dracula As goofy as the LotR tie in set is conceptually, it was a heck of a set from a draft perspective, way better than the core set that would have normally been released in the Summer slot.
And in general that’s kind of where we’re at with Magic as a whole: limited has never been better, with some all time great draft sets recently like March of the Machines, Dominaria United, and Kamigawa Neon Dynasty. Constructed though has definitely felt the pain of the power creep that was necessary to make an average draft set feel like cube and to make these sets appealing to Commander fans. Cards like Sheoldred the Apocalypse and The One Ring, which were supposed to be chase rares in draft packs, are turning out to be borderline too good for Modern, and the trend of hyper focused single sets over the old block model is making it so Standard doesn’t have enough cards that share keywords, so midrange goodstuff piles are ruling the meta over fun build around Johnny style cards. They’re trying to fix that by moving from a 2 year rotation schedule to a 3 year rotation schedule. We’ll see if that’s enough I suppose, but constructed is in a bit of a rough spot, has been for a while, and that doesn’t appear to be changing any time soon.
But again, if you care at all about drafting or sealed, even a little, we’re truly living through some of the most inspired set designs the game has ever had. Including, God help me, the goofy Gandalf set
