The Worst Magic: the Gathering Sets of All Time

I bought Fallen Empires booster packs for 1$ at the local Dollar Store, circa 1995 or 1996. My ten year old self thought it was pretty cool.

Heh, plot out 😏

The fact you don’t trim your hair and beard.

Tbh I think this Thunder Junction set is one of the worst, can't wait for all this cowboy shit to end.

Having Fallen Empires at number 1 seems off. Personally I liked the set, it was nowhere as good as prior stuff, but it had some actual good cards and quite a few fun casual cards. (which was a much more random, lower powered thing at the time) The only issue with it, was that it was massively overprinted, lowering the value of the set and the cards in it. (not just the actual price of the cards, but the value people gave it relative to other magic cards)
Compared to Homelands, that had some fun themes but only a few really underpowered cool casual cards, Fallen Empires wasn't quite as bad.

I'd like to point to Chronicles, which is a set that is the cause of the reserved list, a thing that I despise until this day. (despite owning some very expensive reserved list cards myself)
Like Fallen Empires, this set was overprinted massively and was the first reprint set Magic ever got. A lot of the collectors at the time got extremely angry with their cards suddenly dropping massively in value, despite the set not having a whole lot of the actually desirable cards that people needed at the time for play. (like pieces of power, dual lands or any other powerful stuff)

Making a reprint set, then failing to reprint almost all the cards that people desired, while still pissing off the people that owned stuff that was reprinted .. it was a huge disaster. It would surprise nobody that like Fallen Empires, it was one of the few sets in early magic that was on the shelves for way too long.
Despite me personally having no issues with Chronicles, as it was a fun way for me to get cards that I missed from earlier sets at a cheap price, I think it is among the worst sets in magic ever made.

Speaking of fallen empires was there ever a decent thalid commander?

I bought an absurd amount of fallen empire back in the days. It was before the Internet and the reason I bought so much is that I was sure that at some point I would get the big super power card, that seemed to be ultra-rare, so rare in fact that it did not exist...
Same for Ice Age, I tried to get the 3rd Jester piece,...

rosewater really has a mouth on him doesn't he

The 5 per set rule was thanks to Homelands. You were maaaaaybe seeing a 1x autumn Willow or Ishans shade.

Fallen Empires didnt have that problem because every type 2 deck was running the degenerate shit from that set. Hymn, the pump knights, Goblin Grenade, the Red and Black sac lands, and Aeolipile saw play competitively, and Breeding Pit was a B-tier standard.


Homelands though, I hope you like running 5 of some combination of memory lapse, serrated arrows, and Primal Order

Back in the day, a magazine had a section where people could write in with combos and stuff. The one that I still remember to this day is any Fallen Empire card and a trash can.😆

I started playing Magic during Masques block then stopped and started again during Battle for Zendikar. Bad timing it seems.

Fallen empires and the cheap packs are how as a kid I got into the game. Dragon maze got me back in. These are my two favourite sets even if they are not good for much I try to put a card from one of them in each of my decks

this video was NOT needed ! ..... everyone KNOWS what the worst set is ...

no way my man just hated on mind goblin

This is harsh to Battle for Zendikar - I don't remember any of these complaints at the time, and I was consuming a lot of mtg content back then and actively playing the set with a lot of players at the time. It's actually one of the draft formats I most enjoyed playing. It wasn't a super impactful set in terms of power, but that's mostly because it sits in the middle of an era of serious power creep, with very powerful cards coming before and after it in the standard formats... but even at that it still had very impactful cards on the format like Ulamog and Gideon. It also has excellent art. I'm not saying it's one of the best sets, but listing it as one of the worst seems crazy harsh to me.

Is it a surprise that Fallen Empires ironically represented the fall of the empire? It's made resurgences, but it keeps finding new ways to let us down.

Say what you will about Prophecy, but Avatar of Woe and Mageta the Lion are still some of my favorite cards of all time.

Surprised Aftermath wasn't #1. I don't even know if I should call it a set. Maybe create a new class for it: mini-set.

Instant dislike. Unfinity is not a bad set, like at all. Beautiful lands, amazing special foiling, and the best looking shocklands EVER? yeah this list is ass

I actually liked Battle for Zendikar lol

really happy after this video that i made a 10 set unplayable cube a year ago

I vividly remember playing MtG in 1994, back when people would buy a starter pack or two, shuffle them together, sit down, and start playing. The modern ideas of deck construction were still years away and so every game was essentially "kitchen table"....although I was known to t1 Swamp > Mox Jet > Sol Ring t2 Swamp > Dark Ritual > Mind Twist --> you discard 6 cards...but only at random. Sometimes, I wish people would forget the last 30 years of deck construction knowledge and go back to "buy some cards, put them together, and play". Fun times. Anyway...at the time the storage lands like Bottomless Vault were fascinating if overvalued--play one on turn 1 then just bank your mana until you cash it in later? Cool! Yes, cool....but only in kitchen table because the mechanic of proliferate was a long way away. I do have to admit that even at that time Ice Age was great, but FE was pretty bad.

How is homelands not on this list

1. Fallen Empires
2. Homelands
3. The Dark
4. Prophecy
5. Legends
6. Legions

As bad as we might think that some of the more modern sets might be, these sets just had so many objectively bad cards in them that in each case these sets had little to no impact on the competitive scene when they were released. Magic set design was truly in a dark age post Antiquities until the release of Ice Age, and Homelands killed the momentum and Alliances had to save Magic

Fallen Empires. What a let down.

atleast Unfinity got Namesticker Goblin. And no Homelands on the list... Hymn to Tourach > the entire Homelands set, as mentioned.

Homelands is so cool and has so much style

This guy talks like Chris from family guy.

The trend seems to be "Oops! We accidentally printed an actual good MTG set, better print absolute dog water draft chaff for the next 3 sets!"

I wonder why wizards refuses to do blocks instead of those absurd aftermath sets. By the end of Kaldheim they said that just one set might not be enough for certain releases and then decided to reinvent the wheel with epilogue sets that are not really playable and are a nightmare to open. Why not make blocks again every once in a while?

😂 aftermath? You will see. Too much emotion

I think the only set missing that I would include is the alchemy version of baulders gate. Specialize might be one of the worst mechanics of all time, the reuse of art of cards which do different things is confusing, it was a mess of a draft format (plus when they rebalanced the format it felt terrible since they nerfed so many things), and it had little impact on historic. I don't blame it for missing because its so easy to forget about.

Before watching the video, chronicles #1 because of the RL

Homelands, and it's not close.

Your reasons for hating devoid and calling it one of the worst mechanics ever are weak and a stretch.

Don't be hating on one with nothing

In defense of Fallen Empires and Homelands, they were great for younger kids who were playing at the time, like me and my friends. We played a lot of drafts at our LGS with the two sets because you could enter a draft for less than the cost of dinner from the pizza place in the same mall (looking back the enthusiasm of the owner to finally sell it was a factor). The cards were shit, but that only meant every game was an intense battle to try and make chicken soup out of chicken shit. Add in the multiple arts for cards, the awesome visual design of the sets, and you have a fun evening despite all the cards being bulk garbage. It's 100% nostalgia but I'll take it over fucking Aftermath and Unfinity any day.

I don't think Dragon's Maze outdoes Prophecy or Saviors. It's just boring rather than a complete flop from the first principles mechanically.

Technically acorn symbol is still there, check the pony card again, there is a heart in that place, still with silver border tho. Also mind goblin is really good in pauper as well (prob not as much as sticker goblin) and it working pretty different in mtgo is extremely problematic for practice

wait for attractions do you roll for EACH attraction? I have a most dangerous gamer deck and I've been rolling one die for all my attractions

You are wrong about Fallen Empires

i play cittial of pain in my mana burn deck its fine i guess

Kaladesh should be on the list. It was bad because of bad design, not a power level thing.

I remember when fallen empires came out. We would joke the best combo in magic was fallen empire+ trashcan 😂. I’m amazed after all this time and it still number 1. Some good cards did come out of it. Pump knights weren’t mentioned and the tapped lands you could sac for 2 of that color mana were good as well. Seen the Svyelunite Temple in a lot of blue decks so players would need that one land to counter spell. Very nostalgic.

Ikoria, Neon Dynasty, War of the Spark and Karlov Manor could easily have made a top 10/11 version of this list

One thing you missed with Battle for Zendikar is that it was an AWFUL limited set too. Green was bad to the point of being almost unplayable and players quickly figured out that forcing some combination of blue, black or red was the way to go. It was difficult to get ingest and the "exile matters" cards going even when you drafted around them.

Fallen Empires gets my vote

BFZ doesn't belong on this list.