I just realized in my list of mechanics from BFZ I forgot Awaken, because dear God the set had so many mediocre mechanics in it. It only popped into my head because I remembered Ruinious Path exists as a card.
It was also a format with a lot of really interesting play during the actual matches; I enjoyed watching the Pro Tours in this era a lot.
I don't know that we need Thoughtseize exactly again (there's definitely a question of how much power should be individually wrapped up in a single discard spell), but there's a pretty good list of stuff that should always be available:
- A strong, turn-one point-discard spell
- A good enough general-purpose counterspell that decks run it
- A cheap way to destroy planeswalkers
- A good 5-mana sweeper
- A cheap way to deal with giant waves of tiny tokens
- A good 1-2 mana single-target creature kill
- An effect to turn off individual cards
- A couple ways to punish greedy manabases
Hell, KTK/THS had one of the best matches be a mirror match in the Worlds finals. If that's not a hallmark of a great format, I don't know what is.
I also like the list of cards, though I think (and this is 100% me) if they continue to push Creatures/Vehicles they can probably drop Generic Wraths(Judgement) back down to 4, Wrath with Upside(Fumigate/Planar Outburst) at 5 and "Exile-Wrath with Upside"(Descend upon the Fishermen) at 6. I mean, I'd even think this would be fine to see print:
Punish the Meek- 2WB
Sorcery
Destroy all creatures with CMC <=3.
I mean, if we continue to have cards like Rishkar/Reflector Mage/etc as creatures, I see a 4 Mana Generic Wrath as a strong safety valve.
I think them missing a Revolt Counterspell is probably one of the bigger misses in the set, even if Revolt wasn't in Blue.
Also, I hope they're going to put more ways to interact with Planeswalkers into future sets, because Ruinious Path at Sorcery speed isn't worth it. Adding in Pithing Needle/O-Ring/red cards that can hit them/better blue counters/Green fatties should help to reduce their strength though
I should just clarify I'm hopeful that Wizards is learning from their mistakes over the past few blocks in terms of "No Core Set=Lack of generic Answers". I'm not sure how they can get around it though. Maybe a core set light ala Hearthstone? Like, have R&D make up a list of 50 Good generic cards that they'd like to see in Standard as Safety Valves. Something like "White always has O-Ring, Blue always has Cancel, Green has Naturalize, Red has Lightning Strike, Black has Duress/Despise"? As some check on the format. We've already got cards in Standard legal products not legal in Standard, so why not Standard legal cards found in Intro/Planeswalker Decks?
