It's a core set guys. It's supposed to be somewhat underwhelming.
Yes there are usually some nice little treats: Thragtusk, Hellkite, the Titans in the past, Checklands, etc. But for the most part, when you sit back and think about it, a core set is supposed to just showcase what the game is about to newer players. That way they will gain interest in the game and WOTC can further entice them to buy the expert level product in the fall.
Remember how stagnant and bland the past core sets were. Like 7th, 8th and so on? WOTC needed to help bolster the core set to help get new players. New players means more money in their pockets. Hence the core set facelift of Magic 2010. Now, after four iterations, it's getting stale and bland again. Simple as that.
The core set needs to reach new and veteran players.
Also it has everything to do with the cards and the layout for the 20th anniversary. It's like showing up to your 20th anniversay and getting the wife the same thing you got her the previous year but a cheaper knock off product.
I can't tell you how disappointed I am with WotC and the layout of this set. 20 cards for standard and a cloud of dust.
That's very true. I keep forgetting the 20th anniversary thing is this year. Perhaps they are blowing it all on FTV: 20. Foil Forces anyone?
This may be the first time I'm actually buying 4 cards from a core set. Strionic Resonator has piqued my interest and I'm in the planning stages with it for something, but that's about it.
Extremely disappointed in this set. Not even Mutavault or Scavenging Ooze can help it.
It's a core set guys. It's supposed to be somewhat underwhelming.
Says who?
That kind of attitudes is why we get garbage sets. As long as the hopeless optimists/people who feel WoTC can do no wrong buy packs of garbage sets like this, we'll keep getting them
I think M14 is completely terrible, and I'm voting with my wallet. I'm not going to buy a single pack of this set. The game simply deserves a LOT better effort than this.
it's a trick. they already printed tons of great cards in RTR and INN block, so they would rather crash the power creep in a core set than in Theros, despite the fact it's the big 20. there's also FTV, 20 that will come out and be the big surprise as they reprint something from the reserved list
I never complain about sets, because most of the time i am excited about new cards anyway.
But this time most of them are unexciting.
In fact the set is so unexciting that neither lsv nor conley woods made the traditional set review the week prior the pre-release... and there is no pro tour this time around, so they have more time to just go for it.
I went to a midnight pre-release because I had a free night and I wanted to dispel the myth about this set sucking after reading so much of you talk about it.
This is easily the worst limited set I have ever played.
I literally had nothing but commons and uncommons and ran W/G aggro slivers with a bunch of Trollhides and Pacifisms. The deck building was forced because my other colors didn't have enough playables. I ran maindeck Bramblecrush and Naturalize and they were amazing. When was the last time you have ever heard of Naturalize and Bramblecrush being amazing.
It took no skill what-so-ever to go 3-1. My loss? I conceeded r1 to finish a Modern Masters draft with friends.
There was no alternative wins from what I saw. IE Decking, Battle of Wits type cards.
No cool combos that had a real impact besides with Tenacious Dead. Even then it cost a TON of mana.
I wanted to drop after 1-1 because it was nothing but creature wars. You either won super quick or it was a super long game. I would say 70% of the people at the midnight pre-release disliked the limited format. Most of the conversation was basically "For a 20th Anniversary, this set is basic and disappointing."
The good cards for constructed formats take absolutely no skill to find either. They are obviously super powerful and it doesn't take a genius to find them.
For the first time since I came back during Urza's block, I won't play the current limited portion of Magic.
1). Exalted wasn't any better than the new slivers are going to be.
2). I'm sorry you went into the prerelease hating the set and had a bad time because of it. Everyone at my game shop had a great time.
3). "The good cards for constructed formats take absolutely no skill to find either. They are obviously super powerful and it doesn't take a genius to find them." ????? Ok, it's one in the morning and I just got back from an office party, so I'm having a hard time making sense of this. Like, what's this even supposed to signify? Good cards being easy to understand and identify is a bad thing? I'm sorry that these new cards don't challenge your oh so superior knowledge and skill, but that's not a valid argument for the set being bad.
4). "For the first time since I came back during Urza's block, I won't play the current limited portion of Magic." Oh sweet Jesus no! The game won't survive without you.
After reading through this thread and others like it, I've yet to hear one half-decent reason as to why M14 deserves all of the hate it's been getting. I love how for the past few sets, everyone's been whining about power creep. And now that we've been given a de-powered set, the exact same group of people are complaining that not every card will warp the meta.
After reading through this thread and others like it, I've yet to hear one half-decent reason as to why M14 deserves all of the hate it's been getting. I love how for the past few sets, everyone's been whining about power creep. And now that we've been given a de-powered set, the exact same group of people are complaining that not every card will warp the meta.
+1
thanks to less powercreep, theros might actually be good.
I played GW sliver aggro with tons of lifegain. Went up to 100 life in a stalled board state before I won the turn before I was going to deck myself. That was fun and not totally a waste of 20 minutes. Admittedly though a 10/10 wurm for 2 was pretty worth my while.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My love of lands knows no bounds.
Currently playing: GCasual 8-post R Casual Land Destruction UBRWG Legacy Dredge WGB Modern Melira Pod RUG EDH
After reading through this thread and others like it, I've yet to hear one half-decent reason as to why M14 deserves all of the hate it's been getting. I love how for the past few sets, everyone's been whining about power creep. And now that we've been given a de-powered set, the exact same group of people are complaining that not every card will warp the meta.
I can certainly see why people don't like M14.
Their opinion is "we don't like M14 because there aren't many cards I'm excited about for standard/modern/etc".
Your opinion seems to be that "I agree that the power level of M14 is down, but you shouldn't be angry that it is". I mean... if a set doesn't excite them for whatever reason, it's legit that they won't like the set. Are you going to buy a box of M14? Are you pre-ordering 200 dollars worth of singles to fill out your standard collection? A lot of people aren't.
My opinion is similar to yours. I think sets like these are necessary. They make very little impact beyond a couple of support cards and maybe 2-3 cards that will see a lot of play in standard. But it kind of resets you back to square one.
I think M14 is completely terrible, and I'm voting with my wallet. I'm not going to buy a single pack of this set. The game simply deserves a LOT better effort than this.
on the bright side, singles for ooze and other reprints will be less
I'm just doing red/green/ artifacts, no time to do the whole set, but will chime back later.
Staff of the Sun Magus - or any of the staffs. I think DM and 2014 are catering more towards drafting/lower budget decks and these are a great way for mono decks to be a bit more competitive on top of rewarding you when you draw 5 lands in a row midgame, which annoys everyone, but at least it's a cheap artifact and I can see it in constructed for mill decks and black decks now that Sanguine Bond is reprinted, which IMO, I was VERY happy to see included in 2014.
Awaken the Ancient - Like it. Again sadly it will encourage an already over powered mono red deck but it makes use of excessive land drops if you get caught low on creatures.
Chandra, Pyromaster - I like it specifically because it gives a non blue deck card advantage with the 0 spell if needed the +1 is not really exciting but it doesn't hurt. I do think it should cost 1 less mana for a mythic rare but the ultimate is pretty nasty.
Chandra's Phoenix - I like it but again red is still overpowered and this will encourage more spears/pillars etc...but excited to test it out
Mindsparker - I'm a fan of anything anti azorius LOL.
Ogre Battledriver - great for aggro blitz decks not that red needed it but then again they are losing a lot of key cards in the rotation so i can't wait to test this out in Sept.
Into the Wilds - DAMN...that will really make green over powered.
Primeval Bounty - expensive but green can ramp and this gets you payoff in spades. The landfall effect should help ease the pain of losing Thragtusk and IMO is a great replacement.
Door of Destinies - should be annoying or fun to experiment with the new slivers and could make weenie / aggro blitz decks better later in the game. I'm anxious to try this.
Witchstalker - I'm a big fan of hexproof creatures and would love to annoy the hell out of blue decks LOL.
Iffy on the following
Fleshpulper Giant - dumb. Over priced and a 2 toughness creature, how card can that be to necessitate 7 mana on a 4/4 creature. Granted it's an uncommon and not a rare, so I can forgive it slightly but IMO should've been a common or just not printed.
Burning Earth - While I'm in favor of giving more balance to mono decks, again, RDW is the one mono deck that didn't need it. Luckily it's a four drop so it should be a minor nuissance at best if playing against red. Gimmicky for a rare as it will force the controller to commit to a mono red deck and could be too slow but it could give a stalling midrange deck fits. Also seems like sideboard only if that.
Ring of Three Wishes - seems fun but it's really expensive and if you need to search for a card by turns 5 and 6 chances are the deck isn't that well constructed. IMO it will be occasionally good for control decks who need Aetherling or Sphinx's Revelation asap or midrange decks but IMO it will slow them down a lot of times.
Pyromancer's Gauntlet - I'm all for beefing up mono decks but red was overpowered to begin with...now you have to worry about spears/pillars late in the game with midrange cards...damn.
Overall set seems decent, just seems like there's an inconsistent mathew effect going on. Some cards help out mono decks which was needed, but red and green at this point with the last two sets are really overpowered as is. Not too impressed with Blue and Black. White could use a bit more help. I know they wanted to bring the game back to battle play vs. Control but seems like they're overdoing it with the Gruul colors. Hopefully Theros/Nix will boost black, blue and white aggro decks if they really want battle balance.
The set is really underwhelming, I agree with almost everyone in that regard. I'm especially sad at the lack of a usable counterspell. It wouldn't kill anyone to reprint Mana Leak. All the anti-blue hate cards are pretty great, but the blue hate card is terrible. Not happy that hexproof is back, either. Like blue needed to be kicked while it was down.
Fleshpulper Giant - dumb. Over priced and a 2 toughness creature, how card can that be to necessitate 7 mana on a 4/4 creature. Granted it's an uncommon and not a rare, so I can forgive it slightly but IMO should've been a common or just not printed.
Burning Earth - While I'm in favor of giving more balance to mono decks, again, RDW is the one mono deck that didn't need it. Luckily it's a four drop so it should be a minor nuissance at best if playing against red. Gimmicky for a rare as it will force the controller to commit to a mono red deck and could be too slow but it could give a stalling midrange deck fits. Also seems like sideboard only if that.
Ring of Three Wishes - seems fun but it's really expensive and if you need to search for a card by turns 5 and 6 chances are the deck isn't that well constructed. IMO it will be occasionally good for control decks who need Aetherling or Sphinx's Revelation asap or midrange decks but IMO it will slow them down a lot of times.
Pyromancer's Gauntlet - I'm all for beefing up mono decks but red was overpowered to begin with...now you have to worry about spears/pillars late in the game with midrange cards...damn.
i tried modern - and the above statement is true. (from my experience)
Haha... man, really? Modern is a coin flip format? I've heard this silly complaint tossed around against Vintage and Legacy before, but I had no idea people whined about Modern the same way. I guess there are a huge chunk of folks for whom any sufficiently strong synergy (combo) is "uninteractive," "unfun," or "coin flippy." I guess this is the crowd wizards is courting with the game of whack-a-mole it keeps playing with the banned list.
If you cannot find the fun in implementing and disrupting powerful synergies, don't play eternal. There are too many cards for you. May I recommend, instead, some nice, safe, m14 draft?
The set is really underwhelming, I agree with almost everyone in that regard. I'm especially sad at the lack of a usable counterspell. It wouldn't kill anyone to reprint Mana Leak. All the anti-blue hate cards are pretty great, but the blue hate card is terrible. Not happy that hexproof is back, either. Like blue needed to be kicked while it was down.
Screw Blue, they got Return to Ravnica and Dragon's Maze was also too good to them. Gave blue it's one and only offensive power creature and IMO the blue player's hate DM the most LOL.
18-1 Lead I had vs. a Blue deck....lost the game to Sphinx's Revelation LOL. Although I actually hate Pillar of Flame worse...There's some sick mill cards in blue though, forgot the name, but one that mills half your library...damn. That will make the Dimir cards in Gatecrash and Dragon's Maze more desirable. I think Wizards wants to push blue towards Dimir for more offense but people want to stay with Bant and USA it seems, at least locally for me. I have yet to see a good esper/Dimir deck and doesn't seem like those decks are popular at the moment. Wight of Precinct Six, Lazav, Dimir Mastermind, Consuming Aberration, Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker are decent cards but not pricey or that desirable it seems. M14 seems like it's trying to nudge people in that direction if they want to play blue.
Yeah, Magic2014 really is underwhelming ... just like Dragon's Maze, Gatecrash, Return to Ravnica, Avacyn Restores, Dark Ascension, Innistrad, New Phyrexia, Mirrodin Besieged, Scars of Mirrodin and all sets before those.
Get over it, it's just a children's card game.
Attended a M14 pre-release yesterday. M14 limited is very fun with tons of variety. Festering Newt/Bubbling Cauldron combo, Slivers/Door of Destinies, Planeswalkers all over the place. Not sure why people complain...
no its not. cards from the set will see tons of play. and more than mutavault and ooze. u will see...
There's a difference between cards being powerful and playable and cards actually being exciting to some people.
Personally for me this is probably the worst set I've seen in recent memory. I actually feel that the power level for the creatures is appropriate for the most part (that hydra is still too stupidly powerful for my likings though). Its just that everything is dreadfully boring. I'd rather have Fallen Empires than this drivel. At least with Fallen Empires the cards are weird, quirky, and interesting unlike what we were given here.
. The reprints for the most part are all bad. nightmare come on? why? there is a huge list of cards that are better, worth more, and could be reprinted to balance their prices out.
nightmare now has awesome art that tops all the previous ones IMHO
some of the art is awesome, i like ring of three wishes with the fire ring.
and we get planar cleansing back, so it's cool
cards that might be played(rares and mythics)
Yeah, Magic2014 really is underwhelming ... just like Dragon's Maze, Gatecrash, Return to Ravnica, Avacyn Restores, Dark Ascension, Innistrad, New Phyrexia, Mirrodin Besieged, Scars of Mirrodin and all sets before those.
Get over it, it's just a children's card game.
The core set needs to reach new and veteran players.
Also it has everything to do with the cards and the layout for the 20th anniversary. It's like showing up to your 20th anniversay and getting the wife the same thing you got her the previous year but a cheaper knock off product.
I can't tell you how disappointed I am with WotC and the layout of this set. 20 cards for standard and a cloud of dust.
This may be the first time I'm actually buying 4 cards from a core set. Strionic Resonator has piqued my interest and I'm in the planning stages with it for something, but that's about it.
Extremely disappointed in this set. Not even Mutavault or Scavenging Ooze can help it.
"There are no two words in the English language more harmful than 'good job'." -Terrance Fletcher, Whiplash (2014)
Says who?
That kind of attitudes is why we get garbage sets. As long as the hopeless optimists/people who feel WoTC can do no wrong buy packs of garbage sets like this, we'll keep getting them
I think M14 is completely terrible, and I'm voting with my wallet. I'm not going to buy a single pack of this set. The game simply deserves a LOT better effort than this.
Agreed. And every other year should be a "Coldsnap", 4th set in a block like Lorwyn/Morningtide, or a special release like Modern Masters or Unglued.
I'm literally buying cards for my decks via eBay like Mutavault and not buying a single pack.
Thanks Argentleman;)
WB Teysa token aggroBW (retired)
MAKING (Onmath, Numot, maybe something in Esper)
But this time most of them are unexciting.
In fact the set is so unexciting that neither lsv nor conley woods made the traditional set review the week prior the pre-release... and there is no pro tour this time around, so they have more time to just go for it.
Chile!
1). Exalted wasn't any better than the new slivers are going to be.
2). I'm sorry you went into the prerelease hating the set and had a bad time because of it. Everyone at my game shop had a great time.
3). "The good cards for constructed formats take absolutely no skill to find either. They are obviously super powerful and it doesn't take a genius to find them." ????? Ok, it's one in the morning and I just got back from an office party, so I'm having a hard time making sense of this. Like, what's this even supposed to signify? Good cards being easy to understand and identify is a bad thing? I'm sorry that these new cards don't challenge your oh so superior knowledge and skill, but that's not a valid argument for the set being bad.
4). "For the first time since I came back during Urza's block, I won't play the current limited portion of Magic." Oh sweet Jesus no! The game won't survive without you.
After reading through this thread and others like it, I've yet to hear one half-decent reason as to why M14 deserves all of the hate it's been getting. I love how for the past few sets, everyone's been whining about power creep. And now that we've been given a de-powered set, the exact same group of people are complaining that not every card will warp the meta.
+1
thanks to less powercreep, theros might actually be good.
Thanks Argentleman;)
WB Teysa token aggroBW (retired)
MAKING (Onmath, Numot, maybe something in Esper)
Currently playing:
GCasual 8-post
R Casual Land Destruction
UBRWG Legacy Dredge
WGB Modern Melira Pod
RUG EDH
I can certainly see why people don't like M14.
Their opinion is "we don't like M14 because there aren't many cards I'm excited about for standard/modern/etc".
Your opinion seems to be that "I agree that the power level of M14 is down, but you shouldn't be angry that it is". I mean... if a set doesn't excite them for whatever reason, it's legit that they won't like the set. Are you going to buy a box of M14? Are you pre-ordering 200 dollars worth of singles to fill out your standard collection? A lot of people aren't.
My opinion is similar to yours. I think sets like these are necessary. They make very little impact beyond a couple of support cards and maybe 2-3 cards that will see a lot of play in standard. But it kind of resets you back to square one.
That she is dog****.
on the bright side, singles for ooze and other reprints will be less
Thanks Argentleman;)
WB Teysa token aggroBW (retired)
MAKING (Onmath, Numot, maybe something in Esper)
I'm just doing red/green/ artifacts, no time to do the whole set, but will chime back later.
Staff of the Sun Magus - or any of the staffs. I think DM and 2014 are catering more towards drafting/lower budget decks and these are a great way for mono decks to be a bit more competitive on top of rewarding you when you draw 5 lands in a row midgame, which annoys everyone, but at least it's a cheap artifact and I can see it in constructed for mill decks and black decks now that Sanguine Bond is reprinted, which IMO, I was VERY happy to see included in 2014.
Awaken the Ancient - Like it. Again sadly it will encourage an already over powered mono red deck but it makes use of excessive land drops if you get caught low on creatures.
Chandra, Pyromaster - I like it specifically because it gives a non blue deck card advantage with the 0 spell if needed the +1 is not really exciting but it doesn't hurt. I do think it should cost 1 less mana for a mythic rare but the ultimate is pretty nasty.
Chandra's Phoenix - I like it but again red is still overpowered and this will encourage more spears/pillars etc...but excited to test it out
Mindsparker - I'm a fan of anything anti azorius LOL.
Ogre Battledriver - great for aggro blitz decks not that red needed it but then again they are losing a lot of key cards in the rotation so i can't wait to test this out in Sept.
Into the Wilds - DAMN...that will really make green over powered.
Primeval Bounty - expensive but green can ramp and this gets you payoff in spades. The landfall effect should help ease the pain of losing Thragtusk and IMO is a great replacement.
Scavenging Ooze - glad for the reprint.
Door of Destinies - should be annoying or fun to experiment with the new slivers and could make weenie / aggro blitz decks better later in the game. I'm anxious to try this.
Witchstalker - I'm a big fan of hexproof creatures and would love to annoy the hell out of blue decks LOL.
Iffy on the following
Fleshpulper Giant - dumb. Over priced and a 2 toughness creature, how card can that be to necessitate 7 mana on a 4/4 creature. Granted it's an uncommon and not a rare, so I can forgive it slightly but IMO should've been a common or just not printed.
Goblin Diplomats - seems too gimmicky for a rare.
Burning Earth - While I'm in favor of giving more balance to mono decks, again, RDW is the one mono deck that didn't need it. Luckily it's a four drop so it should be a minor nuissance at best if playing against red. Gimmicky for a rare as it will force the controller to commit to a mono red deck and could be too slow but it could give a stalling midrange deck fits. Also seems like sideboard only if that.
Ring of Three Wishes - seems fun but it's really expensive and if you need to search for a card by turns 5 and 6 chances are the deck isn't that well constructed. IMO it will be occasionally good for control decks who need Aetherling or Sphinx's Revelation asap or midrange decks but IMO it will slow them down a lot of times.
Pyromancer's Gauntlet - I'm all for beefing up mono decks but red was overpowered to begin with...now you have to worry about spears/pillars late in the game with midrange cards...damn.
Overall set seems decent, just seems like there's an inconsistent mathew effect going on. Some cards help out mono decks which was needed, but red and green at this point with the last two sets are really overpowered as is. Not too impressed with Blue and Black. White could use a bit more help. I know they wanted to bring the game back to battle play vs. Control but seems like they're overdoing it with the Gruul colors. Hopefully Theros/Nix will boost black, blue and white aggro decks if they really want battle balance.
The set is really underwhelming, I agree with almost everyone in that regard. I'm especially sad at the lack of a usable counterspell. It wouldn't kill anyone to reprint Mana Leak. All the anti-blue hate cards are pretty great, but the blue hate card is terrible. Not happy that hexproof is back, either. Like blue needed to be kicked while it was down.
The few standouts are, in my opinion, Young Pyromancer, Imposing Sovreign, Xathrid Necromancer, Ogre Battledriver, and Primeval Bounty.
Brago, King Eternal WU
Deretti's Trading Post R
Alesha, who brings back affordable commons RWB
you forgot domestication at rare.:p
Thanks Argentleman;)
WB Teysa token aggroBW (retired)
MAKING (Onmath, Numot, maybe something in Esper)
Haha... man, really? Modern is a coin flip format? I've heard this silly complaint tossed around against Vintage and Legacy before, but I had no idea people whined about Modern the same way. I guess there are a huge chunk of folks for whom any sufficiently strong synergy (combo) is "uninteractive," "unfun," or "coin flippy." I guess this is the crowd wizards is courting with the game of whack-a-mole it keeps playing with the banned list.
If you cannot find the fun in implementing and disrupting powerful synergies, don't play eternal. There are too many cards for you. May I recommend, instead, some nice, safe, m14 draft?
Screw Blue, they got Return to Ravnica and Dragon's Maze was also too good to them. Gave blue it's one and only offensive power creature and IMO the blue player's hate DM the most LOL.
18-1 Lead I had vs. a Blue deck....lost the game to Sphinx's Revelation LOL. Although I actually hate Pillar of Flame worse...There's some sick mill cards in blue though, forgot the name, but one that mills half your library...damn. That will make the Dimir cards in Gatecrash and Dragon's Maze more desirable. I think Wizards wants to push blue towards Dimir for more offense but people want to stay with Bant and USA it seems, at least locally for me. I have yet to see a good esper/Dimir deck and doesn't seem like those decks are popular at the moment. Wight of Precinct Six, Lazav, Dimir Mastermind, Consuming Aberration, Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker are decent cards but not pricey or that desirable it seems. M14 seems like it's trying to nudge people in that direction if they want to play blue.
Get over it, it's just a
children'scard game.no its not. cards from the set will see tons of play. and more than mutavault and ooze. u will see...
There's a difference between cards being powerful and playable and cards actually being exciting to some people.
Personally for me this is probably the worst set I've seen in recent memory. I actually feel that the power level for the creatures is appropriate for the most part (that hydra is still too stupidly powerful for my likings though). Its just that everything is dreadfully boring. I'd rather have Fallen Empires than this drivel. At least with Fallen Empires the cards are weird, quirky, and interesting unlike what we were given here.
nightmare now has awesome art that tops all the previous ones IMHO
some of the art is awesome, i like ring of three wishes with the fire ring.
and we get planar cleansing back, so it's cool
cards that might be played(rares and mythics)
feel free to argue and edit, my card evaluation skills need work
door of densities works with humans too, so it's awesome
going to sig this
Thanks Argentleman;)
WB Teysa token aggroBW (retired)
MAKING (Onmath, Numot, maybe something in Esper)