Now that the entire set has been spoiled, what do you think of Journey? What are your favorite cards? What strategies do you think it supports or hurts? What will it's impact on standard be? What cards will be played in Modern or Legacy? Just share your thoughts on what you think the set did right or wrong.
90% of the cards are old cards with "creature" and a crappy P/T stapled to them, or with flash and an extra mana so the set seems blah. But since BNG was such a piece of crap this one isn't too bad.
For EDH, this set is great. You get new legendaries and cute enchantments/creatures that play well with the "go big" theme, and new cards that will let you run 2x of whatever in your EDH deck.
For constructed it's pretty crappy. The one-sidedness is all on white and black. Blue got maybe on good rare, green got one(?), and red got one modern fringe SB card. So many rares thrown in for limited heroic shenanigans. One land to fix mana woes; one land, and its already priced at $20 a piece. Thanks wizards. At least M15 should be pretty crazy. I'm ready to forget this crappy block.
I wish my 4/4s with haste and first strike that acted as Goblin Warchiefs were better and didn't die to instants and overshadowed all other 4 drops in the format. And that they had evasion too, and some way to dodge wrath effects.
This 3rd set is full of flavor but lacks any real enternal/modern playable cards. Deicide kind of nixed Athreos playability as every deck that can white will side board it. The hexproof for player creature from this might be used for GW hate bears. Mana Confluence is mainly for standard. Most of this set is for answering other theirs block cards. It should be noted that this set has cool cards for fun edu decks. Thats really it.
Favourite set in the block. Though, I don't think the block is very good.
This set finally printed cards that make heroic interesting (Battlefield Thaumaturge, Tethmos High Priest,) it finally gave a reason to play enchantments, and it also finally printed traditional global enchantments which are my personal favourite cards in Magic.
Sure, the powerlevel is low, but at least the set doesn't offend me on a design standpoint, unlike BNG and, to lesser extent, Theros. If the rest of the block was a bit more like JOU and a bit more powerful, this could have been an excellent block.
An awful set to close out an even more awful block.
No interesting cards, no interesting strategies, and it used up the theme I was most hopeful for.
Everything is lame and safe, there are way to many uninspired cycles, and the only cards that are pushed are pushed in such stupid, obvious ways like brimaz.
I posted this in another thread.. copy paste away.
However I do really like this set.. the big problem I found with BNG was that it was theros.. but worse.. this set clearly makes itself different
The big problem I had with Theros was its interactions were obvious and linear, it was a really balanced limited environment it just wasn't very deep. BNG didn't really help it much, It made red the one weak spot in Theros much better but it also confused drafting so much with the awful tap enchants that I get cut every draft and confused three almost four colour drafting goes on and I miss 3 theros.
It was similar in constructed... devotion is obvious how to build with it, nothing interesting just play with powerful cards, use devotion or use both.
This set however finally gives the depth and complexity missing from the whole block. Such interesting bestow cards that make you possibily bestow opponents creatures, cards that can be used defensive and offensively. Powerful ways to sup up heroic and bestow in constructed. Very interesting cards that scream build around me.. the sweet flash enchants of old favourite enchantments that look to open up new constructed ideas.
so yeah after HATING Born of the gods.... I think Journey to Nyx is theros block done right.
The block as a whole is powered down. but i am not automatically against that with too much power things become to obvious and blatantly good lower power allows more complicated stratagies to unfold. (or would if thoughtsieze wasn't in the set) I think the set will come into its own once RTR rotates out RTR is still a little to loud at the moment I am looking at your Spinxes rev and Pack Rat.
White got all the good stuff for constructed. Blue got nothing interesting. Red got a hatebear. Black got some interesting removal. Green got crap.
So as far as constructed balance goes, this set is pretty underwhelming.
However, this block is going to be a lot of fun to draft, and block constructed looks like it will be interesting.
Nothing blowing us out of the water but there has been worse sets than JOU.
I also think the reason so many of us are disappointed with this block is because it's full of limited-focused keywords. Heroic, Constellation, and Inspired are not remotely strong enough mechanics for constructed use - but they're fun in limited.
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Old enough to know better, much too young to care.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I actually disliked the block enough that I have sat out of it. I have bought/will buy the dragons from the sets just for collection purposes, but outside of that I have stopped going to fnm and buying booster packs and sealed product. Greek mythology in magic is a huge turn-off for me. I like it when the worlds are more unique and have several sources for their material.
I got into magic around the Shards/Zendikar time frame and those blocks seem incredibly unique and interesting from a flavor standpoint as well as in card design. All that being said JOU is definitely the best of the small sets this block as was stated before.
I actually don't mind this block as much as most, although I fully understand the disappointment, and I agree that it's sort of "Kamigawa 2.0" Hopefully, Theros is just a transition point, a little calm, and after playing it safe for a bit, the next set will be more like normal.
I like this set. It is unfortunate that there's only one pack of this in draft. The enchantment matters theme actually has a huge bearing on a lot of otherwise unplayables. They did a good job bringing some life back to the block.
I don't hate the block, but i don't like what standard has become. Even though the pool of top 16 decks is pretty diverse, it feels like everyone is playing the same thing. Black and white have tons of pushed card power, with green and red being ok and blue being fine because of the same old "cancel/negate/sphinx/supreme/dsphere/aetherling" domination that we've been dealing with for two years now and the devotion mechanic. Maybe it's just me, but it seems boring because there is no decks with synergy, just "good stuff" decks with pushed cards, or devotion decks with jank cards that enable pushed cards.
The enormity of Black discard and A+ removal cards is just stupid. The color literally has nothing it can't deal with or do. It has great card draw, great life gain, great P/T creatures, great evasion, great discard, great two-for-ones (lifebane zombie, sin collector, etc), great creature removal (in the forms of destroy, sacrifice, -x/-x, and now even exiling all at low cmc instant speed), great planeswalker removal, great early aggro creatures... It really is absurd the more you think about it. No other color comes close to having as much raw battlefield and hand control. It's only slight weakness is enchantment removal, but that is rarely relevant and easily shored up if needed with a green splash.
I suppose I have digressed to a review of current standard. But I guess my point is that we have seen a lot of cool cards (Gods, bestows, nykthos, devotion, enchantments, etc.) but the raw power level of everything else has left these cards and mechanics as unplayable. Black is too good because of everything listed, UW control is too good because of "cancel/negate/sphinx/supreme/dsphere/elspeth/aetherling", and everything else either tries to kill super fast (mono-r, mono-b, gr monsters, rw-burn, w-weenie, gw aggro), or loses. All the neat ideas/mechanics/cards that the block has provided are either heavily underpowered/overcosted considering the competition, or have been hated out of contention (revoke existence, diacide).
I think the set on the whole has been a failure, not because of bad ideas or poor mechanics, but because of poor balance between colors and lack of push in any colors other than black or white. Basically this block has NOT synergized well with RTR. The fact that Pack Rat is a thing tells us this.
I'll reiterate that much of the constructed playables are firmly in black and white and that the entire colour balance is skewed towards them.
That said, it's a far more interesting set than Born of the Gods, and there were a fair few cards that caught my attention.
This is my favorite small set since New Phyrexia. It is incredibly exciting, while Born of the Gods was boring and uninspiring. Here are my highlights:
Enchantment Creature versions of stuff - Sure, this isn't terribly groundbreaking, but it is exciting nonetheles. Rule of Law on legs will see Modern play in Pod as a creature to fetch against Storm that isn't vulnerable to Lightning Bolt (or artifact destruction). Sulfuric Vortex on legs will see Modern and Legacy play in the sideboards (and possibly Mainboard in Legacy) of Burn decks as a tool against Storm and similar decks. More splashable True Believer might see some play as well.
Flash versions of Enchantments - Specifically Gravepact, double Glorious Anthem, and Furnace of Rath, these are some great cards that I'm excited to jam in EDH.
Fixed Functional Reprints of Staples - New versions of Oblivion Ring and City of Brass are welcome additions to EDH. And the City will almost definitely see eternal play anywhere City currently does.
Gods - Kruphix is enticing and is a great general for my EDH Cube, which has been lacking a great second UG option after Prime Speaker Zegana. Iroas makes me want to build a deck around him.
Strive - At first, it looked like this was going to be a junky limited-only keyword for helping Heroic, but then they went and put it on a ton of exciting spells like Heat Shimmer, Cytoshape, Instant Sever the Bloodline, Pit Fight, White Withstand Death, Naturalize, and Threaten
Basic Land Counting Creatures - With the exception of the black one, which is a weaker Korlash, Heir to Blackblade, these guys have some cool effects. Particularly powerful are the Blue one, which can be a one-sided bounce sweeper that can be easily repeated, and the white one, which can bury an opponent's creature deep in their deck.
Constellation - One of the biggest complaints against Theros block was the lack of enchantment-matters cards in an enchantment block. Here we get a keyword for just that, and it's on an Enchantress and an Astral Slide effect, as well as a Noxious Ghoul-type card and a Bojuka Bog.
Returning Mechanics Pay Off - A lot of the non-Devotion mechanics have been fairly lackluster this block, except maybe Monstrous, which wasn't in BNG. This set gives us an awesome monster in the Hydra that Monstrosities for Gelatinous Genesis, a strong Inspired card in King Midas, two EDH-Exciting Heroic cards in Sage of Hours and Battlfield Thaumaturge, and a Cube Staple Bestow card in Gnarled Scarhide
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This block feels a lot like Kamigawa to me except without the overpowering cards. I hated Kamigawa, my least favorite block of all time. Journey Into Nix is a good set and I do think once Ravnica block rotates it will all come together. M15 should bring more flavor to the block.
As a limited and Modern player, I have mixed emotion on the set and the block as a whole.
From a limited standpoint, I am a happy camper. Lots of build-around-me cards and cards that fill out existing archetypes. The R 1/1 heroic satyr is awesome. The new 2/4 heroic flying lifelink clown is a huge bomb and first pickable. As a pretty regular UG drafter, the flash + flying + deathtouch cockatrice is pretty sweet as well. Lots of goodies in the bestow + drawback cycle and some pretty decent red and black cards to finally shore up the weaknesses from those two colors in BTT drafting.
From a modern standpoint, I could care less. I have my Thoughtseizes and Brimaz's and Temples, but beyond that, there isn't much here. The Pyrostatic Pillar on a stick is neat, but I don't play burn. I'll definitely pick up Rule of Law man and True Believer 2.0, but really the cards aren't terribly good for Modern. There are some role players, I suppose, but nothing that gets me excited.
Limited: 8/10
Modern: 3/10
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(450 unpowered, MMA-style archetypes in each color pair)
I wish the rest of theros was just as interesting as this set was. and even then, constellation could have been pushed much more than limited shenannigans. doomwake giant could have been a touch splashier as well as the other cards. they wanted to make this set optimized for limited so that is the reason I believe it was powered down. hopefully the next block will not have this "top down design" thing going on. it was fun in theros and Innastrad but it should take a rest for now. IMO
however the cards in this set acceded expectations with how interesting some of the cards are. some of them are very creatively designed and have depth to them like the Battlefield Thaumaturge launch the fleet dakra mystic and even the drawback cycle of bestow creatures. and even cards for limited are so off the wall that you cannot help but like them anyway. like the Fleetfeather Cockatrice is a freaking venomous peafowl for Christ sake. not to mention the chimeras with shark heads, the Pensive Minotaur and some actually interesting auras.
I actually thought RTR was actually a rather boring ravnica rehash. it added stuff to a bunch of other formats and lowered the price on shocklands. what made the original ravnica set so good was that it was the first time we had a setting like that and it was powerful in constructed (alot like Zendikar actually in both respects), whereas the return did not offer anything particularly creative flavorwise. when they did it with Mirrodin though it was very interesting, the base set was a fun throwback but the rest was INTERPLANAR CONFLICT! the phyrexians we love so much were finally alive in the modern frame format and it was a hit.
Anyway I think that JOU gave me most of what I wanted from this block, but best of all it did some really unexpected stuff. this set is probobly going to make limited an absolute blast giving the enchantment support we needed for the rest of the set.
It's a welcome change instead of opening the horrid BNG pack first.
I dread to open any BNG/GTC/DGM/AVR packs for draft. So much chaff.
Glad this block is about to be over.
At least AVR and GTC had some strong cards (though I wouldn't play Avacyn Restored or Gatecrash draft).
I personally liked this set more than BNG and Theros. However, that is solely because of Dictate of Karametra (that and GP Chicago might be enough to get me into Standard). For the most part though I don't like this set or the block. The cards were horribly overcosted. We didn't see any good bestow cards until the 3rd set. We haven't had many cards that are Modern/Legacy playable. This is the least powerful block of all time in terms of nonrotating format impact. There wasn't much to abuse Inspire with, we never got anything that stopped the removal vulnerability issue of Heroic, there weren't any cards that could be abused with Devotion, the enchantment theme was nonexistant until JOU and is now weak, Bestow was overcosted until JOU, there wasn't enough ramp for Monstrosity, Strive wasn't pushed enough, and Tribute was horrible in general. The existence of strong removal in Standard invalidates most of the Theros mechanics. The block was far too creature based to be an enchantment block. Overall, I just wish that we could have more blocks like Innistrad and less like this abomination.
For EDH, this set is great. You get new legendaries and cute enchantments/creatures that play well with the "go big" theme, and new cards that will let you run 2x of whatever in your EDH deck.
Honestly, I agree with this. I see it more as a toolbox of sorts for an EDH.
Wizards needs to realize people only play limited because they want a break from constructed. People don't play constructed to get a break from limited. They're pushing limited because it sells product, but that's only going to remain true as long as constructed is exciting and full of powerful synergies.
Here is my thoughts. I have only been playing magic for a limited time but I know a lot about its history and context of what makes a good set and a bad set.
Block 6/10: Using Greek mythology, it is very easy from a design perspective to create a vast cardpool of interesting creatures, spells, enchantments, etc. I liked how they used enchantments as the idea of "god-like" ness, and the story was moderately interesting (although cliche with Elspeth killing Xenagos). However, there seemed to be something missing; it had a lot of relations to the actual Greek mythology, but was very uninspired. I liked how they brought back scry, but other mechanics like bestow, heroic, inspired, etc, are all pretty much unusable in a standard environment. And they are not even that hard to fix (bestow should have been reduced in cost, monstrous was okay, tribute often had one option that is clearly better than the other or neither are worth the casting cost, etc). It brought a lot to the casual environment of the game but lacked a lot of solid set building fundamentals. One thing they did do right was the art, a lot of it is stunning.
Theros: 6.5/10
This set surprised us with a lot of things we didn't expect to take flourish actually doing well. And cards we thought were dead in the water suddenly become powerhouses like nightveil specter and pack rat. A lot of competitive cards, an excellent limited, and a fair share of modern playable cards kept everyone happy despite initial skepticism. Lotta experimentation, and the meta shifted greatly from Innistrad, which is not necessarily a good thing, but not a bad thing either
Born of the Gods: 3/10
The clear filler set of this block. Boring cards, 2 chase mythics (only one of which is certainly playable while the other is fringe), boring mechanics, and a lot of junk cards. Felt insulted by Wizards and just as I was getting serious with magic I was let down. Courser of Kruphix is the only card in the block I know everyone enjoys. This is one of those boosters I will avoid cracking open for a long time.
Journey into Nyx: 7/10
After Born of the Gods, I told myself it couldn't get much worse. While I have yet to play a card, there are a lot of cards I am really looking forward to playing, none of the Gods are real bummers (Pharika a little disappointing at worst). Strive looks like a mechanic I can get on board with, constellation looks really cool to build around, even if only in a casual environment, and the "enchantment" tag on some of the Theros block cards now seems to be justified. Has a lot of good flavor, and gives us a nice ending to a rather mediocre block.
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For EDH, this set is great. You get new legendaries and cute enchantments/creatures that play well with the "go big" theme, and new cards that will let you run 2x of whatever in your EDH deck.
For constructed it's pretty crappy. The one-sidedness is all on white and black. Blue got maybe on good rare, green got one(?), and red got one modern fringe SB card. So many rares thrown in for limited heroic shenanigans. One land to fix mana woes; one land, and its already priced at $20 a piece. Thanks wizards. At least M15 should be pretty crazy. I'm ready to forget this crappy block.
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It's a welcome change instead of opening the horrid BNG pack first.
I dread to open any BNG/GTC/DGM/AVR packs for draft. So much chaff.
Glad this block is about to be over.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
This 3rd set is full of flavor but lacks any real enternal/modern playable cards. Deicide kind of nixed Athreos playability as every deck that can white will side board it. The hexproof for player creature from this might be used for GW hate bears. Mana Confluence is mainly for standard. Most of this set is for answering other theirs block cards. It should be noted that this set has cool cards for fun edu decks. Thats really it.
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This set finally printed cards that make heroic interesting (Battlefield Thaumaturge, Tethmos High Priest,) it finally gave a reason to play enchantments, and it also finally printed traditional global enchantments which are my personal favourite cards in Magic.
Sure, the powerlevel is low, but at least the set doesn't offend me on a design standpoint, unlike BNG and, to lesser extent, Theros. If the rest of the block was a bit more like JOU and a bit more powerful, this could have been an excellent block.
No interesting cards, no interesting strategies, and it used up the theme I was most hopeful for.
Everything is lame and safe, there are way to many uninspired cycles, and the only cards that are pushed are pushed in such stupid, obvious ways like brimaz.
0/10 block
However I do really like this set.. the big problem I found with BNG was that it was theros.. but worse.. this set clearly makes itself different
The big problem I had with Theros was its interactions were obvious and linear, it was a really balanced limited environment it just wasn't very deep. BNG didn't really help it much, It made red the one weak spot in Theros much better but it also confused drafting so much with the awful tap enchants that I get cut every draft and confused three almost four colour drafting goes on and I miss 3 theros.
It was similar in constructed... devotion is obvious how to build with it, nothing interesting just play with powerful cards, use devotion or use both.
This set however finally gives the depth and complexity missing from the whole block. Such interesting bestow cards that make you possibily bestow opponents creatures, cards that can be used defensive and offensively. Powerful ways to sup up heroic and bestow in constructed. Very interesting cards that scream build around me.. the sweet flash enchants of old favourite enchantments that look to open up new constructed ideas.
so yeah after HATING Born of the gods.... I think Journey to Nyx is theros block done right.
The block as a whole is powered down. but i am not automatically against that with too much power things become to obvious and blatantly good lower power allows more complicated stratagies to unfold. (or would if thoughtsieze wasn't in the set) I think the set will come into its own once RTR rotates out RTR is still a little to loud at the moment I am looking at your Spinxes rev and Pack Rat.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
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EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
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So as far as constructed balance goes, this set is pretty underwhelming.
However, this block is going to be a lot of fun to draft, and block constructed looks like it will be interesting.
Nothing blowing us out of the water but there has been worse sets than JOU.
I also think the reason so many of us are disappointed with this block is because it's full of limited-focused keywords. Heroic, Constellation, and Inspired are not remotely strong enough mechanics for constructed use - but they're fun in limited.
I got into magic around the Shards/Zendikar time frame and those blocks seem incredibly unique and interesting from a flavor standpoint as well as in card design. All that being said JOU is definitely the best of the small sets this block as was stated before.
The enormity of Black discard and A+ removal cards is just stupid. The color literally has nothing it can't deal with or do. It has great card draw, great life gain, great P/T creatures, great evasion, great discard, great two-for-ones (lifebane zombie, sin collector, etc), great creature removal (in the forms of destroy, sacrifice, -x/-x, and now even exiling all at low cmc instant speed), great planeswalker removal, great early aggro creatures... It really is absurd the more you think about it. No other color comes close to having as much raw battlefield and hand control. It's only slight weakness is enchantment removal, but that is rarely relevant and easily shored up if needed with a green splash.
I suppose I have digressed to a review of current standard. But I guess my point is that we have seen a lot of cool cards (Gods, bestows, nykthos, devotion, enchantments, etc.) but the raw power level of everything else has left these cards and mechanics as unplayable. Black is too good because of everything listed, UW control is too good because of "cancel/negate/sphinx/supreme/dsphere/elspeth/aetherling", and everything else either tries to kill super fast (mono-r, mono-b, gr monsters, rw-burn, w-weenie, gw aggro), or loses. All the neat ideas/mechanics/cards that the block has provided are either heavily underpowered/overcosted considering the competition, or have been hated out of contention (revoke existence, diacide).
I think the set on the whole has been a failure, not because of bad ideas or poor mechanics, but because of poor balance between colors and lack of push in any colors other than black or white. Basically this block has NOT synergized well with RTR. The fact that Pack Rat is a thing tells us this.
although i do like prophetc flamespeaker
That said, it's a far more interesting set than Born of the Gods, and there were a fair few cards that caught my attention.
Standard:
UR Ral Combo
Modern:
U Merfolk
R Goblins
Commander
RB Grenzo, Dungeon Warden
R Feldon of the Third Path
All in all, nothing interesting, but we have had worse....
Enchantment Creature versions of stuff - Sure, this isn't terribly groundbreaking, but it is exciting nonetheles. Rule of Law on legs will see Modern play in Pod as a creature to fetch against Storm that isn't vulnerable to Lightning Bolt (or artifact destruction). Sulfuric Vortex on legs will see Modern and Legacy play in the sideboards (and possibly Mainboard in Legacy) of Burn decks as a tool against Storm and similar decks. More splashable True Believer might see some play as well.
Flash versions of Enchantments - Specifically Gravepact, double Glorious Anthem, and Furnace of Rath, these are some great cards that I'm excited to jam in EDH.
Fixed Functional Reprints of Staples - New versions of Oblivion Ring and City of Brass are welcome additions to EDH. And the City will almost definitely see eternal play anywhere City currently does.
Gods - Kruphix is enticing and is a great general for my EDH Cube, which has been lacking a great second UG option after Prime Speaker Zegana. Iroas makes me want to build a deck around him.
Strive - At first, it looked like this was going to be a junky limited-only keyword for helping Heroic, but then they went and put it on a ton of exciting spells like Heat Shimmer, Cytoshape, Instant Sever the Bloodline, Pit Fight, White Withstand Death, Naturalize, and Threaten
Basic Land Counting Creatures - With the exception of the black one, which is a weaker Korlash, Heir to Blackblade, these guys have some cool effects. Particularly powerful are the Blue one, which can be a one-sided bounce sweeper that can be easily repeated, and the white one, which can bury an opponent's creature deep in their deck.
Constellation - One of the biggest complaints against Theros block was the lack of enchantment-matters cards in an enchantment block. Here we get a keyword for just that, and it's on an Enchantress and an Astral Slide effect, as well as a Noxious Ghoul-type card and a Bojuka Bog.
Returning Mechanics Pay Off - A lot of the non-Devotion mechanics have been fairly lackluster this block, except maybe Monstrous, which wasn't in BNG. This set gives us an awesome monster in the Hydra that Monstrosities for Gelatinous Genesis, a strong Inspired card in King Midas, two EDH-Exciting Heroic cards in Sage of Hours and Battlfield Thaumaturge, and a Cube Staple Bestow card in Gnarled Scarhide
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From a limited standpoint, I am a happy camper. Lots of build-around-me cards and cards that fill out existing archetypes. The R 1/1 heroic satyr is awesome. The new 2/4 heroic flying lifelink clown is a huge bomb and first pickable. As a pretty regular UG drafter, the flash + flying + deathtouch cockatrice is pretty sweet as well. Lots of goodies in the bestow + drawback cycle and some pretty decent red and black cards to finally shore up the weaknesses from those two colors in BTT drafting.
From a modern standpoint, I could care less. I have my Thoughtseizes and Brimaz's and Temples, but beyond that, there isn't much here. The Pyrostatic Pillar on a stick is neat, but I don't play burn. I'll definitely pick up Rule of Law man and True Believer 2.0, but really the cards aren't terribly good for Modern. There are some role players, I suppose, but nothing that gets me excited.
Limited: 8/10
Modern: 3/10
(450 unpowered, MMA-style archetypes in each color pair)
Commander:
Far too many to count...
however the cards in this set acceded expectations with how interesting some of the cards are. some of them are very creatively designed and have depth to them like the Battlefield Thaumaturge launch the fleet dakra mystic and even the drawback cycle of bestow creatures. and even cards for limited are so off the wall that you cannot help but like them anyway. like the Fleetfeather Cockatrice is a freaking venomous peafowl for Christ sake. not to mention the chimeras with shark heads, the Pensive Minotaur and some actually interesting auras.
I actually thought RTR was actually a rather boring ravnica rehash. it added stuff to a bunch of other formats and lowered the price on shocklands. what made the original ravnica set so good was that it was the first time we had a setting like that and it was powerful in constructed (alot like Zendikar actually in both respects), whereas the return did not offer anything particularly creative flavorwise. when they did it with Mirrodin though it was very interesting, the base set was a fun throwback but the rest was INTERPLANAR CONFLICT! the phyrexians we love so much were finally alive in the modern frame format and it was a hit.
Anyway I think that JOU gave me most of what I wanted from this block, but best of all it did some really unexpected stuff. this set is probobly going to make limited an absolute blast giving the enchantment support we needed for the rest of the set.
At least AVR and GTC had some strong cards (though I wouldn't play Avacyn Restored or Gatecrash draft).
I personally liked this set more than BNG and Theros. However, that is solely because of Dictate of Karametra (that and GP Chicago might be enough to get me into Standard). For the most part though I don't like this set or the block. The cards were horribly overcosted. We didn't see any good bestow cards until the 3rd set. We haven't had many cards that are Modern/Legacy playable. This is the least powerful block of all time in terms of nonrotating format impact. There wasn't much to abuse Inspire with, we never got anything that stopped the removal vulnerability issue of Heroic, there weren't any cards that could be abused with Devotion, the enchantment theme was nonexistant until JOU and is now weak, Bestow was overcosted until JOU, there wasn't enough ramp for Monstrosity, Strive wasn't pushed enough, and Tribute was horrible in general. The existence of strong removal in Standard invalidates most of the Theros mechanics. The block was far too creature based to be an enchantment block. Overall, I just wish that we could have more blocks like Innistrad and less like this abomination.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Honestly, I agree with this. I see it more as a toolbox of sorts for an EDH.
But the art here is praise-worthy~
EDH DECKS
[to be updated
OTHER DECKS
Block 6/10: Using Greek mythology, it is very easy from a design perspective to create a vast cardpool of interesting creatures, spells, enchantments, etc. I liked how they used enchantments as the idea of "god-like" ness, and the story was moderately interesting (although cliche with Elspeth killing Xenagos). However, there seemed to be something missing; it had a lot of relations to the actual Greek mythology, but was very uninspired. I liked how they brought back scry, but other mechanics like bestow, heroic, inspired, etc, are all pretty much unusable in a standard environment. And they are not even that hard to fix (bestow should have been reduced in cost, monstrous was okay, tribute often had one option that is clearly better than the other or neither are worth the casting cost, etc). It brought a lot to the casual environment of the game but lacked a lot of solid set building fundamentals. One thing they did do right was the art, a lot of it is stunning.
Theros: 6.5/10
This set surprised us with a lot of things we didn't expect to take flourish actually doing well. And cards we thought were dead in the water suddenly become powerhouses like nightveil specter and pack rat. A lot of competitive cards, an excellent limited, and a fair share of modern playable cards kept everyone happy despite initial skepticism. Lotta experimentation, and the meta shifted greatly from Innistrad, which is not necessarily a good thing, but not a bad thing either
Born of the Gods: 3/10
The clear filler set of this block. Boring cards, 2 chase mythics (only one of which is certainly playable while the other is fringe), boring mechanics, and a lot of junk cards. Felt insulted by Wizards and just as I was getting serious with magic I was let down. Courser of Kruphix is the only card in the block I know everyone enjoys. This is one of those boosters I will avoid cracking open for a long time.
Journey into Nyx: 7/10
After Born of the Gods, I told myself it couldn't get much worse. While I have yet to play a card, there are a lot of cards I am really looking forward to playing, none of the Gods are real bummers (Pharika a little disappointing at worst). Strive looks like a mechanic I can get on board with, constellation looks really cool to build around, even if only in a casual environment, and the "enchantment" tag on some of the Theros block cards now seems to be justified. Has a lot of good flavor, and gives us a nice ending to a rather mediocre block.