Homelands, Fallen Empires, and Dragon's Maze were all terrible. This set has enemy manlands and I like all the Retreats being an enchantress player. I'm going to try Emeria Shepherd into Omniscience combo one day.
Worldwake was a set with something like 10 cards, 6 of which were lands. Well 11 cards since amulet of vigor became a thing.
Can't we hold BFZ to a higher standard for being the first large set of a block? Take out the slow/battlelands and enemy manlands and blighted cycle and whats left?
I'm looking at the uncommons, and I'm thinking that's where the real power is. The rares and mythics (with exceptions) are pretty much crap but these uncommons are looking really strong.
I still don't understand why people keep bringing back Homelands as their argument for the worst set ever. Yes, it's a terrible set, but it's also a set that came out 20 years ago! Design & Development was completely different back then, it really can't be compared to the sets of today. I can't take any of you serious whenever you mention that set, just give it a rest already.
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Worldwake was a set with something like 10 cards, 6 of which were lands. Well 11 cards since amulet of vigor became a thing.
Can't we hold BFZ to a higher standard for being the first large set of a block? Take out the slow/battlelands and enemy manlands and blighted cycle and whats left?
I think many people are underestimating many cards, here's some cards i find either interesting or powerful (or both), maybe not all of them are constructed powerhouses, but they do deserve a second look.
Edig: I got lazy after a few cards and stopped categorizing
Allys:
Ally Encampment: Another rainbow land for the modern 5 color ally deck, great card all around
Lantern Scout: Interesting tech in Modern/Casual Allys deck against aggressive decks
Kor Bladewhirl: Nice power/Mana cost ratio and First strike is powerful in creature mirrors
Firemantle Mage: Makes them extremely hard to block
Beastcaller Savant: Haste is not irrelevant, and fixes all colors of mana for the 5 color Ally deck, Not helping cast CoCo hurts a bit, but still worthy of a second look
Munda, Ambush Leader: Extremely powerful effect, you might complain that it doesn't put them into your hand, but those colors aren't supposed to, besides it leaves them right where CoCo wants them.
EDH Staples:
Part the Waterveil: Everybody wants extra turns, and the awaken is not irrelevant
Greenwarden of Murasa: Double eternal witness? Yess please
Emeria Shepherd: Do i really need to explain why reanimating any PERMANENT is good in EDH?
Oblivion Sower: Even if you don't hit anything of the etb trigger, still a colorless 6 mana 6/6, is not a bad deal
Sire of Stagnation: He might or might not make waves in standard, because at 6 mana the ability is not at it's best, but in EDH it's a very different story.
Interesting design:
Void Winnower
Smothering Abomination: Sacrifice your creatures for fun and profit, I'm in
Zulaport Cutthroat: Blood artist replacement/redundancy, it might not trigger out of your opponent's creatures, for standard/modern it might seem marginally worse, but for multiplayer formats, it's way better.
The retreats: All of them seem interesting, and the blue one might spawn a modern archetype.
Good reanimation targets:
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
Straight up good cards:
Painful Truths: There are not many cards that draw you 3 cards, you can even control how much life you loose to it.
Ruinous Path: Not as good in permission decks, but better in tap out decks, as it doubles as removal and a treat
Drana, Liberator of Malakir: Very good in creature decks, as it boosts your whole team
Wasteland Strangler: A 3 mana 3/2 it't not a bad floor, not constructed playable as it is, but if you manage to enable the EtB trigger, it can become a powerhouse, it deserves a second look
Akoum Firebird: 4 mana 3/3 flyer with haste it's not all that bad even with the must attack clause as it's what you want to do most of the time anyway, the fact that you can recur it in the late game put this well into constructed playable card, it might need Thunderbreak Regent to rotate, but then again this one has haste and it might get played in different decks
Akoum Hellkite: Might or might not be constructed playable (i'm leaning towards not), but the ability is interesting in that scapeshift (or something similar) makes this very dangerous.
Radiant Flames: 3 Mana, (up to) 3 damage to each creature is not a bad place to start, but the fact that you can control how much damage it does, makes this very good.
Blisterpod: A doomed traveler, for mana scions it's not the worst place to be.
From Beyond: wakening zone for 1/1's instead of 0/1's, that you can sacrifice for profit, sound fine to me
Undergrowth Champion: I believe this one is gonna see standard play, even if he doesn't, people will still try to break him, and that's a fine card in my book.
Bring to Light: Excellent card, might see modern play.
Brutal Expulsion: Excellent card, whether or not it sees play, depends on whether or not there's a deck that can cast it.
Fathom Feeder: Excellent card, 1 mana deathtouch, trades with anything on the ground, late game it draws you cards every turn, a fine design, even if it doesn't sees play in standard, it's definitely worth considering in EDH
Omnath, Locus of Rage: EDH general, might see constructed play
Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper: A fine general, works greath with planar outburst.
Ulamog's Nullifier: Great card, possible 2 or 3 for one, i like it
Aligned Hedron Network: Excellent card, i wish it said power 4 or greater, but still a very good card.
Hedron Archive: Might see play in standard, even if it doesn't, i'd play it in my Daretti deck
Planar Outburst: 5 mana sweeper with upside.
Stasis Snare: Excellent instant speed removal spell in white, it get's hurt by dromoka's command, but still a fine card.
But that's not the point of all the cards, not every card needs to be tournament playable, there are many ways to play magic besides constructed tournaments, the point of the game is to be enjoyable and interesting, there's always gonna be cards that are better than others, even if every card in the set was a mox or black lotus level card, there would still be cards that are better than others.
But that's not the point of all the cards, not every card needs to be tournament playable, there are many ways to play magic besides constructed tournaments, the point of the game is to be enjoyable and interesting, there's always gonna be cards that are better than others, even if every card in the set was a mox or black lotus level card, there would still be cards that are better than others.
A lot of those cards share design space with better cards already, so likely will not be played in casual or EDH either, unless in budget decks.
But that's not the point of all the cards, not every card needs to be tournament playable, there are many ways to play magic besides constructed tournaments, the point of the game is to be enjoyable and interesting, there's always gonna be cards that are better than others, even if every card in the set was a mox or black lotus level card, there would still be cards that are better than others.
I like to play EDH, standard, modern, limited, and kitchen table. You don't need to tell me not every card needs to be tournament playable, you need to understand that this set is not for constructed players. Mostly this set is just flavor to be honest.
Some do, some don't, some are better than the old ones in the right deck, some are just redundant, some are entirely different like Bring to light and need to be built around you not liking some of them, doesn't make them bad,just different.
"Not for constructed players" well standard is a thing you know, and these card are gonna see play, some of them are even modern viable, as hard as that is for you to believe, if you don't see it... well there not much anyone can do for you.
"Not for constructed players" well standard is a thing you know, and these card are gonna see play, some of them are even modern viable, as hard as that is for you to believe, if you don't see it... well there not much anyone can do for you.
KTK is a set for constructed players. This is a hugely casual set, but what I don't think you get is I'm ok with that. I'm a huge vorthos and I think it's crazy how much of the story is coming through on the cards. I'm ok with cards like Blight Herder and Scour from Existence. I'm ok with a set being REALLY bad. But hey- that doesn't mean it's not a letdown of a set (constructedwise- flavorwise this is better than Dragon's Maze)
Oh yeah should mention I don't even play modern but I got a taste of it at Monday Night Modern playing with my standard deck and I'm hooked
I'm in the "not liking this set camp". It seems very meh, in general. Many friends told me that "Zendikar was awesome"! Perhaps they hyped it up, but very few are excited about standard. I for one look at Khans and the start of this block and see no comparison. This set doesn't even come close.
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Standard Arena: Eh? Gruul or Die
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now: G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record) C Eldrazi Tron (9-5) UG Infect RW Burn
The damn point is that as a whole the value is not there, the "rares" are terrible glorified uncommons, and people should be allowed to voice their opinion about a *****ty product if they think the product is *****ty. That is why I posted in the first place....Customer's are supposed to voice their thoughts on products....it's called feedback.
Up until now, I've refrained from posting about my thoughts on BFZ. In general, I think people are too negative online and I include myself in that. With that in mind, I make a conscious effort to try to focus on the cards I like during spoiler season and just ignore those I don't. But, you're right. Customers should voice their opinions and give feedback. Also, I just want a place to vent my frustrations about this set, and this seems as good a place as any.
Please feel free to skip if you don't want to read another negative opinion about BFZ.
SNIPPED
I honestly can't find a single word of fault with anything you said. It's exactly my impression of the set, every last word. I thought we'd go in, clean up the riff-raff, and get back to the adventure of Zendikar. Instead, it looks like the Sea Gate gets nuked, the planeswalker coalition is going to be at the forefront of the next set, and the amount of Eldrazi in this set is unsettling. I get that it's a war, but unlike Scars (which was also poorly handled), there isn't an equivalent power-level exchange. There's ramp-to-fat Eldrazi's vs. small-and-stay-small-so-swarm-in-numbers tribal, and not only is it a flavor fail, but it's design fail...we just came out of a block with midrange to late-game fat-booty dragons, and board wipes in 3 colors. You can't swarm tribal with that in Standard.
I dunno, maybe I'm just spoiled on the great Standards I've been a part of, but nothing is this set yells 'build around me!' and it doesn't feel open enough. I know from Shards of Alara that we're going to be constantly forcing 3-color all the way to rotation, but nothing about this set tells me to break new ground. Mardu/Orzhov Warriors might be good, but that's a retread. Abzan isn't going to just leave Siege Rhino in the binder. UWx isn't forgetting about Ojutai. Goblins loses more than it gains, leaving red to find an identity in a world without Lightning Strike and might have to go wide for a Big Red style again. It's all so painfully slow.
I counted on this set to rope me back to Standard. I don't think it will. I can't play an entire summer of Modern and switch to something this clunky. It feels too limiting and spelled-out, and oh, God, so sloooow. At least rotations come faster now, maybe next block.
I still don't understand why people keep bringing back Homelands as their argument for the worst set ever. Yes, it's a terrible set, but it's also a set that came out 20 years ago! Design & Development was completely different back then, it really can't be compared to the sets of today. I can't take any of you serious whenever you mention that set, just give it a rest already.
This set could just be the Gideon and full art basics and it would be better than Dragon's Maze.
Truth, on both parts.
WotC learnt a lot from Homelands - they learnt the hard way that you can't simply build a Vorthos set (Homelands had an excellent storyline and some excellent flavourful card design... but the power level was so far removed from Johnny and Spike that it tanked. Even Timmy had trouble).
Dragon's Maze was 20 years further down the road. It had no such excuses. It's got one good card, and that one good card was an admitted mistake on WotC's part. The rest is just dross - pure dross. As a kitchen table guy, I find myself heading back to the old sets for undervalued and underappreciated cards. I am buying a fair few Gatecrash singles of late. Dragon's Maze I haven't touched. And I see no reason to, either. It is terrible. We even gave DGM Limited a crack in our playgroup, and it can be summed up in eight words - "He who pulls Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts wins".
BfZ may not be strong, but it's definitely not Dragon's Maze level of bad.
I'm in the "not liking this set camp". It seems very meh, in general. Many friends told me that "Zendikar was awesome"! Perhaps they hyped it up, but very few are excited about standard. I for one look at Khans and the start of this block and see no comparison. This set doesn't even come close.
The problem is that they took two or three of the popular playstyles of the original block and then either threw them in willy nilly with no support (Land fall, it really only has evolving wilds and sword of the animist as ways to trigger it with out burning your mana for a turn), tried to make it better (not sure yet until I play allies), or just watered it down (Eldrazi token creators, slower and in lesser numbers due to steroid intake).
Truth, on both parts.
WotC learnt a lot from Homelands - they learnt the hard way that you can't simply build a Vorthos set (Homelands had an excellent storyline and some excellent flavourful card design... but the power level was so far removed from Johnny and Spike that it tanked. Even Timmy had trouble).
Dragon's Maze was 20 years further down the road. It had no such excuses. It's got one good card, and that one good card was an admitted mistake on WotC's part. The rest is just dross - pure dross. As a kitchen table guy, I find myself heading back to the old sets for undervalued and underappreciated cards. I am buying a fair few Gatecrash singles of late. Dragon's Maze I haven't touched. And I see no reason to, either. It is terrible. We even gave DGM Limited a crack in our playgroup, and it can be summed up in eight words - "He who pulls Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts wins".
BfZ may not be strong, but it's definitely not Dragon's Maze level of bad.
At least Dragon's Maze had amazing flavor! All the cards hinted toward something massive-the implicit maze- and Varolz got to run around killing the other champions
You can see this same sort of flavor in BFZ. The eldrazi are slowly taking over, the land is becoming blighted, and there's nowhere left to run. Suddenly, the planeswalkers come, and Gideon leads the Allies to battle against the Eldrazi. Zada figures out that the hedrons can be used as weapons, and bam! Fighting chance! The allies gather from all parts of zendikar- even the vampires- to fight the enemy. Meanwhile jace mopes and argues with ugin about Darwin's Origin of Eldrazi.
Why are we commenting on the set when we could easily say that the reason why players are disappointed with the set is, as with all sets, is that the cards presented push in newer directions instead of standard archetypical ones where players want to relive their "glory" days. Standard players, be nice to these cards because when your fellow johnies break them in half you will be net-decking with the very cards you are trash talking.
Finally, the extremely limited "full art" non-basics are not a healthy addition to the game in my opinion. This post is long enough without going into a detailed financial analysis of why, but they definitely reek of the same tactics used by comic book companies to sell more copies back in the 90s. Gimmicks like limited edition covers worked for awhile, but then the industry collapsed. Hopefully, Magic stays healthy, but I sincerely don't believe that such exclusives are the way to promote that health.
I've been reading, listening to, and thinking about the reactions to this set a lot, but this comment hit home more than anything about why I'm frustrated. I remember that era of comic books very well; I was just the right age to be suckered into it at first and then feel ripped off a year or two later. When I first came back into Magic, I was a bit miffed by the Mythic rarity itself; I can see its value in balancing Limited, but it does feel a bit like a money grab, making the collectible game aspect more important than the strategy. Expeditions is that but worse. Not that they shouldn't appeal to the big-money collectors once in a while, but I see a bunch of 10-14 y/o kids in my shop chattering excitedly about how many packs they're going to buy and how many Expeditions they're going to pull, and it just seems... cheap. I think you summed it up really well, it's a gimmick.
I think a lot of the complaining here has to do with managing expectations and the way they dealt with spoiler season. People assumed for the longest time that they would reprint the enemy fetches, for example, and while it makes sense why they don't for Standard, that announcement followed by the "here's a fancy $300 version" announcement kind of left a bad taste in people's mouths. Ditto spoiling a bunch of rares that were mediocre for Constructed but great for Limited, before we could see the commons and get a good picture of what Limited would look like. And they kind of blew their wad spoiling Gideon first; I can see why they did that, but he's arguably the best mythic in the set, so they left themselves very little to generate excitement later. There's always a lot of negativity and hyperbole during spoiler season, but I feel like they could have predicted a lot of this and mitigated it a bit.
As for the set itself, I think it looks really really fun for a Limited environment. It's hard to argue that the power-level of Standard isn't taking a huge blow, and that's probably good in the long run, but personally, I just came back to the game, I have a few decks that I like to play that are being gutted, and I get that that's how the whole "rotation" thing works, but it's really frustrating to read the spoiler and find very little that looks engaging to build around. I've been brewing and tinkering and will continue to do so, but so far the most interesting cards in Battle for Zendikar Standard are Hangarback Walker, Den Protector, Deathmist Raptor, Dragonlord Atarka... you get the idea. Set looks like a big old dud for Constructed, outside of EDH, but of course in Standard we have to play with what we get.
One more thing: as an Old Fogey in this game, I feel like I have to defend Fallen Empires. Yes, there were no "rares" in the set per se (the cleaned-up rarity system didn't become a thing until Mirage). Yes, there are very few cards that have sustained playability. But that's more powercreep than anything. There were lots of useful tricks, brand new ideas, innovative ways of gaining value off of resources, (things like Goblin Grenade and Elvish Farmer, cheap artifacts you sacrifice for an ability, the storage counters, and the sac-for-two mana lands), and a whole bunch of flavor win. You might laugh at some of the cards now, but Hymn to Tourach won its fair share of competitive games, and kitchen table players were more than happy to slot many of those cards into their decks. The reason the set got a bad rap right away had nothing to do with mechanics; they simply overestimated the interest and printed way too much, so the cards themselves had no resale value. Fallen Empires got a lot of new people into the game and kept it fresh and interesting, at least from my perspective.
Anyway, tl;dr, the set kind of sucks for even mildly competitive Constructed players, but it'll be fine. Looking forward to drafting it.
I don't think the set is terrible. I think it was marketed poorly, and I think the expeditions left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths (rightfully so, particularly in the case of the enemy fetches not getting a real reprint but getting a lotto-style premium version instead). I think the set looks like a blast to draft with, and I think it has a lot of interesting cards. Many of them are very... odd, though. Like they're going to take some serious brewing to figure out exactly what to do with them, but I have no doubt there will be several all-stars from this set in standard, and probably a modern card or two. I think the biggest issue at first blush is that most of the rares are absolutely horrible-looking. The mythics are good, though, and actually a lot of the power is in the uncommons (which most people here seem to completely ignore and/or have a hard time evaluating). Other than that, a lot of people tend to complain about cards not being viable in older formats. Those people are going to be disappointed with every set, especially when they're first spoiled. New sets are designed and developed with standard and limited in mind, not eternal formats. Most sets will have a few cards at best that are playable in older formats, and this one is no different in that regard.
I honestly think the biggest problem in this set is the lack of anything (at least anything particularly obvious) to really hose abzan. In fact, abzan actually seems to have gotten more tools than it lost with the coming rotation, and many of us in standard (and even modern to a lesser extent) are just flat-out tired of seeing siege rhino and friends dominating the format. Hopefully we'll figure something out that will keep abzan in check, but first impressions don't make it seem hopeful.
I honestly think the biggest problem in this set is the lack of anything (at least anything particularly obvious) to really hose abzan. In fact, abzan actually seems to have gotten more tools than it lost with the coming rotation, and many of us in standard (and even modern to a lesser extent) are just flat-out tired of seeing siege rhino and friends dominating the format. Hopefully we'll figure something out that will keep abzan in check, but first impressions don't make it seem hopeful.
What tools has Abzan gained? Without getting into all the the various types of Abzan, I see a number of very effective cards that are rotating:
Sure, there are some things that replace some of those, but I don't think any deck from the last season is going to come out of this mass-nerfing without a bit of a limp.
Oh gee, lookie. It is the same bull***** Standard players do every god damn spoiler season when a set rotates and their pet cards get rotated out of Standard.
OMG "______" IT ISNT AS GOOD AS "_______" THIS SET SUCKS ITS THE WORST EVER WAHHHHHHHHH!!!!
After 10+ years of this crap I think I have had enough of this repeat nonsense every time a new set is released.
This set looks great for edh, standard, and a little modern. I'm worried about limited though, little ramp means no super fun battlecruser decks, with how many common/uncommon 7+ drops available.
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Can't we hold BFZ to a higher standard for being the first large set of a block? Take out the slow/battlelands and enemy manlands and blighted cycle and whats left?
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
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I think many people are underestimating many cards, here's some cards i find either interesting or powerful (or both), maybe not all of them are constructed powerhouses, but they do deserve a second look.
Edig: I got lazy after a few cards and stopped categorizing
Allys:
Ally Encampment: Another rainbow land for the modern 5 color ally deck, great card all around
Lantern Scout: Interesting tech in Modern/Casual Allys deck against aggressive decks
Kor Bladewhirl: Nice power/Mana cost ratio and First strike is powerful in creature mirrors
Firemantle Mage: Makes them extremely hard to block
Beastcaller Savant: Haste is not irrelevant, and fixes all colors of mana for the 5 color Ally deck, Not helping cast CoCo hurts a bit, but still worthy of a second look
Munda, Ambush Leader: Extremely powerful effect, you might complain that it doesn't put them into your hand, but those colors aren't supposed to, besides it leaves them right where CoCo wants them.
EDH Staples:
Part the Waterveil: Everybody wants extra turns, and the awaken is not irrelevant
Greenwarden of Murasa: Double eternal witness? Yess please
Emeria Shepherd: Do i really need to explain why reanimating any PERMANENT is good in EDH?
Oblivion Sower: Even if you don't hit anything of the etb trigger, still a colorless 6 mana 6/6, is not a bad deal
Sire of Stagnation: He might or might not make waves in standard, because at 6 mana the ability is not at it's best, but in EDH it's a very different story.
Interesting design:
Void Winnower
Smothering Abomination: Sacrifice your creatures for fun and profit, I'm in
Zulaport Cutthroat: Blood artist replacement/redundancy, it might not trigger out of your opponent's creatures, for standard/modern it might seem marginally worse, but for multiplayer formats, it's way better.
The retreats: All of them seem interesting, and the blue one might spawn a modern archetype.
Good reanimation targets:
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
Straight up good cards:
Painful Truths: There are not many cards that draw you 3 cards, you can even control how much life you loose to it.
Ruinous Path: Not as good in permission decks, but better in tap out decks, as it doubles as removal and a treat
Drana, Liberator of Malakir: Very good in creature decks, as it boosts your whole team
Wasteland Strangler: A 3 mana 3/2 it't not a bad floor, not constructed playable as it is, but if you manage to enable the EtB trigger, it can become a powerhouse, it deserves a second look
Akoum Firebird: 4 mana 3/3 flyer with haste it's not all that bad even with the must attack clause as it's what you want to do most of the time anyway, the fact that you can recur it in the late game put this well into constructed playable card, it might need Thunderbreak Regent to rotate, but then again this one has haste and it might get played in different decks
Akoum Hellkite: Might or might not be constructed playable (i'm leaning towards not), but the ability is interesting in that scapeshift (or something similar) makes this very dangerous.
Radiant Flames: 3 Mana, (up to) 3 damage to each creature is not a bad place to start, but the fact that you can control how much damage it does, makes this very good.
Blisterpod: A doomed traveler, for mana scions it's not the worst place to be.
From Beyond: wakening zone for 1/1's instead of 0/1's, that you can sacrifice for profit, sound fine to me
Undergrowth Champion: I believe this one is gonna see standard play, even if he doesn't, people will still try to break him, and that's a fine card in my book.
Bring to Light: Excellent card, might see modern play.
Brutal Expulsion: Excellent card, whether or not it sees play, depends on whether or not there's a deck that can cast it.
Fathom Feeder: Excellent card, 1 mana deathtouch, trades with anything on the ground, late game it draws you cards every turn, a fine design, even if it doesn't sees play in standard, it's definitely worth considering in EDH
Omnath, Locus of Rage: EDH general, might see constructed play
Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper: A fine general, works greath with planar outburst.
Ulamog's Nullifier: Great card, possible 2 or 3 for one, i like it
Aligned Hedron Network: Excellent card, i wish it said power 4 or greater, but still a very good card.
Hedron Archive: Might see play in standard, even if it doesn't, i'd play it in my Daretti deck
Planar Outburst: 5 mana sweeper with upside.
Stasis Snare: Excellent instant speed removal spell in white, it get's hurt by dromoka's command, but still a fine card.
A lot of those cards share design space with better cards already, so likely will not be played in casual or EDH either, unless in budget decks.
Oh yeah should mention I don't even play modern but I got a taste of it at Monday Night Modern playing with my standard deck and I'm hooked
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
I honestly can't find a single word of fault with anything you said. It's exactly my impression of the set, every last word. I thought we'd go in, clean up the riff-raff, and get back to the adventure of Zendikar. Instead, it looks like the Sea Gate gets nuked, the planeswalker coalition is going to be at the forefront of the next set, and the amount of Eldrazi in this set is unsettling. I get that it's a war, but unlike Scars (which was also poorly handled), there isn't an equivalent power-level exchange. There's ramp-to-fat Eldrazi's vs. small-and-stay-small-so-swarm-in-numbers tribal, and not only is it a flavor fail, but it's design fail...we just came out of a block with midrange to late-game fat-booty dragons, and board wipes in 3 colors. You can't swarm tribal with that in Standard.
I dunno, maybe I'm just spoiled on the great Standards I've been a part of, but nothing is this set yells 'build around me!' and it doesn't feel open enough. I know from Shards of Alara that we're going to be constantly forcing 3-color all the way to rotation, but nothing about this set tells me to break new ground. Mardu/Orzhov Warriors might be good, but that's a retread. Abzan isn't going to just leave Siege Rhino in the binder. UWx isn't forgetting about Ojutai. Goblins loses more than it gains, leaving red to find an identity in a world without Lightning Strike and might have to go wide for a Big Red style again. It's all so painfully slow.
I counted on this set to rope me back to Standard. I don't think it will. I can't play an entire summer of Modern and switch to something this clunky. It feels too limiting and spelled-out, and oh, God, so sloooow. At least rotations come faster now, maybe next block.
Truth, on both parts.
WotC learnt a lot from Homelands - they learnt the hard way that you can't simply build a Vorthos set (Homelands had an excellent storyline and some excellent flavourful card design... but the power level was so far removed from Johnny and Spike that it tanked. Even Timmy had trouble).
Dragon's Maze was 20 years further down the road. It had no such excuses. It's got one good card, and that one good card was an admitted mistake on WotC's part. The rest is just dross - pure dross. As a kitchen table guy, I find myself heading back to the old sets for undervalued and underappreciated cards. I am buying a fair few Gatecrash singles of late. Dragon's Maze I haven't touched. And I see no reason to, either. It is terrible. We even gave DGM Limited a crack in our playgroup, and it can be summed up in eight words - "He who pulls Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts wins".
BfZ may not be strong, but it's definitely not Dragon's Maze level of bad.
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The problem is that they took two or three of the popular playstyles of the original block and then either threw them in willy nilly with no support (Land fall, it really only has evolving wilds and sword of the animist as ways to trigger it with out burning your mana for a turn), tried to make it better (not sure yet until I play allies), or just watered it down (Eldrazi token creators, slower and in lesser numbers due to steroid intake).
You can see this same sort of flavor in BFZ. The eldrazi are slowly taking over, the land is becoming blighted, and there's nowhere left to run. Suddenly, the planeswalkers come, and Gideon leads the Allies to battle against the Eldrazi. Zada figures out that the hedrons can be used as weapons, and bam! Fighting chance! The allies gather from all parts of zendikar- even the vampires- to fight the enemy. Meanwhile jace mopes and argues with ugin about Darwin's Origin of Eldrazi.
Flavor win.
I've been reading, listening to, and thinking about the reactions to this set a lot, but this comment hit home more than anything about why I'm frustrated. I remember that era of comic books very well; I was just the right age to be suckered into it at first and then feel ripped off a year or two later. When I first came back into Magic, I was a bit miffed by the Mythic rarity itself; I can see its value in balancing Limited, but it does feel a bit like a money grab, making the collectible game aspect more important than the strategy. Expeditions is that but worse. Not that they shouldn't appeal to the big-money collectors once in a while, but I see a bunch of 10-14 y/o kids in my shop chattering excitedly about how many packs they're going to buy and how many Expeditions they're going to pull, and it just seems... cheap. I think you summed it up really well, it's a gimmick.
I think a lot of the complaining here has to do with managing expectations and the way they dealt with spoiler season. People assumed for the longest time that they would reprint the enemy fetches, for example, and while it makes sense why they don't for Standard, that announcement followed by the "here's a fancy $300 version" announcement kind of left a bad taste in people's mouths. Ditto spoiling a bunch of rares that were mediocre for Constructed but great for Limited, before we could see the commons and get a good picture of what Limited would look like. And they kind of blew their wad spoiling Gideon first; I can see why they did that, but he's arguably the best mythic in the set, so they left themselves very little to generate excitement later. There's always a lot of negativity and hyperbole during spoiler season, but I feel like they could have predicted a lot of this and mitigated it a bit.
As for the set itself, I think it looks really really fun for a Limited environment. It's hard to argue that the power-level of Standard isn't taking a huge blow, and that's probably good in the long run, but personally, I just came back to the game, I have a few decks that I like to play that are being gutted, and I get that that's how the whole "rotation" thing works, but it's really frustrating to read the spoiler and find very little that looks engaging to build around. I've been brewing and tinkering and will continue to do so, but so far the most interesting cards in Battle for Zendikar Standard are Hangarback Walker, Den Protector, Deathmist Raptor, Dragonlord Atarka... you get the idea. Set looks like a big old dud for Constructed, outside of EDH, but of course in Standard we have to play with what we get.
One more thing: as an Old Fogey in this game, I feel like I have to defend Fallen Empires. Yes, there were no "rares" in the set per se (the cleaned-up rarity system didn't become a thing until Mirage). Yes, there are very few cards that have sustained playability. But that's more powercreep than anything. There were lots of useful tricks, brand new ideas, innovative ways of gaining value off of resources, (things like Goblin Grenade and Elvish Farmer, cheap artifacts you sacrifice for an ability, the storage counters, and the sac-for-two mana lands), and a whole bunch of flavor win. You might laugh at some of the cards now, but Hymn to Tourach won its fair share of competitive games, and kitchen table players were more than happy to slot many of those cards into their decks. The reason the set got a bad rap right away had nothing to do with mechanics; they simply overestimated the interest and printed way too much, so the cards themselves had no resale value. Fallen Empires got a lot of new people into the game and kept it fresh and interesting, at least from my perspective.
Anyway, tl;dr, the set kind of sucks for even mildly competitive Constructed players, but it'll be fine. Looking forward to drafting it.
Johnny is going to be way too busy tweaking Abzan with a couple new cards to bother, along with 75% of all other standard players.
It's gonna be Rhino-Winter... to follow up Rhino-Spring and Rhino-Summer, sure, but still.
http://www.cubetutor.com/visualspoiler/20765
I honestly think the biggest problem in this set is the lack of anything (at least anything particularly obvious) to really hose abzan. In fact, abzan actually seems to have gotten more tools than it lost with the coming rotation, and many of us in standard (and even modern to a lesser extent) are just flat-out tired of seeing siege rhino and friends dominating the format. Hopefully we'll figure something out that will keep abzan in check, but first impressions don't make it seem hopeful.
What tools has Abzan gained? Without getting into all the the various types of Abzan, I see a number of very effective cards that are rotating:
Thoughtseize
Bile Blight
Drown in Sorrow
Hero's Downfall
Sylvan Caryatid
Courser of Kruphix
Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Fleecemane Lion
Sure, there are some things that replace some of those, but I don't think any deck from the last season is going to come out of this mass-nerfing without a bit of a limp.
OMG "______" IT ISNT AS GOOD AS "_______" THIS SET SUCKS ITS THE WORST EVER WAHHHHHHHHH!!!!
After 10+ years of this crap I think I have had enough of this repeat nonsense every time a new set is released.