Speaking of boring, Theme Decks were the best, until they became intro packs and became boring to play with. WOTC does this all the time. They start up a new product line. The product is good at first, and over the years, they get worse and worse, or people are just bored of it, and then they cancel it, rather than just make the same product good again. I actually liked the premium deck series. Duel decks are another product. There's the masters series, but I don't buy those things. They used to experiment with multiplayer formats. It's now Commander, Commander, more Commander, always Commander.
I used to like it when WOTC made block constructed decks with the constraints of only having 2 rares, 12 uncommons, it must have a minimum of 24 lands, and there must be at least over 20 different cards. I'd like to see someone critical of intro packs do any better.
Has it always been "good"? My first deck was an upgraded (read: more 4-ofs) version of the Mirrodin Affinity theme deck, and even then it was the only one that was remotely playable of the set, and it's more because of the mechanic than it is of deck construction. Most of them are Limited decks with more copies in it, which doesn't really translate well into Constructed. The Intro Packs got rares designed for them thrown into the main set, to the detriment of said main set, to help focus the decks, and they still suck.
Premium Deck Series are worse. You'd think something filled to the brim with foiled-out good reprints coalesced into a working deck would be well-loved, but it sputtered out after the first one. The Slivers one is worth up to hundreds of dollars online, while the other two range from $40 to $150 and are just everywhere.
Wizards gambled with the original Commander precons, thinking it's going to be a one-time thing. Nope, it exploded in popularity, so much so that they tried to follow up on it as fast as possible, leading to whatever the hell Commander's Arsenal was supposed to be. However, the sticking point were the next Commander precons, which sold just as well as the original decks, if not better. It kept going, with a small decrease in sales with the C19 precons. These precons are one of the few things they've made that only required minor changes for a maintenance on sales. Heck, their power level has gone up unlike every other precon.
I have a strong feeling that WotC personally hate the "21 commander damage rule" (and I can perfectly understand the reasons behind it) and that's why it's a thing that in 10 years of commander product was never mentioned in any single card (and probably never will), because they have no interest in supporting it, but since they do not control the rules of the format but the Rules Commitee, they can't officially delete it either. In fact, when WotC did their own commander variant, Brawl, they dislike commander damage so much that it doesn't exist as a rule in that format completely.
As for Commander Damage not being a thing in Brawl, I think that's more because of the 25 life, 60 cards, one on one thing, rather than because they dislike Commander Damage. The difference between 21 damage and 25 damage is very small, and in a stalled board you can run through two sixty card decks much faster than four one-hundred card decks. Commander Damage is just another potential valve for ending the game faster.
I thought commander damage was never mentioned because of how tedious tracking it can get sometimes. It's why the consolidated commander damage argument comes up every once in a while.
Just to add even more insult to injury (no pun intended) Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro has decided to print a Heroes of the Realm card called and I kid you not Keeper of the Secret Lair: http://mythicspoiler.com/mtg/cards/keeperofthesecretlair.html. It's a 2/1 Legendary Merfolk Rogue for 1U with Flash that says you may cast Secret Lair spells as though they had Flash and Secret Lair spells also cost 1 less to cast. If that isn't lazy and corporate I don't know what is. Mark Rosewater stated that cards from the Heroes of the Realm sets are simply meant to be read not played as there will only be 4 copies of these cards printed in existence worldwide.
So instead of "look at this crazy card" it's "good job everyone, we raised stocks 13.3% with the release of 9 new products for our Secret Lair product line. Please enjoy this complimentary piece of cardboard." I feel sorry for Cure for the Common Game on YouTube since he's made it his mission to build a EDH / Commander deck off of EVERY Legendary Creature ever printed and after the Walking Dead Secret Lairs this just feels like a HUGE slap in the face. There's been other Legendary Creatures printed for Heroes of the Realm in the past with limited printings for them which he was unable to build decks for so that's a given I guess.
Not like these would be legal anywhere, they don't even have the Magic card back.
I'm not sure if it's an issue of time zones, but LRR was the only one I saw at a reasonable time. Everyone else was midnight or later over here; this one was 8am. The Command Zone was the worst one at 3 in the freaking morning. So I actually liked this one. Plus, LRR usually posts their spoilers at midnight; so early no one sees it outside of Asia.
I don't know why they bother with all of these pillowfort cards in these colors. It's been done to death by now.
The deck was created by Commander Rules Committee head Sheldon Menery, who loves effects and decks like this. It was bound to happen on his first project.
Premium Deck Series are worse. You'd think something filled to the brim with foiled-out good reprints coalesced into a working deck would be well-loved, but it sputtered out after the first one. The Slivers one is worth up to hundreds of dollars online, while the other two range from $40 to $150 and are just everywhere.
Wizards gambled with the original Commander precons, thinking it's going to be a one-time thing. Nope, it exploded in popularity, so much so that they tried to follow up on it as fast as possible, leading to whatever the hell Commander's Arsenal was supposed to be. However, the sticking point were the next Commander precons, which sold just as well as the original decks, if not better. It kept going, with a small decrease in sales with the C19 precons. These precons are one of the few things they've made that only required minor changes for a maintenance on sales. Heck, their power level has gone up unlike every other precon.
Decklist should already be found here.
Once again, the decklist.