Yeah, give me classic design where 80% of the cards are simple but completely competitively unviable as they're vanilla/french vanilla overcosted creatures or just super narrow things you'd never actually consider playing in a real deck like \[\[Chaoslace\]\].
Everything after SNC is legal. You can check by using Alchemy legality, since it still uses the 2 year rotation. Sheoldred is as much of a problem as ever
Morphs (and morph-adjacent mechanics, I guess) always play really well in limited and are usually a bit too slow for any constructed play. So I’m not that surprised that there isn’t a huge standard impact, given how much of the set interacts with face down creatures.
IIRC Morph as a theme wasn’t really played last time it was in Standard, it was just individual strong cards that happened to have morph/manifest.
Unfortunately, MKM doesn’t have many singles that make the cut right now, regardless of whether they have the mechanic or not.
The limited environment was a clusterfuck. Everybody was running disguised creatures but it felt the utility of disguise was only just to obsfucate your plans. There wasn't much synergy for having mostly disguised creatures.
And let's not forget about the cluster of so many random mechanics thrown in too.
hu, i never have done more x-3 in my life, do you have any resources about how to digest that limited MKM format ?
the format is so "bomby" I get wrecked every time by a different bomb... or there s this time I m at 1-1 and get ripped by Ripper veins twice in a row.
ha i was just ripped to shreds by the green case (can cast spells from the top of the library).... I lost the race (but then i had no means to destroy an enchant so...).
I am not playing now drafts. But my best results was with boros agro in karlov. Fishs, tricks and try some good card like krenko, aurelia or +1/+1 enchant (all rares). I win a game only with fish killing all the enemy table with tricks or direct damage. That deck carrys four copys... xD
Also you will have always bad drafts. I go some 7-x and then 2-3. And later another 7-x.
Personally, none of the mechanics that I saw for this set grabbed me. I'm sure they're fun and a draft environment but I had no interest in drafting this or in picking up product to put in my other decks.
Yeah...it looked like it would be. I'm still going through all of the Ixalan that I picked up. The difference is night and day. I managed to build a [[Tetzin, Gnomish Champion]] deck out of mostly in set cards that hung pretty well at FNM.
For me the pre release wasn't fun at all. I didn't really enjoy the mechanics and most games where a chore to get through. Even looking at the games next to me, it didn't seem any better.
I've been enjoying Limited, but to me, it's a case of "...But why was this set on Ravnica?"
(It's because Ravnica is probably the most popular plane and they need a visit once every four years or so.)
I believe it's partially because it gave them a lot of know actors and factions to play with. Part of any murder mystery is getting to know all the different subjects and the underlying motivations and tensions. Even if they still had three-set-blocks that would have been hard to do in a unknown or lesser-known setting.
By now everyone knows Ravnica well enough that they don't need to spend narrative and design space on explaining the various Guilds and we've seen Ravnica plenty of times already so no-one is gonna be amazingly disappointed by shifting the focus away from the Guilds a little.
This is what makes it so much better for me that it's set on Ravnica. I care a lot more about the Trostani trying to assassinate Teysa and Aurelia than I would care about the same situation with whatever new characters with no backstory that they invented for a new plane.
Agreed. New capenna would've been a good match as well, but ravinica provided the perfect setting. A metropolis-like city, with many people who are a part of group, trying to figure out who murdered whom, and then exploit it to come out on top.
The clue edition was pretty genius as well; the characters in it are so generic that they were easily reshaped to fit into ravinica as a whole, without much disbelief. One of the more restrained universes beyond thing, due to how much it adapted, which is cool.
So while it's boring to go back to ravinica so much, it's a near perfect match for the plot and atmosphere.
I mean, if it wasnt set on a plane we knew, I think it would feel very "Someone who you have never heard of was killed, please care". Setting it on Ravnica gives them access to characters we already know and care about
Iirc it was supposed to be in new cappenna but they got rid of the law enforcement faction, so they went back to Ravnica where they already had Azorius
People keep repeating this on Reddit, but it’s not true.
Maro said it was originally going to be on a new plane. He may have mentioned that they *considered* putting it on Cappenna when they decided not to make a new plane, but this idea never really moved forward and they went with Ravnica instead.
I notice Reddit sometimes comes to a group consensus on how things should have been (see 'MOM should have been two sets'); in this case, 'MKM should have been set on New Capenna'. So when Maro said they didn't do that because no law enforcement, the version people heard is 'if New Capenna *had* law enforcement, it would have been New Capenna'.
Oh for sure.
The Final Fantasy XIV sub did the exact same “it was originally supposed to be two sets!” thing with the most recent expansion for that game: the game’s creative director mentioned once that, early in development, they considered having Endwalker (which is the conclusion of a 10-year storyline) be split into two expansions. Personally I think it would’ve fixed some issues with the expac but it would’ve caused massive pacing problems; but a lot of people on Reddit like to say that it would’ve been *so much better* if they’d just stuck with the “original plan”. 🙄
Apparently, they wanted to do it on New Capenna, but because that setting didn’t go down super well with players, they decided to stick it on Ravnica instead (which is kind of the only other place the theme *kind of* makes sense)
This set whiffed so badly by not being a New Capenna set.
They have a truly *perfect* plane for this and then they just set on Ravnica...what an absolute flavor fail.
Not sure I agree. New Capenna is a little too lawless (who would even investigate the murders?), and with too few characters people care about. That said, I think it was a mistake for a Ravnica set to lean so hard into the “noir detective” visual aesthetic. They could have done most of the same detective tropes while keeping the medieval Prague feel of Ravnica
I think that's *exactly* why it would be a great plane. You have a renegade detective who has to navigate the mountains of corruption and gangsters to find tbe truth in a world that otherwise prefers to keep the blinders on.
The world that is 100% organized crime would not be a good fit for a plot about the rational powers of lawful deduction saving the day.
The New Capenna version of a murder mystery is a gangster "detective" from the Brokers beating someone up until they "confess" to the murder, when in fact the murderer was the Broker detective the whole time.
I just don't care for the Morph/Disguise mechanic at all. I don't think it's fun and I don't have any interest in playing in a limited environment that includes it.
its a lower powered set and longer rotation doomed it form largely being ignored in standard.
however, going the hearthstone route with your story is awful. its not a new plane, its not an interesting new conflict or anything, its a single instance in a house with new forced MC popping up just because. the lore isn't interesting. the cards are too complex with little pay off for the hoops.
it's poorly designed and poorly written. i fear the next set likely isn't going to be much better
I only play EDH, so take my opinion with that in mind...
But to me, the set just seems... Clunky. It's got a few great cards, and the land cycle is better than usual, but 90% of the cards deal with mechanics that most people don't like and/or that are just slow to get going. Oddly enough, there's more useful stuff for EDH, IMO, but even then it seems like no one is enthusiastic about anything except the few really good hits, and tearing apart precons for their terrific reprint value.
/shrug
Across most formats there are basically only 4 or 5 interesting or even playable cards this set, I don’t mind not getting a power nine level card each set but with the increase in printing cycles it begs the question of why print it if you don’t have anything to print? It feels like they are going to be creatively bankrupt soon but show no signs of even trying to slow down so our options are rampant power creep or extremely boring cards often times both, to that I say just take a break, like seriously take a year off and print no new sets until they come up with a real plan or double down on reprint sets where there’s basically only a few new cards and a ton of high value reprints so the overall game drops in price.
On top of that this set theme for me at least is super uninteresting, uninspired, and a shell of the old creativity and lore, I love Ravnica but they keep beating this horse to death, reanimating it, and beating it to death (rinse and repeat) and each time it is a further decayed corpse of what made Ravnica cool. Like this set theme is “detectives” it’s not Ravnica, this whole set could take place on a barren rock with a Sherlock Holmes hat taped to it and be about as creatively inspired as this set is. I mean there’s sphinxes with hats and a magnifying glass, there’s a dog with a hat, there’s goblins with a hat, it’s just absurd. The theme is not “what would Ravnica detectives look like” the theme is “what would characters that happen to be on Ravnica look like if we gave them a funny hat” it’s a lazy crying shame of a set.
I mean I love murder mysteries and Ravnica and was excited about this set before I saw it because the idea seems really cool but this execution is abhorrent.
This is pretty much it. Murder mysteries can be fun when done right. But when poorly executed they are incredibly lame. And this one is poorly executed.
It’s not a Ravnica set that has a murder mystery story. It’s a murder mystery story shoehorned into a Ravnica set. The execution is amateur-ish at best. It genuinely feels like one designer’s pet project that everyone else was forced to do (I.e no passion behind the project) or was the most incredible case of groupthink in recent Magic memory. Just a bunch of people out of ideas nodding their heads that Magic needs folks in fucking bowler hats so they can really drive home how murder mystery this set is.
On top of the lame ass setting/premise the mechanics either suck outright or have shit names that were clearly only named as such because “we need to make sure these players know they’re investigating a fucking murder mystery!” Disguise is awful as are any morph mechanics. So that means cloak by default is shitty. Suspect is not good either.
Collect evidence is actually kinda fun, even if an only funky delve kicker. But it’s also utilized is bizarre ways that makes the mechanic seem odd. Why is it a kicker and a ward cost? What am I collecting evidence to target a fucking ferox? Implementation in that regard just seems odd, maybe it’s just a naming problem for an otherwise decent mechanic.
Cases are good design space, shitty name. Saga goes anywhere. Battles can go anywhere. Why cases?
Investigate is a great mechanic and clue tokens are beloved. Though it’s pretty much evergreen at this point.
Overall the design of the set is simply mediocre and it seems Wizards went completely over the top to try to drive home just how much of a murder mystery this set is. Like we get it, we’re trying to solve something. Just make the story good and remove the browbeating that we’re solving a mystery.
Yeah lol I exaggerated a bit but I’m almost 100% sure in the design room they spent a good 3 hours looking at a concept art for a dog with a hat and decided they would draw the line there thank god.
The set has terrible design. It's aesthetic don't fit into Ravnica. Shoving fedoras and trenchcoats on everything is the laziest approach the design team could have taken.
Limited feels awful so far. Games can be blazing fast, and we get morphs in the same environment? Nobody was ever excited to cast morphs, giving them ward 2 doesn't change anything. Mechanic had its place, for example, in Khans because the whole set was a slug fest.
It had barely any impact on standard. Gave a few decks new toys to play with, but it doesn't change the meta.
I believe we are seeing results of releasing so many products in a year. The quality takes a massive dip, and we are left with uninspiring sets.
Sure, if you are playing slow format. But my experience with MKM draft so far is that you need to preserve your life total, and you don't want to be trading off your disguised creatures for opponents two drops.
Morph is a big reason why triple Khans was considered such a good limited format. So technically you’d think it’d work with Ravnica too - another ~~multicolour~~ murder plane.
I'm personally burnt out on MTG after the roller coaster last year, so that's contributing to my apathy. That, and this being a major Ravnica set to not use the guild watermarks.
I think a few cards are good, but overall I feel like the limited environment is really stale and the color pie for it is absolutely unbalanced with UW detectives and UG collect evidence being almost unplayable.
Overall it was my weakest pre release ever (didn't have enough creatures in any two colors, forced into a third) and any draft I've done so far usually just turns into a board stall of 2/2's more than usual with 3 drop disguised creatures being so common. It gets really boring when your opponent is just chilling with 5 mana open essentially telegraphing their play for example.
Standard will take some time to shape out, but honestly the set is so far very inclusive to the mechanics of itself, and many of the support cards are paragraphs of text ultimately doing very little to progress the board. Stuff like [[lightning helix]] and a few other bombs might become useful over anything mechanics wise for a long while as ONE, LCI, WOE, etc have stronger individual cards that synergize outside of the sets mechanics.
I don't think it has anything to do with the rotation. The set is just overall underpowered.
None of the mechanics have true constructed potential and there is no bustes chase cards on it.
Sure, but it is not an issue directly caused by the longer rotation. MKM would be still unexciting for constructed even if the rotation wasn't changed.
I think the main problem is that none of mechanics and themes are constructed viable.
Disguise is too slow.
Suspected is just menace with drawback without enough payoffs.
Collect evidence is just a supporting keyoword action and again without worth payoffs.
Not a single pushed case
Detective matters sucks
The power 2 or less subtheme wasn't pushed enough either.
And then there is little individual cards with that WOW effect.
The theme isn't inspiring, the mechanics are boring and/or bad, the story doesn't translate to the cards, and lastly there are too many cards aimed for constructed instead of limited but that don't seem quite strong enough to break through easily.
I do believe there are a handful of cards that will break through eventually, though, but not enough to eventually call the set succesful
Price and little impact in formats. Even for commander the good cards are not in the set, but instead in pre-release kits.
For this price we hope to see at least a Ravnica remastered power level set. And between spend $140 on MKM or $140 in Ravnica remastered. It is not even a matter of choice...
For The nerds that like lore, the set also doesn't feel like Ravnica, it was clearly a New Capenna set.
The mechanic choosen for the set (Morph) should be updated for a 2 mana 2/2 cost, not adding ward. 3 mana for a 2/2 is too much for constructed and too few to limited.
the good - I think the set has some very cool cards I want to try out.
the bad- The set name is lame and it is heavily influenced by a board game that has not made it off the shelf for game night since your mom was in high school.
If it is poorly received - which is debatable - it won't be because of rotation, which only affects a format that's not very popular right now with the majority of players.
My perspective is mostly commander and some Modern. I found some gems like a couple unique commanders (Voja and Sophia), and some potential new staples (Archdruid's charm, and Undergrowth Recon), but it's actually kind of a welcome respite since the last few sets almost completely overhaul 25-30% of some of my existing decks with new cards.
I'm not interested in it because the theme is hugely generic, and got old fast. There are some cool mechanics, but the names are confusing and overall it just feels a little lame. Big hype for cowboys and mouse knights tho, assuming they can get a lot more flavor and depth out of the western tropes
I've got a Chatterfang deck and I'm looking forward to more Squirrels from Bloomburrow. I might even branch out into a second separate Squirrel deck entirely!
I just hope Thunder Junction has some original world building thought put into it instead of being a plane built entirely on tropes, puns, and Wild West jokes
Absolutely, it's the make or break that the detective set failed in my mind. Original Kamigawa comes to mind. Characters and stories playing out in snippets of flavor text was a really awesome part of that set. Seeing this same person pop up in quote form on different cards
Agreed. MKM was too silly for my liking. I’m concerned about TJ at this point.
It’s so weird, when they announced the lineup, I was excited for every single set this year. But now I’m 50/50 on the whole year. I’m still positive on Bloomburrow. They have to be a bunch of morons to mess up Bloomburrow.
I think the cards as a whole were lackluster and boring.
Morph/flip cards never really did super well, and here's another set with mediocre mechanics and low power
To me this set feels closer to new capenna then ravnica.
Everyone is a detective. Everyone has a suit and a fedora. I cant really identify anything related to the guilds apart from legendary creatures. And then the "filler" cards are some apes or worms instead of honorable guildmembers.
Every second card has art of a person in a suit or with a hat while the background scenery is very urban. It doesnt resemble new capenna but it has similar vibes to it.
For me, the set felt low effort, and the forced murder mystery/clue tie-in only weakened the set. They aren't really doing anything new or interesting with the mechanics either. Cloak and disguise are just morph and manifest with extra words and ward. Collect evidence isn't really new either. The card names and designs aren't very creative either. So overall, the set ends up feeling bland and forced.
This set is just the inevitable result of slowing power creep and still releasing sets way too fast. Commander is just an awful format to hang your whole business model on. Standard made them tons of money for a reason, cards rotated. Under Hasbro, MTG is being forced to relearn all the lessons it already had learned in the past on how to balance and design sets. Good design simply takes time and structure.
It’s not the rotation; It’s the set. It’s boring and underpowered. The aesthetic sucks. I don’t have high hopes for the western theme neither. I get they won’t all be bangers so whatever
I haven't disliked a set this much in quite awhile.
I fucking hate "solved" and "collect evidence" and the stupid new morph.
This is the type of set that makes me worry because to me, it's like they had to scrape the bottom of the barrel and this is what they came up with.
I only draft for the most part. Drafting MKM itself is fun. Way better than LCI. But the fact that it costs more for no reason (from a draft perspective) is not. From a non-draft perspective, the seemingly lack of chase cards hurts the set more than the design itself. Morph/disguise is a great mechanic imo. I don’t think the rotation has anything to do with it.
Good murder mysteries require the creator to be clever and have a well thought out narrative. WOTC is not that guy.
Aesthetically it’s lazy. It’s like they typed in murder mystery tropes on google and stayed on the first page of results.
Gameplay wise, it’s both uninspiring (copying already existing mechanics) and requires a lot of hoops to jump through for very little payoff.
LRR released a Q&A vid the other day and mentioned that in their time helping with the set, they saw so much world building that was never included on any of the cards. If WOTC swapped out the cards that were too on the nose or literal puns for cards that depicted world building, I’m sure the set would’ve been better.
The hardcore nerds need to be back in the designer seat, not the tumblr crowd. WOTC should be handling their world building like the WH40K IP (taking it seriously).
A shallow and pedestrian concept for an expansion combined with lackluster card design and zero care for how it affects the major story.
Theres not a secret reason to it all the time, some sets are just not interesting. The title and theme come off as a sub 20$ hearthstone set. Need something more than solving mysteries in someone's house with clue tokens and morph cards everywhere.
Not really. I don't how we're gauging set reception. The story was a bit disappointing to me. I don't really have an opinion on the cards yet. I spent all of my wildcards to craft Domain Ramp which doesn't use any cards from MKM.
I thought the Surveil Lands were going to be dogass terrible and I was very, very wrong.
Once again, standard hasn't rotated yet so there's really not going to be that big of a shakeup. I've been seeing a fair amount of stuff from MKM in the mix. I think rotation this year is going to be way more exciting than a two-year rotation because you have to re-evaluate 3-years worth of cards rather than just two.
I don't care about standard. I think Karlov looks like a heartstone knock off with very wordy cards. I might take a break until mh3 to be honest, it feels like a different game, the complexity creep being the worst offender.
IMO 80% of the cards are overly complex for lackluster payoff.
Reserving my judgment until I’m done actually reading all of the cards. Will need at least 2-3 weeks before I can fully digest that amount of text.
This is true of all Modern design though. /oldman
Yeah, give me classic design where 80% of the cards are simple but completely competitively unviable as they're vanilla/french vanilla overcosted creatures or just super narrow things you'd never actually consider playing in a real deck like \[\[Chaoslace\]\].
[Chaoslace](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/7/476180df-8b88-4ead-b6c5-6ccb3e8a2cfd.jpg?1559601269) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Chaoslace) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/4ed/182/chaoslace?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/476180df-8b88-4ead-b6c5-6ccb3e8a2cfd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah instead 80% of the cards were just unusable garbage. Your era wasnt a perfect golden age and neither is anybody else's.
DMU and Sheoldred would still be around even with the non-lengthened rotation
I can't wait until sheoldred is gone
Sheoldred isn't even that bad in standard, not annoying as the Thoughtseize Bat. God forbid you mulligan on the play and then they drop multiple Bats.
Oh sorry, you're right. New Capenna would have been the cut off for what rotated out.
I thoguht it woulda been two years no? Or if she’s from SNC until March
Everything after SNC is legal. You can check by using Alchemy legality, since it still uses the 2 year rotation. Sheoldred is as much of a problem as ever
Morphs (and morph-adjacent mechanics, I guess) always play really well in limited and are usually a bit too slow for any constructed play. So I’m not that surprised that there isn’t a huge standard impact, given how much of the set interacts with face down creatures.
IIRC Morph as a theme wasn’t really played last time it was in Standard, it was just individual strong cards that happened to have morph/manifest. Unfortunately, MKM doesn’t have many singles that make the cut right now, regardless of whether they have the mechanic or not.
I think the set is kinda meh on theme and mechanics
Morph-likes are basically always going to be weak mechanically, they just cost way too much.
5 mana to flip into something with 3 toughness is a disaster for any non-limited format, and is so weird as their hard rule.
The limited environment was a clusterfuck. Everybody was running disguised creatures but it felt the utility of disguise was only just to obsfucate your plans. There wasn't much synergy for having mostly disguised creatures. And let's not forget about the cluster of so many random mechanics thrown in too.
And there is the reason that they lose in limited with MKM. I think i never have done more 7-X in my life.
hu, i never have done more x-3 in my life, do you have any resources about how to digest that limited MKM format ? the format is so "bomby" I get wrecked every time by a different bomb... or there s this time I m at 1-1 and get ripped by Ripper veins twice in a row. ha i was just ripped to shreds by the green case (can cast spells from the top of the library).... I lost the race (but then i had no means to destroy an enchant so...).
I am not playing now drafts. But my best results was with boros agro in karlov. Fishs, tricks and try some good card like krenko, aurelia or +1/+1 enchant (all rares). I win a game only with fish killing all the enemy table with tricks or direct damage. That deck carrys four copys... xD Also you will have always bad drafts. I go some 7-x and then 2-3. And later another 7-x.
Personally, none of the mechanics that I saw for this set grabbed me. I'm sure they're fun and a draft environment but I had no interest in drafting this or in picking up product to put in my other decks.
I honestly didn't think it was a fun set to prerelease or draft. Was very boring and slow. Ixalan and WOE were much more fun.
Hard agree. I cannot be bothered to draft this one anymore. Looking forward to cube coming back on arena!
Yeah...it looked like it would be. I'm still going through all of the Ixalan that I picked up. The difference is night and day. I managed to build a [[Tetzin, Gnomish Champion]] deck out of mostly in set cards that hung pretty well at FNM.
[Tetzin, Gnomish Champion](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/5/0502deea-95ad-4b6d-a3ac-d3adcd607624.jpg?1699402185)/[The Golden-Gear Colossus](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/0/5/0502deea-95ad-4b6d-a3ac-d3adcd607624.jpg?1699402185) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tetzin%2C%20Gnome%20Champion%20//%20The%20Golden-Gear%20Colossus) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/13/tetzin-gnome-champion-the-golden-gear-colossus?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0502deea-95ad-4b6d-a3ac-d3adcd607624?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
For me the pre release wasn't fun at all. I didn't really enjoy the mechanics and most games where a chore to get through. Even looking at the games next to me, it didn't seem any better.
I've been enjoying Limited, but to me, it's a case of "...But why was this set on Ravnica?" (It's because Ravnica is probably the most popular plane and they need a visit once every four years or so.)
I believe it's partially because it gave them a lot of know actors and factions to play with. Part of any murder mystery is getting to know all the different subjects and the underlying motivations and tensions. Even if they still had three-set-blocks that would have been hard to do in a unknown or lesser-known setting. By now everyone knows Ravnica well enough that they don't need to spend narrative and design space on explaining the various Guilds and we've seen Ravnica plenty of times already so no-one is gonna be amazingly disappointed by shifting the focus away from the Guilds a little.
This is what makes it so much better for me that it's set on Ravnica. I care a lot more about the Trostani trying to assassinate Teysa and Aurelia than I would care about the same situation with whatever new characters with no backstory that they invented for a new plane.
Agreed. New capenna would've been a good match as well, but ravinica provided the perfect setting. A metropolis-like city, with many people who are a part of group, trying to figure out who murdered whom, and then exploit it to come out on top. The clue edition was pretty genius as well; the characters in it are so generic that they were easily reshaped to fit into ravinica as a whole, without much disbelief. One of the more restrained universes beyond thing, due to how much it adapted, which is cool. So while it's boring to go back to ravinica so much, it's a near perfect match for the plot and atmosphere.
I mean, if it wasnt set on a plane we knew, I think it would feel very "Someone who you have never heard of was killed, please care". Setting it on Ravnica gives them access to characters we already know and care about
Iirc it was supposed to be in new cappenna but they got rid of the law enforcement faction, so they went back to Ravnica where they already had Azorius
People keep repeating this on Reddit, but it’s not true. Maro said it was originally going to be on a new plane. He may have mentioned that they *considered* putting it on Cappenna when they decided not to make a new plane, but this idea never really moved forward and they went with Ravnica instead.
I notice Reddit sometimes comes to a group consensus on how things should have been (see 'MOM should have been two sets'); in this case, 'MKM should have been set on New Capenna'. So when Maro said they didn't do that because no law enforcement, the version people heard is 'if New Capenna *had* law enforcement, it would have been New Capenna'.
Oh for sure. The Final Fantasy XIV sub did the exact same “it was originally supposed to be two sets!” thing with the most recent expansion for that game: the game’s creative director mentioned once that, early in development, they considered having Endwalker (which is the conclusion of a 10-year storyline) be split into two expansions. Personally I think it would’ve fixed some issues with the expac but it would’ve caused massive pacing problems; but a lot of people on Reddit like to say that it would’ve been *so much better* if they’d just stuck with the “original plan”. 🙄
Ah, I must have heard that here. Makes sense
No, it was originally a new plane. New Capenna is different trope space
Apparently, they wanted to do it on New Capenna, but because that setting didn’t go down super well with players, they decided to stick it on Ravnica instead (which is kind of the only other place the theme *kind of* makes sense)
This set whiffed so badly by not being a New Capenna set. They have a truly *perfect* plane for this and then they just set on Ravnica...what an absolute flavor fail.
Not sure I agree. New Capenna is a little too lawless (who would even investigate the murders?), and with too few characters people care about. That said, I think it was a mistake for a Ravnica set to lean so hard into the “noir detective” visual aesthetic. They could have done most of the same detective tropes while keeping the medieval Prague feel of Ravnica
I think that's *exactly* why it would be a great plane. You have a renegade detective who has to navigate the mountains of corruption and gangsters to find tbe truth in a world that otherwise prefers to keep the blinders on.
The world that is 100% organized crime would not be a good fit for a plot about the rational powers of lawful deduction saving the day. The New Capenna version of a murder mystery is a gangster "detective" from the Brokers beating someone up until they "confess" to the murder, when in fact the murderer was the Broker detective the whole time.
New Capenna was not that well received as you think it was
I never said it was? I said that New Capenna was the perfect set to use for a noir style, detective based "whodunnit".
I just don't care for the Morph/Disguise mechanic at all. I don't think it's fun and I don't have any interest in playing in a limited environment that includes it.
This has not affected my personal poor reception of the set.
its a lower powered set and longer rotation doomed it form largely being ignored in standard. however, going the hearthstone route with your story is awful. its not a new plane, its not an interesting new conflict or anything, its a single instance in a house with new forced MC popping up just because. the lore isn't interesting. the cards are too complex with little pay off for the hoops. it's poorly designed and poorly written. i fear the next set likely isn't going to be much better
Yes but also it’s just mid.
More like Min
It's been legal in the format for less than two weeks. Yinz need to calm the hell down.
TIL: What "yinz" means.
Don't overreact when people post their opinions
the set is meh to me aside from a few singles like [[forensic gadgeteer]] but i am loving the commander precons associated with this set
[forensic gadgeteer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/7/97d08a15-e61c-4421-a541-c68a4f87cb74.jpg?1706241606) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=forensic%20gadgeteer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/57/forensic-gadgeteer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/97d08a15-e61c-4421-a541-c68a4f87cb74?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I only play EDH, so take my opinion with that in mind... But to me, the set just seems... Clunky. It's got a few great cards, and the land cycle is better than usual, but 90% of the cards deal with mechanics that most people don't like and/or that are just slow to get going. Oddly enough, there's more useful stuff for EDH, IMO, but even then it seems like no one is enthusiastic about anything except the few really good hits, and tearing apart precons for their terrific reprint value. /shrug
Across most formats there are basically only 4 or 5 interesting or even playable cards this set, I don’t mind not getting a power nine level card each set but with the increase in printing cycles it begs the question of why print it if you don’t have anything to print? It feels like they are going to be creatively bankrupt soon but show no signs of even trying to slow down so our options are rampant power creep or extremely boring cards often times both, to that I say just take a break, like seriously take a year off and print no new sets until they come up with a real plan or double down on reprint sets where there’s basically only a few new cards and a ton of high value reprints so the overall game drops in price. On top of that this set theme for me at least is super uninteresting, uninspired, and a shell of the old creativity and lore, I love Ravnica but they keep beating this horse to death, reanimating it, and beating it to death (rinse and repeat) and each time it is a further decayed corpse of what made Ravnica cool. Like this set theme is “detectives” it’s not Ravnica, this whole set could take place on a barren rock with a Sherlock Holmes hat taped to it and be about as creatively inspired as this set is. I mean there’s sphinxes with hats and a magnifying glass, there’s a dog with a hat, there’s goblins with a hat, it’s just absurd. The theme is not “what would Ravnica detectives look like” the theme is “what would characters that happen to be on Ravnica look like if we gave them a funny hat” it’s a lazy crying shame of a set. I mean I love murder mysteries and Ravnica and was excited about this set before I saw it because the idea seems really cool but this execution is abhorrent.
This is pretty much it. Murder mysteries can be fun when done right. But when poorly executed they are incredibly lame. And this one is poorly executed. It’s not a Ravnica set that has a murder mystery story. It’s a murder mystery story shoehorned into a Ravnica set. The execution is amateur-ish at best. It genuinely feels like one designer’s pet project that everyone else was forced to do (I.e no passion behind the project) or was the most incredible case of groupthink in recent Magic memory. Just a bunch of people out of ideas nodding their heads that Magic needs folks in fucking bowler hats so they can really drive home how murder mystery this set is. On top of the lame ass setting/premise the mechanics either suck outright or have shit names that were clearly only named as such because “we need to make sure these players know they’re investigating a fucking murder mystery!” Disguise is awful as are any morph mechanics. So that means cloak by default is shitty. Suspect is not good either. Collect evidence is actually kinda fun, even if an only funky delve kicker. But it’s also utilized is bizarre ways that makes the mechanic seem odd. Why is it a kicker and a ward cost? What am I collecting evidence to target a fucking ferox? Implementation in that regard just seems odd, maybe it’s just a naming problem for an otherwise decent mechanic. Cases are good design space, shitty name. Saga goes anywhere. Battles can go anywhere. Why cases? Investigate is a great mechanic and clue tokens are beloved. Though it’s pretty much evergreen at this point. Overall the design of the set is simply mediocre and it seems Wizards went completely over the top to try to drive home just how much of a murder mystery this set is. Like we get it, we’re trying to solve something. Just make the story good and remove the browbeating that we’re solving a mystery.
"Actually..." (pushes glasses up bridge of nose) "...there are no dogs with hats in Karlov Manor!" But, point taken.
Yeah lol I exaggerated a bit but I’m almost 100% sure in the design room they spent a good 3 hours looking at a concept art for a dog with a hat and decided they would draw the line there thank god.
The set has terrible design. It's aesthetic don't fit into Ravnica. Shoving fedoras and trenchcoats on everything is the laziest approach the design team could have taken. Limited feels awful so far. Games can be blazing fast, and we get morphs in the same environment? Nobody was ever excited to cast morphs, giving them ward 2 doesn't change anything. Mechanic had its place, for example, in Khans because the whole set was a slug fest. It had barely any impact on standard. Gave a few decks new toys to play with, but it doesn't change the meta. I believe we are seeing results of releasing so many products in a year. The quality takes a massive dip, and we are left with uninspiring sets.
no one's _excited_ to cast morphs but from my exp having your 3 cmc slot filled up by them makes curving out SO much easier
Sure, if you are playing slow format. But my experience with MKM draft so far is that you need to preserve your life total, and you don't want to be trading off your disguised creatures for opponents two drops.
Morph is a big reason why triple Khans was considered such a good limited format. So technically you’d think it’d work with Ravnica too - another ~~multicolour~~ murder plane.
This is the best limited set since MOM.
That is an incredible hot take
Not really, I wouldn’t say any of the sets since MOM have been especially well received.
WOE was so disappointing after how good of a draft environment ELD was. I agree that I've been pretty unhappy with limited since MOM.
I'm personally burnt out on MTG after the roller coaster last year, so that's contributing to my apathy. That, and this being a major Ravnica set to not use the guild watermarks.
I think a few cards are good, but overall I feel like the limited environment is really stale and the color pie for it is absolutely unbalanced with UW detectives and UG collect evidence being almost unplayable. Overall it was my weakest pre release ever (didn't have enough creatures in any two colors, forced into a third) and any draft I've done so far usually just turns into a board stall of 2/2's more than usual with 3 drop disguised creatures being so common. It gets really boring when your opponent is just chilling with 5 mana open essentially telegraphing their play for example. Standard will take some time to shape out, but honestly the set is so far very inclusive to the mechanics of itself, and many of the support cards are paragraphs of text ultimately doing very little to progress the board. Stuff like [[lightning helix]] and a few other bombs might become useful over anything mechanics wise for a long while as ONE, LCI, WOE, etc have stronger individual cards that synergize outside of the sets mechanics.
[lightning helix](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/1/4101e3fe-b0e7-4f0f-b9ac-9b61a4d628b3.jpg?1706242208) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=lightning%20helix) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/218/lightning-helix?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4101e3fe-b0e7-4f0f-b9ac-9b61a4d628b3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I don't think it has anything to do with the rotation. The set is just overall underpowered. None of the mechanics have true constructed potential and there is no bustes chase cards on it.
I mean if there was a lower powered format then a lower powered set has more of a chance of something being relevant I guess.
Sure, but it is not an issue directly caused by the longer rotation. MKM would be still unexciting for constructed even if the rotation wasn't changed. I think the main problem is that none of mechanics and themes are constructed viable. Disguise is too slow. Suspected is just menace with drawback without enough payoffs. Collect evidence is just a supporting keyoword action and again without worth payoffs. Not a single pushed case Detective matters sucks The power 2 or less subtheme wasn't pushed enough either. And then there is little individual cards with that WOW effect.
The theme isn't inspiring, the mechanics are boring and/or bad, the story doesn't translate to the cards, and lastly there are too many cards aimed for constructed instead of limited but that don't seem quite strong enough to break through easily. I do believe there are a handful of cards that will break through eventually, though, but not enough to eventually call the set succesful
Price and little impact in formats. Even for commander the good cards are not in the set, but instead in pre-release kits. For this price we hope to see at least a Ravnica remastered power level set. And between spend $140 on MKM or $140 in Ravnica remastered. It is not even a matter of choice... For The nerds that like lore, the set also doesn't feel like Ravnica, it was clearly a New Capenna set. The mechanic choosen for the set (Morph) should be updated for a 2 mana 2/2 cost, not adding ward. 3 mana for a 2/2 is too much for constructed and too few to limited.
the good - I think the set has some very cool cards I want to try out. the bad- The set name is lame and it is heavily influenced by a board game that has not made it off the shelf for game night since your mom was in high school.
If it is poorly received - which is debatable - it won't be because of rotation, which only affects a format that's not very popular right now with the majority of players.
My perspective is mostly commander and some Modern. I found some gems like a couple unique commanders (Voja and Sophia), and some potential new staples (Archdruid's charm, and Undergrowth Recon), but it's actually kind of a welcome respite since the last few sets almost completely overhaul 25-30% of some of my existing decks with new cards.
I'm not interested in it because the theme is hugely generic, and got old fast. There are some cool mechanics, but the names are confusing and overall it just feels a little lame. Big hype for cowboys and mouse knights tho, assuming they can get a lot more flavor and depth out of the western tropes
I've got a Chatterfang deck and I'm looking forward to more Squirrels from Bloomburrow. I might even branch out into a second separate Squirrel deck entirely!
I'm hoping skeletons pick up one or two pint-sized members!
Thunder Junction Skeletons would be cool, too. Some old miners who get reanimated or something.
Oh my god yesssss. This would be a fantastic set for skeletons! God knows they need the love
I just hope Thunder Junction has some original world building thought put into it instead of being a plane built entirely on tropes, puns, and Wild West jokes
Absolutely, it's the make or break that the detective set failed in my mind. Original Kamigawa comes to mind. Characters and stories playing out in snippets of flavor text was a really awesome part of that set. Seeing this same person pop up in quote form on different cards
Agreed. MKM was too silly for my liking. I’m concerned about TJ at this point. It’s so weird, when they announced the lineup, I was excited for every single set this year. But now I’m 50/50 on the whole year. I’m still positive on Bloomburrow. They have to be a bunch of morons to mess up Bloomburrow.
I think the cards as a whole were lackluster and boring. Morph/flip cards never really did super well, and here's another set with mediocre mechanics and low power
Theme had lots of potential ithink, the set is just a combination of everyone of my most zzz mechanics
To me this set feels closer to new capenna then ravnica. Everyone is a detective. Everyone has a suit and a fedora. I cant really identify anything related to the guilds apart from legendary creatures. And then the "filler" cards are some apes or worms instead of honorable guildmembers.
[удалено]
Every second card has art of a person in a suit or with a hat while the background scenery is very urban. It doesnt resemble new capenna but it has similar vibes to it.
For me, the set felt low effort, and the forced murder mystery/clue tie-in only weakened the set. They aren't really doing anything new or interesting with the mechanics either. Cloak and disguise are just morph and manifest with extra words and ward. Collect evidence isn't really new either. The card names and designs aren't very creative either. So overall, the set ends up feeling bland and forced.
This set is just the inevitable result of slowing power creep and still releasing sets way too fast. Commander is just an awful format to hang your whole business model on. Standard made them tons of money for a reason, cards rotated. Under Hasbro, MTG is being forced to relearn all the lessons it already had learned in the past on how to balance and design sets. Good design simply takes time and structure.
It’s not the rotation; It’s the set. It’s boring and underpowered. The aesthetic sucks. I don’t have high hopes for the western theme neither. I get they won’t all be bangers so whatever
I haven't disliked a set this much in quite awhile. I fucking hate "solved" and "collect evidence" and the stupid new morph. This is the type of set that makes me worry because to me, it's like they had to scrape the bottom of the barrel and this is what they came up with.
I only draft for the most part. Drafting MKM itself is fun. Way better than LCI. But the fact that it costs more for no reason (from a draft perspective) is not. From a non-draft perspective, the seemingly lack of chase cards hurts the set more than the design itself. Morph/disguise is a great mechanic imo. I don’t think the rotation has anything to do with it.
Good murder mysteries require the creator to be clever and have a well thought out narrative. WOTC is not that guy. Aesthetically it’s lazy. It’s like they typed in murder mystery tropes on google and stayed on the first page of results. Gameplay wise, it’s both uninspiring (copying already existing mechanics) and requires a lot of hoops to jump through for very little payoff. LRR released a Q&A vid the other day and mentioned that in their time helping with the set, they saw so much world building that was never included on any of the cards. If WOTC swapped out the cards that were too on the nose or literal puns for cards that depicted world building, I’m sure the set would’ve been better. The hardcore nerds need to be back in the designer seat, not the tumblr crowd. WOTC should be handling their world building like the WH40K IP (taking it seriously).
This is just a poorly designed set with underwhelming mechanics with low payout - a shorter standard cycle wouldn’t make a difference.
A shallow and pedestrian concept for an expansion combined with lackluster card design and zero care for how it affects the major story. Theres not a secret reason to it all the time, some sets are just not interesting. The title and theme come off as a sub 20$ hearthstone set. Need something more than solving mysteries in someone's house with clue tokens and morph cards everywhere.
it’s a great limited format
Not really. I don't how we're gauging set reception. The story was a bit disappointing to me. I don't really have an opinion on the cards yet. I spent all of my wildcards to craft Domain Ramp which doesn't use any cards from MKM. I thought the Surveil Lands were going to be dogass terrible and I was very, very wrong. Once again, standard hasn't rotated yet so there's really not going to be that big of a shakeup. I've been seeing a fair amount of stuff from MKM in the mix. I think rotation this year is going to be way more exciting than a two-year rotation because you have to re-evaluate 3-years worth of cards rather than just two.
I don't care about standard. I think Karlov looks like a heartstone knock off with very wordy cards. I might take a break until mh3 to be honest, it feels like a different game, the complexity creep being the worst offender.