What made the Return to Ravnica block so bad?

Almost entirely the new set design process
>cram 5 guilds into one set instead of 3 or 4 so every theme and guild presence is watered down
>fuck up cycles and legendaries to accomodate the mythic rarity cancer
>push the designated standard playable cards as hard as physically possible

>sorry guys, but we don't want to reprint Birds and signets because we don't want the color fixing to be too strong
>now, if you'll excuse us, we're just going to make the color fixing super strong
>oh no, now Standard is entirely 3/4 color goodstuff
You can always tell who started with INN or RTR because they think INN-RTR was a good standard.

File: dumb shit.jpg (69KB, 312x445px) Image search: [Google]

69KB, 312x445px

The Gateless
>hey you know that thing that defines this plane, that everyone loves, and that everybody wanted to see more of? y'know, dual color factions with [an attempt at] coherent themes and functions?
>let's just shit all over that and bring back monocolors with a vague communist theme

>>53061394

I started in Innistrad, and I thought Ravnica was absolute dogshit.

Watered down mechanics between guilds and said mechanics not even being that good.

>>53061527
You mean that thing they brought up for all of, what, five cards and then completely disregarded?

It's really easy to compare it to a well designed set

Lorefag: Abandoning most of the Eastern European aesthetic in favor of a generic city plane. Retconning multiple things, like Szadek being the last vampire. A boring plot that had very little exciting payoff.

Actual Magic Players: 3-4 color goodstuff. Most of the mechanics weren't playable aside from maybe one card per guild and that was because they were very blatantly pushed. All of the mechanics sucked felt tame - like they were trying really hard to make sure they weren't using up too many designs that could be expanded on in another block. Nothing particularly fun to build around that wasn't overcosted garbage.

Oh and there was no value in Dragon's Maze or Gatecrash outside of shocks, reckoner (at the time), and Voice. RTR, despite having Pack Rat, was the best draft format because Gatecrash was Boros or Orzhov or bust and DGM forced you to even think about picking up cluestones.

>>53061024
-The storyline
Ravnica's first story was interesting. Agrus Kos' actions had consequences, and the side stories were fun. It felt less like an amusement park and more like a glimpse into another world. The guilds felt like they brought something unique to the table.
Return? Just another stop for the nu-walkers to hang out. There was something about the gateless, despite people liking ravnica because they could identify with the guilds. The guilds felt like set pieces rather than the driving force of the world. In the original, if felt like more was going on. It didn't feel like the story was about Agrus or Teysa being the center of everything. It didn't feel like whenever Agrus wasn't in the story that all people would talk about is "Where's Agrus?"

-The mechanics
The gate shit was parasitic as fuck. Did people actually bother with the gates? Anyway, in the first ravnica, we had an idea of how the guilds operated. Simic fucked with +1/+1 counters to improve on biology, Boros were all I AM THE LAW, Azorius was boring grindy red tape piece of shit, so on. Then wotc decides to "shake things up" by making half-assed shit that no one cared about.

>>53061394
>me
But uwr flash was fun

File: Image.ashx.jpg (30KB, 223x310px) Image search: [Google]

30KB, 223x310px

>>53061527
>>53062141
Ironically, one of my favorite cards from that whole block referred to the gateless.

>>53061024
It's nuMagic. The only decent set since like Alara was Scars, and Scars had the worst fluff yet, in addition to only being strong by accident.