I mean with the rate at what they release alternate products like Commander and Planechase, Vs. decks like Tezzeret vs. Elspeth, then regular sets like Lorwyn etc..
6 years is a very very long time.
I've been playing since Revised with periods where I have taken breaks. I have seen most of the sets come out when they were brand new but Ravnica was quite a while ago when you think about it.
I guess when you've been playing since Beta time seems to blur together. But yeah, Wizards has definitely stepped up the amount of products that they're releasing. Yearly rotation just makes things go so much...quicker? But yeah, when I look at it, 6 years can definitely be an eternity. That and there are people that have only started in recent sets so we can say that our outlook on Magic is definitely a little more broad.
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An actor without a director is but a mannequin.
While a director without a writer is unemployed.
But ultimately a writer without words is dead.
~R. D. Newman
"7,015 creatures in existence. They all die to removal."
Never before has a boy wanted more...zombie slaying.
The nostalgia goggles for old sets is really getting out of hand here.
This doesn't affect me because I started just after Mirrodin Besieged came out. I like the Scars and Innistrad Blocks, and I'm looking forward to Avacyn Restored. I personally don't really care what mechanics a set has or doesn't have, as long as I like the individual cards in it.
I also don't play competitive, so I don't need my deck to work together super well, I just need it to work.
the context is all wrong (SOM with INN makes no sense, it's just "because").
It makes sense because unlike the early sets, sets now don't have huge epic storylines that span many sets. Their story is usually told in just one block now (just because I'm relatively new to magic doesn't mean I don't know much about storyline stuff ;))
"The greatest harm can result from the best intentions" - Wizard's Second Rule
"Mind what people do, not only what they say, for deeds will betray a lie" - Wizard's Fifth Rule
"Life is the future, not the past" - Wizard's Seventh Rule
"Talga Vassternich. (Deserve Victory)" - Wizard's Eighth Rule
I think the main problem with the game is power creep and how it degenerates our perception of what is a good card.
I still remembered playing trained armodon (vanilla 3/3 for 1GG) in my monogreen deck. Now we have wolfir avenger, with the same body, more relevant creature types, flash and regeneration, all at the same mana cost. Or heck, leatherback baloth in a monogreen deck is escencially trained armodon with +1/+2 and a relevant creature type for the same cost.
The power creep cannot keep climbing. at some point or another you will have to slow down the game. At which point, most card will probably be overcosted, inefficient and downright unplayable.
Standard constantly changes through rotation so power creep is not that big of an issue, as each standard environment is its own world. its on eternal formats where powered down cards will not make an impact and will be dismissed as limited jank.
This is also the reason i left the competitive scene and play only casual (and some pre-releases here and there) because instead of liking and getting to use 4 or 5 cards of every set i get to enjoy them a lot more.
There are more cards in AVR that i'll be buying than in IN, DKA and NPH combined. and all of them for casual decks, cubes and various collections.
This doesn't affect me because I started just after Mirrodin Besieged came out. I like the Scars and Innistrad Blocks, and I'm looking forward to Avacyn Restored. I personally don't really care what mechanics a set has or doesn't have, as long as I like the individual cards in it.
I also don't play competitive, so I don't need my deck to work together super well, I just need it to work.
It makes sense because unlike the early sets, sets now don't have huge epic storylines that span many sets. Their story is usually told in just one block now (just because I'm relatively new to magic doesn't mean I don't know much about storyline stuff ;))
But..but...what's wrong with an expansive story line that has a few different blocks to support it? Hell, Garruk showed up in Lorwyn (and that was forever ago!) And besides, aren't we in one large fantastical world where all these planes exist and walkers go to and fro?
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*I COLLECT EHAN106 ALTERS. GOT ANY?*
An actor without a director is but a mannequin.
While a director without a writer is unemployed.
But ultimately a writer without words is dead.
~R. D. Newman
"7,015 creatures in existence. They all die to removal."
Never before has a boy wanted more...zombie slaying.
But..but...what's wrong with an expansive story line that has a few different blocks to support it? Hell, Garruk showed up in Lorwyn (and that was forever ago!) And besides, aren't we in one large fantastical world where all these planes exist and walkers go to and fro?
I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with it, or that they're not connected. I'm just saying that each block now focuses on a different story instead of just continuing the same thing. I know they are connected (thanks to novels and comics and stuff like that), but they still have different storylines
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"The greatest harm can result from the best intentions" - Wizard's Second Rule
"Mind what people do, not only what they say, for deeds will betray a lie" - Wizard's Fifth Rule
"Life is the future, not the past" - Wizard's Seventh Rule
"Talga Vassternich. (Deserve Victory)" - Wizard's Eighth Rule
Have you actually looked at Ravnica in a while dude?
While there were some fine cards in the set the cards overall are not that impressive these days.
The nostalgia goggles for old sets is really getting out of hand here.
Once you get past the truly awesome cards in Ravnica like Dark Confidant, Shocklands, Remand and a few others the set is not super impressive on a whole.
I like that you claim I'm looking on it with nostalgia goggles, but there's still a good number of cards that made a splash in standard and are still played in decks today. Can you really say that about Innistrad block? Or Mirrodin 2.0? The most recent legacy/modern deck to come out of newer sets is UB Fairies. Other than that, new cards are just sort of "meh".
There's an interesting thread on the Magic official forums about how there are far too many crap/filler cards in the sets being made today. It's the exact reason I've not been impressed with a set since about Ravnica block. It applies to this set, IMO.
I just don't get excited to play any of the new cards in constructed. Standard is boring. I pretty much stick to playing limited because it's more fun than constructed.
Cant say I disagree with the fact that standard has been boring since ravnica. its like repetitive, and everyone runs the same old garbage, never really is anything you can honestly say "wow that was...amazing" to anymore. Makes the "competitive" side of magic quite bland.
Nostalgia goggles. Well said. Ravnica was only 6 years ago or so. (I guess that may be an eternity for some, but really feels like a blink of an eye to me.) Ravnica provided some fun cards, and in my blurred recolection, a healthy enough standard environment. I love that Ravnica block brought back dual cards. I've always had a special place in my heart for 2 cards in 1 since the days of Fire // Ice. Shocklands were the perfect attempt (at least in my opinion) to provide us with dual lands which were better than the pain lands we had used for soooo long. Now this may seem a controversial statement, or it may not, but I have always believed that the ability to have access to lands that provide a player with any combination of mana is what helps keep deck builders happy and continuing in their craft.
Ravnica Limited (especially when it was Rav Rav Rav) was awesome, and Ravnica Standard was one of the most different and awesome Standard formats in a long time. If you look at individual cards, ya it might look a bit bleak, but for the time it was printed and overall aethestic of each set and the entire block, is a landmark in Magic design, possibly the most well designed block ever. And there was tons of cards that were, both in Limited and Standard, useless. Magic needs to have bad cards. More importantly, it needs to have interesting cards, many of which appear bad on the surface but are far better than one expects at a cursory evaluation (Delver of Secrets says hi). Ravnica had a good chunk of thoe, some obvious winners, and a whole bunch of moving parts. It was heaven.
AVR looks great. It has it fair share of junk, more than a few buried treasures by my reckoning, and some obviously great cards. People who are angry about werewolves not being around and such are just peeved that their pet decks are staying exactly that, as pet decks.
Disappointment thread?
Sweet, I was hoping for one of these.
Just got back from the pre-release. Against my better judgement I decided to go despite not being too excited for any of the cards and my many many complaints about the direction the sets 'flavor' (to use the term loosely) went.
So I got there, was seated and started cracking my packs... first one was a griselbrand. "Awesome, first pack in and I have a finisher" I thought to myself. Five packs later and I had around 12 black and white cards total, and among all five colors, less than 20 creatures to pick from and 5 removal spells. Tons of jank and junk though. Easily the worst pull I've ever had in sealed. EVER.
And it wasn't just me, all around the table where looks of disgust as players mulled over the garbage they themselves had opened, frantically trying to figure something out.
I was willing to give a set that I wasn't too interested in to start with a chance, and it blew it within 6 packs, and then 5 hours of my time wasted on widely clunky terribad matches with the awkwardly worded soulbound mechanic.
This is shaping up to be, in my opinion, a godawful set and it's depressing than INN has to be subjugated to this for its final part.
The only joy I got from it was that I managed to get a random non AVR pack... which I pulled an undead alchemist from. Definitely not my night for pulls. But hey the tournament organizer hooked me up with a vult spindown and two tokens because he's a cool guy.
Whatever the polar opposite of fun is is what I had tonight and Brian Tinsman should never be allowed to lead another design team ever again.
My 2 cents.
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Brian Tinsman, Set Designer :?mana::snow::snow:
Legendary Creature – Human Designer (MR)
Brian Tinsman, Set Designer can only be cast during the third set of a block.
When Brian Tinsman, Set Designer enters the battlefield, ignore all flavor and mechanics of the first two sets in the block. "Ok so what do we have here... gothic horror? Scrap it. Expand the Devine Vs. Demonic duel deck to 244 cards and print it!"
2/2
Is this supposed to be in General or some kind of Hate subforum by now?
Adding to the Avacyn Restored hate, because this set doesn't get enough of it.
Theme
The theme was a mistake. You have this nice little world with all this variety, then this fascist, genocidal mad woman appears and murders everyone that's interesting or has differing opinions.
Having a Hitler-type badguy win like this is just poor taste.
IMO, it would have been more interesting if Avacyn came back changed, tainted by the black mana in the vault. Then White would have coped with the world it found itself in by Becoming the Monsters.
Maybe that's the hook they'll use for Return to Innistrad (and to explain why she's stronger now: she absorbed some demons and they need time to assert control).
Alternatively, they could have actually made an Angel vs Demon set, instead of Angels curbstomp everyone. And set it on another plane. Or on the moon. Things aren't moony enough around here.
I'm just saying that at the least, if you want to make a stand-alone Coldsnap kind of set, just do it. Don't pigeonhole it into some plane it doesn't belong. Doing that angers up the people who want more of the same, and does a disservice to the set's full potential.
Undying in AVN? Eaten by Spiders in AVN? So out of place.
Angels vs Demons could have been a splendid set. If they had decided to make that set.
Not so much Angels vs Demons when there's less than half as many cards in Team Demon. MaRo's "isolating black" idea was terrible.
Human Tribal On Acid
I'm just tired of seeing human cards. Lorwyn was so nice to finally get a break from seeing them on everything.
Binary cards
A lot of cards that depend on some level of Combo or luck to be good.
Either the card is rubbish, or it's an awesome nuclear bomb that hits with the force of a couple of titans. Miracles are the obvious form of this. Then soulbound. Then all the "play a guy/human" pump effects. Blinking.
Black is good because it's bad
A lot of the guys at Wizards have been trying to defend the power level of black in this set. And they're right, black is powerful.
When no one else is drafting it. Otherwise, you're going to have a hard time finding the pieces you need to make the magic happen.
I find this a hilarious example of a meta-pun: "Loner" mechanic, indeed!
Cards that should have been in Dark Ascension
By far what I hate the most about AVN are the cards that belong in Old Innistrad. The guys like Howlgeist.
These dudes should have been in DA. And I weep on how wrong the tetris game was put together; these pieces don't belong in AVN.
Intimidate
Is a lot better name for the "You can't block this guy if you're not as strong as he is" effect than it is for the Fear effect. I can't be the only one that feels this way.
Cant say I disagree with the fact that standard has been boring since ravnica. its like repetitive, and everyone runs the same old garbage, never really is anything you can honestly say "wow that was...amazing" to anymore. Makes the "competitive" side of magic quite bland.
Standard had it's good moments, it's just the things that stuck to memory were the mistakes, on which there have been several which colored a lot of thoughts.
Faeries caused problems in Lorwyn.
Jund caused problems in Shards.
Jace caused problems in Zendikar.
Swords caused problems in Scars.
The big thing was that there have been mistakes or cards that were pushed just a little too far that limits interaction, and thus silos and shapes a metagame around if they can answer that.
Faeries played almost everything at instant speed and on top of it could usually run 12 counterspells without issue (Cryptic, another set of 4 and spellstutter sprite), making it hard for other decks to interact favorably.
Jund had Cascade, which was dumb from the outset, and had some of the most efficient creatures and spells on top of it.
Jace, well, everyone knows those problems well enough.
Then the swords- yes, the players expected them, and yes, I can see why they had to be pushed, but that led for a whole big mess of problems, starting with making Stoneforge Mystic dumber than intended, making Caw Blade a thing, and then still being exploited heavily now.
If you look back all the way to Ravnica, it's only somewhere between 10 and 20 cards that have really defined and distorted things.
I still think that Avacyn Restored feels like it *used* to be a small set. They designed some sweet cards, then realised that it just didn't play well with the other 2 sets and decided to make it a large set instead. I would not be surprised if soulbond was a big part of this, someone didn't like how people wouldn't play it because it lead to too many blowouts if you consider all the removal over the whole block.
Then they proceeded to make a bunch of useless rubbish, almost exact reprints of cards already in the block (Zealous strike Vs the one from DKA which are almost the same, the token naturalize etc) and called it a day. You could quite easily go through the set and remove alot of un-necessary cards and be left with something close to a small set.
The thing that alot of people dislike about the limited format is the lack of removal, but if you look at the amount and quality of removal in AVR and apply it as being the third set in a block, its actually about average and would probably suplement INN and DKA removal nicely.
making Stoneforge Mystic dumber than intended, making Caw Blade a thing, and then still being exploited heavily now.
Stoneforge Mystic was clearly designed for Vintage, because it sure as hell isn't remotely a fair card.
Diabolic Tutor, you may play one equipment a turn for free, and you can chump block. All of that might be reasonable at five mana.
I very strongly wished it just fetched a piece of gear. Because "play something for free" is always, always broken. Let's just go down the levels of crazy:
* Argentum Armor: Halves the cost to get it online. A colorless Titan that's even stronger than the titans.
* Anything that has a high casting cost and low equipping cost. Rare cards, but they exist.
* Living Weapons: Equip cost doesn't matter, so play all kinds of batty creatures!
* Elbrus, the Binding Blade: Hey the equip cost is almost nothing. Get this on a cheap flier/unblockable, and you have a 13/13 creature on turn three. That seems about right.
I mean yeah, the Swords give you precisely the protection you need to hit someone in the face, and then they explode to melt their faces off, but even if you ignore them, Mystic as printed is completely broken in every way (as opposed to just adorably broken, like the Puresteel Paladin). The only logic behind its printing is so it could be banned.
But some people enjoy those kinds of cards. Like the weirdos that don't play pauper.
I still think that Avacyn Restored feels like it *used* to be a small set. They designed some sweet cards, then realised that it just didn't play well with the other 2 sets and decided to make it a large set instead.
I dunno. Maybe.
I think it might just feel that way from the trying to serve two masters thing. It needs to be completely new and different! Yet it also needs to carry on the block's legacy...
Stoneforge Mystic might be "unfair" in what it can grab from Magics entire card pool, but during ALA/ZEN rotation of standard, it saw minimal play. It was used in Naya to fetch Basilisk Collar, which synergized well with Cunning Sparkmage.
When SoM came around, people slowly started using SoBaM and a couple other equipments with her. This is around when Caw-Go evolved. MBS came out and gave us "living weapon" (a non-creature creature? seems fair....) and a new Sword. The sword took a little bit to catch on, but Bonehoard caught on first in Boros decks, as it would usually end up in play as a 4/4 or better. Then Caw-Go players figure out using SFM and SoFaF with Squadron Hawks is pretty good. Then NPH comes out, and things turn BAD. We get another sword, equally as powerful (if not more for the pro-white at some times), and a 4/4 vigilance life-linking living weapon. This is when things got out of control.
Is SFM a "fair" card? certainly not with the entirety of Magic Equipment taken into account. It doesnt distort Legacy due to the plethora of other competable decks and answers for it. Had they not printed swords in an adjacent block to ZEN, SFM likely would not have seen as much play, and if Living Weapon was contained to Bonehoard-ish type equipments, she wouldn't have caused huge problems.
lol what? there was a big tourney the weekend that MBS came out and instantly cawblade was established. it beat boros in the finals. Boros and Mythic rug saw play for a few weeks after but they ended up never seeing play again.
Boros did play some SoBaM and bonehoard. basilisk collar was put into sparkblade but it never really took off.
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MTG is a hobby, cant afford it? GTFO! Don't complain about prices.
The thing that alot of people dislike about the limited format is the lack of removal, but if you look at the amount and quality of removal in AVR and apply it as being the third set in a block, its actually about average and would probably suplement INN and DKA removal nicely.
My feelings about Avacyn Restored at this moment are that it's ok, but not great. It feels kind of vanilla and a little boring. Some of the cards I like, I think the Soulbond mechanic is interesting with some good flavor and wouldn't mind seeing it brought back again in the future, but the set feels like it's missing something. There is a lack of "spice" in this set IMHO, it has the feel of a core set to me right now, like there's just not a lot going on.
I always felt it should've been a small set. There is no reason for it to be a large set considering it still uses mechanics from Innistrad such as black creatures caring about stuff dying and creatures with Undying.
People will always complain about what they did not get, even if it was unreasonable or would not make sense. There are even hate threads about Ravnica, the greatest block ever.
My feelings about AVR are that I totally loved it. No one liked to draft Black, which is my favorite color. Needless to say, Davey one a few FNMs with a Bx draft deck.
I may have one or two qualms... Mostly about how Restoration Angel and Bonfire cost so much and I want them. ; _ ;
There's some neat tools from it, but the whole set just leaves a bad taste in my mouth, I can't quite put my finger on it but it just doesn't feel.. done. Innistrad/DKA was amazing to me, I love drafting that, but I hate drafting AVR.
I think its just the sore spot of it doesn't feel like a followup set, it feels like a new block.
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I guess when you've been playing since Beta time seems to blur together. But yeah, Wizards has definitely stepped up the amount of products that they're releasing. Yearly rotation just makes things go so much...quicker? But yeah, when I look at it, 6 years can definitely be an eternity. That and there are people that have only started in recent sets so we can say that our outlook on Magic is definitely a little more broad.
An actor without a director is but a mannequin.
While a director without a writer is unemployed.
But ultimately a writer without words is dead.
~R. D. Newman
"7,015 creatures in existence. They all die to removal."
Never before has a boy wanted more...zombie slaying.
GP Vegas: It was once in a lifetime!
On Vault of the Archangel
This doesn't affect me because I started just after Mirrodin Besieged came out. I like the Scars and Innistrad Blocks, and I'm looking forward to Avacyn Restored. I personally don't really care what mechanics a set has or doesn't have, as long as I like the individual cards in it.
I also don't play competitive, so I don't need my deck to work together super well, I just need it to work.
It makes sense because unlike the early sets, sets now don't have huge epic storylines that span many sets. Their story is usually told in just one block now (just because I'm relatively new to magic doesn't mean I don't know much about storyline stuff ;))
"Mind what people do, not only what they say, for deeds will betray a lie" - Wizard's Fifth Rule
"Life is the future, not the past" - Wizard's Seventh Rule
"Talga Vassternich. (Deserve Victory)" - Wizard's Eighth Rule
Cockatrice username: taj1994
I still remembered playing trained armodon (vanilla 3/3 for 1GG) in my monogreen deck. Now we have wolfir avenger, with the same body, more relevant creature types, flash and regeneration, all at the same mana cost. Or heck, leatherback baloth in a monogreen deck is escencially trained armodon with +1/+2 and a relevant creature type for the same cost.
The power creep cannot keep climbing. at some point or another you will have to slow down the game. At which point, most card will probably be overcosted, inefficient and downright unplayable.
Standard constantly changes through rotation so power creep is not that big of an issue, as each standard environment is its own world. its on eternal formats where powered down cards will not make an impact and will be dismissed as limited jank.
This is also the reason i left the competitive scene and play only casual (and some pre-releases here and there) because instead of liking and getting to use 4 or 5 cards of every set i get to enjoy them a lot more.
There are more cards in AVR that i'll be buying than in IN, DKA and NPH combined. and all of them for casual decks, cubes and various collections.
http://alteredartmagic.blogspot.com/search/label/Nicolarre
or in my Humble Alter Gallery at DeviantArt: http://nicolarre.deviantart.com/gallery/
But..but...what's wrong with an expansive story line that has a few different blocks to support it? Hell, Garruk showed up in Lorwyn (and that was forever ago!) And besides, aren't we in one large fantastical world where all these planes exist and walkers go to and fro?
An actor without a director is but a mannequin.
While a director without a writer is unemployed.
But ultimately a writer without words is dead.
~R. D. Newman
"7,015 creatures in existence. They all die to removal."
Never before has a boy wanted more...zombie slaying.
GP Vegas: It was once in a lifetime!
On Vault of the Archangel
I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with it, or that they're not connected. I'm just saying that each block now focuses on a different story instead of just continuing the same thing. I know they are connected (thanks to novels and comics and stuff like that), but they still have different storylines
"Mind what people do, not only what they say, for deeds will betray a lie" - Wizard's Fifth Rule
"Life is the future, not the past" - Wizard's Seventh Rule
"Talga Vassternich. (Deserve Victory)" - Wizard's Eighth Rule
Cockatrice username: taj1994
Except there's still Dredge decks played in both legacy formats and modern. Life From the Loam is still amazing in some decks. We had Char, Loxodon Hierarch, Glare of Subdual, the Leylines, Angel of Despair, Ghost Council of Orzhova, Giant Solifuge, Rumbling Slum, Protean Hulk!, Demonfire, and that doesn't include commons and uncommons. A bunch of those cards have been reprinted in more casual pre-cons, too.
I like that you claim I'm looking on it with nostalgia goggles, but there's still a good number of cards that made a splash in standard and are still played in decks today. Can you really say that about Innistrad block? Or Mirrodin 2.0? The most recent legacy/modern deck to come out of newer sets is UB Fairies. Other than that, new cards are just sort of "meh".
Cant say I disagree with the fact that standard has been boring since ravnica. its like repetitive, and everyone runs the same old garbage, never really is anything you can honestly say "wow that was...amazing" to anymore. Makes the "competitive" side of magic quite bland.
Ravnica Limited (especially when it was Rav Rav Rav) was awesome, and Ravnica Standard was one of the most different and awesome Standard formats in a long time. If you look at individual cards, ya it might look a bit bleak, but for the time it was printed and overall aethestic of each set and the entire block, is a landmark in Magic design, possibly the most well designed block ever. And there was tons of cards that were, both in Limited and Standard, useless. Magic needs to have bad cards. More importantly, it needs to have interesting cards, many of which appear bad on the surface but are far better than one expects at a cursory evaluation (Delver of Secrets says hi). Ravnica had a good chunk of thoe, some obvious winners, and a whole bunch of moving parts. It was heaven.
AVR looks great. It has it fair share of junk, more than a few buried treasures by my reckoning, and some obviously great cards. People who are angry about werewolves not being around and such are just peeved that their pet decks are staying exactly that, as pet decks.
Sweet, I was hoping for one of these.
Just got back from the pre-release. Against my better judgement I decided to go despite not being too excited for any of the cards and my many many complaints about the direction the sets 'flavor' (to use the term loosely) went.
So I got there, was seated and started cracking my packs... first one was a griselbrand. "Awesome, first pack in and I have a finisher" I thought to myself. Five packs later and I had around 12 black and white cards total, and among all five colors, less than 20 creatures to pick from and 5 removal spells. Tons of jank and junk though. Easily the worst pull I've ever had in sealed. EVER.
And it wasn't just me, all around the table where looks of disgust as players mulled over the garbage they themselves had opened, frantically trying to figure something out.
I was willing to give a set that I wasn't too interested in to start with a chance, and it blew it within 6 packs, and then 5 hours of my time wasted on widely clunky terribad matches with the awkwardly worded soulbound mechanic.
This is shaping up to be, in my opinion, a godawful set and it's depressing than INN has to be subjugated to this for its final part.
The only joy I got from it was that I managed to get a random non AVR pack... which I pulled an undead alchemist from. Definitely not my night for pulls. But hey the tournament organizer hooked me up with a vult spindown and two tokens because he's a cool guy.
Whatever the polar opposite of fun is is what I had tonight and Brian Tinsman should never be allowed to lead another design team ever again.
My 2 cents.
Legendary Creature – Human Designer (MR)
Brian Tinsman, Set Designer can only be cast during the third set of a block.
When Brian Tinsman, Set Designer enters the battlefield, ignore all flavor and mechanics of the first two sets in the block.
"Ok so what do we have here... gothic horror? Scrap it. Expand the Devine Vs. Demonic duel deck to 244 cards and print it!"
2/2
Adding to the Avacyn Restored hate, because this set doesn't get enough of it.
Theme
The theme was a mistake. You have this nice little world with all this variety, then this fascist, genocidal mad woman appears and murders everyone that's interesting or has differing opinions.
Having a Hitler-type badguy win like this is just poor taste.
IMO, it would have been more interesting if Avacyn came back changed, tainted by the black mana in the vault. Then White would have coped with the world it found itself in by Becoming the Monsters.
Maybe that's the hook they'll use for Return to Innistrad (and to explain why she's stronger now: she absorbed some demons and they need time to assert control).
Alternatively, they could have actually made an Angel vs Demon set, instead of Angels curbstomp everyone. And set it on another plane. Or on the moon. Things aren't moony enough around here.
I'm just saying that at the least, if you want to make a stand-alone Coldsnap kind of set, just do it. Don't pigeonhole it into some plane it doesn't belong. Doing that angers up the people who want more of the same, and does a disservice to the set's full potential.
Undying in AVN? Eaten by Spiders in AVN? So out of place.
Angels vs Demons could have been a splendid set. If they had decided to make that set.
Monster tribal had its wings clipped
The races I believe broke down to this:
Human: 45
Angel: 15
Spirit: 13
Zombie: 10
Vampire: 7
Demon: 7
Wolf: 4
Devil: 3
Treefolk: 2
Skeleton: 1 (<3)
Bat: 1
Not so much Angels vs Demons when there's less than half as many cards in Team Demon. MaRo's "isolating black" idea was terrible.
Human Tribal On Acid
I'm just tired of seeing human cards. Lorwyn was so nice to finally get a break from seeing them on everything.
Binary cards
A lot of cards that depend on some level of Combo or luck to be good.
Either the card is rubbish, or it's an awesome nuclear bomb that hits with the force of a couple of titans. Miracles are the obvious form of this. Then soulbound. Then all the "play a guy/human" pump effects. Blinking.
Black is good because it's bad
A lot of the guys at Wizards have been trying to defend the power level of black in this set. And they're right, black is powerful.
When no one else is drafting it. Otherwise, you're going to have a hard time finding the pieces you need to make the magic happen.
I find this a hilarious example of a meta-pun: "Loner" mechanic, indeed!
Cards that should have been in Dark Ascension
By far what I hate the most about AVN are the cards that belong in Old Innistrad. The guys like Howlgeist.
These dudes should have been in DA. And I weep on how wrong the tetris game was put together; these pieces don't belong in AVN.
Intimidate
Is a lot better name for the "You can't block this guy if you're not as strong as he is" effect than it is for the Fear effect. I can't be the only one that feels this way.
Standard had it's good moments, it's just the things that stuck to memory were the mistakes, on which there have been several which colored a lot of thoughts.
Faeries caused problems in Lorwyn.
Jund caused problems in Shards.
Jace caused problems in Zendikar.
Swords caused problems in Scars.
The big thing was that there have been mistakes or cards that were pushed just a little too far that limits interaction, and thus silos and shapes a metagame around if they can answer that.
Faeries played almost everything at instant speed and on top of it could usually run 12 counterspells without issue (Cryptic, another set of 4 and spellstutter sprite), making it hard for other decks to interact favorably.
Jund had Cascade, which was dumb from the outset, and had some of the most efficient creatures and spells on top of it.
Jace, well, everyone knows those problems well enough.
Then the swords- yes, the players expected them, and yes, I can see why they had to be pushed, but that led for a whole big mess of problems, starting with making Stoneforge Mystic dumber than intended, making Caw Blade a thing, and then still being exploited heavily now.
If you look back all the way to Ravnica, it's only somewhere between 10 and 20 cards that have really defined and distorted things.
Then they proceeded to make a bunch of useless rubbish, almost exact reprints of cards already in the block (Zealous strike Vs the one from DKA which are almost the same, the token naturalize etc) and called it a day. You could quite easily go through the set and remove alot of un-necessary cards and be left with something close to a small set.
The thing that alot of people dislike about the limited format is the lack of removal, but if you look at the amount and quality of removal in AVR and apply it as being the third set in a block, its actually about average and would probably suplement INN and DKA removal nicely.
Stoneforge Mystic was clearly designed for Vintage, because it sure as hell isn't remotely a fair card.
Diabolic Tutor, you may play one equipment a turn for free, and you can chump block. All of that might be reasonable at five mana.
I very strongly wished it just fetched a piece of gear. Because "play something for free" is always, always broken. Let's just go down the levels of crazy:
* Argentum Armor: Halves the cost to get it online. A colorless Titan that's even stronger than the titans.
* Anything that has a high casting cost and low equipping cost. Rare cards, but they exist.
* Living Weapons: Equip cost doesn't matter, so play all kinds of batty creatures!
* Elbrus, the Binding Blade: Hey the equip cost is almost nothing. Get this on a cheap flier/unblockable, and you have a 13/13 creature on turn three. That seems about right.
I mean yeah, the Swords give you precisely the protection you need to hit someone in the face, and then they explode to melt their faces off, but even if you ignore them, Mystic as printed is completely broken in every way (as opposed to just adorably broken, like the Puresteel Paladin). The only logic behind its printing is so it could be banned.
But some people enjoy those kinds of cards. Like the weirdos that don't play pauper.
I dunno. Maybe.
I think it might just feel that way from the trying to serve two masters thing. It needs to be completely new and different! Yet it also needs to carry on the block's legacy...
A bigger schism you couldn't drive into a design.
When SoM came around, people slowly started using SoBaM and a couple other equipments with her. This is around when Caw-Go evolved. MBS came out and gave us "living weapon" (a non-creature creature? seems fair....) and a new Sword. The sword took a little bit to catch on, but Bonehoard caught on first in Boros decks, as it would usually end up in play as a 4/4 or better. Then Caw-Go players figure out using SFM and SoFaF with Squadron Hawks is pretty good. Then NPH comes out, and things turn BAD. We get another sword, equally as powerful (if not more for the pro-white at some times), and a 4/4 vigilance life-linking living weapon. This is when things got out of control.
Is SFM a "fair" card? certainly not with the entirety of Magic Equipment taken into account. It doesnt distort Legacy due to the plethora of other competable decks and answers for it. Had they not printed swords in an adjacent block to ZEN, SFM likely would not have seen as much play, and if Living Weapon was contained to Bonehoard-ish type equipments, she wouldn't have caused huge problems.
WBG Karador GBW
R Daretti R
RG Omnath GR
WRG Modern Burn GRW
WB Modern Tokens BW
DCI Rules Advisor as of 5/18/2015
Boros did play some SoBaM and bonehoard. basilisk collar was put into sparkblade but it never really took off.
My feelings about Avacyn Restored at this moment are that it's ok, but not great. It feels kind of vanilla and a little boring. Some of the cards I like, I think the Soulbond mechanic is interesting with some good flavor and wouldn't mind seeing it brought back again in the future, but the set feels like it's missing something. There is a lack of "spice" in this set IMHO, it has the feel of a core set to me right now, like there's just not a lot going on.
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I may have one or two qualms... Mostly about how Restoration Angel and Bonfire cost so much and I want them. ; _ ;
Trades.
Decks
RWU Zedruu the Greathearted EDH RWU
That would have been nice.
Lies!
Why u make up such ridiculous lies.
Are you being serious or sarcastic?
I think its just the sore spot of it doesn't feel like a followup set, it feels like a new block.
RRR Khorenthos - The Red Block (Feedback needed!) RRR
Want to see me in action? Check out my stream! Currently broadcasting Boros Burn in Standard. Full archive available.
Want to play better magic? Come join us at diestoremoval.com