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Jul 18, 2011 -- 5:37AM, rmgustaf wrote:

"admits" "says" "notes" "says simply"

This article would have driven my journalism professor insane!

Would you mind explaining why, for those of us who have never taken such a class?

@chronego: artifacts in core sets have been scaled back EXACTLY for the reason you stated. If you want to play a mono deck, you have to be aggressive enough to pull it off.. Or buddy up another color. R&D learned that lesson and also use the lack of artifacts to make the color pie really matter. True, they exist in the game but not in the Draft or Block level.

Consider it like an RTS game on the computer. If game designers didn't vary the maps and units available each level what fun would that be.  If too many people are playing the same thing, take it away and give other people a chance to win!

BANDING!
I think under the NEW combat rules Banding makes sense... It's a great foil to the new deathtouch rules. In a Lure + Greater Basalisk play, it would make the opponent really think... A Wurm becomes an interesting blocker first if it can absorb enough damage to spare the really good 1/1 from dying. It also provides a way to bend "attacker chooses damage" order.. Again, mostly in White... We should get it back. Bands with other can go.. It was pointlessly complicated versus the "all but 1 bands rule before"

Jul 19, 2011 -- 3:43PM, mabhatter wrote:

@chronego: artifacts in core sets have been scaled back EXACTLY for the reason you stated. If you want to play a mono deck, you have to be aggressive enough to pull it off.. Or buddy up another color. R&D learned that lesson and also use the lack of artifacts to make the color pie really matter. True, they exist in the game but not in the Draft or Block level.   Consider it like an RTS game on the computer. If game designers didn't vary the maps and units available each level what fun would that be.  If too many people are playing the same thing, take it away and give other people a chance to win!

Fair enough. I didn't think much before posting that; I kind of regret it now. Mono-color decks having all answers available would make every color like Blue, or even better, and this is not a Good Thing. And also, in hindsight, I realized that Black being unable to handle two types of permanents is essential for balancing the color, since it can hit both cards in the hand and creatures better than any other color.

Still, I am kind of sad to see almost no mono-color decks played any more. My inner Vorthos wants to see more mages like the Planeswalkers, who pick a single color and make it work. That seems more like what Magic would be, at least to me. When every mage runs around wielding two or three colors at minimum, the color philosophies tend to weaken as they no longer have any strong representatives. And with so many dual lands around these days, there's almost no penalty for slipping into a second color to cover your weaknesses, which kind of defeats the entire point of playing mono-color decks: if your two-color deck running twelve dual lands AND fetchlands to thin your deck can be almost as consistent, why play just one color?

Then again, Ravnica was and still is my favorite block ( Orzhov forever! ) so I can definitely see why two-color decks are fun.

As much as I'd buy it anyways to harvest the cards, I'd hate a pre-built cube for the same reasons I hate pre-built ANYTHING. Deckbuilding is my favorite part of Magic, so anything that takes that part away bugs me. Still, after they were willing to drop Sol Ring & Lightning Greaves (Plus a large number of mythics) in commander, it would be interesting to see what they'd be willing to drop in a cube. The only issue for them would be selling it: It would need to contain 360 high quality cards to be a real cube, and the Commander decks with their 100 were already $30. Still, there might be enough interested buyers for it to be worth producing.