A lot of folks are hopeful for the return of Lightning Bolt and Doom Blade. I am uncertain as to whether Wizards will put them in Standard right now. I am pessimistically hopeful.
There is one card that I thought would be a shoe-in for Ixalan - Birds of Paradise. I figured it was a flavor slam dunk. Especially with some 3-color tribes. The only reason that I can figure that it didn't get printed in Ixalan is that it is in Dominaria.
Thoughts?
We agree, those are desired cards, but all have been judged too powerful for the standard wizards wants; they've said as much in several articles on the mothership. My prediction is the players' desire for those cards will be satisfied with new art reprints in 25th anniversary set, not in Standard. But I can see an outside chance Wizards breaks from their "new standard" and print a really overpowered card in standard because they have more of a chance to print narrow answers in the core set if the new superpowered cards get out of hand.
I'm thinking wizards plays it safe in standard while giving players reprints of cards like doomblade, birds, and bolt or cards like those that have been reprinted a lot - they don't lose much reprint equity that way. As Wizards is a company, I'm basing my predictions on what a company would do in their best interests - not so much what players want. As much as they want to make fans happy with powerful cards they have to be careful about the hordes of complainers when a powerful card 'breaks' standard.
@Soren841, that kind of hits your point as well - wizards makes very little money from legacy and vintage formats - the cards in those decks are purchased in the secondary markets. Sure, they can reprint sought after cards to make sure boxes get cracked, but they can only do that so many times before they use up all their reprint equity. Also, as more boxes get cracked for chase cards it drives down the value of all the other cards in the set. This means it is less likely that the average pack-buyer gets a $ rare, so they are not encouraged to keep cracking packs at home. At some point this costs wizards more in sales than they make from the websites cracking sealed product trying to find the chase card.. In articles on the mothership wizards talks about this and how they try to get 2 or 3 cards each new standard set that MAY shake up older formats.
Anyway, that's just my prediction for the set's power level, based on my belief wizards will do what they think is ťhe best way to make the most $ while upsetting the fewest fans. I'm not saying anyone else is wrong