Hey guys, I didn't play during Scars block. I'm not even sure that the whole block was drafted together. But I really like the theme of the block. How good was full block Scars draft? How does it stack up to other draft environments like 3xRoE or 3xINN? Or is it more along the line of THS or RTR-block, or other mediocre draft environments like that?
Scars was a fine block. Nothing really special, but pretty fun. It was a comparatively slow format, utterly dominated by its rares. Bomb-centric doesn't even begin to describe it. Cards with big butts like Alpha Tyrranax were much better than normal because all the cheap aggro stuff was designed for the Infect deck, which tended to be in a bit of an awkward place. Infect was a real deck but it wasn't really deep enough to support a lot of drafters, so it was often a gamble trying to get into it. Green was generally the color to want to be in, if I remember right, but you usually played the colors of your bombs if they weren't artifacts.
Scars was the block where they started doing the reverse draft strategy, with New Phyrexia being Pack 1. I like it better than RTR and much better than THS, but I don't think it really comes close to any of the really awesome draft formats. I'd rate it on par with Khans draft (not Dragons, which I think is worse).
I like NPH-MBS-SOM more than the previous two formats (MSS, and SSS, that is), but it was only okay. Better than THS block, 3xGTC, or DGR, but worse than ROE, INN, or 3xKTK. About on par with 3xRTR, in my opinion.
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I primarily play limited, so most of my spoiler season comments view cards through that lens.
The Scars set itself was pretty bad because the best deck was far and away based around infect, but you had little or no ability to control how many infect creatures you got.
Once it was a full block it was really good, because fewer infect creatures but adding proliferate let both types of deck coexist.
How does it stack up to other draft environments like 3xRoE or 3xINN?
Let's not go crazy here. Those are the two best limited formats of all time. Full block Scars was above average, but it's not a top5 format.
Scars was never very good because Poison. I remember I got a super awesome poison deck and round 1, my opponent drops sword of B/G turn 2 every time.
Also some of the bombs were super bomby, like Wurmcoil. Or the swords. A resolved sword if you didn't have a shatter effect RIGHT THERE was GG.
I thought full block Scars limited was quite good. I liked infect as a mechanic (as opposed to in triple Scars, when the deck was just B/G aggro every single time), and thought it was quite varied and fun. What kept the format from being great was its insane amount of absolutely mindblowingly broken rares. You just were toast if the opposition dropped a Carnifex Demon or a Sunblast Angel or a Geth or any other ridiculous card of that nature (and didn't have an immediate answer), of which there were many.
Full block Rav is a sweet format, although the guild structure means that it requires more outside knowledge than basically any other format (meaning, you should know which guilds are in packs 1,2, and 3 when you sit down, because it can impact your decisions in packs 1 and 2 a lot).
I would put it slightly above TSP, roughly on par with VMA and the MMs.
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I primarily play limited, so most of my spoiler season comments view cards through that lens.
How does it stack up to other draft environments like 3xRoE or 3xINN?
Let's not go crazy here. Those are the two best limited formats of all time.
On a related but tangential note, how does full block RAV (original not RTR) stack up against 3xRoE and 3xINN?
The consensus top 5 draft formats, in no particular order are
INN
ROE
Modern Masters
RGD (Rav block)
TPF (Timespiral block, a possible knock on it is that it was VERY rewarding to more experienced players)
Then in the second tier of good but not sublime formats you have
DII (Dark Ascension is nearly the only good second set format, but still substantially worse than INN, a testament to how awesome Innistrad was. Other halfway decent ones were MMD and OOL)
SCA (Shards block)
MIR (Mirrodin set)
RAV (Ravnica set)
IPA (Invasion block)
NMS (Scars block)
KHA (Khans set)
I think Lorwyn x3 and Champions of Kamigawa x3 deserve a spot on that list, and fairly high on it, too. Well above Invasion block, which was popular mostly because multicolor stuff was cool back then more than because people loved playing Sea Snidds and Skittish Kavus.
Puddle: As much as I love Champions of Kamigawa, I think IPA was above it. May be nostalgia here, but there was a lot done right with it. Sure, you had Sea Snidd, but you also had Volvers, Gaters, ridiculousbluecards, so...
I played IPA for the first time only a few years ago, and I thought it was really good. Definitely in the top 10 for me, though not cracking the top 5. Overall I'm very much in agreement with merl's list.
I think Lorwyn x3 and Champions of Kamigawa x3 deserve a spot on that list, and fairly high on it, too. Well above Invasion block, which was popular mostly because multicolor stuff was cool back then more than because people loved playing Sea Snidds and Skittish Kavus.
I have to disagree with you. Invasion block was amazing, and more importantly represented a seismic shift in terms of how WOTC understood limited (it's when Randy Buheler joined Wotc). CHK was a good set, I'd put it at the tail end of my tier 2. I think that it was amazing because of the dampen thought deck, but man arcane was a really botched mechanic. It should have been 'splice onto instant', not 'splice onto arcane'. LOR I think had too many tribally based memory issues for newer players to be truly fun.
A lot of how sets are perceived relates to the set that it comes before or after. ROE I am sure gets brownie points because it was such a change from Zendikar.
I think Lorwyn x3 and Champions of Kamigawa x3 deserve a spot on that list, and fairly high on it, too. Well above Invasion block, which was popular mostly because multicolor stuff was cool back then more than because people loved playing Sea Snidds and Skittish Kavus.
I have to disagree with you. Invasion block was amazing, and more importantly represented a seismic shift in terms of how WOTC understood limited (it's when Randy Buheler joined Wotc). CHK was a good set, I'd put it at the tail end of my tier 2. I think that it was amazing because of the dampen thought deck, but man arcane was a really botched mechanic. It should have been 'splice onto instant', not 'splice onto arcane'. LOR I think had too many tribally based memory issues for newer players to be truly fun.
A lot of how sets are perceived relates to the set that it comes before or after. ROE I am sure gets brownie points because it was such a change from Zendikar.
I know Lorwyn is generally perceived as a design mistake because of on-board complexity, and I'll agree that it made for some mentally exhausting drafts, but decks like UW Merfolk and RW Giants were genuinely fun strategies that we've never really seen the like of since. I just don't see how IPA compares, when the most challenging thing about deckbuilding in that format was making your manabase work, Fact or Fiction notwithstanding. Maybe it's just that I care more about variety in strategy than I do about variety in tactics.
(Also Splice onto Instant would have made for a mechanic that was way too versatile too have many good cards with it. The mill deck Sene likes from that format wouldn't have been remotely possible because Dampen Thought would have been unprintably overpowered. Also it would have been a ridiculous flavor fail.)
Does Modern Masters 2 make it into anybody's top 10?
I doubt it. Green was overpowered by a lot and ramp was so important that literally every player in most drafts fought over it. You look at all the cards in the set and it looks like a ton of fun, but then you actually get around to playing it and it's all just about who managed to draft the best ramp deck.
I had more fun with MM2013 than I did with MM2015. The archetypes felt a bit more coherent. (U/B proliferate stuff... sure)
Merl's got a good list, and I agree on all accounts. I do have a soft spot for triple-Champions, though - and not just because of the Dampen Thought deck.
Reminder from your friendly neighborhood mod: Let's try to not go too far off-topic here. Don't forget that we have a thread called Rate the limited formats you've played, and that thread is better suited for discussing how MM1 compares to MM2 and the like. This thread should deal with Scars of Mirrodin block in particular (including how it compares to other formats).
Full block draft was pretty good. Not among the elite like 3x RoE, 3x Inn or RGD but it's a fun format. I definitely agree it can be pretty bomb heavy though, there's a lot of great mythics scattered throughout (the Praetors, especially Elesh Norn and Sheoldred, Consecrated Sphinx, Karn, Wurmcoil Engine) and some really good rares too like Steel Hellkite and Thopter Assembly. But that didn't really ruin the format since they still printed plenty of good common removal back then, as opposed to now.
Scars of Mirrodin block was very good. I actually kind of liked the "bomb" theme, since there were so many that everyone had one, and there were so many ways to deal with it. It really was haymaker magic, where you were going back and forth with dragons, great removal spells, control magics, and monster spells.
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Scars was the block where they started doing the reverse draft strategy, with New Phyrexia being Pack 1. I like it better than RTR and much better than THS, but I don't think it really comes close to any of the really awesome draft formats. I'd rate it on par with Khans draft (not Dragons, which I think is worse).
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(filter->rarity to see in set rarity).
Once it was a full block it was really good, because fewer infect creatures but adding proliferate let both types of deck coexist.
Let's not go crazy here. Those are the two best limited formats of all time. Full block Scars was above average, but it's not a top5 format.
On a related but tangential note, how does full block RAV (original not RTR) stack up against 3xRoE and 3xINN?
Scars was never very good because Poison. I remember I got a super awesome poison deck and round 1, my opponent drops sword of B/G turn 2 every time.
Also some of the bombs were super bomby, like Wurmcoil. Or the swords. A resolved sword if you didn't have a shatter effect RIGHT THERE was GG.
I would put it slightly above TSP, roughly on par with VMA and the MMs.
Interested in Custom Card Creation.
My Cube:Cardinal Custom Cube
A custom version of a third modern masters: MM2019
(filter->rarity to see in set rarity).
The consensus top 5 draft formats, in no particular order are
INN
ROE
Modern Masters
RGD (Rav block)
TPF (Timespiral block, a possible knock on it is that it was VERY rewarding to more experienced players)
Then in the second tier of good but not sublime formats you have
DII (Dark Ascension is nearly the only good second set format, but still substantially worse than INN, a testament to how awesome Innistrad was. Other halfway decent ones were MMD and OOL)
SCA (Shards block)
MIR (Mirrodin set)
RAV (Ravnica set)
IPA (Invasion block)
NMS (Scars block)
KHA (Khans set)
I have to disagree with you. Invasion block was amazing, and more importantly represented a seismic shift in terms of how WOTC understood limited (it's when Randy Buheler joined Wotc). CHK was a good set, I'd put it at the tail end of my tier 2. I think that it was amazing because of the dampen thought deck, but man arcane was a really botched mechanic. It should have been 'splice onto instant', not 'splice onto arcane'. LOR I think had too many tribally based memory issues for newer players to be truly fun.
A lot of how sets are perceived relates to the set that it comes before or after. ROE I am sure gets brownie points because it was such a change from Zendikar.
I know Lorwyn is generally perceived as a design mistake because of on-board complexity, and I'll agree that it made for some mentally exhausting drafts, but decks like UW Merfolk and RW Giants were genuinely fun strategies that we've never really seen the like of since. I just don't see how IPA compares, when the most challenging thing about deckbuilding in that format was making your manabase work, Fact or Fiction notwithstanding. Maybe it's just that I care more about variety in strategy than I do about variety in tactics.
(Also Splice onto Instant would have made for a mechanic that was way too versatile too have many good cards with it. The mill deck Sene likes from that format wouldn't have been remotely possible because Dampen Thought would have been unprintably overpowered. Also it would have been a ridiculous flavor fail.)
I doubt it. Green was overpowered by a lot and ramp was so important that literally every player in most drafts fought over it. You look at all the cards in the set and it looks like a ton of fun, but then you actually get around to playing it and it's all just about who managed to draft the best ramp deck.
Merl's got a good list, and I agree on all accounts. I do have a soft spot for triple-Champions, though - and not just because of the Dampen Thought deck.
Interested in Custom Card Creation.
My Cube:Cardinal Custom Cube
A custom version of a third modern masters: MM2019
(filter->rarity to see in set rarity).