Shards of Alara - Underpowered?

Why does it seem like this set is VERY underpowered so far? I know we're only 2/5 in(not even considering basic lands don't really count), but almost every card we've seen is bad. Oddly enough, some of the best cards are commons and uncommons such as wild nacatl, the capsules, the uncommon lands(worse than vivids but future block staples), Infest, Branching Bolt, Last Warp, the charms, .....

It would appear as I was writing the last paragraph that I have contradicted myself partially. I guess what I'm meaning to say is that the rares in this set are reaaaaaaaaaaaally unexciting to say the least. Even the mythic rares, outside of the PWs, kind of suck. The only ones I think are playable thus far are Stoic Angel, Sphinx Sovereign(possible), Empyrial Archangel(possible), Mycoloth, Manaplasm, Caldera Hellion, Ad Nauseum(I'm eager to test this baby) and the 4 PWs(?). Now at first glance you might say, "11 rares out of 87 cards we have so far is pretty good" but the fact is that almost none of these seem to have the potential outside of block constructed. When it comes to the eight mana things and mycoloth, lorwyn simply outclasses them with Oona and the large amount of highly playable five drops(especially in green). Caldera Hellion is basically stamped "Block-only" and I don't even know if Ad Nauseum is good at all.. I'm also fairly convinced that most of the planeswalkers are underpowered, especially given the current state of standard and what looks to be the next block constructed. Wizards really seem to be pushing creatures, the bane of the planeswalkers. I don't know about you, but when the control decks are even running double digits creatures I don't feel so enthusiastic about playing enchantments that die to random attack phases, especially since control players could care less about dealing a few points of damage here and there. This basically leaves Stoic Angel, which I predict will be good because of all the token generation present in the format, and Manaplasm, which almost looks promising but is probably just as bad as Wake Thrasher.
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Tarmogoyf

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