After looking through the spoiler a few dozen times, building decklists and playing a little bit on MTGO, you start to notice some things. While this isn’t a funny “ha ha” type of list, it’s just things that I find interesting. Yeah, a little anti-climatic explanation, but you read the title, you knew it was coming.
There are 15 mythics in M11. Each color has three (The Titan cycle and the Planeswalker cycle), except Red. Its Mythic is in the artifacts section for Platinum Angel. Platinum Angel has been printed three times before (Mirrodin, 10th and M10) but never in a supplemental product (Duel Deck/FtV, etc). To make up for the lack of another Mythic, Red got an extra Rare.
Of the “Baneslayer” cycle that the rest of the colors got, Blue’s was the only one that wasn’t a creature (which makes sense). Of the two new creatures in the Baneslayer cycle, both are ineffective against the Angel; Gaea’s Revenge has 5 toughness and dies to it because of first strike damage and even with Demon of Death’s Gate trample if the Baneslayer’s controller blocks with said Angel, they still gains 1 more life than they lose. Oh, and the Baneslayer still survives thanks to the protection from Demons clause. In fact, Gaea’s Revenge might be the most “original” of the three new designs; Time Reversal is a fixed Time Spiral (It a “fixed” Timetwister) and Demon of Death’s Gate is a bigger, better(?) Delraich.
Green has 8 rares in M11; 6 of them are creatures, which is understandable since Green’s the creature color. One is part of the Leyline cycle and the other is the intro pack foil rare; that of course being the only one of the that’s not a creature. For comparison sake: White 8 total, 4 creatures; Blue 8 total, 4 creatures; Black 8 total, 4 creatures; Red 9 total, 5 creatures; and Artifacts 6 total, 2 creatures.
There have been no uncommon lands since 10th (the Manlands). This is the first time since uncommon lands were introduced in 4th Edition that back to back Core sets did not have uncommon lands. Of course, some of that reason has to do with the smaller Core Sets in general.
Two of the original five boons are present (Giant Growth and Lightning Bolt). The boons had the effect of some of three for one mana, but there’s the start of another boon cycle as well, this time at two mana. Mana Leak and Pyretic Ritual both do something for three, however two cards in a cycle doesn’t make. In fact, it’s funny that both of Red’s cards in the “cycle” has a counter in the other part of the “cycle”: Bolt deals 3 damage to a creature, Giant Growth adds 3 toughness; Mana Leak makes you pay 3 more mana while Pyretic Ritual adds 3 mana to your mana pool.
Reverberate’s art looks like Michael Jackson.
MTG Color Pie 
Yeah, the Gaea’s Revenge fail struck me as well. No evasion, and you can’t even give it enough toughness to swat down the Baneslayer? Nice creature, creature color.
At least green has Plummet now…
Something I found funny was the cardinality on the cool new Air Servant–you can find the numbers 1-5 on there somewhere, which I thought was cute. Mystic Speculation from Future Sight is another card that does this, with 1-3.
To continue the theme:
For the first time ever green has 3 wurms in a core set.
There are more vampires than zombies for the first time in a core set. (If you consider that Grave Titan produces zombies the score is an even 5-5)
Cancel has the least amount of text in the set.
They put a quote from Seneca on Dark Tutelage!!
8 people have their head on fire in M11…
I officially nominate this article for any “Best of 2010” considerations on the grounds that, “Reverberate’s art looks like Michael Jackson,” is simply the best closer ever. Ever.