This is an extreme Spike card. It is a bit disturbing that you all are so focused on these very narrow applications of cards aimed strickly at people that play Magic against opponents, and not with friends. This card is pointless enough to the 'fun crowd' to not matter, but man, you guys make those of us that want to play a game with people for fun work really, really hard to rewrite the rules to make that happen. I literally couldn't relate to anything you wrote here, and yet you'll rubber stamp things that make my life a living hell with no idea why that would be.
I'm not sure what you are trying to say. This is a spike card, yes. But every set has cards for timmy/johnny/spike so it shouldn't be a big deal. This card isn't going to ruin your casual games, because like you said, it's pointless enough. What exactly about this article makes you think that playing MtG for fun is somehow harder to do now than before? Are you saying that Magic nowadays is only aimed at tournament players, based on WotC strategy and cards being published, when in fact the opposite is true (unfun things like discard, ld, and non-interactive combos are being hosed, there are casual product like Duel Decks being released regularly, and the focus in magic has been shifted from non-creature cards to creature cards).
About the card itself: Its converted mana cost is more than two so it's not for the hyper-aggro decks, and it's impact is not big enough to fit in control decks. Like Mr. Moreno said, the card is effective against both of these strategies, so it's a perfect fit for midrange decks. Midrange has usually been the weakest deck archetype, and this cards gives a necessary power level boost for such decks. And a 3 mana 4/4 isn't overpowered by far. If you can have a four mana 3/4 flash flier with a good ability, a three mana ground dude can't be only a 3/3.
What I am trying to say is that they seem to spend all their time testing cards so that 3 games can be played in 50 minutes. For people that play 1 game in 50 minutes, the cards aimed at us can sometimes be wildly overpowered, and just one playtest would prove it. Dead-eye navigator is a really good example. The card is super cool, but way overpowered. After playing it just once, it feels unfair to have that guy out. Its bounce activation should probably be 1UU. I'd like if they put in some, not a bunch, but some time-as in one game in a case of this card, to balancing it.
He worked really hard on this card. That's great, but this is a card that I don't care about. He was thinking about stuff I don't have to think about. That's perfectly alright. The bulk of his job is preventing the loss of interest in tournament Magic. But time and again, development seems to put in no thought or effort when it comes to the cards that I do think about and play. I could have told them scrambleverse does not do what they want it to do without even having to playtest it. And yet that thing saw the light of day.
I can't exactly say the card is THAT unprecedented. Interpreted in terms of old cards, it's "just" an uncounterable Dodecapod , with the possible PT levels averaged out between the hardcast and discardcast. And the lower CMC is counterweighted by being pickier about color. Not sure what (if anything) counterweights the uncounterability on the Dodecapod side, though.
I'd be almost amused by the 'we make power cards for the feeling' part, if it wasn't so depressing. Having a card you can feel good about is important, but that should not be reason to print these kind of powerlevels. Power cards like this might be fun to play for some, but they are not fun to face from the other side of the table. Printing them does not make the game exciting, it makes the entire game irrelevant. Whatever you do, you know card X will smash up your game if it is drawn. The only thing that matters is wether your opponent draws it, and if (when) he does you lose.
Having a good card to feel confident behind is okay, but not when you are forced to play that card only to stand a chance of survival. At that point deckbuilding does revert to being all math: All you need to do is play card X and counter card Y, and the rest of the format is irrelevant to you. It almost 'reduces' games to chess, but with a small twist: Instead of a pure skill-based game with a balanced board, now there is a random guy standing to side with a hammer that randomly hits players, knocking them out instantly. Is there any satisfaction in losing on the board, but then winning just because hammerman knocked your opponent out for you?
Printing trump cards to stop certain strategies could be useful, if only you'd stop using raw power as the main method to counter something. Having tools to fight the Great Evil is important, but not when those tools are simply more powerful than the Great Evil, as they just become the Great Evil themselves. How is this card supposed to help against aggro, when aggro decks will be more than happy to run 4 themselves?
Congratulations, you've successfully argued the point that no good cards should be printed, ever.
You'll forget you ever read this the minute you look away.
there is nothing "epic" about a turn one victory. ever.
or really any magic game, for that matter.
So this one time, I wanted to play a game of Magic with my friend, but he was in another country and neither of us had Magic Online. I hitchhiked my way to the coast, barely fending off hungry wildlife when I couldn't get a ride, nearly dying of thirst crossing deserts, and posoning myself half to death foraging for food. At one point, I was taken hostage by a group of kidnappers, only managing to escape after a week of careful planning thanks to careful application of a rusty spoon.
Once I reached the coast, I had no money to buy a ticket across the ocean, so I built a boat using my own two hands, and spent months sailing across the waves, nearly losing my deck as I swam to the shore of a desert island in a storm after being capsized by an enormous wave. Nearly delusional after so long with no human contact (the notches I cut in the single tree to tell time had long since felled the thing) I was eventually rescued by a passing ship, where I was taken aboard as a crew member.
We sailed around the world, seeing many exotic places and having great adventures, before we finally arrived at my friend's country. Once more I stumbled across a desolate landscape, riding on train or car when I could, and going on foot when I could not. Eventually, weary to the bone, seven years after I started my journey, I arrived at my friend's house, clutching my well-worn and weathered deck to my chest. We shuffled up our decks, I won the roll. Gleefully, I laid down my cards.
Black Lotus . My friend looked quizzically at me, wondering what I was about to do. After so long, he no longer knew what deck I had brought with me to this game.
Flash . A knowing smile appears on my friend's face as the knowledge slowly returns to him.
So no one else is upset with the stunt Wizards just pulled to drive sales?
Drive sales of what? Non-Jace, non-Mystic cards? I'm pretty sure people already own more than eight Magic cards. If you don't, I feel for you. Maybe you can trade those Stoneforge Mystics, which are still quite valuable, for some.
As others have noted, they justify a card like this because forcing you to be G/W to cast it is a drawback in itself. The problem is that, with Avacyn's Pilgrim and shocklands in the environment now, that drawback is almost completely irrelevant. How much trouble is it to splash white into a green deck for a creature that can sometimes be cast for free anyway?
A casting cost of 1GW is just too cheap, plain and simple. It would still have been playable at 2GW: the main drawback of a CMC of 4 is that it leaves you vulnerable to countermagic and hand destruction, both of which are specifically hosed by Smiter's abilities. Heck, even changing the colorless mana to colored mana (GGW instead of 1GW) or dropping a toughness (to 4/3) would have been enough to keep the card more fair. As it is, people are just going to jam 4 of this into their aggro decks regardless of the metagame because a 3-mana 4/4 is just ridiculous.
Over powered rares are not fun. I am disappointed that the makers of this game have forgotten what makes the game fun. If this was really intended to be a counter for the very common problems encountered in tournaments, it ought to be uncommon. Unless we argue that power and rarity should go hand in hand, this card doesn't do anything to deserve being rare.
Just the fact that they even considered something as ridiculous as that terrifies me.
Also if I see "can't be countered" on another card I am gonna barf. They want to downplay Snapcaster and Delver and they keep nerfing mana leak /counters... they are killing control to nerf an aggro/tempo deck in the wrong colours, delver doesnt even use counters that much these days. fffff
Okay, here is the clincher. I've been waiting to say this.
The "cam girl" this was inspired by was just a girl from a social networking website, Stickam. Her name was TinyTerror and she was just a regular girl who was on her webcam, totally unrelated to any type of adult content.
I hope you all feel really smart now.
This is like someone coming into class with a bloody nose and everyone's like "Jeez what happened to you" and they're like "I ran into a wall" and everyone laughs at them for being an idiot but then at the end of the class they say "HAHA JUST KIDDING I PUNCHED MYSELF IN THE FACE!!!!!! TALK ABOUT OWNED HAHAHAHAHA"
I really enjoy imagining this from Kevin's perspective. Because in Kevin's world, Rosewater actually reads everything he types. Mark is sitting there right now, reading this, and thinking "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled. . ." Or some such. He chuckles low, then clicks on "The Best Of KEVINSET" and says "Yes, this'll do just fine. A busty lady with banding who deals direct damage to Zones!? Why this will be the star of my next set, and no one will ever believe you Kevin." Then he closes his Macbook, so his servant may move it out of the way, while another servant puts a Fetal Richard Garfield Clone lathered in Steak Sauce in front of him. Then Mark Feasts.
Sorin walked into the chamber where his newly wed bride, Vampy, awaited. A beam of moonlight illuminated his brilliant silver hair as he strode with confidence towards the bed. His shirtless body showcased his powerful abdominal muscles and he was wearing jeans with holes in the knees.
Just the fact that they even considered something as ridiculous as that terrifies me.
Also if I see "can't be countered" on another card I am gonna barf. They want to downplay Snapcaster and Delver and they keep nerfing mana leak /counters... they are killing control to nerf an aggro/tempo deck in the wrong colours, delver doesnt even use counters that much these days. fffff
a few things people seem to not understand: 1) "Control" is not synonymous with "draw-go". Control decks are not exclusively blue, nor do they require counterspells. Mono-black control has been a thing in magic's history. So has mono-white. Each time, without counterspells. Counterspells for a true control deck are just another form of removal. If you're worried about control, don't be. You'll be getting a new Day of Judgement with blue in the casting cost for uncounterability soon. That ought to help you against tempo decks so they can't just, I don't know, Syncopate it when you cast it on turn four to stop the bleeding from, I don't know, a flipped delver + geist of saint traft. 2) if what you really want is a return to Draw-go, you should just go ahead and quit playing magic right now, because that ain't ever going to happen.
You'll forget you ever read this the minute you look away.
there is nothing "epic" about a turn one victory. ever.
or really any magic game, for that matter.
So this one time, I wanted to play a game of Magic with my friend, but he was in another country and neither of us had Magic Online. I hitchhiked my way to the coast, barely fending off hungry wildlife when I couldn't get a ride, nearly dying of thirst crossing deserts, and posoning myself half to death foraging for food. At one point, I was taken hostage by a group of kidnappers, only managing to escape after a week of careful planning thanks to careful application of a rusty spoon.
Once I reached the coast, I had no money to buy a ticket across the ocean, so I built a boat using my own two hands, and spent months sailing across the waves, nearly losing my deck as I swam to the shore of a desert island in a storm after being capsized by an enormous wave. Nearly delusional after so long with no human contact (the notches I cut in the single tree to tell time had long since felled the thing) I was eventually rescued by a passing ship, where I was taken aboard as a crew member.
We sailed around the world, seeing many exotic places and having great adventures, before we finally arrived at my friend's country. Once more I stumbled across a desolate landscape, riding on train or car when I could, and going on foot when I could not. Eventually, weary to the bone, seven years after I started my journey, I arrived at my friend's house, clutching my well-worn and weathered deck to my chest. We shuffled up our decks, I won the roll. Gleefully, I laid down my cards.
Black Lotus . My friend looked quizzically at me, wondering what I was about to do. After so long, he no longer knew what deck I had brought with me to this game.
Flash . A knowing smile appears on my friend's face as the knowledge slowly returns to him.
So no one else is upset with the stunt Wizards just pulled to drive sales?
Drive sales of what? Non-Jace, non-Mystic cards? I'm pretty sure people already own more than eight Magic cards. If you don't, I feel for you. Maybe you can trade those Stoneforge Mystics, which are still quite valuable, for some.
