You'd simply rather have to deal with people you agree with than be confronted by an opposing view you might not want to immediately dismiss because you might have a hard time understanding how someone might have a different opinion than yours
Considering dissension as a factor of appreciation of an opinion I'd say is rather vapid itself
I think what he means is that Valarin's opinion and criticisms have reasons behind them, where as the vast majority simply says 'You don't like it? Don't buy it. How dare you not appreciate what WotC has done?' which is neither constructive nor realistic.
The vast majority of the people on this forum who would argue against Valarin or other 'dissenters' act no more than strawman WotC fanboys at every supposed slight against the designs of WotC.
Like, for instance, I will say that enchantment artifacts are the absolute dumbest thing Wizards has ever done, the reason being, is that they could just be artifacts, and that they have absolutely no reason to also be enchantments. Artifacts literally do everything that enchantments do, except that they were traditionally colorless, and traditionally enchantments couldn't be creatures.
The average response to such a complaint is generally: 'This set wasn't designed for you!'
That's not a real argument. There's literally no point for anyone to waste the time to post it. They would have managed their time better by doing literally anything else.
So, reading someone's opinion who differs from the mold is much better than reading something like:
[NewSet]Vanilla Goblin: 2r (M) 3/2
"First!"
"Oh wow, so flavorful, a goblin too stupid to do anything!"
"Wow! This will be great in standard!"
"Standard? This is great in eternal formats!"
"Oh wow, I can't wait to get a playset of these!"
"[picture of fry 'take my money']"
"Wow, Can you say standard goblins? Because I can!"
"This card's going to be $60!"
"Wow, I can't believe this, I need this for EDH!"
So, when someone goes to the thread and tells them that the card is god awful, as it truly is, that's different than the norm. I feel bad for the people on this forum quite often, solely because of what their opinions are and the events that must have happened to cause them to be so. WotC is not theur friend, WotC is their drug dealer's drug dealer. WotC would shoot them if they tried to rat on it.
WotC does not get offended when we don't like cards, or sets. MaRo doesn't, either. MaRo just tells himself that he can't please everyone, looks at the sales figures for boxes of cards that NEED to be purchased to play a game, and tells himself that he did a good job. After 10 years of that, he just walks around with an air of self importance, and people would defend his smug ass to the death, a man who wouldn't piss on them to put the fire out.
Because if there's one thing that's going to kill this game, it's people buying more of it. Understand that just because you don't like something doesn't mean that it's bad.
Is there anything you like, Valarin? In this set, in this game, in life?
LOL. I don't like Theros, e.g. I do not like anything in my existence. That's some pretty fancy deductive reasoning you got going on there. Is the new "Jump to Conclusions Mat: Extreme Edition" out already?
Yes, Magic 2013 was bad
M13 wasn't terrible, I think it was worse than M12, but it had some decent cards that made Standard interesting. It also had some overpowered mistakes, but I'd gladly take those over unplayable junk anyday
We won't miss you.
The direction the playerbase is going is something I certainly won't miss either. The hopeless devotion of players these days to anything Wizards puts out is precisely why we have sets this bad. Theros is what you get when design and development basically have zero accountability.
A good example of this is Palladium Games, when Rifts came out it was a hit, so they started pumping out sourcebooks as fast as they could get them on the shelves. The first ones were good, and sold like hotcakes, then they started getting more lackluster, but people still bought them because "It was Rifts". Slowly but surely the quality of expansion books went down, the art got ridiculously worse, the game mechanics and world got even more bizzare, but books kept selling, because sycophants and apologists kept snapping them up. Eventually even they got fed up and left and the game pretty much impolded and fell to fairly dismal numbers.
You could also look to D&D 4.0 vs Pathfinder. Screw something up enough, and players will leave to play something better. Bad design and development can destroy ANY game. D&D was around for 30+ years before it was promptly ruined by WoTC and all the players ran gleefully into Paizo's waiting arms.
MaRo and crew are riding inertia. Duels of the Planeswalkers introduced a ton of new people to Magic, it's the "hit new thing" to them, so Wizards can keep pumping out garbage and watch it sell. there's no incentive to make good sets. The problem is, that's never sustainable. It creates a culture of laziness, no effort, riding the coattails of earlier success, and eventual stagnation and decline.
You still said that when more than half of the set isn't spoiled yet. You can't judge a set by seing so few cards.
Is it possible they just chose the 100 worst cards in the set to spoiler first, and are saving all the, awesome, incredibly bombtastic, amazing, playable uncommon, rares, and mythics for last? Sure, I guess it's possible. Personally, I wouldn't bet on it.
Yeah I'm not sure exactly, I think I'm just excited for Scry after being starved of library manipulation for so long.
Certainly, I agree.
The reason I used the term sycophants is to describe the people whose arguments for something essentially boil down to trusting R&D and their arguments are variations of: you are not the audience for this card, or it's necessary for limited, or WoTC is a business and needs to make money.
These arguments are unimaginative and essentially meaningless in the context of a discussion about a card, set, mechanic whatever.
For example, the audience argument can be asserted as true for any card and requires an excessive burden of proof to be shown as false. I saw a guy at FNM once get VERY excited (like jumping up and down in his chair giddy) about casting a Havengul Runebinder. If we're discussing whether the Runebinder is a good card or not and I say it's not, then someone attempting to argue that I'm not the intended audience is technically right, but his argument is meaningless to the discussion.
I think what you really mean is not "meaningless to the discussion", but "I don't like it." Except for "trust R&D" (usually a strawman argument that people don't actually make), those arguments are all valid. WotC is a business, Limited does have certain requirements (which other than bumping a few cards up a rarity doesn't actually affect constructed-only players), and, as you just admitted, there are cards you have no use for that make other audiences deliriously happy. None of that is "meaningless" to an argument over whether a set is "good", unless you insist on defining "good" as "things I like."
Edit: Wow, this thread is rapidly devolving into wall-to-wall strawman arguments. I should know better than to wade into these things.
I think what you really mean is not "meaningless to the discussion", but "I don't like it." Except for "trust R&D" (usually a strawman argument that people don't actually make), those arguments are all valid. WotC is a business, Limited does have certain requirements (which other than bumping a few cards up a rarity doesn't actually affect constructed-only players), and, as you just admitted, there are cards you have no use for that make other audiences deliriously happy. None of that is "meaningless" to an argument over whether a set is "good", unless you insist on defining "good" as "things I like."
Edit: Wow, this thread is rapidly devolving into wall-to-wall strawman arguments. I should know better than to wade into these things.
These arguments are meaningless because within the context of the discussion they should already be known by the participants and are either factually true by definition or cannot reasonably be shown to be untrue.
Quote from Tybalt »
WotC is not theur friend, WotC is their drug dealer's drug dealer. WotC would shoot them if they tried to rat on it.
I think what he means is that Valarin's opinion and criticisms have reasons behind them, where as the vast majority simply says 'You don't like it? Don't buy it. How dare you not appreciate what WotC has done?' which is neither constructive nor realistic.
The vast majority of the people on this forum who would argue against Valarin or other 'dissenters' act no more than strawman WotC fanboys at every supposed slight against the designs of WotC.
Like, for instance, I will say that enchantment artifacts are the absolute dumbest thing Wizards has ever done, the reason being, is that they could just be artifacts, and that they have absolutely no reason to also be enchantments. Artifacts literally do everything that enchantments do, except that they were traditionally colorless, and traditionally enchantments couldn't be creatures.
The average response to such a complaint is generally: 'This set wasn't designed for you!'
That's not a real argument. There's literally no point for anyone to waste the time to post it. They would have managed their time better by doing literally anything else.
So, reading someone's opinion who differs from the mold is much better than reading something like:
[NewSet]Vanilla Goblin: 2r (M) 3/2
"First!"
"Oh wow, so flavorful, a goblin too stupid to do anything!"
"Wow! This will be great in standard!"
"Standard? This is great in eternal formats!"
"Oh wow, I can't wait to get a playset of these!"
"[picture of fry 'take my money']"
"Wow, Can you say standard goblins? Because I can!"
"This card's going to be $60!"
"Wow, I can't believe this, I need this for EDH!"
So, when someone goes to the thread and tells them that the card is god awful, as it truly is, that's different than the norm. I feel bad for the people on this forum quite often, solely because of what their opinions are and the events that must have happened to cause them to be so. WotC is not theur friend, WotC is their drug dealer's drug dealer. WotC would shoot them if they tried to rat on it.
WotC does not get offended when we don't like cards, or sets. MaRo doesn't, either. MaRo just tells himself that he can't please everyone, looks at the sales figures for boxes of cards that NEED to be purchased to play a game, and tells himself that he did a good job. After 10 years of that, he just walks around with an air of self importance, and people would defend his smug ass to the death, a man who wouldn't piss on them to put the fire out.
Let's be honest, Valarin hates everything about MtG as it is now (and I like the guy as far as everything else on this forum goes: movies, real-life advice especially), although I'm fairly confidant he enjoyed Return to Ravnica (who didn't? I thought limited wasn't all that great in RtR to be honest)
I don't find his views on recent sets to be very constructive at all: "this is terrible, I wanted something else, everything MaRo does is utter garbage"
It's just as bad as "WotC can't do anything wrong"; one extreme to the other
What you choose to focus on is up to you; I personnaly love spoiler season because it creates deck ideas and deck building is probably the part of the game I enjoy the most (sometimes I build a deck for the fun of it and take it apart after only a few games): I don't pay any mind to the cheerleaders or the haters; why would I?
I'm a bit baffled by how showing enthusiam for a game that we clearly all like is frowned upon however: this is an internet forum for a game for which the average player is 13 years old... Let the kids have their fun.
Valarin is certainly allowed to be as vocal in his hatred as he wants to be; sometimes he does gets a lot of unwarranted hate but your reap what you sow.
As far as the business side of things go, I couldn't care any less. I fail to see how it has any relevance to the discussion at hand which is: dissension is good in itself.
It isn't, it's beyond stupid to think it is no matter how you try to sugar coat it with "all these cheerleaders need a reality check" by using hyperbolic and superfluous examples.
I'm excited for Theros. There's a lot of cards I want, especially the Gods. Whether they're good or not, I'm more appealed by the flavor of the set. I think it'll be fun to build a theme deck around each of the gods for casual play.
I think what he means is that Valarin's opinion and criticisms have reasons behind them, where as the vast majority simply says 'You don't like it? Don't buy it. How dare you not appreciate what WotC has done?' which is neither constructive nor realistic.
The vast majority of the people on this forum who would argue against Valarin or other 'dissenters' act no more than strawman WotC fanboys at every supposed slight against the designs of WotC.
Like, for instance, I will say that enchantment artifacts are the absolute dumbest thing Wizards has ever done, the reason being, is that they could just be artifacts, and that they have absolutely no reason to also be enchantments. Artifacts literally do everything that enchantments do, except that they were traditionally colorless, and traditionally enchantments couldn't be creatures.
The average response to such a complaint is generally: 'This set wasn't designed for you!'
That's not a real argument. There's literally no point for anyone to waste the time to post it. They would have managed their time better by doing literally anything else.
So, reading someone's opinion who differs from the mold is much better than reading something like:
[NewSet]Vanilla Goblin: 2r (M) 3/2
"First!"
"Oh wow, so flavorful, a goblin too stupid to do anything!"
"Wow! This will be great in standard!"
"Standard? This is great in eternal formats!"
"Oh wow, I can't wait to get a playset of these!"
"[picture of fry 'take my money']"
"Wow, Can you say standard goblins? Because I can!"
"This card's going to be $60!"
"Wow, I can't believe this, I need this for EDH!"
So, when someone goes to the thread and tells them that the card is god awful, as it truly is, that's different than the norm. I feel bad for the people on this forum quite often, solely because of what their opinions are and the events that must have happened to cause them to be so. WotC is not theur friend, WotC is their drug dealer's drug dealer. WotC would shoot them if they tried to rat on it.
That just officially got you off my ignore list
WotC does not get offended when we don't like cards, or sets. MaRo doesn't, either. MaRo just tells himself that he can't please everyone, looks at the sales figures for boxes of cards that NEED to be purchased to play a game, and tells himself that he did a good job. After 10 years of that, he just walks around with an air of self importance, and people would defend his smug ass to the death, a man who wouldn't piss on them to put the fire out.
And the thing is, it's not just MaRo. It's the while culture over there. When I went in for my in person interview, I was very surprised at the "fireman drill" culture the place had. For example, their #1 priority right now (oir at least a few months ago) at Wizards is salvaging the D&D franchise. D&D Next has absolute authority to recruit any employee or take any action it needs to fix the sales plunge caused by D&D 4.0. If they need dollars, the dollars come from somewhere else and that place has their budget reduced. The assumption is that "As long as it's selling, we don't need to invest in it"
Magic at one point was the #1 priority after a sales slump, it got all the resources it needed, got back in good shape, then they were forgotten about and management moved on to the next crisis (I think it was the Transformers franchise at the time)
I remember during my interview, I asked to see the Continual Improvement Plan and a list of CSF's tied to that plan for the team I would be heading up. The interviewers look at me like my head was made of cheese. The idea of continual focus on quality and continuous measurements of metrics so management can see what is working and what isn't working was completely foreign to them. It was like I was speaking Chinese.
The did admit (and I absolutely saw it) that Wizards is a having a challenging time growing, and really lacks the professional management skills to effectively handle a portfolio of it's size. It's one of the reasons they were hiring for positions like that
Lands that scry are bad. They'll see play because that's what we're given to play with, but I don't have to like it.
Wrong! scry lands aren't bad. guildgates aren't bad, it is just that they have given us so much awesome lands lately that it was too much easy to play 3 colors! i mean, i played 3 colors when we had scar fastlands and M10 and innistrad ones. it was ok. it worked. then they made it much easier, making 3 colors the norm. that is cool for some time, but i don't want to play 3 colors deck forever... now 2 and 1 color will play a little more, it seems.
also, you say those lands are bad, but what about the fetchlands? in a shockland free word, are they better then scry lands? no, they are not. still, you played them in standard and i did not hear complains.
for people talking about stuff in the set: i think the set is average in power level, they gave us lands, thoughtseize, some other good cards, but it isnt full of money, the gods aren't eternal material... it is a very cool set, to me, and moneywise it is ok.
MaRo and crew are riding inertia. Duels of the Planeswalkers introduced a ton of new people to Magic, it's the "hit new thing" to them, so Wizards can keep pumping out garbage and watch it sell. there's no incentive to make good sets. The problem is, that's never sustainable. It creates a culture of laziness, no effort, riding the coattails of earlier success, and eventual stagnation and decline.
While I think you're overreacting with your "Magic is dying", you got exactly the term I was looking for: "laziness". Since Return to Ravnica onwards, I see that Wizards isn't putting much effort on making great sets. When Gatecrash mechanics were spoiled I was like "Three mechanics in a row that came from the GDS? Really?". We also got a lot of boring mechanics like scavenge and unleash. I understand that not every mechanic can be new and original, but we have been getting too much plain mechanics lately.
Is it possible they just chose the 100 worst cards in the set to spoiler first, and are saving all the, awesome, incredibly bombtastic, amazing, playable uncommon, rares, and mythics for last? Sure, I guess it's possible. Personally, I wouldn't bet on it.
Can I be honest? I wouldn't bet on it either. But as a principle, I prefer to judge things as a whole.
PS: I always wrote "laziness" as "lazyness". This thread is doing wonders for my English.
Hopefully they print an uncommon or common I can slap into my modern UGx infect
Speak for yourself buddy.
I'd gladly read the dissenting opinions of 10 Valarins before having to wade through the vapid musings of sycophants.
My english vocabulary has dramatically increased with a single phrase.
Scavenging Ooze was cool, I still ****ing need 3 of them. Mutavault is a nice card. Then there were some throw backs. The hate bear cycle is alright.
Theros is, well, Theros has thoughtseize. There are a few other cards that aren't lackluster right now.
When formats slow down, control becomes more viable, so here's hoping.
I didn't declare it the worst, I said it's easily in the top runnings for being worst, two different things.
I never said there wasn't ONE PLAYABLE CONSTRUCTED CARD, My harping was on the Dual lands that CLEARLY weren't designed as rares and clearly weren't designed for modern (which is what this set was touted as being the first set designed with modern in mind...) These duals are just BAD...Sure, scry 1, big deal... Did New Benalia ever see any REAL competitive play? I'm seriously asking that question because I LOVED that card when it came out, it felt like an uncommon and was appropriately powered. These new lands are not Rare-Quality... I'd rather have Nimbus Maze or even the Filterlands again rather than these...
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You still said that when more than half of the set isn't spoiled yet. You can't judge a set by seing so few cards. Maybe the set has a few format warping cards that haven't been spoiled yet and you're remembered as "that guy that said Theros was one of the worst set ever when it had so broken cards as such, such and such!".
And I tend to agree with you, the new lands seem lackuster, but it's difficult to judge them before playing with them. I never said you were wrong, I just said that you were too premature with your judgments.
I like the set but I just don't wanna buy a box or so.
EDH: Xenagos, God of Revels.
How does Theros change that? All I see from this set is picking a bunch of creatures and then adding 8-10 spells...
Huh? Why?
Dissenting opinions are certainly valid, but not more valid than the opinions of people who like the set.
We're not sycophants merely because we enjoy the game.
EDIT:
The beauty of this game is that it keeps changing. If there was really not a single card in either of those sets that appealed to you at all, maybe you should take a break.
Also, yeah, if you're comparing a new set to Homelands... you've lost all sense of proportion. Sure, you might think it's bad, but it's not that bad, considering that, say, the format will be at least tolerably entertaining in Limited.
There'll be a real cost, in RTR-THR Standard, to playing a three-colour deck. This means that raw card power will be more easily overtaken by synergy, since you can no longer jam three fifths of the best creatures in the format into the same deck. Devotion is also a very synergistic mechanic; cards with Devotion can be absurd in the decks they go into, but impossible to just slam into a midrange shell and go for it. Also, Thragtusk will be out of the format, so hooray.
You'd simply rather have to deal with people you agree with than be confronted by an opposing view you might not want to immediately dismiss because you might have a hard time understanding how someone might have a different opinion than yours
Considering dissension as a factor of appreciation of an opinion I'd say is rather vapid itself
Greedy mana bases are bad for the game people! When people can play 3 color decks without much drawback, it reduces diversity within the format. The fact that Theros is pushing mono color is awesome! I've been waiting years for a block to do that. I think people have been spoiled by the ridiculously good mana fixing that's been in previous sets. Check lands, fetches, shocks...Shocks are so strong on their own, adding another powerful cycle of duals makes mana fixing way too strong. The new scry lands have what every cycle of duals should have (a legitimate drawback). I'm fine with very powerful duals (like shocks) being printed every once in a few blocks, but certainly not every block like it seems some of you expect.
We just had a block that emphasized multicolor, what's wrong with a block that emphasizes mono color? The only gripe I have with the new lands is that they're rare, but I don't think Wizards will ever stop printing lands at rare even though in my opinion they never should, with the exception of legendary lands or lands with very unique effects.
BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks
BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam
UB Reanimator
Yeah I'm not sure exactly, I think I'm just excited for Scry after being starved of library manipulation for so long.
Certainly, I agree.
The reason I used the term sycophants is to describe the people whose arguments for something essentially boil down to trusting R&D and their arguments are variations of: you are not the audience for this card, or it's necessary for limited, or WoTC is a business and needs to make money.
These arguments are unimaginative and essentially meaningless in the context of a discussion about a card, set, mechanic whatever.
For example, the audience argument can be asserted as true for any card and requires an excessive burden of proof to be shown as false. I saw a guy at FNM once get VERY excited (like jumping up and down in his chair giddy) about casting a Havengul Runebinder. If we're discussing whether the Runebinder is a good card or not and I say it's not, then someone attempting to argue that I'm not the intended audience is technically right, but his argument is meaningless to the discussion.
What the? I can barely even parse this let alone understand it.
As long as that multi-colored block is still in Standard, we should be able to play 3 color decks. Maybe you will get your wish next summer. Hell look at the multi-colored cards in Theros. This is not a mono colored set.
On the duals, I cant see them being played in standard until shocks rotate. Shocks are heads and shoulders above the new CITP tapped lands.
I think what he means is that Valarin's opinion and criticisms have reasons behind them, where as the vast majority simply says 'You don't like it? Don't buy it. How dare you not appreciate what WotC has done?' which is neither constructive nor realistic.
The vast majority of the people on this forum who would argue against Valarin or other 'dissenters' act no more than strawman WotC fanboys at every supposed slight against the designs of WotC.
Like, for instance, I will say that enchantment artifacts are the absolute dumbest thing Wizards has ever done, the reason being, is that they could just be artifacts, and that they have absolutely no reason to also be enchantments. Artifacts literally do everything that enchantments do, except that they were traditionally colorless, and traditionally enchantments couldn't be creatures.
The average response to such a complaint is generally: 'This set wasn't designed for you!'
That's not a real argument. There's literally no point for anyone to waste the time to post it. They would have managed their time better by doing literally anything else.
So, reading someone's opinion who differs from the mold is much better than reading something like:
[NewSet]Vanilla Goblin: 2r (M) 3/2
"First!"
"Oh wow, so flavorful, a goblin too stupid to do anything!"
"Wow! This will be great in standard!"
"Standard? This is great in eternal formats!"
"Oh wow, I can't wait to get a playset of these!"
"[picture of fry 'take my money']"
"Wow, Can you say standard goblins? Because I can!"
"This card's going to be $60!"
"Wow, I can't believe this, I need this for EDH!"
So, when someone goes to the thread and tells them that the card is god awful, as it truly is, that's different than the norm. I feel bad for the people on this forum quite often, solely because of what their opinions are and the events that must have happened to cause them to be so. WotC is not theur friend, WotC is their drug dealer's drug dealer. WotC would shoot them if they tried to rat on it.
WotC does not get offended when we don't like cards, or sets. MaRo doesn't, either. MaRo just tells himself that he can't please everyone, looks at the sales figures for boxes of cards that NEED to be purchased to play a game, and tells himself that he did a good job. After 10 years of that, he just walks around with an air of self importance, and people would defend his smug ass to the death, a man who wouldn't piss on them to put the fire out.
Infraction issued for flaming. -Xen
LOL. I don't like Theros, e.g. I do not like anything in my existence. That's some pretty fancy deductive reasoning you got going on there. Is the new "Jump to Conclusions Mat: Extreme Edition" out already?
M13 wasn't terrible, I think it was worse than M12, but it had some decent cards that made Standard interesting. It also had some overpowered mistakes, but I'd gladly take those over unplayable junk anyday
The direction the playerbase is going is something I certainly won't miss either. The hopeless devotion of players these days to anything Wizards puts out is precisely why we have sets this bad. Theros is what you get when design and development basically have zero accountability.
A good example of this is Palladium Games, when Rifts came out it was a hit, so they started pumping out sourcebooks as fast as they could get them on the shelves. The first ones were good, and sold like hotcakes, then they started getting more lackluster, but people still bought them because "It was Rifts". Slowly but surely the quality of expansion books went down, the art got ridiculously worse, the game mechanics and world got even more bizzare, but books kept selling, because sycophants and apologists kept snapping them up. Eventually even they got fed up and left and the game pretty much impolded and fell to fairly dismal numbers.
You could also look to D&D 4.0 vs Pathfinder. Screw something up enough, and players will leave to play something better. Bad design and development can destroy ANY game. D&D was around for 30+ years before it was promptly ruined by WoTC and all the players ran gleefully into Paizo's waiting arms.
MaRo and crew are riding inertia. Duels of the Planeswalkers introduced a ton of new people to Magic, it's the "hit new thing" to them, so Wizards can keep pumping out garbage and watch it sell. there's no incentive to make good sets. The problem is, that's never sustainable. It creates a culture of laziness, no effort, riding the coattails of earlier success, and eventual stagnation and decline.
Is it possible they just chose the 100 worst cards in the set to spoiler first, and are saving all the, awesome, incredibly bombtastic, amazing, playable uncommon, rares, and mythics for last? Sure, I guess it's possible. Personally, I wouldn't bet on it.
I think what you really mean is not "meaningless to the discussion", but "I don't like it." Except for "trust R&D" (usually a strawman argument that people don't actually make), those arguments are all valid. WotC is a business, Limited does have certain requirements (which other than bumping a few cards up a rarity doesn't actually affect constructed-only players), and, as you just admitted, there are cards you have no use for that make other audiences deliriously happy. None of that is "meaningless" to an argument over whether a set is "good", unless you insist on defining "good" as "things I like."
Edit: Wow, this thread is rapidly devolving into wall-to-wall strawman arguments. I should know better than to wade into these things.
These arguments are meaningless because within the context of the discussion they should already be known by the participants and are either factually true by definition or cannot reasonably be shown to be untrue.
I love it!
Lands that scry are bad. They'll see play because that's what we're given to play with, but I don't have to like it.
Let's be honest, Valarin hates everything about MtG as it is now (and I like the guy as far as everything else on this forum goes: movies, real-life advice especially), although I'm fairly confidant he enjoyed Return to Ravnica (who didn't? I thought limited wasn't all that great in RtR to be honest)
I don't find his views on recent sets to be very constructive at all: "this is terrible, I wanted something else, everything MaRo does is utter garbage"
It's just as bad as "WotC can't do anything wrong"; one extreme to the other
What you choose to focus on is up to you; I personnaly love spoiler season because it creates deck ideas and deck building is probably the part of the game I enjoy the most (sometimes I build a deck for the fun of it and take it apart after only a few games): I don't pay any mind to the cheerleaders or the haters; why would I?
I'm a bit baffled by how showing enthusiam for a game that we clearly all like is frowned upon however: this is an internet forum for a game for which the average player is 13 years old... Let the kids have their fun.
Valarin is certainly allowed to be as vocal in his hatred as he wants to be; sometimes he does gets a lot of unwarranted hate but your reap what you sow.
As far as the business side of things go, I couldn't care any less. I fail to see how it has any relevance to the discussion at hand which is: dissension is good in itself.
It isn't, it's beyond stupid to think it is no matter how you try to sugar coat it with "all these cheerleaders need a reality check" by using hyperbolic and superfluous examples.
The lack of empathy is disturbing honestly.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/developing-competitive-modern/598381-kiki-chord-kiki-company
Bring to Niv
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/814060-bring-to-niv-the-golden-deck
Legacy - Lands
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/established-legacy/control/535484-primer-lands
That just officially got you off my ignore list
And the thing is, it's not just MaRo. It's the while culture over there. When I went in for my in person interview, I was very surprised at the "fireman drill" culture the place had. For example, their #1 priority right now (oir at least a few months ago) at Wizards is salvaging the D&D franchise. D&D Next has absolute authority to recruit any employee or take any action it needs to fix the sales plunge caused by D&D 4.0. If they need dollars, the dollars come from somewhere else and that place has their budget reduced. The assumption is that "As long as it's selling, we don't need to invest in it"
Magic at one point was the #1 priority after a sales slump, it got all the resources it needed, got back in good shape, then they were forgotten about and management moved on to the next crisis (I think it was the Transformers franchise at the time)
I remember during my interview, I asked to see the Continual Improvement Plan and a list of CSF's tied to that plan for the team I would be heading up. The interviewers look at me like my head was made of cheese. The idea of continual focus on quality and continuous measurements of metrics so management can see what is working and what isn't working was completely foreign to them. It was like I was speaking Chinese.
The did admit (and I absolutely saw it) that Wizards is a having a challenging time growing, and really lacks the professional management skills to effectively handle a portfolio of it's size. It's one of the reasons they were hiring for positions like that
Wrong! scry lands aren't bad. guildgates aren't bad, it is just that they have given us so much awesome lands lately that it was too much easy to play 3 colors! i mean, i played 3 colors when we had scar fastlands and M10 and innistrad ones. it was ok. it worked. then they made it much easier, making 3 colors the norm. that is cool for some time, but i don't want to play 3 colors deck forever... now 2 and 1 color will play a little more, it seems.
also, you say those lands are bad, but what about the fetchlands? in a shockland free word, are they better then scry lands? no, they are not. still, you played them in standard and i did not hear complains.
for people talking about stuff in the set: i think the set is average in power level, they gave us lands, thoughtseize, some other good cards, but it isnt full of money, the gods aren't eternal material... it is a very cool set, to me, and moneywise it is ok.
While I think you're overreacting with your "Magic is dying", you got exactly the term I was looking for: "laziness". Since Return to Ravnica onwards, I see that Wizards isn't putting much effort on making great sets. When Gatecrash mechanics were spoiled I was like "Three mechanics in a row that came from the GDS? Really?". We also got a lot of boring mechanics like scavenge and unleash. I understand that not every mechanic can be new and original, but we have been getting too much plain mechanics lately.
Can I be honest? I wouldn't bet on it either. But as a principle, I prefer to judge things as a whole.
PS: I always wrote "laziness" as "lazyness". This thread is doing wonders for my English.