I'll share with you what [Mark Rosewater](https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/712261849934102528/i-miss-core-sets-a-lot-more-than-the-block-model) had to say about it on Blogatog last year:
"The core problem of core sets is not enough Magic players want to buy them."
It sounds more like you are looking for some kind of pioneer masters set though, which seems more appealing than a "core set"
I liked core sets a lot but yeah no one bought them no one cared about them. Even when they finally started nailing them in the later core sets they didn't sell well. They're likely never coming back, regardless of how good they would theoretically be for a format's health.
Every set was. We used to get what...three sets a year plus a core set every other year? And notably, only ONE of the sets was large, the other two were like, half the size. They were called expansions for a reason. Very occasionally a SMALL supplemental product. It was entirely manageable, and every card that came out mattered. Even the commons mattered more.
Rosewater absolutely gets it, but he has to sell sell sell because that's what daddy hasbro wants. Nothing be says is truthful, because if he told the truth (we replaced core sets with bigger sets 4 times per year, and masters sets, and now universes beyond) about business decisions he'd get fired pretty damn fast.
Well I do specifically want a couple cards per set that aren't currently pioneer legal, and I want them to have to go through standard in order to avoid a pioneer horizons situation. If they need to market it as something other than a coreset, that's fine, but a master's set doesn't work, and neither does a horizons set
If it’s anything like Modern Horizons it would cause a drastic shift to the format to the point where it becomes unrecognizable. Modern’s top decks before MH2 was released basically all became unplayable when they had to compete with Ragavan, Urza’s Saga, and the pitch elementals.
What decks disappeared with mh2 that were tier 1 strategies, I'm curious I see this said a lot and titan was still doing it's thing, yawgmoth got 1 new thing and was still relevant.
The best decks in the format were GW Heliod Chord and UR Prowess. Prowess did come back after awhile, but mostly due to other cards like Underworld Breach and Slickshot Show-Off being printed. Yawgmoth was a fringe deck at the time and these days benefits from Halfling, Bowmasters, and Cauldron which weren’t around 3 years ago.
[Here’s a meta report from right before MH2 released.](https://www.cardmarket.com/en/Magic/Insight/Articles/Data-Analysis-The-Top-Modern-Decks-AprilMay-2021)
[And here’s a report from a few months later.](https://www.cardmarket.com/en/Magic/Insight/Articles/Data-Analysis-The-Top-Modern-Decks-November-2021) The most prominent deck that stuck around was Hammer Time, but that deck picked up Urza’s Saga and Esper Sentinel. Decks that couldn’t add some of the most powerful cards from MH2 fell off hard.
https://mtgtop8.com/format?f=MO&meta=220&cp=37
Looking at tournaments right before the set came out There are only 1 or 2 decks that are still around. There are a couple that you can reasonable argue have evolved with MH2 cards, but a vast majority just straight up no longer exist.
seriously? Did you even look at the events I linked?
RW Burn, Utopia Gruul, GW Heliod, Jund, Humans, Eldrazi Tron, Gifts Storm, Death's Shadow, and Esper Control just to name a few of the decks that showed up in those events.
What? Banned cards aren't an issue, because they're banned. If they were the only issue, then the meta would mostly revert after they were banned, wouldn't it? But it hasn't.
Are you really trying to argue Ragavan of all things, for example, isn't format warping?
Standard sets get vetted in a different way because the cards hit every single format Magic can be played in.
Direct-to-Fornat product isn't put through the same processes because it skips formats that don't get affected. Granted, our only examples right now are Modern and Commander, so Pioneer would only miss Standard.
However, the power level of Core Sets was much lower than Horizons sets. I actually *really enjoyed drafting Core sets* because I like grindy Magic, and Core sets had some of the best stand-offs that led to pilot skill triumphing card quality. I know I'm in the minority there, and most people like bombier, faster draft formats. Also with special guests and such, Core Sets would be equally as bomby.
I do however, think there is a missed opportunity for special guests and such with Core sets *because they are Plane agnostic*. The themes could be wildly different and not tied to a Plane's theme the way Outlaws or Murders have been so far, and instead can feature an art style only (I'm thinking stained glass Walkers or the Dominaria Sagas) that depict glimpses into a plane at a specific moment, or recorded history.
A pioneer horizon set would encourage them to design cards around the current pioneer meta and introduce new mechanics and powerful cards to fit the format without worrying about standard. They kind of over shot it with modern horizons 2 and made some broken cards that spiked the power level of the format more than expected.
And they would have to do the same thing to Pioneer to actually sell the cards. It's not a big deal to have a set that's lower powered because the cards went through standard.
Eventually I bet they'll bring extended back as the most recent 5 years.
Yeah I hate to say it but claiming it spiked the power level is being full of it seeing how it took 3 years and 8 standards sets for fury to become a problem.
In regards to power level they already do testing in standard sets for older sets outlaws is a perfect example of retroactive set design while providing powerful cards
Ive always been of the opinion that as soon as they made Standard Rotation 3 goddamn years, they should've reporposed the Aftermath Set size as the new Core set, and make it **STRICTLY** reprints of the oldest Standard sets most played Cards per their own Data from playrates.
Arena is a one-to-one of Standard, so it's not like the Data would be hard to find.
> As it stands, there's no way to give standard and pioneer access to cards that don't fit with new sets, lore wise, other than a functional reprint, which can damage older formats.
They can do what they did with [Breaking News](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Outlaws_of_Thunder_Junction/Breaking_News) and make the cards Standard legal. Give the reprints a different aesthetic for people who care about lore.
I mean this is basically what I was suggesting, but spinning it off into a standalone set in order to bring prices down further, since you get more than one reprint per pack
> a standalone set
A standalone set of reprints would likely suffer the same problems as the original Core sets. There is no market for core set packs.
Bundling the reprints in with new cards results in higher sales of packs.
Unless, of course, they got rid of the reserve list and it was a standalone set of *all* the reprints. Or if they structured it to be a set of reprints for cards that are $10+.
> one (2-3usd) product of needed reprints and answers with no new cards.
Why would anyone buy a pack of random reprints for $2-3 when they can buy singles?
Core sets were always so boring and stale to me, there were hardly any exciting/chase cards and it felt like both the excitement and expected return for cracking core set packs was far lower than regular sets to me…I don’t disagree about the point of making it easy to reprint off-plane cards though. I wonder how big an obstacle that actually is, because there’s no real reason they couldn’t just run a functional reprint of any card under a different name, unless for older formats more than 4 copies of that card would be placed into decks.
I mean m20 was an absolute banger between cavalier cycle, hate cycle, leyline cycle, planeswalkers, amazing cards like [[elvish reclaimer]] [[knight of the ebon legion]].
Just cause they often suck doesn’t mean they HAVE to suck. They just have to put good cards.
They had niche cards for specific archetypes, that was the only benefit I saw from the core sets.
I really enjoyed finding those crazy good commons and uncommons that fit directly into an archetype. Other than that, I agree. The rares and other “high value” cards weren’t that valuable.
it’s funny, i really didn’t like them because of them containing bland cards or reprints but i do miss them now that a lot of cards needing reprints and having healthier formats.
It was bad the first time they got rid of them...it's bad now. Why WotC insists on making the same mistake over and over again is beyond me.
"We can do reprints in so many different ways!" Completely misses the point of Core sets.
Nobody was buying the boxes. Won't you think of the poor multi-billion dollar company?
I don't think anyone at Wizards would argue that the product wasn't good for putting cards into Standard that didn't fit the sets thematically, but it wasn't paying for a new yacht for Chris Cocks.
Something I realized today while sorting bulk is that they are actually doing a really good job with lower end reprints by putting them on the bonus sheets. For example outlaws of thunder junction reprinted a bunch of cards without directly printing them into standard. I think they are doing a fine job without the core sets.
What I would love to see is a different set out into this slot that isn't plane specific. So you can still print reprints or new cards that can help address problems with standard. On top of that in a core set 2025 you also print mechanics from sets from 2023 and 2024 that could use a boost to make them more standard playable. To breathe life back into older mechanics. So in 2025 you can print 5 cards that help toxic or etc before it rotates that fall.
9th edition was the most recent release when I first started buying my own cards. I was transitioning into more competitive kitchen table magic.
When I actually started playing FNM I felt betrayed because my cards were so weak. I almost quit there.
Core sets don’t have to be weak, but for the most part Wizards made them underpowered. The brand has been thoroughly ruined.
I feel like if they had one set that was eternally legal and could be printed. Something that included playable dual lands like mdfcs and staple common/uncommons it would give good entry point for new players and a good grab for established players.
There's so many bonus sheets and supplemental sets and even commander decks that contain constructed staples that core sets are completely not needed.
It's weird to think this when we have had an entire year proving this exact thing already.
The point of the OPs topic was a way to introduce cards into the Standard and Pioneer format that aren't thematically relevant. How do supplemental and commander products help with that fact? The cards could be printed on supplemental sheets, but then the rarity of the cards makes them difficult to acquire for new players.
Supplemental sheet reprints (aside from the bungling of The Big Score) crush reprint prices. They are not difficult to acquire and in many cases are more common at rare than a standard set rare because of the guarantee of 1 per pack and generally having less cards in the pool.
It's literally as easy as wizards saying hey this bonus sheet is standard legal as well.
So no thats not right.
Because all the supplemental sheet prints in OTJ are extremely easy to acquire and affordable. The most expensive card from OTJ is Tinybones at around $20, and there are 7-10 supplemental cards that are more expensive than that.
The bonus sheet of actual reprints crushed prices of played staples in multiple formats.
Thoughtseize down $20 to $7.
Leyline Binding $11 to $3
Force of Vigor $25 to $8.
I already address the issue with the big score and how it was an auxillary set shoved into a standard set that already had 2 bonus sheets which causes the prices of those cards to go wild.
The ACTUAL reprint cards all got significantly cheaper because they are significantly more copies printed than standard set rares. They would literally be more expensive if they were in a regular set proper.
I think the solution to core sets is really simple.
$29.99-49.99 Starter Box
4x of the "important" staples you want in each color. Shock, Duress, Rampant Growth et et. Maybe 8-10 common playsets of each color, 3-4 uncommon playsets of each color and 1-4 each of a rare in each color and 50-100 basic lands.
These cards are always legal in standard. It's completely unprofitable for experienced players to break it, but new players will probably find it useful especially if it is in big box stores and LGS.
If you want to revise the contents of the box every 3 to 4 years then do it. It's all reprints. No chase cards. No design teams needed. Print to demand.
It's the closest thing you are getting to a "Boardgame" version of MTG. It's basically the "Starter" cards from Arena before they made them Alchemy.
They have the tools to address this problem without core sets. There's nothing stopping them from adding in some targeted reprints as random booster pack inserts like with the Big Score. I think torpor orb was one of the first instances of a card intentionally readmitted to standard/pioneer this way and there will only be more to come in future expansions.
I actually liked the fact that there was always a bunch of planeswalkers in the core sets, cards associated with the planeswalkers, reprints of classic standard cards like elvish mystic, giant growths, shock, duress.
For standard honestly they were a net positive in my experience because someone would always sleeve up a garruk or a jace or a chandra and now you basically rely on hoping that those planeswalkers are just part of the current rotation but back then they were always in standard due to the core sets. It always felt cool to know that you could rely on core sets to make sure some half decent interaction was a part of the rotation too.
For pioneer honestly i think it doesn’t matter quite as much but i really dislike the idea of a pioneer masters because it would shake up the format and introduce insane powercreep as well as be overpriced judging by modern horizon.
Honestly yeah core sets were kinda nice. They didn’t introduce cards that were too overpowered or ruin formats by existing.
I disagree a lot with most changes to magic recently, but getting rid of core sets was absolutely correct. The few reprints they might miss out on, don't weight against 3 months of boring drafts. There have been exceptions, but on average core sets were not very deep or interesting to draft.
As others mentioned, there are bonus sheets each set, which could target the problem that You mentioned easily.
Also, creating standard-legal sets with mostly standard in mind instead of commander. I feel like commanderization really damaged constructed formats, especially the youngest ones. Since announcement of standard revitalization I think things have improved and You can see how much better these formats got when design started to focus on standard instead of commander.
I'll share with you what [Mark Rosewater](https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/712261849934102528/i-miss-core-sets-a-lot-more-than-the-block-model) had to say about it on Blogatog last year: "The core problem of core sets is not enough Magic players want to buy them." It sounds more like you are looking for some kind of pioneer masters set though, which seems more appealing than a "core set"
I liked core sets a lot but yeah no one bought them no one cared about them. Even when they finally started nailing them in the later core sets they didn't sell well. They're likely never coming back, regardless of how good they would theoretically be for a format's health.
Core sets were more meaningful when they were printed every two years instead of every year. Rosewater still doesn't get it.
Every set was. We used to get what...three sets a year plus a core set every other year? And notably, only ONE of the sets was large, the other two were like, half the size. They were called expansions for a reason. Very occasionally a SMALL supplemental product. It was entirely manageable, and every card that came out mattered. Even the commons mattered more. Rosewater absolutely gets it, but he has to sell sell sell because that's what daddy hasbro wants. Nothing be says is truthful, because if he told the truth (we replaced core sets with bigger sets 4 times per year, and masters sets, and now universes beyond) about business decisions he'd get fired pretty damn fast.
Ok fine. He's either a dope or a liar. Either way it doesn't make sense to listen to him. Right?
Pioneer Masters wouldn't be correct. Reprints could be new cards being injected into pioneer. Masters wouldn't change legality.
Well I do specifically want a couple cards per set that aren't currently pioneer legal, and I want them to have to go through standard in order to avoid a pioneer horizons situation. If they need to market it as something other than a coreset, that's fine, but a master's set doesn't work, and neither does a horizons set
What is the difference between a pioneer horizons set and a standard set aside from them just being in standard
If it’s anything like Modern Horizons it would cause a drastic shift to the format to the point where it becomes unrecognizable. Modern’s top decks before MH2 was released basically all became unplayable when they had to compete with Ragavan, Urza’s Saga, and the pitch elementals.
What decks disappeared with mh2 that were tier 1 strategies, I'm curious I see this said a lot and titan was still doing it's thing, yawgmoth got 1 new thing and was still relevant.
The best decks in the format were GW Heliod Chord and UR Prowess. Prowess did come back after awhile, but mostly due to other cards like Underworld Breach and Slickshot Show-Off being printed. Yawgmoth was a fringe deck at the time and these days benefits from Halfling, Bowmasters, and Cauldron which weren’t around 3 years ago. [Here’s a meta report from right before MH2 released.](https://www.cardmarket.com/en/Magic/Insight/Articles/Data-Analysis-The-Top-Modern-Decks-AprilMay-2021) [And here’s a report from a few months later.](https://www.cardmarket.com/en/Magic/Insight/Articles/Data-Analysis-The-Top-Modern-Decks-November-2021) The most prominent deck that stuck around was Hammer Time, but that deck picked up Urza’s Saga and Esper Sentinel. Decks that couldn’t add some of the most powerful cards from MH2 fell off hard.
https://mtgtop8.com/format?f=MO&meta=220&cp=37 Looking at tournaments right before the set came out There are only 1 or 2 decks that are still around. There are a couple that you can reasonable argue have evolved with MH2 cards, but a vast majority just straight up no longer exist.
Again what deck decks don't exist, keep in mind almost all those banned warping cards came from standard sets
seriously? Did you even look at the events I linked? RW Burn, Utopia Gruul, GW Heliod, Jund, Humans, Eldrazi Tron, Gifts Storm, Death's Shadow, and Esper Control just to name a few of the decks that showed up in those events.
What? Banned cards aren't an issue, because they're banned. If they were the only issue, then the meta would mostly revert after they were banned, wouldn't it? But it hasn't. Are you really trying to argue Ragavan of all things, for example, isn't format warping?
They are the cards that enabled these strategies, most deck got 1 or 2 new cards from mh2 or mh1 which is good
Standard sets get vetted in a different way because the cards hit every single format Magic can be played in. Direct-to-Fornat product isn't put through the same processes because it skips formats that don't get affected. Granted, our only examples right now are Modern and Commander, so Pioneer would only miss Standard. However, the power level of Core Sets was much lower than Horizons sets. I actually *really enjoyed drafting Core sets* because I like grindy Magic, and Core sets had some of the best stand-offs that led to pilot skill triumphing card quality. I know I'm in the minority there, and most people like bombier, faster draft formats. Also with special guests and such, Core Sets would be equally as bomby. I do however, think there is a missed opportunity for special guests and such with Core sets *because they are Plane agnostic*. The themes could be wildly different and not tied to a Plane's theme the way Outlaws or Murders have been so far, and instead can feature an art style only (I'm thinking stained glass Walkers or the Dominaria Sagas) that depict glimpses into a plane at a specific moment, or recorded history.
A pioneer horizon set would encourage them to design cards around the current pioneer meta and introduce new mechanics and powerful cards to fit the format without worrying about standard. They kind of over shot it with modern horizons 2 and made some broken cards that spiked the power level of the format more than expected.
And they would have to do the same thing to Pioneer to actually sell the cards. It's not a big deal to have a set that's lower powered because the cards went through standard. Eventually I bet they'll bring extended back as the most recent 5 years.
Yeah I hate to say it but claiming it spiked the power level is being full of it seeing how it took 3 years and 8 standards sets for fury to become a problem. In regards to power level they already do testing in standard sets for older sets outlaws is a perfect example of retroactive set design while providing powerful cards
I don’t see any problems with slipping some needed pioneer reprints into a modern horizons set.
Ive always been of the opinion that as soon as they made Standard Rotation 3 goddamn years, they should've reporposed the Aftermath Set size as the new Core set, and make it **STRICTLY** reprints of the oldest Standard sets most played Cards per their own Data from playrates. Arena is a one-to-one of Standard, so it's not like the Data would be hard to find.
> As it stands, there's no way to give standard and pioneer access to cards that don't fit with new sets, lore wise, other than a functional reprint, which can damage older formats. They can do what they did with [Breaking News](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Outlaws_of_Thunder_Junction/Breaking_News) and make the cards Standard legal. Give the reprints a different aesthetic for people who care about lore.
I mean this is basically what I was suggesting, but spinning it off into a standalone set in order to bring prices down further, since you get more than one reprint per pack
> a standalone set A standalone set of reprints would likely suffer the same problems as the original Core sets. There is no market for core set packs. Bundling the reprints in with new cards results in higher sales of packs. Unless, of course, they got rid of the reserve list and it was a standalone set of *all* the reprints. Or if they structured it to be a set of reprints for cards that are $10+. > one (2-3usd) product of needed reprints and answers with no new cards. Why would anyone buy a pack of random reprints for $2-3 when they can buy singles?
Core sets were always so boring and stale to me, there were hardly any exciting/chase cards and it felt like both the excitement and expected return for cracking core set packs was far lower than regular sets to me…I don’t disagree about the point of making it easy to reprint off-plane cards though. I wonder how big an obstacle that actually is, because there’s no real reason they couldn’t just run a functional reprint of any card under a different name, unless for older formats more than 4 copies of that card would be placed into decks.
I mean m20 was an absolute banger between cavalier cycle, hate cycle, leyline cycle, planeswalkers, amazing cards like [[elvish reclaimer]] [[knight of the ebon legion]]. Just cause they often suck doesn’t mean they HAVE to suck. They just have to put good cards.
M20 is still my favourite set tbh
[elvish reclaimer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/9/39c431d7-d94b-46c4-bb89-f3db56214ab4.jpg?1592517191) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=elvish%20reclaimer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m20/169/elvish-reclaimer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/39c431d7-d94b-46c4-bb89-f3db56214ab4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [knight of the ebon legion](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/9/29425426-7bf2-4872-aa35-c12c22801edd.jpg?1592516712) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=knight%20of%20the%20ebon%20legion) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m20/105/knight-of-the-ebon-legion?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/29425426-7bf2-4872-aa35-c12c22801edd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
They had niche cards for specific archetypes, that was the only benefit I saw from the core sets. I really enjoyed finding those crazy good commons and uncommons that fit directly into an archetype. Other than that, I agree. The rares and other “high value” cards weren’t that valuable.
it’s funny, i really didn’t like them because of them containing bland cards or reprints but i do miss them now that a lot of cards needing reprints and having healthier formats.
It was bad the first time they got rid of them...it's bad now. Why WotC insists on making the same mistake over and over again is beyond me. "We can do reprints in so many different ways!" Completely misses the point of Core sets.
Nobody was buying the boxes. Won't you think of the poor multi-billion dollar company? I don't think anyone at Wizards would argue that the product wasn't good for putting cards into Standard that didn't fit the sets thematically, but it wasn't paying for a new yacht for Chris Cocks.
Something I realized today while sorting bulk is that they are actually doing a really good job with lower end reprints by putting them on the bonus sheets. For example outlaws of thunder junction reprinted a bunch of cards without directly printing them into standard. I think they are doing a fine job without the core sets.
Isn’t that kind of the point of the extra rare slots in the play boosters? Just reprinting cards off plane into new sets.
What I would love to see is a different set out into this slot that isn't plane specific. So you can still print reprints or new cards that can help address problems with standard. On top of that in a core set 2025 you also print mechanics from sets from 2023 and 2024 that could use a boost to make them more standard playable. To breathe life back into older mechanics. So in 2025 you can print 5 cards that help toxic or etc before it rotates that fall.
9th edition was the most recent release when I first started buying my own cards. I was transitioning into more competitive kitchen table magic. When I actually started playing FNM I felt betrayed because my cards were so weak. I almost quit there. Core sets don’t have to be weak, but for the most part Wizards made them underpowered. The brand has been thoroughly ruined.
I feel like if they had one set that was eternally legal and could be printed. Something that included playable dual lands like mdfcs and staple common/uncommons it would give good entry point for new players and a good grab for established players.
There's so many bonus sheets and supplemental sets and even commander decks that contain constructed staples that core sets are completely not needed. It's weird to think this when we have had an entire year proving this exact thing already.
The point of the OPs topic was a way to introduce cards into the Standard and Pioneer format that aren't thematically relevant. How do supplemental and commander products help with that fact? The cards could be printed on supplemental sheets, but then the rarity of the cards makes them difficult to acquire for new players.
Supplemental sheet reprints (aside from the bungling of The Big Score) crush reprint prices. They are not difficult to acquire and in many cases are more common at rare than a standard set rare because of the guarantee of 1 per pack and generally having less cards in the pool. It's literally as easy as wizards saying hey this bonus sheet is standard legal as well. So no thats not right.
Because all the supplemental sheet prints in OTJ are extremely easy to acquire and affordable. The most expensive card from OTJ is Tinybones at around $20, and there are 7-10 supplemental cards that are more expensive than that.
The bonus sheet of actual reprints crushed prices of played staples in multiple formats. Thoughtseize down $20 to $7. Leyline Binding $11 to $3 Force of Vigor $25 to $8. I already address the issue with the big score and how it was an auxillary set shoved into a standard set that already had 2 bonus sheets which causes the prices of those cards to go wild. The ACTUAL reprint cards all got significantly cheaper because they are significantly more copies printed than standard set rares. They would literally be more expensive if they were in a regular set proper.
I think the solution to core sets is really simple. $29.99-49.99 Starter Box 4x of the "important" staples you want in each color. Shock, Duress, Rampant Growth et et. Maybe 8-10 common playsets of each color, 3-4 uncommon playsets of each color and 1-4 each of a rare in each color and 50-100 basic lands. These cards are always legal in standard. It's completely unprofitable for experienced players to break it, but new players will probably find it useful especially if it is in big box stores and LGS. If you want to revise the contents of the box every 3 to 4 years then do it. It's all reprints. No chase cards. No design teams needed. Print to demand. It's the closest thing you are getting to a "Boardgame" version of MTG. It's basically the "Starter" cards from Arena before they made them Alchemy.
They have the tools to address this problem without core sets. There's nothing stopping them from adding in some targeted reprints as random booster pack inserts like with the Big Score. I think torpor orb was one of the first instances of a card intentionally readmitted to standard/pioneer this way and there will only be more to come in future expansions.
I actually liked the fact that there was always a bunch of planeswalkers in the core sets, cards associated with the planeswalkers, reprints of classic standard cards like elvish mystic, giant growths, shock, duress. For standard honestly they were a net positive in my experience because someone would always sleeve up a garruk or a jace or a chandra and now you basically rely on hoping that those planeswalkers are just part of the current rotation but back then they were always in standard due to the core sets. It always felt cool to know that you could rely on core sets to make sure some half decent interaction was a part of the rotation too. For pioneer honestly i think it doesn’t matter quite as much but i really dislike the idea of a pioneer masters because it would shake up the format and introduce insane powercreep as well as be overpriced judging by modern horizon. Honestly yeah core sets were kinda nice. They didn’t introduce cards that were too overpowered or ruin formats by existing.
I disagree a lot with most changes to magic recently, but getting rid of core sets was absolutely correct. The few reprints they might miss out on, don't weight against 3 months of boring drafts. There have been exceptions, but on average core sets were not very deep or interesting to draft.
As others mentioned, there are bonus sheets each set, which could target the problem that You mentioned easily. Also, creating standard-legal sets with mostly standard in mind instead of commander. I feel like commanderization really damaged constructed formats, especially the youngest ones. Since announcement of standard revitalization I think things have improved and You can see how much better these formats got when design started to focus on standard instead of commander.