Hall of Shame Nominations: Fallen Empires

[BigBlue]

Aeolipile
Armor Thrull
Balm of Restoration
Basal Thrull
Bottomless Vault
Brassclaw Orcs
Breeding Pit
Combat Medic
Conch Horn
Deep Spawn
Delif's Cone
Delif's Cube
Derelor
Draconian Cylix
Dwarven Armorer
Dwarven Catapult
Dwarven Hold
Dwarven Lieutenant
Dwarven Ruins
Dwarven Soldier
Ebon Praetor
Ebon Stronghold
Elven Fortress
Elven Lyre
Elvish Farmer
Elvish Hunter
Elvish Scout
Farrelite Priest
Farrel's Mantle
Farrel's Zealot
Feral Thallid
Fungal Bloom
Goblin Chirurgeon
Goblin Flotilla
Goblin Grenade
Goblin Kites
Goblin War Drums
Goblin Warrens
Hand of Justice
Havenwood Battleground
Heroism
High Tide
Hollow Trees
Homarid
Homarid Shaman
Homarid Spawning Bed
Homarid Warrior
Hymn to Tourach
Icatian Infantry
Icatian Javelineers
Icatian Lieutenant
Icatian Moneychanger
Icatian Phalanx
Icatian Priest
Icatian Scout
Icatian Skirmishers
Icatian Store
Icatian Town
Implements of Sacrifice
Initiates of the Ebon Hand
Merseine
Mindstab Thrull
Necrite
Night Soil
Orcish Captain
Orcish Spy
Orcish Veteran
Order of Leitbur
Order of the Ebon Hand
Orgg
Raiding Party
Rainbow Vale
Ring of Renewal
River Merfolk
Ruins of Trokair
Sand Silos
Seasinger
Soul Exchange
Spirit Shield
Spore Cloud
Spore Flower
Svyelunite Priest
Svyelunite Temple
Thallid
Thallid Devourer
Thelonite Druid
Thelonite Monk
Thelon's Chant
Thelon's Curse
Thorn Thallid
Thrull Champion
Thrull Retainer
Thrull Wizard
Tidal Flats
Tidal Influence
Tourach's Chant
Tourach's Gate
Vodalian Knights
Vodalian Mage
Vodalian Soldiers
Vodalian War Machine
Zelyon Sword

Enjoy these gems...

Nominations close 9/29 at 5pm EDT

 

[BigBlue]

It's funny how I had this perception of how bad this set was... it's really based on how unhappy I was with the distribution of cards... And the alternate artwork...

I don't like the Land Batteries in this set as much as the newer ones... Because they had to stay tapped to get a counter... w/ Ley Druid you could untap it later, but that required 2 cards...

But for me, the card that really sucked worse is Implements of Sacrifice... I pay 2 to put it in play, then I pay 1 and sacrifice it to get back 2 colored mana... On top of that it's a rare... Sure it translates colors... but only 1 time... and at 2 mana to play it, it isn't speeding anything up...

How about this instead:

Implements of sacrifice 2

1, Pay a life: add 1 mana of any color to your mana pool.

That's useful... And still meets the cardname...

 

[Oversoul]

Fallen Empires doesn't seem to have any truly abysmal cards. There are several mediocre or inferior cards, but nothing strikes me as particularly awful. Even Implements of Sacrifice is just a sub-par manafixer. But it still works. If I needed manafixing, Implements could do it. Having the two mana be able to be separate colors would be better, but usually unnecessary. BB's improved version would be a very good manafixer indeed, powering out whatever multicolored cards one happened to have. It might have even changed the game a little, making certain cards in Legends more viable...

I don't know what to nominated just yet...

 

[Shabbaman]

It's not that there are bad cards, but it's just not a good set. I would like to nominate all the homarids for not being proper merfolk. And Tidal influence and Tidal flats both seem very poor. And out of flavor.

 

[Oversoul]

Tidal Influence is cool. Way back when, I used it with Spiny Starfish to make my army of tokens into 2/1 attackers. No longer possible because of the ruling on poor Spiny Starfish, but it sure was fun. Tidal Flats is just weird and seems pretty useless, but it seems like there has to be something worse in this set...

 

[DarthFerret]

Ok, this was not easy. I actually pulled out my full set (doesn't every have one) and went over them all real fast. After debating on which was worse (Delif's Cone or Delif's Cube) I actaully settled on the one I am nominating.

Elven Lyre.

Here is why: First it costs a total of 3 mana to set it out and use it. Many other boosters cost a lot less. Secondly, most of the time that you want to give a creature a p/t boost that is only temporary, you want that to come as a surprise (ie, Giant Growth). This artifact was not designed for speed, deception, creature enhancement (permanantly) or any other reason that I can think of other than just plain filler. Plus, Kaja Foglio is nowhere near the artist that Phil is. Oriental eyes does not an elf make.

 

[Mooseman]

I'll have to put Ring of Renewal.
5 to cast, 5 to run it and a tap, so basically once per turn without help. And it's a random card that's discarded. There are much better way to draw cards, but maybe not in this set.
Maybe I don't know the ways to use it, but it would take a bit and is it really worth it?

 

[Oversoul]

Plus, Kaja Foglio is nowhere near the artist that Phil is. Oriental eyes does not an elf make.

In Kaja Foglio's defense, no one said the woman in the picture had to be an elf. It's an elven lyre. There's no law forbidding non-elves from holding elven lyres, is there? I think the picture's fine. Not sure why it would be compared to Phil--his style's so distinctive that no one else's cards are going to look anything like his.

Off topic, but does anyone else here read the Foglio's comics? You know, the ones that are available to read for free on the web: www.studiofoglio.com

I can't imagine why you wouldn't, because they're pretty awesome.

Anyway, I'm going to continue the trend and nominate yet another artifact. Those seem to be the worst cards in this set. A handful of them are just about useless. The one that stands out to me as king of the crap is Delif's Cube. On the plus side, it only costs 1 mana. That alone was enough to make me hesitate. At least it's not unreasonable like these other artifacts that cost more mana and still do almost nothing. Where Delif's Cube really sucks is in its requirement for counters. For a mana activation cost, you can regenerate a creature, which isn't bad at all. But you also have to remove a counter from Delif's Cube. And how do you get counters on Delif's Cube? Well, if a creature attacks and isn't blocked, you can have it deal no damage and pay some mana and put a counter on Delif's Cube. That sucks. Also, you have to tap it, so you're only looking at building up one counter a turn, at the expense of mana AND have your attackers not do damage. It would have been mediocre if it had just read, "2: regenerate target creature." Throwing those other conditions onto it makes it essentially unplayable.

For a while I kinda wanted to go with Draconian Cylix since it costs too much mana and requires a random discard, which is a horrible cost to put on something. But at least it can regenerate a creature on demand. If you really need a creature regenerated, one card in hand and the mana to activate the Cylix is all you need. It's a crap card, but it could save you from losing. Delif's Cube requires that you go and get a counter on it before it can even regenerate something. So it's not even good if you want to do what it does. As a bonus, it's a rare.

 

[Ferret]

I'm with Oversoul on this one. I was going to nominate Delif's Cone, but at least it's a 0 drop and can be used in decks that need cheap artifacts to feed to Atogs or use for affinity. The Cube is about useless and is the most annoying thing when you were looking for a cool rare and ended up getting that (along with the two different Thallids or Hymns).

-Ferret

...and, for the record, until you've read "Girl Genius" (available on the website Oversoul mentioned) you've not seen how good the Professors Foglio can get...