Throughout this review i will be discussing the 2010 core set of magic the gathering which had the first abbreviation of M10 and not 2010 like it was supposed to be called, this introduced to us some new fresh faces we would see in standard for a long time and the fact that there was also some returning walkers in this set from the Lorwyn age where they were first introduced so let's go.
Now the 2010 core set or as it is called the M10 core set had some balance issues i must admit when it first came out, following the release of the usual 3 block set which was Shards of Alara/Conflux and Alara Reborn this had a good deal of noteritety to live up to in terms of power and balance and this seemed to throw the scales a tad overboard, this reintroduced us to the 5 base walkers, Jace Beleren, Chandra Nalaar, Garruk Wildspeaker, Ajani Goldmane and of course Lilanna Vess from the fall set of 2007 aka lorwyn. It also brought forth the ridiclous costing creatures in the form of Baneslayer Angel and a few other cards including Time Warp and some others to name a few, but first the basics, this core set was designed and released in the middle of summer during the 2009 summer of magic, the core set had 249 cards and 20 of those were as always basic lands along with the stand rare lands, rare creatures and a walker for each and every colour in the set, along with the fact artifacts were present again in a core set since 10th edition which had quite a few but this set had a few new things to it in the form of instants, sorceries and of course creatures, with the creatures to survive the latest change being Birds of Paradise, Giant Growth, Giant Spider, Llanowar Elves and quite a few other green cards for a change, this set was comprised of 15-20 reprints and the rest being brand new cards but with abilites in which we have seen already in game.
Mythics - This introduced quite a few mythics into the mix including the base 5 walkers which i mentioned earlier and the most overpriced card of the time, Baneslayer Angel along with some newbies to the mix, let's look at them, Bogardan Hellkite is back in this set and is a mythic instead of a standard rare since the 2007 worlds featured this card as well as the fact it was a good reprint to bring back, but into mythic form. Darksteel Colossus was also a reprint in this set who doesn't love a 11/11 with invincibilty and the fact it has trample eh?, Master of the Wild Hunt is a basic newbie to the mix, green got the most mythics in this set with 3 believe it or not, but this mythic ended up being a token generator which turned out quite alright and not as overpowered as i was first lead to believe. Platinum Angel got a reprint, i'm sure everyone whom reads my articles knows what she does nowadays and all that jazz, plus the fact it became a mythic rare makes me believe she was overpowered in tenth edition as a rare. Protean Hydra was another newcomer to the mix, green's pretty much beatstick on steroids since burn can't touch this only removal can, and it can easily grow to a large level faster then most rares or in this case mythic rares. Sphinx Ambassador was blue's only other mythic for the set, i felt blue got the shaft once again and all that jazz, i thought blue managed well for what it did, though i could've been wrong at that time i thought this, though i think there is one more. Oh yes in the form of Time Warp, this beast of a sorcery was just bad to fight and basically gave you a extra turn, which was always nice to be honest, as it gave you the advantage which balanced out the set's overall power level. Oh one more in the form of Vampire Nocturnus, the new lord of vampires as long as the card on top of your library was never anything else but black and not a land, otherwise it was a 3/3 beatstick for 4 mana, even though it was never reprinted in the next core set, oh well personally i couldn't be happier. Xathrid Demon was the last mythic of the set and it's pretty much filler, with the least pleasing ability of life loss upon sacrificing a creature, which didn't get past no one really with this core set.
Rares - We had basics in the form of Birds, some newbies in Ant queen and such, as well as rare lands like Sunpetal grove and Rootbound Crag which would be reprinted as of next core set, but let's discuss some of the ones that were never reprinted or were altered for the next core set shall we? Ball Lightning was just plain nuts for this, as it was the first casualty of the reprint less cycle and believe me it was overpowered in mono red decks as it could come as early as turn 2 and make your life a living hell, graveyard and recursion had a good reason to fear this as well as the fact mono red was a good craze as netdecking was catching on back then since vampires had a good reason to be feared as well. some other reprints were also left out of the loop for M11's cycle including Nightmare and a few other rares and normal cards, this set was the last print of that particular rare and hasn't been seen since, with Crowd of Cinders being the closest thing to the same kind of card, but from a previous set. Capricious Efreet and Captain of the Watch were also casualties on the list, since they were only printed once to date and both were not played as much as they would have liked to have been, but still picking up one for a EDH deck is not a bad decision if i may say so. Cemetery Reaper and Coat of arms didn't see play much either besides the obvious zombie/control deck though it is nice to have a zombie deck for extended personally just this guy isn't the kind of thing for it, as for the coat of arms, it's a decent enough rare. I'll make a list of the cards that never really saw play after this set so far and well i'll leave the rest up to you on how to decide if they were good or not.
- Djinn of Wishes, Earthquake, Elvish Piper, Gargoyle Castle, Great Sable Stag, Guardian Seraph, Hive Mind, Howling Mine, Hypnotic Specter, Indestructibility, Kalonian Behemoth, Lightwielder Paladin, Lurking Predators, Magebane Armor, Manabarbs, Mesa Enchantress, Might of Oaks, Mind Shatter, Mirror of Fate, Open the Vaults, Pithing Needle, Planar Cleansing, Polymorph [This would become Mass polymorph in M11], Sanguine Bond, Shivan Dragon, Siege-Gang Commander, Twincast, Underworld Dreams, Warp World, this was the entire casualty list except for the few cards in which i spoke of previously, surprisingly enough the only survivors of the entire set were the dual lands, a couple of decent rares and not so decent rares like Royal Assassain. But i digress this set turned out to be the start of something interesting, most of the commons/uncommons though had a similar feel in overall power/toughness/overbalancing issues but that is just me of course when it comes to the first new type of core set from Wizards of the Coast, to see a full list of the cards i've mentioned go here to look at the list and make your assumptions on this set, you won't regret it the link will be at the end of the article as always.
Well that is it for this set, i've talked about the types of things to expect in this one and believe me for the year this set was legal this was a doozy, some of these cards even made net deck lists like Jund and even Mono Blue control, but i digress, thanks for reading and i give this set a confirmed 8 out of 10 for being a innvator into the new realm of standard for magic the gathering. Gatherer Link here you go and see you next article.
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