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Jan 29, 2013 -- 5:26PM, GreenBuster wrote:

Dimir is black blue.  Psychic Strike is a Dimir counterspell that also mills.  Dimir has been allowed to add black to cards that are typically blue as it is able to mill.

I do agree that in any other set that Psychic Strike would be blue.  Then again, so would Mind Grind and Glimpse the Unthinkable .  Black doesn't have much of anything that mills, but Dimir creates the exception.

That is not the case . B l a c k has gotten mill for a while. Often with blue required , but certainly not always.

Jan 30, 2013 -- 6:53AM, GreenBuster wrote:

I said much of anything not anything.  I am well aware that black has some mill, but compare the amount of black mill to blue mill and you will see a large difference.

Yes, black will use cards in your library as a cost to fuel it's power, but black rarely makes an opponent mill.  That is the realm of blue with the exception of Dimir.

You argue that Dimir created an exception that allowed there to be black mill, and that otherwise the various or mill cards in GTC would be mono-blue. The fact that there are already non-Dimir black and blue/black mill cards disproves that. It just ain't so.

In fact, you claimed that Mind Grind would be mono-blue if it wasn't Dimir, when the card that it most closely references in both name and effect, Mind Funeral , is already a , non-Dimir mill card. Your argument simply has no support in the cards.

Jan 28, 2013 -- 8:36PM, Weisse wrote:

Suprised no one mentioned this:

Stolen Identity works very well as a Dimir card but it has a secret second use. It's also good when splashed in a Selesnyan deck. Huh? Just a little taste of things to come.

DGM: Allied color guild arcs? Or maybe just a focus on encouraging 3C+ decks, like Simic-flavored cards that synergize specifically with unleash .

Probably tied to the "Guild's secret ally" thingie the Prerelease is going to have. All's I know is that Stolen Identity on a Grove of the Guardian token is going to net you a LOT of damage that will eventually pummel your opponent to death. That, or there's Urbis Protector (not necessarily Selesnya, but tokens oriented), which gives you a constant stream of Angel tokens.

Note that, aside from the guilds that already care about +1/+1 counters (Simic, Rakdos), there's life matters (Selesnya, Orzhov), graveyard matters (Dimir, Golgari), combat matters (Azorius, Boros) and the last pair out, "spell effects" (Izzet and Gruul), in which the two guilds seem to align on a strong thematic axis. Of them, only Simic/Rakdos don't share a color; if, instead, we align Simic with Golgari, we get Dimir with Rakdos, which sadly does not share much of an axis of play: Rakdos wants each of its cards to be a grenade, thrown recklessly and with much glee, while Dimir invests heavily in the arrangement of its cards, trying to sculpt a perfect "courier" to bring the "message" or deliver the "task."

Feb 2, 2013 -- 1:43AM, TobyornotToby wrote:

Feb 1, 2013 -- 5:48PM, TheKazu wrote:

There is simply no other modern non-time-spiral-block case of a color pie violation anywhere near the magnitude of psychic strike . The fact that Maro chooses to highlight this mistake as some sort of selling point rather than noticing it and not drawing attention to it (as it otherwise would have been fairly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things) is disheartening. 

MaRo is saying they're trying out a change to the color pie. So this is not a color pie violation. 

Why is it so important to you that counterspelling is heavy blue?

He is making waaay too much of flat counters without in its cost, and picking on just this one card is silly. Just look at the number of flat counters in the Block so far: here

Cancel -
Counterflux - (qualified)
Dimir Charm - (qualified)
Dispel - (qualified)
Essence Backlash - (additional effect)
Fall of the Gavel - (additional effect)
Mystic Genesis - (additional effect)
Psychic Strike - (additional effect)
Scatter Arc - (qualified, additional effect)

Every Blue Guild got a flat counter with an additional effect. Every one, and only two had in their costs; Izzet got two, Dimir got it on a Charm. Note that "flat counter" is interpreted here as "counter target [qualifier] spell [with qualifier]" without the option of an "out," such as "unless." With just the statement, "counter target spell" and Full Stop, well ... every guild still got one of those. Counterflux wouldn't count on this additional criterion, as you cannot counter your own spells, and that detracts from it's "Counter target spell." wording that some may favor. So ... that's a lot of "flat counters."