Since it debuted in 2011, Innistrad has been one of Magic's most popular settings. It was an instant classic, and it's no surprise that Wizards returned to its well several times. Has it always gone as well as that first visit, though? Well, with Halloween right around the corner, what better time could there be to look back at Magic's original horror setting (kind of) and rank its sets from worst to best.

7.Avacyn Restored

Look, I'm a Limited-focused Magic player. I know AVR has tons of commander favourites, cool legends like Avacyn, Angel of Hope and even some Constructed staples like Grislebrand, but the draft format sucked. Miracle was a miserable mechanic, even if it did gift us the best gif on the entire internet, and in Limited, where you had very few ways to manipulate the top of your deck, it felt even swingier than it does in Constructed. It wasn't just Miracle, though. Soulbond was too good, "Loners" were too bad and Mist Raven at common, in a set where flickering things was a key mechanic, was absolutely egregious.

6.Dark Ascension

Similar to the above, but turned down a notch. DKA is not a fondly-remembered set. Indeed, it's not really a set that's remembered at all. It's the poster child, in my mind, for why we don't do blocks anymore. It added very little to the original Innistrad draft format - except that Lingering Souls was obnoxiously good. Fateful Hour sounds cool but was usually a nothing mechanic. DKA did have a surprisingly big impact on Constructed, and Lost in The Woods is one of the funnier Limited build-around cards of all time, but as a Limited format it was entirely forgettable.

5.Midnight Hunt

MID gets a lot of flack because it was a werewolf set in which werewolves kinda sucked. That's fair, but as a Limited format it was fine. Yeah, Blue was maybe a bit too good, but it was powerful in a way some of us found enjoyable. Yeah, Organ Hoarder was maybe a lot too good, but... okay, no, I got nothing for that. If I'm being fair, though, it's hard to put this format any higher when the colour imbalance was so askew. I liked it well enough, but most people get bored of playing Blue mirrors in 80% of games.

4.Eldritch Moon

Full disclaimer here: I have almost no experience of EMN. I was on a bit of a break from Magic when it came out, and it's never had a proper release on Arena, so most of my experience with its cards came from Cube and Innistrad Remastered. When I looked around at Limited-focused subreddits and forums, this seems to have got mixed reviews. The set before it was quite popular but what EMN added to that recipe seems to be "not much." By all accounts, it wasn't a bad format, just not a great one, so somewhere in the middle seems fair.

3.Crimson Vow

VOW got a lot of things right that its predecessor (MID) got wrong. Vampires were great in this vampire set, colour balance was noticeably better and the power level of the lower rarity cards was much flatter. Bloodtithe Harvester stood out on its own, sure, but it's a gold card and it isn't entirely surrounded by other rakdos cards at the top of the 17lands data. Blood tokens were a great addition to Magic as a whole, and they played out very nicely in Limited, making sure you almost never ran out of stuff to do. Not an all-timer by any stretch of the imagination, but solid enough.

2.Shadows Over Innistrad

As I mentioned in the EMN section, I wasn't playing much Magic when these sets came out, but I did 4-0 a pre-release thanks to Arlinn Kord and Wolf of Devil's Reach. You'd think I have fond memories of the format, but since I turned up to midnight pre-release on a whim, after a night out with workmates, I don't really have memories of it at all. Still, I know a lot of people love this set, and having played its greatest hits in Innistrad Remastered, I can see why. Tons of fun build-around cards, Investigate making its debut and Madness arguably being the best its ever been. This set was full of great individual cards and fun mechanics, but it can't quite beat...

1.Innistrad

It had to be, didn't it? While I do think Innistrad hasn't aged as well as one might hope in terms of gameplay, it really ushered in a new era of Limited design and deserves all the praise it gets. It doesn't play super well as a flashback format, since the format was solved over a decade ago, but it was a revelation back in its day. ISD was a breath of fresh air with its Spider Spawnings and Burning Vengeances showing that Limited could also have Constructed-style game plans that weren't just about efficient removal and creatures. You could pull off honest-to-God combos in a retail draft set, and it was glorious.

It had its flaws, even at the time (looking at you, Invisible Stalker), but Innistrad's enduring impact on Magic is too great for it to be anywhere else on this list. Even Mark Rosewater has this as his 2nd most influential set of all time, and the Limited format is a big part of that.