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[Firemind]

I mean, that seems far-fetched to me, because BFZ committed the cardinal sin of being actively boring in limited while adding almost nothing interesting to constructed beyond lands that were broken from the start.

Honestly, it was more fun watching eldrazis dominate that one Modern PT than seeing Smuggler's Copter in every deck against hapless opponents powerless to stop it.

And yeah, OOB wasn't that bad.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

With OOB I could look forward to the BFZ pack often it made a deck complete. AAK doesn't give me the same feeling at all. I'm kinda dreading the final pack and am really just looking to pick up some removal and a couple creatures.

 

[traveler]

BFZ is probably the single worst set that's ever been released while I was an active player.

 

[Angry Grimace]

BFZ is probably the single worst set that's ever been released while I was an active player.

*scratches imaginary grey beard*

I remember Fourth Edition, Fallen Empires and Ice Age.

I still don't know how Sol Ring got into Revised and how Mana Crypt survived to Fourth Edition.

 

[Card Boy]

As someone that is into EDH Aether Revolt is the most boring set.

 

[El Topo]

*scratches imaginary grey beard*
Homelands.
*cries in a corner*

Edit:
Although I wasn't much of a player back then. Let's stick with Mirage.

 

[Angry Grimace]

*scratches imaginary grey beard*
Homelands.
*cries in a corner*

Fallen Empires did have Pump Knights and Hymn, but it was pretty terrible. I bought a lot of it though because packs were 80 cents.

Ice Age's mechanics - snowlands which interacted with almost nothing, cumulative upkeep. Fuck that noise.

Mirage was much better, but Phasing was a dumb idea from a rules and fun standpoint.

 

[El Topo]

Fallen Empires did have Pump Knights and Hymn, but it was pretty terrible. I bought a lot of it though because packs were 80 cents.

I'm honestly not sure how much I played already back then. It's all a bit of a blur. I definitely bought those horrible boosters though. Mirage is the set that I remember actively disliking though.
Fallen Empires has a soft spot in my heart for Thelonite Druid.

 

[bigkrev]

How quickly people forget Born of the Gods...

 

[Angry Grimace]

How quickly people forget Born of the Gods...

Born of the Gods was better than Battle for Zendikar. Hell, Born of the Gods is probably better than Dragon's Maze.

 

[Lucario]

Dragon's Maze not having any dragons in it was the biggest disappointment in Magic for me.

Helps that the set was complete and total trash.

 

[Infinite Stars]

Kaladesh block might be worse than Battle for Zendikar block all things considered.

Nah, Kaladesh has a good limited environment and actually has non shitty mechanics.

I'd rather have 3 mechanics that are solid then the cluster fuck of BFZ with it's 6? Keywords, three of which are the worst mechanics I've seen. Like, Energy is mediocre(and Marvel really should have sacked itself or something), but every card with Energy functions by itself. Every card that uses it makes Energy. Compare that to Ingest and Process, which needed both mechanics to work at all. Devoid was a messy mechanic, Landfall/Rally were watered down mechanics that barely made a dent in constructed. The only real mechanic that saw play in Standard was Converge, and that's more a side effect of Standard going rainbow(and Anger's replacement needing 3 colours to work).

Add this to Oath breaking Modern in half and Kaladesh doesn't compare to BFZ.

Kaladesh block had:

• 4/5 Block mechanics saw constructed play at a big event day 2.
• Two bad standard periods, but the first was dominated largely by Non-Kaladesh decks
• Atherworks Marvel being a dumb card
• Vehicles being overly pushed in a format with shit removal
• Wizards missing Copycat

BFZ had

• 3/8 Block mechanics saw constructed play at a big event day 2.
• Two bad standard periods stemming from BFZ proper having the power level of a wet fart outside of 5 non land cards.
• Modern being fucked for 3 months
• Fetches+Tangolands+Wedge cards= Dumb
• No mechanics being pushed.
• Wizards missing Reflector Mage/Gideon/Tangolands

Edit: Worst set that was in Standard since I started was BFZ no doubt, but the Voice Lottery/"Punisher Mechanics the Set" is close

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Saviors was trash even compared with Kamigawa.

 

[HK-47]

lol they didnt miss reflector mage. That card is as intended.

 

[HK-47]

As someone that is into EDH Aether Revolt is the most boring set.

Kaladesh block has tons of EDH build around cards. No way an artifact block is bad for EDH.

 

[Infinite Stars]

lol they didnt miss reflector mage. That card is as intended.

They missed it as constructed playable though. They bumped it up to a 2/3 because "It's not good enough in Draft"

 

[Tunoku]

Which ironically didn't matter because UW was horrible in OGW draft.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

When was the last set UW was good in draft, Origins?

 

[charlequin]

Kaladesh block might be worse than Battle for Zendikar block all things considered.

Lol not even close. If you give credit for historical context (i.e. give less blame for mistakes being made the first time) BFZ is unquestionably the worst block of all time by a hefty margin, and that's even with OGW being a huge step up.

The reason why ROE worked in limited was that even though there were Eldrazi at all rarity levels, they all inspired a sense of dread because they were huge fuckoff annhilators that would rapidly destroy you as opposed to just being another tribal type.

Also in ROE the opposition strategy to ramping big Eldrazi was actually coherent and interesting to play, while in BFZ it's nonsensical and bad.

It did not come off well to me following the excellent EMN-EMN-SOI format (which was actually extremely well received by most pros).

Pretty sure KTKx3 is still notably above it overall, but SOI block did a much better job than we've seen in a while of having two different formats that were both good. I didn't get the impression basically anyone liked the FRF draft environment, for example.

 

[Firemind]

When was the last set UW was good in draft, Origins?

I want to say Lorwyn and M12.

 

[charlequin]

*scratches imaginary grey beard*

I remember Fourth Edition, Fallen Empires and Ice Age.

Does this mean people are coming around to my position on Ice Age?!

Fourth Edition was bomb, though, I got my first set of Mishra's Factories.

I still don't know how Sol Ring got into Revised and how Mana Crypt survived to Fourth Edition.

You mean Mana Vault, but yes, it's super hilarious to me in retrospect to think about playing at that time, recognizing that the Moxen were broken but somehow not realizing Sol Ring et al were the same or even worse.

Born of the Gods was better than Battle for Zendikar. Hell, Born of the Gods is probably better than Dragon's Maze.

BNG was definitely better than DGM, it had a few cards people liked in various formats and didn't actively screw up anything as badly as DGM did its legends and mythics. (This is an extraordinarily low bar.)

Saviors was trash even compared with Kamigawa.

Kamigawa block is actually very comparable quality-wise to Theros in addition to thematically. Both big sets are interesting sets with good limited environments, some interesting interplay in constructed formats, and some cool non-rotating and casual standouts. Each block also has one absolutely abysmal set, it just moves from third position in Kamigawa to second position in Theros.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

BFZ block is hardly worse than Ice Age Alliances Coldsnap or Kamigawa. Yeah BFZ the set is atrocious but OGW has been a great success across non rotating formats once we got past eldrazi winter.

Bant Eldrazi, Eldrazi and Taxes, Bant Eldrazi all are viable decks, Kalitas for Jund, Worldbreaker for Tron, Tazri for EDH (both tribal and Food Chain),...

I can't stress enough what a great set OGW has been to me.

Spoiler

I also love Gideon outside of Standard, fuck him in standard though

 

[charlequin]

BFZ block is hardly worse than Ice Age Alliances Coldsnap or Kamigawa. Yeah BFZ the set is atrocious but OGW has been a great success across non rotating formats once we got past eldrazi winter.

Like I said, adjusting for localized expectations. If you don't give sets like Ice Age credit for the time they were made, yeah they're probably worse.

I'd say Kamigawa block ultimately contributing enough playables to numerous casual and competitive formats, and having a very good initial draft format, would still put it over BFZ in the long run, even with the plus sides of OGW.

 

[bigkrev]

Article on CFB today asking pros how to make Standard good, and it specifically calls out Kamigawa/Ravnica as the last great standard

When I brought up the question that I had asked EFro on Facebook: "What was a great Standard format?" Kyle, quickly, expertly snapped back with Ravnica/Kamigawa as a great Constructed format and his reasoning for why was so expertly smart that I was immediately on board.

He said that Ravnica/Kamigawa was great because there were literally endless different things that people could do because Wizards wasn’t afraid to print “not fun” cards. There were all kinds of different obnoxious decks back then and absurdly powerful broken spells as well.

On the surface, you’d think that obnoxious decks and broken cards would be bad, but it created all kinds of different available options for players.

There were Magnivore land destruction decks, Heartbeat of Spring combo decks, Gifts Ungiven ramp decks, Solar Flare control decks, U/G tempo fish decks, Zoo aggro decks, Orzhov midrange decks, Owling Mine prison decks, the list goes on and on.

It was a format full of powerful spells and quality mana fixing that allowed players to do whatever they wanted to do. The card design wasn’t focused on creating a specific kind of ideal play experience (midrange) but rather facilitated a multiplicity of possibilities that spanned the entire range of gameplay.

I feel like at some point in time an analyst looked at some chart that said: “People like to play midrange the most. People don’t like to play against land destruction. People don’t like to play against counterspells. People don’t like to against prison decks.” And then they decided the most logical conclusion was just to eliminate the undesirable archetypes in order to give the people more of what they want.

The problem is that people often don’t really know what they want. In the short term, yes, people get annoyed at losing to whatever the thing that just beat them was—especially if that thing made them feel like they were never in the match in the first place. But I would posit the question: “Is a stale two-deck metagame with only two flavors of midrange at the top really a better game play experience?”

I think that all depends upon who you ask. You need look no further than Modern to see that options are popular with players. Modern has everything and then some. All of those “unpopular” strategies are present and accounted for. There are prison decks like Lantern, fast combo decks like storm, R/G land destruction decks, and yes, even counterspell decks. Lots of people complain about specific cards that they hate, but the fact of the matter is that for all of its perfect imperfections, players love Modern and it has continued to grow and thrive in spite of that.

 

[traveler]

Yeah, I wasn't active during Ice Age, Alliances, Coldsnap, Kamigawa, Fallen Empires, etc. I played during Invasion block, Odyssey, Shards block, Zendikar, Rise of the Eldrazi, SOM block, Innistrad, and Magic Origins forward. I don't remember much about invasion or odyssey but I can confidently say I dislike BFZ more than any other set on that list. Zen limited was pretty miserable, though; I'll at least give BfZ limited the nod over that.

I loved the Lorwyn/Alara standard, but that was probably more for its random T2 competitive tribal decks than the actual professional metagame. Shamans, Elves, even Elementals had a great deck. Cascade Control, Faeries, and Merfolk were all around too.

It's weird to me that Kamigawa has such an awful legacy, when the flavor is so much stronger than most other sets, the art is fantastic, the limited is considered fine to good outside Jitte, and Kamigawa/Rav standard is considered a high point of all time. I get that it was a low powered block, but it seems like its highs are much higher than most recent sets.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Like I said, adjusting for localized expectations. If you don't give sets like Ice Age credit for the time they were made, yeah they're probably worse.

I'd say Kamigawa block ultimately contributing enough playables to numerous casual and competitive formats, and having a very good initial draft format, would still put it over BFZ in the long run, even with the plus sides of OGW.

There's virtually no sets or blocks that don't contribute a bunch of playables to casual/constructive because they push cards too often for it to not happen. BNG had Courser, Brimaz, Bile Blight, etc. BFZ has Gideon, Ulamog, Drowner of Hope, etc. plus the manlands.

Hell, from the standpoint of "formats that aren't Standard," KTK doesn't really have that many playable cards because most of the valuable cards are either reprints (fetchlands) or are broken/banned. I realize that wasn't what you were arguing, that's mostly an aside as to why I don't care too much for looking at non-rotating formats to judge a set. I think the most played non-land from KTK is Swiftspear.

 

[HK-47]

BFZ doesnt have a single theme as perfect as Ninjutsu

 

[Angry Grimace]

BFZ doesnt have a single theme as perfect as Ninjutsu

The interesting thing is that development likes Ninjutsu (Sam Stoddard initially tried to make Esper Ninjas a playable archetype in MM2017), but Maro seems to very much dislike it.

Speaking of Sam Stoddard, I'm still annoyed he claimed Noble Hierarch couldn't be in MM2017 because you need at least three cards with Exalted to put cards with it in the set, and then he put in a single card that gives green and red spells Conspire, a semi-random Lorwyn mechanic that most people don't know what it does without being told.

 

[HK-47]

Article on CFB today asking pros how to make Standard good, and it specifically calls out Kamigawa/Ravnica as the last great standard

Which is bullshit since that means you are saying Rav/Time Spiral, SoM/ISD/RTR, and Theros/Khans arent good enough standards.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Like I said, adjusting for localized expectations. If you don't give sets like Ice Age credit for the time they were made, yeah they're probably worse.

I'd say Kamigawa block ultimately contributing enough playables to numerous casual and competitive formats, and having a very good initial draft format, would still put it over BFZ in the long run, even with the plus sides of OGW.

You're comparing 3 sets to 2, you'd have to measure it proportionally to judge that objectively.
I actually really like Kamigawa as others said the flavour was great even when saviours was trash. My very first sealed was Kamigawa, my first prerelease Champions. I hold nothing but fond memories of that set, except Saviors. The set symbol is rad, is about the best I can say about it.

 

[Santiako]

Speaking of Sam Stoddard, I'm still annoyed he claimed Noble Hierarch couldn't be in MM2017 because you need at least three cards with Exalted to put cards with it in the set, and then he put in a single card that gives green and red spells Conspire, a semi-random Lorwyn mechanic that most people don't know what it does without being told.

Well, there's 3 things with conspire in MM17 so that fits his narrative.

 

[HK-47]

The interesting thing is that development likes Ninjutsu (Sam Stoddard initially tried to make Esper Ninjas a playable archetype in MM2017), but Maro seems to very much dislike it.

Speaking of Sam Stoddard, I'm still annoyed he claimed Noble Hierarch couldn't be in MM2017 because you need at least three cards with Exalted to put cards with it in the set, and then he put in a single card that gives green and red spells Conspire, a semi-random Lorwyn mechanic that most people don't know what it does without being told.

There are at least two conspire cards (Aethertow and Wort). Maybe I'm forgetting a third?

Though I must admit I forgot conspire was even I thing until those spoilers.

 

[kirblar]

Article on CFB today asking pros how to make Standard good, and it specifically calls out Kamigawa/Ravnica as the last great standard

That's a "it's the children who are wrong" mindset when Zen/Inn Standard exists.

 

[HK-47]

You're comparing 3 sets to 2, you'd have to measure it proportionally to judge that objectively.
I actually really like Kamigawa as others said the flavour was great even when saviours was trash. My very first sealed was Kamigawa, my first prerelease Champions. I hold nothing but fond memories of that set, except Saviors. The set symbol is rad, is about the best I can say about it.

Kamigawa probably has the sweetest group of set symbols.

 

[Infinite Stars]

The issue with BFZ is that it's one of the worst sets that seems to ignore 90% of previous design trends coming out 20+ years after the game released. Ice Age at least had the excuse of being a learning stage, same can go for Kamigawa(though in a different way).

I don't think you can look at it purely in a vacuum, because if you do it obviously isn't the worst. But in context, the set is surrounded by good-greats sets(minus Fate Reforged), including a contender for the best designed and developed set in Magic(Khans, obviously). To go from Khans, where you had uncommons be set defining cards(Seeker, Swiftspear, Charms, etc) that were simple and clean to Dominator Drone/Mind Raker at Common and the idea of "New World Order" falls apart.

Oath redeems BFZ, but it only does so by abandoning every mechanic from it and having 0 interaction with the cards. The power level between the two sets is also startling, as Green gets good cards in Oath but shit in BFZ. Like, ignoring Shadows block(Which has issues with Escalate coming out of nowhere and being on few cards) Kaladesh has the Puzzleknots+ ways to sacrifice stuff, be it for energy or what have you, as well as a critical mass of Artifacts(Either artifacts or tokens from Fabricate), both of which work well with Revolt/Improvise. Same goes for KTK Block, where each Dragons keyword works well with the Khans. Prowess likes Rebound, Bolster+Outlast work well, Raid+Dash work well, Ferocious/Whatever Atarka's is complement each other, and Exploit can fuel delve.

BFZ deserves to be called the worst block, because it's surrounded by much better sets, abandons New World Order, has no little synergy between sets, and had a completely sucky limited environment.

Ice Age was part of the beginning of Magic, when they had no idea what they were doing really. BFZ came to us from an experienced Development/Design team, one that has none of the excuses of Ice Age's design team.

 

[Santiako]

There are at least two conspire cards (Aethertow and Wort). Maybe I'm forgetting a third?

Though I must admit I forgot conspire was even I thing until those spoilers.

There's Giantbaiting too. I never foget conspire since my Wort deck is my favourite EDH deck

 

[Angry Grimace]

Well, there's 3 things with conspire in MM17 so that fits his narrative.

...there are? Damn, I guess I'm just wrong then.

 

[Tunoku]

I think I mentioned this before, but I really regret dropping the game after CawBlade in early 2011. Completely missed Innistrad.

 

[Angry Grimace]

THS/KTK was my favorite Standard (anecdotally, it was also the best attended). People always remember getting Rhino'd but there were a lot of powerful cards that could answer Siege Rhino and lots of powerful alternative strategies.

I won a lot of matches with Big Knux, despite that wedge being the least pushed one in the final product.

Article on CFB today asking pros how to make Standard good, and it specifically calls out Kamigawa/Ravnica as the last great standard

To relate the above to this, I think Thoughtseize did a lot of work in making the blocks it was in playable, but as recently as a few months ago, Maro was saying it "ruined" standard, which is inaccurate on a very basic level. It's one of those cards that WOTC quickly declares "unfun" and removes, despite the fact that Thoughtseize is a completely fair card that made the format better.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Kamigawa probably has the sweetest group of set symbols.

Definitely can agree with this.

BFZ deserves to be called the worst block, because it's surrounded by much better sets, abandons New World Order, has no little synergy between sets, and had a completely sucky limited environment.

That's just not true. The only lack of synergy between OGW and BFZ were ingest and converge and even converge got better through the 5c colourless lands in OGW. Awaken and Landfall were always just there with little synergy within BFZ already.

Oath had a bunch of cards that casually exiled to enable processors you might get in BFZ. Cohort and Rally played well together since both are only seen on allies and oath had a much higher density of allies than BFZ. BFZ had colourless mana producers for Diamond mana

Due to the sheer amount of keywords some fell by the wayside but there was no lack of synergy. Even themes like BW life drain carried through both sets in the form of Drana's Emissary and Kalastria Healer for instance.

If you compare it to Aether Revolt even with much less keywords, a great design decision, AER doesn't have much energy payoff for insrance, certainly not at lower rarities like whirler virtuoso, cards and it's much harder to generate high volumes than in Kaladesh.

edit: forgot the colourless matters of BFZ that gel'd well with diamond mana in OGW.

 

[OnPoint]

SoM-RTR was my fave period ever. THR-KHN was also fun. I miss those days.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I mean, as a limited environment, both OGW and BFZ had problems.

OGW doesn't fix the fact that Green was stone-cold unplayable, that Converge and Colorless-matters were mechanics that fought each other, and there was basically nothing in OGW that paid off any Landfall cards you got from BFZ. Ingest was an inherently fiddly mechanic that did nothing far too often and was hard to build around.

"Colorless Matters" as a design aesthetic is almost as equally fiddly as Ingest was. I think it played a lot worse than you're implying because it was only kind of an archetype that required a third "color" that had far fewer cards associated with it than the others.

 

[Firemind]

That's a "it's the children who are wrong" mindset when Zen/Inn Standard exists.

I don't know. CHK-RAV had a shit ton of viable Standard decks. Cards like Enduring Ideal that shouldn't be close to being playable was viable because of Form of the Dragon. Tron was playable in Standard and it was actually fair. Umezawa's Jitte wasn't oppressive but allowed creature aggro decks to thrive and not auto lose to midrange. Planeswalkers weren't oppressive. I think they have a valid point.

 

[aidan]

To relate the above to this, I think Thoughtseize did a lot of work in making the blocks it was in playable, but as recently as a few months ago, Maro was saying it "ruined" standard, which is inaccurate on a very basic level. It's one of those cards that WOTC quickly declares "unfun" and removes, despite the fact that Thoughtseize is a completely fair card that made the format better.

WotC seems to think that any card which stops new players from playing their big splashy mythic rares "ruins" standard and is banished to the realm of never-to-be-reprinted-in-a-four-dollar-booster-ever-again. Because, really, who needs pressure valves in standard?

 

[Angry Grimace]

WotC seems to think that any card which stops new players from playing their big splashy mythic rares "ruins" standard and is banished to the realm of never-to-be-reprinted.

That's kind of what I saw in the quote that he posted - they try to eliminate the "unfun" cards, but those bread-and-butter unfun answers are what keeps the game playable (having your guy die is unfun as a rule), especially if you print big splashy mythic rares that themselves are unfun or snowball out in unfun ways.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Now we've shifted to liking Thoughtseize again?

 

[Angry Grimace]

Now we've shifted to liking Thoughtseize again?

I'd say yes. It didn't feel "fun" when in Standard, but eliminating everything "unfun" doesn't necessarily lead to good gameplay. It's inherently a 1-for-1 that has a meaingful drawback and creates a meaningful deckbuilding cost because its such a bad draw in the late game.

 

[bigkrev]

For the record, THS/KTK was the last standard I played- my last FNM coming shortly before DTK came out.

Now we've shifted to liking Thoughtseize again?

A lot of the hate comes from how opressive a deck Mono Black Devotion was, where if you never printed one of Gray Merchant, Pack Rat, or Nythkos, you probably would think higher of Thoughtsieze.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

I mean, as a limited environment, both OGW and BFZ had problems.

OGW doesn't fix the fact that Green was stone-cold unplayable, that Converge and Colorless-matters were mechanics that fought each other, and there was basically nothing in OGW that paid off any Landfall cards you got from BFZ. Ingest was an inherently fiddly mechanic that did nothing far too often and was hard to build around.

"Colorless Matters" as a design aesthetic is almost as equally fiddly as Ingest was. I think it played a lot worse than you're implying because it was only kind of an archetype that required a third "color" that had far fewer cards associated with it than the others.

Great got gud through OGW though, you just drafted your 2nd colour in BFZ. I agree that converge was still a bad fit after OGW but you ended up in tri colours much easier with OGW because of shimmering grotto and that other land that taps creatures.
Colourless matters was mostly red (to a lesser degree or just worse in blue) IIRC it played well with artifacts devoid and in Kaladesh with diamond.

Landfall never was a synergistic theme. Like Fabricate it just was there with a few cards improving it, blighted woodland, evolving wilds, mina and denn, etc.

 

[aidan]

I'd say yes. It didn't feel "fun" when in Standard, but eliminating everything "unfun" doesn't necessarily lead to good gameplay. It's inherently a 1-for-1 that has a meaingful drawback and creates a meaningful deckbuilding cost because its such a bad draw in the late game.

We're being reminded why a card game needs checks and balances.

Thoughtsieze also requires a decision on the player's part, which asks them to think about the game state, their deck, their opponent's deck, all possible lines of play, etc. It might be "unfun," but it requires skill and experience to reach its highest potential.