Before the full spoiler is revealed, I want to say a couple things:
- This set already looks much better than BFZ. I know BFZ was a terrible, awful awful set, but this one I can roll with. Some decent uncommons (Flayer Drone, Reflector Mage, Void Shatter - You don't need your 3 mana counterspell to be rare, thankfully OGW learned that), not everything is unplayable junk, and hidden gems for you to explore in constructed formats (Warping Wail, Thought-Knot Seer, Goblin Dark-Dwellers) in EDH (Endbringer, General Tazri) and in sealed (Baloth Null, Embodiment of Fury). Good job. I think the best thing this set has going for it is the 'colorless matters' theme, I REALLY wished now that they had introduced this in BFZ, I think it would be much better for the set.
- The artwork is either hit or miss for me. There are cards that I truly loved the angle and the concept, such as Crush of Tentacles and Inverter of Truth. Then there are cards that look just awful, really really terrible, either due to sheer poor quality (Goblin Freerunner, Joraga Auxiliary) or due to not looking at all like magic cards, but rather something from another card game (Walker of the Wastes, Weapons Trainer).
- Overall, the flavor text looks bad to me as well. Most of it seems to be taken from Uncharted Realms pieces that are yet to be revealed, but that usually makes them clunky, not flavorful.
I would give as a verdict from what we have so far a 7/10. Of course this may change with the full spoiler, but I'm hopeful this set will not be total crap as BFZ was. After seeing the full spoiler, I can say the verdict stays the same. Some interesting cards, some junk, not the most groundbreaking set I've ever seen, but at least it was not on the same level as BFZ.
EDIT: I will Edit this post as I remember things. New comments below.
- Mechanically I think OGW is a great letdown except for the wastes aspect of the set and one more mechanic that I will comment down below. Cohort and Support are terrible mechanics, and the landfall cards are still not impressive.
- I'm still displeased with the lack of decent effects for an efficient cost (finally we have the 3 mana counterspell that is decent, but we don't have the 2 mana burn spell, the 1 mana dork, the efficient white mass removal spell, etc.). For instance, we could have a devoid 2 mana burn spell, a mana dork for G that would add C, like Boreal Druid, and a mass removal that would exile all creatures for 5, to fit the theme of the set and make Hangarback Walker and rally decks less of an issue.
- I do think some of that is mitigated by new and interesting effects such as Oath of Nissa and the Surge mechanic. I think the idea of Surge is very interesting, but I'm afraid just the most powerful cards will see play, like Fall of the Titans, due to lack of support with efficient surge enablers.
Would you like to read Commander stories? Check my latest stories, coming from Lorwyn and Innistrad: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Doran, The Siege Tower! If you like my writing, ask me to write something for your commander as well!
Well, I was complaining about the goblin artwork, not its utility as a card. Not sure if you just said in a sense of "well, the art is bad, but the card is decent". If that was the case, I really don't evaluate the card itself when looking at artwork.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
.
Would you like to read Commander stories? Check my latest stories, coming from Lorwyn and Innistrad: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Doran, The Siege Tower! If you like my writing, ask me to write something for your commander as well!
By most metrics this set is much better. Even with partial spoilers i am having a hard time figuring out what if any aspects of Battle for Z is better than Oath. I suppose the lack of battle lands in this set is the only real thing.
Oath made colorless matters actually interesting (with the new colorless costing). There are some 2hg mechanics that also work in 1v1 which they haven't really done before. Surge seems potent in 2hg but interesting in 1v1 and makes you look at cards like Bonesaw differently. I always like mechanics that make you reevaluate otherwise borderline or unplayable cards.
The legendary enchantment cycle is great so far and looks like it will impact constructed as well as casual formats (which is rare for a cycle).
Allies finally got their 5 color commander (a very big deal to a very small number of people).
Commander gets a few other low cost general options.
Limited play we wont really know until a few weeks after release.
This may not go down as one of the greatest sets in history but it is miles ahead of Battle for Z. It is not often we get sets that have something totally new and in this set we have colorless matters and teammate matters. There are a bunch of individual cards creating buzz in competitive and casual circles. Looking back at battle i really dont see much that was either interesting, new or particularly good. Oath we have new stuff, interesting stuff, and good stuff... I say good job WotC.
I think what truly hurt BFZ from the get go was the format they chose for the block, and by this I mean the 4 OGW and 2 BFZ packs, I think they had to power down set 1 to allow for set 2 to be the backbone of the set like they liked... Which if they did the wastes in the BFZ, I think it would have broke the block.
I'm not saying I agree with it, but that's the feel I get, since cards in BFZ were obviously made more expensive for a reason, other than just Herald being printed.
That being said, I did personally like BFZ, mostly for new Eldrazi, but there were a couple other decent cards; I'm loving OGW, Kozilek's Brood was done quite well, really like the new Blink Eldrazi, all the shenanigans.
BFZ - 5/10
OGW(pre-full spoiler) 8/10
Both 7/10 (could change based solely on the final OGW spoils)
This set looks good. Surge will allow interesting plays and reward card evaluation. The Kozilek side is clearly identified with the <> mana, while Ulamog was by Ingest.
I don't really get behind Cohort though. It seems to slow you down for some potential bonus while allies is mostly about aggro.
Fortify is the new Bolster, so move on, this has been done and redone. +1/+1 counters are now pretty much evergreen for GWb.
I don't get the hate on BFZ though, but to each his own. Clearly some people should hve played more Avacyn Restored before claiming set X is awful
OGW is miles better than BFZ in my opinion. I've preordered quite a few cards to test out in my cubes already, compared with spending about $12 at the end of BFZ's spoiler season last year. A year of disappointments in mtg had me drifting off towards other ccgs, lcgs and boardgames the past few months (MM2 sucking, prices skyrocketing, BFZ sucking). I am actually excited to see what's coming next when OGWs full spoiler is out.
Gotta say though that the story for this block was total crap. Unbelievable that the 4 Brady Walkers would have been capable of taking down ulamog and kozilek + their minions.
This set looks good. Surge will allow interesting plays and reward card evaluation. The Kozilek side is clearly identified with the <> mana, while Ulamog was by Ingest.
I don't really get behind Cohort though. It seems to slow you down for some potential bonus while allies is mostly about aggro.
Fortify is the new Bolster, so move on, this has been done and redone. +1/+1 counters are now pretty much evergreen for GWb.
I don't get the hate on BFZ though, but to each his own. Clearly some people should hve played more Avacyn Restored before claiming set X is awful
Avacyn Restored was amazing. It had several cards that changed eternal formats and standard was blown away. It was only draft that suffered.
Meanwhile BFZ added almost nothing to standard but splashing an extra color. Standard was hit really hard by price increases. I think the only people who enjoyed it are the limited crowd.
This set looks good. Surge will allow interesting plays and reward card evaluation. The Kozilek side is clearly identified with the <> mana, while Ulamog was by Ingest.
I don't really get behind Cohort though. It seems to slow you down for some potential bonus while allies is mostly about aggro.
Fortify is the new Bolster, so move on, this has been done and redone. +1/+1 counters are now pretty much evergreen for GWb.
I don't get the hate on BFZ though, but to each his own. Clearly some people should hve played more Avacyn Restored before claiming set X is awful
Avacyn Restored was amazing. It had several cards that changed eternal formats and standard was blown away. It was only draft that suffered.
Meanwhile BFZ added almost nothing to standard but splashing an extra color. Standard was hit really hard by price increases. I think the only people who enjoyed it are the limited crowd.
I should put in my signature what some others do: I'm primarily a limited players, and evaluate generally cards and sets under that light.
For Limited, we'll really have to wait and see. The set might still be completely shaken up by a few very strong commons.
For Constructed, it's already miles ahead of BFZ: the Oath cycle has a ton of potential, an Kozilek's Return is possibly Modern-playable. It has EDH goodies, and an Uncommon, Colorless Nameless Inversion variant. This will definitely shake up Standard in a way BFZ failed to accomplish.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Cards are game pieces, and should be treated as such, easily replaceable.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
It's better than bfz that's for sure,don't know how it will draft,the artwork was mostly a miss,there were a few I liked.
The storyline was atrocious and really wish they went a different route.I like the concept of wastes and wish to see it in the future.None of the mechanics really popped.
6/10 better than bfz,but it sure ain't innistrad or original ravnica.
While I wont consider myself a "hardcore" player, but I'm also not a strictly kitchen table gamer either, this set has something for everybody, which is how I usually judge sets. EDH is my go to format, so I'll start there. This set alone, in EDH terms, is a home run with the inclusion of a 5-C Ally legend. They did it the perfect way as well, it's mono-colored, making it a reliable cast from the command zone, but added the 5-C in the ability. Might not be the strongest general, but we finally got our Ally commander. There are Standard playables at all rarities, not just the top-tier like we saw last set. Modern received some love, and I'm sure some cards will find their way into legacy builds as well. I agree the artwork is atrocious, it looks like low-budget commercial footage for mobile gaming, but they can't get feedback unless they do it, right? I was extremely disappointed in BFZ, it just felt so blah. This has me hoping SOI continues the strong finish Zendikar 2.0 had.
Good job. I think the best thing this set has going for it is the 'colorless matters' theme, I REALLY wished now that they had introduced this in BFZ, I think it would be much better for the set.
I really wished they had introduced this in Betrayers of Kamigawa, so that there was an actual cost to including Umezawa's Jitte in your deck. But they didn't, so oh well. They have it now, and thus they have the opportunity to balance colorless spells better in the future. If you're talking about colorless costs in spells/abilities as a new mechanic, that is. If you're talking about the themes overlapping throughout the block, that seems to me to work just as well as it always has. They often do these slightly tangential versions of an ability that synergize together; it's good to follow up a Brood Monitor with a Kozilek, the Great Distortion, just as it's good to follow up an Abzan Falconer with a Dragonscale General. Nothing's changed as far as I can see.
My big complaint about Battle for Zendikar was the lack of interesting cards to brew around in Standard, and I think Oath of the Gatewatch has knocked it out of the park in that respect. I have 7-8 decks on my list of new brews this season, some of which I'm even more excited about after a little goldfishing, whereas last time I had about 2-3 that I wanted to throw out after shuffling them up. I think this has to do with too much setup for too little payoff for many of the Battle for Zendikar rares. That said, to use Blight Herder as an example, some of these cards were a lot more attractive in other formats, as many of the tools to set it up come from other sets. That didn't help me because I don't have the experience with Modern to sit down and brew with such a large list of cards available (most of which I don't own).
Thinking long-term, though, I feel like we really can't start talking about whether BfZ/Oath are good for Standard. We're in the midst of a huge paradigm shift in terms of the rotation schedule changing, as well as a downshift in general power level (temporarily at least). It's a bit hard to see whether a new deck will be successful when facing down more efficient threats like Mantis Rider or Siege Rhino. I bet come April we'll have an entirely different picture of how BfZ/Oath works in Standard.
The Draft format in BfZ was very good. Sure, blue was really strong and green was really weak, but perfect balance in a draft environment is a really complicated puzzle. I liked how there were so many viable options, and the way that some cards were very useful in certain specific situations but not overwhelming. There were a lot of interesting decisions about whether to wheel something or whether an archetype was open enough to go "all in" on, and I especially noticed that, compared to something like Dragons of Tarkir, there were a lot fewer cards that were completely useless in any situation. I thought that Sealed was pretty dull, as I don't care for overly-clogged board states and spending turn after turn in topdeck mode, but I enjoyed every draft I played, win or lose.
As for art and storyline, those things are going to be subjective and widely varied based on taste. Personally I could take or leave the art in either set; don't have strong feelings either way. I happen to like the way they deal with the storyline; the prose on Uncharted Realms is interesting to read but not really groundbreaking, but the shift to becoming more character-focused and putting major story beats on cards is a good thing because it makes it more successful. One of my favorite sets of all time (for reasons both flavorful and mechanical) was Weatherlight. Where in Antiquities they used card names and flavor text to suggest a rich background story and developed world, in Weatherlight they brought the art into it by introducing a variety of recognizable characters that could be depicted on the cards themselves. Since they were the crew of an airship on a quest, it made narrative sense that they showed up in a variety of locations, and while I didn't read any of the novels during that period, I got a kick out of seeing my favorite characters appear on cards for at least the next 2-3 years, iirc. I feel like they're getting back to that style; since they have the character-based mechanic in Planeswalkers they can depict these people in-game rather than just as Legends, and going from the Origins story to a big battle scene where they all have to work together to defeat a major threat is a good setup to use any number of these characters in a variety of ways in the future. Maybe a hardcore Vorthos is really disappointed by what could be received as a dumbing-down of the story, and I understand the objections to things like retconning Nissa's background, but this approach seems to be the best use of the cards themselves as a storytelling medium.
TL/DR: I thought both sets were fine, but I have noticed that Oath of the Gatewatch makes brewing for FNM a heck of a lot more fun.
as a set it seems ok however from an avid EDH/commander player with a superfriends deck those planeswalker oath cards are just amazing... jace's oath in my deck will simply be broken as i usually have at least 2-3 walkers out at a time...
Speaking of mechanics, I think the BFZ block would've been so much better if they omitted Ingest, Allies and Support and focused on the not-so-terrible rest instead. Ingest does absolutely nothing, Support is yet another boring +1/+1 counters mechanic, Allies are very confusing (I still have no idea what makes something an Ally), sort of parasitic and Cohort being terrible does not really help. It's sad to see Converge being seemingly cut off from OGW as it was the mechanic that produced some of the neatest designs in the block.
After seeing the full spoiler I don't think there is a reason to change my evaluation of the set. Disappointed with some crap commons and uncommons, but I suppose you have to have some every set. That said, I'm really glad to see Grasp of Darkness being reprinted and a somehow new Rampant Growth: Ruin in Their Wake. Reality Hemorrhage was almost good. It just needed one more point of damage to get there.
Cyclone Sire and Wall of Resurgence are going to be beasts in limited. And, once again, the artwork was really really good (Dazzling Reflection) or completely awful (Netcaster Spider). Pay attention to the hidden gems. There was a decent self-mill enabler in case the strategy hold water in the future: Corpse Churn.
Would you like to read Commander stories? Check my latest stories, coming from Lorwyn and Innistrad: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Doran, The Siege Tower! If you like my writing, ask me to write something for your commander as well!
Good job. I think the best thing this set has going for it is the 'colorless matters' theme, I REALLY wished now that they had introduced this in BFZ, I think it would be much better for the set.
I really wished they had introduced this in Betrayers of Kamigawa, so that there was an actual cost to including Umezawa's Jitte in your deck. But they didn't, so oh well. They have it now, and thus they have the opportunity to balance colorless spells better in the future. If you're talking about colorless costs in spells/abilities as a new mechanic, that is. If you're talking about the themes overlapping throughout the block, that seems to me to work just as well as it always has. They often do these slightly tangential versions of an ability that synergize together; it's good to follow up a Brood Monitor with a Kozilek, the Great Distortion, just as it's good to follow up an Abzan Falconer with a Dragonscale General. Nothing's changed as far as I can see.
What I mean by that is that wastes made colorless cards more uniform, and it explored them in a better way than BF did. When you put a label (devoid) on a multicolor card and call it a day, you are not really making a case for colorless cards. You are just making some archetypes in different color combinations to happen to have some access to eldrazis. And, of course, they couldn't be as interesting/powerful because they had to respect the color pie and couldn't compete with Khans cards. Now they have interesting and unique effects, even though not completely awesome, you can do more stuff with them. BFZ should have had that.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
.
Would you like to read Commander stories? Check my latest stories, coming from Lorwyn and Innistrad: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Doran, The Siege Tower! If you like my writing, ask me to write something for your commander as well!
Now that I'm about halfway through the full spoiler, I realized another thing I didn't like about BfZ Standard: I was really aggravated as a fan of blue-black draw-go that they didn't replace Bile Blight or Drown in Sorrow. They did both this time, with slight variations and in some cases, improvements. Very cool.
OGW is a pretty average set in my opinion, but it really screams out a lot of wasted potential (that was mainly wasted by BFZ preceding it), seeing that we won't be getting much of these mechanics after OGW soon.
I don't actually fault the set's "power-downs" for Shock and Rampant Growth because Devoid has implications when it comes to removal in particular and I suspect they intentionally powered-down traditional ramp in an Eldrazi-focused set.
OGW's biggest mistake is introducing too many "new" mechanics and not retaining enough of BFZ's mechanics - now that the blocks consists of two sets, the two sets need to share mechanical consistency in order to maintain a "Identity". Pretty much the main reason BFZ and OGW have the same identity is simply from the "Eldrazi" (+ Devoid) and "Ally" subtypes now, mechanically, they are almost from two different blocks.
I know the 2-Set Block Paradigm is new, but they need to realize they can't do drastic sweeping changes mechanically like they did with Rise of the Eldrazi, Avacyn Restored, nor can they even do it less drastically like with New Phyrexia and Dragons of Tarkir, the second set that links the first and third set's differences isn't there anymore, and the few mechanics brought over to OGW from BFZ cannot hold that line. (A quick scan through the spoiler shows pretty much only the 2 Elemental Creatures in RG have landfall, which literally makes Devoid the only "mechanic" that is left over and it is more of a "Colorless Indicator" than a "Mechanic" play-wise.)
OGW is a pretty average set in my opinion, but it really screams out a lot of wasted potential (that was mainly wasted by BFZ preceding it), seeing that we won't be getting much of these mechanics after OGW soon.
I don't actually fault the set's "power-downs" for Shock and Rampant Growth because Devoid has implications when it comes to removal in particular and I suspect they intentionally powered-down traditional ramp in an Eldrazi-focused set.
OGW's biggest mistake is introducing too many "new" mechanics and not retaining enough of BFZ's mechanics - now that the blocks consists of two sets, the two sets need to share mechanical consistency in order to maintain a "Identity". Pretty much the main reason BFZ and OGW have the same identity is simply from the "Eldrazi" (+ Devoid) and "Ally" subtypes now, mechanically, they are almost from two different blocks.
I know the 2-Set Block Paradigm is new, but they need to realize they can't do drastic sweeping changes mechanically like they did with Rise of the Eldrazi, Avacyn Restored, nor can they even do it less drastically like with New Phyrexia and Dragons of Tarkir, the second set that links the first and third set's differences isn't there anymore, and the few mechanics brought over to OGW from BFZ cannot hold that line. (A quick scan through the spoiler shows pretty much only the 2 Elemental Creatures in RG have landfall, which literally makes Devoid the only "mechanic" that is left over and it is more of a "Colorless Indicator" than a "Mechanic" play-wise.)
If you're playing standard, it does almost nothing. The same three decks will still dominate. If you play modern, there's less than a dozen cards that will see play. If you play legacy..... ummm.. nevermind. Just skip this. I'm buying only a few cards for modern and edh.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
- This set already looks much better than BFZ. I know BFZ was a terrible, awful awful set, but this one I can roll with. Some decent uncommons (Flayer Drone, Reflector Mage, Void Shatter - You don't need your 3 mana counterspell to be rare, thankfully OGW learned that), not everything is unplayable junk, and hidden gems for you to explore in constructed formats (Warping Wail, Thought-Knot Seer, Goblin Dark-Dwellers) in EDH (Endbringer, General Tazri) and in sealed (Baloth Null, Embodiment of Fury). Good job. I think the best thing this set has going for it is the 'colorless matters' theme, I REALLY wished now that they had introduced this in BFZ, I think it would be much better for the set.
- The artwork is either hit or miss for me. There are cards that I truly loved the angle and the concept, such as Crush of Tentacles and Inverter of Truth. Then there are cards that look just awful, really really terrible, either due to sheer poor quality (Goblin Freerunner, Joraga Auxiliary) or due to not looking at all like magic cards, but rather something from another card game (Walker of the Wastes, Weapons Trainer).
- Overall, the flavor text looks bad to me as well. Most of it seems to be taken from Uncharted Realms pieces that are yet to be revealed, but that usually makes them clunky, not flavorful.
I would give as a verdict from what we have so far a 7/10.
Of course this may change with the full spoiler, but I'm hopeful this set will not be total crap as BFZ was. After seeing the full spoiler, I can say the verdict stays the same. Some interesting cards, some junk, not the most groundbreaking set I've ever seen, but at least it was not on the same level as BFZ.EDIT: I will Edit this post as I remember things. New comments below.
- Mechanically I think OGW is a great letdown except for the wastes aspect of the set and one more mechanic that I will comment down below. Cohort and Support are terrible mechanics, and the landfall cards are still not impressive.
- I'm still displeased with the lack of decent effects for an efficient cost (finally we have the 3 mana counterspell that is decent, but we don't have the 2 mana burn spell, the 1 mana dork, the efficient white mass removal spell, etc.). For instance, we could have a devoid 2 mana burn spell, a mana dork for G that would add C, like Boreal Druid, and a mass removal that would exile all creatures for 5, to fit the theme of the set and make Hangarback Walker and rally decks less of an issue.
- I do think some of that is mitigated by new and interesting effects such as Oath of Nissa and the Surge mechanic. I think the idea of Surge is very interesting, but I'm afraid just the most powerful cards will see play, like Fall of the Titans, due to lack of support with efficient surge enablers.
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).
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).
Oath made colorless matters actually interesting (with the new colorless costing). There are some 2hg mechanics that also work in 1v1 which they haven't really done before. Surge seems potent in 2hg but interesting in 1v1 and makes you look at cards like Bonesaw differently. I always like mechanics that make you reevaluate otherwise borderline or unplayable cards.
The legendary enchantment cycle is great so far and looks like it will impact constructed as well as casual formats (which is rare for a cycle).
Allies finally got their 5 color commander (a very big deal to a very small number of people).
Commander gets a few other low cost general options.
Limited play we wont really know until a few weeks after release.
This may not go down as one of the greatest sets in history but it is miles ahead of Battle for Z. It is not often we get sets that have something totally new and in this set we have colorless matters and teammate matters. There are a bunch of individual cards creating buzz in competitive and casual circles. Looking back at battle i really dont see much that was either interesting, new or particularly good. Oath we have new stuff, interesting stuff, and good stuff... I say good job WotC.
In Progress
GBIshkanah, Grafwidow ~ BWGRTymna the Weaver & Tana, the Bloodsower ~ UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ~ RGAtarka, World Render
I'm not saying I agree with it, but that's the feel I get, since cards in BFZ were obviously made more expensive for a reason, other than just Herald being printed.
That being said, I did personally like BFZ, mostly for new Eldrazi, but there were a couple other decent cards; I'm loving OGW, Kozilek's Brood was done quite well, really like the new Blink Eldrazi, all the shenanigans.
BFZ - 5/10
OGW(pre-full spoiler) 8/10
Both 7/10 (could change based solely on the final OGW spoils)
It looks better then BFZ thankefully
I don't really get behind Cohort though. It seems to slow you down for some potential bonus while allies is mostly about aggro.
Fortify is the new Bolster, so move on, this has been done and redone. +1/+1 counters are now pretty much evergreen for GWb.
I don't get the hate on BFZ though, but to each his own. Clearly some people should hve played more Avacyn Restored before claiming set X is awful
Gotta say though that the story for this block was total crap. Unbelievable that the 4 Brady Walkers would have been capable of taking down ulamog and kozilek + their minions.
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
Avacyn Restored was amazing. It had several cards that changed eternal formats and standard was blown away. It was only draft that suffered.
Meanwhile BFZ added almost nothing to standard but splashing an extra color. Standard was hit really hard by price increases. I think the only people who enjoyed it are the limited crowd.
I should put in my signature what some others do: I'm primarily a limited players, and evaluate generally cards and sets under that light.
For Constructed, it's already miles ahead of BFZ: the Oath cycle has a ton of potential, an Kozilek's Return is possibly Modern-playable. It has EDH goodies, and an Uncommon, Colorless Nameless Inversion variant. This will definitely shake up Standard in a way BFZ failed to accomplish.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
The storyline was atrocious and really wish they went a different route.I like the concept of wastes and wish to see it in the future.None of the mechanics really popped.
6/10 better than bfz,but it sure ain't innistrad or original ravnica.
I really wished they had introduced this in Betrayers of Kamigawa, so that there was an actual cost to including Umezawa's Jitte in your deck. But they didn't, so oh well. They have it now, and thus they have the opportunity to balance colorless spells better in the future. If you're talking about colorless costs in spells/abilities as a new mechanic, that is. If you're talking about the themes overlapping throughout the block, that seems to me to work just as well as it always has. They often do these slightly tangential versions of an ability that synergize together; it's good to follow up a Brood Monitor with a Kozilek, the Great Distortion, just as it's good to follow up an Abzan Falconer with a Dragonscale General. Nothing's changed as far as I can see.
My big complaint about Battle for Zendikar was the lack of interesting cards to brew around in Standard, and I think Oath of the Gatewatch has knocked it out of the park in that respect. I have 7-8 decks on my list of new brews this season, some of which I'm even more excited about after a little goldfishing, whereas last time I had about 2-3 that I wanted to throw out after shuffling them up. I think this has to do with too much setup for too little payoff for many of the Battle for Zendikar rares. That said, to use Blight Herder as an example, some of these cards were a lot more attractive in other formats, as many of the tools to set it up come from other sets. That didn't help me because I don't have the experience with Modern to sit down and brew with such a large list of cards available (most of which I don't own).
Thinking long-term, though, I feel like we really can't start talking about whether BfZ/Oath are good for Standard. We're in the midst of a huge paradigm shift in terms of the rotation schedule changing, as well as a downshift in general power level (temporarily at least). It's a bit hard to see whether a new deck will be successful when facing down more efficient threats like Mantis Rider or Siege Rhino. I bet come April we'll have an entirely different picture of how BfZ/Oath works in Standard.
The Draft format in BfZ was very good. Sure, blue was really strong and green was really weak, but perfect balance in a draft environment is a really complicated puzzle. I liked how there were so many viable options, and the way that some cards were very useful in certain specific situations but not overwhelming. There were a lot of interesting decisions about whether to wheel something or whether an archetype was open enough to go "all in" on, and I especially noticed that, compared to something like Dragons of Tarkir, there were a lot fewer cards that were completely useless in any situation. I thought that Sealed was pretty dull, as I don't care for overly-clogged board states and spending turn after turn in topdeck mode, but I enjoyed every draft I played, win or lose.
As for art and storyline, those things are going to be subjective and widely varied based on taste. Personally I could take or leave the art in either set; don't have strong feelings either way. I happen to like the way they deal with the storyline; the prose on Uncharted Realms is interesting to read but not really groundbreaking, but the shift to becoming more character-focused and putting major story beats on cards is a good thing because it makes it more successful. One of my favorite sets of all time (for reasons both flavorful and mechanical) was Weatherlight. Where in Antiquities they used card names and flavor text to suggest a rich background story and developed world, in Weatherlight they brought the art into it by introducing a variety of recognizable characters that could be depicted on the cards themselves. Since they were the crew of an airship on a quest, it made narrative sense that they showed up in a variety of locations, and while I didn't read any of the novels during that period, I got a kick out of seeing my favorite characters appear on cards for at least the next 2-3 years, iirc. I feel like they're getting back to that style; since they have the character-based mechanic in Planeswalkers they can depict these people in-game rather than just as Legends, and going from the Origins story to a big battle scene where they all have to work together to defeat a major threat is a good setup to use any number of these characters in a variety of ways in the future. Maybe a hardcore Vorthos is really disappointed by what could be received as a dumbing-down of the story, and I understand the objections to things like retconning Nissa's background, but this approach seems to be the best use of the cards themselves as a storytelling medium.
TL/DR: I thought both sets were fine, but I have noticed that Oath of the Gatewatch makes brewing for FNM a heck of a lot more fun.
Cyclone Sire and Wall of Resurgence are going to be beasts in limited. And, once again, the artwork was really really good (Dazzling Reflection) or completely awful (Netcaster Spider). Pay attention to the hidden gems. There was a decent self-mill enabler in case the strategy hold water in the future: Corpse Churn.
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).
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).
I don't actually fault the set's "power-downs" for Shock and Rampant Growth because Devoid has implications when it comes to removal in particular and I suspect they intentionally powered-down traditional ramp in an Eldrazi-focused set.
OGW's biggest mistake is introducing too many "new" mechanics and not retaining enough of BFZ's mechanics - now that the blocks consists of two sets, the two sets need to share mechanical consistency in order to maintain a "Identity". Pretty much the main reason BFZ and OGW have the same identity is simply from the "Eldrazi" (+ Devoid) and "Ally" subtypes now, mechanically, they are almost from two different blocks.
I know the 2-Set Block Paradigm is new, but they need to realize they can't do drastic sweeping changes mechanically like they did with Rise of the Eldrazi, Avacyn Restored, nor can they even do it less drastically like with New Phyrexia and Dragons of Tarkir, the second set that links the first and third set's differences isn't there anymore, and the few mechanics brought over to OGW from BFZ cannot hold that line. (A quick scan through the spoiler shows pretty much only the 2 Elemental Creatures in RG have landfall, which literally makes Devoid the only "mechanic" that is left over and it is more of a "Colorless Indicator" than a "Mechanic" play-wise.)
Red is going to love having more options to deal with pesky things like Kor Firewalker, Burrenton Forge-Tender or Etched Champion. Kozilek's Return is amazing to have as a cheap colorless sweeper for older formats especially.