The Best and Worst of 2024 Limited! | Limited Level-Ups

[@markfarnsworth5592]

I loved Duskmourn, and it was the current set for only 6 weeks. That's one effect of 6 sets/year.

[@xGatoDelFuegox]

I think it's criminal dsk didn't get the extra month it deserves!

[@ColemanYoutube]

Gives MKM a 6/10: I should unsubscribe. Gives MH3 a 2/10: I should join his Patreon.

[@xGatoDelFuegox]

49:00 I've been trying to get my wife into limited for years...And she could not get enough of bloomburrow!! So I'll take my own issues with blb because now we play every other set lol

[@ZakKmak]

I love your takes and honestly love the levelheadedness of all your content. This was the first year in a while I couldn't draft that much because of life events, and I still try to tune in and learn and see what's happening because you're insights are so good! Thank you for a great year and a great look back!

[@limitedlevel-ups]

Thanks for the kind words! Glad it’s been entertaining :)

[@banjothulu]

I think play boosters have been strictly negative for me. I really like playing with commons, and you get significantly fewer commons in play boosters. I don't think play boosters have completely killed draft for me, but I've had significantly less fun this year than last year. Duskmorn was a banger, though

[@nicholaschun5918]

I remember hearing that you were dating while randomly tuning into one of your Twitch streams. Glad to hear there was an update to that, lol! Congrats!!

[@zaxbunny3081]

Thanks for the episode, Alex. Just on the sets-per-year question, I'm personally finding the number of sets totally exhausting. I'd be much happier with just three really solid sets a year that we could go deep on. Unfortunately not the way things are going, though.

[@raoulzimmermann1288]

Spot on about MH3 imo. In addition, so many of the multicolour commons being 2 drops worked against their intention of 3 colour themes - you're not really going to splash the gargoyle into an RW deck etc.

[@JayIsADino]

In don’t think they intended there set to be a 3 color set, it was more that you had the option. Would I splash a 3c mythic or a bomb 3rd color rare. Yes. But playing a bunch of signposts? Of course not. Sorta like how in duskmourn, esper was all eerie, Jund was all delirium. Did you actually draft those 3 color archetypes? Maybe once or twice, but for the most part you stuck with 2c.

[@raoulzimmermann1288]

@@JayIsADino it still reinforces the problem of being stuck in lanes that Alex mentioned though - say you get a couple of RW Goblins early on since you do really want those as a core of RW energy. Then R ends up being cut but U is open. You basically lose those picks despite still being within the same theme. (I know UW wasn't particularly good anyway, just trying to illustrate the point)

[@banjothulu]

Loved the episode, Alex! This type of episode is always my favorite

[@logosmonger]

38:20 In addition to recursion, you forgot to mention Snakeskin Veil at common

[@reidyo5404]

I was so confused when they undid that “rare lands don’t take the rare slot” thing after one set.

[@tychoMX]

Duskmourn is awesome, and I hope we get to play something like this more than 6 weeks. Still play it whenever I can and still find some cool stuff. I played in the Revised to Ice Age days and came back during Dominaria Remastered. This is the most fun I've ever had in a Limited set. Agreed that Bloomburrow was such a great set for newer players and those occasional ones, too. The intro videos helped too, I think. Easy sell for other fantasy enthusiasts. Also didn't like the MH3 experience. It was so easy to get into a contested draft where your already limited-versatility cards would need to be fought against. Lots of very cool cards but also so many non-games where the other guy played a busted 1-2 mana beater and you didn't have your removal. Overall, I'd prefer 4/5 major sets per game.

[@bruinfan05]

I like having a new format to draft every 2mo personally

[@SamyaprasaDasa]

Thanks Alex, nice idea for a video. - Hare Krishna oh, another good example of a 4 drop with a relevant same-turn ability: the 4 mana Lion glimmer from DSK

[@andrewp6738]

MH3 had so many problems and yet I still loved it for some reason. Maybe I’ve just been craving a more complex/high-powered set?

[@heavenlyevan]

I'm no longer drafting Foundations on Arena, but I'm still having a blast drafting it at my LGS. The set is cheaper than a normal Magic set which means the drafts are more affordable, and I think the set is the most fun I've ever had drafting blue control decks. The blue decks in the format are genuinely all very fun and I've loved drafting Refutes and Bigfin Bouncers so much. Not my set of the year by any stretch of the imagination, but the particulars of the set have really scratched a Limited itch with blue Control in a way I haven't felt in many sets for ages. (Making card advantage a little harder to get and having less mana sinks definitely contribute to Blue Control going smoother) By comparison, Pioneer Masters has really made me excited to draft Red Aggro decks again. I like it when every format has a deck I really like and I also really enjoy it when those decks are very different.

[@JesGolbez]

Worst - Introduction of Play Boosters, tied with continued Power Creep and format speed. Format speed has not significantly gone down, AND being on the play, especially best of 1, is still way too much of an advantage. Best - Bloomburrow, a set that felt like an actual Magic set, and not Cowboy/Detective Cosplay or Stranger Things knockoff.

[@djposterchild6550]

Great video as always! I grind RCQs in the LA area and there's a handful of sealed RCQs every season within driving distance. Even with play boosters, I agree sealed is a very skill expressive and the good players top 8 with a pretty solid level of consistency. That being said, play boosters have very much been a net negative on sealed. Obviously there is higher variance with the amount of powerful rares and uncommons you open. Because you expect to play against more bombs, critical mass of removal is even more important than before. In draft you can pick up 4-5 removal spells. In sealed, your pool does not have removal concentrated in one or two colors most of the time. It's not only a crapshoot of how many bombs you open, but how much removal did you open to deal with all the other bombs and how spread out are they across the colors? Sometimes when building a sealed pool you need to ask yourself "Should I play this color that has 3 removal spells and no bombs over that color that has no removal and 2 bombs?". As always, It is situation dependent. It's an interesting second order effect of more rares showing up in packs.

[@JackCross3]

My primary memory of mh3 is my opponent playing not just one, but back to back writhing chrysalis and just absolutely smashing me into the ground. I think that's the difference between common chrysalis and uncommon raptor.

[@tedhand6237]

Chalk Outline was the build around of the year in my book. Took MKM up a tier.

[@jamesgray658]

I think if there's one thing I would knock Duskmourn on, it would be the flavor. People didn't like the flavor of MKM and OTJ for how tropey they were, and Duskmourn was just as bad if not worse. There were some cool things going on with the world, but the shoehorned-in horror tropes and elements that felt like they belonged on Earth instead of in Magic undercut it. Fortunately that's a lot easier to look past when the gameplay is great.

[@SupahGeck]

Great content as always Alex! I mostly agree with your assessments overall, though I think I'm a little lower on Bloomburrow. Granted it came out when I had a little elss time to draft then usual, but after the first few, it never really pulled me back. People called it core set adjacent, and while it was probably better than foundations, I'd almost rather go full core set. Otherwise I agree with the set ordering, but I do wonder if MH3 really deserves 2/10 when you compare it to the broader landscape of limited sets. Looking at 2023 personally I'd only draft MOM and LTR over any set from 2024. If MH3 is a 2, then ONE can only be a 1, and where does that leave 2022's New Cappenna? Limited has been feeling so good lately even with some obvious missteps no format this year falls below a 4 for me.

[@limitedlevel-ups]

I think I’d also give Capenna a two! Both have some pretty serious set structure and individual design flaws. That said, limited magic is limited magic and I think most of these sets I’d draft again if someone asked me to!

[@HeyApples]

Agree with most, I think Thunder Junction got off too lightly. My remembrance of that set was green having such good fixing that it could effortlessly steal and splash all the important cards from the other archetypes. G/B splashing Fractured Identity was my breaking point. And that was in addition to having a whole slew of A level rares and efficient cards at common+uncommon. Every set has a color that rules the roost, but green was so lopsided for that set it really altered the "rules of engagement" for what and how you could draft.

[@limitedlevel-ups]

Yeah very fair!

[@danpozdol3066]

I agree with most of this. The one disagreement I have foundations. I was quick to criticize it as too simple, especially coming off Duskmourn. But I have come to appreciate it. Sam Black has been coming up with some crazy absurd multicolor strategies that do work if you invest the time into figuring them out. Nummy said he would only draft it 20 times, then ended up drafting it 80. While my initial impressions were negative, I would only put it clearly below DSK and OTJ and maybe MKM in terms of drafting experience. Foundations Sealed sucks though.

[@moocowp4970]

I loved MKM, the disguise mechanic was perfect because it really forced you to pay attention to all their attacks, when they held up mana, when they decided not to etc. I loved how the colour pair power shifted over the set too, the disguise creatures really made it so you were never TRULY colour screwed etc. so I'd give it a 8/10 probably. Duskmourn will always have a special place for me since I got to Mythic for the first time in it; so I definitely liked it, but I will say I didn't like the manifest dread mechanic as much as disguise; while disguise had some rules to it, manifest dread was just almost random, if they put a non-creature in the graveyard you had no idea if the 2/2 could flip into something or not. I did like how manifest dread worked with the other mechanics though. I'd also give it 8 or 9 out of 10 probably. I've been enjoying Foundations enough, unfortunately haven't had as much time to play it due to travel for Xmas, but I'd give it a 6-7/10, seems like there is plenty of variety in the archetypes based on the cards drafted (e.g. blue-black can be tempo or full on control, red-black can be raid aggro or steal and sacrifice midrange, black-white can be value sacrifice midrange or lifegain synergies, blue-white can be aggro/tempo flyers or control, green-white can be go-wide or +1/+1 counters etc. So I think it definitely has more lasting power than I expected, even though the cards are simpler.

[@TheRealTatamium]

Awesome Video, I watch half pump stream and he highly recommends your channel. Awesome stuff!

[@SupahGeck]

I think I'm on the side of liking play boosters. I miss the 14th card for sure and it adds more variance to sealed, but maybe that's just a nudge in the direction to kill sealed for anything beyond prerelease. I feel like play boosters and the design tweaks made around them have centered uncommons more in draft and I really like that. Uncommon is the perfect place for build arounds or solid role players, with enough gaurdrails to usually prevent them being too juiced. Alotta times I've felt better having a deck with 7 uncommons and no rares than 4 rares and only commons to glue them together. Play boosters also, ironically, made me care more about the wheel. I thiugh losing the extra card would make wheeling that much harder, but most cards being playable means a decebt card in your colors still has a chance to wheel if you read the signals right. Dare I say signals are easier to read because you can assume most packs had at least 8 good cards in them when opened as opposed to the 4 or 5 that were never gonna make it around. Overall I like the changes, because it feels like limited sets have been designed around them.

[@alexd776]

Best sealed pool of all time! 😮

[@gedtheflayer]

I was the MH3 disliker at my LGS, and whenever people asked me about it I framed it as "imagine they made New Capenna a Masters set". Overlapping synergies in wedges, but substantial chunks of synergy that failed to coalesce into viable decks. A crushingly dominant common that supported the wedge that was already the most coherent. There were some cool buildarounds, but they involved strategies that had to jump through multiple hoops to get anything going, only to be answered by single, nigh unbeatable efficient rares. It's easily the worst draft set of the last few years.

[@jimson172]

I forgot how much I hated mh3 until you talked about it

[@GeneralCanada]

Really enjoyed MH3 but thought most of your criticisms were more then fair. Think 2/10 is a little harsh, especially given the gameplay of MH3 at the very least was much more interesting then foundations and there were some pretty spicy deck (I draft a 4c nadu like 3 times with great success). Also seems like you've come down on MKM as you quite hyped it up throughout the year on stream.

[@aminqasim9150]

I hate MH3 I agree with the ranking duskmourn was an experience tbh and i cashed in during the open so that made it extra sweet

[@Journeyman2585]

I loved MKM, but I'm with you on MH3. Worst set I've ever drafted. Absolutely hated it.

[@ChristianCruz-dz4mw]

I liked MH3 but that's only because I did good in that set. It felt great hate drafting the Writhing Chrysalis! Get it out of here!

[@trygvan]

I got a lot of thoughts on this. I came in at the beginning of the year (Ive played before but not as consistently as this year), and I agree MKM was middle pack, I'd give it a 5/10. I didn't quite like thunder junction though. Too bomby, and the flavor was meh. I'd give it a 4/10. MH3 was ok to me, although at times frustrating. Maybe 3 or 4 /10. With regards to Bloomburrow, I was happy to see your acclamation of the set, as I also really liked it. I was a bit unsure of your critisism of UR as a design flaw, and Dafore only doing good in it because he got all the cards. He started doing this several weeks before the end, and by the end many players had caught up, and UR really was a strong color pair, only it hadnt been discoverd before? In that case, Id call it a design win and not a loss. Im emotional enough that flavor matters, so I'd give this set maybe as high as 9 /10. I'll certainly give you credit for a lot of what you analyzed, and the summary of "Simple done right". I think we mostly agree I just wanted to point that out. For Duskmourn I didn't quite like the flavor as much, but the mechanics were really well designed, so I agree that this too could be fairly high, and I respect that seasoned player really liked how fluently designed this set was. For me I think grade-wise it was on par with Bloomburrow. And yea Foundations pales in comparison to the other sets as a limited format. Agree. Playable but nowhere near the previous sets (and PIO is also a bit like this). 4/10. I'll give your analysis 9/10. ;)

[@marcowefers6990]

Great video! I think foundations is demonstrably better than MH3. I will never forgive them for chrysalis 🙃

[@reidyo5404]

Thunder junction was my favorite, gotta love how many strong rares you could get that made your decks have more variety. People that hate bomb sets are not drafting enough removal. And there was a whole bonus sheet of removal in the set. The usefulness of deserts were great, for crimes and for desert rewards. Made lands feel useful in a way they haven’t been since snow land sets.

[@logosmonger]

First you criticize MKM for having too much unknown information because of Disguise, but then you give 10/10 to a set with an even more unpredictable mechanic in Manifest Dread?

[@limitedlevel-ups]

I talk about why in the DSK section :)

[@logosmonger]

​@@limitedlevel-ups I think you underestimate how much variance and potential blowouts are involved with Manifest Dread

[@kylechmielewski9972]

We have really different takes on a lot of these sets MKM 2/10 flavor was atrocious and disguise/suspect were a complete misses OTJ 6/10 flavor was very forced and another miss. Plot was a fantastic mechanic but there were just way too many swingy bombs and the commons felt weak MH3 7/10 clearly had huge flaws but the games played out really well and there was a lot of things to explore BLB 4/10 flavor was good even if it's not for me. The drafts were very on rails, too many bad color pairs and the gameplay was very boring DSK 10/10 too on the nose tropes aside, DSK is in contention for the best draft format of all time. I can't think of a set with better overlap in mechanics which led to basically every color combo having multiple playable archetypes FND 3/10 very boring core set draft feel with serious color imbalance issues

[@jeffr.1681]

Play boosters are good for draft buy are so bad for sealed that the format should be retired completely, at the very least removed from high-stakes events.

[@trkyjrky99]

my ranking order: Mh3, OTJ, Duskmorn, BLB, FDN, Pioneer Masters, MKM. I loved the power and swings of MH3.

[@ethangilworth7891]

Glad I’m not the only one who thinks Foundations is a garbage format.

[@danielmulter2143]

My thoughts of the sets differed a lot from yours, and probably from the consensus Good Sets: BLB (8.5/10), MH3 (8/10), MKM (6.5/10) - I enjoyed the gameplay and mechanics in these sets, and there were fun build-arounds. The color balance (for draft at least, after the top archetypes started being more contested) felt fine, with no more than 1-2 color pairs I wanted to avoid and no colors that it felt like I'd need to force Not-so-good sets: FDN (4/10), OTJ (3/10), DSK (2/10) - Foundations was a "fine core set," hindered by the lack of any card smoothing but otherwise decent. The first handful of drafts were enjoyable, but the set got tiring very quickly. For OTJ, green being too powerful hurt the format a lot. And I despised Duskmourn (my second least favorite set of all time, only above ONE) because it felt like too many of the uncommons were kill-on-sight bombs. Most games came down to "whose bomb is the first one to stick," making for a very poor gameplay experience.

[@victorperezurbano9504]

I totally disagree on Duskmourn, the set felt amazing to draft and even to play sealed due to the intricacy of the mechanics and how well they played together. It was an amazing limited set.