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I wish Magic R&D would own up to more mistakes, such as giving everything hexproof when it deserves shroud. Shroud is important, because it prevents things like equipment from being tacked on to cards like Geist and Invisible Stalker. Couple that with Invisible Stalker being unblockable and you have a 1/1 that is anything but a 1/1. The real problem in standard then is that certain mechanics are being abused (not by players, necessarily, but by the game itself).

Things like hexproof and undying and undoubtedly miracle ability are all things that R&D seems to be "okay" with but otherwise make games utterly boring and short. Runechanter's Pike is an absolutely brutal piece of equipment, easily ending up as an 8/1 first strike equipment in short time with cards like forbidden alchemy, gitaxian probe, think twice, and ponder filling up the graveyard. These are all cards that aren't counters but help put counters into a player's hand.

I understand that this new land aims to fix that problem: great, now we can play creatures that can't be countered. It doesn't address the fact that runechanter's pike is being thrown onto a creature that is unblockable, or a creature like Geist that now has first strike and is putting down a 4/4 with evasion. Furthermore, it does nothing to address the aggro of Delver. Even if I play a Tragic Slip or Geistflame, I'm still making a 1 for 1 trade that sets me back one card but sets them back practically nothing. Why? Because Delver is like cream on top of a cupcake: it's really good, but it's not the whole thing. Kill a delver and now invisible stalker or geist comes out.

Blue/White and Black/Blue control and aggro (arguably) decks just aren't fun to play against. You know what's coming: a tiny little creature with runchanter's pike on it with a graveyard full of daggers. What are you going to do? Black Sun's Zenith it? Oh wait, this land doesn't protect sorceries/instants from being countered, just creatures...

Apr 19, 2012 -- 11:01PM, r4z0rs3dg3 wrote:

I also don't see why mana leak is such a big deal.  Just play around it, leave 3 mana up, or cast progressively worse threats.

Mana Leak is a huge card because it snags out early threats or hasty players. If you're trying to drop a 6 CMC and leave 3 mana open, you are setting yourself up far behind a blue player to the point where you won't be able to catch up. For all the 3 CMC drops, you can't just wait until you have 6 land out to drop them either. Naturally, Mana Leak is kind of like Frightful Delusion in a way: it becomes useless after a certain point, because your opponent will always have that extra mana. The catch here is that Frightful Delusion is appropriately costed and has an additional effect (the discard always triggers). Mana leak obviously couldn't have been 3 CMC, because than it would be strictly worse compared to Cancel or Dissipate (of course, Cancel is strictly worse than Dissipate, unless you want their cards to go to their graveyard for some reason). Should Mana Leak have been "unless that player pays 2?" Perhaps...

Counters are fundamentally a difficult concept to balance around. If you make cards uncounterable, they generally cost more and are less splashable (pyroclasm vs volcanic fallout). But there is another problem: counters rely on having mana open, and there are too many cards that are instant speed that are used instead of counters. Consider Forbidden Alchemy. This is a great card because it allows you to look 4 deep and grab the best card from that mix. Even better though, it's at instant speed and costs the same CMC as a counter. If you don't counter an opponent's card, you can play this instead at the end of their turn. That is a huge advantage, because it lets you keep your mana open just in case.

Other colors can't afford to do that though. They can't afford to keep 3 mana open, because everything they play is at sorcery speed. If it wasn't, for instance, they may wait till the end of the opponent's turn to cast something after the opponent casts forbidden alchemy, let's say. But that leads to things like circumventing summoning sickness, or triggering end of opponent turn effects. This is good for cards like Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, which is both why it has flash and costs a lot. It wouldn't be good if every card had it. This is one of the drawbacks of having so many things be instant speed. It makes leaving mana open for counters that much easier, because blue has no trade off. What is the opportunity cost of a 3 mana spell when you only have 3 mana available and it's your turn? If you're blue, it's a counter on your opponent's next turn. If all your non-counter spells were sorceries, this would be a problem, you'd be either drawing cards, or you'd be saving mana for counters. You could theoretically then say, "Well, I'll just wait till I have 6 lands so I can play one spell for 3 and leave 3 open." This is why Mana Leak is powerful. It tells the opponent that they need to have 3 extra land open, but the person casting Mana Leak only needs 2.

Apr 19, 2012 -- 11:11PM, mlanier131 wrote:

Pretty excited. I dislike that players can counter everything and then claim they won with "skill". Thanks!!! Play real magic and not this "let me play and you just sit there while I make your cards look stupid with mana leak"

Countermagic was harder to play before it got backed up by effcient threats like Delver and Geist.  And this card is primarily going to go into blue/white decks trying to resovle their creatures that are already pretty strong.

Mana Leak is not the biggest problem here; that card has been around for over ten years and didn't completely break the game.  The problem is that you let blue put a serious clock on the opponent with undercosted threats, AND be able to back it up with countermagic, early-game.  If Delver, Snapcaster Mage, and Geist were never printed, I guarantee you Mana Leak would not see nearly as much play.  You are just ignoring the giant elephant in the room and blaming something that has always been there.