The point isn't just to exile but work as a Mill mechanic aswell.
Kinda wastefull making an intire emchanic just to be used in a weekend and then is forgoten in your bin
This set will be drafted for the next ~six months. Regardless of how it affects constructed (I'm guessing not very much), it'll be very relevant while this is the limited format.
I doubt that any of the ingest creatures printed so far would have been strong enough for standard, even if they did have higher ingest numbers on them. Mist Invader wouldn't have been playable in standard if it was ingest 2 instead of ingest 1, and I doubt that they would have printed something that milled three+ cards on hit at common.
In limited, meanwhile, ingest is already a powerful mechanic that can mill your opponent to death. One of the people who went undefeated at one of my prereleases had a deck that milled people to death because he got 4 Mist Invaders and two Benthic Infiltrators. It's a mechanic meant for limited. You can feel free to dislike the fact that it is just meant for limited, but it does work well as a mill mechanic in its designated format.
Okay, so we don't get too out of hand, there are a couple things I would defend about this set:
I don't think it's fair to pick on Ingest as being a limited-only mechanic. The majority of the cards you open at a limited event typically go in the bin afterwards, so that's pretty much the norm.
As far as the fetches, seriously? You want 10 fetches in Standard? Ignoring the amount of time we'd spend shuffling our decks, that would be way too much fixing to keep any semblance of balance among colors. If you're afraid of Siege Rhino, which is basically only balanced by the fact that it forced you to commit to those colors, how do you think it would go if basically every deck could run it? I've been goldfishing with a couple four-color decks, and I think it's fairly easy to run one, even with half a set of fetches and half a set of duals (remember that each allied fetch can search for three out of the five allied tangolands, so manabases have tons of options). If we had 10 fetches in Standard it would be trivial to build a five-color deck. I totally agree that waiting until BfZ rotates is too long (why not just bring them back when Khans rotates)?, and that in the meantime maybe they should print them in the Commander decks or something, but 10 fetches in Standard is a pipe dream.
I still insist, however, that this set is poorly designed for Sealed, as there is so much variance that a lot of games seem to be decided on mulligans and who did or did not get an effective card in their pool. If the pools are more consistent, then skill comes in to it (there is typically a "correct" way to build your Sealed pool, and someone who has more experience or understands the format better has a better rate of success), but here there's a pretty decent chance that you can just get a pool full of crap and have to do your best with a bad deck. Not fun.
Finally, at least from my couple Sealed rounds, the lack of bombs is very real. Breaker of Armies doesn't matter. You have to untap with it and either attack with it and enough other creatures to kill, or they need to have so few creatures that they can't kill the Breaker of Armies and it will survive and you can attack again next turn. Or they can just attack you first and race. Or they can remove the Breaker of Armies. With a very thin concentration of unconditional removal, a lot of these things just sit there with the rest of your junk waiting for an opening. It feels a lot more like Commander then the back-and-forth, slick and exiciting, down-to-the-wire game I expect from limited Magic.
I feel (I hope) this set was designed for draft and that's where it will really shine.
As far as the fetches, seriously? You want 10 fetches in Standard? Ignoring the amount of time we'd spend shuffling our decks, that would be way too much fixing to keep any semblance of balance among colors. If you're afraid of Siege Rhino, which is basically only balanced by the fact that it forced you to commit to those colors, how do you think it would go if basically every deck could run it? I've been goldfishing with a couple four-color decks, and I think it's fairly easy to run one, even with half a set of fetches and half a set of duals (remember that each allied fetch can search for three out of the five allied tangolands, so manabases have tons of options). If we had 10 fetches in Standard it would be trivial to build a five-color deck. I totally agree that waiting until BfZ rotates is too long (why not just bring them back when Khans rotates)?, and that in the meantime maybe they should print them in the Commander decks or something, but 10 fetches in Standard is a pipe dream.
If all ten fetchlands were legal (assuming they take the place of the Battle Lands), mana fixing would be quite poor in standard. Three color would still be viable because of the trilands, but it would be far worse than it was during THS-KTK. We'd end up running the gainlands to get enough colored mana in the deck.
Gotta be honest, the sealed wss very entertaining and I look forward to the draft this Friday. I also think people are sleeping on some constructed playable cards as as well. To say that this is the worst set is premature at the very least.
remember this is the first in the two set block era so things are obviously going to be staggered when it comes to potential power cards (at least that's my theory) for this first go. To expect them to potentially crap out a set full of standard/modern playable cards everyone covets is foolish in every sense of the idea because they've become quite aware of what is and isn't playable when it comes to most rares, the commons/uncommons are where it Gets interesting imo.
If all ten fetchlands were legal (assuming they take the place of the Battle Lands), mana fixing would be quite poor in standard. Three color would still be viable because of the trilands, but it would be far worse than it was during THS-KTK. We'd end up running the gainlands to get enough colored mana in the deck.
If they were the only new duals, yeah, probably. I was assuming with the allied tangos (and I'm guessing we get the enemy tangos in Oath?)
If all ten fetchlands were legal (assuming they take the place of the Battle Lands), mana fixing would be quite poor in standard. Three color would still be viable because of the trilands, but it would be far worse than it was during THS-KTK. We'd end up running the gainlands to get enough colored mana in the deck.
If they were the only new duals, yeah, probably. I was assuming with the allied tangos (and I'm guessing we get the enemy tangos in Oath?)
Under your assumption, yes, mana fixing would be incredible. Hell, it already is incredible.
The only dual lands I expect to see in OGW are the three remaining enemy manlands. This balances the color fixing and doesn't overload a small set with duals.
I dunno what everyone's complaining about. I see tons of reasonable playables for standard, modern, and even legacy.
Newlamog can be reanimated, and in a deck like dredge that loves things that can't be board wiped, and gives stuff haste, it looks pretty attractive for a lot of matchups.
Void winnower... 9 mana for a creature that turns off 80% of splinter twin? Wow I don't even play tron, but I think I will now. Resolve one under countermagic and win the game.
Crumble to dust, the godsend I've been looking for. As someone who plays a lot of control, and hates playing red, this is what I've been looking for. An answer to tron that I can SPLASH! A singleton steam vents, fetchable by all 7-8 of my fetches, in my esper control opens up lots of excitement for the tron matchup.
Sire of stagnation... a card myself and my friends have been pondering over. My buddy wants to roll with ub control in standard... and what better way then to run with a 5/7 non-priceable CA/mill engine? And with fetches in standard, oh the possibilities! This guy is the kind of 6 drop oomph you want in control. Easier to get rid of than ol' Drifty for sure, but just as huge of a threat nonetheless.
And that's just the cards I'm MOST excited about. I love to play 2 color in modern so the tango lands are another godsend.
I'm personally looking very forward to standard, and have already been brewing up a new esper dragon list, as well as a sultai superfriend control list.
Anyways that's my two cents, set is solid, stop looking through rose colored glasses. Zendikar is basically destroyed after ROE, it wouldn't make sense for them to go back to zendikar as it was before.
I doubt that any of the ingest creatures printed so far would have been strong enough for standard, even if they did have higher ingest numbers on them. Mist Invader wouldn't have been playable in standard if it was ingest 2 instead of ingest 1, and I doubt that they would have printed something that milled three+ cards on hit at common.
In limited, meanwhile, ingest is already a powerful mechanic that can mill your opponent to death. One of the people who went undefeated at one of my prereleases had a deck that milled people to death because he got 4 Mist Invaders and two Benthic Infiltrators. It's a mechanic meant for limited. You can feel free to dislike the fact that it is just meant for limited, but it does work well as a mill mechanic in its designated format.
I love how pretending Fallen Empires was bad has become this bizarre meme. Yes, the set was overproduced and the packs were only $1. Get over it, people; that was 20 years ago. What's the point of bringing this up? "Well, at least BfZ isn't sold in packs of 8 with a weird uncommon/rare scheme?" Yeah, it's also 2015. The way Magic is packaged has changed. Nothing wrong with the set in and of itself. If you told me they just reprinting Fallen Empires as Standard-legal, I'd kind of be geeking out right now. Hymn to Tourach to replace Thoughtseize? Goblin Grenade to replace Lightning Strike? better than anything we've seen here...
Anyway, this thread is not complaining about BfZ being the worst set ever; the OP is exaggerating people's complaints and saying they shouldn't complain. Nobody's saying BfZ is the worst set ever. It's just boring for Standard and wonky and inconsistent in Sealed.
Well if you put it like that... This set isn't the worst magic set either, as it has been pointed out, there are worse sets than RTZ, I proposed discussing the design aspect of the set, I don't think it's constructive to judge the set's power level in constructed right now that we haven't had a constructed tournament with it, so if you are not gonna participate in the design discussion, feel free to... you know, not participate.
I'm sorry I thought we were assuming tron would be assembled t3. I also like scour from existence in tron and let me tell you why -
Tun three I scour your second land and you're now playing catch up the rest of the game(or karn it), now by the time you have 4 mana for twin I've already got winnower and two more lands.
Tron is a control deck.
As for crumble - you're basically saying people who run sowing salt v tron are running a pointless card. Crumble and salt are the same card, but crumble can be splashed for as an additional hate card if you struggle in the matchup.
I'm not seeing how this is anywhere close to the bottom 10%.
And also, have you been playtesting VW vs twin? I have. And I can tell you that if it resolves it is game over. And you know how my RG Tron friend makes sure it comes down? Cavern of souls. You can theorycraft all day but myself and friends have been brewing and playtesting since the first spoilers and so far I'm not disappointed. Think outside the box and play around with things before you count them out.
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Standard
Meh
Modern BUWEsper ControlWUB BRUGrixis DelverURB WRBGKiki ChordGBRW WBGAbzan MidrangeGBW BRGJundGRB
I would like everyone to notice that in this set, there are no vanilla creatures. Devoid, Ingest and the ally subtype took care of that, and therefore makes drafting deeper as each card can potentially fit into a strategy in some way.
No vanilla creatures, but still bland.
Tackle "ingest" on a creature, it's not vanilla anymore but it's still not chocolate.
To this moment it could as well be protection from purple.
For competitive constructed? Sure. For kitchen table? Not true at all. I assure you, somewhere out there, there's someone building an exile matters deck, and for that person, those cards are chocolate.
OP mentioned "drafting deeper"
sets nowadays are primarily designed around limited
and the kitchen table argument is as good as the everything is good in edh argument
The thing is with Homelands and Fallen Empires, the designers were very inexperienced at overall balancing concerns. They can be excused as errors while Wizards went through its early growing pains era. At this point, they're clearly aware of how to balance things and deliberately chose to make a set whose power level is horrendously low. I'm not that disappointed cause I play Eternal and the Khans/Dragons blocks were so good there's more than enough fuel for brewing into the foreseeable future (along with the fantastic B&R changes). But objectively the power level of the set is very low, and this is exacerbated by the fact that the expectations were so high given the legacy of the Zendikar brand. It's also surprising because they seemed to turn away from their dark era of Gatecrash through Theros block and redeemed themselves with Khans. I don't think anyone was expecting the set to be a return to that mentality of card impotence. Even if they make for an "interesting Standard" or "interesting limited" that's only a function of the fact that the cards surrounding them would be equally bad. Prism Array for instance makes most of Homelands look like a Tier 1 Spike-fest. Homelands had Merchant Scroll (restricted in Vintage) and Autumn Willow was the first card ever to approximate hexproof. Most people liked the theme of the block, the Vampire family living in this distant world. It was very low power but I can't say it's any worse than Theros, Born of the Gods, or this trash heap. We're calling it Bad-tle for Zendikar and "Minor Disagreement of no Particular Consequence on Zendikar," hardly a skirmish let alone battle.
I would like everyone to notice that in this set, there are no vanilla creatures. Devoid, Ingest and the ally subtype took care of that, and therefore makes drafting deeper as each card can potentially fit into a strategy in some way.
No vanilla creatures, but still bland.
Tackle "ingest" on a creature, it's not vanilla anymore but it's still not chocolate.
To this moment it could as well be protection from purple.
For competitive constructed? Sure. For kitchen table? Not true at all. I assure you, somewhere out there, there's someone building an exile matters deck, and for that person, those cards are chocolate.
OP mentioned "drafting deeper"
sets nowadays are primarily designed around limited
and the kitchen table argument is as good as the everything is good in edh argument
The point is, even vanilla creatures in this set have some mechanical relevance for people who try to build say ally decks, colorless matters decks exile matters decks, you might not want to build those decks, but there's people that do, and it's a cool thing in BFZ, that even vanilla creatures are not just a vanilla creature, and that talks about good design.
The thing is with Homelands and Fallen Empires, the designers were very inexperienced at overall balancing concerns. They can be excused as errors while Wizards went through its early growing pains era. At this point, they're clearly aware of how to balance things and deliberately chose to make a set whose power level is horrendously low. I'm not that disappointed cause I play Eternal and the Khans/Dragons blocks were so good there's more than enough fuel for brewing into the foreseeable future (along with the fantastic B&R changes). But objectively the power level of the set is very low, and this is exacerbated by the fact that the expectations were so high given the legacy of the Zendikar brand. It's also surprising because they seemed to turn away from their dark era of Gatecrash through Theros block and redeemed themselves with Khans. I don't think anyone was expecting the set to be a return to that mentality of card impotence. Even if they make for an "interesting Standard" or "interesting limited" that's only a function of the fact that the cards surrounding them would be equally bad. Prism Array for instance makes most of Homelands look like a Tier 1 Spike-fest. Homelands had Merchant Scroll (restricted in Vintage) and Autumn Willow was the first card ever to approximate hexproof. Most people liked the theme of the block, the Vampire family living in this distant world. It was very low power but I can't say it's any worse than Theros, Born of the Gods, or this trash heap. We're calling it Bad-tle for Zendikar and "Minor Disagreement of no Particular Consequence on Zendikar," hardly a skirmish let alone battle.
I love how people keep calling a set low power level without even playing with the cards, time will tell, it might be it might not, at least back up your claims with facts... which you don't have right now and won't have until people have played with the set.
The thing is with Homelands and Fallen Empires, the designers were very inexperienced at overall balancing concerns. They can be excused as errors while Wizards went through its early growing pains era.
Again, not to beat the Fallen Empires drum, but... (OK, I'll beat the drum.)
Fallen Empires can be chalked up to a failed experiment (well, many failed experiments) and can be forgiven for that. But Homelands... I mean, they literally just handed the set design over to the people at the WotC call center and said, "We're busy, you make it." Homelands was an utter abdication of responsibility, and WotC freely admits that and owns up to it.
OK, so why do I care? What's the relevance? Well, I think there's a legitimate discussion to be had about whether BFZ's errors are more like Fallen Empires errors (experiments gone horribly wrong) or more like Homelands errors (dropping the ball entirely, for no good reason). I'm inclined to lean Homelands on this one.
The thing is with Homelands and Fallen Empires, the designers were very inexperienced at overall balancing concerns. They can be excused as errors while Wizards went through its early growing pains era. At this point, they're clearly aware of how to balance things and deliberately chose to make a set whose power level is horrendously low. I'm not that disappointed cause I play Eternal and the Khans/Dragons blocks were so good there's more than enough fuel for brewing into the foreseeable future (along with the fantastic B&R changes). But objectively the power level of the set is very low, and this is exacerbated by the fact that the expectations were so high given the legacy of the Zendikar brand. It's also surprising because they seemed to turn away from their dark era of Gatecrash through Theros block and redeemed themselves with Khans. I don't think anyone was expecting the set to be a return to that mentality of card impotence. Even if they make for an "interesting Standard" or "interesting limited" that's only a function of the fact that the cards surrounding them would be equally bad. Prism Array for instance makes most of Homelands look like a Tier 1 Spike-fest. Homelands had Merchant Scroll (restricted in Vintage) and Autumn Willow was the first card ever to approximate hexproof. Most people liked the theme of the block, the Vampire family living in this distant world. It was very low power but I can't say it's any worse than Theros, Born of the Gods, or this trash heap. We're calling it Bad-tle for Zendikar and "Minor Disagreement of no Particular Consequence on Zendikar," hardly a skirmish let alone battle.
I love how people keep calling a set low power level without even playing with the cards, time will tell, it might be it might not, at least back up your claims with facts... which you don't have right now and won't have until people have played with the set.
What is the point of a thread in New Card Discussion forum if you can't argue about the cards without having played with them? Granted, maybe R&D has all figured out, we are all stupid and this will be the best standard ever. That should not stop people from expressing their clear concerns about the set when a simple look at it tells you that this is not very good. Maybe the interactions will pop up and the set will be awesome. Great. And until then we cannot express our opinion because "we haven't played with cards that haven't even been released"? I say we close this forum then and we all move to the other ones.
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Would you like to read Commander stories? Check my latest stories, coming from Lorwyn and Innistrad: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Doran, The Siege Tower! If you like my writing, ask me to write something for your commander as well!
Tron already maindecks spellskite. Winnower is an enormous creature that's immune to all of UR twin's removal. And just because you don't like SS doesn't mean everyone doesn't. Sowing salt is not only one of the best hate cards t4+, but also one of the most popular.
Crumble is just that effect for one less red, making it a viable hate cars for decks that splash red, or decks that want flexibility in their board
Edit: I'm not saying these are top tier choices, but certain decks need more hate for others in the board, and it comes down to the Meta you're used to. If I knew I had a UR twin player that usually dominated fnm(which I do at my lgs) I would want another piece of hate for them. And the list I gave is just a couple of the cards I'm looking forward to playing. There are others.
The thing is with Homelands and Fallen Empires, the designers were very inexperienced at overall balancing concerns. They can be excused as errors while Wizards went through its early growing pains era. At this point, they're clearly aware of how to balance things and deliberately chose to make a set whose power level is horrendously low. I'm not that disappointed cause I play Eternal and the Khans/Dragons blocks were so good there's more than enough fuel for brewing into the foreseeable future (along with the fantastic B&R changes). But objectively the power level of the set is very low, and this is exacerbated by the fact that the expectations were so high given the legacy of the Zendikar brand. It's also surprising because they seemed to turn away from their dark era of Gatecrash through Theros block and redeemed themselves with Khans. I don't think anyone was expecting the set to be a return to that mentality of card impotence. Even if they make for an "interesting Standard" or "interesting limited" that's only a function of the fact that the cards surrounding them would be equally bad. Prism Array for instance makes most of Homelands look like a Tier 1 Spike-fest. Homelands had Merchant Scroll (restricted in Vintage) and Autumn Willow was the first card ever to approximate hexproof. Most people liked the theme of the block, the Vampire family living in this distant world. It was very low power but I can't say it's any worse than Theros, Born of the Gods, or this trash heap. We're calling it Bad-tle for Zendikar and "Minor Disagreement of no Particular Consequence on Zendikar," hardly a skirmish let alone battle.
I love how people keep calling a set low power level without even playing with the cards, time will tell, it might be it might not, at least back up your claims with facts... which you don't have right now and won't have until people have played with the set.
What is the point of a thread in New Card Discussion forum if you can't argue about the cards without having played with them? Granted, maybe R&D has all figured out, we are all stupid and this will be the best standard ever. That should not stop people from expressing their clear concerns about the set when a simple look at it tells you that this is not very good. Maybe the interactions will pop up and the set will be awesome. Great. And until then we cannot express our opinion because "we haven't played with cards that haven't even been released"? I say we close this forum then and we all move to the other ones.
What i mean is, yes we can have a discussion about power level of a set, but for that, you have to actually make an argument, you don't think BfZ has enough power level? Sure you can have that opinion, but unless you actually give reasons, you are not being constructive at all, give context to your comment, i think BfZ won't have an impact in x format I've evaluated X, W and Z cards and I don't think they are any god because of this, now that we can all respect and discuss.
Good to know I don't exist. I buy packs, build crappy decks, play with other crappy decks against my friends, don't give a ***** who wins or loses as long as we have fun. I love playing with janky decks that generate lots of tokens, or ally decks that beef up creatures in a hurry. I also make 6 figures a year and could easily buy the better vintage/legacy/modern/standard decks and tromp everybody, but I don't find that to be fun. I don't think any of us even plays with mediocre decks, most of them are pretty bad, since we don't buy singles and just draft booster boxes when we don't play constructed. We ignore banned, restricted, etc. Way more fun than all the spikey bull***** I see at FNM.
As for a passing interest in the game, I've got a pretty active interest. I go to prereleases. I play sealed and draft with my friends. I play with said friends while we're drinking every Monday night. Magic is a not unsubstantial part of my life, and yet, I am a casual player, as are my friends.
Just because you don't see people who don't really care about combo'ing or making aggressive decks that kick ass doesn't mean those people don't exist. I daresay there are more of those people than spikes.
Having a low standard for power level on cards doesn't mean it's quality design. If every single card released was loved by everyone just because they love Magic cards, that wouldn't mean the cards are of high quality design. Just because you have low standards doesn't mean everyone should lower theirs as well.
Take your own advice then. Just because you have high (power) standards, doesn't mean we all should have to also. Just because you want every set to have the next uber busted card, it doesn't mean those cards are good design either. Was JTMS good design? Power creep is a real thing and toning down power levels is needed so it can rise again. But the power level of a card or a set is only one aspect of its design. Nettle Drone is good design. Is it powerful? Not in Modern, probably not even in Standard. But in a four Player EDH game in my Rakdos deck, he makes my creatures cost 3 less with one activation, then if one of those creatures I cast is colorless (and there are plenty in the deck and more to follow when BFZ is actually released), he untaps, activates again and now if dealt six damage across three opponents and any creatures I cast now cost 6 less. The power of Nettle Drone scales to its environment and the synergies it has with other cards and that IS good design. So Standard doesn't get a new toy... boo hoo (and Standard WILL play with some BFZ cards, so it does get some new toys, just maybe not the shiniest ones). This set has plenty of good designs and just because they aren't über powerful in tournaments or at FNM doesn't make them any less valuable to the player base as a whole.
Nice double standard. Essentially you're claiming that because, as I said, you enjoy every card, regardless of quality, I'm somehow at fault for not doing the same. Just as you have the right to express your opinion, I have the right to express mine. As you've already clarified, you don't care about the quality of the cards, just that you have new options. So why shouldn't Wizards appeal to me and other players by raising the bar to not just more options, but more GOOD options?
Oh boy, where to start with this? From the top, I guess...
1) In what way am I imposing a double standard? You stated that "Just because you have low standards doesn't mean everyone should lower theirs as well." I then flipped what you said back at you with "Just because you have high (power) standards, doesn't mean we all should have to also." I never initiated the idea that everyone should have low standards and no one should have high standards. You are the one imposing a double standard, not me.
2) I never said I enjoy every card. And where did I say you are at fault for not feeling the same. I simply tried to make you understand that you are not the only player out there that Wizards caters to. Please show me where I said that I enjoy every card or that you should enjoy every card or stop putting words in my mouth.
3) When exactly did I "clarify" that I don't care about card quality? Boy, you love speaking for others, don't you? I care deeply about card quality, I just have a different definition of what that means than you. Hard to wrap your head around that one, eh?
4) They have provided us with good options. Maybe not in all formats, but they are there.
How do you actually define card quality and good options then? The only way I've seen people say they believe this set is good is when they essentially say first that all they care about is getting new cards. That is where that inference came from for me. It isn't hard to design a set that works well in limited or standard, since you have such fine-tuned control over the cards introduced. But creating cards that provide options for other formats is what I would consider good quality. When you look at the prices of cards, you don't see the price go up because they're awesome in limited. ANYONE can play limited as long as they pay for their packs. To compete in a constructed format, you need to have not just cards, but GOOD cards, cards that can compete with other cards of a similar power level or function. Where are those cards in BFZ? Finding a use for cards on the kitchen table is useless, since every card can work there.
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This set will be drafted for the next ~six months. Regardless of how it affects constructed (I'm guessing not very much), it'll be very relevant while this is the limited format.
UR Blue-Red Control
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
UWR Jeskai Control
In limited, meanwhile, ingest is already a powerful mechanic that can mill your opponent to death. One of the people who went undefeated at one of my prereleases had a deck that milled people to death because he got 4 Mist Invaders and two Benthic Infiltrators. It's a mechanic meant for limited. You can feel free to dislike the fact that it is just meant for limited, but it does work well as a mill mechanic in its designated format.
I don't think it's fair to pick on Ingest as being a limited-only mechanic. The majority of the cards you open at a limited event typically go in the bin afterwards, so that's pretty much the norm.
As far as the fetches, seriously? You want 10 fetches in Standard? Ignoring the amount of time we'd spend shuffling our decks, that would be way too much fixing to keep any semblance of balance among colors. If you're afraid of Siege Rhino, which is basically only balanced by the fact that it forced you to commit to those colors, how do you think it would go if basically every deck could run it? I've been goldfishing with a couple four-color decks, and I think it's fairly easy to run one, even with half a set of fetches and half a set of duals (remember that each allied fetch can search for three out of the five allied tangolands, so manabases have tons of options). If we had 10 fetches in Standard it would be trivial to build a five-color deck. I totally agree that waiting until BfZ rotates is too long (why not just bring them back when Khans rotates)?, and that in the meantime maybe they should print them in the Commander decks or something, but 10 fetches in Standard is a pipe dream.
I still insist, however, that this set is poorly designed for Sealed, as there is so much variance that a lot of games seem to be decided on mulligans and who did or did not get an effective card in their pool. If the pools are more consistent, then skill comes in to it (there is typically a "correct" way to build your Sealed pool, and someone who has more experience or understands the format better has a better rate of success), but here there's a pretty decent chance that you can just get a pool full of crap and have to do your best with a bad deck. Not fun.
Finally, at least from my couple Sealed rounds, the lack of bombs is very real. Breaker of Armies doesn't matter. You have to untap with it and either attack with it and enough other creatures to kill, or they need to have so few creatures that they can't kill the Breaker of Armies and it will survive and you can attack again next turn. Or they can just attack you first and race. Or they can remove the Breaker of Armies. With a very thin concentration of unconditional removal, a lot of these things just sit there with the rest of your junk waiting for an opening. It feels a lot more like Commander then the back-and-forth, slick and exiciting, down-to-the-wire game I expect from limited Magic.
I feel (I hope) this set was designed for draft and that's where it will really shine.
If all ten fetchlands were legal (assuming they take the place of the Battle Lands), mana fixing would be quite poor in standard. Three color would still be viable because of the trilands, but it would be far worse than it was during THS-KTK. We'd end up running the gainlands to get enough colored mana in the deck.
UR Blue-Red Control
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
UWR Jeskai Control
remember this is the first in the two set block era so things are obviously going to be staggered when it comes to potential power cards (at least that's my theory) for this first go. To expect them to potentially crap out a set full of standard/modern playable cards everyone covets is foolish in every sense of the idea because they've become quite aware of what is and isn't playable when it comes to most rares, the commons/uncommons are where it Gets interesting imo.
If they were the only new duals, yeah, probably. I was assuming with the allied tangos (and I'm guessing we get the enemy tangos in Oath?)
3BB
Sorcery
You lose the game.
Under your assumption, yes, mana fixing would be incredible. Hell, it already is incredible.
The only dual lands I expect to see in OGW are the three remaining enemy manlands. This balances the color fixing and doesn't overload a small set with duals.
UR Blue-Red Control
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
UWR Jeskai Control
Newlamog can be reanimated, and in a deck like dredge that loves things that can't be board wiped, and gives stuff haste, it looks pretty attractive for a lot of matchups.
Void winnower... 9 mana for a creature that turns off 80% of splinter twin? Wow I don't even play tron, but I think I will now. Resolve one under countermagic and win the game.
Crumble to dust, the godsend I've been looking for. As someone who plays a lot of control, and hates playing red, this is what I've been looking for. An answer to tron that I can SPLASH! A singleton steam vents, fetchable by all 7-8 of my fetches, in my esper control opens up lots of excitement for the tron matchup.
Sire of stagnation... a card myself and my friends have been pondering over. My buddy wants to roll with ub control in standard... and what better way then to run with a 5/7 non-priceable CA/mill engine? And with fetches in standard, oh the possibilities! This guy is the kind of 6 drop oomph you want in control. Easier to get rid of than ol' Drifty for sure, but just as huge of a threat nonetheless.
And that's just the cards I'm MOST excited about. I love to play 2 color in modern so the tango lands are another godsend.
I'm personally looking very forward to standard, and have already been brewing up a new esper dragon list, as well as a sultai superfriend control list.
Anyways that's my two cents, set is solid, stop looking through rose colored glasses. Zendikar is basically destroyed after ROE, it wouldn't make sense for them to go back to zendikar as it was before.
Meh
Modern
BUWEsper ControlWUB
BRUGrixis DelverURB
WRBGKiki ChordGBRW
WBGAbzan MidrangeGBW
BRGJundGRB
Legacy
UBRGrixis DelverRBU
Commander
Also meh
Millled to death?They din't die by damage first?
Anyway, this thread is not complaining about BfZ being the worst set ever; the OP is exaggerating people's complaints and saying they shouldn't complain. Nobody's saying BfZ is the worst set ever. It's just boring for Standard and wonky and inconsistent in Sealed.
Tun three I scour your second land and you're now playing catch up the rest of the game(or karn it), now by the time you have 4 mana for twin I've already got winnower and two more lands.
Tron is a control deck.
As for crumble - you're basically saying people who run sowing salt v tron are running a pointless card. Crumble and salt are the same card, but crumble can be splashed for as an additional hate card if you struggle in the matchup.
I'm not seeing how this is anywhere close to the bottom 10%.
And also, have you been playtesting VW vs twin? I have. And I can tell you that if it resolves it is game over. And you know how my RG Tron friend makes sure it comes down? Cavern of souls. You can theorycraft all day but myself and friends have been brewing and playtesting since the first spoilers and so far I'm not disappointed. Think outside the box and play around with things before you count them out.
Meh
Modern
BUWEsper ControlWUB
BRUGrixis DelverURB
WRBGKiki ChordGBRW
WBGAbzan MidrangeGBW
BRGJundGRB
Legacy
UBRGrixis DelverRBU
Commander
Also meh
OP mentioned "drafting deeper"
sets nowadays are primarily designed around limited
and the kitchen table argument is as good as the everything is good in edh argument
Fallen Empires gave us the game's greatest discard spell. In fact WotC knew we'd like it so much, it gave it to us with four different artworks, and at common! Any set that gives us Easter Bunny People's Court in Hell is OK by me. I mean, poop is a Fallen Emps card. Literally, poop. And proto-Equipment! And Goblin Grenade!
You can hate Fallen Empires, but you also sort of have to love it, too.
It's OK to just hate Homelands.
The point is, even vanilla creatures in this set have some mechanical relevance for people who try to build say ally decks, colorless matters decks exile matters decks, you might not want to build those decks, but there's people that do, and it's a cool thing in BFZ, that even vanilla creatures are not just a vanilla creature, and that talks about good design.
I love how people keep calling a set low power level without even playing with the cards, time will tell, it might be it might not, at least back up your claims with facts... which you don't have right now and won't have until people have played with the set.
Fallen Empires can be chalked up to a failed experiment (well, many failed experiments) and can be forgiven for that. But Homelands... I mean, they literally just handed the set design over to the people at the WotC call center and said, "We're busy, you make it." Homelands was an utter abdication of responsibility, and WotC freely admits that and owns up to it.
OK, so why do I care? What's the relevance? Well, I think there's a legitimate discussion to be had about whether BFZ's errors are more like Fallen Empires errors (experiments gone horribly wrong) or more like Homelands errors (dropping the ball entirely, for no good reason). I'm inclined to lean Homelands on this one.
What is the point of a thread in New Card Discussion forum if you can't argue about the cards without having played with them? Granted, maybe R&D has all figured out, we are all stupid and this will be the best standard ever. That should not stop people from expressing their clear concerns about the set when a simple look at it tells you that this is not very good. Maybe the interactions will pop up and the set will be awesome. Great. And until then we cannot express our opinion because "we haven't played with cards that haven't even been released"? I say we close this forum then and we all move to the other ones.
Read my other stories as well (some ongoing):
Reaper King (a horror story), Kaalia of the Vast (an origin story), Sequels for Innistrad (Alternative sequels for Inn), Grey Areas (Odric's fanfic), Royal Succession (goblins),The Tracker's Message (eldrazi on Innistrad) and Ugin and his Eye (the end of OGW).
Crumble is just that effect for one less red, making it a viable hate cars for decks that splash red, or decks that want flexibility in their board
Edit: I'm not saying these are top tier choices, but certain decks need more hate for others in the board, and it comes down to the Meta you're used to. If I knew I had a UR twin player that usually dominated fnm(which I do at my lgs) I would want another piece of hate for them. And the list I gave is just a couple of the cards I'm looking forward to playing. There are others.
Meh
Modern
BUWEsper ControlWUB
BRUGrixis DelverURB
WRBGKiki ChordGBRW
WBGAbzan MidrangeGBW
BRGJundGRB
Legacy
UBRGrixis DelverRBU
Commander
Also meh
What i mean is, yes we can have a discussion about power level of a set, but for that, you have to actually make an argument, you don't think BfZ has enough power level? Sure you can have that opinion, but unless you actually give reasons, you are not being constructive at all, give context to your comment, i think BfZ won't have an impact in x format I've evaluated X, W and Z cards and I don't think they are any god because of this, now that we can all respect and discuss.
How do you actually define card quality and good options then? The only way I've seen people say they believe this set is good is when they essentially say first that all they care about is getting new cards. That is where that inference came from for me. It isn't hard to design a set that works well in limited or standard, since you have such fine-tuned control over the cards introduced. But creating cards that provide options for other formats is what I would consider good quality. When you look at the prices of cards, you don't see the price go up because they're awesome in limited. ANYONE can play limited as long as they pay for their packs. To compete in a constructed format, you need to have not just cards, but GOOD cards, cards that can compete with other cards of a similar power level or function. Where are those cards in BFZ? Finding a use for cards on the kitchen table is useless, since every card can work there.