Why does Battle for Zendikar feel so unappealing? Before anyone gets mad, I'm sure people have other opinions about the block. But it seems like many people don't like the set, myself included. I know we can't Judge oath yet, but so far they haven't really shown anything too exciting. What's wrong with it?
I'm not sure. For me, the art doesn't appeal (possibly my least favorite block, and that's saying something), the storyline is depressing, the mechanics mostly don't excite me or interest me as a deckbuilder, and neither Eldrazi or Allies excite me on any level.
I can't say that it's a case of low power level, either, as Origins is quite recent, had a ton of fun cards from casual to cutthroat, overall had a low power level and somewhat mediocre art, and yet I still enjoyed it. Something similar can be said of this year's Commander set.
The Eldrazi are not nearly as frightening as their first incarnation (Annihilator was on COMMONS!). This time they've got long incoherent, long text boxes hardly worth the payoff. The reused mechanics from zendikar 1.0 return on less impressive cards. The set comes right after an incredibly powerful block but has rares like Serpentine Strike... or worse, Prism Array. The keywords are uninspiring––Ingest doesn't do anything without Processors in your deck. Devoid enables a type of eldrazi tribal equivalent to "Eldrazi creatures, artifact creatures, and Scion of Ugin", which people haven't seemed to get too excited over. Rally and Landfall are repeated. Awaken N has been well-liked. Converge is repeated from Fifth Dawn's sunburst, albeit on higher quality (and non-artifact) cards, but seems to be well liked anyways because it's on really fun cards.
I know I'll get replies with "But this was done in a different way!" or "X was new the way it was done", but I'm just saying why people have been unexcited about it. It seems like 'colorless matters' just didn't set anyone's hearts aflame–probably for the reason people love multicolor sets so much, but in the other direction.
1) BFZ draft was not balanced. 1 Landfall drafter would not have as a good of a deck as any of the 3-4 grixis colorless players. Green sucked. Ramping into Eldrazi was not a draft strategy.
2) Standard playability of the cards was subpar, although when Khans rotates some of these cards (like Drana) will have a chance to shine.
3) They designed "converge" cards without giving ANY non-rare fixing except Evolving Wilds. It just seems like draft design was a cluster****.
3) The first set of the block does not seem to transition well into the second set. I can't fathom why we haven't seen any ingest/process cards. All of those cards are going to wallow in OGW-BFZ draft it seems. Now that there is some color fixing for converge, converge doesn't seem to have made it to the second set.
4) Repetitive --> we've had +1/+1 counters as a theme every set for over a year. And funnily enough, "counters" didn't even breach tier 1 constructed standard playability. In this set we have two +1/+1 counter keywords in support and (maybe) cohort.
5) Bad game design to not begin the <> symbol in BFZ instead of OGW. Calling some cards "devoid" while requiring colored mana and then making some cards colorless requiring colored mana seems dumb and arbitrary. BFZx3 draft would have been so much more balanced if the UB, BR, and RU decks had to draft some "Wastes" lands to play some of their cards, just like the ally decks often had to be Naya or Abzan in order to boost their powerlevel.
I really think the coherence of the limited experience is what is most lacking. The entire block, which feels more like two different 1-set blocks lodged onto the same plane, feels like it was designed in a haphazard manner.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Follow me on Twitch if you're interested in watching competitive league drafts.
Play MTGO? Check out my latest MTGO finance articles on Quiet Speculation.
100% of the appeal of Zendikar for me was the land-matters and Indiana Jones-esque vibe. Eldrazi and Allies are boring. I must say though, mechanically I think devoid and wastes/colorless has been handled well.
I guess it's a combination of factors: bad art direction, ridiculous lore even for MTG standard, abundance of bad rares and uncommons that will probably see no play even in Standard, competitive cards being pushed at mythic, the recent past blocks being stronger and/or better designed, and bad PR. They thought Expeditions and fullart basics would be enough to appease the consumers, but I think people are starting to get weary of the shortcomings. Limited was good, but for new players, the latest sets had overall good limited experience, and for veterans, this set doesn't capture Rise of Eldrazi level quite well, so limited being good doesn't quite wash the bad taste this set gives.
We kinda get a cycle of good blocks till we hit a rock bottom block and hopefully BfZ is it, so the next one won't be as unexciting as this.
As a setting, Zendikar was awesome. Traps, quests, adventuring parties and leveling up, it had a great Dungeons and Dragons/Indiana Jones theme to it. Then the Eldrazi showed up and ruined everything. And then the Eldrazi showed up again and continued ruining everything.
I don't want huge upheavals in the setting, like the one in the second Mirrodin block when the Phyrexians showed up and ruined everything. I want a good, fun plane, and I want it to still be good and fun by the end of the block.
There are actually a lot of rares that I was shocked hadn't seen competitive play, such as Woodland Wanderer, Oblivion Sower, Drana, and of course, Kiora. Painful Truths used to be on the list, but people finally wised up to how powerful it is. BFZ isn't necessarily a particularly low power level, but it's cards are unconventional, and most players don't recognize powerful cards and interactions unless it's in the form of a straightforward beatstick. For example, you'd think that UWx control would be all over the interaction between Halimar Tidecaller and Scatter to the Winds/Planar Outburst, but nope, nothing. I think that once Khans rotates, people will finally understand the strength of the cards in Zendikar, but it won't be until they no longer have the cards that build decks by themselves.
1) Zen - RotE had excellent original worldbuilding that created awesome new settings. They didn't just stay put in indiana jones trap-dungeon crawling tomb raiding, they developed a totally new thematic in RotE by juxtaposing lovecraft on it and designing the titans and broods and their individual portfolios in great detail
2) Zen block had oodles of well designed mechanics, ranging from the mundane but well executed (landfall) to the off-the-wall innovative like levelers, colorless creatures, annihilator, and then some solid mechanics that weren't too crazy like totem armor & rebound, and those gushing with flavor (quests & traps!)
3) Zen block produced ample highly playable cards in standard, in fact it was the pinnacle of power creep at its time, everything from lightning bolt to walletsculptor to GG.
4) RotE had a well designed (if polarizing) limited that was new and ambitious in its format
5) The block as a whole was coherent, setting the stage and laying hints for the Eldrazi emergence, then delivering beyond what people expected
and contrast it with this:
1) BFZ - OGW basically retread the same ground as RotE. No new thematics were introduced, and we actually see less variety in the eldrazi
2) The mechanics are piss poor. Support is laughably bad, devoid & ingest are both do-nothing mechanics in a vacuum, and the exile matters theme failed to do anything at all with its ample design space, the allies, like ingest, rife with parasitism. Awaken is the best of the bunch, and its just a 'solid' mechanic, not terribly innovative nor well executed. Its too early to tell if colorless-cost will deliver, but don't hold your breath. The flavor connection on some of the mechanics is tortured too, "ingest", "devoid", really? Well, even if undescriptive, still not as poorly named as Megamorph
3) BFZ competes with dragons maze & homelands for lowest amount of constructed fodder ever, OGW so far is looking only a hair better
4) BFZ's ingest/processor eldrazi won't even work in OGW draft because its totally parasitic yet completely absent in 2/3 packs, while converge gets to have fun in a set with bloody colorless lands, good job. BFZ-only draft was probably the best thing the set had going for it til now
5) The block is so poorly put together that the first set is being errataed due to obsolete templates despite both having eldrazi scion tokens, yet the mechanics don't even work together anyway. No clever reasons for the errata, no well laid plans, its just a conscious lackluster compromise.
oh and
6) Horrible, horrible art, just awful. Besides everyone and their mother lambasting the CG, the art instructions were too similar, every eldrazi has interchangeable art.
There are actually a lot of rares that I was shocked hadn't seen competitive play, such as Woodland Wanderer, Oblivion Sower, Drana, and of course, Kiora. Painful Truths used to be on the list, but people finally wised up to how powerful it is. BFZ isn't necessarily a particularly low power level, but it's cards are unconventional, and most players don't recognize powerful cards and interactions unless it's in the form of a straightforward beatstick. For example, you'd think that UWx control would be all over the interaction between Halimar Tidecaller and Scatter to the Winds/Planar Outburst, but nope, nothing. I think that once Khans rotates, people will finally understand the strength of the cards in Zendikar, but it won't be until they no longer have the cards that build decks by themselves.
1) Standard is expensive. That makes a lot of enemies right off the bat, and having a $60 Jace at the head of that train doesn't help matters.
2) The current manabase incentivizes 4-color. Instead of new cards getting a chance to shine, everyone's just throwing the big multicolor payoffs from Khans into one deck, since Fetches and Battle Lands make it so easy. People like to play the cards they're opening in standard decks and feel like they're getting value from opening packs.
3) Mechanically, there are a lot of really weird mechanics that are sucking up all the complexity points. Ingest/Processor is a pretty neat dynamic, but as a result Allies are basically just tribal dudes with a simple mechanic. Similarly, Oath is pretty devoted to the colorless mana scheme, which again leaves much of the rest of the set high and dry.
4) Flavorfully, it tries to split the difference between what made both Zendikar and Rise of the Eldrazi great, and loses something in the process. The Eldrazi aren't as overwhelming as before, nor Zendikar as adventure-filled. It's all war, all the time, and that's not what made the original sets great.
5) A lot of people are just really vocal about their dislike. It's always been like that, and always will be. I personally think that Oath of the Gatewatch looks fantastic and can't wait to see how it turns out.
-Nerfed Eldrazi, nerfed Landfall. Eldrazi went from something to be feared to filler rare status.
-Too many absolutely awful rares in BFZ with a couple of blatantly good cards at mythic to sell packs.
-BFZ relied too much on expedition gimmick and Gideon to sell packs
-Expedition lands are terrible quality and have ugly grey text box that ruins full art.
-Wizards being stingy with full art basics. Super limited fatpack supply with no plans to make more so scalpers can have a field day. No full art lands in intro decks. No full art lands in Holiday Gift Box. These lands cost pennies to print. Why is Wizards making them so difficult to acquire?
-Amazing art on lands, ugly CG art on most Eldrazi cards.
-Wastes should have been in BFZ. Now it's going to feel like Constellation in Journey. A potentially awesome mechanic that was slapped on at the very end of the block so it didn't get to truly shine.
-MORE +1/+1 counter mechanics.
I like the set, mostly because I like sealed and draft, which is where it shines. A lot of my friends feel differently though, and it's usually for one (or more) of three reasons:
1. Expeditions: Lotteries sell. In fact they sell very well, but people tend to get upset when they lose them and they can leave you feeling like you've wasted your money. You get that with opening packs in general, but the expeditions highlight the negative feeling you get from losing the lotto just as much as they do the excitement of winning it.
2. Power Level: The set didn't make a splash in any eternal formats like most of the recent big sets have (Khans, Fate, Dragons and Origins all had a larger impact). For that matter it didn't have a huge impact on Standard either, mostly just enabling 4 and 5 color strategies utilizing all the same good stuff from last seasons midrange decks, although even those have fallen out of favor lately. This is the one my friends tend to complain about the most, largely because some of them already prefer Modern to Standard and this didn't exactly do much to change their minds.
3. Nostalgia: Most people I know who were around for Zendikar block seem to have wanted a return to Zendikar the (the set). What they got was much closer to a return to Rise of the Eldrazi with a few nods and winks to Zendikar. They wanted adventure world back, not eldrazi world, although I'm not 100% sure how or why anyone was expecting that given the state we left Zendikar in. Still, it does seem to have irked quite a few people because of this.
Compared to Khans, it was much weaker. It didn't have cool lands, or usable cards outside or standard. There are cards seeing fringe play, but nothing at the level of the Commands or baby Jace. BFZ kinda feels like BNG, weaker than what came before, poor utilization of mechanics, and not exciting. Then you get to the bad art....
4.) The original Zendikar had many interesting cards and lots of deck building potential in it. This one doesn't. Also there aren't any landfall cards that really stood out to me. Why did they bring it back if they wouldn't do anything cool with it.
5.) Where is the vampire tribal?????
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Standard
none
Modern UBG B/U/G control BBB MBC WUR Control WWW Prison RRR Goblins
Legacy BBB Pox UBG B/U/G Control UWU StoneBlade UW Miracle Control
I'll echo the 'they played it too safe' vibe. I actually almost like a lot about this block. I've always been a big fan of the Eldrazi, and I actually still like their aesthetic this time around. I have my complaints with the way that they're being treated in the story--they're mostly cannon fodder, and even Ulamog himself is something of a chump in his main appearance in the story--but the way the cards depict them actually pleased me a lot. The art direction does skew kind of sameish, but a good amount of artists turned in work that was visually interesting, so I wish we'd seen more cards like Eldrazi Skyspawner and Oracle of Dust, and less Eldrazi Devastator and Breaker of Armies. I think what sets apart the first two, and some other ones throughout the block, is that their art is depicting something specific that relates to their names and effects, whereas for many of the other ones, you could swap pictures with cards and they'd make about as much sense. Seriously, if Eldrazi Devastator's art was on Breaker of Armies' card, nothing would seem amiss. Honestly, we're just taking the card's word for it that Breaker of Armies is known for breaking armies. It's not like there are *any* humanoids around it. For that matter, Eldrazi Devastator isn't in the process of devastating anything. But you couldn't do that with the first two. There are other examples of Eldrazi art that I like, but I'll move on, I think I've made my point.
I actually really like Devoid and Ingest/Processors---in theory. Sure, Ingest is parasitic, but I didn't really mind that because it was treated as trinket text for the most part, trinket text that than became hugely relevant with processors. I was disappointed that Annihilator left, but I actually prefer the Ingest/Processor and 'Colorless Matters' of Ulamog and Kozilek, as there is more to do with that than Annihilator, which is hugely restricted to needing to be on creatures with huge converted mana costs. Again, this is in theory, because in execution, they just didn't really follow through with Processing. During spoiler season, I defended the set from its' detractors by saying that Wizards just hadn't released the really potent enablers for Processing, the cards that were reasons to actually bother with the mechanic.
And then the set came out and they just...never really did. Exiling things isn't the problem--Wizards actually did a pretty great job of giving us non-ingest ways to exile cards. But we ended up with, what, Ulamog's Nullifier as the best processing card? Despite lacking the card type, Oblivion Sower does something similar so I'll count it. Wasteland Strangler is really weirdly positioned, though I get the feeling it was supposed to be good. So we ended up with 2 and a half (kinda) processors that are worth playing. You could maybe make an argument for Blight Herder. And that's just...not even worth the effort to go out of your way to exile your opponents' cards. I was so looking forward to building a deck that used Silkwraps and Stasis Snares to exile my opponents' creatures for my processors, but then Wizards just gave me no reason to build that deck. And this right here is the biggest reason that I think this set doesn't excite people--there just isn't much of a reason to actually play these cards, even if they have interesting concepts.
Allies are in a similar boat--I never really got the complaints about adding the ally creature to type to several creatures in the set without Rally, as I thought it was an excellent way to make the Allies matter more in constructed and limited. But then we just got almost no good allies with Rally. They gave us support that the allies from Zendikar block could have only dreamed of--random creatures with ally typing, Gideon is an actual honest to god ally planeswalker--but again, no actual reason to bother building that deck.
I love that Battle for Zendikar is such a synergy-based set, especially after the midrange paradise of Khans block (Khans block is actually my favorite block so that's less of a complaint and more of an observation). But Wizards absolutely failed to make those synergies matter in any meaningful way outside of draft. Why would I ever put in the effort to ingest and exile cards when my best payoff is a better Mystic Snake, when instead I could just...play Siege Rhino and watch it do all my work for me? And it's not like Ingest/Processing is even a particularly dangerous mechanic like Cipher was, where they had to make all the cards with it bad because if any were good it'd be *too* good. You have to work for it, so that inherently acts as a limiting factor on the mechanic's power level, so they should have pushed them just a little more. Made them weird and exciting, not just weird for being weird's sake.
There are all these things I want to like about the set, but the power level is just too low. And I'm not even talking about the power level being too low for eternal formats, I'm talking purely for standard. And even for standard, I don't even mean 'tier 1 playable'. I can make a processing deck but it just won't do anything exciting. There is ample support, but almost no payoff, which is worse in a way than the reverse. If there were really good processor cards but the set was anemic on ways to actually enable them, I could at least have fun trying to make my less consistent deck work, and when it did work, it'd be exciting.
Oath of the Gatewatch is pretty polarizing for me. On the one hand, I love the colorless mana theme a lot. I'm on the MaRo side of the aisle in that it should have been in BFZ, because it's going to be really weird for newer players to buy packs of BFZ and then buy packs of Oath and see how different mana symbols look. They could have just sold it to us as "oh, we're clarifying colorless vs. generic mana", and never actually used it for costs and we would have accepted that, and speculated on whether or not oath would have them as costs. But ignoring that, I think it's clever design space and I'm cautiously optimistic with regards to how it turns out.
Surge also looks pretty cool, and though I'm worried that Wizards is just going to play it safe again it at least is neat design.
Support and Cohort, on the other hand, are pretty abominable. I don't mind the whole "+1/+1 counters mechanics" thing so much, but Support is just Bolster, but without Bolster's interesting restriction. The fact that you can buff your teammates' creatures is neat I guess, but it's still not exciting. Surge does a much better job of interacting well with 2HG while still being interesting in 1v1. With Bolster, they could do neat things with creatures' toughness in order to allow you to have interesting choices with bolster, and the inherent limitation let them make some Bolster cards stronger than if they allowed you to choose where the counters went. This gives you more options, but it's far more boring, and because the counters must be spread around, it's probably going to be much worse as well. A card with Support 100 still wouldn't be that interesting, and that's the mechanic's biggest flaw--in 1v1, the mechanic at it's absolute best will only ever amount to "put a +1/+1 counter on all your creatures", and many times it'll be even worse than that. I don't mind that it's a +1/+1 counter mechanic, I mind that it's a rehashed version of one we *just saw*.
Just as Support is more boring Bolster, Cohort is irritatingly close to Outlast. You tap a creature for a benefit later. You do get the ability to do it at instant speed, but you also get the additional downside of needing to tap TWO creatures. Maybe it's left such a poor taste in my mouth because the first card we've seen with Cohort is almost insultingly bad, even for an intro deck rare, but that's a steep, steep cost, especially given that Cohort only works with allies. Rally was cool because it broadened the allies a little bit, but Cohort is just as parasitic as the ally ability originally was. And it doesn't even work with the 2HG theme. I read somewhere that the rules wouldn't work well, which is fine, but that could have made the mechanic a little more bearable for me.
Now, one thing I will say is that Oath of the Gatewatch could retroactively improve my opinion of BFZ if it delivers on certain things. If we get a couple really good processors in this set, then suddenly a lot of cards in BFZ get way better. Same for Rally triggers. And I imagine we aren't done with either yet, right? There's no possible way Wizards would restrict ingest and processing to just one of the three sets being drafted, right? I can't possibly imagine they would as that'd be horrible design that would make processors super hard to play in limited, but then again, Wizards has baffled me before with this block. But I haven't totally given up hope.
I disagree very strongly about "playing it safe". This is probably the riskiest set design-wise we've seen since Innistrad. Two headed giant prerelease and support in a standard-legal set? The closest thing we'll ever get to a sixth color, complete with mass errata? A mechanic that's essentially a storm variant? Those are incredibly risky design choices. Support and Cohort's relatively vanilla nature were probably design sacrifices in order to make sure the set doesn't spiral out of control with complexity.
And for what it's worth, I like how Cohort finally adds a new dimension to Allies. Before they were basically ETB tribal; now we might get some real flavor and gameplay depth, since the mechanic has a lot more design space than Outlast. Maybe a mill ally to run alongside Halimar Excavator? An Agadeem Occultist variant? Lots of possibilities there.
-constructed players cant get a break
-story is extremely generic, has the complexity and depth of a kiddie pool
-weak art direction (cgi out the wazoo, mysterious brooding eldrazi are now just generic monsters that are being defeated by plot/brand armor mary sues)
-power level doesnt resonate with original block
it let down a lot of player expectations and then some. the only positive thing I see being said about this block is limited
I'm largely happy with BFZ itself. I've enjoyed my drafts, I'm indifferent to most of the art, and I enjoy the sheer oddity of the processor mechanic (it would've felt nice to have a keyword, but it would need so much reminder text it would've removed the benefit).
My biggest complaint is the Expeditions. I've actively avoided BFZ boosters outside of Limited play because the escalation of rarity feels so distasteful. It may end up bolstering sales, and it certainly pleases the secondary market, but it does little to nothing for gameplay and appears to me as a further wedge between those who seek to play the game and those who seek to profit from it (not to imply that the two groups do not overlap).
Add in further frustrations with the cost of Standard, stemming largely from the cost and gross ubiquity of the Origins walkers.
Finally, top it with disappointment with the apparent outcome of the block story. I do not care for superheroes, and dislike the idea that planeswalkers are or should be akin to them, and am disappointed that Wizards is forming their cast of good-aligned planeswalkers into a team of such. The story might be consistent by its own rules, but the tale of Chosen Ones who Do The Right Thing because Only They Have The Power is threadbare to the point of transparency, and so divorced from our reality that I cannot help but roll my eyes at the tired wish-fulfillment.
I'm going to go ahead and say that the number one reason that people don't like BFZ is because it didn't live up to expectations, and therefore gets dragged down further than any other set, and perceived to be worse, since it pales in comparison to other Fall sets and the first Zendikar. Its not actually that weak of a set. Its actually just fairly average.
In terms of raw power level, numbers-wise its actually very comparable to Magic Origins (If you rank and weight the cards by tournament results you get a similar 'score'). The difference comes in a couple places. First, is that BFZ is very weak for a Large Fall set, easily the weakest large fall set since Scars of Mirrodin in terms of power level. Magic Origins seems strong because compared to core-sets its way more powerful than the normal core set, like M14 or M15. To make it worse, this weakness comes less in rares and splashy powerful effects, because there are enough of those, but more-so because its missing a lot of 'standard' effects (lightning strike, rampant growth, etc, which is kind of also Magic Origins' fault but wasn't felt until BFZ rotated in) Additionally, and this is important, when BFZ rotated in it was weaker than the average set in Standard, so it made less of an impact than Magic Origins did when it rotated in (you could clearly see that more Origins cards were being played than Journey into Nyx cards), which really impacts people's perceptions of the sets. Also a lot of BFZ's strong cards are boring (Painful Truths, Ob Nixilis, Battle Lands) while a lot of crappy Origins cards are memorable (Chandra, Starfeild of Nyx, Outland Colossus)
Second, it didn't live up to Zendikar expectations. A lot of people expected adventure world and were upset when they got Eldrazi world instead. Nostalgia is powerful, and BFZ, I think went against it, because it showed that Zendikar wasn't like how people remembered it and was completely changed, and I think this upset people. Its also way weaker than the original Zendikar and Rise, so again BFZ looks like trash, when it gets put next to this block.
I think everything else, gameplay wise, (*****ty mechanics etc) is either stemming from this, or a justification of these two failures.
So yeah. Tldr: BFZ is an average set by power-level, but looks like a terrible set when compared to other Fall sets and old Zenikar, kind of like how Magic Origins, another set with similar power-level, looks amazing, when compared with recent core sets, and this problem in perception makes people really hate the set.
Limited is relatively bad, depending on wether you're picking all the Grixis Eldrazi and winning unchallenged, or not, and losing like a chump because you just can't build any other strategy without ridiculous luck. There's not enough support.
In Standard it literally doesn't matter. Buy the lands and Gideon, and you never need to open a BFZ pack. It's all KTK Block+ORI.
I tried playing Eldrazi Ramp and Ulamog Exile to see what the eldrazi were about and try fighting Gideon+Jace+Hangarback. It was futile, it's like Urza Block vs Mercadia all over again.
Unless SOI block and the block after are pretty much ***** or go out of their way to support Eldrazi/Allies/Aristocrats strategies, it may as well not have happened.
In Modern it's even worse. People are trying to force processors but it's neither Tron nor Deadguy, it's pretty much the weaknesses of both without the full power of either.
In commander, I have decks of every color, test cards for fun all of the time, all they need is to look kinda fun.
Noyan, Omnath, Ulamog, Winnower, Cutthroat, the Battlelands and Ob Nixilis remain. Everything else was a waste of money. Hell it was a waste of time it took to de-sleeve another card and sleeve the BFZ card in question.
This set just doesn't offer anything to anyone who doesn't have a compulsive need to buy packs or loves lotteries but is afraid of the real lottery and slots.
Being primarily a modern player, the issues I have with BFZ is that it's just too slow to get a lot of good value out of it. The primary benefactors in modern from the new set are tron players, since the new eldrazi combo well with the older eldrazi specific lands. Allies and landfall aren't super powerful outside of an aristocrats style deck for the former.
Oath is bringing something I'm looking forward to in Nissa, however. I've already got my wallet ready to take the plunge on a playset of her just because she works so well with my G/B decks.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries
I'm not sure. For me, the art doesn't appeal (possibly my least favorite block, and that's saying something), the storyline is depressing, the mechanics mostly don't excite me or interest me as a deckbuilder, and neither Eldrazi or Allies excite me on any level.
I can't say that it's a case of low power level, either, as Origins is quite recent, had a ton of fun cards from casual to cutthroat, overall had a low power level and somewhat mediocre art, and yet I still enjoyed it. Something similar can be said of this year's Commander set.
UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU's prison: blue is the new orange is the new black.
Mizzix Of The Izmagnus : wheels on fire... rolling down the road...
BSidisi, Undead VizierB: Bis zum Erbrechen
GTitiania, Protector Of ArgothG: Protecting Argoth, by blowing it up!
GYisan, The Wanderer BardG: Gradus Ad Elfball.
Duel EDH: Yisan & Titania.
In Progress: Grand Arbiter Augustin IV duel; Grenzo, Dungeon Warden Doomsday.
I know I'll get replies with "But this was done in a different way!" or "X was new the way it was done", but I'm just saying why people have been unexcited about it. It seems like 'colorless matters' just didn't set anyone's hearts aflame–probably for the reason people love multicolor sets so much, but in the other direction.
2) Standard playability of the cards was subpar, although when Khans rotates some of these cards (like Drana) will have a chance to shine.
3) They designed "converge" cards without giving ANY non-rare fixing except Evolving Wilds. It just seems like draft design was a cluster****.
3) The first set of the block does not seem to transition well into the second set. I can't fathom why we haven't seen any ingest/process cards. All of those cards are going to wallow in OGW-BFZ draft it seems. Now that there is some color fixing for converge, converge doesn't seem to have made it to the second set.
4) Repetitive --> we've had +1/+1 counters as a theme every set for over a year. And funnily enough, "counters" didn't even breach tier 1 constructed standard playability. In this set we have two +1/+1 counter keywords in support and (maybe) cohort.
5) Bad game design to not begin the <> symbol in BFZ instead of OGW. Calling some cards "devoid" while requiring colored mana and then making some cards colorless requiring colored mana seems dumb and arbitrary. BFZx3 draft would have been so much more balanced if the UB, BR, and RU decks had to draft some "Wastes" lands to play some of their cards, just like the ally decks often had to be Naya or Abzan in order to boost their powerlevel.
I really think the coherence of the limited experience is what is most lacking. The entire block, which feels more like two different 1-set blocks lodged onto the same plane, feels like it was designed in a haphazard manner.
And I'd say the power level in Origins was quite a bit higher. The design was more creative too, but the power level was certainly there (Hangarback Walker, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Exquisite Firecraft, Pia and Kiran Nalaar, Dark Petition, Harbinger of the Tides, Goblin Piledriver)
UR Blue-Red Control
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
UWR Jeskai Control
We kinda get a cycle of good blocks till we hit a rock bottom block and hopefully BfZ is it, so the next one won't be as unexciting as this.
I don't want huge upheavals in the setting, like the one in the second Mirrodin block when the Phyrexians showed up and ruined everything. I want a good, fun plane, and I want it to still be good and fun by the end of the block.
1) Zen - RotE had excellent original worldbuilding that created awesome new settings. They didn't just stay put in indiana jones trap-dungeon crawling tomb raiding, they developed a totally new thematic in RotE by juxtaposing lovecraft on it and designing the titans and broods and their individual portfolios in great detail
2) Zen block had oodles of well designed mechanics, ranging from the mundane but well executed (landfall) to the off-the-wall innovative like levelers, colorless creatures, annihilator, and then some solid mechanics that weren't too crazy like totem armor & rebound, and those gushing with flavor (quests & traps!)
3) Zen block produced ample highly playable cards in standard, in fact it was the pinnacle of power creep at its time, everything from lightning bolt to walletsculptor to GG.
4) RotE had a well designed (if polarizing) limited that was new and ambitious in its format
5) The block as a whole was coherent, setting the stage and laying hints for the Eldrazi emergence, then delivering beyond what people expected
and contrast it with this:
1) BFZ - OGW basically retread the same ground as RotE. No new thematics were introduced, and we actually see less variety in the eldrazi
2) The mechanics are piss poor. Support is laughably bad, devoid & ingest are both do-nothing mechanics in a vacuum, and the exile matters theme failed to do anything at all with its ample design space, the allies, like ingest, rife with parasitism. Awaken is the best of the bunch, and its just a 'solid' mechanic, not terribly innovative nor well executed. Its too early to tell if colorless-cost will deliver, but don't hold your breath. The flavor connection on some of the mechanics is tortured too, "ingest", "devoid", really? Well, even if undescriptive, still not as poorly named as Megamorph
3) BFZ competes with dragons maze & homelands for lowest amount of constructed fodder ever, OGW so far is looking only a hair better
4) BFZ's ingest/processor eldrazi won't even work in OGW draft because its totally parasitic yet completely absent in 2/3 packs, while converge gets to have fun in a set with bloody colorless lands, good job. BFZ-only draft was probably the best thing the set had going for it til now
5) The block is so poorly put together that the first set is being errataed due to obsolete templates despite both having eldrazi scion tokens, yet the mechanics don't even work together anyway. No clever reasons for the errata, no well laid plans, its just a conscious lackluster compromise.
oh and
6) Horrible, horrible art, just awful. Besides everyone and their mother lambasting the CG, the art instructions were too similar, every eldrazi has interchangeable art.
Oblivion Sower is starting to see play (along with Wasteland Strangler and Blight Herder) in Modern in a Black/x Processors deck that powers them out with Eye of Ugin, Eldrazi Temple, and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
2) The current manabase incentivizes 4-color. Instead of new cards getting a chance to shine, everyone's just throwing the big multicolor payoffs from Khans into one deck, since Fetches and Battle Lands make it so easy. People like to play the cards they're opening in standard decks and feel like they're getting value from opening packs.
3) Mechanically, there are a lot of really weird mechanics that are sucking up all the complexity points. Ingest/Processor is a pretty neat dynamic, but as a result Allies are basically just tribal dudes with a simple mechanic. Similarly, Oath is pretty devoted to the colorless mana scheme, which again leaves much of the rest of the set high and dry.
4) Flavorfully, it tries to split the difference between what made both Zendikar and Rise of the Eldrazi great, and loses something in the process. The Eldrazi aren't as overwhelming as before, nor Zendikar as adventure-filled. It's all war, all the time, and that's not what made the original sets great.
5) A lot of people are just really vocal about their dislike. It's always been like that, and always will be. I personally think that Oath of the Gatewatch looks fantastic and can't wait to see how it turns out.
Cubetutor Link
Really though.What I don't like? Let's see...
-Nerfed Eldrazi, nerfed Landfall. Eldrazi went from something to be feared to filler rare status.
-Too many absolutely awful rares in BFZ with a couple of blatantly good cards at mythic to sell packs.
-BFZ relied too much on expedition gimmick and Gideon to sell packs
-Expedition lands are terrible quality and have ugly grey text box that ruins full art.
-Wizards being stingy with full art basics. Super limited fatpack supply with no plans to make more so scalpers can have a field day. No full art lands in intro decks. No full art lands in Holiday Gift Box. These lands cost pennies to print. Why is Wizards making them so difficult to acquire?
-Amazing art on lands, ugly CG art on most Eldrazi cards.
-Wastes should have been in BFZ. Now it's going to feel like Constellation in Journey. A potentially awesome mechanic that was slapped on at the very end of the block so it didn't get to truly shine.
-MORE +1/+1 counter mechanics.
This is why I don't like new Zendikar.
Trades
Pucatrade with me!
(Signature courtesy of Argetlam of Hakai Studios
1. Expeditions: Lotteries sell. In fact they sell very well, but people tend to get upset when they lose them and they can leave you feeling like you've wasted your money. You get that with opening packs in general, but the expeditions highlight the negative feeling you get from losing the lotto just as much as they do the excitement of winning it.
2. Power Level: The set didn't make a splash in any eternal formats like most of the recent big sets have (Khans, Fate, Dragons and Origins all had a larger impact). For that matter it didn't have a huge impact on Standard either, mostly just enabling 4 and 5 color strategies utilizing all the same good stuff from last seasons midrange decks, although even those have fallen out of favor lately. This is the one my friends tend to complain about the most, largely because some of them already prefer Modern to Standard and this didn't exactly do much to change their minds.
3. Nostalgia: Most people I know who were around for Zendikar block seem to have wanted a return to Zendikar the (the set). What they got was much closer to a return to Rise of the Eldrazi with a few nods and winks to Zendikar. They wanted adventure world back, not eldrazi world, although I'm not 100% sure how or why anyone was expecting that given the state we left Zendikar in. Still, it does seem to have irked quite a few people because of this.
Cheeri0sXWU
Reid Duke's Level One
Who's the Beatdown
Alt+0198=Æ
2.) Very few modern and legacy playables
3.) The cards to me in general seem unappealing.
4.) The original Zendikar had many interesting cards and lots of deck building potential in it. This one doesn't. Also there aren't any landfall cards that really stood out to me. Why did they bring it back if they wouldn't do anything cool with it.
5.) Where is the vampire tribal?????
none
Modern
UBG B/U/G control
BBB MBC
WUR Control
WWW Prison
RRR Goblins
Legacy
BBB Pox
UBG B/U/G Control
UWU StoneBlade
UW Miracle Control
I actually really like Devoid and Ingest/Processors---in theory. Sure, Ingest is parasitic, but I didn't really mind that because it was treated as trinket text for the most part, trinket text that than became hugely relevant with processors. I was disappointed that Annihilator left, but I actually prefer the Ingest/Processor and 'Colorless Matters' of Ulamog and Kozilek, as there is more to do with that than Annihilator, which is hugely restricted to needing to be on creatures with huge converted mana costs. Again, this is in theory, because in execution, they just didn't really follow through with Processing. During spoiler season, I defended the set from its' detractors by saying that Wizards just hadn't released the really potent enablers for Processing, the cards that were reasons to actually bother with the mechanic.
And then the set came out and they just...never really did. Exiling things isn't the problem--Wizards actually did a pretty great job of giving us non-ingest ways to exile cards. But we ended up with, what, Ulamog's Nullifier as the best processing card? Despite lacking the card type, Oblivion Sower does something similar so I'll count it. Wasteland Strangler is really weirdly positioned, though I get the feeling it was supposed to be good. So we ended up with 2 and a half (kinda) processors that are worth playing. You could maybe make an argument for Blight Herder. And that's just...not even worth the effort to go out of your way to exile your opponents' cards. I was so looking forward to building a deck that used Silkwraps and Stasis Snares to exile my opponents' creatures for my processors, but then Wizards just gave me no reason to build that deck. And this right here is the biggest reason that I think this set doesn't excite people--there just isn't much of a reason to actually play these cards, even if they have interesting concepts.
Allies are in a similar boat--I never really got the complaints about adding the ally creature to type to several creatures in the set without Rally, as I thought it was an excellent way to make the Allies matter more in constructed and limited. But then we just got almost no good allies with Rally. They gave us support that the allies from Zendikar block could have only dreamed of--random creatures with ally typing, Gideon is an actual honest to god ally planeswalker--but again, no actual reason to bother building that deck.
I love that Battle for Zendikar is such a synergy-based set, especially after the midrange paradise of Khans block (Khans block is actually my favorite block so that's less of a complaint and more of an observation). But Wizards absolutely failed to make those synergies matter in any meaningful way outside of draft. Why would I ever put in the effort to ingest and exile cards when my best payoff is a better Mystic Snake, when instead I could just...play Siege Rhino and watch it do all my work for me? And it's not like Ingest/Processing is even a particularly dangerous mechanic like Cipher was, where they had to make all the cards with it bad because if any were good it'd be *too* good. You have to work for it, so that inherently acts as a limiting factor on the mechanic's power level, so they should have pushed them just a little more. Made them weird and exciting, not just weird for being weird's sake.
There are all these things I want to like about the set, but the power level is just too low. And I'm not even talking about the power level being too low for eternal formats, I'm talking purely for standard. And even for standard, I don't even mean 'tier 1 playable'. I can make a processing deck but it just won't do anything exciting. There is ample support, but almost no payoff, which is worse in a way than the reverse. If there were really good processor cards but the set was anemic on ways to actually enable them, I could at least have fun trying to make my less consistent deck work, and when it did work, it'd be exciting.
Oath of the Gatewatch is pretty polarizing for me. On the one hand, I love the colorless mana theme a lot. I'm on the MaRo side of the aisle in that it should have been in BFZ, because it's going to be really weird for newer players to buy packs of BFZ and then buy packs of Oath and see how different mana symbols look. They could have just sold it to us as "oh, we're clarifying colorless vs. generic mana", and never actually used it for costs and we would have accepted that, and speculated on whether or not oath would have them as costs. But ignoring that, I think it's clever design space and I'm cautiously optimistic with regards to how it turns out.
Surge also looks pretty cool, and though I'm worried that Wizards is just going to play it safe again it at least is neat design.
Support and Cohort, on the other hand, are pretty abominable. I don't mind the whole "+1/+1 counters mechanics" thing so much, but Support is just Bolster, but without Bolster's interesting restriction. The fact that you can buff your teammates' creatures is neat I guess, but it's still not exciting. Surge does a much better job of interacting well with 2HG while still being interesting in 1v1. With Bolster, they could do neat things with creatures' toughness in order to allow you to have interesting choices with bolster, and the inherent limitation let them make some Bolster cards stronger than if they allowed you to choose where the counters went. This gives you more options, but it's far more boring, and because the counters must be spread around, it's probably going to be much worse as well. A card with Support 100 still wouldn't be that interesting, and that's the mechanic's biggest flaw--in 1v1, the mechanic at it's absolute best will only ever amount to "put a +1/+1 counter on all your creatures", and many times it'll be even worse than that. I don't mind that it's a +1/+1 counter mechanic, I mind that it's a rehashed version of one we *just saw*.
Just as Support is more boring Bolster, Cohort is irritatingly close to Outlast. You tap a creature for a benefit later. You do get the ability to do it at instant speed, but you also get the additional downside of needing to tap TWO creatures. Maybe it's left such a poor taste in my mouth because the first card we've seen with Cohort is almost insultingly bad, even for an intro deck rare, but that's a steep, steep cost, especially given that Cohort only works with allies. Rally was cool because it broadened the allies a little bit, but Cohort is just as parasitic as the ally ability originally was. And it doesn't even work with the 2HG theme. I read somewhere that the rules wouldn't work well, which is fine, but that could have made the mechanic a little more bearable for me.
Now, one thing I will say is that Oath of the Gatewatch could retroactively improve my opinion of BFZ if it delivers on certain things. If we get a couple really good processors in this set, then suddenly a lot of cards in BFZ get way better. Same for Rally triggers. And I imagine we aren't done with either yet, right? There's no possible way Wizards would restrict ingest and processing to just one of the three sets being drafted, right? I can't possibly imagine they would as that'd be horrible design that would make processors super hard to play in limited, but then again, Wizards has baffled me before with this block. But I haven't totally given up hope.
And for what it's worth, I like how Cohort finally adds a new dimension to Allies. Before they were basically ETB tribal; now we might get some real flavor and gameplay depth, since the mechanic has a lot more design space than Outlast. Maybe a mill ally to run alongside Halimar Excavator? An Agadeem Occultist variant? Lots of possibilities there.
Cubetutor Link
-story is extremely generic, has the complexity and depth of a kiddie pool
-weak art direction (cgi out the wazoo, mysterious brooding eldrazi are now just generic monsters that are being defeated by plot/brand armor mary sues)
-power level doesnt resonate with original block
it let down a lot of player expectations and then some. the only positive thing I see being said about this block is limited
My biggest complaint is the Expeditions. I've actively avoided BFZ boosters outside of Limited play because the escalation of rarity feels so distasteful. It may end up bolstering sales, and it certainly pleases the secondary market, but it does little to nothing for gameplay and appears to me as a further wedge between those who seek to play the game and those who seek to profit from it (not to imply that the two groups do not overlap).
Add in further frustrations with the cost of Standard, stemming largely from the cost and gross ubiquity of the Origins walkers.
Finally, top it with disappointment with the apparent outcome of the block story. I do not care for superheroes, and dislike the idea that planeswalkers are or should be akin to them, and am disappointed that Wizards is forming their cast of good-aligned planeswalkers into a team of such. The story might be consistent by its own rules, but the tale of Chosen Ones who Do The Right Thing because Only They Have The Power is threadbare to the point of transparency, and so divorced from our reality that I cannot help but roll my eyes at the tired wish-fulfillment.
In terms of raw power level, numbers-wise its actually very comparable to Magic Origins (If you rank and weight the cards by tournament results you get a similar 'score'). The difference comes in a couple places. First, is that BFZ is very weak for a Large Fall set, easily the weakest large fall set since Scars of Mirrodin in terms of power level. Magic Origins seems strong because compared to core-sets its way more powerful than the normal core set, like M14 or M15. To make it worse, this weakness comes less in rares and splashy powerful effects, because there are enough of those, but more-so because its missing a lot of 'standard' effects (lightning strike, rampant growth, etc, which is kind of also Magic Origins' fault but wasn't felt until BFZ rotated in) Additionally, and this is important, when BFZ rotated in it was weaker than the average set in Standard, so it made less of an impact than Magic Origins did when it rotated in (you could clearly see that more Origins cards were being played than Journey into Nyx cards), which really impacts people's perceptions of the sets. Also a lot of BFZ's strong cards are boring (Painful Truths, Ob Nixilis, Battle Lands) while a lot of crappy Origins cards are memorable (Chandra, Starfeild of Nyx, Outland Colossus)
Second, it didn't live up to Zendikar expectations. A lot of people expected adventure world and were upset when they got Eldrazi world instead. Nostalgia is powerful, and BFZ, I think went against it, because it showed that Zendikar wasn't like how people remembered it and was completely changed, and I think this upset people. Its also way weaker than the original Zendikar and Rise, so again BFZ looks like trash, when it gets put next to this block.
I think everything else, gameplay wise, (*****ty mechanics etc) is either stemming from this, or a justification of these two failures.
So yeah. Tldr: BFZ is an average set by power-level, but looks like a terrible set when compared to other Fall sets and old Zenikar, kind of like how Magic Origins, another set with similar power-level, looks amazing, when compared with recent core sets, and this problem in perception makes people really hate the set.
Limited is relatively bad, depending on wether you're picking all the Grixis Eldrazi and winning unchallenged, or not, and losing like a chump because you just can't build any other strategy without ridiculous luck. There's not enough support.
In Standard it literally doesn't matter. Buy the lands and Gideon, and you never need to open a BFZ pack. It's all KTK Block+ORI.
I tried playing Eldrazi Ramp and Ulamog Exile to see what the eldrazi were about and try fighting Gideon+Jace+Hangarback. It was futile, it's like Urza Block vs Mercadia all over again.
Unless SOI block and the block after are pretty much ***** or go out of their way to support Eldrazi/Allies/Aristocrats strategies, it may as well not have happened.
In Modern it's even worse. People are trying to force processors but it's neither Tron nor Deadguy, it's pretty much the weaknesses of both without the full power of either.
In commander, I have decks of every color, test cards for fun all of the time, all they need is to look kinda fun.
Noyan, Omnath, Ulamog, Winnower, Cutthroat, the Battlelands and Ob Nixilis remain. Everything else was a waste of money. Hell it was a waste of time it took to de-sleeve another card and sleeve the BFZ card in question.
This set just doesn't offer anything to anyone who doesn't have a compulsive need to buy packs or loves lotteries but is afraid of the real lottery and slots.
Oath is bringing something I'm looking forward to in Nissa, however. I've already got my wallet ready to take the plunge on a playset of her just because she works so well with my G/B decks.
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!