My local game store had an unopened Fallen Empires box until last summer. I asked the owner what happened to it and apparently it was bought by an US navy sailor who wanted to draft it with some of his MtG-playing crewmates during their voyage back home because drafting one of the worst sets in MtG history would be a novelty. So apparently that box finally got opened and drafted 28 years after it came out aboard a USN landing craft somewhere in the north Atlantic.
That's one of those ideas that sounds like it will be so ridiculously awful that it will be a hilarious good time. i bet those sailors got so bored, annoyed, frustrated and disappointed that they quit long before any winner was determined.
At this point the Reserved List is punishment for being born too late. Most people get into Magic in high school to university age, so they literally never got a chance to pull certain cards from boosters for the simple fact that they got pushed out of the womb at least a decade too late. How is that a sustainable way to keep a game healthy and people interested.
It's literally just people being selfish and materialistic. They feel like if their hobby doesn't have monetary value, it's a waste of time. I don't understand why people can't just do hobbies cause they think they are fun.
I don't think Kamigawa was that bad in a vacuum, it was also the when I started to get into Magic, but it really suffered because Wizards back-pedals on the sets following ones that have massive powercreep. It happened in the Mercadian set following Urza's and with Kamigawa following Mirrodin. I do think that Arcane and the mechanics tied to it could work if there was actual support for it. Wizards has a habit of coming out with an interesting mechanic that with some support could work but immediately throw it away because it wasn't instantly beloved. It should be revisited because there is a lot of potential there.
Arcane And Bushido just didn't get the chance they needed. Bushido was Heavily over costed on many of the cards it appeared on. And Arcane was a parasitic mechanic because Wizards chose not to print more of them.
A lot of people I know got into magic around that time, but and this isn't to sound disparaging, they got into it at a fairly casual/not very enfranchised level. This meant they likely didn't notice 1. the power disparity of previous sets, since they were playing at a casual level and 2. The backlash over Kamigawa's japanese theme. This may just be my personal experience, but from what I recall, the japanese them was actually more of a factor of it being hated. During that early to mid 2000's time frame there was an explosion in anime as a hobby here in the US and that lead to other hobbies adopting Japanese stuff in general. For example, Warhammer 40k would create a new and controversial faction: The Tau. Which were a very japanese mecha inspired faction. And from what I remember, people across basically every nerdy hobby was sick of "everything becoming japanese."
@@calemrAgreed, though in a way Bushido is also somewhat doomed by its name since its flavor basically means it's stuck on Japanese-flavored creatures and cards and can be on nothing else. Arcane at least could have easily been featured on other planes, but Bushido is just somewhat screwed there, which is supposedly the biggest reason it hasn't been brought back. At least Bushido stands more of a chance of being salvaged than Sweep or especially Epic though. While I can in theory vaguely see decently powered Sweep _maybe_ working in a Landfall deck or something, for Epic to actually work in anything other than an "Against the Odds" video or a griefer Hive Mind deck they would probably need effects so powerful that even the Modern Horizons sets would be like "uh, that's a bit much, isn't it?"
@@MusicoftheDamned Yeah, Epic is pretty unsalvageable, it's a mechanic built around not playing the game any more. And this coming from a guy who built an epic modern deck. Which was deeply unreliable. But hey, it was fun in casual games to sometimes go "I remove 30 cards of my choice from your deck."
I really liked the first two sets in the Kamigawa block. Making Spirits the main monster type let you work in some really nice older cards, like the Muses from Legions. And Sensei's Divining Top is just a great card all around.
It's interesting how Wizards jumped straight to a mercenary group after a single call from an unlisted number for what they believed was theft instead of police.
I genuinely despise the idea that some cards will never be reprinted and the fact that some hoity toity collectors having a crying fit caused WOTC to make the reserve list and (from what I've seen) not offer reprints often, just further prices out players from actually playing the game.
@christopherb501 turning anything into a commodity/investment always results in long term side effects, but hey, "line go up". I sort of understand the reason people collect stuff, I just don't understand why some people are like "no this exact thing has to be exactly one of a kind/scarce/rare because otherwise it's not valuable". Like, monetary value and scarcity isn't everything.
The reserved list has already been put to the grave. Do you not remember the Magic 30th Anniversary cash grab? The only cards they won't ever reprint are "socially insensitive" cards.
He purposefully puts errors in videos to get people to comment about it and drive up the algorithym. His yugioh and pokemon videos are notoriously bad with having horribly pronounced names, card text errors in the video and minor mistakes like wrong sets.
I got trolled too.. clever tactic, This channel had a rundown of Arabian Nights where Bazaar was the only good land pull. Opening hand Library...----->game
Yes because somehow the alpha, signed black lotus graded at 9 will just tank in value if they reprint a modern version at mythic rare. Because those two are equivalent. Down with the reserve list
9.0 is just pack fresh NM I think. 9.5 and 10 would be safe. 9 probably wouldn't be bc you're talking about multiplying the raws by thousands of supply. Grading matters. It just so happens 9.0......kinda doesn't really impress people. I learned this by buying some silver label slabs and probably wrecked myself. 9.5 Revised Tundra though I made bank. The difference between 9.0 and 9.5 is real. This has been a PSA about BGS. O:)
M30 is actually rare physically. That's why it's allowed to exist. "Down with the RL" is like crying "Down with the Geneva Conventions". It is not as simple as writing on a picket sign "War is a Crime", even though that is true. Wizards and the Vintage stores have promised claws out lawsuits if the RL falls. Essentially they have promised war. The RL keeps them from destroying each other like Europe. The RL is on reading a little bit of a silly farce, a little bit of a religion. But if it keeps them from suing each other---- it is good to keep them from suing each other. We are functionally in a dilemma like early 20th century Europe. Covid was Napoleon. You don't want to see it get worse than Napoleon. What you want to see is "whatever is required for them to not sue each other, sweeping the rest of us up in the blaze of their dumb war." If they announce peace, that could be good. The current news from the front lines of Great Powers is they still promise to sue each other if the RL breaks and they say they checked the RL and it's not broken yet. If at some later date they decide to "find a way to do it" OK. That could be *good* news if nobody had their arm twisted. We don't want to pressure or spook them. We don't want to provoke them. It's fine to not like them or their face but we should be cautiously aware that they can do things that have big consequences on us. We want the big scary jerks at Wizards to be relaxed and encourage them to fall asleep happy and we don't want them to wake up mad. We are negotiating with dragons. Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus.
I will say many of the “Introduced for no significant reason” ones in MoM were for sets in the three year follow up like the one you showed being for the upcoming Tarkir or the first shown being Kenrith’s Funeral because the next set was back to Eldraine. Apparently the Oni is because Oni on Kamigawa were sealed away and that one showed they returned but seeing as that’s kinda minor lore and Kamigawa just happened instead of being in the follow ups does feel weird tho
In defense of Homelands, it has some decent cards, even has a card restricted in Vintage. Homelands overall has had more cards with competitive success than Prophecy.
Two or three okay cards in a set doesnt excuse it. And that competitive success was because wizards literally forced players to use some amount of homeland cards in their tournaments. Being technically better than prophecy isn't any kind of bar for success lol
@@NeutralGuyDoubleZeroMerchant Scroll has seen more competitive success than anything in Prophecy and is restricted. Most of the set is weak but it has a few decent cards, outside of great favor and setting.
@cax1175 Again, AS I JUST SAID, a few decent cards doesn't redeem or excuse a set. Having greater success than prophecies isn't any kind of bar for success.
Real talk, 1. That's not really related to how well the set sold or the cards in it and 2. I still am very suspicious of that event actually happening. The only proof he posted iirc is a picture of two dudes in overcoats at his front door.
I have a lot of Fallen Empires cards because that was the oldest set available at the store. I started buying around 4th edition, and I remember seeing Beta at the Target I bought from in the beginning. But 5th Edition had better art and I didn't know. I didn't know! They hid the boxes of magic cards behind the, like, customer service area; you had to ask for them. They were in a hidden trove. So later on, I got into the habit of buying the oldest set available. I am error. I am double error.
wait alpha and beta were available at stores like target in your day? I don't think I EVER saw magic cards in stores till like.... hmmm.... before 10th edition for sure.... but still modern card frame
@@caesarsushi3238 True. I unironically think that MH1 was a good set. (granted I'm primarily a commander player) but you actually got a lot of value for a reasonable price in terms of sealed packs, and it tried to support a lot of fan favorite but under powered mechanics in modern like snow. I mean, just looking at the set and its clear that they tried to introduce a Sultai Snow control deck that used snow lands instead of fetches, which should have made the deck cheap. But that deck flopped (how is dead of winter still seriously unplayed?) but with astrolabe being too good of a card and it getting banned that deck is just not going to happen unfortunately.
I was around then. In the UK Magic was gaining momentum around ice age so I bought a tonne of Fallen Empires and I know I had loads of homelands later, but what bothers me is i took a break during Urzas block.....O woe is me. Oh, and please tell me why I cannot get "Feast of the Unicorn" out of my head? Some card names, no matter how bad the card is just stick with me.
The reserve list is a rough one. On the one hand imagine being able to afford legacy and vintage but on the other hand having the value of cards go to zero would result in resellers disappearing and then we collectively would probably completely stop playing all together My own opinions obviously
Markov Baron is lorewise the single most important Chair Tribal card for Aftermath. It's perfect for that. I wonder what players would consider the best limited format with the most minimal impact on the Eternal card pool. Would that still be considered a good release?
That stupid little gotcha mechanic on touch-and-go... I think the correct response to that play is sneezing then using that particular card as an impromptu tissue.
Still have a sealed booster box of Homelands sitting in my closet (Along with two sealed Ice Age starter boxes and two also sealed Alliances booster boxes). Eventually, I'll get around to selling them. Probably as the full set of three, and then just the Ice Age + Alliances so whoever buys them can have draft or sealed fun.
I like Unhinged. It's the only locals I ever won, and not even from the Gotcha! Cards. I drafted a green spell that gave you a 1/1 token for every symbol you had so I made sure my basic lands had as many symbols as possible.
At the time , Fallen Empires was decent because it allowed you to make more complete monster theme decks. Probably did terrible sales but you could just grab tons of goblin or elf commons.
I get they're supposed to be joke cards, but how do you pay half a mana? Do you round up or down when something attacks into a monster that has, like, 2 1/2 in one of it's stats?
You…don’t round. If something has three toughness and is hit by a 2 1/2 then it has 2 1/2 damage marked and dies if it gets another 1/2. And you just pay half the mana and have half left
I would just point out that Niv Mizzet did not create the Implicit Maze, as it was put in place by the planeswalker sphinx Azor, way back when the Guildpact was established, as a way to end the Guildpact itself, if the Guilds were not united anymore. (Sorry for bad English)
Totally biased because these sets are from my childhood, but the Tempest and Urza's blocks were the best blocks. Obscenely powerful cards that could only be tempered by your opponent's obscenely powerful cards. Also I thought blue got the most broken cards and that was always my color so I loved those blocks.
I really liked Kamigawa block, it was Mirrodon that was the problem to me (and the contrast with Ravinica, one of the best ever). That said saviors was lackluster.
I thought it was amusing that Ihsan's Sade was attributed to Fallen Empires wen the printing shown clearly points out that the set of origin is Homelands. I think that the list is generally agreeable in terms of the sets included, insofar as that the sets there are reasonable, but I think the order is off. Prophecy may well be the worst sat of them all; while it and Saviors of Kamigawa were both bad, Saviors has had several cards show up in deeper formats besides Pithing Needle (Oboro, Kataki, Footsteps of the Goryo, Mikokoro), and Homelands had both the flavor and a couple of decent cards (both now, like Merchant Scroll, and for the time, like Ihsan's Shade ad Serrated Arrows). Prophecy encouraged you to do Nothing to get the most out of your cards, and very few of them ever saw any play at the time, much less now.
BFZ, Saviors, Dragons's Maze? How when stuff like Mirroden, Khans, Ikoria, all had people leave the game because of either how unaffordable standard became or because of overwhelmingly broken stuff? I mean, I appreciate the effort but I dont agree with half this list.
My local D & D and magic store thats been open forever, i asked them about a year ago how many black lotus and alpha cards they had, they said none, i was like huh u guys been open since those days they said the first and only set they tried to corner the market on was fallen empires and they got burned so bad they never tried again ouch. Wish id of bought some old cards instead of monster manuals lol.
I guess the editor doesn't play magic, but if you show cards from a set it really annoys me the card is being shown not from the set but another reprint. Maybe it's nitpicking but really wanted to get that off my chest. Fun video nontheless.
Adding any of the Un sets to a list like this destroys your credibility. Everyone knows those sets arent meant to be played normally and usually only drafted by themselves
What? Mirage was GREAT for its time! Ice Age was pretty weak, all right, but it was the first expansion in over six months, and we were ecstatic to finally get some new cards. Hard to imagine today...
@@marcoottina654In onslaught there's a card called artificial evolution. It has the effect where it can change the creature type on a spell or permanent to one that you want other than wall. So you can use it on didgeridoo to swap it's type to eldrazi.
Recently I heard a Richard Garfield interview on The Odd Lots, a Bloomberg Podcast, and he mentioned the decisions behind overprinting the Fallen Empires. According to him, it ended up being a positive decision for the game as it made mtg considerably cheaper and therefore helped expand the player base. The set may have been underwhelming and abundant but may have impacted the game in ways we can’t properly gauge
It contributed to ensuring that 30 Years later, Revised, a good strong set with many staples, was really really affordable. 4th Chronicles FE and Revised obliterated the market for Revised cards. Only the Duals survived the massacre. It's complex to decide if this is bad or good. It's more complex to evaluate because after 5th, and after Mirage having all of 1 good card in the set, we then get into Tempest Urza era which warps the numbers with strong cards and high rarities engineered by the RL and pure chaos from bannings. Taken as a package, the 4H pattern of sets getting super collectible just for the year they released DIED at Revised and that was when playability began trumping rarity harder in light of what happened with Urza. Today, I think things would be better if The Dark and Ice Age began to double on 5 year periods but wait 10 year periods before adding the next set to the list of Scarcities. This would allow lots of people lots of prep time to stock up as needed, cash out to the collectors, and the hobby could "pay for itself" as it used to. Right now we have problems where you can't do the old way and if you can't do the old way then the house wins and the rest of all lose, except some of us have savings in Beta. So the thing they're doing to try to make it affordable is now the very thing that doesn't make it affordable. It's wierd. But it was good back Then that it was made possible for everyone to get Mana Vault Land Tax Copy Artifact and Fork and even for a long time Wheel of Fortune with no serious difficulty.
It is probably only because Revised tanked that there is an expectation that lasts today that Birds of Paradise should basically never cost more than $15 for the fanciest hottest Birds of Paradise you can reasonably find short of 7th foil or Beta.
I remembered one of my local game stores that had a big barrel filled with Fallen Empires packs. They were like half the price of a regular pack I believe. I actually bought a fair number of them before I realized how useless most of the cards were. Though to be fair, I was 12 so didn't know any better.😊
Why does Prophecy gets a pass for being intentionally weaker but Kamigawa block doesn't? The power level of the Kamigawa block was intentionally reduced because the previous Mirrodin block was overpowered and players threatened to quit Magic entirely (a lot actually did quit at the time).
Mirrodin was really fun. I loved affinity. I quit when kamigawa was comin out. The cards were meh and i didnt like all the changes magic was making. I still check cards from time to time, but mtg has so many mechanics n cards now its hard to wanna get back into it.
Ironic I thought Mirrodin was a blast and quit when Kamigawa started. Mirrodin was fun both lore-wise and with its mechanics (laughably broken as they were) and Kamigawa was just kind of slow and boring in comparison.
@@N12015 Don't think there's anything controversial about shitting on the 30th Anniversary packs. Though technically every set here could have seen play in some format or other. Even the un-sets are intended to be drafted in their own special formats. The 30th anniversary cards are just proxies that can't legally be used in any official format, sold at a ludicrous price.
The reserved list is the result of boomer mtg finance bros throwing a bitch fit because people could actually play with the game pieces. Magic would have survived fine without letting those babies have their way. I'd rather have all my cards be worth nothing tomorrow if it meant that I could have access to older cards that I didn't get the chance to buy because I was 2 at the time.
Battle for Zendikar introduced Expeditions/Masterpieces which likely saved the set from being on this list in my opinion. That one decision made people crack boxes and boxes to try pull one, which had positive effects on the price of Standard, and had ripples through to the modern day
BFZ is an incredibly good set with value outside of the expeditions (Ulamog and Void Winnower) plus 3 $1 to $2 uncommons, however Oath is valued in paper by only $3 more than Born of the Gods and one of its top 10 cards is a basic land 😂 That's how bad that set really is. BFZ isn't that bad.
Bad as it is -- and it is bad -- Homelands will always have a place in my heart. I love the flavor of the cards and it was when I was introduced to the game. As a kid who didn't consider mechanics whatsoever, I loved the fantasy world represented in the set. I remember buying packs of it and Fallen Empires and just being enchanted by the art and flavor text of each and every card.
I’ll be honest, this is a miss video that doesn’t have a lot of cohesion. While ‘worst’ is already a subjective term and open for debate, half of the sets mentioned seem to be placed in no particular order, with sets with several criticisms made placed lower to other sets with their main criticism being “yeah, this set was weak, but it was designed to be less powerful”. And Aftermath should definitely be higher.
4:05 funny little story about Nissa. When I first saw her spoiled the picture had part of the text covered, showing only El of the word Elemantel. Somehow this convinced me that the word was Eldrazi, referencing Nissas Origin Story. I admit Elemantel makes way mor sense.
Killer Bees was reprinted in 4th Edition, not Chronicles. I remember because my opponent cast it the first time i played a game at an LGS, which was also the first time a played against someone that wasnt from my school. And the first time i realised that Llanowar Elves into Killer Bees was a waaaaay better play than hitting a land drop every 2nd turn and trying to cast Colossus Of Sardia...
@@Gammarayx3 doesn´t renaissance count as a set for this List ?? because i would say it was the least favorable for me ! only re-prints of former cards ( wasn´t even rare cards in the boosters ?? ) !!
A shame, Unhinged is my fave Un- set, save for the overuse of "Ass". The full arts are beautiful. And the non themed cards are some of the best in Un- sets.
I don't mean to hate on TheManaLogs, but he's got his info flat wrong on Unhinged. Yes, what he brought up were valid criticisms of the set, it was the most popular unset. All the unsets sold bad, with only passion overriding corporate momentum being the thing that allowed us to get more of them.
I gotta agree. I think the only people who don’t like Unhinged are people who don’t like fun. And a few counterpoints: -the gotcha cards only comeback from the graveyard, so your opponent KNOWS what not to do. -the cards that require physical actions have outs, you could just take the punishment. That was the point of them. -anyone who plays a card where someone needs to stand up against someone who can’t stand up is an asshole. That’s a problem with the player, not the card. -playing 2 Farewell to Arms against one of my friends was hilarious.
The biggest haters of Unhinged are probably the people who designed Unhinged, who based on player feedback consider all the things mentioned in this video mistakes.
Worth noting that Xenagod did see standard play as basically the second coming of kessig wolf run. Problem is that while xenagod did help with aggro, sphinxes rev blue devotion was just way too oppressive
I loved playing Gruul, and (later) Temur Xenagod in Theros/Khans standard. There was something special about facing a control player, sticking a Xenagod, then slamming down Terra Stomper next turn. Uncounterable 16/16 haste never got old.
As far as the health of the game is concerned, I think that the Urza's Saga block did more to damage the game through power creep than any set before or since.
I got into magic around the time of Ice Age and Fallen Empires. You could still get Legends and Arabian Nights if you searched some. Imagine this; you've got your deck all built and sit down to play with a friend. However, your friend got into MTG just 1 year before you and as a result, they are dropping things like dual lands, Sol Ring, Mana Vault and so on while you are trying to get Saporlings to spawn every 3 turns. Quite a feeling. :| That said, Homelands made Fallen Empires look like Unlimited.
Chronicles was absolutely the worst. At the time, it was not well-advertised as pairing with 4th edition so expectations were thrown off, the power level was dogshit while the complexity was high, the most desirable cards were not reprinted in what was supposed to be a "Best of the Year" set so it didn't achieve its purpose of catching up new players, and at the end of the day it still gave us the List. The shortcomings of all the other sets, which I would argue this one has more of even not considering the RL, are fleeting and minor in comparison to Chronicles' influence. Absolutely the worst set of all time by a mile.
More moaning about the Reserved List - cry me a river & just play with proxies and leave it alone - or else the only cards that will remain valuable are the rarest: the first two sets and the lottery cards. To save yourself a few dollars, you want to take tens of thousands from each of us that have reserved list cards because we kept them from starting early in the mid 90s.
You just made me realize why I rarely bought packs from Battle For Zendikar. The ally cards were rarely of use and I had noticed this because in every set I try to make 5-6 decks, but with ally creatures, it felt as if you needed to build around 2-3 colors and even then it still felt off. Makes me glad I only spent money on the pre-release for it, as I’ve been playing since 2012 and that set felt off to me. I also played around Dragon’s Maze and Born of the Gods, and March of the Machine:Aftermath. Thanks for the video, this showed me a lot of errors within MTG sets.
I can see from a paper player's perspective how Aftermath would be disappointing, but as a casual digital player, I loved it. There's a ton of interesting cards in the set I've seen used as build-arounds like Urborg Scavengers, Pia Nalar, or Nahiri. Not to mention there's cards that made certain decks possible that weren't before in standard, like Training Grounds for ability tribal, or Kiora for a Runo Stomkirk sea creature tribal thing
thought I would see legends, since the set has SOOO many horrible multicolored creatures and SOO many badly designed cards (Divine intervention,Akron Legionnaire,Great wall etc )
Most of Legends sucked. Many people complain that the over-printing of Chronicles killed the value of Legends cards, but the truth is that Chronicles killed the value by putting the cards in players hands and the players realized "wow, this card really sucks, it's only worth a lot of money because there aren't many out there."
5:35 Yu-Gi-Oh! players are eating good whenever a card is reprinted to the dust. As bad as Konami is, at least they don't pull the nonsense Wizards of the Coast is doing with Magic: the Gathering and the Reserved List.
When I came into the game I was never under the impression that the Un sets were supposed to be actually playable. I thought that was part of the joke. The recent one only being playable with standardized gimmicks and stickers is much less funny.
The only Homelands card I own (and no idea how I got it...) is Apocalypse Chime, the card that destroys all other Homelands cards. I found it a bit funny since I doubted it would be much use to anyone. Didn't know that this was apparently a thing in Arabian Nights and Chronicles, too (City in a Bottle, Golgothian Sylex) until much later, but I still have the chime for its unique charm.
