Eldrich Moon (EMN), a set review.

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yunnnn
yunnnn Posts: 168 Tile Toppler
edited November 2016 in MtGPQ General Discussion
Summary
EMN in MtG:PQ is a 67 card expansion set with a focus on horror elements (Eldrazi) as well as subthemes of Werewolves, Vampires, and Zombies.
The cards are released on top of the existing SOI packs, effectively mixing the 2 sets together into a superset. Let's look at the cards by category and see how it all breaks down!

Rarity
  • 12 Mythics (6 Exclusive). You already know my thoughts on the limited set of Mythics here: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=53876
  • 24 Rares (7 Limited)
  • 31 Uncommons
This is similar to how they did it for BFZ. My main issue is with how they merge the sets (SOI + EMN); anyone looking for specific SOI cards now has to open even more cards to get the ones they want. When one of the key complaints of the game are duplicate cards, it seems very foolish to combine sets together to give the player even more dupes. Furthermore, the ratio of Uncommons to Mythics (31:6 ~= 5) vs the actual drop rate of Uncommons to Mythics (probably closer 1 mythic for every 40 uncommons opened) means that players opening more than a couple big boxes will reach 100% duplicates very quickly.

Keywords
More keyword abilities make the game more interesting. Take a look at the spoiler yourself, and how many interesting keywords there are out of the 67 cards shown:
https://d3go.com/mtgpq-card-list-eldritch-moon/
Landfall: 1 card. Uhh... Landfall isn't even in the printed set. Are we on Zendikar?
Madness: 1 single Madness card. Thanks? We were really hoping for another black madness card for the **** events.
Menace: 1 card. This effect is bugged currently.
Delirium: 2 cards.
Meld: 3 cards. Meld is pretty terrible. By putting in a pittance of time into the design of these mechanics, it shows how little effort they're really putting in to make the game more interesting. viewtopic.php?f=31&t=54196
Meld is this expansion's devoid/delirium/awaken.
So yes, it's mainly there to be useless.
Emerge: Who cares? This is infinitely worse than the corresponding MTG mechanic, especially when multiple tokens only count as 1 card.
Transform: ~8. There are lots of transform cards (which is great), but this quote sums up the current design of most wolves: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=53960
Werewolves are a particular favorite of mine, all that flipping over to and fro when really Gatstaf Arsonists could just have been a 4/3 Menace in the first place and nobody really cares whether or not Conduit of Storms destroys 1 or 2 gems.
Card Types
  • 55 Creatures
  • 8 Spells
  • 4 Supports
The lack of variety of cards is very apparent here, especially when you consider that Mind's Dilation is not only boring, but also a terrible support. Would appreciate a wider distribution of spells and supports (esp when 5 colors means that each color got less than 1 support on average).

Overall Comments
Power Creep:
The set is marred with power creeped cards:
  • 3 mana kill spells: Imprisoned on the Moon
  • 7 mana 5/6: Sanctifier of Souls
  • 9 mana 6/5 fliers: Docent of Perfection
Many of the cards are drastically stronger than the existing cards, with very little incentive to ever play the old versions (Turn to Frog? What did that card do again?). Did these guys design Urza block? I worry about the next set if this pattern continues. On the plus side, this power creep is a good incentive for new players to buy EMN cards.

Bugwatch:
The number of regressions and new bugs that occurred with the release of the new set is also disconcerting:
1. The previous Emrakul event had possibly the most number of repeated maintenances I've ever seen in a game. Players lost all their nodes for no reason, players got disconnected, players were shut out.
2. Some old bugs were fixed, but many remain. This game has almost a 1:1 of general threads to bug threads. In contrast, it's more than 3:1 on the MPQ forums.
3. More new bugs occurred with the release of the set. The game would crash in the background (runaway memory leak?), the support overlay bug viewtopic.php?f=31&t=54065, and various cards are still crashing the game.

Final Score:
Based on the reasons above, I can't give this set a good score. However, in order to prevent being silenced by the forum moderators, I've decided to use different scoring metrics:

Here are my final scores, based on the new scoring metrics :
Ability to copy/paste Magic's card art: 10/10
Spelling mistakes in the set: 9/10
The current year: 20/16
The stats of Emrakul: 13/13

Final score: 52 thumbs up!

Good job D3!

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