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Author Topic:   Top 5 Worst MTG Sets EVER!
anklbreka20
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posted December 16, 2011 09:34 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for anklbreka20 Click Here to Email anklbreka20 Send a private message to anklbreka20 Click to send anklbreka20 an Instant MessageVisit anklbreka20's Homepage  Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View anklbreka20's Trade Auction or SaleView anklbreka20's Trade Auction or Sale
Had this discussion with a few friends. Looking for other people's opinions.
 
choco man
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posted December 16, 2011 09:40 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for choco man Click Here to Email choco man Send a private message to choco man Click to send choco man an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View choco man's Have/Want ListView choco man's Have/Want List
Homelands
Fallen Empires
Chronicles
Nemesis
Prophecy
 
Sovarius
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posted December 16, 2011 09:42 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for Sovarius Click Here to Email Sovarius Send a private message to Sovarius Click to send Sovarius an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View Sovarius's Trade Auction or SaleView Sovarius's Trade Auction or Sale
Kamigawa, Homelands, Fallen Empires, Alliances, Legends most old sets. Uhm. Ice Age and Coldsnap.
Some of my favorite cards, and the most interesting and powerful cards, come from older sets. But as a whole a lot of early magic lacked the flavor i've come to enjoy.

Shards block had amazing flavor, but some serious weak crap cards.

 
NukeMoose
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posted December 16, 2011 10:04 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for NukeMoose Click Here to Email NukeMoose Send a private message to NukeMoose Click to send NukeMoose an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View NukeMoose's Trade Auction or SaleView NukeMoose's Trade Auction or Sale
I agree with choco man except for Nemesis.

You got Daze, Submerge, Parallax Wave/Tide, Tangle Wire, Blastoderm, Kill Switch, Accumulated Knowledge, Blinding Angel, Rebels, Kor Haven, Massacre, Reverent Silence, Saproling Burst, Saproling Cluster, Skyshroud Poacher and other decent playables.

 
Volcanon
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posted December 16, 2011 10:07 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for Volcanon Click Here to Email Volcanon Send a private message to Volcanon Click to send Volcanon an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote 
Prophecy is better than Saviours of Kamigawa.
 
Shelkin
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posted December 16, 2011 10:09 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for Shelkin Click Here to Email Shelkin Send a private message to Shelkin Click to send Shelkin an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote 
1. Homelands;
2. Chronicles;
3. Fallen Empires;
4. Prophecy;
5. Fifth edition.

The best: Arabian Nights!!!

 
yakusoku
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posted December 16, 2011 10:12 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for yakusoku Click Here to Email yakusoku Send a private message to yakusoku Click to send yakusoku an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote 
5. Coldsnap - the TO at my pre-release later would tell us that this tournament had the lowest attendance of a PR ever. You know a set is bad when you had store owners, TO's and judges apologizing. Ohran Viper reached ridiculous prices at the time because people just weren't cracking packs of Coldsnap.

4. Chronicles - if you ever wonder why there is a reprint policy for Magic and an odd list of cards, this set is the reason. With every new set, there are paranoid people complaining about the end of Magic, but this set came out early enough in Magic's history and had enough of an impact that it legitimately could have threatened to end the game. Collectors panicked at the thought that rare cards could become common and values could plummet suddenly. WotC had to assuage fears for years to follow.

3. Fallen Empires - Take a very small set, print WAY too much of it, and include a lot of bad cards and it has the makings of a set that no one wants. I remember seeing packs for $1 and no one would touch it.

2. Homelands - there was a very short, odd time in Magic when you saw Serrated Arrows in the sideboard of tournament lists of decks. Not because any deck had a way to abuse the card or because it was particularly good against certain decks or because you used the counters as card advantage, but simply because the rules required you to include at least 5 cards from every Type 2 (Standard) legal set in your deck. So, people would have five bad Homelands cards in their sideboard as a concession to this rule. Otherwise, there was almost no reason to play Homelands cards in your deck. Most people remember Homelands for three things: Merchant Scroll, Autumn Willow, and very, very bad cards.

1. Urza's block - yes, I'm blatantly cheating here by naming three sets. Live with it. The whole block was a fail in so many ways. Bad testing, bad design, and bad mechanics. Not in the underpowered Homelands way, but in the broken, make Standard unplayable way. Look at the B/R list and see how many cards were printed from this block. Apparently no one figured out that Yawgmoth's Will + Dark Ritual could create broken things. Academy Rector + Yawgmoth's Bargain in the same set was ridiculous. Memory Jar required an emergency ban, so that the moment you opened it, you couldn't play with it, leading to droves of people mailing in their Memory Jars to Wizards to get a new pack. And then there was Tolarian Academy. When people whine about Standard decks being degenerate and broken, I want to point people to the only time in Magic's history that I quit playing. Jund mirrors weren't so fun for people, but at least there was a semblance of interaction and back and forth. Academy mirrors came down the ability to win a die roll and mulligan as little as possible. Turn three and four wins were routine, and there wasn't much you could do about it. You built your Academy deck to be as consistent as possible, with 4 copies of everything and pray that you could win faster than your opponent. It was as much fun as having sex with your girlfriend while she's in another soundproof room.

 
CoupDeGrace
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posted December 16, 2011 10:14 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for CoupDeGrace Click Here to Email CoupDeGrace Send a private message to CoupDeGrace Click to send CoupDeGrace an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote 
Homelands
Chronicles
Fallen Empires
Kamigawa
Coldsnap

 
southparker2002
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posted December 16, 2011 10:39 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for southparker2002 Click Here to Email southparker2002 Send a private message to southparker2002 Click to send southparker2002 an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View southparker2002's Have/Want ListView southparker2002's Have/Want List
Planeshift
Ice Age
Prophecy
Coldsnap
Homelands
 
daner
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posted December 16, 2011 10:41 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for daner Click Here to Email daner Send a private message to daner Click to send daner an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View daner's Have/Want ListView daner's Have/Want List
quote:
Originally posted by yakusoku:
5. Coldsnap - the TO at my pre-release later would tell us that this tournament had the lowest attendance of a PR ever. You know a set is bad when you had store owners, TO's and judges apologizing. Ohran Viper reached ridiculous prices at the time because people just weren't cracking packs of Coldsnap.

4. Chronicles - if you ever wonder why there is a reprint policy for Magic and an odd list of cards, this set is the reason. With every new set, there are paranoid people complaining about the end of Magic, but this set came out early enough in Magic's history and had enough of an impact that it legitimately could have threatened to end the game. Collectors panicked at the thought that rare cards could become common and values could plummet suddenly. WotC had to assuage fears for years to follow.

3. Fallen Empires - Take a very small set, print WAY too much of it, and include a lot of bad cards and it has the makings of a set that no one wants. I remember seeing packs for $1 and no one would touch it.

2. Homelands - there was a very short, odd time in Magic when you saw Serrated Arrows in the sideboard of tournament lists of decks. Not because any deck had a way to abuse the card or because it was particularly good against certain decks or because you used the counters as card advantage, but simply because the rules required you to include at least 5 cards from every Type 2 (Standard) legal set in your deck. So, people would have five bad Homelands cards in their sideboard as a concession to this rule. Otherwise, there was almost no reason to play Homelands cards in your deck. Most people remember Homelands for three things: Merchant Scroll, Autumn Willow, and very, very bad cards.

1. Urza's block - yes, I'm blatantly cheating here by naming three sets. Live with it. The whole block was a fail in so many ways. Bad testing, bad design, and bad mechanics. Not in the underpowered Homelands way, but in the broken, make Standard unplayable way. Look at the B/R list and see how many cards were printed from this block. Apparently no one figured out that Yawgmoth's Will + Dark Ritual could create broken things. Academy Rector + Yawgmoth's Bargain in the same set was ridiculous. Memory Jar required an emergency ban, so that the moment you opened it, you couldn't play with it, leading to droves of people mailing in their Memory Jars to Wizards to get a new pack. And then there was Tolarian Academy. When people whine about Standard decks being degenerate and broken, I want to point people to the only time in Magic's history that I quit playing. Jund mirrors weren't so fun for people, but at least there was a semblance of interaction and back and forth. Academy mirrors came down the ability to win a die roll and mulligan as little as possible. Turn three and four wins were routine, and there wasn't much you could do about it. You built your Academy deck to be as consistent as possible, with 4 copies of everything and pray that you could win faster than your opponent. It was as much fun as having sex with your girlfriend while she's in another soundproof room.


I agree with you on all accounts except for #1. While Saga Block might have all but ruined Standard for the time being it was still a hell of a lot of fun to draft, or do a sealed event.

If you going to include an entire block that was just unfun in every way shape and form it HAS to be Masques Block. Even now on mtgo they aren't releasing each set at a time, rather just all the sets crammed into one pack. Why? BC they know it wont sell....and that's digital product! It's not like they can get stuck with it.

That block caused me to quit, as Rebel Chain mirror's in standard was the worst thing imaginable, and drafting or a sealed event was like pulling teeth without some sort of sedative.

While Saga was pretty bad for the health of constructed Magic Masques block was just all around bad.

 
bushe
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posted December 16, 2011 10:57 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for bushe Click Here to Email bushe Send a private message to bushe Click to send bushe an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View bushe's Have/Want ListView bushe's Have/Want List
Based on how good they were relative to their peers. Basically when these 5 sets came out and people started playing them, these 5 were the worst ones that were the least fun to play. Playing something like Ice Age and Aliances now is not great and the dark is a beating. If you were just wanting to find the 5 least playable sets I'm sure that it would all come from before tempest block. However if I put on my wayback shoes and go to when each set came out and rate them versus the other sets that were released around them then I think the list would look more like this.
1. Saviors of Kamigawa
2. Urza's Saga
3. Prophecy
4. Homelands
5. Conflux

Saviors was so far behind anything from around there and the hand size matters theme was horrible that I don't think you can even debate it as number one. When your title cards are two sideboard marvels (pithing needle and kataki) and a colorshifted reprint of a mostly unplayable card (twincast) then you are a really bad set.

Urza's Saga, as covered by yak, was just ridiculous. Limited was silly with nonsense like pestilence at common and constructed was just unplayable due to how overpowered the decks became with the rare lands fueling the most obnoxious metagames (it was more than just one year of it too) ever.

Prophecy was yin to sagas yang. It ended a two year cycle of going from the most broken set since alpha to the crappiest set since alliances. Everything cost approximately 13 mana and did half of what it needed to. I'm pretty sure that the best card in the set was a turtle statue, great set huh?

Homelands was such a beating that I had to draft it recently as a punishment. Believe me, it is a punishment. Homelands is so bad that it would be like Matt Painter to Ice Age's Peyton Manning (and ice age sucked pretty hard, mind you). The set is literally full of giant walls and attackers with stats like 1/5 and no way to get through for any damage. The only good thing to come out of the set is Apocalypse Chime, so that you can get all that garbage off your table and start over.

I know Conflux is probably the most surprising one on the list but it was just so horrible placing it where it went. It was like they took the whole collective restraint deck from invasion block and decided to make a set around just that, and put it in the middle of a standard that wanted more nonbasic lands than pretty much any other (vivid pool/lorwyn tribes). There are a handful of standouts but other than hierarch and kotr you really never got anything from the pack except some stupid domain spell that wasn't good enough for constructed or fun enough for casual. Also in drafts you had to get like 20 playables from pack 1 and pack 3 and hope that conflux gave you some fixing and one or two things to put in your deck.

 
rats60
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posted December 16, 2011 11:34 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for rats60 Click Here to Email rats60 Send a private message to rats60 Click to send rats60 an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View rats60's Have/Want ListView rats60's Have/Want List
Fallen Empires
Homelands
Prophecy
Legions
Saviors of Kamigawa
 
urza187
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posted December 16, 2011 12:07 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for urza187 Click Here to Email urza187 Send a private message to urza187 Click to send urza187 an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View urza187's Have/Want ListView urza187's Have/Want List
quote:
Originally posted by rats60:
Fallen Empires
Homelands
Prophecy
Legions
Saviors of Kamigawa

Couldn't of said it better myself.

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stizkidz
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posted December 16, 2011 12:10 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for stizkidz Click Here to Email stizkidz Send a private message to stizkidz Click to send stizkidz an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View stizkidz's Have/Want ListView stizkidz's Have/Want List
Ice Age, Homelands, Chronicles, Saviors, Rise of Eldrazi

[Edited 1 times, lastly by stizkidz on December 16, 2011]
 
coasterdude84
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posted December 16, 2011 12:14 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for coasterdude84 Click Here to Email coasterdude84 Send a private message to coasterdude84 Click to send coasterdude84 an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View coasterdude84's Trade Auction or SaleView coasterdude84's Trade Auction or Sale
quote:
Originally posted by southparker2002:
Planeshift
Ice Age
Prophecy
Coldsnap
Homelands

Why Planeshift and Ice Age? Those seemed fine to me.

It really depends on what you mean by worst. From the standpoint of least fun, I'd say (from "best" to worst):

Coldsnap
Cronicles
Saviors
Fallen Empires
Homelands

As weak as Prophecy was, I thought it was kinda fun.

 
psrex
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posted December 16, 2011 12:36 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for psrex Click Here to Email psrex Send a private message to psrex Click to send psrex an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View psrex's Have/Want ListView psrex's Have/Want List
Homelands
Starter
6th Edition
Mercadian Masques
Urza's Saga


Homelands was completely undesirable at the time, while sets like Fallen Empires and The Dark were fun, even if not great. I fondly remember playing Thallids and Homarids, but there's little good in Homelands beyond Autumn Willow and Baron Sengir. The tri-lands were a new level of horrid.

Starter, like Portal and Portal2 sets was annoying with the odd terminology (intercepting instead of blocking, etc.), but Starter was just boring. The earlier Portal sets at least had new dragons and some flavor. Maybe it was just the white border, but Starter was lame all around.

The removal of Shivan Dragon from the base set, for me, was a low point as far as base sets go.

I missed the Mercadian Masques block as I quit for a while after Urza's Saga came out, and when I went back to look at Mercadian Masques there was almost nothing of interest. I guess I picked a good time to quit.

Urza's Saga was crazy and unenjoyable. Way too much combo for my taste, and the cause of my only extended break from Magic.

 
ryan2754
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posted December 16, 2011 01:00 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for ryan2754 Click Here to Email ryan2754 Send a private message to ryan2754 Click to send ryan2754 an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View ryan2754's Have/Want ListView ryan2754's Have/Want List
Ice Age
Homelands
Fallen Empires
Prophecy
Kamigawa

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airwalk
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posted December 16, 2011 03:09 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for airwalk Send a private message to airwalk Click to send airwalk an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote 
You guys are nuts, Fallen Empires was awesome. It introduced Tribes & tokens/counters to magic. The cards were bad in a constructed setting (aside from High Tide, Hymn, Grenade and the Knights) but what it intoduced to magic opened the door for so many things taken for granted now.

Also, multiple art for commons was awesome.

As for bad sets, no one remembers 9th? (maybe it was 8th that was really bad...)

Also, I feel bad for people that quit during Urza's Block, that was real magic. So much fun broken stuff happening. Memory Jar + Megrim in extended was my favorite deck ever.

[Edited 4 times, lastly by airwalk on December 16, 2011]

 
flophaus
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posted December 16, 2011 05:05 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for flophaus Click Here to Email flophaus Send a private message to flophaus Click to send flophaus an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote 
Crappy sets:

5. Homelands (Dwarven Traders anyone?)
4. 5th Edition (Serpant Generator's anyone?)
3. Chronicles
2. 8th
1. Saga (because it made me quit too...) Tolarian Acadamy, Serra Avatar, Gaea's Cradle..etc, etc.. FAR too insane when it came out! Anyone with the money to spend could be a deck-building "genius". I just remember being so damn angry that it was so overpowering that it made MTG unfun for me and everyone else I played with that didn't have the money to go out and buy booster boxes worth of it.

as for the BEST sets,...

obviously:

1. Alpha/Beta/UNL/REV
2. Saga! =)
3. Tempest
4. AN
5. Ice Age

Everyone hates Ice Age now... but think back to the day when you played the hell out of it and you will remember a very complex set of cards and interactions!

Also, a couple of my friends made the most insane decks I've ever seen out of Fallen Empires... so I can't knock that set, even though it's value is worthless.

[Edited 2 times, lastly by flophaus on December 16, 2011]

 
daner
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posted December 17, 2011 06:47 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for daner Click Here to Email daner Send a private message to daner Click to send daner an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View daner's Have/Want ListView daner's Have/Want List
quote:
Originally posted by airwalk:

Also, I feel bad for people that quit during Urza's Block, that was real magic. So much fun broken stuff happening. Memory Jar + Megrim in extended was my favorite deck ever.

I agree. People bitch that you died on turn 4 because of combo but NOBODY complains about Tempest block were you could die to simple attacks in 4-5 turns on a regular basis after Sleigh decks came around. Cards like Mox Diamond, Aluren, Earthcraft, Cursed Scroll, Scroll Rack, Recurring Nightmare, Intuition, Survival of the Fittest, Volrtah's Stronghold, Tradewind Rider....I could go on. Saga had Pestilence as a common but Tempest had Rolling Thunder, Capsize, and Envicar's Justice....woo how fun being Capsize locked in limited, or recurring wrath, or a fireball that hits all your creatures including yourself as a common. Yea...it's SOOO much better than Saga right?

People hate Saga because of combo, yet a lot of people like it. Turns out if you hate it it was because you probably were just bad at Magic at the time of Saga, or you were too use to the idea of playing a creature everfy turn and turning them sideways. Yes, a lot of degenerate things happened but you had to have a brain in order to go off and win.

I'd rather play in a format were it takes skill....remember the format's with Wild Mongrel? Yea, those were fun. Were any small child could drop it on turn 2 and just destroy you in a heartbeat.

I don't understand how so many people hate an era of Magic were skill was involved.

 
Volcanon
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posted December 17, 2011 09:58 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for Volcanon Click Here to Email Volcanon Send a private message to Volcanon Click to send Volcanon an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by daner:
I agree. People bitch that you died on turn 4 because of combo but NOBODY complains about Tempest block were you could die to simple attacks in 4-5 turns on a regular basis after Sleigh decks came around. Cards like Mox Diamond, Aluren, Earthcraft, Cursed Scroll, Scroll Rack, Recurring Nightmare, Intuition, Survival of the Fittest, Volrtah's Stronghold, Tradewind Rider....I could go on. Saga had Pestilence as a common but Tempest had Rolling Thunder, Capsize, and Envicar's Justice....woo how fun being Capsize locked in limited, or recurring wrath, or a fireball that hits all your creatures including yourself as a common. Yea...it's SOOO much better than Saga right?

People hate Saga because of combo, yet a lot of people like it. Turns out if you hate it it was because you probably were just bad at Magic at the time of Saga, or you were too use to the idea of playing a creature everfy turn and turning them sideways. Yes, a lot of degenerate things happened but you had to have a brain in order to go off and win.

I'd rather play in a format were it takes skill....remember the format's with Wild Mongrel? Yea, those were fun. Were any small child could drop it on turn 2 and just destroy you in a heartbeat.

I don't understand how so many people hate an era of Magic were skill was involved.


It takes a lot of skill to hit six mana and drop a titan. It's like... drop six lands. And then draw a titan. And then play it.

 
B14ckM4g3
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posted December 17, 2011 08:50 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for B14ckM4g3 Click Here to Email B14ckM4g3 Send a private message to B14ckM4g3 Click to send B14ckM4g3 an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote 
homelands. As if everyone else hasn't said it.
Saviors of kamigawa (or any of the 3 blocks really. sensei's top was the only card worthwhile of all 600 or so cards)
prophecy (as stated before, who wants to pay 13 mana for a 4/4 with a useless ability?)
fallen empires (they fell for a reason)
and oh, I dunno. summer magic. or something else. I liked alot of sets. coldsnap felt kinda dumb to me. Im getting sick of innistrad (although nothing against the set besides the foolishness of flip cards).
 
Mr.C
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posted December 17, 2011 10:04 PM   Click Here to See the Profile for Mr.C Click Here to Email Mr.C Send a private message to Mr.C Click to send Mr.C an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View Mr.C's Have/Want ListView Mr.C's Have/Want List
- Homelands
- 4th Edition
- Saviors of Kamigawa
- Prophecy
- Coldsnap

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wayne
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posted December 18, 2011 08:25 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for wayne Click Here to Email wayne Send a private message to wayne Click to send wayne an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote View wayne's Have/Want ListView wayne's Have/Want List
Just a thought, worst is rather subjective, maybe we should define it. Worst as in bad set to draft, bad set in constructed, or what?
 
Volcanon
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posted December 18, 2011 11:34 AM   Click Here to See the Profile for Volcanon Click Here to Email Volcanon Send a private message to Volcanon Click to send Volcanon an Instant Message Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by wayne:
Just a thought, worst is rather subjective, maybe we should define it. Worst as in bad set to draft, bad set in constructed, or what?

Worst in draft: Saviours, Anything before Mirage (Prophecy was actually okay)
Worst in constructed: Homelands, The Dark, Prophecy, Saviours.

 

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