Well its the way that he talked utter bollocks from beginning to end. Allow me to demonstrate.
1. "A cursory examination... "
His one saving grace is that he says this is a cursory glance. If he comes back to say that after actually reading the cards properly he has changed his mind, then maybe I`ll ease up a bit.
2."tells me that this looks like another crappy set..."
This is actually a relatively interesting set, although the Madness mechanic is underused and uninteresting. I`m also going to take this advantage to have a cheap shot at Istanbul, who two months ago claimed that Madness would be broken WITHOUT SEEING ANY OF THE CARDS OR EVEN WHAT MADNESS DID! What a (knee)jerk
. Anyway back to the point, this set has some extremely powerful cards in, and a huge amount to offer to counter-act the trend of playing multi-colored decks. Calling it 'crappy' is a
long way wide of the mark.
3."made by a creative team that put their hand in the fire for Urza's block..."
In fact following Urzas Block the design team for Magic was completely reshuffled, also there was a similar rotation of staff when Hasbro took over. Richard Garfield returned to design at some point, and the R&D team is constantly bringing in new members. Fundamentally the Torment design team is NOT the same as the team who designed Urzas Block.
4."and has been to scared to make a real set since (with the possibe exception of Apocolypse)."
And this statement is pure lunacy. Odyssey is the second-strongest standalone expansion ever printed, second only tp Tempest (assuming you discount the banned cards from Urzas Block, which you should). Its impact on Extended is proof of that. This statement also dismisses any worth from Nemesis, which was an extremely powerful expansion.
Hi point was basically, to summarise:
'this set is bad, because it was designed by the people who designed Urzas Block, and they havent made a good set since'
Whereas the truth is:
'this set is pretty good, and was not designed by the people who designed Urzas Block, and there have been several good sets since'
Which, to my mind, makes him a moron who couldnt tell a good expansion if a crate of boosters dropped on his head.