i must disagree with you Indigo, i dont consider passing turn after turn because my opponent has a mana leak in the GY and snapcaster in hand as interactive.
Frankly, this just means that you're bad. You have to learn to play through counter-magic, not just around it. I find it quite amusing that people somehow equate "my opponent has a counter" with "my spells don't exist." If people would just learn how to play against Blue, all of these problems would go away.
yea, all of you man up and learn to play against blue players so wotc will stop nerfing my good blue cards
Blue is the best color ever. How do you deal?
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i must disagree with you Indigo, i dont consider passing turn after turn because my opponent has a mana leak in the GY and snapcaster in hand as interactive.
I don't consider passing turn after turn because my opponent has a Dreadbore in hand and I'm winning with creatuers as interactive.
Sure counters allow their player to interact with spells rather than just permanents but for the opponent it severly limits any interactivity. And, read again, i didnt say counters werent interactive i said controls object is to limit their opponent interactivity, by removing any significant means of doing such.
You're not limiting their way of interacting. You're limiting their way to kill you.
Also how is Caw not control? yeah it gets an aggressive creature out early and slaps a sword on them but once thats accomplished they sit back and use JMS and counters to control the game. The only difference between that and traditional control is that your threat comes down early rather than later. Sure that gives it an aggro feel but when you look at it it plays much more like control than say RDW or zombies.
Winning with a two-mana spells equipped with a three-mana equipment while drawing from a four-mana planeswalker is *not* control. Control is about answering your opponent threats until you can land finishers and destroy all opposition. It's not about dropping a creature, boosting it then protecting it.
And to say cavern had no impact on delver is just nonsense, snapcaster gave delver 8-12 counters off of 4-6 spells and when you add resto angel to the mix it would have been as oppressive as caw-blade, having an early threat and a way to essentially turn your GY into an extension of your hand with which to grind your opponent into nothing with the added card advantage.
Delver played two Mana Leak s, when it played any. They used their Snappies to bounce all blockers and Resto to protect Delver.
Yeah... Until next game, where it'll be right back.
Seriously, there's no way to deal with Rancor in any format. It should be banned, except Gleemax is a lobbyist for the Rancor party, so that'll never happen.
You can't ban rancor, it just returns to your deck.
You might want to actually talk to the Flavor & Storyline Board people... since, you know, our whole reason for playing Magic is the flavor. I'm willing to bet you'll get a lot more interest there than in General.
Indeed, both posters down there would be thrilled.
When talks about banning Jace first started, I was thinking that I would see him banned come June 20th. But as I think more about it, I don't really think that Jace is the problem anymore. Sure his power level leaves very little to the imagination (opening Jace is like opening a refrigerator box with a naked girl on the inside), and sure his price does have a strong impact on what players choose to play (playing Jace is like being intimate with a woman and she doesn't charge you in the morning), but it is not the source of all the problems in Standard.
How do people think saving room to print more abilities on cards is dumbing down the game?
Do you really think, say, Akroma would ever be printed if she said, "Akroma can block by creatures with this ability and cannot be blocked by creatures without this ability. If a creature without this ability would deal combat damage by Akroma would be destroyed, prevent all combat damage that creature would deal to Akroma this combat. Attacking does not cause Akroma to tap. If Akroma is blocked and deals lethal damage, it deals the remainder of its damage to the defending player. Akroma may attack and use abilities that require tapping in the casting cost the turn it enters the battlefield. Akroma cannot be damaged, enchanted, equipped, blocked or targeted by black or red sources" rather than her "dumbed down" wording she has? No freaking way. Keywording and shorthand allows them to make complicated cards easy to play with, allowing them to be printed in the first place.
1. cast frankie peanuts 2. ask opponent "will you concede the game this turn"? if they say yes, you win; if they say no, play a staying power 3. subsequently ask "will you attack this turn"? and "will you cast a spell this turn"? (using a Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir for the second question if necessary) to ensure they can't disrupt the combo 4. donate them a platinum angel 5. play a mox lotus and braingeyser them for every card in their library. play an opalescence and donate them a glorious anthem and a blacker lotus , then play enchanted evening . play and activate a mindslaver and then donate them a fastbond and the mox lotus (returning one of the donates to your hand with eternal witness or whatever) 6. during their turn, play every permanent in their hand (playing lands with fastbond) then (as yourself) cast mirrorweave on the blacker lotus, so every permanent becomes a copy of it. proceed to tear up every card they control, and hopefully do it before they notice that they aren't bound by staying power's ability anymore and can concede
Dark Ritual being overpowered is determined more by what is done with it than the card itself.
True, but the fact that it enables so many ridiculous things is pretty telling. It's like, sure I can use a shotgun as a bludgeoning instrument, but that doesn't make it not a shotgun.
Shortly before Serra died, she transferred her spark into an angel whose full name was Asha Avacyn Bolas. Her dragon father groomed her for her positions in Alara and Innistrad, and she's also been getting help from her uncle Ugin in the form of Urza, who was resurrected as Marit Lage to be the avatar as which she projects herself into material realms. Grieslbrand is a split personality who sometimes wanders the planes disguised as a human woman named Liliana Vess.
Everyone's life would be easier if players would, instead of coming to the 'net for help with a deck, just netdeck and be done with it. And I'm not talking about some Top 8 lists, for the Casualists, too, can benefit from netdecking. I've netdecked plenty of decks from the Casual Play forums from users such as Mown, Raedien, Floopfoot, and a few others. I snatched straight the heck out of my web browser. Yes, people, your original idea fell victim to a savage netdecker. You have been assimiliated.
Suppose I wanted a Zombie deck. Why on earth would I spend time searching Gatherer for a decent list of Zombie cards when Raedien already did it for me? Taking time to be creative or waiting on people on the forums to tell you why your deck sucks or 'go to Casual forums' is a disasterous waste of time (to me).
That being said, Magic was ruined back in Alpha when they added all that rules and cards [Debutantes avert your eyes]. My friends and I still like playing it the "pure" way (Basically we go into the woods and hit eachother with wiffle bats while shouting made up obscenities. You know, the way Garfield wanted it to be played).
Don't worry about it. I've come up with a list of changes to fix EDH.
-First off, there's no commander. -The minimum deck size is 60 cards, and each deck can have up to four of each card, save basic lands and relentless rats. Also decks have no color identity. -Starting life total is 20.
Here's a clever play you can try yourself: -Convince friend to run relentless rats.dec in legacy tournament -Get a deck with lots of mill, yixlid jailer, and humility -Drop humility and jailer, wait for him to dump his hand, mill him out -All his rats now have no abilities. Call a judge because he's playing an illegal deck with more than 4 of a single card. -Get him/her banned from competitive magic play
L, is for the leather gloves you weaaaar. O, is for the organs that guy could spaaaare. V, is very very, extraordinay. E, is for every vagrant i butchered in a wine cellar befooooore.
The outer layer of the Magic: the Gathering box, the carton, or crust, is fairly thin and light, and contains largely aluminosilcates.
Within that lies the middle layer, consisting of the familiar booster pack. Although solid, the booster packs' high temperatures allow them to acutally move around within the booster box. This flow, sometimes called convection, is cited by frustrated box mappers as one of WOTC's most genious uses of thermodynamics since the Ravnica block.
No one knows what lies at the core of the booster box, but scientists theorize that it must be especially dense in order to make up for the large amount of fluff distributed amongst the booster packs.
I imagine [Ajani 3's] second ability involves him hurling the creature at your opponent Brion Stoutarm style, then the guy is just like "Okay, that may have worked, but don't- GOD DAMN IT!" as he does it again because cats don't give a **** :33.
Its like that one time Elves broke out in a field of Jund. Elves became a resurgent hit, then died off again once Jund adapted to the rest of the field of G/W that it required mass removal that inherently pooped on Elves too.
Submit to the menace. Delver can, and will blot out the sun.
"I remember my days as a youth at Tolarian Academy ." "Wow, small multiverse, I actually went there too." "WAIT, DON'T- Well ****, there's $200,000 in student loans well spent."
And flavor goes out the window when you cast a second copy of a planeswalker right after the first one dies, so...
"Hey Nissa, I need a favor." "You just asked me for a 'favor' like thirty seconds ago, and it turned out to be having Sarkhan Transmogrify my only follower into a dragon like 5 times -which dickery aside also violates some laws of causality - and then you let me get beaten over the head by that hedron crab." "...I'll give you " "...Well all right then."
GM, I don't think Dill is better than you. I KNOW it. Even if he wakes up every morning, clubs a baby seal, steals all the TV remotes from within a block's radius of his house and then robs hungry orphans of their food he'd be better than you, for the simple reason that he learns from his mistakes.
What would they have to fight about? Like, all I can think of now is Gideon going "Hey, long-ears! I'm gathering a group of 'Walkers together to fight some tentacle monsters.....you want in?" and Tamiyo going "Ew! Hentai no bakka Gideon-desu desu!" and flying away.
I open 4 packs just to be on the safe side. Not only do I get more cards than everyone else, but I also get to spend the rest of the night off. Win Win.
MaRo has a thing for people opening boosters with bad cards. But since he can only get so many bad cards printed in each set, he has found a devious way of getting more bad cards into circulation: He makes entire print sheets with just bad rares, then puts them onto the assembly line. He proceeds to wring his hands and twirl his evil mustache that he grew for twirling purposes as a lightning bolt strikes in the background. Afterwards, he goes to make sure that the good cards are only opened by everyone's friends, and that we all only get to open bad cards. He does this by memorising each booster, than switching them around accordingly. Whenever someone complains about a card, he immediately jumps out from behind a chair to yell "WELL, IT'S NOT FOR YOU!" before merging back into the shadows in order to devise new ways in which he can screw over players, then claim that he has valid reasons for doing so.
Mark Rosewater is sitting in a seemingly innocuous cable TV van, outside of Bankaimastery's house. Sitting nearby are two hardened criminal hackers, fresh out of prison, and filled with resentment at their lack of physical fitness. "Have you managed to hack his brainwaves yet? The set deadline's coming up fast." "We're almost through. It should be coming up on the screen any second." The hacker presses a button, and Kevin's thoughts flash onto the screen. Mark and the hackers stare in amazement at the sheer beauty, the elegance, and the raw truth of what they see. It's like the ending to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Brilliant light shines across the screen, the truth of existence is made clear to them, and they despair at their own foolishness, their own ignorance, their own inadequacy. And then they steal his ideas. As they return back to R&D, Mark sneers at a haggard old man chained to a cast-iron sphere. The man looks up from his laborious task of breaking rocks in the dungeon of Wizards of the Coast headquarters, and asks a question: "Kevin, my greatest student. He - he's all right, isn't he? You didn't hurt him?" Mark deals him a weighty blow with his boot. "Know your place, Richard. Get back to work."
I'm only opposed to it because it bears so little relation to how people actually play the game. The example of Miracles is actually a much better one then the Clone example I was trying to use.
From the game's perspective, the card can move instantly from face down in the library to revealed in the hand and that's fine for the rules. But in real life, we can't actually do that, so the card spends a good bit of time in locations that are neither where that player's library is nor where that player's hand is. And that's fine for real life. What I don't want is the disconnect to be explicitly codified. Along the lines of
183664.697 A game of Magic as laid out by these rules exists only as a pure Platonic ideal, utterly unrealizable by fallible mortals limited by the confines of physicality and the ravages of evil and sin.
183664.698 The cake is a lie, too.
I know it's true, but I don't want the rules to actually straight-up tell me that.
Pfft this cant be serious can it? If it is please delete your account OP. Its not even close to ban worthy, considering what JTMS and stoneforge had to accomplish to get banned i see the WotC selling magic to aquire Pokemon before that ever happens.
I'm trying to imagine sorin markov as a gym leader in one of those pokemon games which you have to beat him to get his badge... somehow I imagine that he would stab you in the chest with his sword before giving you the badge, even if you beat his pokemon....
Personally, I'd be fine with tea time but then I'm not gonna waste the mana summoning Emrakul, the Aeons Torn . He always takes all the sugar, drinks the whole pot of Earl Grey and doesn't even say thank you. SO. RUDE.
Break the Card is a regular thread in the Cards and Combo Forum. Quite simply, the participants are given a Johnnystatic card (e.g. Xenograft ) and are asked to build a deck around it. The winner and honorable mentions are sigged below. Get brewing!
This week's Break the Card was based around Xenograft . Thread : http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/27681049/Break_the_card_:_Xenograft?pg=1
Winner : Axterix with his Vampdrazi deck. Finalist : Vektor480 with his Ally/Golem/Plant deck. Honorable mentions : Zammm for the Turntimber Ranger combo and TinGorilla for suggesting Sarkhan the Mad .
Here's the link to the Mindlock Orb contest : http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/27697565/Break_the_Card_:_Mindlock_Orb?sdb=1&pg=last#497536269
Here's the link to Break the Card : Bludgeon Brawl : http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/27715169/Break_the_Card_:_Bludgeon_Brawl?sdb=1&pg=last#498208797
Winner : Vektor and his Grab the World deck. Finalist : Crandor with his Awesome Aliteration deck. Honorable mentions : RP Jesus with his Wat deck and Zix200 with his Signet Renewal deck.
This week was Followed Footsteps : http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/27748677/Break_the_Card_:_Followed_Footsteps?pg=1
Winner : Tevish_Szat with his Exponential Growth deck. Honorable mentions : Zix with his Carbon Copies deck and Escef with his Fungus of Speed and Time deck.
This week's card was Jace's Archivist : http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/28063377/Break_the_Card_:_Jaces_Archivist.
Finalists : Jentaru with his "Consecration of the Draw" deck and HereticSmitty with his "ADHD: The deck" deck. Winner : JaxsonBateman with his "The Archives Are Endless!" deck.
i must disagree with you Indigo, i dont consider passing turn after turn because my opponent has a mana leak in the GY and snapcaster in hand as interactive.
Frankly, this just means that you're bad. You have to learn to play through counter-magic, not just around it. I find it quite amusing that people somehow equate "my opponent has a counter" with "my spells don't exist." If people would just learn how to play against Blue, all of these problems would go away.
Freaking this. I was there once too, just not casting spells against control because I was afraid they'd get countered. Then I realized that that's stupid. If you're not casting spells to get your opponent to use up their counters, what are you waiting for? Some magical turn where your opponent will be unable to use his counters? The longer you wait, the more your opponent will be able to do during their turn (ie, casting fat) while leaving mana up for your turn, not to mention accrue more answers to whatever threats you're apparently not casting.
The irrational response to blue control, noted above, is common in new and/or bad players. Heck, today I was playing someone (who plays a monogreen deck without any removal and more than its share of flashy mythics, if that tells you anything) and he complained that he "couldn't cast anything" because I had countered one of his creatures beforehand. His friend had to remind him to look at my mana, which was all tapped. Only then did he go to cast his next creature.
There is a misconception that counterspells are unstoppable and uninteractive, but really they, like other instants, lead to the most interactive plays in Magic: "Oh, I just topdecked a Thragtusk on turn 5, let's tap my cavern and play it so I can win already." vs. "He revealed a Izzet Charm a couple turns ago to flip his delver, but hasn't played it yet and has 4 lands untapped, so I will cast my miracled Bonfire for X=3 instead of 5. But he only has delvers and GoSTs out, so I should do it at X=2 just to be safe and avoid a syncopate ." There is some thought that goes into choosing what to play from your hand, be it Thragtusk or Messenger + some relevant 2-drop, but it doesn't compare to the thought process that goes into predicting counterspells/removal, dealing with the stack and adapting to a blind counterspell or other instant. Counterspells are a good thing, and it's a shame that Wizards has to hose them beyond their largely-balanced, if not underpowered, state in Standard.
Counterspells in extended formats, modern, legacy, etc. are a totally different story, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of players have bad feelings towards counterspells because of some of the older cards. I have no gripes with Cavern being a thing in those formats. But Force of Will or any counter remotely near its powerlevel is not Standard.
Caw Blade, etc. should not be representative of what Standard has to be.
Case in point: if Wizards is going to print efficient mechanics like undying, hexproof and ultra-powerful ETB effects on creatures, they should encourage similarly efficient ways of dealing with them, not discourage them.
I find it odd that Wizards is printing all this graveyard hate in RtR when flashback and undying as mechanics aren't nearly as format warping (if you could say that) as creatures like GoST, Thrag, Messenger, and to a lesser extent Aristocrat and others. Creatures can be countered. WotC doesn't need to hose the many archetypes that utilize the graveyard- to deal with an issue that can be solved by bumping anti-creature counterspells up to a playable level. I wouldn't be surprised if Rest in Peace is the subject of much more disgruntlement than Caverns, or if it is banned from some formats.
To everyone saying blue needs to be better: Blue still is the best color in magic and again in T2. Jace, Detention Sphere, Azorius Charm, Augur of Bolas, Sphinx' Revelations, Tamiyo, Supreme Verdict, Geist and so on are amazing cards that deck with most threats in this format. Time and time again we're reminded that blue doesn't need good counterspells to be a powerhouse.
The mage formerly known as kedi.
Team GFG - Goons From Ghana - Playing sweet decks since 2010 1:31 AM Nighthavk_: I'm actually playing B/r zombies 1:31 AM Battle7: nice 1:31 AM Nighthavk_: yeah it's pretty sweet really 1:31 AM Battle7: playing esper tokens 1:32 AM Nighthavk_: I like that deck 1:32 AM Battle7: it's sweet
To everyone saying blue needs to be better: Blue still is the best color in magic and again in T2. Jace, Detention Sphere, Azorius Charm, Augur of Bolas, Sphinx' Revelations, Tamiyo, Supreme Verdict, Geist and so on are amazing cards that deck with most threats in this format. Time and time again we're reminded that blue doesn't need good counterspells to be a powerhouse.
But I don't want to have to play white for my U/X/x deck to be playable. Okay, that sounds really whiny. I'll put it this way. U != UW. I'm not saying UW or U/X needs to be have more power cards.
To everyone saying blue needs to be better: Blue still is the best color in magic and again in T2. Jace, Detention Sphere, Azorius Charm, Augur of Bolas, Sphinx' Revelations, Tamiyo, Supreme Verdict, Geist and so on are amazing cards that deck with most threats in this format. Time and time again we're reminded that blue doesn't need good counterspells to be a powerhouse.
But I don't want to have to play white for my U/X/x deck to be playable. Okay, that sounds really whiny. I'll put it this way. U != UW. I'm not saying UW or U/X needs to be have more power cards.
We're in an age of a multicolor set. Mono anything will not be playable by design. No color is powerful enough on its own to stand a chance against top decks in this meta; blue is no exception.
The mage formerly known as kedi.
Team GFG - Goons From Ghana - Playing sweet decks since 2010 1:31 AM Nighthavk_: I'm actually playing B/r zombies 1:31 AM Battle7: nice 1:31 AM Nighthavk_: yeah it's pretty sweet really 1:31 AM Battle7: playing esper tokens 1:32 AM Nighthavk_: I like that deck 1:32 AM Battle7: it's sweet
Freaking this. I was there once too, just not casting spells against control because I was afraid they'd get countered.
Problem is not that the spells get countered. Thats 1 for 1 interaction. The problem is blue having the best carddraw to replace used cards. Thankfully wizards has managed to print SOME carddraw to nonblue colors these days ( I have played magic for about 18 years, its not always been like that.). Too bad its still generally not good enough. Garruk primal hunter is getting there.
Anyways, counterspells are at an all time low currently.. Its a refreshing change.
Freaking this. I was there once too, just not casting spells against control because I was afraid they'd get countered.
Problem is not that the spells get countered. Thats 1 for 1 interaction. The problem is blue having the best carddraw to replace used cards. Thankfully wizards has managed to print SOME carddraw to nonblue colors these days ( I have played magic for about 18 years, its not always been like that.). Too bad its still generally not good enough. Garruk primal hunter is getting there.
Anyways, counterspells are at an all time low currently.. Its a refreshing change.
What about the era of Jund. If blue becomes bad, that is what we end up with. Most people agreed it was the least skill intensive and one of the worst standard formats for a very long time.
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