They can't all be hits.
#(9-19-23) What are your LEAST favorite Magic sets since you started, and why?
opaque goblet
royal olive
The first one where they made planeswalker cards. Because they made planeswalker cards.
outer yarrow
Innistrad and Journey Into Nyx. For Innistrad I didn't connect with the draft format at all. I found Journey Into Nyx boring and it fed into why I took a break from limited.
brisk oriole
Dominaria Remastered
Awful to draft, a frankly bizarre choice of cards to collect into a set, a load of cards that commit the cardinal sin of being boring...and then yeah a top rarity slot that seemed to my eye incredibly cynically chosen to ensure the players who are willing to throw around stupid amounts of money would gamble in bulk cos maybe they might get a tutor
ashen sage
The third innistrad and ravnica blocks were pretty underwhelming. Would have liked more novelty.
M30 and some of the other cash grab sets for being too greedy.
My answer from a game standpoint has to be IKO though. An utterly busted mechanic, no interesting kaiju, two absurd legends… bleh
wary tulip
The Tarkir block for being absolutely forgettable, Battle for Zendikar, and CLB.
And this is since Ice Age.
Honorable mention to Champions of Kamigawa for kickstarting a nearly 3 year hiatus from the game, until I discovered EDH.
royal olive
The Tarkir block for being absolutely forgettable, Battle for Zendikar, and CLB....
I was trying to forget about kamigawa. Even for the period that was too jank for me.
ashen sage
The Tarkir block for being absolutely forgettable, Battle for Zendikar, and CLB....
interesting about tarkir. I feel like a lot of people highly rate KTK (I was on a hiatus from the game at the time)
wary tulip
That block, followed by BFZ, sparked my only other hiatus from the game other than '04-06. And that was until Ixalan hit.
amber basalt
The most recent trip to Innistrad was both completely uninspiring story wise and also really bad for the game mechanics wise.
Rivals of Ixalan, it took a format that was already a very linear draft on rails, and turned it in to a linear draft on rails with some wildly swingy bombs at rare in a small set. In addition it seemingly forgot a lot that was learned from Lorwyn about how to build an interesting draft for creature type matters sets, with no competition for almost any cards.
brave rivet
The two recent Innistrads. Much as I absolutely love Innistrad the plane, these two sets just felt like poorly tacked on sets with no real direction. Double Feature was just a spit in the face of players.
MOM: Afterthought was rather egregious too.
Dragons of Tarkir for taking everything that made Tarkir interesting and screwing with it. You could make a great concept with it. They didn't.
Oh yeah and every Universes Beyond product that has absolutely no connections with MTG. That preemptively includes Dr. Who.
wanton magnet
Hour of Devastation, followed closely by Eldritch Moon - two second sets with big villains that just did NOT grab me, both in terms of cards and in terms of the setting
untold ocean
I guess I'd have to go with Commander Masters just for being the biggest letdown as far as a solid set for the best reprints. It had a good deal of them but not a great deal of them.
And also being unnecessarily extra cash grabby.
ornate wagon
KTK was great, Dragons was relatively mediocre but didn't really do too much to sour a great block. BFZ tho... Now that's a set I haven't forgiven.
I fully expect someone to hate worldwake though
Tbh BFZ was fun for the first month
twin fog
DMR. What a weird collection of cards. I loved a lot of the old ones like Dragon Engine and Dragon Whelp but it sucked to draft/build from.
ornate wagon
And then we still had fetches and fetchable nonbasics and the novelty of four color standard decks wore off
I had a fun blueless deck back then tbh. Butcher of the Horde and Siege Rhino did brutal stuff together. But I quickly got tired of my only two matchups being hyper aggro red and jeskai-black
regal yarrow
The newest Ravnica block. All of its original identity has been stripped away. It used to be full of life and rich with Slavic culture. Now it’s a joke. The murder mystery set is going to be the final nail in the coffin.
crisp meadow
While they do genuinely have some fine cards, brothers war just. Had no interest in it
sand ledge