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Jul 3, 2012 -- 2:26AM, Qilong wrote:

I am talking about a narrow, not overpowered card, to establish baseline, in the core set.

What, like Oblivion Ring , which any 3-mana planeswalker-killer is automatically going to be compared to?

Jul 3, 2012 -- 2:36AM, Qmark wrote:

Jul 3, 2012 -- 2:26AM, Qilong wrote:

I am talking about a narrow, not overpowered card, to establish baseline, in the core set.

What, like Oblivion Ring , which any 3-mana planeswalker-killer is automatically going to be compared to?

I will reiterate what I wrote, as I think you and I are on different tracts here.

So, I wrote: "However, if each color got at baseline a method to deal with a given permanent[,]" followed by "I do not think any ONE color should get "destroy target planeswalker" as a basic spell" (emphasis added), and finally "I am talking about a narrow [...] card[] to establish baseline[] in the core set."

It is not my argument (and I am not sure how it could be read into what I wrote that it was) that color A or color B has no method to deal with permanent type X, merely that each color gets a method to hit on that there permanent type as a specific "anti-[permanent type]" color.

In a design perspective, this sets a baseline. From there, one can elaborate the cost or effect, and adjust the card's scope accordingly. Color can be added, speed can be altered, riders can be added, etc. As an example, Terror + Oxidize = Putrefy , while Demystify + Terror = Mortify . Flexibility at a cost, not baseline.

Oblivion Ring is certainly a critical card in the Core Set, as it answers many things in a very interactive and felxible manner, and I would suggest it be firmly ensured to be in all Core Sets inperpetuity. And in direct response to your question, I point you right back to Cancel vs. Counterspell (which was a landmark case, as I recall).

Logic, reason, and mathematics?

When planeswalkers come back down from "all mythic all the time", a direct-kill may appear.  Even then, though, planeswalkers are already hosed by essentially everything, from burn to bounce to counterspells to just plain sending creatures at it.

Jul 3, 2012 -- 12:06PM, Amarsir wrote:

Jul 2, 2012 -- 7:19PM, Qilong wrote:

I'm thinking that there is a very simple way to do this:

White - destroy target enchantment. White gets Demystify for this at baseline.
Blue - counter target spell. Blue gets that catch-all Cancel , a preemptive "destroy" effect.
Black - destroy target creature. " Murder , Marge: A group of crows is a murder ."
Red - destroy target land. Craterize seems a neat way to avoid the issue of Stone Rain being too good at 3 mana (if you're on the play, you can cripple your opponent in limited with a shot at two or three of SRs, but at 4, Craterizes gives the opponent the ability to Cancel it).

Green - destroy target artifact. Green has Verdigris , but it is strictly worse than Oxidize on two levels.

Not that I have problems with Cancel, but I think a the best blue fit for that cycle would be a Negate -meets- Muddle the Mixture .  For 1U you get "counter target instant or sorcery."

But more importantly the problem is that you're trying to force into a tighter cycle something that shouldn't necessarily be there.  There's no reason every color needs to have an opposing card type and therefore a baseline spell to deal with them, because the permanents themselves aren't even nor is how they are dealt with.  

The implication of a cycle like that is black:creatures :: white:enchantments.  But that's not true.  Creatures are much more important than enchantments and black has nowhere near the same exclusivity over them.  The design goal isn't to balance removal around the colors, it's to balance the whole game around the colors.  Ratcheting down a parallel removal cycle might make the game easier to grok, but on the whole I think it detracts from the colors' identities rather than adding to them.

I agree with you, for the most part. I am not, and did not, advocate for the purpose of forcing each of the colors to deal with just a few specific things. I argued merely that if there was a cycle, as in my first response, it would be best to distribute the "hate" across the colors. To make a "destroy target [permanent]" card. Blue's the only one left out because it specializes in spells, not permanents, and thus it would have to get counters. This leads to the concept of whether you would (or should) attempt a card that is a baseline for each effect, in the minimal manacost, color intensity, and effect allowed at common.

I would respond to Qmark -- again -- but at this point I do not think he's taking my posts into account in his/her responses.

I think having the cards exist help establish "baseline," although the developers could also use the concept of the cards AS the baseline, and never print them. But the pattern of cards that have been printed suggests that several things will be true (and was the point of my posts).

As for whether there should be a "destroy target planeswalker" card, I think at one point there will be as R&D attempts to continue to make them more intuitive to players as a permanent type and not "I win" buttons. At the moment, the power levels of some of these can be so high that they largely prevent themselves from even being targettable by the decks they are in (Gideon easily soaks aggro damage, Elspeth makes blockers, etc.) to the point that you could tag-team a variety of PWs and there'd be virtually no solution. You have to generally focus on them to beat them, or they win the game for you. Thus, removal should be more relevant FOR them. This is the necessary purpose of Oring and such in the Core Set ... if it can get through counters or other removal.

First a disclaimer: I hear what you're saying. I don't really think it's necessary, but yes, printing a card as simple as "Destroy target planeswalker" would set the baseline and give a price against which to compare all other such removal spells. However, I'm answering a more general point here: Whether it should even happen.

There is very little chance that R&D will print such a card any time soon. The reasons against it are much more numerous than the reasons for it. Just a few off the top of my head:

1) The flavor is atrocious. We, as players, are ourselves planeswalkers. Any card that could kill a planeswalker directly should, theoretically, be able to kill a player ("Target player loses the game").
2) The effect is extremely narrow, and absolutely irrelevant in Limited. It would have to be printed at Rare or higher, and the card just isn't exciting enough to be a rare.
3) They already have the functionality of Planeswalker removal answered. They have "remove all counters from target permanent". They have "destroy target [qualifier] permanent" (such as Bramblecrush ). They have direct damage spells that target players. They have creatures which can attack the planeswalkers. There are a lot of ways to answer Planeswalkers without opening the can of worms that "Destroy target planeswalker" would open.
4) Planeswalkers are the face of the game. It is extremely unlikely that Wizards would print a card that paints them in such a negative light as "this planeswalker is dying".

The only reasons I can see for them to do so, on the other hand, are both fairly weak:

1) To establish a base cost for the effect. (But why should they have to establish a base cost for an effect they'll never use?)
2) Because they haven't done it before.

So no. I do not support the printing of such a card, and I also severely doubt that Wizards will print such a card any time soon.