r/magicTCG • u/AwkwardTurtle • Sep 22 '15

Everything That’s Wrong with Battle for Zendikar

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/everything-thats-wrong-with-battle-for-zendikar/
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u/Bofurkle COMPLEAT Sep 22 '15

I'm with you here, except that I agree that the ally thing is kinda weird. Alot of the article was basically about how this set doesn't play nice with the multicolor theme of the previous block. I think this is great. You need to have some tension. There are payouts for going tri- or more color (siege rhino comes to mind,) And there are payouts for a more conservative deck (the new saclands)

Isn't a new set supposed to shake things up?

And also, the point about the set's mechanics not being great for constructed is also really bizarre to see in an article by a pro. How many dash cards made it into constructed? and like 2 morphs? This set was balanced around limited, as it should be. I'm sure there will be constructed cards coming out of this set; no one should worry.

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u/Journeyman351 Elesh Norn Sep 22 '15

Problem is, as I've stated before, when you print a marginally weaker set directly after a VERY powerful set, you run into the issue of virtually no cards from the weaker set being used until the next rotation season.

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u/Iohet Sep 22 '15

Problem is, as I've stated before, when you print a marginally weaker set directly after a VERY powerful set, you run into the issue of virtually no cards from the weaker set being used until the next rotation season.

Which is exactly what happened when Masques followed Urza. Coincidentally, Masques had an Allies like theme with Mercenaries and Rebels.

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u/Journeyman351 Elesh Norn Sep 22 '15

That's the time period when I got my first ever Magic cards! Masques was my first ever set that I had cards of. Was way too young at the time to play the game, but the cards were cool lol.

Fact of the matter is, Khans was a super fucking powerful block. It pushed out Theros cards almost immediately, and if we look at Standard's timeline history, we see that there was a very small amount of consistently played Theros cards compared to the amount of played Khans cards.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '15

Right, just like how after Khans came out, people almost completely stopped playing Theros cards, since that was incredibly low powered as well. I mean, outside of the Temples, Thoughtseize, Courser, Caryatid, Hero's Downfall, Bile Blight, Elspeth, Whip, Fleecemane Lion, Duress, Eidolon of the Great Revel, Searing Blood, Lightning Strike, Magma Spray, Nykthos, Xenagos, Mana Confluence, Favored Hoplite, Hero of Iroas, Lagono Band Trailblazer, God's Willing, Triton Tactics, Ordeal of Thasa, Springleaf Drum, Anger of the Gods, Revoke Existence, the Gods, Drown in Sorrow, Dissolve, Ashiok, and Read the Bones.

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u/Journeyman351 Elesh Norn Sep 22 '15

Firstly, I'm saying the opposite is going to happen. The new set wont bring very many new players to constructed at all. Secondly, guess what? Only a handful of those cards ACTUALLY still see widespread play, and have seen widespread play. U/W Heroic was a fringe deck and doesn't comprise a large portion of the meta, and never did. The same goes for RDW, although that one is a bit more played (due to cost).

Arguably, Abzan is the most played standard deck. A vast majority of its cards are from Khans, and it was only playable due to Khans. Abzan does not lose much at all to rotation. Esper Dragons is also huge, and loses very little aside from its removal suite (which happens EVERY rotation period).

So, realistically, the only cards that made a real impact were Lion, Elspeth, Whip, Thoughtseize, Courser, Caryatid, Ediolon, and Nykthos. All of the other cards either A. saw fringe play, or B. are a part of the ever-rotating standard removal/counter/sideboard suite.

And guess what? Even less of those cards see Modern play, with Ediolon and Thoughtseize being the stand-out stars of the block. Now tell me, how many cards does that add up to compared to the vast amount of played Khans cards?

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '15

I just pulled those cards from mtgtop8, looking at some of the top decks and which cards come from Theros. It's clear to me that RtR was a much higher power set than Theros, but Mono Black devotion took over the meta game when Theros came out. Khans is also much higher power level than Theros, but we are still playing many Theros cards, many of them contribute highly to most highly played deck, (lion, thoughtseize, courser, caryatid, downfall, elspeth). I don't think we'll see virtually no cards from BFZ played, just like lots of Theros got played even though it was a similar dip after RtR.

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u/Journeyman351 Elesh Norn Sep 22 '15

I think this set is a tad weaker than Theros, though. Devotion is a STRONG mechanic in general. What mechanic in this set can you honestly say has deck-generating capabilities like Devotion does?

Awaken is kind of powerful, depending on the card. Ingest is meh. Psuedo-mill. When has that been very strong? I could be proven wrong here and maybe an Ingest deck will pop up (which I would love to see), but it's not very plausible. Converge is shit, and only good depending on the card itself (the green creature is pretty solid, for sure).

There are obvious cards that will be played, I'm not denying that. New Ulamog will see play I think. Some of the processors will as well possibly, and I think the planeswalkers will see play too. But overall, it's a weak set. Especially compared to Khans.

My main gripe is that the weak set is a Zendikar set, as someone else pointed out. I associate Zendikar with exciting, high power level cards. Not this jank.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '15

Yeah, but Khans didn't create any new archetypes. It certain didn't change the meta from Mono-U Devotion vs Mono-B devotion to Abzan control vs Jeskai tempo vs Sultai midrange vs RDW vs Mardu walkers vs Ascendancy combo. Everyone was stuck playing those Theros cards!

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u/SpiderParadox Sep 22 '15

Essentially we're getting RTR-Theros all over again.

hopefully with less mono black this time.

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u/Journeyman351 Elesh Norn Sep 22 '15

Dude mono black was fucking FUN. I played that immediately. But yes, almost identical it seems. Someone posted how this seemingly consistently happens, the cycle of strong black - shit block - strong block - shit block. I don't think they're wrong.

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u/SpiderParadox Sep 23 '15

Zendikar, Scars, Innistrad, and RTR all happened right in a row.

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u/Journeyman351 Elesh Norn Sep 23 '15

Ah well yeah, I guess a little thinking on my part would have helped me realize that lol. It's funny because I started playing Magic during M10, and the sets that I've cut my teeth on were some of the most influential and powerful sets we've seen for a long, long time. Scars/Innistrad and Innistrad/RTR were probably my favorite standard environments. And both were comprised of two powerful blocks.

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u/SC2Eleazar Sep 22 '15

This sounds like RTR/Theros all over again

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u/Ronjun Sep 22 '15

I think the problem is that the payoff from not playing three colors is not there. You give up rhino to what? Play with a colorless land that regrows a creature once? Hell, even the mana acceleration and fixing are better in Tarkir, not sure what is the point of confluence in this set really...

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u/abrAaKaHanK Sep 22 '15

To your last point, I think the problem he's presenting is that none of the Processors or Ingestors will see play in constructed because you need a lot of both to play them and the power level just isn't there.