How come nobody here ever talks about Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, neither to praise it or shit on it?

How come nobody here ever talks about Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, neither to praise it or shit on it?
Like it didn't exist

Why?

It was good.
Good things and threads dedicated to them generally get a "yeah that was good" and then promptly die as there's universal agreement that it was indeed good.

Llorwyn > shadowmoor, but I love them both.

this, pretty much
we know it was good, so there's not much discussion to be had besides circlejerking
Lorwyn especially was an amazing set, with it's deep mechanics (drafting changelings was always amazing) and art style and lack of boring humans, focusing on the fairy tale nature of the plane

I for one loved it, it was the last great set (and even block if i'm indulgent) before the great shittening that was mythic rarity, planeswalkers and a focus on the "new player experience" which i absolutely despise

new phyrexia and innistrad were also good, at least in my opinion, mostly due to their atmosphere. I just love horror stuff.

But after that, MtG went deeper and deeper into trash territory

I feel like the advent of Shittiness got unbearable with Theros, though RTR was Pretty Darn Good.

part of the golden age of magic design
the holy trinity of Ravnica, Time Spiral and Lorwyn exemplify where you can take a game from a mechanic and creative point of view.
these 3 blocks are on a whole different level, and represent just how good Magic can be if the creators let their imagination run wild

No set will ever do tribal better.

I lurk here probably more than is reasonable and yeah, it's weird how little it comes up. It's my favorite block in terms of aesthetic and feel- genocidal elves and hivemind halflings were the shit. Goblins were well done, merfolk actually had an identity outside of "we rule the oceans". Motherfucking TREEFOLK made a comeback after god knows how long.

Maybe it doesn't come up because the fluff behind the cards was dogshit. It was chock full of cool concepts, but the actual books were terrible. The authors may or may not have been told where the plot was going, but they sure as hell didn't know how to get there.

>RTR was Pretty Darn Good

it was at most OK, and only mechanics-wise
it really felt like they were going back to Ravnica only for that sweet $$$, because the original was so well received
Dragons Maze get a special mention for being truly one of the most pointless and shit sets

Had some of the best treefolk ever printed, included mah boi Doran the Siege Tower.
Lorwyn/Shadowmoor is also is a great example of how to do a massive setting change well (unlike Khans/Dragons and Amonkhet) in the middle of a set (or between them).
Planes Walkers existed, but there was only five of them and they were frankly unimportant, at least to my local meta.

I feel like the only mistakes Lorwyn had were some of the keywords, and the choice to switch to Class tribal for morningtide.

Better to use some of that keyword space to help distinguish the 8 tribes a bit better, and use the second set to add in more bridges that linked two tribes together.

The art and flavor is all great though, and those minor issues don't really bring it down enough

Oh god, Theros was SOOOOOOO boring.

I didn't even need the cards to be strong, just so fucking boring.It was just a set of "monsters get bigger" Devotion was also a jarring mechanic combined with the low power level.
Why would they think anyone will go mono color when the previous set was all about dual colors and the mono color cards were shit?

Too expensive for buyers today. Lorwyn especially.

The problem i have with Theros is that nothing has any substance or depth. The world doesnt feel like it fits together at all. You have 15 gods and they all sit around doing nothing except watching heroes fight monsters.

Devotion decks were huge in tournaments for a while, though, they comboed really well with some of the sillier hybrid-costed creatures in RTR.

b-b-but it had the gay kings

Gay negro kings at that. Why, the only way to score better on the diversity checklist would be to make them lesbians instead.

I started around when Morningtide came out, so I've got a real soft spot for that whole era. I really liked the setting and tribal decks will always be my jam. I'm still holding out hope for treefolk tribal finding a home again one of these days.

It did have its share of forgettable mechanics, as well as some that were more fiddly than they had to be--clash was a lot of work for what was usually not a lot of benefit, and untapping was a neat idea on paper that always just felt weird in play.

I really miss the art direction from back then, too, one of the worst parts of Magic Origins was seeing Lorwyn done in the same generic style as everything else.

Just one of them was black, the bottom one, which is very problematic

They both looked non-airline-approved brown to me, but alright, I guess.
But of course, true diversity will only come when everyone's black, at least according to the sheboon WotC hired to make sure they weren't being too white.

>lesbians instead

Ugly lesbians only. If they were hot it would be a disaster.

Of course, rainbow undercuts and stretch marks abound

>planeswalkers
It happened exactly in Lorwyn

jesus what a shitty card

To be fair, he essentially costs 2 mana, ramps you, can defend himself in a pinch and only takes 2 turns to ult.
He's not amazing, but I see uses for him.
They were printed then, but they were exactly 5 rares that had no story influence. Nothing compared to what they would become.

Garruk was hands down the best OG planeswalker

And today Veeky Forums proves once again that they suck at magic.

Honestly, it's in the top ten of walkers ever printed because it does it's job perfectly. Want ramp? T5 you have seven mana available. Have a bunch of fuck off beaters? You can ult him the turn he comes out for a reduced cost overrun. Need some dudes to defend him the turn you drop him? He even makes creatures. If you think he's bad, you've never seen him. Every single time he hits the field he makes an impact and what more do you want?

Planeswalkers used to have a much lower powerlevel than modern ones.

it gave me this beast
thank you based lorwyn superblock

Wrong
True
Twofor lesbians.

I got out of Magic after the first Lorwyn block, and only came back at Zendikar. While I originally thought that the mega block, Alara, and Zendikar were annoying powercreep (I spent high school with little access to cards playing kitchen table), I wish I had played through Shadowmore at least. I love the colorful dark art more than any other Magic block, and hybrid cards need another set already. I need a better B/W one drop than that dumb hag.
COME ON WIZARDS!!!! What's more newbie friendly handholding than everything being hybrid costed!?

>there's not much discussion to be had besides circlejerking

Listen, I don't mind tugging a cock if my cock gets tugged, know what I mean?

>They were printed then, but they were exactly 5 rares that had no story influence. Nothing compared to what they would become.


This. I hate how story centric they are. It robs Legendaries of swag. I also feel it makes the planes feel less cool and insular since it's all about OVERARCHING NARRATIVE.

Best
Fucking
Liege

Who came out in commander, years later, so this has absolutely nothing to do with the theros block.

i mean, there was the original card, but considering the one of the left looks like it could be wearing boobplate, i think they were changed to the gay kings later on anyway.

At the time that card came out, it was confirmed by WotC that they were both male. So, technically, the Gay Kings were a thing then. It just wasn't in your face or a big deal.

>there's not much discussion to be had besides circlejerking

Uh, devil's advocate?
>Shadowmore mimics are unfun
>a lot of monocolor Shadowmore cards are underwhelming
>class tribal is cool but the minor classes should have been expanded or ignored
>no resolution for the story; Ashling did a thing and ???? Profit

bump