Testing if Controller::set($data) works in 3.0

ArticlesController.php

<?php
//Controller

namespace App\Controller;

use App\Controller\AppController;

class ArticlesController extends AppController {
 public function beforeRender(\Cake\Event\Event $event) {
     parent::beforeRender($event);
     debug($this->viewVars);
 }

/**
 * View method
 *
 * @throws NotFoundException
 * @param string $id
 * @return void
 */
	public function view($id = null) {
		$article = $this->Articles->get($id, [
			'contain' => []
		]);
		$this->set($article);
	}
}

/*
 * my view returned `[]` in the debug
 * but when i did 
 * $this->set(compact('article')); //OR
 * $this->set('article', $article);
 * it had the article object