Ice Age block (Coldsnap was released after Kamigawa to finish the block, but let's consider full blocks after Kamigawa)
Scars of Mirrodin block (Only 1/3 of the block is released as of this post)
Personally, my vote has got to be Lorwyn block. It had cool tribes and it did introduce Planeswalkers, I really didn't like the fantasy environment that took place. I found a lot of the mechanics unexciting, like Champion and Clash. Morningtide offered very little to improve upon Lorwyn. Some great cards and a couple good cycles, but the set itself was pretty bad overall, I felt.
I voted Alara.
As a block, the whole thing was a mess. This showed especially well in limited, where the cohesion between packs was almost non-existent.
It is surprising that 3 well molded sets could fail to hold together as a even average block, but there you have it.
I voted Alara. I felt like they took the multicolor idea, and totally overdid it. That said, I still enjoyed a good chunk of the cards from Alara. I feel like there haven't been any truly horrible blocks in awhile.
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EDH UBW Sharuum BR Olivia Voldaren UR Jhoira URG Riku U Vendilion Clique
Homelands. It's so bad it can travel through time.
In all seriousness, I voted Zendikar. The "land matters" theme didn't quite work out the way I thought it would. I figured we'd get more utility lands instead of just manafixing ones and etb ones(and the rare cycle, which I love) Also... I despise Jace.
Flavorwise it's got to be Alara and it's not close. Each other block on the list achieved something unique that no other block has done. Ravnica was not the first multicolor block, but the separation of guilds by expansion was fresh. Time Spiral broke about every rule imaginable while still holding together with its temporal theme of exploring the past, present, and future. Lorwyn/Shadowmoor was the first 4-expansion block, and both sub-blocks were beautifully designed to mirror the other. Zendikar block broke ground on using land as the main focus of a block, and Rise of Eldrazi changed the way people thought about 10+ CMC cards.
Alara didn't do anything exciting or new. Shards: hey, look, we segregated the colors into five triple color pairs. I heard you like multicolor blocks. Conflux: Multicolor not enough to hook you? How about we bring back domain and not really go anywhere with it? Reborn: Didn't get enough unsatisfactory gimmicks? Well, this whole expansion is going to be multicolor!
- Multicolor theme. The block came just three years after Ravnica block and it came right after Lorwyn's five-color craziness of Vivid lands/Reflecting Pool. I know people like their multicolor stuff, but that gets really old really fast.
- Limited. A color-fixing nightmare doesn't even begin to describe it.
- Cascade. Wizards, when will you ever learn that free spells usually do more damage to the game than good?
Alara:
1- Cascade, free spells are always bad
2- Elspeth, the most powerful white planeswalker ever printed
3- Too much multicolored, i mean, Ravnica was cool, shadowmoor was catchy, but Reborn was too much to ask for
And to a lesser extent Zendikar:
1- Jace the Meta sculptor, no more need to say.
2- flying spaghetti monster et al
Voted: Shadowmoore Block. Although I actually liked shadowmoore the set, I thought that Eventide was the biggest disappointment in magic since... ever.
Other sets have been crappier, but Eventide had zero synergy with lorowyn becuase of how the eventide "tribes" i.e. silkies, hags, trolls, and dwarves where all differant (and none of them good, would ). The power level in eventide was terrible (name one tournement level card bisides figure of desiny,) and as an "enemy coloured set" it was a failure (for the record, I felt the Apocolypse was a success for a "enemy coloured set"). In the end, we had a "block" that really only contained shadowmoore and had very little synergy with lorowyn.
Just as an aside, shadowmoore block was technically part of lorowyn block.
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I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause!
Famliy Guy Emperor Says,
"Something, something something, DARK SIDE!
Something, something, something COMPLETE!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHiUitciuJ8
:symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw: SPIKE GAYMER: not just a beatdown, a beatdown sung to the tune of "I Feel Pretty"!
Definitely Alara as a block. Most of the mythics were just horrible, the block was poorly designed and terrible for limited, it didn't bring any good mechanics, reborn was probably one of the worst ideas ever... Other than that, I think everyone else has pretty much summed up why that block was bad.
As an individual set, I would have to say eventide. It was the worst set since saviors.
I believe that I have enough social competence to slip into a party or two, potentially wooing some attractive females that would not mind spending the evening performing the booty dance on me.
Not to mention a bunch of fun casual stuff.
I'd have to say that there haven't really been any bad blocks.
Sure, I have some individual sets I hate (Rise, M11, Guildpact), but I like where most of card design is going. Well, other than Wizards pumping out Timmy monsters with just enough spikiness to invade competitive formats. In about 2 and a half years Progenitus, Iona, Emrakul, Baneslayer, and the Titans were all printed. That's sort of ridiculous.
Nothing is remotely fun about those cards.
I voted for Alara. It had some cool stuff, but I just can't really see myself using too much from it outside of EDH. I was also thinking of Lorwyn, but I just don't know much about it, so I don't think that would be too fair to vote for it.
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WU Near-Death Experience (Casual multiplayer) B Vintage Illegal Discard (When I want to be a jerk) GW Allies (Casual) URG Defenders (Crappy Standard) RWU Affinity (Modern)
I don't quite understand the Alara hate, I thought the set was extremely flavorful and I didn't really see the limited problems that other people are noting with the set.
Lorwyn on the other hand, was just throughly disappointing to draft, open, and generally be a part of. The setting didn't work for me, I really didn't find anything exciting about the mechanics or the cards (Planeswalkers excepted), and it was just....bad.
Jace on the other hand gives you card advantage for no life cost. On the contrary, Jace can actually take some damage for you. I'd think that makes him better than Arena.
I still don't understand the amount of hate that Kamigawa recieves...Kamigawa introduced an incredible amount of tournament-worthy cards.
And it had an amazing flavor, too boot.
One of the main reasons i hate the Kamigawa blokc is the mechanical phrashing on cards. Spirt or arcane to be exact. There as sevral cards in the block that are still viable in edh or legacy but are useless unless you make a block deck. And coming off the fun that Mirodin block had they just took a 180 and make the game boring and not worth investing in. The flavor of the samurai and ninjutsu was awesome but it was still just a bad set. Again this is just my take on things.
I voted lorewyn block, with shadowmoor and zendikar being tied for second. Lorewyn was just not fun, its was play faries or screw off. It did give us the firs tplaneswalkers but im not really a fan of them. Overall it was just an aggravating set to play.
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Currently Playing 1994 Magic The Rack Type 1: B/W Zombies Modern: Kuldotha Red Legacy: Pox, Oath Vintag: 10 Proxy Merfolk Pauper: Pestilence, UG Threshold EDH: Karn, Roon, Sliver Queen, Xiahou Dun, Arcanus
One of the main reasons i hate the Kamigawa blokc is the mechanical phrashing on cards. Spirt or arcane to be exact. There as sevral cards in the block that are still viable in edh or legacy but are useless unless you make a block deck. And coming off the fun that Mirodin block had they just took a 180 and make the game boring and not worth investing in. Again this is just my take on things.
Most blocks are pretty lucky to have cards that are run in Vintage and Legacy.
And while I agree with you that Mirrodon was quite fun, I know of many people who hated it because of affinity.
Jace on the other hand gives you card advantage for no life cost. On the contrary, Jace can actually take some damage for you. I'd think that makes him better than Arena.
Most blocks are pretty lucky to have cards that are run in Vintage and Legacy.
And while I agree with you that Mirrodon was quite fun, I know of many people who hated it because of affinity.
I also knew a bunch of folks who loved kawigawa and hated mirodin becuase of affinity. I for one loved affinity and still play it. I dont know that many cards from KG would be good in vintage but legacy or edh there are a few.
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Currently Playing 1994 Magic The Rack Type 1: B/W Zombies Modern: Kuldotha Red Legacy: Pox, Oath Vintag: 10 Proxy Merfolk Pauper: Pestilence, UG Threshold EDH: Karn, Roon, Sliver Queen, Xiahou Dun, Arcanus
I also knew a bunch of folks who loved kawigawa and hated mirodin becuase of affinity. I for one loved affinity and still play it. I dont know that many cards from KG would be good in vintage but legacy or edh there are a few.
Well, I mostly love Mirrodon for decks like MGA and Flores Red...Both were incredibly fun to play, and because of those two I was able to ramp my constructed rating to 1860 :).
Jace on the other hand gives you card advantage for no life cost. On the contrary, Jace can actually take some damage for you. I'd think that makes him better than Arena.
I really, really enjoyed Lorwyn. So...why did I vote for it? Because in spite of how much I liked its art, mechanics, flavor, inspiration and other attributes...it, unlike the other blocks here, had a particularly unbalancing deck to go with it that, for me at least, uncomfortably reminded me of Raffinity with how imbalanced it was. My only consolation in dealing with those little buggers was the Fridge Brilliance in that ultimately, the Fae have more influence than any other force in Lorwyn.
Voted: Shadowmoore Block. Although I actually liked shadowmoore the set, I thought that Eventide was the biggest disappointment in magic since... ever.
Other sets have been crappier, but Eventide had zero synergy with lorowyn becuase of how the eventide "tribes" i.e. silkies, hags, trolls, and dwarves where all differant (and none of them good, would ). The power level in eventide was terrible (name one tournement level card bisides figure of desiny,) and as an "enemy coloured set" it was a failure (for the record, I felt the Apocolypse was a success for a "enemy coloured set"). In the end, we had a "block" that really only contained shadowmoore and had very little synergy with lorowyn.
One of the main reasons i hate the Kamigawa blokc is the mechanical phrashing on cards. Spirt or arcane to be exact. There as sevral cards in the block that are still viable in edh or legacy but are useless unless you make a block deck. And coming off the fun that Mirodin block had they just took a 180 and make the game boring and not worth investing in. The flavor of the samurai and ninjutsu was awesome but it was still just a bad set. Again this is just my take on things.
I voted lorewyn block, with shadowmoor and zendikar being tied for second. Lorewyn was just not fun, its was play faries or screw off. It did give us the firs tplaneswalkers but im not really a fan of them. Overall it was just an aggravating set to play.
About any "subpar" mechanics or cards: Context is king.
If I make a templating or grammar error, let me know.
The franchise MtG most resembles is Battlestar Galactica. Why? Its players exist in, at most, a dozen different models at any given point in time, with perhaps up to 3% variation, 5% if you're lucky.
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As a block, the whole thing was a mess. This showed especially well in limited, where the cohesion between packs was almost non-existent.
It is surprising that 3 well molded sets could fail to hold together as a even average block, but there you have it.
UBW Sharuum
BR Olivia Voldaren
UR Jhoira
URG Riku
U Vendilion Clique
Fully-powered 600-Card "Dream Cube" https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/dreamcube
450-Card "Artificer's Cube" https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/artificer
Cubing in Indianapolis...send me a PM!!
L2 Judge
In all seriousness, I voted Zendikar. The "land matters" theme didn't quite work out the way I thought it would. I figured we'd get more utility lands instead of just manafixing ones and etb ones(and the rare cycle, which I love) Also... I despise Jace.
Alara didn't do anything exciting or new. Shards: hey, look, we segregated the colors into five triple color pairs. I heard you like multicolor blocks. Conflux: Multicolor not enough to hook you? How about we bring back domain and not really go anywhere with it? Reborn: Didn't get enough unsatisfactory gimmicks? Well, this whole expansion is going to be multicolor!
- Multicolor theme. The block came just three years after Ravnica block and it came right after Lorwyn's five-color craziness of Vivid lands/Reflecting Pool. I know people like their multicolor stuff, but that gets really old really fast.
- Limited. A color-fixing nightmare doesn't even begin to describe it.
- Cascade. Wizards, when will you ever learn that free spells usually do more damage to the game than good?
Thanks to Heroes of the Plane Studios for the amazing sig.
NO RUG: Primer
Tempo Thresh: Primer
1- Cascade, free spells are always bad
2- Elspeth, the most powerful white planeswalker ever printed
3- Too much multicolored, i mean, Ravnica was cool, shadowmoor was catchy, but Reborn was too much to ask for
And to a lesser extent Zendikar:
1- Jace the Meta sculptor, no more need to say.
2- flying spaghetti monster et al
BR RkDW-Aggro | UBR Cruel Grixis-Control
Legacy:
WW Soldier Tribal-Aggro| WW Stax-Control
Modern:
RW Artifact Boros-Aggro | GB The Rock-Midrange
Other sets have been crappier, but Eventide had zero synergy with lorowyn becuase of how the eventide "tribes" i.e. silkies, hags, trolls, and dwarves where all differant (and none of them good, would ). The power level in eventide was terrible (name one tournement level card bisides figure of desiny,) and as an "enemy coloured set" it was a failure (for the record, I felt the Apocolypse was a success for a "enemy coloured set"). In the end, we had a "block" that really only contained shadowmoore and had very little synergy with lorowyn.
Just as an aside, shadowmoore block was technically part of lorowyn block.
Famliy Guy Emperor Says,
"Something, something something, DARK SIDE!
Something, something, something COMPLETE!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHiUitciuJ8
:symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw:
SPIKE GAYMER: not just a beatdown, a beatdown sung to the tune of "I Feel Pretty"!
As an individual set, I would have to say eventide. It was the worst set since saviors.
RUG Riku, Two is Better Than One
UB [PRIMER] Wrexial, Classic Control
RG Radha, Ramp's Theme Goes With Everything
Lorwyn block was terrible. Unexciting environment, boring mechaincs, and the introduciton of planeswalkers.
Cascade Bluffs
Fetid Heath
Flooded Grove
Rugged Prairie
Twilight Mire
Regal Force
Sanity Grinding
Shorecrasher Mimic
Stigma Lasher
Stillmoon Cavalier
Talara's Battalion
Nettle Sentinel
Unmake
Wake Thrasher
Worm Harvest
Raven's Crime
Glen Elendra Archmage
Cold-Eyed Selkie
I'd have to say that there haven't really been any bad blocks.
Sure, I have some individual sets I hate (Rise, M11, Guildpact), but I like where most of card design is going. Well, other than Wizards pumping out Timmy monsters with just enough spikiness to invade competitive formats. In about 2 and a half years Progenitus, Iona, Emrakul, Baneslayer, and the Titans were all printed. That's sort of ridiculous.
Nothing is remotely fun about those cards.
I am petitioning to get players to stop complaining about mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause.
WU Near-Death Experience (Casual multiplayer)
B Vintage Illegal Discard (When I want to be a jerk)
GW Allies (Casual)
URG Defenders (Crappy Standard)
RWU Affinity (Modern)
RGW Mayael the Anima
B Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
BG Vhati il-Dal
BR Bladewing the Risen
GU Edric, Spymaster of Trest
WU Bruna, Light of Alabaster
RWU Zedruu the Greathearted
Lorwyn on the other hand, was just throughly disappointing to draft, open, and generally be a part of. The setting didn't work for me, I really didn't find anything exciting about the mechanics or the cards (Planeswalkers excepted), and it was just....bad.
Legacy Decks:
Legendary Maverick GW
I've always disliked Tribal and all of the mechanics in Lorwyn/Morningtide are pretty lame except for Evoke.
My Custom Cube - a super-powered Core Set
I still don't understand the amount of hate that Kamigawa recieves...Kamigawa introduced an incredible amount of tournament-worthy cards.
And it had an amazing flavor, too boot.
One of the main reasons i hate the Kamigawa blokc is the mechanical phrashing on cards. Spirt or arcane to be exact. There as sevral cards in the block that are still viable in edh or legacy but are useless unless you make a block deck. And coming off the fun that Mirodin block had they just took a 180 and make the game boring and not worth investing in. The flavor of the samurai and ninjutsu was awesome but it was still just a bad set. Again this is just my take on things.
I voted lorewyn block, with shadowmoor and zendikar being tied for second. Lorewyn was just not fun, its was play faries or screw off. It did give us the firs tplaneswalkers but im not really a fan of them. Overall it was just an aggravating set to play.
Currently Playing
1994 Magic The Rack
Type 1: B/W Zombies
Modern: Kuldotha Red
Legacy: Pox, Oath
Vintag: 10 Proxy Merfolk
Pauper: Pestilence, UG Threshold
EDH: Karn, Roon, Sliver Queen, Xiahou Dun, Arcanus
Most blocks are pretty lucky to have cards that are run in Vintage and Legacy.
And while I agree with you that Mirrodon was quite fun, I know of many people who hated it because of affinity.
I also knew a bunch of folks who loved kawigawa and hated mirodin becuase of affinity. I for one loved affinity and still play it. I dont know that many cards from KG would be good in vintage but legacy or edh there are a few.
Currently Playing
1994 Magic The Rack
Type 1: B/W Zombies
Modern: Kuldotha Red
Legacy: Pox, Oath
Vintag: 10 Proxy Merfolk
Pauper: Pestilence, UG Threshold
EDH: Karn, Roon, Sliver Queen, Xiahou Dun, Arcanus
Well, I mostly love Mirrodon for decks like MGA and Flores Red...Both were incredibly fun to play, and because of those two I was able to ramp my constructed rating to 1860 :).
I know you posted for this, fearmeordie, I just spent five minutes on that post; still wanted to use it.
EDIT: Newsflash, DA - most Hags and all duergar had CLASS types, and selkies were MERFOLK, you dolt!
:-/...and...YOU're one to talk?
Flame/Troll Infraction.
About any "subpar" mechanics or cards: Context is king.
If I make a templating or grammar error, let me know.
The franchise MtG most resembles is Battlestar Galactica. Why? Its players exist in, at most, a dozen different models at any given point in time, with perhaps up to 3% variation, 5% if you're lucky.