No, it's not. Counterspell is undercosted. Mana Leak , on the other hand has a significant drawback incorporated into it, that it becomes useless in the late game. It is actually possible to play around. You trade off power for speed, which is perfectly fair.
Sometimes you're right. Wild Nacatl was too oppressive in Modern, so they banned it. So there is no double standard. The difference will be that the bar for aggro lies significantly higher than for countermagic for it to become unhealthily oppressive.
1) The true offender was the Fire /Grove engine. The fact that Wild Nacatl was immune to it and played in the same deck that used it gave Wild Nacatl the false appearance of being oppressive. Wild Nacatl could very safely be unbanned in Modern.
2) "...the bar for aggro lies significantly higher than for countermagic..." Is that not the exact definition of a double standard?
Look at hollywood versus art films. The second is listening to the connoisseurs. The first is the better business model.
It doesn't matter how big their market is if their product is bad. They should still listen to people who know what they're talking about. If they don't create a game with long-term value, they will have to keep making up new gimmicks to hook new players who won't stick around long because the game has no substance. Eventually they will run out of ideas and that will crash. While they might make less money in the way I suggest, a stable long-term business plan is worth that loss.
And there are many things that Oblvion Ring answers just as well as or better than Mana Leak :
Tally those two lists, and you'll find it comes out in favor of Mana Leak . That's why more people are playing that. Again, the facts are against you, and no amount of theory can refute that.
No, it's not. Counterspell is undercosted. Mana Leak , on the other hand has a significant drawback incorporated into it, that it becomes useless in the late game. It is actually possible to play around. You trade off power for speed, which is perfectly fair.
"Black Lotus is undercosted. Lion's Eye Diamond , on the other hand has a significant drawback incorporated into it [...] which is perfectly fair."
Just because A is weaker than overpowered B doesn't make A fair. Not a sound argument.
1) The true offender was the Fire /Grove engine. The fact that Wild Nacatl was immune to it and played in the same deck that used it gave Wild Nacatl the false appearance of being oppressive. Wild Nacatl could very safely be unbanned in Modern.
That is true. The point is anyway, that aggro isn't 'holy' for Wizards. Sometimes a meta is too fast, and Wizards slows it down to give other decks more chance.
2) "...the bar for aggro lies significantly higher than for countermagic..." Is that not the exact definition of a double standard?
Yeah, you're right that there are double standards, for example what archetypes Wizards wants to see at the top. Depending on what you can call double standards, rather than 'choices/preferences'. The two things you pointed at as being double standards (Mana Leak vs Oblivion Ring , unable to play against counters vs unable to play against aggro), I was showing how those are different and thus not double standards.
It doesn't matter how big their market is if their product is bad. They should still listen to people who know what they're talking about. If they don't create a game with long-term value, they will have to keep making up new gimmicks to hook new players who won't stick around long because the game has no substance. Eventually they will run out of ideas and that will crash. While they might make less money in the way I suggest, a stable long-term business plan is worth that loss.
Again, it's not just new players, but also casual players. There are a lot of long-term customers that like the way the game is now. More than those who liked how the game used to be.
Tally those two lists, and you'll find it comes out in favor of Mana Leak . That's why more people are playing that. Again, the facts are against you, and no amount of theory can refute that.
My list wasn't intended to be exhaustive and neither was yours. Please don't split hairs like that as it distracts the focus away from the real discussion.
I'm not suggesting that we move backwards at all. I'm just saying that calling Mana Leak overpowered is really going to far. It isn't showing up all that much. Same goes for Snappy . The "best" deck may use them, but there are many other decks that are also very good that do not, and many of those have favourable matchups against Delver.
I feel that blue gets unfairly singled out for being "unfun" to play against, when really, it has nothing to do with colour, but with deck style.
I once played a match of Legacy against a Wizards tribal deck abusing AEther Vial that included Patron Wizard , Voidmage Prodigy , Sower of Temptation , and Venser, Shaper Savant among other creatures. The deck very quickly established a hard lock by countering or stealing everything I played, and it was one of the most frustrating matches I have ever played.
However, I have also played several matches against Mono-Black Pox, and the feeling was no different. Even though it was Hymn to Tourach and Sinkhole blowing me out instead of Daze on a stick , it was still a hard lock and still just as frustrating.
Turning to Standard, there is a W/B "Superfriends" deck that has shown up here and there. It consists of Lingering Souls to provide chump blockers, several maindecked copies of Curse of Death's Hold , and many Wraths, sometimes full sets of both Day of Judgment and Black Sun's Zenith . This deck is built to answer every threat thrown at it in exactly the same way as a blue-based control deck, and is proobably just as frustrating to play against. Yet somehow because it does not include blue, it is more acceptable. Why?
When it comes to "unfun" decks, blue is not the problem, any deck can be "unfun" if it is built that way. It doesn't even have to be control; consistent turn 4 burn decks are just as infuriating.
Again, it's not just new players, but also casual players.
Casual players can set up their own house rules about what decks they should play. But when they step into a real tournament, even one as low-level as FNM, they are stepping into a much larger community, and they can't expect every Magic player in the world to have the same tastes as their small circle of friends.
Furthermore, it is not reasonable to expect Standard to ever be as diverse as a larger format like Modern or Legacy. The sheer difference in card pool size makes that impossible. There will always be a "dominant" deck in Standard, and trying to change that is hopeless, unless every new card is either Hill Giant or Grizzly Bears .
Much of the thread has become whether an answer [to counterspells] was needed.
My objection is that whether or not an answer was needed, this card went too far. Any of the following restrictions would seem appropriate:
legendary colorless mana only enter the battelfield tapped pay life as part of the cost
As is, this is just an auto-include land you can jam into most decks that run creatures (which is increasingly, all of them) and worry later if that was a good idea.
This, more than any analysis of the merits of the card in the first place, is why I think the designers need to take a sharp pointy stick.
I personally have a passionate hatred of all linear aggro decks, especially burn decks. When I play against such decks, I feel that they are limiting my ability to interact by playing too many creatures too fast. But do I complain and say that one-drop creatures are inherently unfair? No, I play Engineered Explosives for one (or whatever card is appropriate for the format), get a 4-for-1 or better out of it, and actually deal with the problem. I do not say that Wizards should stop printing one-drop creatures and burn spells because I dislike them.
This argument seems to say that aggro decks with a lot of 1-cmc creatures are okay because there is a specific card that hates them out. Isn't Cavern of Souls the Engineered Explosives of counterspell-hate in your argument?
My list wasn't intended to be exhaustive and neither was yours. Please don't split hairs like that as it distracts the focus away from the real discussion.
Of course I don't mean our lists. I mean taking a format, Standard or Modern, looking at all the regular-played cards, and making exhaustive lists. Mana Leak will be better against more than Oblivion Ring . Which is why people play it more.
However, I have also played several matches against Mono-Black Pox, and the feeling was no different. Even though it was Hymn to Tourach and Sinkhole blowing me out instead of Daze on a stick , it was still a hard lock and still just as frustrating.
Someone from Wizards, I think MaRo, has stated Hymn to Tourach might be the most unfun card ever made. So yeah, you have a point here, in that both Hymn-like effects and too cheap counterspells are something that Wizards avoids these days.
Turning to Standard, there is a W/B "Superfriends" deck that has shown up here and there. It consists of Lingering Souls to provide chump blockers, several maindecked copies of Curse of Death's Hold , and many Wraths, sometimes full sets of both Day of Judgment and Black Sun's Zenith . This deck is built to answer every threat thrown at it in exactly the same way as a blue-based control deck, and is proobably just as frustrating to play against. Yet somehow because it does not include blue, it is more acceptable. Why?
First of all, because of what we discussed, cards are being played. My opponent might play a wrath next turn, but that means my Acidic Slime this turn destroys something, or the Hellrider gets to attack, or the Wurmcoil Engine will give me tokens, or the Geralf's Messenger will return. Things happen. The board state changes (twice). Exiting stuff. As opposed to counterspells, which keep the board state as is.
Secondly, because there are far more ways to interact with a Wrath than there are ways to interact with a Counterspell, some examples above. (Yes you can come with counterexamples and then I'll say my list is longer and then you say neither our lists is exhaustive and then I'll say again that when you count all the relevant cards in a format, my list will be longer)
When it comes to "unfun" decks, blue is not the problem, any deck can be "unfun" if it is built that way. It doesn't even have to be control; consistent turn 4 burn decks are just as infuriating.
Again yes in theory it is true that multiple colors/archetypes can lead to unfun. It's just that historically blue decks with permission have been the boogeyman more than others.
This might be in part because of the dynamics of the mechanics. Take for example Twin versus Storm as combo decks. Twin is over when it hits and you don't have an answer. You scoop and shuffle for the next. With Storm, you have to wait because they might fizzle. Now if you take Burn versus control, there's a similar dynamic. When your life totals goes below 0, you shuffle up. When Jace, the Mind Sculptor hits, you can continue playing because you might still win, it's just not likely and not fun. (This last example with Jace was used by Wizards too when they banned it in Standard I think)
Casual players can set up their own house rules about what decks they should play. But when they step into a real tournament, even one as low-level as FNM, they are stepping into a much larger community, and they can't expect every Magic player in the world to have the same tastes as their small circle of friends.
But all those small circles add up to a substantial group. Wizards now caters more to this casual-FNM group, by trying to make the top Standard decks more in line with what casual players play. This is a shift from the previous model where casual and tournament play were two alternate universes so to speak. The target audience of the game has shifted.
Much of the thread has become whether an answer [to counterspells] was needed.
My objection is that whether or not an answer was needed, this card went too far. Any of the following restrictions would seem appropriate:
legendary colorless mana only enter the battelfield tapped pay life as part of the cost
As is, this is just an auto-include land you can jam into most decks that run creatures (which is increasingly, all of them) and worry later if that was a good idea.
This, more than any analysis of the merits of the card in the first place, is why I think the designers need to take a sharp pointy stick.
It's not quite that bad. If your deck wants to cast multiple creature spells that don't share a creature type, this land will only give you colorless mana for some of them, which is then a drawback compared to a basic land.
It certainly looks like an automatic four-of in tribal decks, though. And it's a rare. I don't like that.
My retort regarding Engineered Explosives was not intended to say that because there is one specific answer, everything is OK. What I meant was that I actually play something to deal with the weakness that my deck has, as opposed to just complaining about it. The parallel that should be drawn from this is that if you are having trouble dealing with counterspells, then you should sideboard in Autumn's Veil , Pyroblast , Grand Abolisher , Duress , or some other control hate card. And yes, some of your spells will get countered. But if you play well, you will be able to bait and draw out counters to make sure that your important spell resolves. The main reason why players complain about the Delver deck being overpowered is not because it is overpowered, it is because they are too damned lazy to learn how to beat it. It's not that hard to do, and if you don't put that effort in, well then you deserve to lose. No effort in = no result out.
Furthermore, my posts here have not been about Cavern of Souls specifically, but about the attitude towards counterspells in general presented in the article. Counterspells are a necessary balancing part of Magic. A card like Geralf's Messenger is quite unfair, actually, and Mana Leak ing it is forcing your opponent to play fair. That is a good thing.
Lastly, I doubt that the designers of Cavern of Souls had any idea what they were doing. Why? Because control decks already sideboard out most, if not all of their counterspells against aggro anyway. It's not actually going to have much effect except on game 1. They are just putting "can't be countered" on a card to strike a chord with those blue-haters out there, while the card actually isn't that good.
My retort regarding Engineered Explosives was not intended to say that because there is one specific answer, everything is OK. What I meant was that I actually play something to deal with the weakness that my deck has, as opposed to just complaining about it. The parallel that should be drawn from this is that if you are having trouble dealing with counterspells, then you should sideboard in Autumn's Veil , Pyroblast , Grand Abolisher , Duress , or some other control hate card. And yes, some of your spells will get countered. But if you play well, you will be able to bait and draw out counters to make sure that your important spell resolves. The main reason why players complain about the Delver deck being overpowered is not because it is overpowered, it is because they are too damned lazy to learn how to beat it. It's not that hard to do, and if you don't put that effort in, well then you deserve to lose. No effort in = no result out.
Again, reality does not match your theories. Delver is doing good at the top level as well, where people aren't all that lazy. It's just a very good deck that is hard to beat. (Not saying it's oppressive or unhealthy, just saying that it's very good and losing to delver is no shame)
Furthermore, my posts here have not been about Cavern of Souls specifically, but about the attitude towards counterspells in general presented in the article. Counterspells are a necessary balancing part of Magic. A card like Geralf's Messenger is quite unfair, actually, and Mana Leak ing it is forcing your opponent to play fair. That is a good thing.
So would Swords to Plowshares . That's not to say printing StP in Standard would be a good idea.
My retort regarding Engineered Explosives was not intended to say that because there is one specific answer, everything is OK. What I meant was that I actually play something to deal with the weakness that my deck has, as opposed to just complaining about it. The parallel that should be drawn from this is that if you are having trouble dealing with counterspells, then you should sideboard in Autumn's Veil , Pyroblast , Grand Abolisher , Duress , or some other control hate card. And yes, some of your spells will get countered. But if you play well, you will be able to bait and draw out counters to make sure that your important spell resolves. The main reason why players complain about the Delver deck being overpowered is not because it is overpowered, it is because they are too damned lazy to learn how to beat it. It's not that hard to do, and if you don't put that effort in, well then you deserve to lose. No effort in = no result out.
uhh, no. Some are to lazy probably. But most of them are just sick of blue getting all the cards it need to be ALWAYS the dominating colour. Look at it without your love for blue: blue gets: quick creatures, good control cards/tempo cards and late game winners. Now look at white (for example): good early game, some control cards. Now look at red: good early game, realy **** late game, almost no control elements or whatsoever. This applies to almost any given standard environment. Now thats why people keep bashing blue. Its not that delver is overpowered, but in delver is overpowered in a colour that should NOT have an aggressive creature, just like counterspells in white would be to strong. That just happens to be the reason why they do NOT print white counterspells.
