You might not think that Arena has been around long enough to have enough entries for an article like this. But with the beta coming out back in 2018 and the release calendar bloating all the time, there were plenty of sets to choose form.

That said, most of the real stinkers in Magic's history are, well, history. Sets like Homelands and Fallen Empires almost killed the game back in the mid 90's. Prophecy was famously awful and a bit more recently we suffered through the likes of Dragon's Maze and Battle for Zendikar.

Magic designers know what they're doing at this point, though. Nowadays, we might get an underwhelming set or an uninspired set, but we rarely get a truly egregious mess. Here, then, are ten of the least good sets in recent Magic history.

10. Midnight Hunt

It's appropriate that this set's three letter code was MID. It's not the worst set ever, but it was part of a one-two punch of mediocre Innistrad sets.

MID's biggest crime was that it made us all question if we'd had enough of Innistrad. Once one of the most beloved planes in all of Magic, MID made it tiresome. All of the gothic horror seemed to have been drained from the gothic horror setting. Planes have to evolve over time, sure, but what replaced it was just stuff. More werewolves, more zombies. The same as before, but less interesting.

This was supposed to be the big werewolf set before the big vampire set later that year. Unfortunately, werewolves were woefully weak in both Limited and Constructed. Gruul, the werewolf color pair, was the worst deck in draft, with a dismal 52% win rate. A handful of decent Red and Green cards that made it to Constructed, but not because they were werewolves; they were just good cards.

Worse still, the new day/night mechanic was a pain to track in real life and didn't work with the original Innistrad werewolves. When your set is called Midnight Hunt and you put a big werewolf on the packaging, you should probably make sure werewolves are playable somewhere.

9. Crimson Vow

We're off to a better start here. The vampires in VOW actually worked. Rakdos was the best deck in the Limited format, largely because its vampire cards were actually good. Drafting VOW wasn't too bad overall.

The Vampire hits continued into Constructed. Bloodtithe Harvester was a Standard staple and even made it into the arena Cube. Voldaren Epicure, Sorin the Mirthless and Edgar, Charmed Groom all saw plenty of Standard play.

VOW's issues were subtler. Firstly, it doubled down on being "more Innistrad." Making people bored of one of your most popular settings is not ideal.

To make matters worse, the new spin was a vampire wedding. Er, right. I appreciate Magic trying new genres of story telling, but this just felt bizarre. How did it play out in the set? Well, there was a card called Wedding Announcement and another called Wedding Invitation. One was all over Standard for two years, so mission accomplished, I guess.

VOW was a bizarre narrative experiment that ruined an otherwise reasonable set.

8. Guilds of Ravnica

This is another set that wasn't bad per se, it just wasn't particularly good. If I had to summarize Guilds of Ravnica in one word it would be "forgettable." Just try and remember every guild's mechanic without googling the answer.

Surveil is an outlier. It's a great mechanic and has since become evergreen. Convoke was there because Selesnya rarely gets interesting new mechanics. Jump-start was actually pretty cool, but also just another take on flashback. Undergrowth was kinda there. It was irrelevant in Constructed and, unfortunately, mostly useless in Limited, too. Mentor was flavourfully cool but too good in Limited.

There's a bit of a trend I've noticed across articles like this. Formats where Boros () is the best deck tend to be unpopular. Well, this was one of the most Boros-favored draft environments of all time. It had a whopping 60.2% win rate among 17 lands users - among the best win rates in the history of the platform.

In-keeping with this list so far, GRN also suffered from being more of the same. It was the 7th Ravnica set, immediately followed by the 8th and 9th. It lives in the shadow of that 9th, in particular, because that was War of the Spark - one of the most memorable sets of all time.

7. Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths

This is the most difficult entry to write. There was a lot to like about IKO, but the Limited format was extremely divisive. Some people loved it. I hated it. Sorry. Zenith Flare was absolutely miserable to play against and my dislike for that deck overwhelms the things I liked about the set.

Even the good parts are a bit iffy. I think Companion is a great mechanic in Limited. There, it got to ask fun deck-building questions. In Constructed it was a train-wreck. It had errata, bans, format-warping power, more bans.

Mutate created a lot of confusing moments. This doesn't get talked about a lot, because IKO was released during the pandemic, and few Mutate cards made a dent outside of Limited. Still, even with Arena taking care of the weird parts, it's never a good time when people have to google "layering."

I really hope we return to Ikoria and do the same themes better but the first visit was deeply flawed.

6. Dungeons & Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms

This set loses points for its ridiculous title. We'll be sticking to AFR.

AFR sucked. It was the first Universes Beyond set to get a normal release, opening the door for Final Fantasy (complimentary) and Spider-Man (derogatory).

Even if you ignore that, AFR just wasn't a very good set on its own merits. The Limited format was figured out very quickly and there was little variety to it. Rakdos () treasures was the best thing to do and nothing came close. None of the other mechanics really came together in the same way as treasures.

Remember Dungeons? Dungeons sure were a thing. Flavorfully they were quite cool for D&D players, but mechanically they were poorly-balanced a chore to track.

Remember dice rolling? No?

The class enchantments were the high point of the set, mechanically speaking. They were well-balanced but evocative and powerful, too. Some of them saw Constructed play, notably Ranger Class, and many still see play in Commander to this day.

Ironically, AFR was so mopey that it might have gone overlooked altogether if it hadn't opened the Universes Beyond floodgates.

5. Outlaws of Thunder Junction

OJT dared to ask the question, "what if Oko had a cowboy hat?" This was a weird setting, and quite problematic in ways I'm not qualified to talk about. So how about the Limited format?

It was bad. Bombs were everywhere, both in the set and on its many bonus sheets. Yeah, there was more than one bonus sheet, but one of them was all new cards. Except Torpor Orb, Rest in Peace and Grand Abolisher were on it for some reason. Why couldn't they just be in the base set? Who knows?

I was meant to be talking about Limited here, but this was peak "too many versions." Vaultborn Tyrant, for example has only been printed once, but there are five versions of it. Absurd.

I chose that card because it is emblematic of another problem with OTJ. Its draft format was dominated by bombs. Draft formats need cards that end the game, but OTJ had too many of those and too few answers. Cards like Bonny Pall, Clearcutter made answers look like a joke anyway. Oh, you killed my rare? Guess I'll have to make do with this 7/7 it left behind.

Meanwhile, OTJ's impact on Constructed formats is still being felt. Multiple staples were printed in the set, from the archetype-defining Nurturing Pixie to Eternal all-stars like Slickshot Show-Off.

The problem is, OTJ achieved this without really having any interesting mechanics. Outlaws and Crime were both just naming things that already existed. Spree is the most "it's just kicker" ability we've seen in a long time. Saddle is a flavourful take on crew, but it's very similar to crew. Plot was fine but only showed up outside of Limited on busted cards like Outcaster Trailblazer.

OTJ stands out on this list because it was anything but forgettable. Sadly, what makes it memorable is how badly it did just about everything.

4. Murders at Karlov Manor

MKM is a murder mystery set which came out just before OTJ and, for some reason, was set on Ravnica. Capenna was right there guys, sheesh. This set's world-building was ill-conceived and poorly executed, but that's just the start of its issues.

This is another maligned Limited format where Boros dominated. Unfortunately, it didn't even dominate with an interesting mechanic like Mentor from GRN. It just killed you real fast, and often without much counter play.

Then there were the mechanics. You could argue that there were only really two new mechanics in MKM: Collect Evidence, which was fun but usually too slow, and Suspect, which often just ended up being menace.

In Constructed, honestly, MKM had a reasonable impact. A few cards saw play in Standard and Insidious Roots even spawned a whole deck of its own. It's the insipid Limited format and bizarre Cluedo tie-in that held MKM back, but they really held it back.

3. Streets of New Capenna

Speaking of Limited holding a set back, SNC slots nicely into third place.

There was a lot to like about SNC on the surface. I actually think it was an interesting set-up for a plane, though I seem to be in the minority. Its impact on Constructed was largely positive, with tri-lands like Xander's Lounge helping mana bases across the board. There were a bunch of cool commanders, too.

The draft format was figured out in about ten minutes, though. This is always an issue in modern Limited, but SNC was the most salient example. Azorius () was the best deck, followed by the other part of the Bant/Brokers () shard, Selesnya (). White got insane cards at every rarity, and no other color could keep up. Inspiring Overseer, a common, was the 8th best card in the set.

SNC is not just one of the worst Limited formats of recent years, it might be one of the worst of all time.

2. Ixalan

I still vividly remember my first game of Ixalan Limited. I played against a friend at the pre-release, and the entire match was over in five minutes. Nobody blocked until they were forced to on the final turn of the game. The person on the play won every game, which meant I won 2-1 by virtue of winning the die roll.

That was Limited for four months: tons of efficient threats, next-to-no cheap removal. It's one thing to have aggressive decks be good but they become a problem when they invalidate other strategies entirely.

This was supposed to be a kindred set, but most synergy was nullified by the game being over before it mattered. Dinosaurs, like Werewolves earlier in this list, were just way too slow. Merfolk were okay, but struggled to keep up with Pirates. Vampires were there, too, I guess. Mostly the good Vampires and Pirates were the hard-to-block or hard-to-kill threats. The fact that they had a supposedly-relevant creature type often didn't matter at all.

Ixalan Limited was so bad that I don't feel the need to talk much about Constructed here. I will simply point out how this problem ran over into Standard. Did you know that Rampaging Ferocidon from XLN was the first Red card to ever be banned in Standard?

1. Marvel's Spider-Man

Many, many virtual column inches have been spent on the failings of Spider-Man. I don't think there is much for me to say that hasn't been said countless times before. SPM represents everything rotten about Magic's state. Forget about hat sets, this was Magic as Funko Pop - a hollow, soulless imitation of the real thing. It was Hasbro saying, "look, Spider-Man. Give us money."

I've talked a lot about Limited in this article, but SPM's draft format was so bad that it doesn't even warrant further discussion. It was an afterthought in terms of the product design, so I'll leave it as an afterthought here.