Strongly considered it but it was Aether Revolt draft specific and I am so out on reliving that format vs Kaladesh

Got greedy and did one for Constructed, one for Limited.

Constructed is secretly boring, I have a type and just extend the circle of what that type contains.

Notable draft card Bolas, a card I never cast but caused of 10% of my total game losses in HOU draft. Not Scarab God, just the 7 drop.

An actual metrics example of this. Return to the Sewers is an interactive spell top 5 common. I think 50-60% of uncommons in TMNT are better than it.

Most other sets for similar Top 10 common interaction, they are only worse than 20-33% of uncommons.

Aetherdrift immediately comes to mind, but even the worst set for commons in the last 3 years wasnt "half of the commons should not make your deck and are close to a mulligan to draw" like TMNT is

Some of the issue is also related to this being the worst set for commons that I can find. Over half the commons are D-tier cards

The Legendary commons being unable to scale to match the higher rarity cards is some fraction of that.

The low rarity legends in TMNT are well designed in the abstract, lots of effects that are powerful but scale in unfun ways in multiples appropriately limited by the type.

But in a small set, the consistent you are never supposed to trade for a Legend bc they have the 2nd in hand is not great.

Raise

I think the actual set does a real good job of doing the first thing and leaning into the actual Turtles lore as inspiration, but loses bc people see it and go "TMNT, like the lunchbox?" before any character associations

Thinking about how one of the big issues with TMNT is the IP is a household name because it has been commercialized, so making a TMNT set blurs lines of making a set about a story vs making a set about a sticker you had on your skateboard when you were 8.

For all the "lmao pizza is a theme", its 5-6 cards. Shrine in ATLA had more of a slice of the set, and it was barely a thing.

TMNT set is actually a lot better and more coherent than everyone is saying, its just double whammied because it lives in the shadow of the 2 worst sets of the decade (Spiderman structurally and Un-in-Space tonally)

Some idle questions to unpack this

1. I assume the FF card Triple Triad isnt the same?
2. I assume (insert an Un-card with a Magic card on it) isnt the same?
3. Are sticker / attraction cards from Un-4 the same style of offense?

TMNT is just the 5th Un-set, released within the constraints of needing to make the cards Commander and Standard legal, and in that realm it is a clear winner even if the worldbuilding for Un-3 was top notch

The less secret thing being WotC/Valve/Blizzard self-legitimizing game design as a stable career path, direct routing past the old CMU students looking for an out to postdocs pipeline

The best I can offer is a post about how the 2010s broad tech boom was the secret thing that changed game design offices. Even pre-FAANG peak your disgruntled future biologists had 3 layers of fallback jobs that werent dicking around with cardboard.

Great direct example of microstuff that the TMNT set is doing better than Spiderman.

1. Hot Dog Cart is not Spiderman, its NYC. This is NYC, but also explicitly TMNT

2. It tells a specific story, isn't just jarring name on generic object. Caught in the Brights legacy lives on.

Debated Mutavault for the block, but the OG is too good

This lets the set win at both reproducibility (Timmy sees Elves, drafts Elves easy) and replayability (different Elementals sub-decks depending if you get Travelers vs Shinestrikers). Add in the matched scales across types so theres no default bad matchups and the format gets its charm.

Figured out the joke here. The set opts out of prior Kindred set models where there was heavy common typal support and leans into Guild set setups where you get 1 good rate "gold" common then load up on power uncommons and rares.

Kanye opening for Usher in 2004 is my immediate guess

Really impressed with how Lorwyn Eclipsed limited takes two F-tier sets of draft mechanics, basically just runs it all back, and produces a C+ outcome. Rivals Aetherdrift in biggest Limited format overperformers from their fundamentals.

Right before Gavin Verhey went to WotC, he wrote an article about topics he had started to write about but never finished. One of those stuck with me.

Anyways, here it is 15 years later.

My lone match vs Kai was Round 8 of PT Theros. I was on a hyper aggro Rakdos deck. Cackler, Spike Jester, Mogis Marauders, Dreadbore, Lightning Strike, etc.

Anyways that was my first match vs Mono Blue Devotion with my gets soloed by Frostburn Weird, cant kill Master of Waves deck.

Yea the irony here is that everyone arguing is wrong, Richmond has great food and an exceptional art museum and only fails as an event city if you have to fly into DC, drive 2 hours, and never leave the hall.

Ive listened to Rumors at least 200 times in the last year, due to an executive parenting decision that full good albums were the way to go for kid music.

I guess the point is: album still great, you can't repeat your way into it not going too hard.

The big pitfall dodged is you get here via Neon Dynasty, but quickly run into two issues:

1. The core Lorwyn theme mechanics suck, where it was the filler ones on Kamigawa that did
2. You are 10 lore years out, not 10000, so you don't get a free hard reset on many things.

FWIW, I'm nitpicking Lorwyn in the context of it being a good return despite a lot of weird pitfalls. Lots of clear lessons learned from not just Lorwyn 1 and Ixalan, but recent adjacent failures like Zendikar Rising. Delivers what it advertises, minus maybe 2 Giant and Treefolk fan service hits.

What do you think it does?

Yes the primary play pattern of choose your biggest thing, then sac something completely unrelated, your opponent immediately dies is a head scratcher