Last year, Magic completely changed the way they did core sets with Magic 2010. They moved to a yearly release, smaller set size, and named the sets by year rather than edition. More importantly, they changed the way they designed the sets themselves, printing new cards beside reprints and focusing on flavorful and evocative designs.
Magic 2010 was a huge critical and commercial success, and this year they're trying to recapture that success (or even improve upon it) with Magic 2011. So how does this set match up?
With the full set up on Gatherer, I can give a preliminary review and then describe any cards that surprise me at the prerelease. Onwards!
Overall Impressions
Magic 2011 (M11 for short) feels much more cohesive than its predecessor. The cycles are tighter, allowing new players to see connections between cards more easily. The Titans and Leylines are both beautiful examples that let new players see recurring elements while showing off each color's strengths and abilities. They double-cycle of spells named after planeswalkers are equally effective in creating the feel of a larger setting with recurring themes and characters. Even the cycle of color hate spells (Celestial Purge through Autumn's Veil) do a better job of reinforcing exactly what each color dislikes about its opponents.
There are quite a few returning cards from M10, many of which I am happy to see for another year but hope won't make it into M12. Lightning Bolt and Baneslayer Angel are both powerful cards that have helped to define standard, but I don't want them to define standard forever. Platinum Angel is cool, but after three printings in a row she is starting to feel less epic. There are other cards that I wouldn't mind seeing in the core set for years - Pacifism and Doom Blade are perfect common removal spells, Cancel is the solid baseline counterspell, and Gravedigger is the kind of card that really shines in the core set.
I'm going to cover each color as a whole and touch upon a few specific cards, then wrap things up with a few final thoughts.
White
White is probably the least interesting color in M11. The commons and uncommons aren't bad, they just don't really excite me. Snapping Drake gets printed in its third color this year, and we get a bunch of unexciting vanilla and french-vanilla beaters.
There are a few exceptions - War Priest of Thune is one of those great cards that seems like it should have been printed years ago. Squadron Hawk is probably my favorite common in the set - insane card advantage that takes some work to make useful, and a perfectly flavorful name. Roc Egg is a nice modern take on a weirdly-colored old concept. I can't even quite bring myself to dislike Goldenglow Moth - it's such a silly little card, and I've had some good times with it in Duals of the Planeswalkers.
I'm not too happy about seeing two rare slots eaten up by seven-mana flyers with defensive abilities, Angelic Arbiter and Vengeful Archon. I just think that in a core set, you want to use your rare slots as effectively as possible to show interesting variety, and instead we get two relatively generic big flying things.
Serra Ascendant is an interesting case - I'm pretty sure that it will be played almost exclusively in EDH, which leads me to wonder whether it was designed primarily for that purpose or not. It has been stated that several similar cards were designed with an awareness of EDH, but were not specifically intended for it. Serra Ascendant is such an extreme example, however, that I wonder if the growing popularity of EDH has led to more designs intended for the format.
Blue
If white is the least interesting color in M11, blue is the most. All the rarities do a great job of showing off all the things blue can do and I love all the new designs.
It's nice to see "fixed" versions of iconic creatures like Man 'O War and Ophidian - I hope they're good enough to see some constructed play. Harbor Serpent is a great take on the historic theme, and Diminish is a wonderfully simple conditional removal spell. Merfolk Spy is a classic body (1/1 islandwalk for U) with my favorite type of ability - the kind that makes the card 10% more powerful and five times as interesting. I also like seeing Jace's Erasure as something to enable a limited mill archetype, something I always appreciate for variety.
Scry was absolutely brilliant inclusion that gives blue a lot of identity. I love that there are three great blue commons with scry, giving people the opportunity to see the ability across several different types of cards.
Of course, blue's most discussed card is a powerful two-mana counterspell in the form of Mana Leak. I'm not sure what I can say about it that hasn't been said by many others already, but it's nice to see countermagic getting a balanced but powerful option for the coming year. In six months we'll see whether I want it in M12 or if I'm already sick to death of it.
I love all of blue's new rares - Conundrum Sphinx is a great beater-with-interesting-ability, Mass Polymorph is hilarious and potentially very powerful, and Stormtide Leviathan is bombtastically awesome and flavorful.
I'm slightly curious about implications of putting Redirect in blue and Reverberate in red. Red and blue have been sharing both spell copying and redirection for a while now, and I wonder if putting clean versions of both in M11 indicates a solid color-pie decision on which gets which.
Black
Black was by far my favorite color in M10 limited, and if anything it looks like they made it better. Unplayables like Acolyte of Xanthrid and Soul Bleed have been replaced with interesting conditional cards like Viscera Seer and Quag Sickness. Looming Shade and Kelinore Bat have been given stronger cards in the form of Nightwing Shade and Liliana's Specter. I foresee another summer of first pick Bog Wraiths.
I was pleased to see Megrim's strict improvement, Liliana's Caress. The three mana version was always a bit wrong for discard decks - that's the turn you want to start playing cards like Mind Rot, Blightning, or various specters.
Phylactery Lich may get my vote for the most cool and flavorful card in the set. I'm not sure if he'll see much tournament play, but he certainly might. Dark Tutelage is solid but its hard to avoid unfavorable comparisons to the perfectly-balanced Phyrexian Arena. Nantuko Shade is a pretty cool card, but I'm a little scared he'll be a disappointment given the current power of creatures. It always makes me a little sad when iconic older cards get reprinted and just can't quite make the cut.
Relentless Rats is the one card in the set that I feel may have overstayed its welcome. It's excitingly unique and everyone loves the idea of the 22-swamps 48-rats deck, but I rarely see people go through with building the deck and the card loses its excitement after you've seen it enough times. Four years of core set printings seems somewhat excessive to me - I don't think many people are excited about it anymore, and it doesn't add much to limited or constructed.
As far as standard goes, I'm a little sad to see that black is losing two of my favorite cards from M10 - Vampire Nocturnus and Tendrils of Corruption. Corrupt is a fine card, but a bit too slow for the current standard. Captivating Vampire is somewhat disappointing - his ability is too restrictive for either limited or constructed, and he's not as cool or flavorful as Nocturnus. I can see the value in making sure the vampire deck has to change over time, but I would have liked another year with Nocturnus. On the other hand, Duress is my single favorite sideboard card in standard, so I'm happy to see it's sticking around.
Red
Red's gotten some awesome rares this round. I love both dragons, Destructive Force as 125% of a Wildfire, and the new Fork. I like seeing some less-splashable beaters like Cyclops Gladiotor with interesting abilities. Even Wild Evocation seems like it will lead to some fun situations.
It looks like red may have gotten the shaft in limited, though. Bloodcrazed Goblin, Incite, Goblin Balloon Brigade, and Pyretic Ritual are all borderline-unplayable. As with M10, red's best cards at common and uncommon are very easily splashible, making them hard to pick up in draft and not providing much incentive to run red as a main color in sealed. Fling seems surprisingly good, though, having excellent synergy with fellow commons Act of Treason and Fiery Hellhound. I just wish Deadly Recluse had stuck around so that I could use the new deathtouch rules to kill things by throwing poisonous spiders at them.
Manic Vandal is a card I'm very happy to see - it's nice to have some artifact destruction you don't feel bad about maindecking, and will lead to some interesting decisions about whether to play it as a Grey Ogre early or wait around for a juicy target.
Green
M11 Green looks like a lot of fun in limited. Both the common Craw Wurm and uncommon Enormous Baloth have been replaced with similar cards that add the much-needed trample. Cudgel Troll returns as a powerful beater and Garruk's Packleader strikes me as an exceptional source of card advantage in the right deck.
Cultivate bears special mention as a functional reprint of Kodama's Reach. This unassuming common is one of the most exciting parts of the set for me. It will be amazing mana fixing in limited and will go straight into all of my EDH decks that contain forests. I'm not sure if it's in the right place to play in Standard, but I'm certainly hoping it is.
The rares include both a demoted Protean Hydra and a promoted Overrun-variant Overwhelming Stampede, both changes that I approve of. Obstinate Baloth is a solid midrange creature and Mitotic Slime is amusing and flavorful. Fauna Shaman is a wonderful fix of the old favorite Survival of the Fittest.
My one disappointment with green's rares is a lack of solid beef. We've got a few 4/4s and an X/X hydra, but nothing that screams "smash" like M10's Kalonian Behemoth or the uncommon Duskdale Wurm. This is especially irksome because white gets the aforemented 5/6 and 7/7 at rare.
Colorless
I like seeing some playable artifact creatures at uncommon to help smooth out limited decks. Gargoyle Sentinel, Stone Golem, and Juggernaut are all balanced creatures that can help fill out sealed pools and drafts.
The equipment is all passable and interesting in limited. Sword of Vengeance is definitely a better inclusion than Magebane Armor, and Warlord's Axe is the kind of good bad card which leads to fun decisions in limited. I'd like to see a little more "french vanilla" equipment in the future, though - simple cards like Gorgon Flail and Kitesail that grant interesting keyword abilities.
Voltaic Key is an interesting inclusion, and I was pleased to see the clever uses included for it in M11. In addition to the uncommon creatures and rares like Temple Bell and Steel Overseer, both Sorcerer's Strongbox and Elixir of Immortality are one-shot uncommons that Key can potentially get double duty out of. Triskelion is another fun reprint with a few silly combos - Primal Cocoon being the funniest.
My favorite artifact in the set, though, is easily Crystal Ball. It's a fun little card-selection engine that I will love playing in limited and EDH, and may even make a splash in standard. Moreover, the flavor is simple and absolutely perfect. What do you do with a crystal ball? You scry!
Mystifying Maze is an interesting and flavorful utility land. I like having enough useful lands in standard that tap for colorless that interesting deckbuilding decisions have to be made. Tectonic Edge, Dread Statuary, and the maze will all be competing for decks slots, and it will be interesting to see which ones make the cut. I also enjoy having a new version of Kor Haven/Maze of Ith, but the wording feels a bit clunky - I'm not sure why my defensive maze needs to reload Triskelions and be an act of absolute desperation against Titans.
Final Thoughts
M11 might not be perfect, but it's almost certainly the best core set so far. They made some very good changes with M10, and are still figuring out how to get the most out of them. M11 has made a lot of progress in capturing generic fantasy elements while starting to feel like a cohessive set, with mechanical and flavorful themes.
There are a few over- or under-represented concepts, but I feel like overall the set does a solid job of capturing the scope of Magic. The increased number of tighter cycles do a great job of showing of the various colors, and the card choices feel less arbitrary than M10.
I can only hope that M12 continues this pattern, feeling more like a unified "set" while still being Magic in a pure and simple form.
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