If they were willing to use mythics (wouldn't have the same problem as prerelease promos because the quantity is so limited) I think they could probably pick hits with fairly high reliability. Standouts from the last few years are:
Core 19: Nicol Bolas
Dominaria: Karn, Teferi, Lyra
RIX: Immortal Sun, Rekindling Phoenix
Ixalan: Carnage Tyrant
Hour: Nicol Bolas, Scarab God
Amonkhet: Hazoret, Gideon, Liliana
AER: Heart of Kiran
Kaladesh: Chandra, Torrential, Marvel
EMN: Emrakul
SOI: Avacyn
Oath: Kalitas, Nissa, TKS
BFZ: Gideon, Ulamog
Yes this lists benefits from hindsight and several sets are harder to figure out, but for the most part these are the most obviously pushed cards in the set. Play design should let them figure out the chase cards even better. Chase mythic promos might even sell boxes better than unique promos since you know that they're aiming these cards to be constructed staples, rather than niche cards like unique promos.
The continuation of unique promos is extremely disappointing. They havesaid that they view cards like nathalni dragon and arena as mistakes, they are aware of the toxic effect they have on competitive magic, and they know that they are unpopular with players. Maro specifically said he heard this message with Firesong and Sunspeaker. You'll notice the announcement is worded very politically and says nothing like "the players loved this," just that there was feedback. I suspect the real reason is that it was popular with LGSs and collectors. So it seems WOTC is willing to go back on their word when it helps these communities, even if it hurts the game, but not when it helps the game and hurts collectors, as with the reserved list.
Edit: a fewmoresources in which they clearly articulate a change of policy in which they do not produce functionally unique promos.
Interestingly, their arguments for banning Baral in the deck (as opposed to just as the commander) and Smuggler's Copter echo the complaints that a lot of players have about Sol Ring in EDH, in that it unfairly advantages the players who happen to draw it early.
This is why I want WotC to take over the Commander banlist. Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, and Mana Vault make games terrible when they show up on one side.
The thing is. Fast mana is fundemental to EDH. Everybody has acces to these cards. Sure, sometimes you get lucky with your fast mana. Sometimes your opponent gets lucky. Sometimes that elves player swarms you t3. Sometimes you get stormed t2. If your playgroup is not that competitive, houseban the fastmana and problem cards. Do not drag the people that like these vintage style cards and playstyles to your more casual view of what the format should be.
Also. If you like playing new cards and don't want fastmana in your group. Then brawl is the format for you.
I think it's more a problem in large LGS communities where you have casual/competitive players mixed and the only normalizing factor is the official banned list. Like, it's no fun for anyone when one person shows up with a deck trying to combo out on turn 3 and everyone else is playing more casual decks. That said, I don't know if banning the super efficient mana rocks, effectively killing competitive multiplayer, is a good idea. Also, not everyone practically has access to mana vault and mana crypt. Vault can be rare and is still medium expensive, and crypt is still prohibitively expensive for many players.
I think a big argument for Ravnica this fall is that it's still the 25th anniversary, and Ravnica is among the most popular planes. I think it's also safe to assume that there will be two sets of Ravnica, given how big of a disappointment Dragon's Maze was. Those two sets don't necessarily have to be consecutive though. For example we could get C19-Ravnica-Theros-Ravnica and still have both sets in the same rotation.
Anyone else weirded out by the artifact matters cards? Don't get me wrong- I love artifacts and Mirrodin is one of my favorite sets. I just sort of expected to see more of a classic fantasy vibe like M10 and seeing robots on the cards kind of throws it off.
Interestingly, their arguments for banning Baral in the deck (as opposed to just as the commander) and Smuggler's Copter echo the complaints that a lot of players have about Sol Ring in EDH, in that it unfairly advantages the players who happen to draw it early.
Core sets are definitely needed. The last few years of almost zero reprints and basic cards made the game worse in the end. They are bringing them back because we need a place for steady reprints for Standard. You can't reprint many cards in most Standard sets and a Core set is where that can happen.
They tried all sorts of gimmics (slivers, cards designed by non-magic people, flipwalkers) to sell core sets before discontinuing them anyway because their vision of what a core set should be was nigh unmarketable. And now, judging by the leaked cards, they bring core sets back with little to no change to that vision. I have no idea why they try to push the idea of a simplified set made with new payers in mind when such sets have been underwhelming for decades. One can make a case that new players are scared by complexity, but opening a booster pack with ten unplayable vanilla-ish commons is an all alround feel-bad. I mean, yes we need reprints and safety valves, but Cancel is no safety valve and the kind of reprint nobody wants.
I don't believe these Core sets are made for new players, at least I don't remember reading about that. In addition the lack of Core sets didn't make normal Standard any better. In fact Standard was at its worst during this time. Close to zero reprints to speak of, meaning Masters were looked to more and those didn't do well either, control cards of all forms were terrible, the game became all about creatures, story cards, and planeswalkers.
I can't imagine the game becoming worse than the years between BFZ and Ixalan when Core sets come back. There's a reason people called for them to come back.
Providing a stepping stone for newer players into the game has always been a goal for core sets. They even used to have difficulty levels in which Portal was beginner, # edition sets were intermediate, and all block sets were expert. More recently, Maro said in metamorphosis 2.0 that they're putting a lot of importance on helping newer players for the new core sets, and are trying to avoid the gimmicks that got out of control with the previous M series.
A big problem with masters sets going forward seems to be that they've set in stone both the price point and amount of value each set is supposed to have, but not every theme will have the same requirements to execute properly. Iconic masters was supposed to be the set full of "iconic" creatures, but because it had to fit with the previous pricing/value model for masters sets it had cards like mana drain thrown in to increase the EV. I'm all for reprinting these cards, but mana drain isn't really on theme for the set, and if you showed this list of cards to a magic player without stating the theme, they probably wouldn't guess "iconic creatures." Really this set probably should have cut out the more expensive cards, had something like a 4.99 per booster price, and gone much, much more hardcore with angels, demons, dragons etc. The result right now is that opening a $10 booster is full of feel-bad moments because there's such a huge price discrepancy between the most valuable cards and the least.
On the other side of the coin, Masters 25 was trying to execute a nostalgia theme and really wanted to have a lot more value. People remember powerful cards, and the theme would come through much more strongly if cards like red Akroma, Tree of Redemption, and Triskaidekaphobia had been cut for cards that were actually impactful in their time. The problem is if they loaded up Masters 25 like this, it would make all the other 9.99 masters sets look bad. Hopefully they'll actually listen to feedback and make some changes but it isn't likely. After all in the recent article looking back at masters sets, they both listed MM15 as an unqualified success, which it wasn't, and promised Masters25 would be the nostalgia set people wanted Iconic masters to be, and it wasn't.
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Core 19: Nicol Bolas
Dominaria: Karn, Teferi, Lyra
RIX: Immortal Sun, Rekindling Phoenix
Ixalan: Carnage Tyrant
Hour: Nicol Bolas, Scarab God
Amonkhet: Hazoret, Gideon, Liliana
AER: Heart of Kiran
Kaladesh: Chandra, Torrential, Marvel
EMN: Emrakul
SOI: Avacyn
Oath: Kalitas, Nissa, TKS
BFZ: Gideon, Ulamog
Yes this lists benefits from hindsight and several sets are harder to figure out, but for the most part these are the most obviously pushed cards in the set. Play design should let them figure out the chase cards even better. Chase mythic promos might even sell boxes better than unique promos since you know that they're aiming these cards to be constructed staples, rather than niche cards like unique promos.
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Edit: a few more sources in which they clearly articulate a change of policy in which they do not produce functionally unique promos.
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I think it's more a problem in large LGS communities where you have casual/competitive players mixed and the only normalizing factor is the official banned list. Like, it's no fun for anyone when one person shows up with a deck trying to combo out on turn 3 and everyone else is playing more casual decks. That said, I don't know if banning the super efficient mana rocks, effectively killing competitive multiplayer, is a good idea. Also, not everyone practically has access to mana vault and mana crypt. Vault can be rare and is still medium expensive, and crypt is still prohibitively expensive for many players.
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Providing a stepping stone for newer players into the game has always been a goal for core sets. They even used to have difficulty levels in which Portal was beginner, # edition sets were intermediate, and all block sets were expert. More recently, Maro said in metamorphosis 2.0 that they're putting a lot of importance on helping newer players for the new core sets, and are trying to avoid the gimmicks that got out of control with the previous M series.
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On the other side of the coin, Masters 25 was trying to execute a nostalgia theme and really wanted to have a lot more value. People remember powerful cards, and the theme would come through much more strongly if cards like red Akroma, Tree of Redemption, and Triskaidekaphobia had been cut for cards that were actually impactful in their time. The problem is if they loaded up Masters 25 like this, it would make all the other 9.99 masters sets look bad. Hopefully they'll actually listen to feedback and make some changes but it isn't likely. After all in the recent article looking back at masters sets, they both listed MM15 as an unqualified success, which it wasn't, and promised Masters25 would be the nostalgia set people wanted Iconic masters to be, and it wasn't.