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Typically, when sets get spoiled we see some really sweet cards, a few limited goodies that suggest themes, some random good cards scattered in and then all the chaff at the end. If you check out the cards spoiled so far for Magic Origins, it looks like we're seeing all of the filler first.
On top of a grip of commons and uncommons, Mark Rosewater has offered some insight on some changes to design that will be reflected in origins. I recommend reading his article on the matter here.
I'm happy to see prowess and scry become evergreen mechanics. Prowess is a little more out there as evergreen, but it really makes sense as something that you want to have around if you want blue creatures to be relevant without just making blue play the same kind of creature decks as everybody else. The bad news that comes along with the return of scry is that Serum Visions has been confirmed to not be in Origins. Worse news still if you're a fan of red decks, is that this card has been confirmed...
I'm probably asking too much when I say I want Lightning Bolt to be in Origins, but I know that I'm getting too little when I look at Lightning Javelin.
That card is embarassingly bad. It doesn’t even kill Yoked Ox.
The spoiled cards so far are so-so, and less a tour-de-force of the Cores sets of the past than the name “Origins” would lead you to believe. Yeah, I know they mean “origins of the big five planeswalkers,” but you’d still expect a secondary reference to Magic’s past in the last core set.
Anyway..
What they’re doing mechanically is really exciting. Prowess and Scry are proven tournament-level abilities. They are not as horribly broken as Storm, perhaps, but they’re certainly very good and making them evergreen suggests we may see even more powerful playable cards coming. Now, both abilities seem to help exactly one deck in eternal – Delver – so I query whether this is a healthy place to focus, but I digress.
Scry is a great way for them to start pushing card advantage, particularly in Blue, without breaking anything. It’s better than Index because you can dig past bad cards. But, it’s not as inherently broken as stuff like Brainstorm. I bet you are going to see Blue caring more and more about scry, which is kind of a long-term draw, and red caring more and more about drawing cards that can only be used right now, a short-term draw. While combining draw and scry is dangerous for Modern (Preordain, anyone?) I have to imagine they are working on more supplements for Serum Visions. Perhaps making Preordain cost 1U would make it printable again.
Prowess is a great ability, though Maro’s article is a little irritating when it explains the reason it was made evergreen was so Blue had a combat mechanic. If you saw a focus on creatures as “dumbing down” the game, then hold onto your pants, because we’re gonna be getting more of the same in the future!
All in all, good choices that will translate into good cards in the future.
The thing that irked me most about the article is that they explain the loss of landwalk by the “lack of interaction” while glowing about Hexproof which is “more intuitive” than Shroud…
Landwalk fails in almost every aspect. It’s not one of the most intuitively understandable keywords. It’s wildly variable and is useless for the majority of times. It’s quite hard to cost for constructed. And frankly speaking, the game doesn’t need it.
Hexproof / Shroud is easy as soon as a new player learns what targetting means, and Hexproof is better than Shroud because as MaRo says, a lot of people played Shroud as if it was Hexproof. A lot of interesting cards with Hexproof have been made, and taking it away would lessen the game.
Now there are a few broken creatures with Hexproof, in the sense that they enable a viable non-interactive deck with only Hexproof creatures and Auras. There are a total of three in Modern: the two 1-drops, and Invisible Stalker. (Geist of Saint Traft is borderline, but I think he tends to be used more strategically.) But many of the best mechanics, for example counterspells and Equipments, have many broken cards in the past. Neither “No play on turn 1, never resolve a spell” or “I connect with Jitte, nothing you do matters” is what I would call an interactive game. It all comes down to costing, and the same goes with Hexproof.