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This thread is for discussion of this week's Latest Developments, which goes live Friday morning on magicthegathering.com.

I really appreciate Zac Hill's articles.

This is the type of article I like to see. Obviously not every week, as that's unfair to Zac, but at least once or twice per new set would be super.

Red, green, and white all possessed relatively straightforward solutions to these cards, and black tends to be soft to artifacts by design. Blue, though, had only the narrow Negate and the ponderous Rewind—and nothing to do once the problem artifact  hit the board.

Maybe it's just me, but maybe this is a good thing.  I feel like Development is constantly trying to fix the power level of blue (and they have made strides) yet they keep letting it have solutions to everything.  While I don't think Encrust is going to be the next snapcaster mage , I feel like this line of thinking has become part of the problem.  

Even within a limited framework you hardly ever draft a monocolored deck, so why not let blue be weak to artifacts?

Aug 3, 2012 -- 6:50PM, Demento_Recraves wrote:

Red, green, and white all possessed relatively straightforward solutions to these cards, and black tends to be soft to artifacts by design. Blue, though, had only the narrow Negate and the ponderous Rewind—and nothing to do once the problem artifact  hit the board.

Maybe it's just me, but maybe this is a good thing.  I feel like Development is constantly trying to fix the power level of blue (and they have made strides) yet they keep letting it have solutions to everything.  While I don't think Encrust is going to be the next snapcaster mage , I feel like this line of thinking has become part of the problem.  

Even within a limited framework you hardly ever draft a monocolored deck, so why not let blue be weak to artifacts?

Artifacts are really good at everything that blue is bad at. And blue is so clever it has Academy Ruins to just keep getting back those cards until it isn't weak anymore. No color gets more from artifacts than blue, and no color gets more from R&D than blue. That is just the nature of the game. Red has to work really hard even with artifacts to gain an inch, but R&D gives blue a mile. After all, the D stands for people that made green off of blue, not green.  

i hope ya'll do read this, but, there will always be complaints. the mono-red player will always hate blue, and vice-versa and whatever in-between. wizards has always innovated to keep interest while sticking to their guns to keep interest. so i say just do what you do and make what you believe is fair. you couldn't predict the interactions of Delver with Vapor Snag or how Restoration Angel and Bonfire would warp a format. two plus two does not always equal four and human beings most of the time can't make it equal four if they tried. so in a system where entertainment is law do not expect perfection just try to obtain it.

I'm slightly disturbed that Flame Slash couldn't get reprinted because of Snapcaster Mage. Are we really nerfing the instants and sorceries in each color just for one card?

Aug 10, 2012 -- 1:34PM, Fireballmage wrote:

I'm slightly disturbed that Flame Slash couldn't get reprinted because of Snapcaster Mage. Are we really nerfing the instants and sorceries in each color just for one card?

Yes.

After they decided to not do that because of Stoneforge Mystic , and printed Batterskull , they got burned. So now they're being more cautious.

Of course, the better option would be to not print such ridiculously powerful cards, but that won't make them as much money.