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Oct 7, 2012 -- 12:57PM, bay_falconer wrote:

..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" contenteditable="true" />Blue is only supposed to get artifact love.

You obviously don't play blue much . Oh and . Hate doesn't have to be direct to work :P

Oct 8, 2012 -- 3:13PM, bay_falconer wrote:

Oct 8, 2012 -- 1:37AM, Wynzerman wrote:

You obviously don't play blue much . Oh and . Hate doesn't have to be direct to work :P

I guess I was thinking of removal. Which blue doesn't get for any permanent.

That makes no sense.

Counterspell Dissipate Daze - saying these aren't removal is like saying that Thoughtseize isn't a form of removal.

Echoing Truth Disperse Capsize - How many times did a lone blocker get Vapor Snag ged? Removal is removal, however long.

Pongify Polymorph - if one calls Chaos Warp enchantment removal, even when you flip an enchantment, then polymorph is also a form of removal, even if it's not printed much. And before you mention Pongify's expansion symbol, Rosewater has said that Pongify is within blue's color pie.

Ice Cage . You can't possibly not count this. Lignify was sweet.

If you absolutely have to, you could bounce a creature, and then counter it the next time it is cast. That's excellent removal - seeing as how you just time walked your opponent.

Blue, like white, has the ability to deal with any permanent. It's one of the colors that can deal with anything.

Oct 17, 2012 -- 10:02AM, bay_falconer wrote:

Oct 11, 2012 -- 1:26PM, Fireballmage wrote:

Oct 8, 2012 -- 3:13PM, bay_falconer wrote:

I guess I was thinking of removal. Which blue doesn't get for any permanent.

Yeah, Blue gets no removal except those bounce things and those counterspell things no other color gets.

Bounce isn't removal. Removal goes to graveyard, exile, or anywhere in the library other than the top. Bounce is a tempo play.

Counterspells aren't removal either. They're time-critical, which removal generally isn't.

At this people we're just arguing definitions, saying "Yes it is! No it isn't!"

The more sensible argument to have would be about why we want to consider bounce or counters "removal". 
Are we worried about colours' relative strengths in Limited? But development can tune those in a variety of ways.

Are we wanting to ensure each colour is interactive? Or that the colour has "answers" for bomby cards? That's more sensible. Hopefully we'll all agree that counterspells are "answers" (they're pretty much one of the classic examples of "answers"), although they're time-dependent. And bounce is also an "answer", although clearly a temporary one.  If you define "removal" as permanent, non-time-dependent answers, then... well, blue does get those as well, in the Paralyzing Grasp mould such as Encrust . But it doesn't get "destroy" effects, indeed.

Your assertion back in post #12 was that blue should get "artifact love" and shouldn't get "artifact hate". Rather than arguing whether blue's answers to artifacts such as Steel Sabotage count as "removal" or not, perhaps we ought to talk about why you think blue should get "artifact love", or get more artifact love than artifact hate.

Personally I agree with zammm, when he said:

Oct 6, 2012 -- 11:57PM, zammm wrote:

Removal shows up at lower rarities than love--and is more likely to show up in general--in most sets because in Limited it's vastly more likely that at least one of your opponents is playing an artifact that you might want to remove than it is that you have a deck that could make effective use of an artifact tutor, let alone a helper.