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1 year ago ::
Apr 19, 2012 - 11:50PM
#41
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Date Joined:
Aug 26, 2008
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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.
It has been legal for around 10 years but durning most of that time land destruction and grindy stuff like capsize and winters orb kept combo in check, it was too slow during affinity and astral slide. Mana leak gets worse with lots of small must answer spells and snapcaster gives you 2. Mana leak may not be the biggest problem but it certainly makes the game much less enjoyable when I get to sit and watch my opponent durdule for 15 turns or just tell me no I can't play cards while he beats me a single creature.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 20, 2012 - 12:06AM
#42
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Date Joined:
May 20, 2005
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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.
It has been legal for around 10 years but durning most of that time land destruction and grindy stuff like capsize and winters orb kept combo in check, it was too slow during affinity and astral slide. Mana leak gets worse with lots of small must answer spells and snapcaster gives you 2. Mana leak may not be the biggest problem but it certainly makes the game much less enjoyable when I get to sit and watch my opponent durdule for 15 turns or just tell me no I can't play cards while he beats me a single creature.
I would agree, but in this case I'd still blame the efficient creature beating hard just because the opponent is able to keep the game in a state that would otherwise be a stalemate. If it weren't for Delver, Snapcaster Mage, Stoneforge Mystic, and maybe Geist, just spamming counters wouldn't be nearly as powerful.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 20, 2012 - 12:14AM
#43
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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.
You're right that they're blaming the thing that's always been there: efficient, universal countermagic. But the problem with your argument is that you assume that the fact that it's always been there in the past means that it should be there in the present, or in the future. And that's not what R&D believes.
Yes, efficient threats backed up by efficient countermagic can present a problem. But reducing the strength of the countermagic is just as valid a solution as reducing the strength of the threats--which way R&D does it is solely a matter of preference: what would they prefer the game to look like? And R&D has decided in this case that they'd like to solve the problem by reducing the strength of the countermagic.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real.
--Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
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1 year ago ::
Apr 20, 2012 - 12:33AM
#44
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Date Joined:
Apr 23, 2006
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This card seems like reasonable hate. Running it alongside M10/Innistrad duals makes those lands slightly less reliable. Choosing the creature type for Cavern will occassionaly (depending on deck) be a skill test. Titans can still be snagged, although usually at that point the damage is already done. This might make land hate itself a valuable addition to control decks. And, of course, Leak is still awesome when they don't draw one of these.
There's also an opportunity cost now in runing Lingering Souls (another example of a spell that probably got pushed too hard): your beefy broken spell is still vulnerable to Mana Leak.
People need to stop complaining and realize that Magic is first and foremost a game of change. That's what makes it interesting, challenging, and fun. If it stars warping a format, it will be banned in that format.
That said, I am a bit worried about the proliferation of 'non-interactive' creatures. Thrun, Geist, Stalker, and Sigarda all demand sweepers and Stalker doesn't even interact with other creatures on the board. A little is good, too much is bad... the game still needs room for choices and player skill to make a difference in outcomes. Still the general trend of making creatures better has had a fantastic positive effect on the game.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 20, 2012 - 12:41AM
#45
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Date Joined:
Jan 16, 2011
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The google decks 'delver' crowd will be adding 4 ghost quarters to their basket as these start I show up. Shame this is going to be a pricey rare like Snapcaster is/was.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 20, 2012 - 12:47AM
#46
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I love the card for how it enables Tribal decks of all kinds, but I think Vapor Snag  is by far the more format warping card in Standard. Who thought that it would become the go-to removal spell, so much that people judge cards by whether they "Die to Vapor Snag"? When you get hit with Snag, Snapcaster, Snag on turn four after your opponent has flipped an early Delver or a T3 Geist, it's almost impossible to come back.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 20, 2012 - 12:54AM
#47
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Date Joined:
Aug 25, 2003
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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...
I disagree with you on undrying and miracle, but I totally agree on hexproof. I had the good fortune of having both an Invisible Stalker and a Butcher's Cleaver in my pool during the Innistrad prerelease, and drawing those two together was nuts and would end the game then and there. That just turns the game into a race. It's the least interactive game state I've ever seen. For all the crap that shadow gets, Wizards is extremely comfortable printing cards which have about as much interactivity as shadow (because, really, who's going to keep his Stalker on the defense?).
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.
You're right that they're blaming the thing that's always been there: efficient, universal countermagic. But the problem with your argument is that you assume that the fact that it's always been there in the past means that it should be there in the present, or in the future. And that's not what R&D believes.
Yes, efficient threats backed up by efficient countermagic can present a problem. But reducing the strength of the countermagic is just as valid a solution as reducing the strength of the threats--which way R&D does it is solely a matter of preference: what would they prefer the game to look like? And R&D has decided in this case that they'd like to solve the problem by reducing the strength of the countermagic.
Here's the problem I see: Wizards has made removal a lot worse by printing so many insanely good hexproof creatures. And what works very well against hexproof? Counters, because they're the only real way to interact with them. Thrun is the only uncounterable creature in Standard right now. I can name half a dozen hexproof creatures from the top of my head, and I don't even know my standard sets that well. I personally think they've gone too far with hexproof (shroud is a lot fairer, in my opinion). Cavern of Souls addresses the issue (the fact that countermagic has become a lot more powerful) but not the underlying reason.
Of course, it's a legitimate debate whether or not WotC should address the underlying reasons, but I personally dislike the current mindset of favouring non-interactivity and feel that Wizards would do better make everything else worse rather than making creatures obscenely good (or, at the very least, make hexproof tertiary in blue rather than the secondary it seems to be getting).
Also, mythic power creep sucks.
Zindaras' meta is like a fossil, ancient and its secrets yet to be uncovered. Only men of yore, long dead, knew of it.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 20, 2012 - 1:26AM
#48
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Date Joined:
Apr 20, 2012
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This might make land hate itself a valuable addition to control decks. And, of course, Leak is still awesome when they don't draw one of these.
Mana leak is *not* still awesome when your opponent doesn't draw on of these, and here's why. One of the (somewhat) balancing factors of countermagic is the way it forces you to play around having it in your deck--you be able to leave mana open in your opponent's main phase in order for it do you any good at all. Until you've sucessfully countered something, you're playing at a disadvantage--you're sacrificing developing your own board in order to disrupt your opponent's threats. But any reasonably competent player is going to hold back the cavern of souls whenever possible--dropping it only to play his most significant threat (Geist, Hero of Bladehold, one of the Titans). So now not only are you sacrificing your own development when you sit back with a counter, but you're gambling against the very likely probability of your opponent playing an unanswerable threat for your trouble. Imagine, if you will, that mana leak said "flip a coin, if heads, counter target spell unless it's controller pays 3, if tails, return this card to your hand and untap 2 lands." It would never be played. Nobody in their right mind is going to disrupt their own tempo for the chance to maybe answer an opponent's big threat.
Nor is land hate any sort of answer. By the time your land removal hit (even the instant speed ghost quarter), they've already cast their threat with the Cavern, and you're out a card for very little overall effect.
The fact is, the very existence of Cavern of Souls in the metagame makes mana leak a much less viable inclusion in a deck, whether or not the Cavern is drawn or even run in any given matchup. Now, that seems to be part (or most) of the point of printing it, but consider the effects. The decks that are most hurt aren't delver decks (which have numerous ways to adapt), but rather UB, Esper and Grixis control decks, which have been a significant, but hardly dominant or degenerate part of the metagame up until now. The article contains some good reasoning for why the card should be printed, but dismantling an (apparently) healthy part of the metagame just to take a feeble shot at a degenerate part doesn't seem like sound reasoning to me.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 20, 2012 - 1:35AM
#49
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Date Joined:
Oct 28, 2006
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I think it's been apparent for a while that they're trying to encourage blocking, which is something we used to accept "never happens in constructed.". That is a worthwhile goal, but also a very difficult one. (And cards like Invisible Stalker certainly don't help.). And I've said before that everything should be answerable, so I'm always happy for discard hosers and counter hate in an environment.
But with regard to counters I think they've been making permission worse and encouraging people to hate on the cards while simultaneously covering their inherent weakness. To use a counter you have to keep mana up until the time of your opponent's choosing. You can't counter the creature on the table from last turn, nor the one sitting in their hand: it's stack or never. That's a huge weakness the opponent can exploit (though many would rather cry than learn, as may be inevitable.)
But the reason that weakness doesn't seem to matter is because R&D keeps making it easy to keep mana open! Faeries had flash. Snapcaster has flash. Delver costs 1, and Mystic cost only 2 while offering big equipment instantly. Is WotC so enamored with their new top-down design system that they've forgotten what we all used to know? You beat counters by using your mana better than them. Instead of making Mana Leak out to be the new Mana Drain, how about just giving blue back the weaknesses it was always supposed to have?
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1 year ago ::
Apr 20, 2012 - 2:01AM
#50
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Leaving aside that any creature with more than 1 power functions perfectly well in a goldfish match, how exactly does he contend that spells are better than creatures just because they aren't delayed by a single turn? Spells only happen once. Would you print a spell that says "Deal 20 damage to target player"? Well, every creature is potentially such a spell. I'd say that's a much bigger advantage than just happening a little faster. Card advantage is a thing, remember?
That simplistic theoretical thinking is what Wizards figured in the early days as well. That didn't work out that well.
I disagree with you on undrying and miracle, but I totally agree on hexproof. I had the good fortune of having both an Invisible Stalker and a Butcher's Cleaver in my pool during the Innistrad prerelease, and drawing those two together was nuts and would end the game then and there. That just turns the game into a race. It's the least interactive game state I've ever seen. For all the crap that shadow gets, Wizards is extremely comfortable printing cards which have about as much interactivity as shadow (because, really, who's going to keep his Stalker on the defense?).
Wizards is NOT okay with Stalker, they see it as a mistake.
Here's the problem I see: Wizards has made removal a lot worse by printing so many insanely good hexproof creatures. And what works very well against hexproof? Counters, because they're the only real way to interact with them. Thrun is the only uncounterable creature in Standard right now. I can name half a dozen hexproof creatures from the top of my head, and I don't even know my standard sets that well. I personally think they've gone too far with hexproof (shroud is a lot fairer, in my opinion). Cavern of Souls addresses the issue (the fact that countermagic has become a lot more powerful) but not the underlying reason.
I feel the problem is Hexproof in blue. How many of the cards with Hexproof causing problems in Standard are blue, and how many of those are green?
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