MTG Salvation

I for one love the set. I am a vorthos and a lovecraft fan and so greatly enjoy the flavor. While the cards are nothing like khans power, they are interesting and linear, unlike the low powered cards from Dragons-Origins and I won't have to compete with spikes and modern players for most of them. These are the kind of bad cards I want, the kind you can throw in EDH or tier 2.5 decks and do something fun with.

Quote from LouCypher »

So basically, you want Magic to be a stagnant game that is the same every year with the same mana dorks, the same cantrips, the same mana rocks, the same burn spells every single year after year? Because that's what you're proposing. WOTC is tinkering with numbers and placement a bit to allow different styles of standard, and people like you keep claiming "It's not the same so it sucks". The constant flux keeps the game (especially standard) fresh, whether you play standard or not, THAT is what they cater to.

Two things:

- Having good types of cards DO NOT make every deck run the same strategy. That is a fallacy. We had plenty of standard with one-mana dorks that led to different decks. For instance, in the current standard, it would help the elves deck a lot because it would make 8 copies of 1 mana dorks coupled with the one that only adds mana for elves. Good burn spells do not result in the same burn decks. In RTR we had a very interesting burn deck with chandra's phoenix, chandra pyromaster, warleader's helix, boros charm. It had a lot of spells, which is rare nowadays, and it was very interesting because of that. Good counterspells lead to better and more viable control strategies, not necessarily the same decks. UW sphinx's revelation decks were very different from UB pear lake ancient control decks. So, no. Wanting cards at a decent power level does not mean that all decks will be the same or will show up with the same strategy.

- Standard is not fresh, it is boring as f***. Almost everything is midrange slugfest. We have mardu green, abzan blue, mono-red eldrazi, mono-blue eldrazi, blergh. There is ONE ramp deck and ONE sorta combo deck in rally. Rally also became really boring to watch after a while. Standard is terrible. Control is basically dead, aggro is basically dead (atarka red doesn't put more good results), there are only midrange decks, one ramp and one sorta combo deck. How is that good??

Hmm, there should have been a semi-positive choice between the first option and "meh". Delirium is hard to use, but the Clues and Investigate look fun. ^^

Well, I didn't get exactly what I wanted which is another staple for modern mono green stompy.. but there's some nice cards in this set ... so I choose the first option. The small shopping list on my next trip to the mall after release - since I'm poor right now =_= - would be 1 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets, 1 Declaration in Stone for Modern, and 4 Tireless Tracker + 4 Duskwatch Recruiter + 1 Skeleteon Key for casual. :>

I do have a criticism of one of the themes in this set, though. Werewolves. Sure we still have one more set to go but it feels like they were all sort of designed last in the set. Most of them feel like vanillas and while we do have a couple cool ones from this set, most others aren't terribly exciting. I do hope that Eldritch Moon can bring us a legendary Werewolf for all those howlpack lovers out there.

Oh, and by the way, Arlinn is really cool. I'm juts not sure that she counts because she's not a creature.

The original Innistrad is my favorite block of all time. It was the set where I really started getting into Magic big time after I came back from a long, long hiatus (last time I had played was Onslaught/Mirrodin Standard). I feel like this is, despite obviously not being as high powered a set, a very worthy return and I am incredibly satisfied with the return. The last few blocks have had very few cards I ended up wanting or picking up for any of my decks, I think Shadows alone has more than them all combined.

If you judge new sets based on power level, first of all you're missing the point; second of all you're missing the point.

You're missing the point because we've had good and bad Standard and Limited environments both when the power level of those formats was really high, and when it was really low. How balanced and interesting formats are has nothing to do with how powerful the cards are! If your impression is based on whether the set has pushed Constructed cards in it, then you're not really judging the set but asking a really narrow question.

You're also missing the point because making claims that you know the overall Constructed impact or power level of a set right now is basically claiming you have powers of clairvoyance. Constructed is and always will be very contextual and complicated, as any of the dozens of previous MTGS posts talking at length about how unplayable Tarmogoyf/Snapcaster Mage/Siege Rhino are will attest.

I get that people playing mostly non-rotating formats feel disappointed when a set comes out that doesn't have any obvious Modern- or Legacy-impacting cards, but it's not actually possible for Wizards to ensure that every set impacts non-rotating formats without power creeping the game out of existence. Plus, I would think you guys would want a break after the giant shakeup that was OGW; I imagine there's an alternate universe where people are complaining loudly that now all their Thought-Knot Seers are worthless after Mono-Werewolf Blue started crushing Modern...