Flavor and artwork are amazing. Some cards do have ugly art, but in general the set knocks out of the park.
Limited is hard to evaulate. I can't say anything about draft, but the sealed pools I was generating with the simulator didn't look very good. I gave a 4 based on my wishful thinking that the sealed generator was not perfectly tuned, that I was unlucky and that draft will be better.
The value comes side by side with the power level, which is low. It is not low in 'unplayable' like BFZ, but let's just say Magic has had better times.
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Flavor and artwork are amazing. Some cards do have ugly art, but in general the set knocks out of the park.
Limited is hard to evaulate. I can't say anything about draft, but the sealed pools I was generating with the simulator didn't look very good. I gave a 4 based on my wishful thinking that the sealed generator was not perfectly tuned, that I was unlucky and that draft will be better.
The value comes side by side with the power level, which is low. It is not low in 'unplayable' like BFZ, but let's just say Magic has had better times.
I had the same reservations about the sealed generator. Sealed in this format is going to be super hard to evaluate. Drafting should be a little easier - but it seems like Wizards is pushing towards more diverse and complex limited environments. There's no real way to be sure how its going to be until its played - though I'm excited to watch the Pre-Pre-Release that Loading Ready Run is streaming today.
Flavor and artwork are amazing. Some cards do have ugly art, but in general the set knocks out of the park.
Limited is hard to evaulate. I can't say anything about draft, but the sealed pools I was generating with the simulator didn't look very good. I gave a 4 based on my wishful thinking that the sealed generator was not perfectly tuned, that I was unlucky and that draft will be better.
The value comes side by side with the power level, which is low. It is not low in 'unplayable' like BFZ, but let's just say Magic has had better times.
I had the same reservations about the sealed generator. Sealed in this format is going to be super hard to evaluate. Drafting should be a little easier - but it seems like Wizards is pushing towards more diverse and complex limited environments. There's no real way to be sure how its going to be until its played - though I'm excited to watch the Pre-Pre-Release that Loading Ready Run is streaming today.
I am all for more complex limited. I am tired of different takes on putting a +1/+1 counter on a creature as a color's "Mechanic" and therefore the whole focus of it in limited. It leads to boring creature stalemates.
This set's flavor and art bring it up over any other set the past few years. As a bonus, while the overall power level isn't high, the mechanics are diverse enough that there is some brewing going on and all archetypes are being considered. So poweer level and value are mediocre(but not terrible), but I still like this set more than any other since.... well the original Innistrad.
I think you're missing one important category: The design.
I was optimistic for this set after the first few spoilers, but once the full mechanics were in it was clear this wouldn't be a home run. It felt more of a competent fare for fairly low effort retreading of old ground. They did some good flavorful cards and some novel pushed ones and some neat one-off mechanic cards to show they were still trying, but nothing about investigate, delirium or skulk was compelling. They didn't fall into the trap of BFZ and do a redundant setting to INN 1.0, they changed the scenario pretty substantially with the nutty angels and church inquisitions and tried to make it all about everyone being sherlock holmes, fine. Not world building on par with impressive sets like the original innistrad, below average effort but far better than the last couple revisited planes.
I'd hover around a 5 out of 10 for this set, with hopes eldritch moon delivers something fresher. We already had innistrad be a great set about horror tropes. Then we had DKA recycle that theme painfully without improving on it. Now we've got a third set, but at least this time they had years to put together a couple dozen good one-off tropes instead of just taking reject cards from innistrad 1.0.
I think its clearly better designed than BFZ, worse than khans, I'm not sure where it stacks up against theros. Better than the whole of RTR block just off delivering the singleton novelties.
In terms of flavor and artwork, this set is the best they have done since original Innistrad, and it isn't close at all I think. A lot of the cards tell an story or at least create a compelling environment for the mind to explore. Just look at Pale Rider of Trostad, for instance. Don't you want to know more about the Pale Rider and the moors? Or when looking at Daring Sleuth I can't but wonder about what secret he might have learned. I can't think of a card in the BFZ block that comes even close to those two in terms of flavor.
Ad limited: I've looked at a few sealed pools and wasn't very impressed. The archetypes don't seem to come together particularly well - but they rarely do in sealed anyway. There also seems to be a lot of totally unplayable garbage, but I don't want to judge limited before playing in it. All I can say is that white, green, and red look strong, black looks kinda Ok and blue looks downright bad at first glance. I'd be very surprised if it turned out to be anything but the worst color in limited. The uncommon counterspell makes me a little, well, mad. WHY DOES IT HAVE TO COST MORE WITH MADNESS? A three mana counterspell is bad, it wouldn't have hurt to at least give it a decent madness cost? I mean, it's not that easy to discard at instant-speed anyway...
As a modern player I can't help but be sorely disappointed. The powerlevel of this set is very low and there isn't a single modern reprint. If the few zombie cards don't turn out to be useful in some kind of zombie deck, this set will have absolutely nothing for the modern players. I don't think it's a good idea for WotC to treat the fastest growing format of the game in this way, but that's their decision.
Overall, I'm looking forward to playing in the prerelease and draft, but apart from limited I won't buy or open a single booster because there's literally nothing in this set that I want. Sad, really. It could have been so awesome.
I'm disappointed with this return, it doesnt seem an well made as innistrad. Original innistrad seemed to have equal presence among all tribes while this set does not. It also doesn't reference so many horror tropes as the previous innistrad did.
Problems I have with this set.
1. They again have guildgates at uncommon when they could be common.
2. The rare lands are strictly worse fastlands/checklands and they are ally coloured when original Innistrad had rare enemy lands!
3. So many of the mythics are said to be geared to edh play but why do I feel that is just an excuse? I mean would Behold the Beyond be broken at 6 mana? It still wouldn't see standard/modern/legacy play. There are just so many cards that if only they were one mana less than they would see play in any format.
4. Madness is extremely under pushed in this set, some of the madness cards cost more to cast with it than not! Why? Surely the point of madness is you use another resource to make the spell cheaper. Not more expencive! Only one card ever in the history magic had a higher madness cost and no one ever used it! It was considered a failure. Ichor Slick.
5. Delirium seems way under pushed, for a mechanic that is harder to proc than threshold, it just doesn't hold a candle to its predecessor.
6. Legends were disappointing. I want a new Zombie legend, or a twin UB Geralf-Gissa card. Where's the legend werewolf? Or the legendary Spirit? It just doesn't have the same love for the horror cult as the set Innistrad.
All in all, I don't see myself buying as much into this set as I did with the original Innistrad. Heck I would have rather had them reprint the old set than print this set. Not because I'd get my money's worth of cards but because the older set seemed more fun to play sealed/draft.
From what I have tried using sealed generators I do not like this set.
3/10 on execution.
1. They can't put the duals at common because:
1a) You'd be pulling them out of packs a lot. That's a lot of non-spells in a sealed pool since you can get multiples.
1b) The two color pair synergies and tribe synergies built into the set would be meaningless, as all players would use the available fixing to build 3+ color decks in limited.
2. Not a huge fan of the new lands myself. But why would you want them to be enemy colored? The painlands are enemy, and so are the uncommon taplands. Why do we need 3 sets of enemy duals?
3.A lot of cards would be better at 1 less mana. But they can't reduce the costs like that. They've explained that they only have so much power to distribute among each set. When that power level is reached, they can move it around by making 1 card stronger while another one gets weaker, but they can't just raise the power level of multiple cards. How the total power is decided, I have no idea. But that's how it is.
4.Madness is a dengerous mechanic. I'd rather them being careful with it than pushing it too far. The most dangerous mechanics in MtG are those that reduce mana costs. As for your complaint, ther is only ONE card on SoI that has a madness cost higher than its casting cost. That's broken concentration.
Why does it cost more on madness than to cast? Because Jace, vryn's prodigy. There is no way in hell they are going to let us play splashable counterspell as a cantrip in standard. If they won't reprint circular logic (With good reason), There is absolutely no way they would cost this card's madness at 1U. Doing so would be a design mistake, and we'd hate them for it.
As to your last point. Ichor slick has a higher madness cost then mana cost because it has cycling. You can cast it to destroy a creature, or you can cycle it if you're mana screwed, or you can cycle it, then pay the madness cost to get a cantripped kill spell. The card can basically madness itself without a discard engine. AND it's splashable. If you haven't drawn your black source, you can just replace it with another card. For those reasons, it was a top pick in limited. I assure you it was not considered a failure.
Finally, the point of madness it not to get a reduced cost. it's that you get to cast a card that you discarded, meeting discard requirements while still getting the spell. Costs thend to be lower because many effect that allow you to discard cost mana. But they are costed according to powerlevel. (Creatures will have higher madness costs)
5. Not sure if I find delirium under pushed. It's a passive mechanic that requires some deckbuilding commitment. But the problem with it is thatsupport cards for delirium become pretty bad once you already have it. Unless your deck is graveyard based, you get no benefit out of continuing to fill your graveyard. And in limited it's downright dangerous. Discard helps delirium, but without madness, you can end up in card disadvantage. For a lot of the cards, getting the delirium bonus isn't worth losing a permanent or a card in hand.
6. I consider legendary to be nothing but a drawback, so I personally don't mind if there are few. (Didn't notice honestly)
Guildgates were never actually regular commons, rather they were commons that took up a special land slot in packs. And I'm still mystified as to why people don't understand that taplands at common is a thing that happens in gold sets but they shouldn't expect normally...
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On average, Magic players are worse at new card evaluation than almost every other skill, except perhaps sideboarding.
Card advantage and various drawbacks/abilities in this set are really hard to judge without playing, and I suspect it will be a lot like Odyssey block in terms of twisting the typical approach to card evaluation.
I like the overall look of this block, and I especially like how pushed aggro looks compared to the dorky midrange value cards. I'm looking forward to drafting this block, and maybe even getting back into Standard once Dragons/Origins roll out.
Card advantage and various drawbacks/abilities in this set are really hard to judge without playing, and I suspect it will be a lot like Odyssey block in terms of twisting the typical approach to card evaluation.
I like the overall look of this block, and I especially like how pushed aggro looks compared to the dorky midrange value cards. I'm looking forward to drafting this block, and maybe even getting back into Standard once Dragons/Origins roll out.
Actually, aggro doesn't seem to be pushed that much to me except maybe zombies.. No 1 mana burn spell, and a lot of the madness cards are grindy.
But we'll see.
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Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
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Gave it a 5 for flavor because the design on the majority of cards is simply fantastic. Art gets a 4, maybe because it feels so refreshing to see something that isn't an interchangable cg squid. Power and value both get a 3 from first impression. the set seems to have some sweet cards, but nothing that really screams modern or legacy superstar to me. Limited gets a 3 meaning nothing in that regard, cause I really can't judge it without playing. It looks promising at first glance at least. Reprints... yeah, that's a solid 1 there. Khans had fetches, theros had just thoughtseize but that alone really pushed the set. SOI has gloomwidow and mad prophet, F- on that.
I'm SO SICK of the "too strong for Standard" argument. It's the new "Dies to removal". We can have a two mana 4/4 with a zillion abilities, but we can't just have Accumulated Knowledge. Makes sense.
Art and Flavor are even BETTER than last time.(mostly cuz it is oozing Bloodborne flavor and I LOVE that game) Power seems like a 4, value at around a 3-4, reprints is a 1(cuz there are almost none) Limited looks to be about a 4. But that's probably me wanting to build the Seagraf deck, or U/G clues.
Well, I feel like the original Innistrad makes this set look like garbage. Honestly, it is almost as if they had a good set and just decided to nerf everything just a little bit. Declaration in stone? could have cost w and only exiled one creature and investigated for it, and would have been modern playable. Jace? Seems like he could have been 4 mana, no problem, make him start with slightly less loyalty. Wolf of Devil's breach? 4 mana with 1r activation cost. Ulvenwald hydra? 4 mana, no reach. These small changes could have made these cards so much stronger. In addition, I feel like they focused on the discarding theme a little too heavily, causing a limited that was really annoying due to the unplayable commons (Stern constable, not forgotten, chaplains blessing, silburblind snapper, silent observer, peices of the puzzle, alms of the vein, pick the brain, merciless resolve)
this is the most flavorful set that has ever been made, I gave it a 5. I gave the art a 4 but it could have been 4.5. power level I gave a 5 but that is because there are a few cards i'm REALLY excited to use (brain in a jar!). I gave a 3 to reprints because I felt it was sort of random to include that, but whatever. I likes me some mad prophet. value I gave a 4 because it seems to me there are way more impactful commons/uncommons than any set I have seen in awhile. I am not saying there are tons of staples laying around, rather, there are lots of things that have potential for cube, pauper, and interactions with future cards that are not apparent right now. limited I gave a 5, I am sure drafting this will be loads better than my garbage sealed pool I got at the prerelease.
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Limited is hard to evaulate. I can't say anything about draft, but the sealed pools I was generating with the simulator didn't look very good. I gave a 4 based on my wishful thinking that the sealed generator was not perfectly tuned, that I was unlucky and that draft will be better.
The value comes side by side with the power level, which is low. It is not low in 'unplayable' like BFZ, but let's just say Magic has had better times.
Reprints? What reprints? Unruly Mob?
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 had the same reservations about the sealed generator. Sealed in this format is going to be super hard to evaluate. Drafting should be a little easier - but it seems like Wizards is pushing towards more diverse and complex limited environments. There's no real way to be sure how its going to be until its played - though I'm excited to watch the Pre-Pre-Release that Loading Ready Run is streaming today.
Custom Set
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I am all for more complex limited. I am tired of different takes on putting a +1/+1 counter on a creature as a color's "Mechanic" and therefore the whole focus of it in limited. It leads to boring creature stalemates.
This set's flavor and art bring it up over any other set the past few years. As a bonus, while the overall power level isn't high, the mechanics are diverse enough that there is some brewing going on and all archetypes are being considered. So poweer level and value are mediocre(but not terrible), but I still like this set more than any other since.... well the original Innistrad.
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Standard Deck:
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Modern Deck:
B8-Rack
I was optimistic for this set after the first few spoilers, but once the full mechanics were in it was clear this wouldn't be a home run. It felt more of a competent fare for fairly low effort retreading of old ground. They did some good flavorful cards and some novel pushed ones and some neat one-off mechanic cards to show they were still trying, but nothing about investigate, delirium or skulk was compelling. They didn't fall into the trap of BFZ and do a redundant setting to INN 1.0, they changed the scenario pretty substantially with the nutty angels and church inquisitions and tried to make it all about everyone being sherlock holmes, fine. Not world building on par with impressive sets like the original innistrad, below average effort but far better than the last couple revisited planes.
I'd hover around a 5 out of 10 for this set, with hopes eldritch moon delivers something fresher. We already had innistrad be a great set about horror tropes. Then we had DKA recycle that theme painfully without improving on it. Now we've got a third set, but at least this time they had years to put together a couple dozen good one-off tropes instead of just taking reject cards from innistrad 1.0.
I think its clearly better designed than BFZ, worse than khans, I'm not sure where it stacks up against theros. Better than the whole of RTR block just off delivering the singleton novelties.
Ad limited: I've looked at a few sealed pools and wasn't very impressed. The archetypes don't seem to come together particularly well - but they rarely do in sealed anyway. There also seems to be a lot of totally unplayable garbage, but I don't want to judge limited before playing in it. All I can say is that white, green, and red look strong, black looks kinda Ok and blue looks downright bad at first glance. I'd be very surprised if it turned out to be anything but the worst color in limited. The uncommon counterspell makes me a little, well, mad. WHY DOES IT HAVE TO COST MORE WITH MADNESS? A three mana counterspell is bad, it wouldn't have hurt to at least give it a decent madness cost? I mean, it's not that easy to discard at instant-speed anyway...
As a modern player I can't help but be sorely disappointed. The powerlevel of this set is very low and there isn't a single modern reprint. If the few zombie cards don't turn out to be useful in some kind of zombie deck, this set will have absolutely nothing for the modern players. I don't think it's a good idea for WotC to treat the fastest growing format of the game in this way, but that's their decision.
Overall, I'm looking forward to playing in the prerelease and draft, but apart from limited I won't buy or open a single booster because there's literally nothing in this set that I want. Sad, really. It could have been so awesome.
1. They can't put the duals at common because:
1a) You'd be pulling them out of packs a lot. That's a lot of non-spells in a sealed pool since you can get multiples.
1b) The two color pair synergies and tribe synergies built into the set would be meaningless, as all players would use the available fixing to build 3+ color decks in limited.
2. Not a huge fan of the new lands myself. But why would you want them to be enemy colored? The painlands are enemy, and so are the uncommon taplands. Why do we need 3 sets of enemy duals?
3.A lot of cards would be better at 1 less mana. But they can't reduce the costs like that. They've explained that they only have so much power to distribute among each set. When that power level is reached, they can move it around by making 1 card stronger while another one gets weaker, but they can't just raise the power level of multiple cards. How the total power is decided, I have no idea. But that's how it is.
4.Madness is a dengerous mechanic. I'd rather them being careful with it than pushing it too far. The most dangerous mechanics in MtG are those that reduce mana costs. As for your complaint, ther is only ONE card on SoI that has a madness cost higher than its casting cost. That's broken concentration.
Why does it cost more on madness than to cast? Because Jace, vryn's prodigy. There is no way in hell they are going to let us play splashable counterspell as a cantrip in standard. If they won't reprint circular logic (With good reason), There is absolutely no way they would cost this card's madness at 1U. Doing so would be a design mistake, and we'd hate them for it.
As to your last point. Ichor slick has a higher madness cost then mana cost because it has cycling. You can cast it to destroy a creature, or you can cycle it if you're mana screwed, or you can cycle it, then pay the madness cost to get a cantripped kill spell. The card can basically madness itself without a discard engine. AND it's splashable. If you haven't drawn your black source, you can just replace it with another card. For those reasons, it was a top pick in limited. I assure you it was not considered a failure.
Finally, the point of madness it not to get a reduced cost. it's that you get to cast a card that you discarded, meeting discard requirements while still getting the spell. Costs thend to be lower because many effect that allow you to discard cost mana. But they are costed according to powerlevel. (Creatures will have higher madness costs)
5. Not sure if I find delirium under pushed. It's a passive mechanic that requires some deckbuilding commitment. But the problem with it is thatsupport cards for delirium become pretty bad once you already have it. Unless your deck is graveyard based, you get no benefit out of continuing to fill your graveyard. And in limited it's downright dangerous. Discard helps delirium, but without madness, you can end up in card disadvantage. For a lot of the cards, getting the delirium bonus isn't worth losing a permanent or a card in hand.
6. I consider legendary to be nothing but a drawback, so I personally don't mind if there are few. (Didn't notice honestly)
7. Who's captain multiverse?
I like the overall look of this block, and I especially like how pushed aggro looks compared to the dorky midrange value cards. I'm looking forward to drafting this block, and maybe even getting back into Standard once Dragons/Origins roll out.
Actually, aggro doesn't seem to be pushed that much to me except maybe zombies.. No 1 mana burn spell, and a lot of the madness cards are grindy.
But we'll see.
but still very good.
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Control needs more love.
EDH:
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm
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WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
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