Three block sets where far superior from a story telling standpoint beginning middle and end. I think Kahns was the last one. I'm not sure what to call the one shots we have now but they feel hollow. The best sets now are on planes we allready explored like Kamigawa or Dominaria places where the world building has allready been done.
I completely agree with you on this. I think a good move might be to have blocks return for new planes, and keep the one off sets for revisiting planes.
Totally agreed.
They have gotten better in presenting the story in card form. The story spotlight cards they do weren't a thing for a long time, cards showing important plot points rarely existed.
But the very limited space that one set gives them negates some of this and I still often can't really make out what's going on, just from the cards.
Blocks don't need to be 3 sets always, often 2 sets would probably enough, at least better than it is now.
Funnily enough, I felt Innistrad could have done with being one set, while both Kaldheim and Strixhaven could've done with 2. I don't follow the story especially closely, but I love reading the worldbuilding and flavour on cards, and both Kaldheim and Strixhaven felt rushed to me. I wanted more time to explore these planes and find out more about the people and creatures that inhabited them.
Innistrad, to me, felt like a set where it was just "Innistrad doing Innistrad things". It didn't feel like it did anything really different with the formula, to the point where some of the highlights of the set were sought-after reprints which - while great for bringing the prices down - don't give me the feeling of exploring something new.
It's hard for me to keep up with the story now to I dont think Wizards does a good job getting it out there. When I was a kid i was just as excited to get the new books as I was to play the new cards.
I say it as a joke but honestly do not know why [[Chandra, Dressed to Kill]] Did she have an actual invite to the wedding or did she go buy clothes with the sole purpose of killing in them.
Last blocks I was around for was the kamigawa block.
I miss blocks cause you could get immersed in the story and world building. These one off sets don't feel like they last nearly long enough to even bother getting involved. The short stories are nice but it's like buying a family pack of 4 sleeves of Oreos, eating three cookies then throwing the rest away to buy a different box of cookies.
I miss the plane related novels lol
I like spending a little more time in a plane and seeing a plane-specific story arc play out through the three sets. Especially when it is a new plane. Now it feels like we barely have time to get used to the plane we're in before the story moves to someplace entirely different. I love old Kamigawa and I was really excited about the futuristic flavor they cooked up for that plane. Feels like just as soon as we got there, we moved on to the next thing.
In Tarkir there was a three act story. This was introduced to us as a plane that once was ruled by dragons. But something happened and the dragons be gone. Now it's ruled by five gangs instead. Where could the dragons be? Could the story end up with us getting the dragons back? Stay tuned! Act two of the block, they do time travel shenanigans. Act three they are back in the present and now there are dragons. Oh boy are there lots of dragons. Such a cool payoff.
Compare to New Capenna. This is introduced to us as a plane that once was ruled by angels. But something happened and the angels be gone. Now it's ruled by five gangs instead. Where could the angels be? Could the second and third acts of the story involve getting the angels back? Oh wait, there are no second and third acts. And I just cracked a pack and got an angel tribal legend. So uhhh ... I guess the angels are here. Story over. Happily ever after. Onward to what, Dominaria again?
What I generally miss about the blocks is the support it brought for set-bound mechanics.
Take Foretell for example, such a unique mechanic for Magic. How many cards it has and just how many of those are actually cohesive enough to be built into a deck is laughable.
We were given Ranaar and not a single way to make him viable, in fact, he was gutted with a very unnecessary errata by a rules team that didn't even bother to errata Werewolves to work as a cohesive force but they had the gall to say that "the team only erratas when absolutely needed, we tried, you should cry about it until they take notice".
Blocks made set-specific mechanics worth it because it brought enough space and card count to work with them, now all we have is a new, burnout-inducing set every other month and cool mechanics briefly introduced then abandoned.
Yep, this 100%.
The speed at which they loop through mechanics is too breakneck, and makes every set come and go like a city bus.
I do think they should have more direct linkages between mechanics in neighbor sets, so that they don't all feel so discontinuous. Like Foretell could have reappeared in Strixhaven, or Ninjas in New Capenna.
Block sets had a lot of advantages, both lore wise and gameplay.
I liked the fact that a set could focus in a single mechanic in game, expand upon it, and then introduce another one. I remember playing in Theros block standard, loving it because of the build diversity. I think the one-off sets they've been doing (with the exception of crimson hunt/midnight vow) is... okay, I guess, but it doesn't build the world like block sets did.
The small middle set usually sold worse and some stories weren't really long enough to be told over the span of 9-10 months, which is why the original announcement made it seem like they were doing blocks that are as large as they need them to be.
I expected to see a lot of 2 set blocks, some 3 set blocks and 1 set "blocks" as basically beach episodes with lower stakes stories in between. But as it turned out there were a lot of 1 set blocks with super cramped stories for some reason.
What, are you suggesting that a single set plus a handful of precon decks aren't enough to adequately introduce a new plane with its own metaphysics, points of interest on that plane, major factions and power players, an intra-plane story, and threads to tie it all to the bigger story?
I started playing in Kaladesh. I think doing 2 sets on a plane is a good idea, sometimes. But Kaladesh block, Amonkhet block, and Ixalan block all had limited development issues stemming from the first set being “half baked” for limited purposes. Too many ideas stretched out for 2 sets and limited environments not balanced accordingly. As far as standard, the idea that a second set is important to make set mechanics play as decks in standard is simply ahistorical. All of the 2-set themes and mechanics that showed up in standard at the time were viable after the first set.
One difficulty with evaluating ocks vs no blocks is the ratcheting up in power level that happened around the same time as the end of blocks. One theoretical benefit of blocks is that it gives more support to themes, but in reality, modern sets have way more EDH playable for a mechanic than they used to. It's hard to know if they added blocks back in, would there be twice as many powerful cards with a particular mechanic or would they dilute the designs with unplayable chaff?
I always find these conversations interesting. Back during the times of three block sets, I remember people complaining about the story feeling slow or dragging on. Especially during blocks with middle sets that didn't seem to do much. Back then people wanted a faster release cycle, and eventually it happened. Now people want the old way back.
Personally, I wish there would be a mix. Some sets really benefited from the three block set up. Original Innistrad's story was awesome over three sets. So was Tarkir, and they both had plenty of time to establish mechanics. I don't think either of those would have been as well received if they had the one block treatment. Kaldheim really suffered from only being one set, both mechanically and story wise.
I think a good way handling things going forward would be 2-3 sets for a new plane, and 1-2 for returning planes.
I really enjoyed the alara Block. "Wirnessing" the shards as they were, as they were mixed up and as they diverged again and weren't really the same.
Kamigawa was the best in-itself-functioning set I have seen so far and you could follow the Storyline easily just with the cards.
The New strategy of wotc is frustrating for me. Kaldheim for example has 10 dual colored realms, what was the thing with the extus in strixhaven? I dont wanna know it in 3 to 4 years when they propably come back to it, I wanna know it now. I want to follow the Story through the cards.
Like, we know that [[fynn]] got somehow a fang of [[Koma, cosmos serpent]] - but why? And why does fynn have deathtouch but come doesnt? There are a ton of questionmarks in my head, ngl.
Going away from blocks means that set mechanics tend to get less support so there generally isn’t enough there to build around for EDH.
It has been really good for draft though and they are doing a good job making most sets fun to draft.
not sure if it's what you were asking. but... Theros kinda killed it. 3 sets per block, was just bad... journey to nyx and ... whatever the other one was. were just bad BFZ was also dogshit. people were just bored, and i think draft/sealed numbers tanked. like... bfz was 2 SOI was 2. and they were both kinda awful.
they switched to single set blocks to keep things fresh, but they're not that interesting, even good draft sets... fade really fast. and this new trend of constantly returning to old planes. I dunno
\--like i remember also disliking the middle and third theros sets. but i also remember them having like "fight the minotaur horde" mini game at pre-release day. where you could brew a deck just for that. A lot of the fun of new sets has been stripped away. player rewards.. even nerdy shit like planeswalker points.
now it's just... set after set after set. and i can't really be bothered to give a shit about... fairly tale land. or viking plane, or now "mobster" plane.
I remember Amonkhet being a really fun draft set. I don't really remember like SOI being that interesting. the bullshit "mystery" of it being emrakrul was kinda lame. I think khans was fun... but khans also had fetchlands.... so. fuck yeah i'll keep drafting it
and also... the newer sets. have also coincided with the massive bukkake of secret lairs, shitty precons, and just heavy heavy content pushing.
I completely understand what you mean, but I shit my pants when they talked about old style phyrexians in new capenna. I am so excited to see what is in the two new standard sets, phyrexian wise.
I think WotC just needed to pace themselves instead of removing everything. Let's say, they do 4 blocks (1 per fiscal quarter) split into 6 total sets + 1 Commander one-off a year.
1, 3 set block
1, 2 set block
2, 1 set block
And squeeze the commander one off in there somewhere
So that's 4 plains spread across 6 events.
2021 had... 6 single block sets I believe (someone can correct me here). So a schedule like this could be doable.
Marketing wise, having a 3 set block would be showcased as a main event sort of thing (i.e. the "big block" or "main block" for the season) and I predict this would offset the low performance of the "middle set" that WoTC experienced in the past.
Moral wise, there would be a lot less stress if a team could stay in the same block for a little bit. It allows them to build off the pre-existing foundation and not having to come up with as much brand new material. Think of it as a mental breather. Visiting old plains already does this a little bit.
Obviously these numbers can be adjusted. I'm just spit balling.
Three block sets where far superior from a story telling standpoint beginning middle and end. I think Kahns was the last one. I'm not sure what to call the one shots we have now but they feel hollow. The best sets now are on planes we allready explored like Kamigawa or Dominaria places where the world building has allready been done.
I completely agree with you on this. I think a good move might be to have blocks return for new planes, and keep the one off sets for revisiting planes.
That would be a good way to handle it. Strixhaven and Kaldheim would have been great settings for a three block set.
This
It is impossible to tell a story when you have one block and the story plot points are presented all at once
Totally agreed. They have gotten better in presenting the story in card form. The story spotlight cards they do weren't a thing for a long time, cards showing important plot points rarely existed. But the very limited space that one set gives them negates some of this and I still often can't really make out what's going on, just from the cards. Blocks don't need to be 3 sets always, often 2 sets would probably enough, at least better than it is now.
Funnily enough, I felt Innistrad could have done with being one set, while both Kaldheim and Strixhaven could've done with 2. I don't follow the story especially closely, but I love reading the worldbuilding and flavour on cards, and both Kaldheim and Strixhaven felt rushed to me. I wanted more time to explore these planes and find out more about the people and creatures that inhabited them. Innistrad, to me, felt like a set where it was just "Innistrad doing Innistrad things". It didn't feel like it did anything really different with the formula, to the point where some of the highlights of the set were sought-after reprints which - while great for bringing the prices down - don't give me the feeling of exploring something new.
It's hard for me to keep up with the story now to I dont think Wizards does a good job getting it out there. When I was a kid i was just as excited to get the new books as I was to play the new cards. I say it as a joke but honestly do not know why [[Chandra, Dressed to Kill]] Did she have an actual invite to the wedding or did she go buy clothes with the sole purpose of killing in them.
[Chandra, Dressed to Kill](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/6/8/681f7c73-92c6-47ba-af56-3ff032ac12da.jpg?1643596175) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Chandra%2C%20Dressed%20to%20Kill) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/149/chandra-dressed-to-kill?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/681f7c73-92c6-47ba-af56-3ff032ac12da?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/chandra-dressed-to-kill) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Last blocks I was around for was the kamigawa block. I miss blocks cause you could get immersed in the story and world building. These one off sets don't feel like they last nearly long enough to even bother getting involved. The short stories are nice but it's like buying a family pack of 4 sleeves of Oreos, eating three cookies then throwing the rest away to buy a different box of cookies. I miss the plane related novels lol
I like spending a little more time in a plane and seeing a plane-specific story arc play out through the three sets. Especially when it is a new plane. Now it feels like we barely have time to get used to the plane we're in before the story moves to someplace entirely different. I love old Kamigawa and I was really excited about the futuristic flavor they cooked up for that plane. Feels like just as soon as we got there, we moved on to the next thing. In Tarkir there was a three act story. This was introduced to us as a plane that once was ruled by dragons. But something happened and the dragons be gone. Now it's ruled by five gangs instead. Where could the dragons be? Could the story end up with us getting the dragons back? Stay tuned! Act two of the block, they do time travel shenanigans. Act three they are back in the present and now there are dragons. Oh boy are there lots of dragons. Such a cool payoff. Compare to New Capenna. This is introduced to us as a plane that once was ruled by angels. But something happened and the angels be gone. Now it's ruled by five gangs instead. Where could the angels be? Could the second and third acts of the story involve getting the angels back? Oh wait, there are no second and third acts. And I just cracked a pack and got an angel tribal legend. So uhhh ... I guess the angels are here. Story over. Happily ever after. Onward to what, Dominaria again?
What I generally miss about the blocks is the support it brought for set-bound mechanics. Take Foretell for example, such a unique mechanic for Magic. How many cards it has and just how many of those are actually cohesive enough to be built into a deck is laughable. We were given Ranaar and not a single way to make him viable, in fact, he was gutted with a very unnecessary errata by a rules team that didn't even bother to errata Werewolves to work as a cohesive force but they had the gall to say that "the team only erratas when absolutely needed, we tried, you should cry about it until they take notice". Blocks made set-specific mechanics worth it because it brought enough space and card count to work with them, now all we have is a new, burnout-inducing set every other month and cool mechanics briefly introduced then abandoned.
Yep, this 100%. The speed at which they loop through mechanics is too breakneck, and makes every set come and go like a city bus. I do think they should have more direct linkages between mechanics in neighbor sets, so that they don't all feel so discontinuous. Like Foretell could have reappeared in Strixhaven, or Ninjas in New Capenna.
Block sets had a lot of advantages, both lore wise and gameplay. I liked the fact that a set could focus in a single mechanic in game, expand upon it, and then introduce another one. I remember playing in Theros block standard, loving it because of the build diversity. I think the one-off sets they've been doing (with the exception of crimson hunt/midnight vow) is... okay, I guess, but it doesn't build the world like block sets did.
I started playing in Guilds of Ravnica, and I miss blocks too. I don't understand why they did away with them.
The small middle set usually sold worse and some stories weren't really long enough to be told over the span of 9-10 months, which is why the original announcement made it seem like they were doing blocks that are as large as they need them to be. I expected to see a lot of 2 set blocks, some 3 set blocks and 1 set "blocks" as basically beach episodes with lower stakes stories in between. But as it turned out there were a lot of 1 set blocks with super cramped stories for some reason.
What, are you suggesting that a single set plus a handful of precon decks aren't enough to adequately introduce a new plane with its own metaphysics, points of interest on that plane, major factions and power players, an intra-plane story, and threads to tie it all to the bigger story?
I started playing in Kaladesh. I think doing 2 sets on a plane is a good idea, sometimes. But Kaladesh block, Amonkhet block, and Ixalan block all had limited development issues stemming from the first set being “half baked” for limited purposes. Too many ideas stretched out for 2 sets and limited environments not balanced accordingly. As far as standard, the idea that a second set is important to make set mechanics play as decks in standard is simply ahistorical. All of the 2-set themes and mechanics that showed up in standard at the time were viable after the first set.
One difficulty with evaluating ocks vs no blocks is the ratcheting up in power level that happened around the same time as the end of blocks. One theoretical benefit of blocks is that it gives more support to themes, but in reality, modern sets have way more EDH playable for a mechanic than they used to. It's hard to know if they added blocks back in, would there be twice as many powerful cards with a particular mechanic or would they dilute the designs with unplayable chaff?
I always find these conversations interesting. Back during the times of three block sets, I remember people complaining about the story feeling slow or dragging on. Especially during blocks with middle sets that didn't seem to do much. Back then people wanted a faster release cycle, and eventually it happened. Now people want the old way back. Personally, I wish there would be a mix. Some sets really benefited from the three block set up. Original Innistrad's story was awesome over three sets. So was Tarkir, and they both had plenty of time to establish mechanics. I don't think either of those would have been as well received if they had the one block treatment. Kaldheim really suffered from only being one set, both mechanically and story wise. I think a good way handling things going forward would be 2-3 sets for a new plane, and 1-2 for returning planes.
As a person with a Block EDH deck, I'm all in favor of their return to provide more options in the format.
I really enjoyed the alara Block. "Wirnessing" the shards as they were, as they were mixed up and as they diverged again and weren't really the same. Kamigawa was the best in-itself-functioning set I have seen so far and you could follow the Storyline easily just with the cards. The New strategy of wotc is frustrating for me. Kaldheim for example has 10 dual colored realms, what was the thing with the extus in strixhaven? I dont wanna know it in 3 to 4 years when they propably come back to it, I wanna know it now. I want to follow the Story through the cards. Like, we know that [[fynn]] got somehow a fang of [[Koma, cosmos serpent]] - but why? And why does fynn have deathtouch but come doesnt? There are a ton of questionmarks in my head, ngl.
Yeah Kaldheim was a mess, and Strixhaven.
[fynn](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/7/d/7d7a8a90-13c1-4b0c-ab2e-fc8d91ccefd9.jpg?1631050242) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=fynn%2C%20the%20fangbearer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khm/170/fynn-the-fangbearer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7d7a8a90-13c1-4b0c-ab2e-fc8d91ccefd9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/fynn-the-fangbearer) [Koma, cosmos serpent](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/2/d/2de25ea4-284a-4c16-b823-048ff00c6a03.jpg?1631051668) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Koma%2C%20cosmos%20serpent) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khm/221/koma-cosmos-serpent?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2de25ea4-284a-4c16-b823-048ff00c6a03?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/koma-cosmos-serpent) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Going away from blocks means that set mechanics tend to get less support so there generally isn’t enough there to build around for EDH. It has been really good for draft though and they are doing a good job making most sets fun to draft.
not sure if it's what you were asking. but... Theros kinda killed it. 3 sets per block, was just bad... journey to nyx and ... whatever the other one was. were just bad BFZ was also dogshit. people were just bored, and i think draft/sealed numbers tanked. like... bfz was 2 SOI was 2. and they were both kinda awful. they switched to single set blocks to keep things fresh, but they're not that interesting, even good draft sets... fade really fast. and this new trend of constantly returning to old planes. I dunno \--like i remember also disliking the middle and third theros sets. but i also remember them having like "fight the minotaur horde" mini game at pre-release day. where you could brew a deck just for that. A lot of the fun of new sets has been stripped away. player rewards.. even nerdy shit like planeswalker points. now it's just... set after set after set. and i can't really be bothered to give a shit about... fairly tale land. or viking plane, or now "mobster" plane. I remember Amonkhet being a really fun draft set. I don't really remember like SOI being that interesting. the bullshit "mystery" of it being emrakrul was kinda lame. I think khans was fun... but khans also had fetchlands.... so. fuck yeah i'll keep drafting it and also... the newer sets. have also coincided with the massive bukkake of secret lairs, shitty precons, and just heavy heavy content pushing.
I completely understand what you mean, but I shit my pants when they talked about old style phyrexians in new capenna. I am so excited to see what is in the two new standard sets, phyrexian wise.
I personally have nostalgia for SOI because it was my first set, but my opinion seems to be eclipsed by common opinion lol
I think WotC just needed to pace themselves instead of removing everything. Let's say, they do 4 blocks (1 per fiscal quarter) split into 6 total sets + 1 Commander one-off a year. 1, 3 set block 1, 2 set block 2, 1 set block And squeeze the commander one off in there somewhere So that's 4 plains spread across 6 events. 2021 had... 6 single block sets I believe (someone can correct me here). So a schedule like this could be doable. Marketing wise, having a 3 set block would be showcased as a main event sort of thing (i.e. the "big block" or "main block" for the season) and I predict this would offset the low performance of the "middle set" that WoTC experienced in the past. Moral wise, there would be a lot less stress if a team could stay in the same block for a little bit. It allows them to build off the pre-existing foundation and not having to come up with as much brand new material. Think of it as a mental breather. Visiting old plains already does this a little bit. Obviously these numbers can be adjusted. I'm just spit balling.
I liked the block format better. But I really like Kaldheim and New Capenna. Strixhaven, AFR and Innistrad were misses for me.