My impression from the people who are disappointed with the set is different from yours though. I think people are complaining that buying a low number of boosters is much more risky than in regular sets, which you point out in the end:
This means that for people not to lose when buying masters 25 they have to cash out on a box (or something close to that), which is already a high entry barrier for what is supposed to be a celebration set.Buying individual packs is much more of a gamble, given the higher price, but booster boxes will pay out their expected value.
I don't know, just leaves a bad taste in your mouth knowing that WoTC is basically forcing you to spend a lot of money for you to get a decent return on your investment. Not to mention that I'm a bit skeptical about the value retention capacity of many cards from the mythic and rare list after the market gets flooded with more copies. Anyway, I think the conclusion is that if you have the money to buy a box and wants to, there is no harm in doing that, but don't try to gamble on individual packs.
I like it, I like it a lot. As for competitive, I can actually see this seeing some play in standard. 4 mana for a 7/7 trampler is no joke, even though you have to build your deck around it a bit so as to make it work.
What about Commander Greven il-vec, Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief, Gallowbraid, Hythonia the Cruel, Kagemaro, First to Suffer, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, Korlash, Heir to Blackblade, Maga, Traitor to Mortals, Mirri the Cursed, Morinfen, Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis, Ob Nixilis, The Fallen, Skithiryx, The Blight Dragon and, finally, Volrath the Fallen?
Are you telling me that NONE of these cards above lend themselves to this type of strategy, but the 9/3 vanilla does? Amazing.
Dial it back a little.
The mending seems really really bad. I guess you could side it in for a grindier matchup, but 5 mana for a restrictive regrowth effect (even if it doubles up) is quite mediocre. Terrible saga.
The new merchant scroll is neat though.
The elegant solution would be not to have cards that spoil major plot points, instead having cards that just give hints of what is about to happen (like a card where Lili is about to enter Belzenlok's lair, or something to that effect). But nope. Let's just spoil every plot point. The other elegant solution would be to just have the story told before the set is spoiled, so you are actually rewarding people who care to read it by having they know what happen before people who buy the cards.
Now, will WoTC adopt elegant solutions? Of course not. Better to just spoil everything in the cards and ruin any chances of surprising my readers. Just good moves.
Card itself is neat, quite powerful if you have a planeswalker around, but sorcery speed makes it a lot worse. Not sure on this one. I'm guessing it is not going to see play.
Self-replicator costs a LOT for its ability. I agree with AnImAr_ it could easily have been CMC 3.
Urza's Tome is interesting, but I think it is a bit too slow and clunky.
I wish Kwende cost one less, but it can make for an interesting white-weenie general regardless.
Give me a couple more solid kicker spells like that and I might reconsider what they did with the mechanic.
EDIT: btw, strictly better than Kavu Titan in many respects - generic kicker cost, trample and vigilance already stapled in the card (not to mention uncommon vs rare). Creature powercreep is real.
The orc can trigger revolt (Kaladesh still gonna be around when Dominaria gets out, right?) and it does a lot of work in an artifact-based deck.