Not a thread ment to belittle magic but I was curious on people's opinion in when there was "the last good set". My girlfriend and myself started getting into magic and buying packs/boxes at the last zendikar. We bought a box for gate watch too, but skipped the newest because honestly the last few boxes were meh.
I've been reading online extensively and I've been just seeing a consistent agreement that the last few sets have been water down versions of their original sets. I was curious on how long this has been going on. We primarily play edh and the drafts when new sets come out. I'd say that all our decks outside new commander sets are old cards because they do seem so much stronger.
I'm just hoping one day we open a pack with our own version of snapcaster Mage or mildsculpter ;.;
I think OGW was a great set. It gave Legacy a very welcome shake-up, and also had cool expeditions.
That said, I don't think they've made any sets post Future Sight that are as good as any sets from the Time Spiral block. Design has undergone a major face-lift post Time Spiral (NWO being the flagship of these changes), and I'm in the camp that sees this new direction as a major step backwards.
Honestly? Khans of Tarkir, before the rest of the block happened. Powerful mechanics, great flavor, individually strong cards with plenty of synergy. Then the rest of the block happened, with overall weaker cards and less interesting ways to build. Yes, Khans had some stuff like Siege Rhino that made Constructed tough, but it was a great Limited environment. If you were looking for Constructed staples, there were fetchlands, the aforementioned Rhino, the good-enough-to-get-banned Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time, and some interesting stuff like Jeskai Ascendancy.
For the last several years, the first set of a block has been pretty good, excluding BFZ: Khans, Theros, RTR, Innistrad, all were great Limited environments with a good number of Constructed-playable cards. The second and third sets (especially third sets) have been less impressive. I don't know what exactly went wrong with BFZ, but SOI seems like a flavor hit. The only thing I can complain about in SOI is that we loved the good cards out of Innistrad: the ones that are completely missing out of the return trip. Wizards has, for whatever reason, decided to not reprint those... and those cards are RESPONSIBLE for a large part of the nostalgia about the set.
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Cards are game pieces, and should be treated as such, easily replaceable.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
It's completely subjective without defining what "good" means. I think almost every set is a good set. But if you mean the last iconic set that changed the face of Magic then for me it's original Ravnica, Lorwyn, original Innistrad, or perhaps even Theros. Original Ravnica introduced the guilds and added words to our Magic lexicon that still exist today. It was also considered the best set to draft EVER by some people. The fact we have return to ravnica highlights how iconic it was. Lorwyn introduced Planeswalkers and introducing a new card type is huge imo. It also introduced Faeries, one of the iconic decks of recent memory. Innistrad introduced flip cards/werewolves and is one of my favorite sets to draft ever, I prefer drafting it to Ravnica. Finally, Theros is interesting because it touched on Mythology from real human cultures, which Wizards said they wouldn't do. It also introduced the Gods which I thought were quite interesting. Limited sucked though so I'm reluctant to call it a "good" set. My subjective opinion is that Innistrad was the last game changer.
It's completely subjective without defining what "good" means. I think almost every set is a good set. But if you mean the last iconic set that changed the face of Magic then for me it's original Ravnica, Lorwyn, original Innistrad, or perhaps even Theros. Original Ravnica introduced the guilds and added words to our Magic lexicon that still exist today. It was also considered the best set to draft EVER by some people. The fact we have return to ravnica highlights how iconic it was. Lorwyn introduced Planeswalkers and introducing a new card type is huge imo. It also introduced Faeries, one of the iconic decks of recent memory. Innistrad introduced flip cards/werewolves and is one of my favorite sets to draft ever, I prefer drafting it to Ravnica. Finally, Theros is interesting because it touched on Mythology from real human cultures, which Wizards said they wouldn't do. It also introduced the Gods which I thought were quite interesting. Limited sucked though so I'm reluctant to call it a "good" set. My subjective opinion is that Innistrad was the last game changer.
I loved the Return to Ravnica block and the Shards of Alara block. In Ravnica each guild had its own ability and in Alara each Shard had its own theme. I felt there was a lot of room to build unique, fun decks. The fact that Shards of Alara was all multi-color was awesome too.
I would say that SoI is a good set, at least compared to the block that came before it and especially better than BFZ. Most sets are usually fine, but really it just comes down to personal preference, although with some sets it is really easy to know when it is worse than others.
As others have mentioned, it is pretty difficult to hit a particularly subjective mark. However, I (and at least a few others) feel like the original Rav and TSP blocks may have been the high-water mark for the game (in some important ways). On the other hand, I can comfortably say that M10, original Zendikar block, original Innistrad block, and RtR (just the first set) were all "good" in some way or the other. Or at least I enjoyed what they did on most levels and liked getting product from those sets for a variety of reasons.
For me, being "good" results from a mix of doing interesting things, an appreciation of theme, and having a power-level that doesn't make me feel like I'm flushing money down a toilet.
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Khans was sweet, as was the rest of the block, and I've like SOI so far. Khans was nice due to the Fetches, and being backed by a decent story. SOI has a few exciting cards, but mainly, I love the mechanics pusing the story foward. Investigate to make clues to draw cards. The team who came up with that need a raise.
Magics "bad" sets tend to be sets with a low power level, or bad limited games. Kamigawa had great art, and my favorite story and lore, but it was in between two of the best sets in magic history. It also had massive limited issues due to Legendary matters, which boiled down to everything is a legend. Not to mention Jitte. Theros was another low power set, with ok art, powerlevel issue between mechanics and cards. BFZ? I hope you don't like to play green. Did you like landfall? You probably shouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. What about powerful land, please tell me we got something!? Let me show you the Tangolands, and the new Manlands....
The last set to simultaneously produce many strong cards for eternal formats, have good flavor, good limited play, and not produce an oppressive standard format was original Innistrad. There's a reason so many people loved it, it's arguably the best set WOTC ever made.
But you can't expect a great set every time. Personally, I don't believe there are many blatantly bad sets in Magic's history. Almost every set has a ton of people complaining about it when it first comes out, mostly because it doesn't have a card for one mana of their favorite color that says "You win the game." BFZ was not great, yes, but Oath was pretty good, and SOI has a great limited environment and fantastic flavor and design, imo. Inevitably there will be cards from the set that end up impacting eternal formats, there always are.
Shadows over Innistrad was the last good set, but if we don't count that, I would say Khans of Tarkir. I love the flavor and feel of SOI, and while it isn't as good as original Innistrad, it is still fantastic.
Its easier to name the bad ones, BFZ, ******* born of the gods(god this was ***** in every way you need to add ******* to this set's title), Dragon's Maze, Scars of Mirrodin, and honestly Worldwake were probably the only 5 sets in recent history that i can call bad. Worldwake basically was just zendikar, more cards, and added nothing new, some broken cards yeah, but other than manlands, can you describe anything about the set? Scars was kind of boring imo, the other two sets in the block were good, dragon's maze had no dragon, made a worse limited, and sucked in constructed, born of the gods is my least favorite set ever, and BFZ is pretty much the only universally agreed on bad set in recent history.
Well, everyone has their own expectations for sets, and people tend to react based on whether those expectations were met, regardless of whether they were even reasonable in the first place.
Every set has its fans and foes, but personally I loved Shards of Alara, Alara Reborn, Zendikar, Rise of the Eldrazi, New Phyrexia, Innistrad, Avacyn Restored, Return to Ravnica, Khans of Tarkir, Dragons of Tarkir, Oath of the Gatewatch, and Shadows Over Innistrad. Bolded ones are favorites.
If you're looking for constructed playability, then there hasn't been a set more playable than KTK since KTK. DTK might be close enough to meet the threshold of "good" though. The Eldrazi Modern deck did spring up out of the BFG block, but that had a lot to do with how the new cards synergized with eye of ugin and eldrazi temple, than the power of the new zendikar set itself.
If you're looking for a good limited format, I've only drafted SOI once, but I think it's an incredibly deep draft format so far, although I worry that it might be a bit complex for new players.
Oath was great, lots of pushed cards for you there. Origins has a ton of cool stuff for EDH, and the closest thing to a Snappy/JtMS we've gotten lately in flip Jace. Khans has plenty of powerful cards, including some of the strongest card drawing spells ever printed in Cruise/Dig. Although really it doesn't make much sense to open packs for EDH purposes, as even in the best sets your hits are going to be few and far between.
I think SOI has had the most cards that I want to add to my decks in probably three years. I mean, every set has at least one card I want, but between 23 EDH decks I can usually count the number of cards I add to any of them, collectively, on one hand. On the other hand, I've put more than 30 SOI cards in my decks (though same are duplicates).
I mean, I picked up an Anguished Unmaking for every single one of my WBx decks. The last time I bought a playset of something was Cavern of Souls.
Rtr and original Innistrad. That standard was probably the best standard environment that wizards has ever pulled off, and both sets came packed with powerful cards that affected all formats (snap, lily, drs, Abrupt decay, delver, etc)
I wasn't a fan of BFZ or OGW, but SoI is pretty good. Theros was flavorfully great but I didn't really like playing the block much. Khans I have mixed feelings about, the RTR block was fun to play despite having few cards worth collecting.
The last set that I truly fell in love with and adored for how dumb it is was the Alara block, because it's not often when 5 color goodstuff is a viable theme in a limited setting.
I guess "Good Set" is very subjective. Khans of Tarkir block was very powerful, but IMO it was just a good set. A really good set IMO has all elements coming together. Power-level, draft/sealed format, flavor, and so on. The last home-run outstanding set that would fill the bill is the original Innistrad.
Now sets for opening "OMG this will be a $100 bill" broken card would be at BfZ block as you can open expeditions. Even thou the set itself is kinda a pile of ***** in terms of design. SOI has something like that. You can open Archangel Avacyn. Dunno if it will become a super expensive card in the future, but it's a solid $40 ~ 50 card. Origins has flip Jace which has an insane price tag. Snapcaster Mage wasn't as insane opening during its tenure in Standard. I guess these sets fits the bill.
Now if the sets are watered down, Khans was very powerful set, so I don't think it fits this description. Now BfZ was really neutered except for Eldrazi things being fueled by an older card. I think commons and uncommons aren't being as pushed like before. Lot of cards printed as rare could be uncommons, but for limited's sake (which is a poor excuse IMO, just design with a different limited mindset, they are neutering limited as well), they are rare. Some mythics could be rares, but would ruin limited with the current way of designing sets WotC is adopting.
So for this criteria, my pick for last set would be around M12. We had Lightning Bolt, Rampant Growth, 1 mana elf, Ponder, Doom Blade, and so on at common. Now we can't even print Shock at common! Wildslash is a fricking uncommon! Even Oblivion Ring as uncommon is too much for Standard it seems (it was a common as well in the past). We can have neutered O-Rings at uncommon or even rare.
Now if the sets are watered down, Khans was very powerful set, so I don't think it fits this description. Now BfZ was really neutered except for Eldrazi things being fueled by an older card. I think commons and uncommons aren't being as pushed like before. Lot of cards printed as rare could be uncommons, but for limited's sake (which is a poor excuse IMO, just design with a different limited mindset, they are neutering limited as well), they are rare. Some mythics could be rares, but would ruin limited with the current way of designing sets WotC is adopting.
While I agree that constructed is very rare-oriented (and has been for quite a while), I think you're missing the point on how limited influences set design. For practical purposes, the only differences between commons and uncommons are complexity and limited frequency (if Wizards doesn't test for Modern, they sure as heck don't care about pauper). You implied that Wild Slash should be a common, but the reason for why it's uncommon isn't "OMG Shock too stronk!" Khans block limited was notable for the presence of morphs/manifested cards, and testing must have revealed that a 1 mana common that fried face-down cards warped limited. Changing their limited mindset wouldn't change anything in this scenario because they had no intention of excising morph just to accommodate a common shock. Not every irregular rarity can be explained so neatly, but context has to be taken into consideration.
Of course, you could just join the players who argue that limited has a net-negative impact on the game, but Wizards is unlikely to drop the attention given to their most profitable format.
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I've been reading online extensively and I've been just seeing a consistent agreement that the last few sets have been water down versions of their original sets. I was curious on how long this has been going on. We primarily play edh and the drafts when new sets come out. I'd say that all our decks outside new commander sets are old cards because they do seem so much stronger.
I'm just hoping one day we open a pack with our own version of snapcaster Mage or mildsculpter ;.;
That said, I don't think they've made any sets post Future Sight that are as good as any sets from the Time Spiral block. Design has undergone a major face-lift post Time Spiral (NWO being the flagship of these changes), and I'm in the camp that sees this new direction as a major step backwards.
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For the last several years, the first set of a block has been pretty good, excluding BFZ: Khans, Theros, RTR, Innistrad, all were great Limited environments with a good number of Constructed-playable cards. The second and third sets (especially third sets) have been less impressive. I don't know what exactly went wrong with BFZ, but SOI seems like a flavor hit. The only thing I can complain about in SOI is that we loved the good cards out of Innistrad: the ones that are completely missing out of the return trip. Wizards has, for whatever reason, decided to not reprint those... and those cards are RESPONSIBLE for a large part of the nostalgia about the set.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
Agreed
For me, being "good" results from a mix of doing interesting things, an appreciation of theme, and having a power-level that doesn't make me feel like I'm flushing money down a toilet.
Magics "bad" sets tend to be sets with a low power level, or bad limited games. Kamigawa had great art, and my favorite story and lore, but it was in between two of the best sets in magic history. It also had massive limited issues due to Legendary matters, which boiled down to everything is a legend. Not to mention Jitte. Theros was another low power set, with ok art, powerlevel issue between mechanics and cards. BFZ? I hope you don't like to play green. Did you like landfall? You probably shouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. What about powerful land, please tell me we got something!? Let me show you the Tangolands, and the new Manlands....
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But you can't expect a great set every time. Personally, I don't believe there are many blatantly bad sets in Magic's history. Almost every set has a ton of people complaining about it when it first comes out, mostly because it doesn't have a card for one mana of their favorite color that says "You win the game." BFZ was not great, yes, but Oath was pretty good, and SOI has a great limited environment and fantastic flavor and design, imo. Inevitably there will be cards from the set that end up impacting eternal formats, there always are.
thats my cube
Seriously I think SOI is really good.
Art is life itself.
Every set has its fans and foes, but personally I loved Shards of Alara, Alara Reborn, Zendikar, Rise of the Eldrazi, New Phyrexia, Innistrad, Avacyn Restored, Return to Ravnica, Khans of Tarkir, Dragons of Tarkir, Oath of the Gatewatch, and Shadows Over Innistrad. Bolded ones are favorites.
If you're looking for a good limited format, I've only drafted SOI once, but I think it's an incredibly deep draft format so far, although I worry that it might be a bit complex for new players.
I mean, I picked up an Anguished Unmaking for every single one of my WBx decks. The last time I bought a playset of something was Cavern of Souls.
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The last set that I truly fell in love with and adored for how dumb it is was the Alara block, because it's not often when 5 color goodstuff is a viable theme in a limited setting.
Now sets for opening "OMG this will be a $100 bill" broken card would be at BfZ block as you can open expeditions. Even thou the set itself is kinda a pile of ***** in terms of design. SOI has something like that. You can open Archangel Avacyn. Dunno if it will become a super expensive card in the future, but it's a solid $40 ~ 50 card. Origins has flip Jace which has an insane price tag. Snapcaster Mage wasn't as insane opening during its tenure in Standard. I guess these sets fits the bill.
Now if the sets are watered down, Khans was very powerful set, so I don't think it fits this description. Now BfZ was really neutered except for Eldrazi things being fueled by an older card. I think commons and uncommons aren't being as pushed like before. Lot of cards printed as rare could be uncommons, but for limited's sake (which is a poor excuse IMO, just design with a different limited mindset, they are neutering limited as well), they are rare. Some mythics could be rares, but would ruin limited with the current way of designing sets WotC is adopting.
So for this criteria, my pick for last set would be around M12. We had Lightning Bolt, Rampant Growth, 1 mana elf, Ponder, Doom Blade, and so on at common. Now we can't even print Shock at common! Wildslash is a fricking uncommon! Even Oblivion Ring as uncommon is too much for Standard it seems (it was a common as well in the past). We can have neutered O-Rings at uncommon or even rare.
While I agree that constructed is very rare-oriented (and has been for quite a while), I think you're missing the point on how limited influences set design. For practical purposes, the only differences between commons and uncommons are complexity and limited frequency (if Wizards doesn't test for Modern, they sure as heck don't care about pauper). You implied that Wild Slash should be a common, but the reason for why it's uncommon isn't "OMG Shock too stronk!" Khans block limited was notable for the presence of morphs/manifested cards, and testing must have revealed that a 1 mana common that fried face-down cards warped limited. Changing their limited mindset wouldn't change anything in this scenario because they had no intention of excising morph just to accommodate a common shock. Not every irregular rarity can be explained so neatly, but context has to be taken into consideration.
Of course, you could just join the players who argue that limited has a net-negative impact on the game, but Wizards is unlikely to drop the attention given to their most profitable format.