I don't really get the flavor of it becoming legendary, is it just because now instead of being anyone's Lantern of Insight it is now Bolas' Lantern of Insight? I guess Legendary is a theme of the set but it's still weird.
I would have though confiscate would have been a nice reprint and some nostalgia since the old art had a young teferi and I'm sure they could have had him being the doing doing the confiscating now.
Also confiscate's flavour text is 100000x better IMO:
"I don't understand why he works so hard on a device to duplicate a sound so easily made with hand and armpit."
—Barrin, progress report
It's even funnier when you realize that the "he" Barrin is talking about is Teferi.
The problem with Energy, IMBAO, is the same problem with Infect: They printed no way of removing counters from players, offensively (in the case of Energy) or defensively (in the case of Infect). With no way to counteract something, it will flourish.
And I would disagree with the Idea that Kaladesh block designers "screwed up" re: the bannings. It's Ixalan block design that screwed up. Any answers to overused cards in a set needs to come from future sets, not by retroactively blaming design for those cards being overused. Plus, you know, making sure the next set doesn't suck.
(Protip: printing one and only one mediocre-to-bad card to counteract a pushed mechanic isn't enough to balance things out.)
One of the major complaints that I've lodged as of late is the lack of support for good-to-great mechanics from the large set going forward into the small set of a block (examples: Investigate, Converge). WotC seemed to want to treat the small set of a block as a big set lite - trying to make it its own thing but still trying to fit in stuff from the mother block. And my response to this was "Then why have a small set? Why are you putting forth a two-set block paradigm but still trying to treat it as two individual sets with their own identities?"
Looks like that question has been answered. This change in release makes it more like the pre-Visions days, where all sets were standalone, but this time done more patiently.
And I'm glad core sets are kinda-sorta coming back. One of my ideas for fixing Standard was to just have a list of 100-150 cards that were always Standard legal, to be adjusted as circumstances warrant. That would like have been unfeasible, but this works too. With this new pseudo-core set, they can look at the FFL and see what possible problems arise and keep tabs on the current meta and see what answers are needed, and be able to supply those answers without trying to force it into a specific storyline or mythos.
Aside from the financial issues in my current situation, what pushed me out of Magic (this time probably for good) is Eldritch Moon and what it means for Magic going forward. That is, the lastest few sets have become an increasingly small handful of chase cards accompanied by an increasingly large avalnche of garbage. There are reasons for this, that I'm contemplating making a full article about, but the end result is that buying booster packs has become approximately as lucrative as buying a scratchoff lottery ticket. There is literally no reason to buy boosters any more, because the odds are greater and greater that you will get something that no one will use.
(Side note: this is also why Standard has become either playing a Bant deck that plays Collected Company or playing against a Bant deck that plays Collected Company, but I digress)
So, Wizards decided to find ways to get people to buy packs. And why create more quality cards when you can print hundred dollar bills (with a few twenties, tens, and fives for good measure) to mix in with your card pool? To continue the scratchoff comparison, this is Wizards basically making a jackpot for their lottery game. Yeah, they'll sell more packs, and all it'll cost them is their goodwill and people's love of the game, especially if this carrot-on-a-stick incentive is being used as a replacement for putting out, you know, quality, which is what it's looking like.
I call this set "The set that finally compelled me to quit Magic altogether (except for one EDH deck I'll be updating periodically)"
So much flavor, so much potential, all the gameplay and design experience of a Design and Development team that should know better. This should have been the greatest Magic set of all time.
It is considerably less than that. "Disappointing" doesn't even begin to describe it. "Infuriating" is closer.
I can see in a few cards (Lone Rider in particular) what this set really wanted to be and should have been. But, as I believed to be the case from the beginning, it ended up being a handful of chase cards buried in a pile of delusions of mediocrity.
Saying that Wizards "dropped the ball" doesn't go far enough. More accurately, they dropped the ball, booted it onto the freeway, and caused a 26-car pileup.
Today, a young man on acid learned that matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is just a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather...
Not to imply that you're on anything or anything, Hydro; just thought the quote was relevant.
It's even funnier when you realize that the "he" Barrin is talking about is Teferi.
And I would disagree with the Idea that Kaladesh block designers "screwed up" re: the bannings. It's Ixalan block design that screwed up. Any answers to overused cards in a set needs to come from future sets, not by retroactively blaming design for those cards being overused. Plus, you know, making sure the next set doesn't suck.
(Protip: printing one and only one mediocre-to-bad card to counteract a pushed mechanic isn't enough to balance things out.)
One of the major complaints that I've lodged as of late is the lack of support for good-to-great mechanics from the large set going forward into the small set of a block (examples: Investigate, Converge). WotC seemed to want to treat the small set of a block as a big set lite - trying to make it its own thing but still trying to fit in stuff from the mother block. And my response to this was "Then why have a small set? Why are you putting forth a two-set block paradigm but still trying to treat it as two individual sets with their own identities?"
Looks like that question has been answered. This change in release makes it more like the pre-Visions days, where all sets were standalone, but this time done more patiently.
And I'm glad core sets are kinda-sorta coming back. One of my ideas for fixing Standard was to just have a list of 100-150 cards that were always Standard legal, to be adjusted as circumstances warrant. That would like have been unfeasible, but this works too. With this new pseudo-core set, they can look at the FFL and see what possible problems arise and keep tabs on the current meta and see what answers are needed, and be able to supply those answers without trying to force it into a specific storyline or mythos.
(Side note: this is also why Standard has become either playing a Bant deck that plays Collected Company or playing against a Bant deck that plays Collected Company, but I digress)
So, Wizards decided to find ways to get people to buy packs. And why create more quality cards when you can print hundred dollar bills (with a few twenties, tens, and fives for good measure) to mix in with your card pool? To continue the scratchoff comparison, this is Wizards basically making a jackpot for their lottery game. Yeah, they'll sell more packs, and all it'll cost them is their goodwill and people's love of the game, especially if this carrot-on-a-stick incentive is being used as a replacement for putting out, you know, quality, which is what it's looking like.
So much flavor, so much potential, all the gameplay and design experience of a Design and Development team that should know better. This should have been the greatest Magic set of all time.
It is considerably less than that. "Disappointing" doesn't even begin to describe it. "Infuriating" is closer.
I can see in a few cards (Lone Rider in particular) what this set really wanted to be and should have been. But, as I believed to be the case from the beginning, it ended up being a handful of chase cards buried in a pile of delusions of mediocrity.
Saying that Wizards "dropped the ball" doesn't go far enough. More accurately, they dropped the ball, booted it onto the freeway, and caused a 26-car pileup.
This set is bad, and Wizards should feel bad.