This can be applied to the overall 'depowering of the game' in general. Standard can't be Modern wherein most spells cost 1-3 mana unless you're playing a narrow ramp strategy like Tron. Why not? Because Modern and Legacy are already both like that. There needs to be a format where the curve in power leans less towards cards that cost 1-3 mana and more towards ones that cost 4-6 mana, and potentially even further to ones that cost 7+. A lot of people think of this as "Timmy-ing up the game", and to a point this might be true, but these expensive cards still need to be worth their mana in terms of power. It is exciting to an 8 mana Planeswalker see play. It's also exciting to see 1/2s with Haste attacking in for like 3+ damage a turn. Balancing these elements is not always easy, and perhaps they took out a typically clutch card in order to alleviate issues with trying to make more expensive cards more playable.
Theros had the Ravnica: City of Guilds Limited problem: it was better as three packs of a single set. Triple Theros was a deep format with a lot of different strategies, though the Voltron-style creature ones were by far the most prominent. Some powerful cards were able to.hold entire strategies together: Grey Merchant of Asphodel gave you an excellent reason to be in mono Black and could be drafted around when it was available in pack one.
The addition of Born was only good in that it made Red relatively in particular with the other colours, where as before it lacked from a broad range of good Commons. Journey was an equally uninteresting addition though it did shift the format further away from the Voltron decks. Personally, Bestow was a homerun because of how well it played in Limited.
The format diversity of the past year doesn't do enough to redeem Theros at the Standard level however. The lack of metagame rotation of the past year demonstrated that the ideas and costs they went with weren't entirely up to snuff. The best take away may be the new Standard rotation, which will be more forgiving to mistakes made by R&D (both in terms of printing cards that are too weak, and too powerful).
If Blue Devotion, a deck that ran Nightveil Specter, could afford Mutavault, mist mono Red decks can afford to play a few copies of its Blighted land.
It's also worth noting that Red decks do have a habit of hitting more excess land drops now. Cards like Abbot of Keral Keep and Outpost Siege increase the likelihood if hitting those late lands higher, and increase the chance of having that extra mana.
Which is why Wizards will keep designing good sets, and a very vocal minority will continue to bluster endlessly about how much they hate the game.
You know none of these people are actual pro players, or likely any good at the game, because of how little they are able to understand designing for Limited. Good Magic players know they'll need to be good Limited players one day, and these wannabe pros who complain about power level will never really be good at the game and hate it for it.
Drana is obviously amazing. That the ability affects her means she can run away with a game if not answered and pumping your team puts victory even further out of your opponent's reach.
Do you to get that this thread is not discussing power level? If you can't understand that then I don't see why anyone would care what your card evaluations are. And on top of that, it appears you're horrible at evaluating cards.
It could be better now. The format is far different. Recurring this with Ojutai's Command makes the chances of it triggering much higher. Red also gets more late game now, as it access to card draw like Outpost Siege to go long with.
Looks good. I like the overlap you get between this and Disdainful Stroke. The fact this exiles gives you more Processor fuel. Ulamog's Nullified gets one step closer to playable.
I don't understand why people keep saying the spoilers are bad up to this point. I see plenty of good cards so far:
ulamog
ob nixilis
kiora
all 5 dual lands
all man-lands
omnath (probably after atarka rotates though)
ruinous path
zada (casual fav)
brutal expulsion
maybe firebird
from beyond
bring to light has potential
planar outburst
then there are all the weird eldrazi that are hard to evaluate now (like oblivion sower), plus all the good uncommons. The set is fine, as always, and we can be sure they keep a few saucy numbers for the end.
Because actually none of them will see play in eternals formats, except maybe one or two cards (and a lot of player are more concerned about eternal than standard/limited (and every trash is limited playable so doesn't really matter here.) )
The spoil is already 1/3 of the set and still eternal players got nothing really interesting, and it's a bit depressing.
You realize that competitive players make up the minority of players, and that competitive Eternal players are an even smaller minority of that? Can't people just accept that cards are not designed with Eternal in mind, and be happy when a few cards slip through the cracks in each set? Because it'll never change. Never.
The addition of Born was only good in that it made Red relatively in particular with the other colours, where as before it lacked from a broad range of good Commons. Journey was an equally uninteresting addition though it did shift the format further away from the Voltron decks. Personally, Bestow was a homerun because of how well it played in Limited.
The format diversity of the past year doesn't do enough to redeem Theros at the Standard level however. The lack of metagame rotation of the past year demonstrated that the ideas and costs they went with weren't entirely up to snuff. The best take away may be the new Standard rotation, which will be more forgiving to mistakes made by R&D (both in terms of printing cards that are too weak, and too powerful).
It's also worth noting that Red decks do have a habit of hitting more excess land drops now. Cards like Abbot of Keral Keep and Outpost Siege increase the likelihood if hitting those late lands higher, and increase the chance of having that extra mana.
You know none of these people are actual pro players, or likely any good at the game, because of how little they are able to understand designing for Limited. Good Magic players know they'll need to be good Limited players one day, and these wannabe pros who complain about power level will never really be good at the game and hate it for it.
Good looking cycle. The draw spell also looks reasonably playable too. The Angel is a Limited card, and probably a casual favorite.
You realize that competitive players make up the minority of players, and that competitive Eternal players are an even smaller minority of that? Can't people just accept that cards are not designed with Eternal in mind, and be happy when a few cards slip through the cracks in each set? Because it'll never change. Never.