Just wondering, has anyone done a compilation of what sets have good foils and which sets of bad ones? It seems that there's a lot of community consensus on this, so it would be nice to have all of this written down for posterity and such.
As far as I can gather from memory and the recent thread of comments:
Bad Foils:
Kamigawa Block
Time Spiral (non-Timeshifted)
Shadowmoor Block
Alara Block
Avacyn Restored
Modern Masters 2015
Good Foils:
Old Frame Sets
Planar Chaos / Future Sight
Lorwyn Block
Zendikar Block
New Phyrexia
Innistrad / Dark Ascension
Return to Ravnica Block
Modern Masters
Do people actually like Black on black planeswalkers?
I love their renders and with good lighting they are pretty cool, but through a sleeve and in person they are really hard to read... In my experience it actually led to these cards being drafted less, because it was a hassle to read them. ( when i put in nonblack versions their play skyrocketed)
Splintertwin looks good with MM15 foiling. Its kind of a bright card so the darker foiling looks good on it imo.
They're kinda cool because they're rare, but the coolness has worn off now that there's so many of them, and aesthetically I think they look much worse, and they're a pain in the butt to read. So no, I don't like them as much as I did when they were super rare, new and unique. I much prefer the set foils now.
I had a BoB Chandra, Pyromaster the first time they cane out, but I didn't really like it for Cube. Definitely a right pain to read. I managed to sell it on easily so nothing lost. In general I think brighter arts look a lot better on the table, particularly foils, so I should have expected not to like these...
Pack foil Griselbrand or GP promo? I haven't seen either in person; normally I'd side with the pack foil, but Avacyn Restored foiling and all might make this choice more difficult than anticipated.
The GP promo looks nice, because the AVR foiling is so rough. But I hate the shooting star in the text box, so I use the original art one. Probably pick up an altered one at some point, and sell my foil for some profit, while doing an aesthetic "upgrade".
I changed out my AVR foil for a GP foil because I hated the foiling process in AVR. The art is also better. The only downside is, as wtwlf123 said, the giant shooting star.
I ran the green Efreet for about 2 years. It did cause some confusion, and was often under-drafted because people were confused. These days I just use the FTV one and have no problems. I do miss the green one though...
So I recently got Serendib Efreet because I still think it's one of blue's better creatures (and I refuse to play True-Name Nemesis because it is the nemesis of elegant game design:). I thought it would be cool and nostalgic to have the Revised "green" border but now that I look at it in my cube...it's going to be confusing as all hell isn't it? I used to play back then and it still weirds me out seeing it in a pack. I havne't played with it yet but plan on introducing some new people to cube who aren't too familiar with the format (and may not have played before the 2010s in some cases)--is it just not worth it?
I had problems with people drafting my cube mistaking the Revised Serendib Efreet for a green card. As cool as that misprint is, it's not worth making the drafting experience any more confusing for new drafters than it already is. Just use the FTV foil.
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As far as I can gather from memory and the recent thread of comments:
Bad Foils:
Kamigawa Block
Time Spiral (non-Timeshifted)
Shadowmoor Block
Alara Block
Avacyn Restored
Modern Masters 2015
Good Foils:
Old Frame Sets
Planar Chaos / Future Sight
Lorwyn Block
Zendikar Block
New Phyrexia
Innistrad / Dark Ascension
Return to Ravnica Block
Modern Masters
Can't remember / Don't know:
Core Sets
Mirrodin Block
Ravnica Block
Scars of Mirrodin / Mirrodin Beseiged
Theros Block
Tarkir Block
I love their renders and with good lighting they are pretty cool, but through a sleeve and in person they are really hard to read... In my experience it actually led to these cards being drafted less, because it was a hassle to read them. ( when i put in nonblack versions their play skyrocketed)
Splintertwin looks good with MM15 foiling. Its kind of a bright card so the darker foiling looks good on it imo.
thats my cube
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On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
I really like how bright MMA foils are.
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I dig the shooting star.
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I had problems with people drafting my cube mistaking the Revised Serendib Efreet for a green card. As cool as that misprint is, it's not worth making the drafting experience any more confusing for new drafters than it already is. Just use the FTV foil.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
What is this? An image for ants?
See here: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/arcana/magic-origins-clash-pack-and-intro-pack-decklists-2015-07-09
Promo Seeker of the Way and Siege Rhino. Thoughts?
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