With all the spoilers I have seen so far I am more tempted that ever to get of playset of nearly every card in the new set. This hasn't happened to me before.
Now I know I love Greek Mythology but this is rediculus. I hope for minotaurs, they bring out minotaurs. I pray for a playable gorgan, they spoil an actual playable gorgan! I hope for a new card to support the culling mechanic I'm testing, and they bring out a planeswalker who uses the culling mechanic! There is not one card I hate in the set yet or probally not bound to try and get a playset of.
Idk if to buy singles, A box or Two since I want so many. Is something wrong with me? Or is anyone feeling the same about this new set?
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I would hold my enthusiasm if I were you. This happens with every set - first we get the good cards and then the last 100 or so cards are just limited chaff - vanilla and french vanilla creatures, the reprints like Cancel and Naturalize and junk rares like Conjured Currency.
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Opposite. Not spending a penny of Theros and at this rate it might push me out of Standard completely.. There is almost no power level to the cards, the set is rife with unplayable uncommons and rares, and the pack value will be terrible. Theros is heading on a trajectory to be the worst set of all time. I'll be playing a LOT of cube and EDH for the next few years.
What really worries me are people like the OP who fall in puppy love wuth anything WoTC puts out and buy a lot of it, thus removing any accountability from Wizards to make good sets. If Theros sells well, then it's going to lead to more and more awful sets that the faithful will continue to waste $$ on, and MaRo keeps patting himself on the back for pumping out garbage. It's a self perpetuating spiral of doom for the game. Another 2-3 sets as bad as M14 and Theros, and I'm most likely done with Magic as a hobby. It will have simply lost all appeal.
Man, what I would give for a Legacy scene near me.
I must be getting old and jaded.
Sure, there's a number of cards that I'll be wanting singles of, but even with the majority of those I'll be happy to sit and wait on... I'll be damned if I'm going to spend what people are preordering gods for just to add them to my monocolor EDH decks.
There's a small handful that I will really want to put in my cube, but other than that, there's no card (or cards) that are so awesome that they make me want to run out and put together a standard deck.
I'm also disappointed by the lack of a trickster god. Every good pantheon needs one.
When they make a rare land cycle that may not even be played in Standard, you know its a set that may not be much. So far not a fan of the set. There are a couple cards I like, but of the first 100 cards, my hopes are not too high on this set.
When the best card in the set (so far) is a reprint, makes you wonder what they were thinking.
There are 10 more gods we haven't seen yet, they'll be in Born of the Gods and Journey into Nyx. There's probably a trickster god in there somewhere.
I still haven't seen a card in Theros that screams 'this thing will dominate Standard', but I rate that as a good thing. I've seen cards that pretty clearly will be played in Standard and will be important (The dual lands, Fleecemane Lion). I've seen a ton of cards that I'd like to put into a cube or an EDH deck (The fact that they stapled Teferi to Seedborn Muse is amazing). So far, I mostly wish they'd spoiled more of the commons so we could have a better idea of what the Limited environment is going to look like.
Make no mistake, the duals will be played in Standard. You've all been spoiled by the mana bases in the last Standard. Mana fixing is getting decidedly worse, but there's always something that gets weaker with every rotation (If that wasn't the case, then the game would power creep out of control).
People also over-focus on Thoughtseize; Thoughtseize is far from the most powerful card in this set, it's just the most powerful version of an important kind of effect, so it sees play in all kinds of formats. But decks that run Thoughtseize aren't 'thoughtseize decks' that bank their strategy on the power level of that card, in the same way that we have Delver decks or Thragtusk decks.
To illustrate why the new duals will see play: In the past, people played Zendikar manlands, Vivid lands and Tri-lands. This past Standard, guildgates were played in a handful of decks, in a format that also had the checkland cycle. Scry 1 generates more value than most people think, and we're about to enter a Standard where your options for mana fixing, in any given colour pair, are four shocklands, four gates, and four scry-lands. People will play the scry-lands, especially in control and midrange decks that not only get more value from the scry, are less likely to need to curve out perfectly.
So I think I'm actually being pleasantly surprised by Theros. The power level of the cards seems to have been flattened somewhat and I'm really looking forward to playing with Scry. I basically stopped playing Standard this past year after it just got too simplistic: basically pick a ratio of creatures to removal and hope for favorable matchups and draws.
I'm pretty unimpressed with the bestow mechanic and tacking enchantment on random cards, but bestow seems like a limited mechanic (which I rarely play) and enchantment artifacts etc. don't affect the way I want to play (which is with effects like Scry).
I think the only way they could screw it up for me now would be if they revealed some obscene mythics that just dominate people who don't have them, I'm not really down with paying $20 or more for Standard singles so if that's the case I just won't play.
Opposite. Not spending a penny of Theros and at this rate it might push me out of Standard completely.. There is almost no power level to the cards, the set is rife with unplayable uncommons and rares, and the pack value will be terrible. Theros is heading on a trajectory to be the worst set of all time. I'll be playing a LOT of cube and EDH for the next few years.
What really worries me are people like the OP who fall in puppy love wuth anything WoTC puts out and buy a lot of it, thus removing any accountability from Wizards to make good sets. If Theros sells well, then it's going to lead to more and more awful sets that the faithful will continue to waste $$ on, and MaRo keeps patting himself on the back for pumping out garbage. It's a self perpetuating spiral of doom for the game. Another 2-3 sets as bad as M14 and Theros, and I'm most likely done with Magic as a hobby. It will have simply lost all appeal.
Man, what I would give for a Legacy scene near me.
Move to Europe, we have Legacy GP, cups, bowls and whatnot throughout the year
However, there are a couple of fundamentals in your post that I don't agree with. At least not completely.
You say the set is rife with unplayables cards. In what regard? Standard is the same old story with a finite pool of cards. Archetypes will appear. Synergies will appear with the RTR block and the core set. And the story goes on and on. Also, most of them are for limited purposes, it's not new.
More fundamentally, you seem totally disappoined with the game as it goes along. Are you nostalgic of the time you would get a GL for missing an opponent's trigger? Or what else? I actually find that blocks like INS-RTR were very skill intensive, yet they managed to keep them popular. This is a stark constrast to older sets that would ask you to act like a computer since the game state and rules could be complex to the point of just being unfun.
Sure, I loved the old frame, the Weatherlight saga and all that but on the other hand I think Magic would just have disappeared if it didn't somehow modernize itself to new audience, and become a competitor for newer game forms.
Life was always better before. That's true for all things and Magic is no exception, but what is gone is gone and if that game is not your thing anymore, so be it. But I would'nt dismiss every novelty they put in it in useless junk or so.
As a non-standard player, I have not seen any cards that have made me want to preorder anything. There are a few nice artworks that I enjoy, but cards for decks not so much.
I feel this set is either "I'm an old player who hates theros" or "I'm new and love it"
For me 10 years is long enough I like to consider myself an older player. And I think theros is pretty sweet. I recently got into commander and see a ton of goodies for commander and this set actually has me note rested in standard.
Not a fan of heroic but love the new enchantment auras, devotion, and enchantment creatures like the gods. It's very original I believe. Yes, they're reprinting scry, but with blue getting less and less card advantages ( such as ponders and brainstorms), its nice to see other colors gain the scry ability that made preordain so good.
Thassa and purphuros are sweet and hopefully the last 100 cards don't suck. But I haven't been this excited about a set since zendikar
I am an old player (1994) and If I had the money I would buy an ASSLOAD of this block. The flavor and artwork is gorgeous and when I see the cards they inspire me to make all kinds of decks. It's the feeling I want from a set and would be happy to have a ton o fit if I could afford it.
Even though so dissapoint about the duals, the art is STUNNING!
After spending almost 1k on Modern Masters boxes alone (only one Tarmogoyf though :()I decided I'd be conservative with MtG
Theros is certainly doing it's best to make me want to splurge like crazy again!
The lands are fine, people see "ETBT" and instantly recoil in horror the same way when they see Hexproof on a rare or Mythic Rare and immediately say "Hexpr00f is so dumbz"
Rule of thumb: don't listen to people who fail to see that context matters more than power level in determining constructed playability (obviously both matter however)
Some background: I'm 28 and have been playing for nearly two decades (since 1996). I've never followed the story, read a novel, or spent money on any supplemental product / brand outreach (clothing, comics, video games, etc.). I'm strictly a paper player, and I'm only interested in cards for their power level and/or play value. Top-down design means nothing to me.
I'm incredibly excited for Theros.
As a side note, some people enjoy making broad claims about what "old" or "new" players like and/or don't like. Those people are misguided and don't help the discussion. Ignoring them is generally the best tactic.
im stuck somewhere in the middle with this set. theres a lot of cards i wouldnt mind trying out in some edh builds. theres a few cards i wouldnt mind playing in standard if the cost of standard hadnt already pushed me out. theres a few cards that are really flavorful that i would love to play in casual kitchen table style decks if i still had a kitchen table group. yet at the same time i feel like the mechanics are overcosted and very poorly done. that most of the power lies at mythic, but wont retain value after rotation or even for very long. they'll be worth something in 5 years maybe. as of right now its really tempting to jump in and buy a box mostly because of flavor, but because the majority of the cards in the set i wont ever use, and the mythic lotto turns me off, ill just pick up a few singles.
When they make a rare land cycle that may not even be played in Standard, you know its a set that may not be much. So far not a fan of the set. There are a couple cards I like, but of the first 100 cards, my hopes are not too high on this set.
When the best card in the set (so far) is a reprint, makes you wonder what they were thinking.
Oh, but this set is designed with Modern in Mind... Apparently Thoughtseize and a Magma Jet reprint are enough to call it that, cause I don't see what's so modern inclined in their dual land cycle or anything else for that matter, sure, the Red Mythic dragon might be modern playable, but that's it...
The dual lands REALLY just ticked me off to the point where I don't even want a box anymore...
I don't think I've ever agreed with you bocephus, I guess there's a first time for everything, eh?
Theros is not Kamigawa 2.0, no no, It is easily up for Worst Set ever created...
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This is the first set in a while I'm buying a box for myself. This set oozes with power and flavor that I haven't seen since Innistrad, which I still am kicking myself for missing.
This is the first set in a while I'm buying a box for myself. This set oozes with power and flavor that I haven't seen since Innistrad, which I still am kicking myself for missing.
I don't see how anyone could think this set oozes with power. If the power level of Theros excites you, Zendikar would have given you a heart attack.
As for flavor, Magic players love to confuse cliche with flavor.
There is nothing in this set that appeals to any of the things that drew me to Magic in the first place. That's really it's ultimate failing. They ruined the aesthetics of the game when they changed the card frame, they ruined the design of cards when Limited became the #1 format they design for, they ruined the art when they made every single card look like a scene from the same picture, and now they ruined the last thing Magic had, a fair number of playable cards in a competitive environment. They have successfully reduced the game from an Erector Set (Sturdy, intricate, imaginative) to Lincoln Logs (less sturdy, less intricate, less flexible) to a "build by numbers" Lego set (put the blue plastic piece on the red plastic piece! Isn't this fun!?)
Unless Theros is just a single major misstep that they correct from, I'll likely end up parting ways from Magic. Fallen Empires and Homelands were enough for me to take a 6-7 year long break from the game, and M14 and Theros are much worse than those sets.
What really worries me are people like the OP who fall in puppy love wuth anything WoTC puts out and buy a lot of it...It's a self perpetuating spiral of doom for the game.
Because if there's one thing that's going to kill this game, it's people buying more of it. Understand that just because you don't like something doesn't mean that it's bad.
Is there anything you like, Valarin? In this set, in this game, in life?
Theros is not Kamigawa 2.0, no no, It is easily up for Worst Set ever created...
Protip: whenever you declare something to be the worst set ever, at least wait until it's fully spoiled, if not you can look like an idiot when you end being wrong. Last year there was a guy that spammed the forums calling Magic 2013 the worst set ever and insisting on that no a single card from it was playable. I really hope he feels ashamed everytime his face is stomped by a Thragtusk or a Thundermaw Hellkite...
Yes, Magic 2013 was bad, but "not a single playable card"? The same way, wait a little until Theros is spoiled and played before decreting it the worst set ever. It could be, it could be not, but nobody will know until it's seen in action. Scars-Innistrad standard was dominated by Delver of Secrets, but when it was spoiled, nobody said "hey this looks powerful", the most common responses were "limited filler" and "it will never transform". Believe or not, this is *grasp* a game, and a game should be *grasp* played in order to be able to judge it.
Unless Theros is just a single major misstep that they correct from, I'll likely end up parting ways from Magic. Fallen Empires and Homelands were enough for me to take a 6-7 year long break from the game, and M14 and Theros are much worse than those sets.
We won't miss you.
On topic: I'm on the fence about Theros. I love the art and like the setting, but card-wise, aside from the mythic rares and a few of the rares, there's not much that's been getting me excited. I want more exciting commons and uncommons.
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Now I know I love Greek Mythology but this is rediculus. I hope for minotaurs, they bring out minotaurs. I pray for a playable gorgan, they spoil an actual playable gorgan! I hope for a new card to support the culling mechanic I'm testing, and they bring out a planeswalker who uses the culling mechanic! There is not one card I hate in the set yet or probally not bound to try and get a playset of.
Idk if to buy singles, A box or Two since I want so many. Is something wrong with me? Or is anyone feeling the same about this new set?
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What really worries me are people like the OP who fall in puppy love wuth anything WoTC puts out and buy a lot of it, thus removing any accountability from Wizards to make good sets. If Theros sells well, then it's going to lead to more and more awful sets that the faithful will continue to waste $$ on, and MaRo keeps patting himself on the back for pumping out garbage. It's a self perpetuating spiral of doom for the game. Another 2-3 sets as bad as M14 and Theros, and I'm most likely done with Magic as a hobby. It will have simply lost all appeal.
Man, what I would give for a Legacy scene near me.
Sure, there's a number of cards that I'll be wanting singles of, but even with the majority of those I'll be happy to sit and wait on... I'll be damned if I'm going to spend what people are preordering gods for just to add them to my monocolor EDH decks.
There's a small handful that I will really want to put in my cube, but other than that, there's no card (or cards) that are so awesome that they make me want to run out and put together a standard deck.
I'm also disappointed by the lack of a trickster god. Every good pantheon needs one.
I don't think you are getting old and jaded. I think to many others are young and easily excitable. This is not a good time in Magic.
When the best card in the set (so far) is a reprint, makes you wonder what they were thinking.
I still haven't seen a card in Theros that screams 'this thing will dominate Standard', but I rate that as a good thing. I've seen cards that pretty clearly will be played in Standard and will be important (The dual lands, Fleecemane Lion). I've seen a ton of cards that I'd like to put into a cube or an EDH deck (The fact that they stapled Teferi to Seedborn Muse is amazing). So far, I mostly wish they'd spoiled more of the commons so we could have a better idea of what the Limited environment is going to look like.
Make no mistake, the duals will be played in Standard. You've all been spoiled by the mana bases in the last Standard. Mana fixing is getting decidedly worse, but there's always something that gets weaker with every rotation (If that wasn't the case, then the game would power creep out of control).
People also over-focus on Thoughtseize; Thoughtseize is far from the most powerful card in this set, it's just the most powerful version of an important kind of effect, so it sees play in all kinds of formats. But decks that run Thoughtseize aren't 'thoughtseize decks' that bank their strategy on the power level of that card, in the same way that we have Delver decks or Thragtusk decks.
To illustrate why the new duals will see play: In the past, people played Zendikar manlands, Vivid lands and Tri-lands. This past Standard, guildgates were played in a handful of decks, in a format that also had the checkland cycle. Scry 1 generates more value than most people think, and we're about to enter a Standard where your options for mana fixing, in any given colour pair, are four shocklands, four gates, and four scry-lands. People will play the scry-lands, especially in control and midrange decks that not only get more value from the scry, are less likely to need to curve out perfectly.
I'm pretty unimpressed with the bestow mechanic and tacking enchantment on random cards, but bestow seems like a limited mechanic (which I rarely play) and enchantment artifacts etc. don't affect the way I want to play (which is with effects like Scry).
I think the only way they could screw it up for me now would be if they revealed some obscene mythics that just dominate people who don't have them, I'm not really down with paying $20 or more for Standard singles so if that's the case I just won't play.
Move to Europe, we have Legacy GP, cups, bowls and whatnot throughout the year
However, there are a couple of fundamentals in your post that I don't agree with. At least not completely.
You say the set is rife with unplayables cards. In what regard? Standard is the same old story with a finite pool of cards. Archetypes will appear. Synergies will appear with the RTR block and the core set. And the story goes on and on. Also, most of them are for limited purposes, it's not new.
More fundamentally, you seem totally disappoined with the game as it goes along. Are you nostalgic of the time you would get a GL for missing an opponent's trigger? Or what else? I actually find that blocks like INS-RTR were very skill intensive, yet they managed to keep them popular. This is a stark constrast to older sets that would ask you to act like a computer since the game state and rules could be complex to the point of just being unfun.
Sure, I loved the old frame, the Weatherlight saga and all that but on the other hand I think Magic would just have disappeared if it didn't somehow modernize itself to new audience, and become a competitor for newer game forms.
Life was always better before. That's true for all things and Magic is no exception, but what is gone is gone and if that game is not your thing anymore, so be it. But I would'nt dismiss every novelty they put in it in useless junk or so.
For me 10 years is long enough I like to consider myself an older player. And I think theros is pretty sweet. I recently got into commander and see a ton of goodies for commander and this set actually has me note rested in standard.
Not a fan of heroic but love the new enchantment auras, devotion, and enchantment creatures like the gods. It's very original I believe. Yes, they're reprinting scry, but with blue getting less and less card advantages ( such as ponders and brainstorms), its nice to see other colors gain the scry ability that made preordain so good.
Thassa and purphuros are sweet and hopefully the last 100 cards don't suck. But I haven't been this excited about a set since zendikar
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Even though so dissapoint about the duals, the art is STUNNING!
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Theros is certainly doing it's best to make me want to splurge like crazy again!
The lands are fine, people see "ETBT" and instantly recoil in horror the same way when they see Hexproof on a rare or Mythic Rare and immediately say "Hexpr00f is so dumbz"
Rule of thumb: don't listen to people who fail to see that context matters more than power level in determining constructed playability (obviously both matter however)
I'm incredibly excited for Theros.
As a side note, some people enjoy making broad claims about what "old" or "new" players like and/or don't like. Those people are misguided and don't help the discussion. Ignoring them is generally the best tactic.
Oh, but this set is designed with Modern in Mind... Apparently Thoughtseize and a Magma Jet reprint are enough to call it that, cause I don't see what's so modern inclined in their dual land cycle or anything else for that matter, sure, the Red Mythic dragon might be modern playable, but that's it...
The dual lands REALLY just ticked me off to the point where I don't even want a box anymore...
I don't think I've ever agreed with you bocephus, I guess there's a first time for everything, eh?
Theros is not Kamigawa 2.0, no no, It is easily up for Worst Set ever created...
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heroic is just a rehashing of an old ability as is devotion and enchantment creatures are old as dirt .
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I don't see how anyone could think this set oozes with power. If the power level of Theros excites you, Zendikar would have given you a heart attack.
As for flavor, Magic players love to confuse cliche with flavor.
There is nothing in this set that appeals to any of the things that drew me to Magic in the first place. That's really it's ultimate failing. They ruined the aesthetics of the game when they changed the card frame, they ruined the design of cards when Limited became the #1 format they design for, they ruined the art when they made every single card look like a scene from the same picture, and now they ruined the last thing Magic had, a fair number of playable cards in a competitive environment. They have successfully reduced the game from an Erector Set (Sturdy, intricate, imaginative) to Lincoln Logs (less sturdy, less intricate, less flexible) to a "build by numbers" Lego set (put the blue plastic piece on the red plastic piece! Isn't this fun!?)
Unless Theros is just a single major misstep that they correct from, I'll likely end up parting ways from Magic. Fallen Empires and Homelands were enough for me to take a 6-7 year long break from the game, and M14 and Theros are much worse than those sets.
Because if there's one thing that's going to kill this game, it's people buying more of it. Understand that just because you don't like something doesn't mean that it's bad.
Is there anything you like, Valarin? In this set, in this game, in life?
?cREATIVE i aM nOW
now on topic, I actually really like the flavor of the set. Cards like Hundred-Handed One had me laughing even.
Protip: whenever you declare something to be the worst set ever, at least wait until it's fully spoiled, if not you can look like an idiot when you end being wrong. Last year there was a guy that spammed the forums calling Magic 2013 the worst set ever and insisting on that no a single card from it was playable. I really hope he feels ashamed everytime his face is stomped by a Thragtusk or a Thundermaw Hellkite...
Yes, Magic 2013 was bad, but "not a single playable card"? The same way, wait a little until Theros is spoiled and played before decreting it the worst set ever. It could be, it could be not, but nobody will know until it's seen in action. Scars-Innistrad standard was dominated by Delver of Secrets, but when it was spoiled, nobody said "hey this looks powerful", the most common responses were "limited filler" and "it will never transform". Believe or not, this is *grasp* a game, and a game should be *grasp* played in order to be able to judge it.
We won't miss you.
On topic: I'm on the fence about Theros. I love the art and like the setting, but card-wise, aside from the mythic rares and a few of the rares, there's not much that's been getting me excited. I want more exciting commons and uncommons.