So instead of looking at the various problems that exist with cards in the format to see if there is maybe a better solution than this, they print a card that will be a 4-of in every deck (Wolf-Run: name Giant, Delver: Name human for uncounterable Snaps, etc.) and then blame control elements for making standard a poor format.
PROTIP: When control decks are being completely manhandled by ramp and aggro decks, control's not the problem. Is Mana Leak good? Yes. Is it better than a 3/2 that comes down before it can even get leaked? No. Is it better than a 6/6 for 6 that often gets played on t4? Usually no.
I understand why WotC wants to push creatures, but this is completely ridiculous.
Yes, the fault for giving Blue, the tempo color, a 3/2 for 1 and a untargable 3-drop that swings for 6, is Mana Leak . I mean, seriously. Remove Delver, and make Geist of Saint Traft lose hexproof, and the Mana Leak scourge is gone. Now the control decks won't be at 10 life when they cast their first board-relevant spell, so even Leak-Snapcaster-Leak will leave them enough time to get back in the game.
It's amazing how everyone doesn't know how to evaluate cards. When evaluating a card, you can't assume that they always have it. In Magical Christmas Land where the control player always has the counterspell (and three Force of Wills), of course counterspells are stronger than removal. But what happens if you play a sweet spell, and I DON'T have one of my 4 leaks in hand? Then what if I draw Leak next turn? If it was a removal spell, I can just draw into it, kill your guy, and not be that far behind.
Counterspells exist to punish scrubs. If you play all 3- and 4-drops, then you shouldn't complain about counterspells being broken. Instead, learn about the concept of a mana curve, play your 1- and 2-drops, and then, when you want to cast your sweet 3- and 4-drops, the control player will be stuck with the choice of dealing with your threats on the board and making Leak useless, or doing nothing and hoping that you will play something worth countering. You'll find that you win more, the counterspells do nothing that you care about, and you'll become a better Magic player.
Wizards ate my account that needed no sig, so I guess I need one now.
Counterspells exist to punish scrubs. If you play all 3- and 4-drops, then you shouldn't complain about counterspells being broken. Instead, learn about the concept of a mana curve, play your 1- and 2-drops, and then, when you want to cast your sweet 3- and 4-drops, the control player will be stuck with the choice of dealing with your threats on the board and making Leak useless, or doing nothing and hoping that you will play something worth countering. You'll find that you win more, the counterspells do nothing that you care about, and you'll become a better Magic player.
Or better yet, ignore all that nonsense, and just play counterspells! Because the moment you build a countermagic deck, you'll pretty much never have to worry about "playing around" much of anything. You'll also receive a Blue Elitist Membership Card that entitles you to gripe about "scrubs" and "casuals" tainting M:tG's proud history of largely-uncontested U/x Control dominance.
I have a hard time believing that all of the countermages themselves truly think that their brand of removal is fair and balanced. The privileged are often ignorant of their own privilege, but the ones that aren't might say whatever it takes to try to stay in power....
Obligatory Dragon (M) Creature - Dragon Flying Tokenism (This card exists to fulfill a quota.) Whenever Obligatory Dragon attacks, I dunno, maybe it deals damage to something or other. The automated Dragon Dispenser broke down and no one here knows how to design a Dragon card while sober. Hey, tell you what, try attacking with this thing and then shoot us an email to tell us what happens. We'll probably print it in a Core Set. 5/5
Yes, the fault for giving Blue, the tempo color, a 3/2 for 1 and a untargable 3-drop that swings for 6, is Mana Leak . I mean, seriously. Remove Delver, and make Geist of Saint Traft lose hexproof, and the Mana Leak scourge is gone. Now the control decks won't be at 10 life when they cast their first board-relevant spell, so even Leak-Snapcaster-Leak will leave them enough time to get back in the game.
It's amazing how everyone doesn't know how to evaluate cards. When evaluating a card, you can't assume that they always have it. In Magical Christmas Land where the control player always has the counterspell (and three Force of Wills), of course counterspells are stronger than removal. But what happens if you play a sweet spell, and I DON'T have one of my 4 leaks in hand? Then what if I draw Leak next turn? If it was a removal spell, I can just draw into it, kill your guy, and not be that far behind.
Counterspells exist to punish scrubs. If you play all 3- and 4-drops, then you shouldn't complain about counterspells being broken. Instead, learn about the concept of a mana curve, play your 1- and 2-drops, and then, when you want to cast your sweet 3- and 4-drops, the control player will be stuck with the choice of dealing with your threats on the board and making Leak useless, or doing nothing and hoping that you will play something worth countering. You'll find that you win more, the counterspells do nothing that you care about, and you'll become a better Magic player.
Let me see, i want to win from blue without using blue, so i need good 1 and 2 drops so i dont get ruined by mana leak, hey why not play blue so i HAVE the best 1 and 2 drops in the format (snapcaster, delver) but wait, i didnt want to be blue, whatever: now im in blue already why not run counterspells on my own, pretty silly the only way to beat blue is using blue... so casting my 1 and 2 drops is not going to make me a better player when my opponent has the f*cking best 1 and 2 drops in the format. so let me see, you say: "Instead, learn about the concept of a mana curve, play your 1- and 2-drops, and then, when you want to cast your sweet 3- and 4-drops, the control player will be stuck with the choice of dealing with your threats on the board and making Leak useless, or doing nothing and hoping that you will play something worth countering. You'll find that you win more, the counterspells do nothing that you care about, and you'll become a better Magic player."
but hey, i need a 3 or 4 drop to beat your 1 drop, i dont see how this ever is going to require skill in the current format sure they should fix it by removing the blue option to race any colour that should be more aggresive (so get rid of delver and friends, we agree on that part)
Yes, the fault for giving Blue, the tempo color, a 3/2 for 1 and a untargable 3-drop that swings for 6, is Mana Leak . I mean, seriously. Remove Delver, and make Geist of Saint Traft lose hexproof, and the Mana Leak scourge is gone. Now the control decks won't be at 10 life when they cast their first board-relevant spell, so even Leak-Snapcaster-Leak will leave them enough time to get back in the game.
It's amazing how everyone doesn't know how to evaluate cards. When evaluating a card, you can't assume that they always have it. In Magical Christmas Land where the control player always has the counterspell (and three Force of Wills), of course counterspells are stronger than removal. But what happens if you play a sweet spell, and I DON'T have one of my 4 leaks in hand? Then what if I draw Leak next turn? If it was a removal spell, I can just draw into it, kill your guy, and not be that far behind.
Counterspells exist to punish scrubs. If you play all 3- and 4-drops, then you shouldn't complain about counterspells being broken. Instead, learn about the concept of a mana curve, play your 1- and 2-drops, and then, when you want to cast your sweet 3- and 4-drops, the control player will be stuck with the choice of dealing with your threats on the board and making Leak useless, or doing nothing and hoping that you will play something worth countering. You'll find that you win more, the counterspells do nothing that you care about, and you'll become a better Magic player.
Counterspells exist to punish scrubs. If you play all 3- and 4-drops, then you shouldn't complain about counterspells being broken. Instead, learn about the concept of a mana curve, play your 1- and 2-drops, and then, when you want to cast your sweet 3- and 4-drops, the control player will be stuck with the choice of dealing with your threats on the board and making Leak useless, or doing nothing and hoping that you will play something worth countering. You'll find that you win more, the counterspells do nothing that you care about, and you'll become a better Magic player.
Or better yet, ignore all that nonsense, and just play counterspells! Because the moment you build a countermagic deck, you'll pretty much never have to worry about "playing around" much of anything. You'll also receive a Blue Elitist Membership Card that entitles you to gripe about "scrubs" and "casuals" tainting M:tG's proud history of largely-uncontested U/x Control dominance.
I have a hard time believing that all of the countermages themselves truly think that their brand of removal is fair and balanced. The privileged are often ignorant of their own privilege, but the ones that aren't might say whatever it takes to try to stay in power....
It's perfectly fair, regardless of how butthurt you are when I counter your creature. If I don't have the answer (answers are always weaker than threats, learn2magic) right when you cast that spell, I can't answer your threat. I can't retroactively counter a spell the same way I can blow up your threat with Doom Blade or Path to Exile. No other type of removal suffers from that drawback. It is something that is unique to counter-magic, which is (almost) exclusively unique to .
None of this has anything to do with the brokenness of hexproof, and how overpowered Geist of Saint Traft and Invisible Stalker are. Shroud is a balanced keyword. Hexproof is not. This should have been obvious to the big brains at R&D, but seeing as they seem to blame Mana Leak for the brokenness of the aforementioned cards (thus rallying -haters and bad players to their side) and print something that's actually going to make those cards better just to hose countermagic in general... well, perhaps their brains aren't so big after all.
Yes, the fault for giving Blue, the tempo color, a 3/2 for 1 and a untargable 3-drop that swings for 6, is Mana Leak . I mean, seriously. Remove Delver, and make Geist of Saint Traft lose hexproof, and the Mana Leak scourge is gone.
It would be the best soluction but hoping they will ban the blue bombs, or that they will stop printing overpowered blue cards in the future is wishful thinking. There has been Faeries, then Stoneforge (not blue itself but successful only with blue in Standard), Jace and now Delver and Geist, and they will keep coming. Since this solution is out of the table, the only remaining measure to take is to weaken other aspects of blue. You may not like it, but it is still better than the do-nothing attitude they have had in the past.
It's amazing how everyone doesn't know how to evaluate cards. When evaluating a card, you can't assume that they always have it. In Magical Christmas Land where the control player always has the counterspell (and three Force of Wills), of course counterspells are stronger than removal. But what happens if you play a sweet spell, and I DON'T have one of my 4 leaks in hand? Then what if I draw Leak next turn? If it was a removal spell, I can just draw into it, kill your guy, and not be that far behind.
Solution: play your removal (because control plays removal for that reason) on the creature that was cast this turn, then use the newly drawn counterspell against a later spell, since permission is rarely dead in the late game (even Mana Leak holds power until the very late game and very few threats are any harmful at that point). You frame it as if playing a counterspell would prevent you to play any other form of answer, which isn't the case.
And the "it's not broken because you will not always draw it on time" argument is weak. "Sol Ring isn't broken, if you do not draw it on first turn you no longer can accel 4 mana on turn 2 and in the late game it is mana flood"
Counterspells exist to punish scrubs. If you play all 3- and 4-drops, then you shouldn't complain about counterspells being broken. Instead, learn about the concept of a mana curve, play your 1- and 2-drops, and then, when you want to cast your sweet 3- and 4-drops, the control player will be stuck with the choice of dealing with your threats on the board and making Leak useless, or doing nothing and hoping that you will play something worth countering. You'll find that you win more, the counterspells do nothing that you care about, and you'll become a better Magic player.
Aaaand here comes the obligatory strawman. If you play all 3 and 4 drops, you will lose against everything, not just counterspells. Anyone packing a high content of 1 and 2 drops is going to win against counterspells but lose against anything else. When control (read: blue) is favored against almost anything and its hoser deck is unplayable against the rest, everyone sane (the pros) will choose control and control will dominate at the top tables, which is what nobody but the control players want. A card like this will help non aggro decks to have a narrow answer against a part of control, that's it. A card like this diversifies the metagame rather than stagnating it.
If Limited gets in the way of printing good Constructed cards...
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.... (cutting for length, this was a very good well thought out post go back and read it again. (#37))
The thing with mana leak is that it very good at tripping out an early threat. However if you play against right, you can make an early trade. Which is why the real power behind delver decks, is the delver of secrets. With out it, it's really got nothing. The thing with a delver vrs agro, or ramp match up is that it is all about the first 1~3 turns. In the first turn I want to play a dork, and you play delver, turn two I play 3 cmc threat, and you mana leak it. You had to leave 2 up for that, which means you essentially skipped you second turned, like a controll deck. Now with out delver, we'd be even maybe I have the advantage becuase I still have the dork. However with delver you have the advantage, becuase you now have a 3/2 flyer to my dork. Hence why the tempo deck has a huge advantage. But if you couldn't have countered my threat, you'd have to use something like vapor snag on it, which is OK, but I'm just going to recast it so you've only bought a turn. More fair. Thats what i think R&D is trying to get at. But missed, if they wanted to shut down this kinda thing, a 2/2 fly with first strike for 1~2cmc would have been better.
However, I now /know/ that I can garrenty that my big theat will get through I don't have to bait the leak on on second turn. Instead what I'm going to do is turn 1 dork, turn 2 dork + ramp, turn 3 inferno titan and whipe your board. The best you can do is delay me a turn, by leaking the dork or the ramp, but your still getting totally boned on turn 4. And if you do leak the ramp or dork it is effectively costing you your second turn. Not what I'm hoping R&D was after. The land not only garrenties that I /can/ cast my big threat and that it /will/ resolve, but it also fixes my mana to make it easier to do so, and does it with no draw back.
It would be the best soluction but hoping they will ban the blue bombs, or that they will stop printing overpowered blue cards in the future is wishful thinking. There has been Faeries, then Stoneforge (not blue itself but successful only with blue in Standard), Jace and now Delver and Geist, and they will keep coming. Since this solution is out of the table, the only remaining measure to take is to weaken other aspects of blue. You may not like it, but it is still better than the do-nothing attitude they have had in the past.
Blue bombs isn't the problem. The problem is powerful blue weenies. Blue is the best tempo color, with bounce and counterspelling. Tempo + efficient small creatures is brutal. They've said in the past that they can't give White counterspells and/or bounce for this very reason. Yet they then turned around and gave Blue the small creatures that prevented White from getting the counterspells and bounce.
A bomb, at a large cost, is a finisher for Blue. By the time the blue mage can cast a five or six mana creature, they've likely stabilized; if they haven't then one bomb isn't going to help much since they'll have lost so much ground. However, when Blue can cast incredibly efficient creatures on the first or second turn, all bets are off. They won't lose ground, because they're able to race from the very start. When Blue already shines in late-game, post-stabilization, giving Blue a brutally strong early-game is a mistake. A mistake which, for whatever reason, Wizards of the Coast does (as you pointed out) seem far too keen to make.
But just because they haven't shown a willingness to fix this in recent times doesn't mean it's not the best option. If they truly don't consider it as an option, then they need to be replaced with people who do, because weakening the thing that makes Blue blue is NOT a good choice. Choosing to keep the efficient weenies and nerf the control not only removes the main control color and thus nerfs that entire strategy, it also bleeds the colors and begins to upset the entire purpose of the color pie.
I'll say it one more time, and hope Wizards is actually listening: Stop printing efficient beatdown creatures in Blue!
Mana leak is not the issue. Snapcaster mage isn't even really the issue. It's extremely powerful, and allows for a lot of versatility, but the primary reason for blue control being so dominant is the exact thing that Zac seems to defend: the extremely efficient threats in the form of geist of saint traft and delver of secrets. Those two creatures are far too efficient to find a home in blue, and the reason is because of the very nature of blue; control.
Edit: I read the post above mine after posting. Really it says everything I could have hoped to say, better.
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