SoM block was a hell of a lot better than original Mirrodin block for Magic. I'm sorry, but there's no way to justify the block that introduced Raffinity.
I was never a HUGE fan of the original anyway. It was the forst set that, to me, built your deck for you. You picked a guild, put all those guilds cards togeher, and there's our deck. Close to zero creativity needed. The individual cards were really cool, but the dumbing down of deck building was unfortunate.
And Onslaughtdidn't build its decks for you?:rolleyes:
Ravnica standard was famous for its 3-color decks and was one of the most interesting standard environments of all time.
I was never a HUGE fan of the original anyway. It was the forst set that, to me, built your deck for you. You picked a guild, put all those guilds cards togeher, and there's our deck. Close to zero creativity needed. The individual cards were really cool, but the dumbing down of deck building was unfortunate.
I'd say the mechanics are far more linear right now with things like Metal Craft and Infect requiring full deck dedication in order to work properly... We literally have two life totals now making it so certain creatures just can't be played with other creatures.
You picked a guild, put all those guilds cards togeher, and there's our deck. Close to zero creativity needed. The individual cards were really cool, but the dumbing down of deck building was unfortunate.
i just think they have a problem with inovation rigth now... there is Mirrodin, Scar of Mirrodin and Mirrodin Beseiged... well let me guess the next few set! Ravnica, Ravnica Return, Ravnica is Back and the last will be Ravnica is DEAD... That's is how you surf on your past glory. In a few years, it gonna be Ravnica vs Mirrodin raise from the Dead... Seriously they need new guys for the storyline FAST
Oh yes. Heaven forbid we have a stable cast of characters. One-shot characters are the only way to go anymore! Down with character development! Character development is just the writers being lazy! Never having to write about a character dealing with the long-term consequences of his/her actions is the truest sign of a devoted and committed mind guiding the plot!
I hope they pull off a good set, but Mirroodin was a popular set, and SOM straight up sucked, so hopefully they don't ruin Ravnica.
Original Mirrodin was the height of the power level cycle at the time, coming just before the powering down that was Kamigawa. It was popular for that reason, as far as singles go. The block hurt tournament attendance enormously, though. Overall, the people who bought it bought a lot of it, because of power cards, but fewer total individual people were buying.
Scars came just after a big power down, with the set before it being the one with the overpowered stuff that was selling like hotcakes but hurting tournament attendance. So it's natural that SoM would sell poorly; it's just the reality of the timing. It compares pretty favorably to the sets it corresponds to (Masques block, Kamigawa block) specifically because they timed the return to a popular plane to soften the blow.
Invasion and the first Ravnica were the upswing sets that justified the lowering of the power level in the sets before them, and were both enormously popular. Innistrad matches up with those on the cycle, and is likely to be amazingly popular among the casual crowd. The new Rav is going to, again, be the set to soften the blow of the disappointment after Innistrad is gone, which coincides with Odyssey block and Time Spiral.
If the cycle holds, Rav should have a very skill-based and difficult limited format, and should contribute substantial power creep relative to Innistrad for Standard. It will be very popular with pros, but casual players will struggle with it and will prefer Innistrad. So they chose a fan favorite for the setting in order to keep the casuals happy.
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
SoM block was a hell of a lot better than original Mirrodin block for Magic. I'm sorry, but there's no way to justify the block that introduced Raffinity.
And Onslaughtdidn't build its decks for you?:rolleyes:
Ravnica standard was famous for its 3-color decks and was one of the most interesting standard environments of all time.
I'd be happy with a Planar Chaos event on Ravnica.
Hopefully, they print more ghosts, haunting New Ravnica. This way we can pass effortlessly into the Planar Chaos event on Kamigawa where whenever you cast a spirit or arcane spell you suspend a card from your hand/ cascade/ splice/ ki counters/ whatever... They need to build upon that jank. To save face if anything.
I've been waiting for a loose ends block. That ties up loose ends. Lets extinct slivers in rath to have them show up on otaria only to never be seen again expect in all of these places. Or Kavu. Or Jhovalls.
What happened to Jhovalls? I liked those.
Also, remember that time Urza found Mishra on Phyrexia? That was whack! Fix that. All those planeswalkers that died when they assaulted Phyrexia with their Pernicious Deed. Only to have Phyrexia win? Yawgmoth was a surgeon not some kind of Galactus walking around devouring planets. Put them on cards man. Planeswalkers Mirth? We have planeswalker type cards now man...
The Yamabushi? What are they doing? Or all those Orochi?
Think the best question is how the set is going to be different then the last. The EDH player in me is hoping for wedge color guilds and legendary Nephalim commanders!
We'll likely see some of the more popular mechanics come back, and I'm hoping they take some of the less inspired mechanics, like haunt, and make actual good cards with them.
As someone who missed the whole "hybrid" mana I find the concept there is a chance it could be reintroduced exciting. Been kinda browsing the listings for Rav-block and seemed like an exciting time to make a deck.
Though I am just giddy there will be a new Liliana in it mainly.
As has been said, SoM had the burden to be a The Dark/Masques/Kamigawa set. All because of Faeries.
This rationale is fair, and it's certainly possible that they'll treat new Ravnica better than they treated new Mirrodin. But it's also undeniable that they botched new Mirrodin with an awful, awful set - and a big part of it had to do with their design approach to SoM. They revived poison and somehow did it worse than it's ever been done before, and that's entirely on them.
Right now we have evidence that they can screw up a plane when they return to it, and really none that they can get it right. I hope they do new Ravnica well, but I don't think it's unreasonable to be a touch pessimistic about it right now.
If the cycle holds, Rav should have a very skill-based and difficult limited format, and should contribute substantial power creep relative to Innistrad for Standard. It will be very popular with pros, but casual players will struggle with it and will prefer Innistrad. So they chose a fan favorite for the setting in order to keep the casuals happy.
Don't know what sort of casual crowd you play with, but casual is by no means a lump of mediocre players who despise thinking out complex deck designs. Casual is too large and varied a "format" to associate a specific player type with. In my casual group, convoluted and powerful combos rule the day alongside turn three aggro wins. As long as they are fun, it doesn't matter how advanced the mechanics are.
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The multicolor decks require fixing and its much easier to get mana screwed. New Ravnica could slow things down a bit, and that may be the idea.
Seriously, I want to see another Phyrexian invasion, though. According to to the concept the Phyrexians will continue spreading until stopped. They won't stop on their own.
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i liked SoM and i don't think that rav built your deck for you anymore than shards did. Got naya fatties? chuck em in a deck! i mean... you can pretty much say that about any block cant you? got faeries? chuck the good ones in a deck I think your just hating on rav cause it was a bad time in your life.
Ravnica was the first set amoung those. Tribal came later, and Alara also had a lot of it. Ravnica was the first set I saw and thought that it just made your deck for you.
And it wasn't a bad time in my life, quite the opposite, actually, I would gladly trade places with myself from back then!
if you want to talk about a block that really built your decks for you, i would think Shards and even Lor/Sha were far more guilty than Rav
They came after Ravnica. Ravnica was the first set that I can recall where you could build you deck just by grouping the like mana symbols together and calling it a day. I know a lot of people like that, and that's cool, I personally miss the nostolgia of having a pile of seeming random things and having to find the synergies yourself.
SoM block was a hell of a lot better than original Mirrodin block for Magic. I'm sorry, but there's no way to justify the block that introduced Raffinity.
Wow, you are literally the only person, in real life or online, who I have ever heard say they likled SOM better than Mirrodin.
That's not how Kami/Rav or Rav/TSP were at all.
I agree with Kami and TSP. But as a block, I felt Rav did.
So it's natural that SoM would sell poorly; it's just the reality of the timing. It compares pretty favorably to the sets it corresponds to (Masques block, Kamigawa block) specifically because they timed the return to a popular plane to soften the blow.
You can make interesting, fun, non overpowered cards. IMHO, SOM was just resoundingly boring. Regardless of power level.
Seriously, I want to see another Phyrexian invasion, though. According to to the concept the Phyrexians will continue spreading until stopped. They won't stop on their own.
I highly doubt they il revists the phyrexians so soon
I would love for the return of Ravnica to be a new Legends set, a lot of legendary crearues all fighting to assume control. And I srtill think there will be a multiplayer focus. It would have been really cool if they made Ravnica the plane for the Commander sets.
SoM was a badly designed in my opinion. I tried so hard to like but to be honest it was a really uninspiring set to me. The original Mirrodin was amazing however.
I can feel that they'll successfully pull off a second Ravnica. I'm just waiting for our return to Kamigawa! Just imagine it without Spirit and Arcane!
Emmara is like the worst parts of Legends and Homelands got pregnant, aborted the fetus, tossed it in the trashcan, set it on fire and wrapped the corpse in a Dragon's Maze pack wrapper.
ill liked som over original mirrodin
imo the problem with it was the existence of a boring meta and some powerful cards (jtms sfm etc)
but was pretty balanced and interesting, mirrodin besieged was a little boring.... but nph is still fun and have some fun cards
Honestly I was bored to tears for all but like 20% of Scars block. I hope Innistrad is exciting because new Rav is still pretty far away...
The problem was they tried to make poison competitive, and as such made up what, 30% of the set? But the problem was if they made poison TOO competitive people would be whining so much.
I liked the set, but maybe thats because this was my first full set that i played ALL of.
I think part of the issue of SOM was that they were using a world that was created to convey one fantasy setting, and somehow tweak it into something new without diverging from the former incarnation too much. Poison was a bad idea imho for conveying that. Wither as well. I kinda wish i could see into an alternate reality where poison and the wither part of infect had not been a part of SOM. I have a feeling it would have been a lot better. (and i don't mean no phyrexians, i just don't feel that -1/-1 counters and poison are accurate ways of conveying phyrexia/phyrexis.)
Poison should have been introduced in a set like Coldsnap, a single set that explores a concept without having to fit itself in between anything.
Hopefully they've learned something along these lines and avoid it with Rav 2.0, or any 2.0 in fact.
I liked SoM alot better than mirrodin 1 because of how insanely busted and overpowered mirrodin 1 was. I liked rav because of interesting card design, and i guess that if you only took cards from a certain guild you would come up with an ok deck... Most decks that were really competetive used cards from *gasp* multiple guilds!
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I would say SOM was much better than Mirrodin only because Mirrodin was full of broken junk. SOM was much more balanced, and therefore healthier for the format.
Ravnica was the first set amoung those. Tribal came later, and Alara also had a lot of it. Ravnica was the first set I saw and thought that it just made your deck for you.
No, Tempest was the first, with Slivers. And Onslaught was the first time they devoted a whole block concept to it, well before Rav.
They came after Ravnica. Ravnica was the first set that I can recall where you could build you deck just by grouping the like mana symbols together and calling it a day. I know a lot of people like that, and that's cool, I personally miss the nostolgia of having a pile of seeming random things and having to find the synergies yourself.
Nonsense. You could do this from Alpha onward, with single colored cards. Rav was only different in that there were ten categories the block was divided into instead of five.
I agree with Kami and TSP. But as a block, I felt Rav did.
You feeling that way doesn't make it true. Two color decks were never successful while Rav was in Standard. The "build-me" decks were never anywhere near the best in the format. (EDIT: which, interestingly, is not true of Mirrodin, where ALL the popular decks, like Raffinity, T&N, and Elves, were all obvious to build and topped anything imaginitive. Ironworks decks were the only clever thing the block offered.)
You can make interesting, fun, non overpowered cards. IMHO, SOM was just resoundingly boring. Regardless of power level.
Not an entire block of them, after a highly overpowered block, you can't. Or at least, they've failed every time they've tried, so evidence does not support your claim. There are some interesting, fun non-overpowered cards in SoM. Just not enough to make the block shine.
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
While I agree with pretty much everything else you said, I'd just like to point out that G/W Ghatzi-Glare did win Worlds during Kami/Rav Standard.
Not to mention Boros when timespiral came out was pretty efficient, and many of the creatures weren't even part of Ravnica. Gruul was pretty good, and during Kami/Rav you had at least three or more version of Orzhov running around. In fact, throughout kami/rav/tsp it's hard to find one of the guilds that didn't do well in a tournament.
I love the "ff7" of magic just as much as anyone else, the fact they revisit is RIGHT after revisiting mirrodin is weak.
Ravnica is the FF7 of Magic?
I may be the only one dissapointed by this news. Rav block was fun, but I don't like the plane. I have no desire to revisit it ever again. I mean, I liked it at first, but Orzhov and Dimir aside, I grew to dislike it over time for story/flavor purposes.
This is especially jarring because it seems like a gutshot to one of the most well-developed planes ever-- Kamigawa. Even if it wasn't as powerful as Mirrodin or Ravnica, most people I talk to seem to agree that it had the best flavor, story, and worldbuilding of those three planes.
I mean, why not go back to Kamigawa and improve on it's mechanical faults? Tone the power up a bit just like they toned Mirrodin's power down for Scars block? Change the mechanics, etc?
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And Onslaught didn't build its decks for you?:rolleyes:
Ravnica standard was famous for its 3-color decks and was one of the most interesting standard environments of all time.
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I'd say the mechanics are far more linear right now with things like Metal Craft and Infect requiring full deck dedication in order to work properly... We literally have two life totals now making it so certain creatures just can't be played with other creatures.
That's not how Kami/Rav or Rav/TSP were at all.
Oh yes. Heaven forbid we have a stable cast of characters. One-shot characters are the only way to go anymore! Down with character development! Character development is just the writers being lazy! Never having to write about a character dealing with the long-term consequences of his/her actions is the truest sign of a devoted and committed mind guiding the plot!
Original Mirrodin was the height of the power level cycle at the time, coming just before the powering down that was Kamigawa. It was popular for that reason, as far as singles go. The block hurt tournament attendance enormously, though. Overall, the people who bought it bought a lot of it, because of power cards, but fewer total individual people were buying.
Scars came just after a big power down, with the set before it being the one with the overpowered stuff that was selling like hotcakes but hurting tournament attendance. So it's natural that SoM would sell poorly; it's just the reality of the timing. It compares pretty favorably to the sets it corresponds to (Masques block, Kamigawa block) specifically because they timed the return to a popular plane to soften the blow.
Invasion and the first Ravnica were the upswing sets that justified the lowering of the power level in the sets before them, and were both enormously popular. Innistrad matches up with those on the cycle, and is likely to be amazingly popular among the casual crowd. The new Rav is going to, again, be the set to soften the blow of the disappointment after Innistrad is gone, which coincides with Odyssey block and Time Spiral.
If the cycle holds, Rav should have a very skill-based and difficult limited format, and should contribute substantial power creep relative to Innistrad for Standard. It will be very popular with pros, but casual players will struggle with it and will prefer Innistrad. So they chose a fan favorite for the setting in order to keep the casuals happy.
I'd be happy with a Planar Chaos event on Ravnica.
Disrupted space/time continuum episodes ever end.
Transguild Courier has a job to do. Lets go there and check it out.
Hopefully, they print more ghosts, haunting New Ravnica. This way we can pass effortlessly into the Planar Chaos event on Kamigawa where whenever you cast a spirit or arcane spell you suspend a card from your hand/ cascade/ splice/ ki counters/ whatever... They need to build upon that jank. To save face if anything.
I've been waiting for a loose ends block. That ties up loose ends. Lets extinct slivers in rath to have them show up on otaria only to never be seen again expect in all of these places. Or Kavu. Or Jhovalls.
What happened to Jhovalls? I liked those.
Also, remember that time Urza found Mishra on Phyrexia? That was whack! Fix that. All those planeswalkers that died when they assaulted Phyrexia with their Pernicious Deed. Only to have Phyrexia win? Yawgmoth was a surgeon not some kind of Galactus walking around devouring planets. Put them on cards man. Planeswalkers Mirth? We have planeswalker type cards now man...
The Yamabushi? What are they doing? Or all those Orochi?
We'll likely see some of the more popular mechanics come back, and I'm hoping they take some of the less inspired mechanics, like haunt, and make actual good cards with them.
Though I am just giddy there will be a new Liliana in it mainly.
Standard
WBGWBGABZAN AGGROWBGWBG
This rationale is fair, and it's certainly possible that they'll treat new Ravnica better than they treated new Mirrodin. But it's also undeniable that they botched new Mirrodin with an awful, awful set - and a big part of it had to do with their design approach to SoM. They revived poison and somehow did it worse than it's ever been done before, and that's entirely on them.
Right now we have evidence that they can screw up a plane when they return to it, and really none that they can get it right. I hope they do new Ravnica well, but I don't think it's unreasonable to be a touch pessimistic about it right now.
Don't know what sort of casual crowd you play with, but casual is by no means a lump of mediocre players who despise thinking out complex deck designs. Casual is too large and varied a "format" to associate a specific player type with. In my casual group, convoluted and powerful combos rule the day alongside turn three aggro wins. As long as they are fun, it doesn't matter how advanced the mechanics are.
UG Shifty Rainforest
UG Primal Sphinx
UR Bounced Lightning
BW The Immortal Spirit Lives On
EDH!
URG Dreamweaver
GUB Damia Dredge
UG Edric's Ploygasm
Seriously, I want to see another Phyrexian invasion, though. According to to the concept the Phyrexians will continue spreading until stopped. They won't stop on their own.
Ravnica was the first set amoung those. Tribal came later, and Alara also had a lot of it. Ravnica was the first set I saw and thought that it just made your deck for you.
And it wasn't a bad time in my life, quite the opposite, actually, I would gladly trade places with myself from back then!
They came after Ravnica. Ravnica was the first set that I can recall where you could build you deck just by grouping the like mana symbols together and calling it a day. I know a lot of people like that, and that's cool, I personally miss the nostolgia of having a pile of seeming random things and having to find the synergies yourself.
Wow, you are literally the only person, in real life or online, who I have ever heard say they likled SOM better than Mirrodin.
I agree with Kami and TSP. But as a block, I felt Rav did.
You can make interesting, fun, non overpowered cards. IMHO, SOM was just resoundingly boring. Regardless of power level.
I highly doubt they il revists the phyrexians so soon
I would love for the return of Ravnica to be a new Legends set, a lot of legendary crearues all fighting to assume control. And I srtill think there will be a multiplayer focus. It would have been really cool if they made Ravnica the plane for the Commander sets.
I can feel that they'll successfully pull off a second Ravnica. I'm just waiting for our return to Kamigawa! Just imagine it without Spirit and Arcane!
imo the problem with it was the existence of a boring meta and some powerful cards (jtms sfm etc)
but was pretty balanced and interesting, mirrodin besieged was a little boring.... but nph is still fun and have some fun cards
GWB Junk Stax Ghave BWG
The problem was they tried to make poison competitive, and as such made up what, 30% of the set? But the problem was if they made poison TOO competitive people would be whining so much.
I liked the set, but maybe thats because this was my first full set that i played ALL of.
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xRxAffinityxRx
Poison should have been introduced in a set like Coldsnap, a single set that explores a concept without having to fit itself in between anything.
Hopefully they've learned something along these lines and avoid it with Rav 2.0, or any 2.0 in fact.
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No, Tempest was the first, with Slivers. And Onslaught was the first time they devoted a whole block concept to it, well before Rav.
Nonsense. You could do this from Alpha onward, with single colored cards. Rav was only different in that there were ten categories the block was divided into instead of five.
You feeling that way doesn't make it true. Two color decks were never successful while Rav was in Standard. The "build-me" decks were never anywhere near the best in the format. (EDIT: which, interestingly, is not true of Mirrodin, where ALL the popular decks, like Raffinity, T&N, and Elves, were all obvious to build and topped anything imaginitive. Ironworks decks were the only clever thing the block offered.)
Not an entire block of them, after a highly overpowered block, you can't. Or at least, they've failed every time they've tried, so evidence does not support your claim. There are some interesting, fun non-overpowered cards in SoM. Just not enough to make the block shine.
Technically, the Scars block itself didn't, but...
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While I agree with pretty much everything else you said, I'd just like to point out that G/W Ghatzi-Glare did win Worlds during Kami/Rav Standard.
Not to mention Boros when timespiral came out was pretty efficient, and many of the creatures weren't even part of Ravnica. Gruul was pretty good, and during Kami/Rav you had at least three or more version of Orzhov running around. In fact, throughout kami/rav/tsp it's hard to find one of the guilds that didn't do well in a tournament.
Ravnica is the FF7 of Magic?
I may be the only one dissapointed by this news. Rav block was fun, but I don't like the plane. I have no desire to revisit it ever again. I mean, I liked it at first, but Orzhov and Dimir aside, I grew to dislike it over time for story/flavor purposes.
This is especially jarring because it seems like a gutshot to one of the most well-developed planes ever-- Kamigawa. Even if it wasn't as powerful as Mirrodin or Ravnica, most people I talk to seem to agree that it had the best flavor, story, and worldbuilding of those three planes.
I mean, why not go back to Kamigawa and improve on it's mechanical faults? Tone the power up a bit just like they toned Mirrodin's power down for Scars block? Change the mechanics, etc?