I think the issue is BfZ is a bad standard set. It may be ok in other formats like limited but I only play in Standard and Modern so do most players I know so that's were my opinion of the set is based from.
From what I've seen and heard the draft format is quite good. It's a lot more like Modern Masters than any other standard set in recent memory. It's very synergy based. This also is what makes sealed for this format the worst I've played. In the three pools I've opened I've had tons of good converge cards but no fixing, processors but no ingest creatures and giant Eldrazi but no ramp. Each pool flawed in a different way. One was pretty good though because I lucked into a good number of landfall/rally creatures in R/G, but that was my only good pool. And even with that it had like two removal spells so against decks with real power cards if I didn't win by turn 5/6 I would probably die to their better card quality.
I think the issue is BfZ is a bad standard set. It may be ok in other formats like limited but I only play in Standard and Modern so do most players I know so that's were my opinion of the set is based from.
From what I've seen and heard the draft format is quite good. It's a lot more like Modern Masters than any other standard set in recent memory. It's very synergy based. This also is what makes sealed for this format the worst I've played. In the three pools I've opened I've had tons of good converge cards but no fixing, processors but no ingest creatures and giant Eldrazi but no ramp. Each pool flawed in a different way. One was pretty good though because I lucked into a good number of landfall/rally creatures in R/G, but that was my only good pool. And even with that it had like two removal spells so against decks with real power cards if I didn't win by turn 5/6 I would probably die to their better card quality.
I would agree with this 100%. It is an AWESOME drafting set.
Anyway that is off topic. I think for the numbers of cards that saw play in BFZ the answer is conclusive. The set didn't see a lot of play. Whether this is a valid way to build a set I guess can be argued, but I would think Wizards would want pros to show off their new cards in interesting and exciting ways. Bringing up Kamigawa as a set that did something similar doesn't exactly fill me with enthusiasm. But in general recent rotations have majorly impacted standard in the first major tournament, and have quite often won the whole thing.
Only half of what I requested is there. That article does a pretty good job of analyzing how much impact BFZ had on standard, but what still needs to be established is how much impact the set 'should' have had on standard. The only reasonably objective measure of this is to analyze the impact of other fall sets on their respective pro tours. In the absence of the that data, we still don't know whether or not BFZ is under-powered in standard relative to other fall sets because we have nothing to compare to.
The same breakdown from last year had the top 20 cards, top 20 creatures, walkers, spells, and the % of decks the khans cards were showing up in
8 out of the top 20 cards with 5 sets in rotation were from the new set, 5/18 widely played (10%+) creatures, only 6 walkers saw wide play of which 2 were khans, 7 of the top 19 spells. Their breakdown on most played cards stops early because its sorted by # of copies rather than % decks running it, but I think its safe to say there were at least 20 khans cards seeing play in 10%+ of decks, 10 of which were in at least 25%+ of decks. This is all ignoring lands.
Try to sort the other breakdown to these same metrics if you want, but I think the results will say what we already know, gideon is the only winner, radiant flames runner up, and beyond the reprints, like they say, the drop off is swift and sharp and pitiful
Sadly, I didn't preorder Gideon most of the time planeswalkers drop after a month or two after release. I don't see Gideon dropping anytime soon he is the real deal.
Sadly, I didn't preorder Gideon most of the time planeswalkers drop after a month or two after release. I don't see Gideon dropping anytime soon he is the real deal.
The real reason Gideon is so pricy is he is only good in multiples of 4, IMO.
First of all, design-wise, it's a fantastic set, you see that in the draft environment, since this thread is not about design, and you are not giving any argument on why the set is poorly designed, I'm not gonna get into that. But I think you are clearly wrong.
As for power level, I think people are missing on why BFZ's impact on constructed is so sutil, first of all, look at how rotation works now, less sets rotate at any one time, and therefore the changes from here on out are not gonna be as drastic, the other thing that stands to reason is... This format is Khan's format we have the full Khans block and all of the block's mechanics are fully fleshed out, because is the block that is fully fleshed out, the strategies are fully explored, the power level of most cards is a known quantity, what BFZ is doing in this environment is to highlight the strengths of the fleshed out strategies in this case, complimenting strategies, and enabling mana bases, but it's also introducing various other decks and strategies that are clearly neither tuned nor explored, and as times goes by and those strategies are further explored, they'll be able to compete with the more explored mechanics, I believe that's a fine place to be for a game.
People keep comparing this transition with previous ones, which had the opposite phenomenon, as rotation came, previous strategies became obsolete because of the loss of tools/enablers in the rotating set, and as those strategies weakened, the new strategies rose to prominence, but that creates problems like the one we are seeing right now, people expect the new block to push the previous one out of the competitive scene, not only because we want to see new strategies (which we are by the way), but because we are tired of seeing siege rhinos and mantis riders being cast, because we have been seeing those cards/strategies for over a year, and they have "overstayed their welcome in the format". Well this set seems to be designed to avoid that issue, we have new mechanics which spawned new decks, that yeah, at the time are neither explored enough tuned enough or simply don't have all the tools they need yet, and it's highlighting the strengths of the soon to rotate strategies.
We have seen 4 or 5 new decks pop up in the last few weeks with tournament results, there's the UR colorless deck, Sam Black's tokens deck, the BW control deck, the UB/BG aristocrats deck, the landfall deck, there will probably be more down the line, but those decks are in their infancy, I honestly don't need to see them in the top tables of a protour yet, but I want to know they'll likely be there down the line, and the results so far tell me they will.
I think people are missing on why BFZ's impact on constructed is so sutil, first of all, look at how rotation works now, less sets rotate at any one time, and therefore the changes from here on out are not gonna be as drastic
I don't mean to nitpick, but that statement is false. It will be true after the new rotation schedule gets under way, but at this moment you had 4 sets (the Theros Block and M15) rotate out. We lost over 800 cards and gained 274.
Also, plenty of strategies lost tools and enablers (*cough Satyr Wayfinder or Elvish Mystic cough*) yet the set failed to make a major impact on the competitive scene as happened with other rotations. I really don't see how this set avoided the issue of cards "overstaying their welcome," when there is little compelling reason to NOT be casting those very cards.
The major bright spot for BFZ was the R/G Landfall deck that did do well in constructed at the Pro Tour, but was hindered by their pilots' draft record and a lack of coverage, which seems particularly poor given that it was one of the defining archetypes of the new set.
My argument is that if anything, the problem is that in this transition, It's Khans that has already overstayed it's welcome, because people have been casting Siege Rhinos and Mantis Riders for over a year, BFZ's job is to enable these archetypes to it's fullest one last time, while also spawning new decks and strategies, that for the moment as they are not fully fleshed out, much less tuned, they are gonna be contenders, but are unlikely to be dominant in any way anytime soon.
My argument is that if anything, the problem is that in this transition, It's Khans that has already overstayed it's welcome, because people have been casting Siege Rhinos and Mantis Riders for over a year, BFZ's job is to enable these archetypes to it's fullest one last time, while also spawning new decks and strategies, that for the moment as they are not fully fleshed out, much less tuned, they are gonna be contenders, but are unlikely to be dominant in any way anytime soon.
How are you not reading between the lines of what you're actually saying? Khans has better cards and power level and archetypes and mechanics and support, so no one is playing with BFZ. Nothing overstayed its welcome, we're not even fully into the newer, shorter rotation schedule yet. This is par for the course. Had BFZ been stronger and brought a different mechanic to the table, it might be used, but these 'gonna be contenders' decks you're talking about will get there when another set comes out, or Khans rotates. That doesn't mean BFZ is good, strong, powerful, well-designed, or flavorful. That just means maybe it gets supported better with Oath. Or it doesn't, and this entire block is just a crutch to prop up the blocks in front of and behind it.
My argument is that if anything, the problem is that in this transition, It's Khans that has already overstayed it's welcome, because people have been casting Siege Rhinos and Mantis Riders for over a year, BFZ's job is to enable these archetypes to it's fullest one last time, while also spawning new decks and strategies, that for the moment as they are not fully fleshed out, much less tuned, they are gonna be contenders, but are unlikely to be dominant in any way anytime soon.
How are you not reading between the lines of what you're actually saying? Khans has better cards and power level and archetypes and mechanics and support, so no one is playing with BFZ. Nothing overstayed its welcome, we're not even fully into the newer, shorter rotation schedule yet. This is par for the course. Had BFZ been stronger and brought a different mechanic to the table, it might be used, but these 'gonna be contenders' decks you're talking about will get there when another set comes out, or Khans rotates. That doesn't mean BFZ is good, strong, powerful, well-designed, or flavorful. That just means maybe it gets supported better with Oath. Or it doesn't, and this entire block is just a crutch to prop up the blocks in front of and behind it.
The flaw on your logic is that there's people playing with them, some of these strategies were taken by professional players that took them all the way to the top 32 of the pro tour, they might not have gotten all the way to the top 8 for different reasons (the 3 oblivion bant decks are between the top performing decks of the standard portion of the protour), and even if you don't count those, there are a few cards that were included in the top decks (not many but some are there). What you are not getting is, this cards are gonna be here for a year and a half, and we are gonna be seeing them slowly rising to the top tables from here until the moment they rotate, I honestly don't want to get sick of them in 6 months because I've been seeing them in the top tables from day one like it happened with abzan, I'd rather see them slowly climb to the top throughout it's life in standard.
My argument is that if anything, the problem is that in this transition, It's Khans that has already overstayed it's welcome, because people have been casting Siege Rhinos and Mantis Riders for over a year, BFZ's job is to enable these archetypes to it's fullest one last time, while also spawning new decks and strategies, that for the moment as they are not fully fleshed out, much less tuned, they are gonna be contenders, but are unlikely to be dominant in any way anytime soon.
But when Khans came in it didn't completely invalidate decks from before. R/G monsters was a deck that carried mostly over from previous set. Whip decks, heroic decks, control decks mostly relying on Theros and M15 cards (Elspeth, Thoughtseize, Downfall, Blight, Read the Bones, Perilous Vault, etc.) The control decks went more towards black than white since losing Verdict/Sphinx's but they got Dig Through Time anyway. If Khans was such an oppressive set as you say, it would have completely overshadowed Theros block, one generally considered weaker than the two adjacent sets. But Theros the set alone gave enough cards to standard to make multiple archetypes that survived Khans showing up.
That's how transitions usually work. Some decks just disappear, but new formats are generally a mix of new and old archetypes. This transition has barely shaken the format at all. It's not that Khans is this uber oppressive set, it's that this set isn't contributing.
Also disagree with how you say that design wise its a fantastic set. I can agree they designed a good draft environment. However the sealed environment is awful, it contributes no cards to older formats and it has a provable negligent impact on standard. That to me is a failing grade on design if you succeed on 1 out of 3-4 goals.
Afaik, this is the set with the least constructed impact post rotation of any first set of a block. I mean, at least since kamigawa, I can't say, wizards had to ban out mirrodin. The examples were given just above of how many cards saw play when KTK rotated in compared to when BFZ rotated in. The raw data was just up there- theres a few middlin attempts at decks using some BFZ cards like eldrazi.dec and bring to light, but not much traction, and the only non-land cards to see wide play are gideon, radiant flames and dispel, and dispels a reprint
Theres no reason to suggest that cards will slowly become more popular over time in a vacuum. Any meta game shifts or future cards synergizing with older ones are just as likely to work with khans as bfz up until rotation, considering bfz has more power in it to unlock anyway. We saw that with how the bfz lands enable more khans cards, for example the resurgence of mantis rider.
The card popularity won't change up much until the next rotation. And then its a question of whether the next block will outshine this one or not. You might see the desecration demon effect where cards from BFZ that had no chance in the prerotation meta become useful only because all the better cards are gone. And thats not a compelling argument for a set's constructed potential. Thats not a slow climb to the top of standard, its just an abrupt shift thats as likely to result in bfz cards being skipped once again when the next block turns out to not be such a flop.
My argument is that if anything, the problem is that in this transition, It's Khans that has already overstayed it's welcome, because people have been casting Siege Rhinos and Mantis Riders for over a year, BFZ's job is to enable these archetypes to it's fullest one last time, while also spawning new decks and strategies, that for the moment as they are not fully fleshed out, much less tuned, they are gonna be contenders, but are unlikely to be dominant in any way anytime soon.
But when Khans came in it didn't completely invalidate decks from before. R/G monsters was a deck that carried mostly over from previous set. Whip decks, heroic decks, control decks mostly relying on Theros and M15 cards (Elspeth, Thoughtseize, Downfall, Blight, Read the Bones, Perilous Vault, etc.) The control decks went more towards black than white since losing Verdict/Sphinx's but they got Dig Through Time anyway. If Khans was such an oppressive set as you say, it would have completely overshadowed Theros block, one generally considered weaker than the two adjacent sets. But Theros the set alone gave enough cards to standard to make multiple archetypes that survived Khans showing up.
That's how transitions usually work. Some decks just disappear, but new formats are generally a mix of new and old archetypes. This transition has barely shaken the format at all. It's not that Khans is this uber oppressive set, it's that this set isn't contributing.
Also disagree with how you say that design wise its a fantastic set. I can agree they designed a good draft environment. However the sealed environment is awful, it contributes no cards to older formats and it has a provable negligent impact on standard. That to me is a failing grade on design if you succeed on 1 out of 3-4 goals.
and you can prove they attempted to even achieve those goals?
Well, here's hoping that the second half of return to zendikar is as good as Dragons of Tarkir.
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3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
My argument is that if anything, the problem is that in this transition, It's Khans that has already overstayed it's welcome, because people have been casting Siege Rhinos and Mantis Riders for over a year, BFZ's job is to enable these archetypes to it's fullest one last time, while also spawning new decks and strategies, that for the moment as they are not fully fleshed out, much less tuned, they are gonna be contenders, but are unlikely to be dominant in any way anytime soon.
How are you not reading between the lines of what you're actually saying? Khans has better cards and power level and archetypes and mechanics and support, so no one is playing with BFZ. Nothing overstayed its welcome, we're not even fully into the newer, shorter rotation schedule yet. This is par for the course. Had BFZ been stronger and brought a different mechanic to the table, it might be used, but these 'gonna be contenders' decks you're talking about will get there when another set comes out, or Khans rotates. That doesn't mean BFZ is good, strong, powerful, well-designed, or flavorful. That just means maybe it gets supported better with Oath. Or it doesn't, and this entire block is just a crutch to prop up the blocks in front of and behind it.
And to be precise it also doesn't mean that BFZ is bad, weak, unpowerfull, bad-designed or flavorless. Every argument people defending "BFZ is bad set" posted here just says, that BFZ is worse then Khans block collected. To be precise: we have strong evidence that BFZ is weaker then the strongest block in past eight? years - and I don't deny it. But again - it says almost NOTHING about BFZ. (And yes, I explained why in this thread before)
As for me not answering what I suppose to be bad set, it is hard to say, because even Theros had at least good flavor (for me). So I answer something else again but that "somethin else" will still be more meaningful. Personally, I find these fall sets worse/weaker than BFZ: Theros, Scars of Mirrodin, Shards of Alara with Innistrad being more on par with BFZ then better.
So...the set that gave rise to Mono Blue and Black Devotion, Courser, Brimaz, the Gods...The set that gave Standard its first ban in a decade because of 3 Swords, Batterskull, gave us Wurmcoil Engine, Fastlands, Phyrexian Mana, Infect...the set that gave us Elspeth, Ajani Vengeant, the backbone of KTK's design...and the most celebrated top-down set in recent memory, that also gave us more Eternal Format-defining staples than arguably any other set ever. Yeah, if you believe those are on the same level as BFZ, I'd have more luck debating this with a wall.
and you can prove they attempted to even achieve those goals?
What goal are they going for then? Sell lotto tickets with expeditions? Make a mediocre set?
You are setting 4 goals:
- Draft
- Sealed
- Older formats
- Standard
Out of those, Draft is amazing, I honestly haven't played sealed, but I'll take your word and say it's awful, even thou most set's sealed format has that problem. Older formats are as far as I know, rarely relevant to design and development, then there's standard, which they did impacted, even if you refuse to think they did. Now there's the larger goal, casual players, it's not my case, but most magic players never set foot in a tournament, even a FNM, they play kitchen table magic, and couldn't care less about efficiency of the cards, the care more about unique effects and having fun with friends, then there's EDH, which is a casual format and got a ton of things from BfZ.
So all in all, assuming you are right about sealed:
-Draft -> Amazing
-Sealed -> "Awful"
-Standard -> I'd say ok but not amazing (as I don't see a consensus here)
-Casual -> Amazing
-EDH -> Above average
As a consequence of the above and both hooks of the set (Full art lands and expeditions) I'd guess the set is selling pretty good, so I'd probably think the set can be called a success, regardless of what YOU think the set should have been and how you rate it.
and you can prove they attempted to even achieve those goals?
What goal are they going for then? Sell lotto tickets with expeditions? Make a mediocre set?
I don't know what the goals were for this set, but I'd wager they included to power down Standard. You seem to assume that just because Standard is a priority in Wizards' design philosophy that it automatically means their goal was to shake things up in Standard or provide new toys for Standard, but at some point the cards entering Standard have to be weaker than the ones already there or power creep gets out of hand. Did it ever occur to you that this chain of events is exactly what Wizards was shooting for with this set? Now, I'm not saying this is the case, but at least I can entertain the idea that it's possible, that I don't know exactly what their goals were, yet you seem to know they failed at what they attempted. So how is it you know what their intent was? Do you work for Wizards? Do you have some kind of inside information? Or do you just assume you know?
So big results:
1. If you don't play aggro, you will not win.
2. If you don't fork over 160-200$ for a playset of Gideon, you will not win.
3. Gideon is the only power card in all of BFZ because it craps out tokens and you get a powerhouse mowing them down.
4. Most of the set's flavor failed to make it to standard.
5. Eldrazi aren't a thing...
6. Did I mention Gideon?
This set is very bad for edh. Every single set has some interesting cards and effects for EDH and BFZ is no exception for this rule, but when people claim that a set 'brought things to EDH' they do so with no basis at all and a very misguided knowledge of the format. If we are speaking competitive EDH then there is practically ZERO cards, if we are speaking fun EDH with friends there are a few, but far less than usual.
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Theoretically speaking, yes. You could. That would mean that 'fun' EDH should never be a criteria to evaluate any set, since you can play any card.
In reality people don't do that. Every playgroup has its own style and personal preferences. Some will play cutthroat combo, lock-you-out decks, others will play convoluted interactions and flashy big cards and others will play plain and simple goodstuff. When you are looking for cards for 'fun' EDH you should look to unique effects in general that can affect the decisions of multiple players in a table facing the card, and BFZ has few of these that are worthwile (sire of stagnation comes to mind as a great political card, but he is one of few). The legends aside from Omnath are very unimpressive as well. I suppose Noyan Dar is okay-ish.
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What I see is people desperate to deny that BfZ cards are being played. First it was "no BfZ card are getting played". Then it was "Cards getting played are not /really/ good", and now it's "cards don't fit various criteria I'm setting".
You've tried to argue this point now in two separate threads, and singled me out on it in the other one.
What you don't seem to realize is that there are different people making different arguments and independently concluding that BFZ isn't what they'd deem a good set.
The argument you're flailing out against - that BFZ is too weak for its cards to be played in Standard - isn't one I personally have ever made, and though I'm not going to trawl other posters histories in this thread, there's no reason to assume it's one tey've made either. The argument which I have made, and which you were actually responding to in this thread was that this thread is bad because it adds little substantial to standard beside rehashes of cards we've already seen dozens of times before, many at higher qualities and lower rarities than they're presented here.
But rather than actually address that argument, in both threads you've responded by accusing posters of disingenuity and irrational spite for a specific printing of a card game.
Yeah I don't buy that this is a good set for EDH. Certainly very little worth playing other than Omnath. As for casual kitchen players, well I don't profess to know much about them. But how do you either? What about this set screams that casuals would love it? Curious on that. You said it's amazing. I am severely doubtful you know enough to come to that conclusion. Maybe casuals hate it. Casuals certainly aren't posting on this board.
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From what I've seen and heard the draft format is quite good. It's a lot more like Modern Masters than any other standard set in recent memory. It's very synergy based. This also is what makes sealed for this format the worst I've played. In the three pools I've opened I've had tons of good converge cards but no fixing, processors but no ingest creatures and giant Eldrazi but no ramp. Each pool flawed in a different way. One was pretty good though because I lucked into a good number of landfall/rally creatures in R/G, but that was my only good pool. And even with that it had like two removal spells so against decks with real power cards if I didn't win by turn 5/6 I would probably die to their better card quality.
I would agree with this 100%. It is an AWESOME drafting set.
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http://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/standard-breakdown-of-pro-tour-khans-of-tarkir
The same breakdown from last year had the top 20 cards, top 20 creatures, walkers, spells, and the % of decks the khans cards were showing up in
8 out of the top 20 cards with 5 sets in rotation were from the new set, 5/18 widely played (10%+) creatures, only 6 walkers saw wide play of which 2 were khans, 7 of the top 19 spells. Their breakdown on most played cards stops early because its sorted by # of copies rather than % decks running it, but I think its safe to say there were at least 20 khans cards seeing play in 10%+ of decks, 10 of which were in at least 25%+ of decks. This is all ignoring lands.
Try to sort the other breakdown to these same metrics if you want, but I think the results will say what we already know, gideon is the only winner, radiant flames runner up, and beyond the reprints, like they say, the drop off is swift and sharp and pitiful
The real reason Gideon is so pricy is he is only good in multiples of 4, IMO.
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As for power level, I think people are missing on why BFZ's impact on constructed is so sutil, first of all, look at how rotation works now, less sets rotate at any one time, and therefore the changes from here on out are not gonna be as drastic, the other thing that stands to reason is... This format is Khan's format we have the full Khans block and all of the block's mechanics are fully fleshed out, because is the block that is fully fleshed out, the strategies are fully explored, the power level of most cards is a known quantity, what BFZ is doing in this environment is to highlight the strengths of the fleshed out strategies in this case, complimenting strategies, and enabling mana bases, but it's also introducing various other decks and strategies that are clearly neither tuned nor explored, and as times goes by and those strategies are further explored, they'll be able to compete with the more explored mechanics, I believe that's a fine place to be for a game.
People keep comparing this transition with previous ones, which had the opposite phenomenon, as rotation came, previous strategies became obsolete because of the loss of tools/enablers in the rotating set, and as those strategies weakened, the new strategies rose to prominence, but that creates problems like the one we are seeing right now, people expect the new block to push the previous one out of the competitive scene, not only because we want to see new strategies (which we are by the way), but because we are tired of seeing siege rhinos and mantis riders being cast, because we have been seeing those cards/strategies for over a year, and they have "overstayed their welcome in the format". Well this set seems to be designed to avoid that issue, we have new mechanics which spawned new decks, that yeah, at the time are neither explored enough tuned enough or simply don't have all the tools they need yet, and it's highlighting the strengths of the soon to rotate strategies.
We have seen 4 or 5 new decks pop up in the last few weeks with tournament results, there's the UR colorless deck, Sam Black's tokens deck, the BW control deck, the UB/BG aristocrats deck, the landfall deck, there will probably be more down the line, but those decks are in their infancy, I honestly don't need to see them in the top tables of a protour yet, but I want to know they'll likely be there down the line, and the results so far tell me they will.
I don't mean to nitpick, but that statement is false. It will be true after the new rotation schedule gets under way, but at this moment you had 4 sets (the Theros Block and M15) rotate out. We lost over 800 cards and gained 274.
Also, plenty of strategies lost tools and enablers (*cough Satyr Wayfinder or Elvish Mystic cough*) yet the set failed to make a major impact on the competitive scene as happened with other rotations. I really don't see how this set avoided the issue of cards "overstaying their welcome," when there is little compelling reason to NOT be casting those very cards.
The major bright spot for BFZ was the R/G Landfall deck that did do well in constructed at the Pro Tour, but was hindered by their pilots' draft record and a lack of coverage, which seems particularly poor given that it was one of the defining archetypes of the new set.
How are you not reading between the lines of what you're actually saying? Khans has better cards and power level and archetypes and mechanics and support, so no one is playing with BFZ. Nothing overstayed its welcome, we're not even fully into the newer, shorter rotation schedule yet. This is par for the course. Had BFZ been stronger and brought a different mechanic to the table, it might be used, but these 'gonna be contenders' decks you're talking about will get there when another set comes out, or Khans rotates. That doesn't mean BFZ is good, strong, powerful, well-designed, or flavorful. That just means maybe it gets supported better with Oath. Or it doesn't, and this entire block is just a crutch to prop up the blocks in front of and behind it.
But when Khans came in it didn't completely invalidate decks from before. R/G monsters was a deck that carried mostly over from previous set. Whip decks, heroic decks, control decks mostly relying on Theros and M15 cards (Elspeth, Thoughtseize, Downfall, Blight, Read the Bones, Perilous Vault, etc.) The control decks went more towards black than white since losing Verdict/Sphinx's but they got Dig Through Time anyway. If Khans was such an oppressive set as you say, it would have completely overshadowed Theros block, one generally considered weaker than the two adjacent sets. But Theros the set alone gave enough cards to standard to make multiple archetypes that survived Khans showing up.
That's how transitions usually work. Some decks just disappear, but new formats are generally a mix of new and old archetypes. This transition has barely shaken the format at all. It's not that Khans is this uber oppressive set, it's that this set isn't contributing.
Also disagree with how you say that design wise its a fantastic set. I can agree they designed a good draft environment. However the sealed environment is awful, it contributes no cards to older formats and it has a provable negligent impact on standard. That to me is a failing grade on design if you succeed on 1 out of 3-4 goals.
Theres no reason to suggest that cards will slowly become more popular over time in a vacuum. Any meta game shifts or future cards synergizing with older ones are just as likely to work with khans as bfz up until rotation, considering bfz has more power in it to unlock anyway. We saw that with how the bfz lands enable more khans cards, for example the resurgence of mantis rider.
The card popularity won't change up much until the next rotation. And then its a question of whether the next block will outshine this one or not. You might see the desecration demon effect where cards from BFZ that had no chance in the prerotation meta become useful only because all the better cards are gone. And thats not a compelling argument for a set's constructed potential. Thats not a slow climb to the top of standard, its just an abrupt shift thats as likely to result in bfz cards being skipped once again when the next block turns out to not be such a flop.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
What goal are they going for then? Sell lotto tickets with expeditions? Make a mediocre set?
So...the set that gave rise to Mono Blue and Black Devotion, Courser, Brimaz, the Gods...The set that gave Standard its first ban in a decade because of 3 Swords, Batterskull, gave us Wurmcoil Engine, Fastlands, Phyrexian Mana, Infect...the set that gave us Elspeth, Ajani Vengeant, the backbone of KTK's design...and the most celebrated top-down set in recent memory, that also gave us more Eternal Format-defining staples than arguably any other set ever. Yeah, if you believe those are on the same level as BFZ, I'd have more luck debating this with a wall.
You are setting 4 goals:
- Draft
- Sealed
- Older formats
- Standard
Out of those, Draft is amazing, I honestly haven't played sealed, but I'll take your word and say it's awful, even thou most set's sealed format has that problem. Older formats are as far as I know, rarely relevant to design and development, then there's standard, which they did impacted, even if you refuse to think they did. Now there's the larger goal, casual players, it's not my case, but most magic players never set foot in a tournament, even a FNM, they play kitchen table magic, and couldn't care less about efficiency of the cards, the care more about unique effects and having fun with friends, then there's EDH, which is a casual format and got a ton of things from BfZ.
So all in all, assuming you are right about sealed:
-Draft -> Amazing
-Sealed -> "Awful"
-Standard -> I'd say ok but not amazing (as I don't see a consensus here)
-Casual -> Amazing
-EDH -> Above average
As a consequence of the above and both hooks of the set (Full art lands and expeditions) I'd guess the set is selling pretty good, so I'd probably think the set can be called a success, regardless of what YOU think the set should have been and how you rate it.
1. If you don't play aggro, you will not win.
2. If you don't fork over 160-200$ for a playset of Gideon, you will not win.
3. Gideon is the only power card in all of BFZ because it craps out tokens and you get a powerhouse mowing them down.
4. Most of the set's flavor failed to make it to standard.
5. Eldrazi aren't a thing...
6. Did I mention Gideon?
RETIRED - GAME SUCKS
Modern:
UUUMerfolksUUU
RGoblinsR
Ad Nauseam
BR 8 Racks RB
WUB Mill BUW
Legacy:
XOps! All splels! X
What I think of MaRo
This set is very bad for edh. Every single set has some interesting cards and effects for EDH and BFZ is no exception for this rule, but when people claim that a set 'brought things to EDH' they do so with no basis at all and a very misguided knowledge of the format. If we are speaking competitive EDH then there is practically ZERO cards, if we are speaking fun EDH with friends there are a few, but far less than usual.
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).
In reality people don't do that. Every playgroup has its own style and personal preferences. Some will play cutthroat combo, lock-you-out decks, others will play convoluted interactions and flashy big cards and others will play plain and simple goodstuff. When you are looking for cards for 'fun' EDH you should look to unique effects in general that can affect the decisions of multiple players in a table facing the card, and BFZ has few of these that are worthwile (sire of stagnation comes to mind as a great political card, but he is one of few). The legends aside from Omnath are very unimpressive as well. I suppose Noyan Dar is okay-ish.
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).
You've tried to argue this point now in two separate threads, and singled me out on it in the other one.
What you don't seem to realize is that there are different people making different arguments and independently concluding that BFZ isn't what they'd deem a good set.
The argument you're flailing out against - that BFZ is too weak for its cards to be played in Standard - isn't one I personally have ever made, and though I'm not going to trawl other posters histories in this thread, there's no reason to assume it's one tey've made either. The argument which I have made, and which you were actually responding to in this thread was that this thread is bad because it adds little substantial to standard beside rehashes of cards we've already seen dozens of times before, many at higher qualities and lower rarities than they're presented here.
But rather than actually address that argument, in both threads you've responded by accusing posters of disingenuity and irrational spite for a specific printing of a card game.