General census about Shards seem to be that is the weakest set to come out since Champions. After looking briefly at the spoiler and seeing all the generic grizzly bear creatures, I can't really say that I disagree.
So now I want to ask you, will the overall lower power level of shards lead you to buying less of the set? For me, most likely. I like opening packs and having cards that I can not only put into standard decks, but other formats as well. I think it was a bad move on the part of Wizards to print such a weak set because it offers less of an incentive for players to buy more packs. I also dont like how there are no rare tri-lands in shards (they introduce mythic and we dont even get the good lands at the rare rarity for compensation?! BS!!)
Definitely... I'm having doubts abuout going to the prerelease/launch party now that the full spoiler is out. I'm actually glad that the spoiler is finished this late (3 days before the PR), otherwise I'd been disenchanted a long time ago... I was excited about the set, but now I realize MaRo was right about the expansion sets being more beginner-friendly. Heck, after this, I hope Core Sets get better, because I'm really considering not going to any Limited format with Shards... unless Conflux and "Scissors" have some tricks up their sleeve... (well, at least there aren't as many legends as in Kamigawa, and the mechanics vary, so I'd say this set is better in that aspect). Although there are some cards that really interest me, so at least I'll buy the Fat Pack, since I always do anyway...
As for the lack of rare lands... are you kidding? That's one of the things we non-rich, non-netdecking, rogue-deckers love about the set! (I was implying that if you REALLY want 10+ rare lands in a set, you must be rich, or a netdecker) Budget cards are a salvation, and I hope WotC keeps repeating this example. I do wanna see all of Future Sight's rare land cycles in their completion one day, but aside from that, I'd be elated not to see any more rare lands ever! (Well, I KNOW a Mythic land will come sooner or later... Serra's Realm, perhaps?)
I don't see myself buying many packs just for the sake of getting new cards, but I rarely do that anyway. What I do see myself doing with shards is a lot of drafting. In limited the set's level of power relative to older sets is irrelevant, and as a stand-alone shards looks like a lot of fun to play. Maybe a bit slower, but fun doesn't have to come from a turn 4 win every time.
Not at all.
"Weak" sets makes for more interesting limited play and more open deck designs.
Plus, the flavuor and art of this set is the best in ages, beats Lowryn by miles.
Plus, the flavuor and art of this set is the best in ages, beats Lowryn by miles.
Ehm.. I think anything beats Lorwyn by miles. And considering aspects like the great amount of cards with cycling, I agree that it may be fun to draft with. I was a bit disappointed by the art, along with many things, too. The Esper Shard (by definite favorite, and the one from which I want the cards) wasn't as powerful as I thought, but it was that, or being broken.
People really need to stop attempting to justify this crappy set with, "well at least it has good art." So what? If you want good art, you should probably be an art collector as opposed to a magic player. I want playable cards in a tournament environment.
People really need to stop attempting to justify this crappy set with, "well at least it has good art." So what? If you want good art, you should probably be an art collector as opposed to a magic player. I want playable cards in a tournament environment
Amen, the worst thing though is that because shards is so weak, we're just going to have another year of 90% of the decks in standard being from Lorwyn.
Amen, the worst thing though is that because shards is so weak, we're just going to have another year of 90% of the decks in standard being from Lorwyn.
Exactly. The environment will be stale. We'll have Kithkin, Faeries, and 5c control. That's it. Thank you Wizards.
People really need to stop attempting to justify this crappy set with, "well at least it has good art." So what? If you want good art, you should probably be an art collector as opposed to a magic player. I want playable cards in a tournament environment.
I don't know about you, but I actually support the artists and purchase prints of my favorite card arts when available.
But hey, it's good to know you'd prefer little slips of paper with words on them.
@Seppel
Hey, I like Magic Online.
(People are bashing all the stuff I like in this thread!)
---
Ok, seriously now:
Whenever any set comes out there will be people saying that the set is absurdly weak. I've never been one of those before. But now I'm. I had a few hopes for Alara, and it seemed like it would be a nice set - but now that the spoiler is complete it looks so uninteresting that's even sad.
Maybe after Conflux and the third set comes out, the block themes will be a bit more developed and powerful. But for now, I really can't see this making any significant impact in Standard. Exaggerating a little bit (but not much), the only reason Standard won't be Lorwyn Block is because of Tenth Edition.
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Quote from parinoid »
I rolled 5 D6's and got 3 fours. They must have changed the odds of getting a 4!
I don't know about you, but I actually support the artists and purchase prints of my favorite card arts when available.
But hey, it's good to know you'd prefer little slips of paper with words on them.
You probably like Magic Online, too.
No, I like competitive magic and art has nothing to do with that. Art is irrelevant to a CARD GAME in which you do damage to win, not who plays the card with the better artist to win.
As for the lack of rare lands... are you kidding? That's one of the things we non-rich, non-netdecking, rogue-deckers love about the set! (I was implying that if you REALLY want 10+ rare lands in a set, you must be rich, or a netdecker) Budget cards are a salvation, and I hope WotC keeps repeating this example. I do wanna see all of Future Sight's rare land cycles in their completion one day, but aside from that, I'd be elated not to see any more rare lands ever! (Well, I KNOW a Mythic land will come sooner or later... Serra's Realm, perhaps?)
I do agree with you, but for a set like this you still need land fixers, so rare land from older/newer sets in standard or core.
Ehm.. I think anything beats Lorwyn by miles. And considering aspects like the great amount of cards with cycling, I agree that it may be fun to draft with. I was a bit disappointed by the art, along with many things, too. The Esper Shard (by definite favorite, and the one from which I want the cards) wasn't as powerful as I thought, but it was that, or being broken.
I seriously like Lorwyn, though I love tribal and stuff. The cards used for cycling allmost all suck. I hope you have realised that.
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hey i have managed to evolve my axolotls by feeding them thyroid glands the thyroxine contained in these gland is enough to change these water dwelling creatures into land based creatures
Posted by: Tay Collins | January 20, 2010 6:45 AM
Tay, that's not evolution. It's metamorphosis. Evolution means descent with heritable modification – individuals cannot evolve, unless they're Pokemon.
Posted by: David Marjanović | January 20, 2010 8:55 AM
Would you play Magic if it was played on small black slips of cardboard with white text? (no center art, no template art, no mana symbol art, no flavor text, etc.)
No, you wouldn't.
Art is completely relevant to Magic. There would be no game to play without the artists (both visual and textual).
Would you play Magic if it was played on small black slips of cardboard with white text? (no center art, no template art, no mana symbol art, no flavor text, etc.)
No, you wouldn't.
Art is completely relevant to Magic. There would be no game to play without the artists (both visual and textual).
Here's a form all of us should fill out when we need to vent, rather than creating new threads. I daresay you guys will find it quite useful every 3 months or so.
Anyway. You guys should just relax, and play around with the cards as well. It's true that we won't immediately see a whole load of Shards decks. It's new, and the shards need time to grow. Besides, Esper, Jund and Bant are all semi-decent. I'm sure we'll have some new archetypes.
Let me say it first "The sky is falling...The sky is falling..." Anywho on with the actual response. Sure this set looks weak so far, I've spent the last few hours on my shift going over a couple of times. There are really interesting cards in this set (Cradle of Vitality or whatever that for 1W puts a +1/+1 counter on a creature when you gain life is silly with kitchen finks.) Hell's Thunder might keep RDW in the running. Scourglass is excellent I think and will probably be the basis for an esper control monster. The overall quality of the rare cards reminds me of I hate to say it, Invasion. There were some really good ones that made you go wow and some really weak ones that made you want to quit playing magic. All I care about now is actually getting a hold of the cards and seeing what I can do with them. And this set looks like it will be alot more fun than Shadowmoor/Eventide limited-wise. I haven't much played limited seriously since Lorwyn first came out and before that it was Ravnica. Although I might not have the time to play this block as much as I want, I'll be happy Saturday after I've gotten through a few rounds of sealed.
Not at all.
"Weak" sets makes for more interesting limited play and more open deck designs.
Plus, the flavuor and art of this set is the best in ages, beats Lowryn by miles.
Yeah, uh, I disagree - Lorwyn was interesting and Alara isn't.
People complain about the flavor of Lorwyn and call it childlike or babyish, which I find inane. Well, okay, maybe not the precise words used but that seems to be the general gist of the complaints. It wasn't shoehorned into the five colors like Alara is - the tribes were given a more, I suppose I should say, "organic" feel. A (mostly successful) effort was made to spread them out among the colors. As to comparisions with Onslaugt block... to be quite frank, I find Lorwyn/Morningtide to infinitely more interesting. I've bought packs of Lorwyn and Morningtide, where I bought none for Onslaught block.
The settings of Alara are some of the most dull I have seen from WotC in years - Bant is white, Esper is blue, and so on. They didn't even try to fit that into the set mechanics - for the most part, the multicolor cards don't feel as if they have much to do with, well, anything. Let's see.. what else? The cycling feels kludged-in. Naya's mechanical identity is lousy, lousy, lousy. I admit that Exalted is intriguing, but they didn't really do much with it, I felt.
In summary - Lorwyn forever, Alara (and Onslaught) never.
That may be a little disorganized, but I hope I've been clear enough.
edit: oh, yeah one further thing - I don't think Alara is the worst set WotC has ever printed, much less since Champions or some other arbitrary mark. I simply find it disappointing in most respects and will not buy it or even try playing with most of the cards. Perhaps I'll be missing out on something amazing that way. Oh, well. I'll live.
I seriously like Lorwyn, though I love tribal and stuff. The cards used for cycling allmost all suck. I hope you have realised that.
Of course, I was trying to say there's a positive side to the sad fact that most of them are unplayable, and that I'd only use them for the cycling. (i.e. They only printed them for the cycling. Cycling fillers, if you will)
Yeah, uh, I disagree - Lorwyn was interesting and Alara isn't.
People complain about the flavor of Lorwyn and call it childlike or babyish, which I find inane. Well, okay, maybe not the precise words used but that seems to be the general gist of the complaints. It wasn't shoehorned into the five colors like Alara is - the tribes were given a more, I suppose I should say, "organic" feel. A (mostly successful) effort was made to spread them out among the colors. As to comparisions with Onslaugt block... to be quite frank, I find Lorwyn/Morningtide to infinitely more interesting. I've bought packs of Lorwyn and Morningtide, where I bought none for Onslaught block.
The settings of Alara are some of the most dull I have seen from WotC in years - Bant is white, Esper is blue, and so on. They didn't even try to fit that into the set mechanics - for the most part, the multicolor cards don't feel as if they have much to do with, well, anything. Let's see.. what else? The cycling feels kludged-in. Naya's mechanical identity is lousy, lousy, lousy. I admit that Exalted is intriguing, but they didn't really do much with it, I felt.
In summary - Lorwyn forever, Alara (and Onslaught) never.
Yeah, Alara is quite bland, but I do think that the direction WotC took for the theme in Shards was just because there was nothing else they could come up with. I guess they're saving most Future Sight's shifted cards for later.
And for the Lorwyn thing, I do think that it depends on people's tastes and opinions. I do see things to like in it and understand those who appreciate the block, but not me. On the other hand, in my level of favorite-ness, Shadowmoor equaled Onslaught, and those are my two favorite blocks. Now, I think Onslaught did the tribal thing better than Lorwyn, because the latter was sorta exaggerated (and for personal reasons: I started playing the game in Onslaught, that's why it has a special place in my heart <3. And Lorwyn just angered me because I had thought of all the "crazy new" things they introduced there before, like Tribal and Planeswalkers, who actually give credit to Future Sight, and I can only guess how many other players were also disappointed at waiting to see such cards printed with no success to only see them once they weren't special anymore:mad:).
As for the art thing, I must admit that it was mainly the art what got me into the game, but once it became my hobby, I stopped caring about the art (I mean, I'd still play the game even if it didn't have any images at all). Alara's art doesn't surprise me (except for Titanic Ultimatum... I think it's a marvelous masterpiece in general, and to think Naya's theme ended up being so poor... I do agree with that. I found no conistency in the +5 power silliness... although I won't deny it'd be quite fun to use in limited).
i only found ONE (1) rare card i would like to play in constructed.
(i'm not talking about bloc constructed, where the less worst card is the best that is not english. but sounds great :D)
i found that depressing and gonna do as few limited as possible. i'm gonna always be unhappy, whatever i crack. (yea 5/5 for 7 hurray !)
(course, some of the mythic are great. but i'm only talking about the card we should see more often, thanks to those mytic !)
the set miss something to unite the shards in constructed. (esper are all artifact, with really few constructed applications (tap, regenerate target artifact :/))
Not talking about the 5+ power thing
as far as limited game play, though, i'll wait and see. (i'm afraid of "look, I got a better limited spoilier than you did, I win" but time will tell)
People will buy boosters to get Mythics as Mythics are New™ and Shiny™.
People will buy boosters to get the uncommons that are uncommonly good - this for me is where the set really shines.
It's been touted as a great drafting set, which will also sell boosters.
Also, look at Morningtide: a set only needs a few GREAT rares to sell a whole lot of boosters. Sarhkan Vol alone will sell a lot of boosters.
Edit - Also worth noting, people are complaining about the constructed power or Lorwyn and Morningtide, but they were horrible to draft. If you got a lot of your tribe, you won. If you didn't, you lost. Shadowmoor was a much better drafting experience, and I have high hopes for shards, as I don't think it'll be a repeat of Lorywn, just replacing tribe with shard - mutlicolours won't be that common in boosters. Check the common/uncommon distribution. Not a huge amount of multi-coloured of either. Enough to be interesting, but not enough to make it essential.
I'll just get my playsets off ebay kthx.
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So now I want to ask you, will the overall lower power level of shards lead you to buying less of the set? For me, most likely. I like opening packs and having cards that I can not only put into standard decks, but other formats as well. I think it was a bad move on the part of Wizards to print such a weak set because it offers less of an incentive for players to buy more packs. I also dont like how there are no rare tri-lands in shards (they introduce mythic and we dont even get the good lands at the rare rarity for compensation?! BS!!)
As for the lack of rare lands... are you kidding? That's one of the things we non-rich, non-netdecking, rogue-deckers love about the set! (I was implying that if you REALLY want 10+ rare lands in a set, you must be rich, or a netdecker) Budget cards are a salvation, and I hope WotC keeps repeating this example. I do wanna see all of Future Sight's rare land cycles in their completion one day, but aside from that, I'd be elated not to see any more rare lands ever! (Well, I KNOW a Mythic land will come sooner or later... Serra's Realm, perhaps?)
I like 4/4s for 7.
"Weak" sets makes for more interesting limited play and more open deck designs.
Plus, the flavuor and art of this set is the best in ages, beats Lowryn by miles.
Ehm.. I think anything beats Lorwyn by miles. And considering aspects like the great amount of cards with cycling, I agree that it may be fun to draft with. I was a bit disappointed by the art, along with many things, too. The Esper Shard (by definite favorite, and the one from which I want the cards) wasn't as powerful as I thought, but it was that, or being broken.
I like 4/4s for 7.
Coldsnap.
Oh snap!
One of the highest selling sets in the history of magic and it was not powerful at all.
Also in my opinion one of the most boring sets of all time.
Feel free to bid on my cards here!
Well, Alara draft will be fine, probably.
Art was bad...
They claim this to be the best draft set ever, if that's true it will definitely make up the sales.
I think the set looks rather boring, there are only a few cards playable in older formats.
People really need to stop attempting to justify this crappy set with, "well at least it has good art." So what? If you want good art, you should probably be an art collector as opposed to a magic player. I want playable cards in a tournament environment.
Amen, the worst thing though is that because shards is so weak, we're just going to have another year of 90% of the decks in standard being from Lorwyn.
Exactly. The environment will be stale. We'll have Kithkin, Faeries, and 5c control. That's it. Thank you Wizards.
I don't know about you, but I actually support the artists and purchase prints of my favorite card arts when available.
But hey, it's good to know you'd prefer little slips of paper with words on them.
You probably like Magic Online, too.
Yes i am the same guy who trades/sells on MOTL AND Wizards of the Coast and i trade on POJO.
Hey, I like Magic Online.
(People are bashing all the stuff I like in this thread!)
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Ok, seriously now:
Whenever any set comes out there will be people saying that the set is absurdly weak. I've never been one of those before. But now I'm. I had a few hopes for Alara, and it seemed like it would be a nice set - but now that the spoiler is complete it looks so uninteresting that's even sad.
Maybe after Conflux and the third set comes out, the block themes will be a bit more developed and powerful. But for now, I really can't see this making any significant impact in Standard. Exaggerating a little bit (but not much), the only reason Standard won't be Lorwyn Block is because of Tenth Edition.
No, I like competitive magic and art has nothing to do with that. Art is irrelevant to a CARD GAME in which you do damage to win, not who plays the card with the better artist to win.
I do agree with you, but for a set like this you still need land fixers, so rare land from older/newer sets in standard or core.
I seriously like Lorwyn, though I love tribal and stuff. The cards used for cycling allmost all suck. I hope you have realised that.
Posted by: Tay Collins | January 20, 2010 6:45 AM
Tay, that's not evolution. It's metamorphosis. Evolution means descent with heritable modification – individuals cannot evolve, unless they're Pokemon.
Posted by: David Marjanović | January 20, 2010 8:55 AM
Would you play Magic if it was played on small black slips of cardboard with white text? (no center art, no template art, no mana symbol art, no flavor text, etc.)
No, you wouldn't.
Art is completely relevant to Magic. There would be no game to play without the artists (both visual and textual).
Seriously people. YAWN.
Go do some work or something.
People play chess, don't they?
Art is irrelevant. And yes, yes I would.
Let me say it first "The sky is falling...The sky is falling..." Anywho on with the actual response. Sure this set looks weak so far, I've spent the last few hours on my shift going over a couple of times. There are really interesting cards in this set (Cradle of Vitality or whatever that for 1W puts a +1/+1 counter on a creature when you gain life is silly with kitchen finks.) Hell's Thunder might keep RDW in the running. Scourglass is excellent I think and will probably be the basis for an esper control monster. The overall quality of the rare cards reminds me of I hate to say it, Invasion. There were some really good ones that made you go wow and some really weak ones that made you want to quit playing magic. All I care about now is actually getting a hold of the cards and seeing what I can do with them. And this set looks like it will be alot more fun than Shadowmoor/Eventide limited-wise. I haven't much played limited seriously since Lorwyn first came out and before that it was Ravnica. Although I might not have the time to play this block as much as I want, I'll be happy Saturday after I've gotten through a few rounds of sealed.
Wins/Losses/Draws
13/2/1
Yeah, uh, I disagree - Lorwyn was interesting and Alara isn't.
People complain about the flavor of Lorwyn and call it childlike or babyish, which I find inane. Well, okay, maybe not the precise words used but that seems to be the general gist of the complaints. It wasn't shoehorned into the five colors like Alara is - the tribes were given a more, I suppose I should say, "organic" feel. A (mostly successful) effort was made to spread them out among the colors. As to comparisions with Onslaugt block... to be quite frank, I find Lorwyn/Morningtide to infinitely more interesting. I've bought packs of Lorwyn and Morningtide, where I bought none for Onslaught block.
The settings of Alara are some of the most dull I have seen from WotC in years - Bant is white, Esper is blue, and so on. They didn't even try to fit that into the set mechanics - for the most part, the multicolor cards don't feel as if they have much to do with, well, anything. Let's see.. what else? The cycling feels kludged-in. Naya's mechanical identity is lousy, lousy, lousy. I admit that Exalted is intriguing, but they didn't really do much with it, I felt.
In summary - Lorwyn forever, Alara (and Onslaught) never.
That may be a little disorganized, but I hope I've been clear enough.
edit: oh, yeah one further thing - I don't think Alara is the worst set WotC has ever printed, much less since Champions or some other arbitrary mark. I simply find it disappointing in most respects and will not buy it or even try playing with most of the cards. Perhaps I'll be missing out on something amazing that way. Oh, well. I'll live.
Shards of awful never
Of course, I was trying to say there's a positive side to the sad fact that most of them are unplayable, and that I'd only use them for the cycling. (i.e. They only printed them for the cycling. Cycling fillers, if you will)
Yeah, Alara is quite bland, but I do think that the direction WotC took for the theme in Shards was just because there was nothing else they could come up with. I guess they're saving most Future Sight's shifted cards for later.
And for the Lorwyn thing, I do think that it depends on people's tastes and opinions. I do see things to like in it and understand those who appreciate the block, but not me. On the other hand, in my level of favorite-ness, Shadowmoor equaled Onslaught, and those are my two favorite blocks. Now, I think Onslaught did the tribal thing better than Lorwyn, because the latter was sorta exaggerated (and for personal reasons: I started playing the game in Onslaught, that's why it has a special place in my heart <3. And Lorwyn just angered me because I had thought of all the "crazy new" things they introduced there before, like Tribal and Planeswalkers, who actually give credit to Future Sight, and I can only guess how many other players were also disappointed at waiting to see such cards printed with no success to only see them once they weren't special anymore:mad:).
As for the art thing, I must admit that it was mainly the art what got me into the game, but once it became my hobby, I stopped caring about the art (I mean, I'd still play the game even if it didn't have any images at all). Alara's art doesn't surprise me (except for Titanic Ultimatum... I think it's a marvelous masterpiece in general, and to think Naya's theme ended up being so poor... I do agree with that. I found no conistency in the +5 power silliness... although I won't deny it'd be quite fun to use in limited).
I like 4/4s for 7.
(i'm not talking about bloc constructed, where the less worst card is the best that is not english. but sounds great :D)
i found that depressing and gonna do as few limited as possible. i'm gonna always be unhappy, whatever i crack. (yea 5/5 for 7 hurray !)
(course, some of the mythic are great. but i'm only talking about the card we should see more often, thanks to those mytic !)
the set miss something to unite the shards in constructed. (esper are all artifact, with really few constructed applications (tap, regenerate target artifact :/))
Not talking about the 5+ power thing
as far as limited game play, though, i'll wait and see. (i'm afraid of "look, I got a better limited spoilier than you did, I win" but time will tell)
I'll just get my playsets off ebay kthx.