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.
There are a few things to note here.
Nowadays, standard mtg is focused on playing the most expensive cards in the format, the chase cards. Sure there have been chase cards in the past, but in the past few years I think mtg has made it more defined and more linear on what decks are meta.
I do agree that the precons are always worth it, for the most part, even with moderate changes to the lists. They end up reprinting a lot of "staples". However, this makes the decks feel boring. For example, they could have reprinted other dual lands in the decks by now, but they continue to reprint the same old ones into the ground.
I also wish that they would remake the old starter decks. I remember getting the Slivers one from... planar chaos? Future sight? And the fungus one
... and a kamigawa one. They were way more on theme than intro decks and pmaneswalker decks.... AND
You can see where mtg got greedy. They used to give you like 40-50% of a complete deck to work with that didn't entirely suck, while the plabeswalker decks and intro packs we've seen in the last few years have been absolute garbage.
Saying this, I do think that the Commander Precons they release are way better than their ancestors in terms of conciseness and value, but it doesn't do anything for people trying to get into standard or potentially any 60 cars format.
There are a few things to note here.
Nowadays, standard mtg is focused on playing the most expensive cards in the format, the chase cards. Sure there have been chase cards in the past, but in the past few years I think mtg has made it more defined and more linear on what decks are meta.
I do agree that the precons are always worth it, for the most part, even with moderate changes to the lists. They end up reprinting a lot of "staples". However, this makes the decks feel boring. For example, they could have reprinted other dual lands in the decks by now, but they continue to reprint the same old ones into the ground.
I also wish that they would remake the old starter decks. I remember getting the Slivers one from... planar chaos? Future sight? And the fungus one
... and a kamigawa one. They were way more on theme than intro decks and pmaneswalker decks.... AND
You can see where mtg got greedy. They used to give you like 40-50% of a complete deck to work with that didn't entirely suck, while the plabeswalker decks and intro packs we've seen in the last few years have been absolute garbage.
Saying this, I do think that the Commander Precons they release are way better than their ancestors in terms of conciseness and value, but it doesn't do anything for people trying to get into standard or potentially any 60 cars format.
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries