The Worst Magic: the Gathering Sets of All Time 

Honestly even then I'd make a point for Homelands being worse - At least WOTC didn't force players to draft 30th Anniversary cards. But I definitely agree that it should've been on the list, easily taking 2nd place at least

I think he considers it a supplementary product

​@beanofknowledge2125 30th Anniversary definitely deserves 1 for the damage it did to WotC's reputation as a brand.

@@dantelarka6112 like an UN set?

Was it even a Magic set?

Something something missing the forest for the trees

The lesson was learned long before Unfinity as the decisions made for that set were done because not enough people were buying Un sets to make them a good use of design resources. People just don't care about about a heavily draft focus set with cards which aren't legal in any format, it's unfortunate but just how it is.

Not to mention the issue with third sets. It is wild hearing the story at 18:11 and coming to any conclusion other than "this set needs to be larger"

Unsets were basically mark rosewater’s passion projects and wotc had been trying to get rid of them and having actual legal cards was the compromise and because it didn’t work no more unsets

But that was the lesson from unfinity and aftermath. If lots of ppl wanted more unsets unfinity would have sold better. Ditto for aftermath Now im not saying other factors didn't play a role, and a different implementation might have made these sets more desirable or even change the paradigm But look at a dogshit product like the 900 anniversary thing that sold despite being so shit, just because ppl wanted something like it so much

give them 1 yerar xD

This wont take them 5 years.

At this rate, we'll have supplemental sets to Secret Lairs in six months.

Give it 6 months.

Yeah, I feel like Seth is looking too much at 'what would be played today' and by that measure *every* early Magic set is straight trash. For every OMG overpowered card there's "kick yourself in the crotch, sacrifice all your lands: add a +1/+1 counter to this creature". Fallen Empires had *many* playable-at-the-time cards beyond Hymn, and Thallids were a popular enough tribe to both come back in Time Spiral and to make the Saproling a common green token. Homelands had... Serrated Arrows and Merchant Scroll, once the rules changed to make it a more powerful tutor.

Also Aeolipile, which has been barred from ubiquity by the Reserve List

@@aliasisudonomo Let's not forget Breeding Pit/Bad Moon. Two mana for a 1/2 each turn? And when you popped down your second Bad Moon, a 2/3? Why not?

I remember the Fallen Empires release party and it was kind of a feeling of, wait, not every set is good, Wizards can make mistakes too. But a lot of it made some sense, there was so much broken stuff in the earlier sets that was trying to be fixed here and FE at least felt like there was a game. Then with Homelands it was worse, because it wasn't a mistake that it was bad power wise, they'd already seen that. But it wasn't even playable within itself. You can't take a box of HL boosters and make two cohesive decks and play each other. There was seemingly no play testing at all and they just didn't care. FE I learned design is hard and mistakes can be made. HL I learned that Wizards is just a corporation and is perfectly willing to sell you trash products as long as you keep buying them.

Wasn't there also a big paper or packaging quality issue with Homelands? I remember some set from that time having all the cards cupped with really bad print quality from cheaper paper and thinner booster wrapping

Did the news about the Pinkertons get you curious enough to buy your 3rd set ever 😄

@@dannyboy1200 Nah I bought a box of each of the Alara block sets next. I forget what I was chasing, but it led to me building a Rafiq of the many deck.

Don't feel too bad about it, everyone has their bad purchases. I bought a whole lot of Dragon's Maze for some reason. It is the only set I ever completely owned, including a 4 playset of each common and nearly all uncommons. The main downside of spending money on sets that are bad is that they take up storage space where you want actual good cards to be. Actually buying boosters is really bad for your storage, you should only buy singles if you value your space and it saves you money too.

Ah the mana drain effect lol

I still wanna make Mana Cache work, dangit

The whole set was set up around mana denial: sacrificing lands, encouraging tapping out. The Rhystic cards just don't work in an environment where people leave untapped mana for interaction.

Aaaahh citadel of pain ...good times

This set does have very little to offer, but I've seen recent sets that has worse design and less appeal than Prophecy. Yes, the cards are more powerful, but the flavor is bland, as is the overarching theme of the set.

I think the official justification is yes you get less cards but IIRC the chances of opening a better card was higher.

Even a cynical product designed to squeeze more money for less could've gotten a better response than than Aftermath if it did THAT well. Instead it told us almost nothing lorewise, and had like one card that actually supported any existing archtypes, while also not really having enough cards to be able to build up any new archtypes on its own. It really was the worst possible first implementation of an idea that was on its own merely mediocre.

It would have been perfectly fine if they had offered 5 card boosters for a 3rd of the price of a normal one. That is assuming rarities worked in an equally fair way to the normal packs. By far the most people do not like spending more money on 'premium' sets either. For a set like Modern Masters for example, they maybe do one draft with it, generally buy the singles of the cards they really need and skip the rest.

It did have a really cool story but saying it had tournament staples is not a criteria of a good set: it's the amount of tournament staples and FE had VERY few.

@@mattm7798 More than other sets of its era like the Dark or Homelands. Probably just as many as Legends on an average basis based on set sizes. (Percentage wise.).

It didn't really have that many staples, but I would agree it's better than Homelands in that category. Homelands had literally zero tournament staples I believe.

@@MTGGoldfish Checked the list only one I could see would be merchant scroll and memory lapse?

@@mattm7798 Serrated Arrows was used sometimes to deal with pump knights. (Order of Lietbur, Order of the Ebon Hand, Knight of Stromglad and … Order of the white shield was it?)

You are correct. Homelands barely offered cards to play with, or build decks with. There was a decent amount of theme in it, but that was similar for Fallen Empires. At least FE offered a few relatively strong tribal themes that were really fun for casual play. Not to mention that everyone played pump knights and hymn to tourach in tournaments.

Dw, he bought a boosted box after and got 0 serrated arrows to replace the mesa falcons

lol, @covertgoblue

Yeah it's a crazy decision to not include the obvious worst set of all time. I understand bringing things like failed expectations into account, but homelands looked terrible and felt terrible to play

You make a strong case. I think as the first major misstep for WOTC it's ok. Fallen Empires boxes were on the shelves forever.

The only reason it was on the shelves forever wasn't because people didn't like it, or didn't buy it. They simply had all the cards they wanted, so there was no reason to buy any more packs. The set was printed for way more people than actually played magic at the time. While it was not a highmark by any means, it surely was not as bad as people make it seem I have fond memories of playing the Thrull deck at the time. All you saw was Thrulls, Saprolings and Goblin decks running rampant on the casual tables. The Thrull deck featured the iconic Thrull Champion to boost all your Thrulls and steal your opponents, some of the sac thrulls to get various effects, soul exchange to get your creatures back, breeding pit to get some sac fodder and the dreaded Ebon Praetor as a finisher that slowly grew stronger.

It almost killed magic before the 2000's. When a set is so bad that it would kill the whole game, it deserves no.1

@@antischtick3502 Well, that is my issue with this. The set itself wasn't as bad as multiple other sets, the issues were with massive overprinting and being surrounded by questionable and weak other sets. The Dark was a very small, but not a very outstanding set. Homelands was far worse than Fallen Empires itself. Chronicles was pissing a ton of people off (and was also massively overprinted) and 4th edition was like Revised, but minus a ton of all the cards people wanted and needed. The whole period killed magic, not just Fallen Empires alone. The fact that it was on the shelves for so long made it the scapegoat, while it was all these sets combined, over a very long 2 year period of drought that nearly killed magic. Having lived through this time, I can say at least early, the set was reasonably well recieved at the gaming stores I've frequented. It took a good amount of time for people to realise the cards weren't worth much and starting to devalue the set as a whole. Like Chronicles, the set was blamed for the fact that all the cards that people really wanted from the first magic sets that sold out extremely quickly, were quite out of reach for most people. You could say, not having good reprint sets in reasonable volume was the main culprit of magic almost dieing an early death. It took years for them to recover from this dark period and it pretty much killed the hype the game had in the early period.

Antiquities pioneered the alternate arts. The 4 arts of Urza lands and 4 season Mishra's factory. even the 4 strip mines. this was HUGELY popular and was what Magic was trying to imitate in Empires.

Even more fun when you draft it with 3 Dark 3 FE packs. (Remember when we could do that for under $20 per player).

Yeah it's very very different from homelands.

Yeah fully agree. I have some nostalgia for this set, but playing through homelands was a complete nightmare

@@jamespatterson5644 ah of course you're right, I had forgotten that Antiquities was first!

I loved the theme, but the stickers and the legality confusion killed most of my interest in dealing with the set

@mistertadakichi I admit I didn't interact with stickers, but I agree - the theme was really fun and attractions were a cool mechanic

As long as Mark Rosewater works for WotC, there will be a chance they come back. I think WotC will give him a 'sendoff set' when he officially retires from full-time work (probably 8-10 years).

I like unsets, they just need to keep them not tournament legal.

Same; unstable was the most fun I've ever had playing MTG and I'm sad unfinity was such a wet thud with its confusing approach.

Only because no one knew how good memory lapse was to be fair

Did you watch the video? Homelands basically shares the #1 spot

@@lain2k3 Nobody at the time respected memory lapse. It was seen as vastly inferior to counterspell, or mana drain for the people that were fortunate enough to own those.

IMO Unfinity was Hasbro saying we need this set to sell more so make some of the cards tournament legal...the sticker mechanic is a cool idea for digital but horrendous for paper.

I disagree completely with BFZ. Nothing about it was a "misfire". The Un sets have always struggled to be profitable, that's why they tried something different each time. Every Un set, by definition, has been a shot in the dark and/or a misfire. Original Zendikar was profitable and popular. All they had to do was redo its mechanical themes, maybe try to balance the annihilator mechanic (which is not hard and has only gotten easier with the introduction of treasure/clue/food/blood/map tokens), maybe even reprint some of the popular commons from the original Zendikar. Instead they tried to "fix" things that weren't broken. People complained about allies, so they "fixed" them by making them trash. People complained about annihilator, so they "fixed" it by replacing it with something even worse. People complained about Eldrazi being too expensive, so they "fixed" them by making them cheaper, more generic, and less interesting. They had a roadmap for success and they deliberately ignored EVERYTHING ON IT. If Unfinity is a misfire, then BFZ is the equivalent of loading the gun, standing next to the target, aiming at it, and then deliberately pointing down and shooting yourself in the foot. It was awful in every way, even more so because it didn't need to happen and had no reason to. Compare the original Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre with Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. The first one is a terrifying threat that you must block that slowly grinds all your resources to dust, forcing you to generate them faster, which turns the game into a tense race. The second one is cheaper, has a more powerful cast trigger, and exiles your library. It is generically more powerful and has less counter-play for no reason which means the game is basically over if it gets an attack in. Also, Ceaseless Hunger can be reanimated and cheated into play early...

@@jacobwiren8142 I really like your points about BFZ and they hit the mark extremely well. I was among the people that was truly excited to get more allies for my ally homebrews, but the set didn't deliver at all. It basically didn't even feel like Zendikar anymore. The same thing happened with the Innistrad sets, which was also a much loved design before they revisited them. Not only did they Eldrazify another world and many of the cards that would otherwise have added to the earlier set, the set simply didn't fit with the world they created that people loved so much in the first place, nor were the mechanics and play patterns as fun. Both these examples have the exact same issues that I find with modern, more recent sets; There are some cool individual designs, but the worldbuilding, cohesion, elegance of the mechanics and smoothness of play has declined to a point where I basically can't be bothered.

@@pinobluevogel6458 Original Zendikar was my favorite block and landfall to this day is my favorite mechanic. For the first time in the game's history, land pockets became a good thing. We had R/W aggro decks with 24 lands, U control decks with 28 lands, and mono green decks with 32 lands. The one card that is simultaneously the most important and most boring was now the most interesting and fun. It was revolutionary... Then they never reprinted any of those commons or uncommons again and never recaptured the magic. It was the same with allies and Eldrazi too. Damn shame...

@@jacobwiren8142 I feel you man. Original Zendikar was one of the high points for me too, even though the sets tapered off quite steeply in the block. It was great for drafting, had a fun and relatively healthy constructed format and the casual decks at the time were just chef's kiss for me. I think you are spot on with the landfall mechanic, which is just about the only thing they managed to hit a few good notes on with the BFZ block. Like many dedicated magic players (or former dedicated magic players) I could talk for hours about my favorite sets, favorite formats and favorite decks, so I really understand the enthousiasm you rightly displayed. Thanks for making these posts, it takes me back to a great time.

right there with you, homelands and fallen empires came out at the time when no one knew what was gonna be in the set. so i bought some, nothing good...bought some more, still nothing, then stopped playing for over 20 years lol

@@moedark4390exactly same here

Homelands was WAY worse than Fallen Empires. Fallen Empires at least had some staples for its time. Breeding Pit was essential for Lord of the Pit. Goblins got some good cards with Goblin Drums, Goblin churgeon, and Goblin grenades. Even the storage lands had use at the time. I'm not saying it was a good set, even the. But it at least had some utility. Homelands had nothing really outside Sengir.

It is more or less WotC, instead of making a $40 DLC people didn't like, making several optional DLC packages, all with custom skins and non-existing gameplay, for $100 each.

Which missteps of the last 4-5 years were Rosewater specifically??

@@RBGolbat companion comes to mind

LOL Energy immediately comes to mind: "What if we creature a completely knew resource, have it only be available in 2 sets(thus making it very parasitic)....and have 0 good answers to it or barely any ways to interact with it!!!! Sound good?" Development should have playtested it and realised "Um...this is really good and there is no way to interact with this...someone make a few hoser cards for the following sets!"

@@RBGolbat War of the Spark, and if you're willing to go back to Battle for Zendikar he was the lead designer for that set. Maro is just bad at designing sets.

I’ll give y’all companions, but most of the other issues are related to Play Design and balancing, and not what MaRo does.

Agreed. Stickers should have never been tournament legal.

Legends is a set loved by many, as is the Dark, at least at the time. Even Fallen Empires, while grossly overprinted, wasn't as bad as is mentioned here. It had pump knights, hymn to tourach, goblin grenade, high tide and a whole bunch of more casual cards like the Saprolings, the Thrulls, a ton of goblin cards, Orgg, Ication Town (first ever token card that created multiple tokens), Hand of Justice and the casual favorite Breeding Pit.

@@pinobluevogel6458 As someone who was playing when most of those sets came out, I can tell you that The Dark and Fallen Empires were both NOT very well liked at all even when they were new. While I agree that all of the sets I listed have some good cards in them (especially Legends), the overwhelming number of unplayable to almost unplayable cards really had players scratching their heads when they were printed. Now that we can look back at them with a more discerning eye, we can see just how bad those sets were.

@@ninjanoodle2674 Well it wasn't as liked as some of the earlier stuff, that is true. Like you, I played through this time and started playing slightly before the Dark came out. I was extremely young, knew absolutely nothing about the game, but I did enjoy all the early sets quite a bit, as did my very large playgroup at my LGS. (which wasn't even called an LGS back then, but was an early boardgame store) Everyone had oodles of fallen empires cards and chronicles cards, as they eventually were around a dollar per pack, which was affordable, even for young kids. It was a pretty dark time for magic though, which altered the vision of Fallen Empires quite a bit. With Legends and Revised already on the shelves in 1994, it took them almost 2 years before they finally released another reasonably designed set in Alliances, with Mirage in the same year really picking the game up. Because Fallen Empires was on the shelves for all of this barren period where barely anything good came out, the vision on how good or bad this set was got greatly skewed, as it stood for everything that was wrong with Magic at the time. This probably was the period where Magic was as close to dying as it has ever been, going from an extremely hyped, superpopular game, to an almost niche thing that people barely played anymore. My LGS groups more or less fell apart and moved into other cardgames for a while. It was the first time I quit magic, having close to 2 years of almost no playing.

My deck i played came from that time in green black aristocrats.

Haha, why would they. What they get a Hymn which is dirt cheap lol.

NGL I would buy that just to show off to house guests "Look, this is a booster box of the WORST MTG SET ever, it only cost me $20!" It would be a great conversation starter

The store I go to has some, the owner actively talks people out of buying them. I wanted one to have one (unopened), I had to convince him to let me buy it.

If you want just one pack, look for the comic book that came with the free pack. (FE #1). (Funny story, when the local LGS went out of business back in 2000, I ended up buying all those comics for 10 cents each, ended up building a few set out of them. (Bought like 300ish (all they had)of them)).

I’ve seen some lgs have ice age drafts lmao

InQuest. Classic stuff.

That sequence of play where you mindtwist your opponent on turn 2 for 6 cards doesn't sound like a very interactive experience.

@@pinobluevogel6458 It was 1994 and 1995--we didn't think about things like that back then. It was all just pure fun.

@@herbertwiley It was one of the first things I noticed while playing discard, or land destruction, or stasis, or even a deck loaded with counterspells or burn spells, this rubs people the wrong way. There is nothing wrong with this style of play for a lot of the early magic players, we are used to it and can take a hit. But as soon as the hobby grew and got more and more 'sensitive' people involved, it slowly got removed from the game. The rubber tiles under the playground sorta thing. I think it's fun, but playing the game now, I care a little bit if my opponent is enjoying the game as well :)

Dishonorable mention.

It's very common for people making custom sets to end up with a bunch of random leftover designs that they really like, but can't justify sticking into the main set. Aftermath and the Big Score feel like an excuse to print a bunch of pet designs.

Who cares about Thalids? they suck… homelands gave us merchant scroll while fallen empires gave us high tide and hymn to tourach so fallen empires is marginally better

@@CommanderGinyu thalids gave us saprolings. And saprolings are awesome.

More seriously, Fallen Empires doesn't deserve this kind of hate because it tried to explore new design space and partly succeeded; it was the first time tokens became an actual strategic option rather than an isolated mechanic on janky rares, and basically codified +1/+1 counters so future sets would be simpler. What did anyone learn from Homelands?

@@meshuggahshirt the jar that destroys all homelands card is the worst card in magic

@@adammorin2955 the only Homelands cards that see play are nonpermanents

What are the odds 😂

​@@lyncwolfe3620The odds are fine, Winnower only cares about the evens.

Seth says no one plays it but its a commander staple

Colorless mana was such a cool mechanic, but its baffling that they didn't just introduce it in BFZ. I remember being so confused when I opened packs of both sets and saw that the eldrazi spawn tokens had different text

Only way to learn is to play! Sounds like a solid starter deck.

It makes sense, it was just doomed to backfire. The problem with unsets is the player base refuses to treat any card that isn't tournament legal as a real Magic card. Even in casual play, which is exactly what Unsets are for. They decided to address that, half way through making the set. As we know, it went badly. Maybe if it had been the plan all along, they could have made a set that worked that way.

Fallen Empires weak compared to the sets before it, but only because it lacked the handful of broken cards the preceding sets had. WotC had finally learned to avoid the ridiculously overpowered cards that littered the first few sets, but had a ways to go to get rid of the bottom tier garbage that plagued the early years. The good and broken cards in ABU are vastly out numbered by trash cards, but people ignore the existence of Laces and Farmstead because of the glare of the iconic over powered cards.