Magic: The Gathering - Page 532

On April 18 2014 18:01 Thereisnosaurus wrote:
bit of a disappointing set overall. Some good stuff there, but not much that'll hold value as far as I can see. Can't really see much that seems clearly interesting in modern. Dakara mystic for fish, perhaps one or two of the gods in a niche here or there. Maybe, maaaybe eidolon of blossoms, but it seems far too expensive and vulnerable.

Blue/red temple might see a little play in eternals since the temples seem to be cementing themselves as the third choice behind fetches and shocks when you're not playing tempo/aggro. Godsend might end up being a counter to something, but consensus seems to be it's not going to augment or replace the sword/skull mystic package.

On April 18 2014 17:00 mr_tolkien wrote:
3/1 once more in a daily event ! I'm over 80 tix now starting from 0 in 2 weeks :D

On April 19 2014 04:47 Judicator wrote:
This entire block I felt was a disappointment, they really could have gone much farther with the legends theme, really doing what they did with Kamigawa except with a more accessible mythology (Greek vs. Far East). Instead we end up with this pile of generic shit none of which is particularly memorable. Like when the best thing out of the block are the Scry duals, I am not sure what I am suppose to get out of the block.

Devotion was a neat mechanic except when you realize that the cards powering it are (way past mostly) from...RtR block. The entire block feels like it was trying to get pulled into a million different directions and ended up being mediocre or worse for all aspects. Monstrous was a joke since your removal was overcosted as fuck in Limited and undercosted (and potentially useless) as fuck in Standard.

On April 19 2014 05:19 Thieving Magpie wrote:


I think the main problem of the set is that the 5 colors dont really feel unique from each other personality wise. Like, the blue cards feel like generic blue cards with blue people on them and it doesn't have a personality unique to what Theros blue would feel like. Does that make sense?

Like, for example, Heliod pumps out Cat Enchantment tokens. And yet, white doesn't feel like the "cat" color nor does it feel like the "enchantment" color. Hammer of Purphoros sacs lands but red never feels like the "sac lands" color of the set. Sure, overall within the totality of magic those associations are accurate--but not in Theros.

The flavor has been too split up.

Like, because of the monocolored gods and the multicolored gods I can't even figure out who the god of death is. Black? WB? GB? Is W or R or WR or GR the aggressive color? etc...

Its like they wanted to make a new ravnica block with greeks in it but end up just kind of giving a bit of everything to everyone.

On April 20 2014 08:27 deth2munkies wrote:


Heliod pumps out clerics. Brimaz (the leader of the cat people) pumps out cats, I hope you can see how that works.

Blue is Greek Sea Monsters + Merfolk + Sirens + Oracles/Sphinxes. I mean that's pretty much the flavor of "Knowledge & the Sea" that blue normally gets, transposed into Greek Mythology, which is exactly what the set wanted it to do.

Erebos is the god of Death. Athreos is the Ferryman (Charon). Pharika is the god of malady. Phenax is the god of Deceit. Mogis is the god of Slaughter/War (with Iroas). I mean, all of the black gods facilitate death, but Erebos is obviously Hades.

I mean I could go on, but it feels like you're just flat out not paying attention or playing with the set, not much they can do about that.

I like the flavor of the set, I like what the next set is doing for the limited environment and possibly for standard because god I hate both right now.

On April 20 2014 10:54 Thieving Magpie wrote:


Which is why I described blue as Blue cards with blue people in it.

I want more than just window dressing. I want the mechanics to feel blue, I want the flavor of the cards to feel blue and not just feel like "this subset of creature types is where we are sending blue"

When I see black removal spells, I want to feel that creatures are dying because of black causes and not just because its a removal spell that happens to be black.

right now white can be heroic, or red, or blue, or black, or whatever.

White can be death, or green, or black, or whatever.

The pictures look the part, and the names look the part, but the set does not feel the part. The mechanics do not feel the part.

On April 20 2014 11:56 Judicator wrote:
Yeah, I am not seeing it deth2munkies.

Generic sea monsters isn't flavorful. Basically if you changed the names of these cards, then you could see them on the Zendikar plane.

Like basically what I was trying to say is that this set feels like a core set in terms of flavor and mechanics integration (okay not quite that bad, but its pretty close). For the richness that is Greek myths and heroes, we have very generic mechanics that are spread out all over. Like why does Blue have Heroic creatures that aren't heroes, like...Wavecrash Triton doesn't exactly strike me as particularly heroic nor does Chorus?

None of the cards they have produced are memorable. Like take Asphyxiate, does the untapped requirement really make that much sense? Weight of the Underworld, why is it -3/-2 instead of say -X/-X? Hero's Downfall makes even less sense because PWs haven't died in lore (iirc) except to other PWs which is why something like Vraska made so much sense, but Downfall always seemed off.

Dunno, but the design choices made weren't exactly for good game play especially in the limited sense.

On April 20 2014 13:38 Judicator wrote:
I am not saying there aren't those well designed cards, but its like when you draft, rarely are there enough deep enough to support multiple strategies. GB for example is about as generic as it gets in terms of play style. Your deck strategies aren't deep, they remind me more of core set drafts than not.

Memorable as in this card wouldn't exist any where else at its cost and effect. Like Curse is a great example, but it doesn't have defining characteristic of the block. That's the problem with a lot of the cards in this block. Like you have your great designed cards like Heroes Downfall and Curse but honestly if you changed the names to Homicide and Swinemorph would you still say the same thing? That's what I mean, either the cards have great flavor or they have great effects, rarely do you have both.

The Temples out of the block are probably the best, you scry at these places for guidance, and it's a pilgrimage so you spend time (hence the tapped ability). Ordeals are probably the second best, followed by the Gods.

Like I read cards like Asphyxiate and I just wonder what about the untapped requirement makes sense, same goes for destroy target tapped. The Fated cycle makes a lot of sense here, but they are prohibitive to see Limited play. Instead of getting Heroes/Gods versus Monsters/Gods we got generic MtG Humans versus generic Monsters. No single color has a great identity except maybe Green (which makes sense given Green's propensity for giant creatures).

Edit:

The legendaries in this block is a prime example of this, none of them are memorable in terms of mechanics, like Annax and Cyamede is the only one that do what heroes would do, buff their allies. Like they could have made something like enchant legendaries only or have some direct interaction with the heroes to the non-legendaries to really get at the heroes versus everything else kind of vibe.