I think the "problem" with blue is that in the world of ETB: the Gathering, where Titans still roam free and creatures have to pass the Vapor Snag test to be relevant, any answer to a titan that's not a counterspell is a 1-for-2 or 1-for-3. It's hard (not impossible) for mono-white or mono-black control to keep up to the potency of a counterspell.
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I find it amusing all the people who want the other colors to have blue's abilities like card draw.
But if I were to say, "Fine, let blue have big creatures, burn, discard and wrath effects along with artifact and creature removal" you'd all say I was nuts and have a fit.
Why does blue have to be driven into the ground but all the other colors get buffed up AND get blue's abilities to boot.
The hypocrisy in this argument is laughable.
The game was designed with each color having certain abilities and characteristics. This was done by Richard Garfield long before he would ever realize how powerful each of these abilities would or wouldn't be.
Life gain? - Sucks
Big creatures? - With cheap removal, sucks
Burn? - Eventually runs out of steam.
Discard? - Pretty good but late game doesn't matter much.
But white's cleansing and blue's card draw, bounce and counter magic are powerful effects with card draw being the most important of all of them.
In short...he who has more cards wins.
Last night I played MBC and thanks to a resolved Griselbrand locked down the game. Not so much because I had a 7/7 lifelink flier but because I had a hand full of cards while my opponent was top decking.
Blue got the best stuff from day one. It is what it is.
Wanting to take that away from blue or nerf it to the point where it's useless is essentially wanting to change the game of Magic to something else. And wanting to give the other colors blue's abilities without giving blue the same in return (big creatures, burn, wrath, removal, discard) is pure prejudice and hate towards the color and not even close to fair.
If you want all the colors to be equal, fine, let them be equal.
But the "I hate blue, let's kill it" crap is getting very old. I for one am tired of it. And yes, I'm predominantly a blue player. That I had to play MBC last night to play a competitive control deck, IMO, is a sad state of affairs.
And what's even sadder is that this "Blue is OP" crap is going to go on until this game is a memory and nothing else.
Thank God for Vintage.
Thats an interesting take, I have noticed recently card advantage isnt as big of a factor as it was a few years back. Speed and tempo usually out race card advantage. Of course there are always those few decks that buck the norm.
One thing you keep missing about how Garfield created the game. His vision was a limited format that you drafted, constructed wasnt even thought about until the players started building decks. The power of certain abilities get better in constructed then they are in a limited format. Once the game switched to a constructed format with the 60 card decks and the 4 of rule, the game had to change. Just because the color pie was balanced in the beginning for limited play, doesnt mean the color pie was balanced for constructed play. Anyone who says the color pie was balanced for constructed play back in 94-96 either didnt play or was just blind to the unbalanced aspect of the game. As of late they have been doing a good job of balancing the limited format and the constructed format.
I believe all colors should have their own identity, but each should be equal. If counters are too powerful in blue, then give the card draw to another color. If the hexproof big creatures in green become too powerful, dont give them removal and other effects to make the colors unbalanced. Same goes for every color. No one color should trump every other color.
I think the "problem" with blue is that in the world of ETB: the Gathering, where Titans still roam free and creatures have to pass the Vapor Snag test to be relevant, any answer to a titan that's not a counterspell is a 1-for-2 or 1-for-3. It's hard (not impossible) for mono-white or mono-black control to keep up to the potency of a counterspell.
With low powered counterspells and high value creatures with absurd EtB effects blue will become much weaker. People always forget that blue is completely incapable of permanently getting rid of anything outside of counterspells. People who don't play blue honestly have no idea how fragile the color can be in a creature saturated environment. Part of me wants to see blue be less viable just so people can stop whining about the color (that will never happen because people hate blue blind stupid fanaticism.)
Blue shouldn't be the one getting efficient creatures though. Why is Blue getting a 3/2 body for 1 mana while green, known for its efficient creatures, isn't getting that power (or it gets banned - see Wild Nacatl)
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What can I actually say is that don't hate the game, hate the player. As far as I'm concerned all colors can actually match another in terms of deck creation. You can't simply say that blue is the best color just because almost all players in standard are playing Delver decks. The meta is near broken tbh. Look at the deck, not the cards.
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Not sure if this card is gonna get banned sooner or maybe later...
Please don't make crap up. This is such an obvious word vomit it's ridiculous. Something about the internet and people thinking they need to say something to fit in..
Blue shouldn't be the one getting efficient creatures though. Why is Blue getting a 3/2 body for 1 mana while green, known for its efficient creatures, isn't getting that power (or it gets banned - see Wild Nacatl)
It should have been a 2/2, but Delver is an outliar and NOT the norm.
Blue shouldn't be the one getting efficient creatures though. Why is Blue getting a 3/2 body for 1 mana while green, known for its efficient creatures, isn't getting that power (or it gets banned - see Wild Nacatl)
This has been argued to death. Delver isnt always a 3/2, its a 1/1 that may or may not flip to a 3/2. Most smart players know to take care of the 1/1. Kitty rarely was ever a 1/1. Normally it hits the table as a 2/2 and is a 3/3 swinging next turn. Delver has to be built around to ensure it flips the next turn. Kitty was slid into a deck that already had the mana requirements from kird ape.
With low powered counterspells and high value creatures with absurd EtB effects blue will become much weaker. People always forget that blue is completely incapable of permanently getting rid of anything outside of counterspells. People who don't play blue honestly have no idea how fragile the color can be in a creature saturated environment. Part of me wants to see blue be less viable just so people can stop whining about the color (that will never happen because people hate blue blind stupid fanaticism.)
I guess I'm not really understanding where you're coming from. I'd think if anything, this would be good for blue, since they have a chance to stop the EtB effects altogether while other decks have to get caught up in unfavorable trades. I cast Primeval Titan against mono black and get my lands - even if Titan gets an immediate Doom Blade to the face, I still got a 3-for-1. Right now, the issue is that blue has the single most aggressive creature in the format and lots of ways to find it. I remember when blue was the control color.
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I guess I'm not really understanding where you're coming from. I'd think if anything, this would be good for blue, since they have a chance to stop the EtB effects altogether while other decks have to get caught up in unfavorable trades. I cast Primeval Titan against mono black and get my lands - even if Titan gets an immediate Doom Blade to the face, I still got a 3-for-1. Right now, the issue is that blue has the single most aggressive creature in the format and lots of ways to find it. I remember when blue was the control color.
You can blame people who don't understand that control is the most interactive way to play (not best, not most fun, but most interactive). Yet somehow people think counterspells are uninteractive and Geist of Saint Traft is.
Companies cater to the lowest common denominator of player. Look at LoL or current WoW for examples.
Do they keep mis-evaluating certain blue cards? Yes. I think barring the little screw-ups, they've largely put blue back inside its box. At least its most powerful aspects..
Is it the most dominant color? As someone who's played this game for over a decade now, I gotta say Green is getting awfully powerful these days.
Do they keep mis-evaluating certain blue cards? Yes. I think barring the little screw-ups, they've largely put blue back inside its box. At least its most powerful aspects..
Is it the most dominant color? As someone who's played this game for over a decade now, I gotta say Green is getting awfully powerful these days.
Fear not, green can't be overpowered because huge creatures are the only things that are fun.
At the same time, arguing that playing counterspells is inherently more difficult than turning creatures sideways is also not always correct.
Arguing that countermagic isnt better than removal, especially as more and more creatures have powerful ETB effects is again, not always correct.
Blue is VERY powerful. Historically, it has been the MOST powerful. R&D acknowledge this, so arguing against that point is moot.
And be honest, there are a lot of blue mages that have fragile egos and need to voice how clever they are. A lot of the arguments for blue not being that good in this thread have basically amounted to the same thing (I win with blue, so it isn't overpowered! Look at this one example in this other colour! See?! Blue isnt that good!)
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Thats an interesting take, I have noticed recently card advantage isnt as big of a factor as it was a few years back. Speed and tempo usually out race card advantage. Of course there are always those few decks that buck the norm.
One thing you keep missing about how Garfield created the game. His vision was a limited format that you drafted, constructed wasnt even thought about until the players started building decks. The power of certain abilities get better in constructed then they are in a limited format. Once the game switched to a constructed format with the 60 card decks and the 4 of rule, the game had to change. Just because the color pie was balanced in the beginning for limited play, doesnt mean the color pie was balanced for constructed play. Anyone who says the color pie was balanced for constructed play back in 94-96 either didnt play or was just blind to the unbalanced aspect of the game. As of late they have been doing a good job of balancing the limited format and the constructed format.
I believe all colors should have their own identity, but each should be equal. If counters are too powerful in blue, then give the card draw to another color. If the hexproof big creatures in green become too powerful, dont give them removal and other effects to make the colors unbalanced. Same goes for every color. No one color should trump every other color.
I agree with you. No one color should be stronger than another. The problem is, because the abilities of each color are not balanced (life gain sucks, card draw and bounce amazing) the only way to achieve any kind of parity is to either...
1. Make the OP abilities so weak that they're almost not worth playing.
Or
2. Make the weak abilities so powerful (if that's even possible with life gain) that they're broken.
I mean would a one mana instant that gave you 10 life be worth playing?
This game is never going to be balanced. It isn't physically possible because of the complexity. Certainly not in eternal formats. Standard? It would be one hell of a tough task. There is always going to be one or two decks that seem to dominate everything else.
Go through the whole history of this game and with very few exceptions, that has been the case. Yes, even during the so called "glory days" that I loved so much. I know the game was broken. But at least it was diverse broken.
Now? Standard has become so one dimensional that it's a joke. Honestly, I don't even know why they bother printing obvious combo cards anymore (I'm looking at you Knowledge Pool/ Curse of Exhaustion because combo sucks. It isn't even worth considering.
You can't even make a good burn deck anymore. And that's something I can't see anybody objecting to.
Forget permission
Forget discard
Forget LD (why do they even print crap like Demolish?)
Forget mill (though I've seen some decent Jace 3.0 decks. Maybe tier 3)
When Pod rotates out in October, we're going to lose a whole archetype, one that has been quite interesting and enjoyable and even competitive.
And with DoJ gone in October, aggro is going to be even more rampant. Not that DoJ was so great with all the undying running around. In fact, Zombies has made DoJ a non factor.
I had hopes for Frites as a type of reanimator deck. And while it's been doing OK, it hasn't exactly been tearing up the meta.
And I won't even get into how bad red is as a mono color these days.
Tried out Krenko in the new Goblin build. Forget it. Even with Chieftain, he's just bad. Not that it matters, because when red loses Shrine in October, it'll absolutely be relegated to a support color.
I'm actually glad they made Bonfire. That card is a beast. A one sided board wipe, even against undying, is pretty good. About time red got something really great.
Green? Thragtusk is a real Delver hoser and I couldn't be happier. That card is going to see a lot of play for a long time.
White? White always gets good stuff. I don't think a lot of people realize how white is really just a notch below blue in power. In fact, if you played mono white against mono blue, mono white would win. Overall, it is a more complete color because it can deal with just about anything.
Why don't more people ***** about white? The color is obscenely good.
Black? This color is an enigma lately. It can get stuff as crappy as (pick a card, any card) and then get something as amazing as Geralf's Messenger, Griselbrand and the return of Mutilate.
In fact, mono black control is a beast against aggro right now. About time.
But blue? Outside of a couple of cards that, admittedly, should have never been made, that color has been turned into a shell of its former self.
And still people complain.
When Snapcaster and Delver are gone (I know that's a long ways away) unless WotC does a 180, you are going to see the end of blue as a competitive color and relegated to support status.
Ponder is gone and Index sucks. None of the hard core blue players at our LGS are going to play it.
With Cavern of Souls it doesn't matter that they didn't reprint Mana Leak. The only counters that are going to be any good are things like Negate for non creature spells and they'll be relegated to the sideboard.
In a fast meta like we have, Rewind is pretty meh. By 4 mana, you're dead to many decks.
You haven't seen the look of utter glee on new players' faces when they run 40counters.dek as they deny their opponent every move they make. It seems like it's the second deck they make after they see the "pro players" doing it.
You're totally right about this one. My second or third deck ever was about 20 copies of counterspell, mana leak, etc. and the only win conditions were Spiketail Hatchling, Coastal Drake, and Vigilant drake.. and let me tell you that deck was insane in the 2nd grade meta.
Lets see why people think blue is most powerful...
They printed Cavern of Souls to hate on blue.
They didn't reprint Ponder, Mana Leak, Counterspell, Remand. This means they thought the current counters were too good even with Cavern.
They made a non-mythic chase in Snapcaster Mage and a common in Delver which made another Tier 1 Legacy and Standard archetype.
They banned Ponder and Preordain in Modern/Extended for comboing.
They banned Jace in Standard/Modern/Extended. Did I mention they banned Jace?
People dislike durdling when other people getting are getting extra turns
Consecrated Sphinx gets alot of hate in EDH
People now use Vapor Snag test for creatures instead of Titan Test now.
EDIT: Oldest archetype I've played was U/W control with Serra Angel as finisher with counterspell/unsummon backup and Moat to keep all those creatures from attacking.
So yeah, this is why you see non-blue players getting annoyed by blue players.
A lot of people are assuming the down fall come rotation (which is common since we have no idea what is coming). If you look back the past few rotations Wotc has kept certain types of decks in the format, just in different builds. Take U/W- we went from U/W tapout, to cawblade, to U/W flyers, to U/W delver builds. Thats about a 24-28 month spand, maybe a bit longer. Mono black-we went from Vamps, to s different build of vamps, to zombies, to MBC and aggro decks. Again about a 24-28 month span. Green went from elves, to elf ball, to beast master ascension decks, to stampede decks, to mono green infect, to dungrove/rancor decks we have now. another 24-28 month span. I can go on.
The point is no matter how gloom and doom some get, the game evolves and changes in ways we can not foresee.
I do agree the colors will never be truly balanced (especially in eternal formats because of the dominance blue has and the power of the cards that would be needed to be printed to even it out would be extremely powerful for Standard) They have been trying to balance everything out with the special sets that are eternal legal, but they fell short.
I just want all colors to have a shot at being competitive. That would give us at least 5 competitive decks per format, probably more once we start to combined colors. There is no reason 1 color should be heads and shoulders above the rest.
That all said, i think WOtc is doing a fine job of doing that.
A lot of people are assuming the down fall come rotation (which is common since we have no idea what is coming). If you look back the past few rotations Wotc has kept certain types of decks in the format, just in different builds. Take U/W- we went from U/W tapout, to cawblade, to U/W flyers, to U/W delver builds. Thats about a 24-28 month spand, maybe a bit longer. Mono black-we went from Vamps, to s different build of vamps, to zombies, to MBC and aggro decks. Again about a 24-28 month span. Green went from elves, to elf ball, to beast master ascension decks, to stampede decks, to mono green infect, to dungrove/rancor decks we have now. another 24-28 month span. I can go on.
The point is no matter how gloom and doom some get, the game evolves and changes in ways we can not foresee.
I do agree the colors will never be truly balanced (especially in eternal formats because of the dominance blue has and the power of the cards that would be needed to be printed to even it out would be extremely powerful for Standard) They have been trying to balance everything out with the special sets that are eternal legal, but they fell short.
I just want all colors to have a shot at being competitive. That would give us at least 5 competitive decks per format, probably more once we start to combined colors. There is no reason 1 color should be heads and shoulders above the rest.
That all said, i think WOtc is doing a fine job of doing that.
I agree that the game is evolving and that something for each color always seems to pop up that is "competitive" to a degree. though never uniformly across the board. which is the biggest problem especially when fans of one color (such as red) claim to be getting the short end of the stick. And let's be honest. Right now, mono red is not competitive.
What concerns me about blue however as far as the direction the color is going and the power level of future cards is recent comments from WotC themselves, such as "Mana Leak too powerful for standard."
If WotC considers a counter that, when it was first released was nowhere near the most powerful of its type at the time, too powerful for standard, you really do have to wonder where this color is heading.
Case in point, try to find corresponding comments about any other color.
There aren't any.
Realistically, one would have to conclude that WotC plans to weaken blue considerably. How considerably will determine just how competitive blue will be in the future.
Had WotC said nothing, I wouldn't be so concerned as cards go in and out of print all the time. But saying outright that a card, that has been kind of a staple for a couple of years now, is too strong, has to make one concerned about the thought process WotC is using in determining what blue is going to have in the future.
Even though red lost Lightning Bolt, you never heard WotC say "Too powerful for standard" in regard to that spell.
I believe the signs show that there is a reasonable right to be concerned.
LandBoySteve, people don't ***** about white because it isn't blue.
It's funny that whenever a discussion starts about how powerful Blue is historically, there will be some people who want to point out that other colors are sometimes powerful as well.
I just don't understand why it's not ok for other colors to have some time in the spotlight.
Blue has dominated magic for YEARS. R&D admits this. It's true. So all the complaining about losing ponder and mana leak and other such cards is just beyong me. White loses it's best wrath, Red has lost Lighting bolt, Black is fairly terrible outside of zombies and green lost Giant Spider (Come on Wizards...get it together).
Have blue players really been on top for so long that they can't let another color be the top dog just for a little bit? I think this is why people say blue players have such a big ego. For some reason blue players think they DESERVE to be on top.
I don't know. It just baffles me.
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If you go from like 4E forward, green is powerhouse in a lot of formats. Just because greens mechanics are hard to bust doesn't mean its not ridiculous. I mean thinking about it, green has had tier 1 decks in every standard for years now, and it has dredge as a mechanic, it has goyf, it has alluren, natural order, oath of druids, elves, jund, and even combo decks like Bloom or Heartbeat. People saying blue is dominating need to calm down.
Delver is a good card. SCM is a good card. Delver is in no way dominating standard. It's just a tier one deck.
Sure, in early magic, blue has some mistakes. But now, people are complaining about things that have made a relatively small splash on the standard pool. Sure, SCM and Delver are legacy playable. SCM is a card that had to be printed though, and Delver still dies to pretty much all removal in the game. People are also neglecting that, in comparison to Nacatl, Nacatl was not banned for power level reasons but because it was believed that banning Nacatl would be the best shot at diversifying aggro away from Zoo in the modern meta.
I'm kind of meandering, but I suppose the point is that blue is having the power level of draw and counters both lowered. Delver came about because of R&D's attempt to find an additional niche for blue in more tempo creatures, but it came out a little too strong. Oh well. You can still interact with it. Blue is clearly being depowered to the point where I'd say its not even the best color in standard. That's probably white or green. People who say its still way too powerful are just fooling themselves.
Blue will always be the best colour as long as there is people with a perceptive bias.
yeah, its pretty much just this. a lot of people only notice blue when its winning because of the way the games play out and their own bias against counterspells, or tempo loss. when their preferred nonblue color is on top, things are hunky dory. the minute they lose in a way they don't enjoy its OMG THATS BROKEN RAWR I WANT TO PLAY HOW I WANT TO PLAY WHO CARES HOW YOU WANT TO PLAY I'M RIGHT YOU'RE WRONG BLUE IS TOO GOOD
I agree that the game is evolving and that something for each color always seems to pop up that is "competitive" to a degree. though never uniformly across the board. which is the biggest problem especially when fans of one color (such as red) claim to be getting the short end of the stick. And let's be honest. Right now, mono red is not competitive.
What concerns me about blue however as far as the direction the color is going and the power level of future cards is recent comments from WotC themselves, such as "Mana Leak too powerful for standard."
If WotC considers a counter that, when it was first released was nowhere near the most powerful of its type at the time, too powerful for standard, you really do have to wonder where this color is heading.
Case in point, try to find corresponding comments about any other color.
There aren't any.
Realistically, one would have to conclude that WotC plans to weaken blue considerably. How considerably will determine just how competitive blue will be in the future.
Had WotC said nothing, I wouldn't be so concerned as cards go in and out of print all the time. But saying outright that a card, that has been kind of a staple for a couple of years now, is too strong, has to make one concerned about the thought process WotC is using in determining what blue is going to have in the future.
Even though red lost Lightning Bolt, you never heard WotC say "Too powerful for standard" in regard to that spell.
I believe the signs show that there is a reasonable right to be concerned.
I think you are looking at it with a little bias. Blue started our miles above every other color. Its spells were truly broken back when the game was in its infancy. Bringing blue down to everyone elses power level seems fair.
The power of Mana leak is it hits anything. Hard counters that hit anything are too powerful for Standard. If they allow those type counters it leads to blues dominance. By making counters situational (remove soul and negate) or tempo (remand and delay) It balances the format.
The problem with that thinking this is blue mages have been so use to counters that hit everything, it seems as if they are getting screwed, when in reality its just changing the way blue will be played in the future.
I understand the concern, but I think its a bit premature. Lets have this talk after RTR is released and rotation is upon us.
If you go from like 4E forward, green is powerhouse in a lot of formats.
Are you talking block? Because up till about a year ago green has been almost unplayable as a stand along color. Before that time, it was elf ball and that was a very fragile deck, so I dont know where you get green has been a power house since 4E. Good support color? Ill give it that, but at times all the colors have been good support colors.
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Legacy:
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Thats an interesting take, I have noticed recently card advantage isnt as big of a factor as it was a few years back. Speed and tempo usually out race card advantage. Of course there are always those few decks that buck the norm.
One thing you keep missing about how Garfield created the game. His vision was a limited format that you drafted, constructed wasnt even thought about until the players started building decks. The power of certain abilities get better in constructed then they are in a limited format. Once the game switched to a constructed format with the 60 card decks and the 4 of rule, the game had to change. Just because the color pie was balanced in the beginning for limited play, doesnt mean the color pie was balanced for constructed play. Anyone who says the color pie was balanced for constructed play back in 94-96 either didnt play or was just blind to the unbalanced aspect of the game. As of late they have been doing a good job of balancing the limited format and the constructed format.
I believe all colors should have their own identity, but each should be equal. If counters are too powerful in blue, then give the card draw to another color. If the hexproof big creatures in green become too powerful, dont give them removal and other effects to make the colors unbalanced. Same goes for every color. No one color should trump every other color.
With low powered counterspells and high value creatures with absurd EtB effects blue will become much weaker. People always forget that blue is completely incapable of permanently getting rid of anything outside of counterspells. People who don't play blue honestly have no idea how fragile the color can be in a creature saturated environment. Part of me wants to see blue be less viable just so people can stop whining about the color (that will never happen because people hate blue blind stupid fanaticism.)
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It should have been a 2/2, but Delver is an outliar and NOT the norm.
This has been argued to death. Delver isnt always a 3/2, its a 1/1 that may or may not flip to a 3/2. Most smart players know to take care of the 1/1. Kitty rarely was ever a 1/1. Normally it hits the table as a 2/2 and is a 3/3 swinging next turn. Delver has to be built around to ensure it flips the next turn. Kitty was slid into a deck that already had the mana requirements from kird ape.
I guess I'm not really understanding where you're coming from. I'd think if anything, this would be good for blue, since they have a chance to stop the EtB effects altogether while other decks have to get caught up in unfavorable trades. I cast Primeval Titan against mono black and get my lands - even if Titan gets an immediate Doom Blade to the face, I still got a 3-for-1. Right now, the issue is that blue has the single most aggressive creature in the format and lots of ways to find it. I remember when blue was the control color.
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Modern:
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Legacy:
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You can blame people who don't understand that control is the most interactive way to play (not best, not most fun, but most interactive). Yet somehow people think counterspells are uninteractive and Geist of Saint Traft is.
Companies cater to the lowest common denominator of player. Look at LoL or current WoW for examples.
Is it the most dominant color? As someone who's played this game for over a decade now, I gotta say Green is getting awfully powerful these days.
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Fear not, green can't be overpowered because huge creatures are the only things that are fun.
Arguing that countermagic isnt better than removal, especially as more and more creatures have powerful ETB effects is again, not always correct.
Blue is VERY powerful. Historically, it has been the MOST powerful. R&D acknowledge this, so arguing against that point is moot.
And be honest, there are a lot of blue mages that have fragile egos and need to voice how clever they are. A lot of the arguments for blue not being that good in this thread have basically amounted to the same thing (I win with blue, so it isn't overpowered! Look at this one example in this other colour! See?! Blue isnt that good!)
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I agree with you. No one color should be stronger than another. The problem is, because the abilities of each color are not balanced (life gain sucks, card draw and bounce amazing) the only way to achieve any kind of parity is to either...
1. Make the OP abilities so weak that they're almost not worth playing.
Or
2. Make the weak abilities so powerful (if that's even possible with life gain) that they're broken.
I mean would a one mana instant that gave you 10 life be worth playing?
This game is never going to be balanced. It isn't physically possible because of the complexity. Certainly not in eternal formats. Standard? It would be one hell of a tough task. There is always going to be one or two decks that seem to dominate everything else.
Go through the whole history of this game and with very few exceptions, that has been the case. Yes, even during the so called "glory days" that I loved so much. I know the game was broken. But at least it was diverse broken.
Now? Standard has become so one dimensional that it's a joke. Honestly, I don't even know why they bother printing obvious combo cards anymore (I'm looking at you Knowledge Pool/ Curse of Exhaustion because combo sucks. It isn't even worth considering.
You can't even make a good burn deck anymore. And that's something I can't see anybody objecting to.
Forget permission
Forget discard
Forget LD (why do they even print crap like Demolish?)
Forget mill (though I've seen some decent Jace 3.0 decks. Maybe tier 3)
When Pod rotates out in October, we're going to lose a whole archetype, one that has been quite interesting and enjoyable and even competitive.
And with DoJ gone in October, aggro is going to be even more rampant. Not that DoJ was so great with all the undying running around. In fact, Zombies has made DoJ a non factor.
I had hopes for Frites as a type of reanimator deck. And while it's been doing OK, it hasn't exactly been tearing up the meta.
And I won't even get into how bad red is as a mono color these days.
Tried out Krenko in the new Goblin build. Forget it. Even with Chieftain, he's just bad. Not that it matters, because when red loses Shrine in October, it'll absolutely be relegated to a support color.
I'm actually glad they made Bonfire. That card is a beast. A one sided board wipe, even against undying, is pretty good. About time red got something really great.
Green? Thragtusk is a real Delver hoser and I couldn't be happier. That card is going to see a lot of play for a long time.
White? White always gets good stuff. I don't think a lot of people realize how white is really just a notch below blue in power. In fact, if you played mono white against mono blue, mono white would win. Overall, it is a more complete color because it can deal with just about anything.
Why don't more people ***** about white? The color is obscenely good.
Black? This color is an enigma lately. It can get stuff as crappy as (pick a card, any card) and then get something as amazing as Geralf's Messenger, Griselbrand and the return of Mutilate.
In fact, mono black control is a beast against aggro right now. About time.
But blue? Outside of a couple of cards that, admittedly, should have never been made, that color has been turned into a shell of its former self.
And still people complain.
When Snapcaster and Delver are gone (I know that's a long ways away) unless WotC does a 180, you are going to see the end of blue as a competitive color and relegated to support status.
Ponder is gone and Index sucks. None of the hard core blue players at our LGS are going to play it.
With Cavern of Souls it doesn't matter that they didn't reprint Mana Leak. The only counters that are going to be any good are things like Negate for non creature spells and they'll be relegated to the sideboard.
In a fast meta like we have, Rewind is pretty meh. By 4 mana, you're dead to many decks.
Vapor Snag will be gone and Unsummon is a poor replacement.
So barring RtR giving blue some great stuff, I think the pendulum is going to shift so far the other way players are going to be saying "Blue who?"
Just my opinion of course. But it's going to be interesting to see, two years from now, just how right I am probably going to be.
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You're totally right about this one. My second or third deck ever was about 20 copies of counterspell, mana leak, etc. and the only win conditions were Spiketail Hatchling, Coastal Drake, and Vigilant drake.. and let me tell you that deck was insane in the 2nd grade meta.
They printed Cavern of Souls to hate on blue.
They didn't reprint Ponder, Mana Leak, Counterspell, Remand. This means they thought the current counters were too good even with Cavern.
They made a non-mythic chase in Snapcaster Mage and a common in Delver which made another Tier 1 Legacy and Standard archetype.
They banned Ponder and Preordain in Modern/Extended for comboing.
They banned Jace in Standard/Modern/Extended. Did I mention they banned Jace?
People dislike durdling when other people getting are getting extra turns
Consecrated Sphinx gets alot of hate in EDH
People now use Vapor Snag test for creatures instead of Titan Test now.
EDIT: Oldest archetype I've played was U/W control with Serra Angel as finisher with counterspell/unsummon backup and Moat to keep all those creatures from attacking.
So yeah, this is why you see non-blue players getting annoyed by blue players.
The point is no matter how gloom and doom some get, the game evolves and changes in ways we can not foresee.
I do agree the colors will never be truly balanced (especially in eternal formats because of the dominance blue has and the power of the cards that would be needed to be printed to even it out would be extremely powerful for Standard) They have been trying to balance everything out with the special sets that are eternal legal, but they fell short.
I just want all colors to have a shot at being competitive. That would give us at least 5 competitive decks per format, probably more once we start to combined colors. There is no reason 1 color should be heads and shoulders above the rest.
That all said, i think WOtc is doing a fine job of doing that.
I agree that the game is evolving and that something for each color always seems to pop up that is "competitive" to a degree. though never uniformly across the board. which is the biggest problem especially when fans of one color (such as red) claim to be getting the short end of the stick. And let's be honest. Right now, mono red is not competitive.
What concerns me about blue however as far as the direction the color is going and the power level of future cards is recent comments from WotC themselves, such as "Mana Leak too powerful for standard."
If WotC considers a counter that, when it was first released was nowhere near the most powerful of its type at the time, too powerful for standard, you really do have to wonder where this color is heading.
Case in point, try to find corresponding comments about any other color.
There aren't any.
Realistically, one would have to conclude that WotC plans to weaken blue considerably. How considerably will determine just how competitive blue will be in the future.
Had WotC said nothing, I wouldn't be so concerned as cards go in and out of print all the time. But saying outright that a card, that has been kind of a staple for a couple of years now, is too strong, has to make one concerned about the thought process WotC is using in determining what blue is going to have in the future.
Even though red lost Lightning Bolt, you never heard WotC say "Too powerful for standard" in regard to that spell.
I believe the signs show that there is a reasonable right to be concerned.
It's funny that whenever a discussion starts about how powerful Blue is historically, there will be some people who want to point out that other colors are sometimes powerful as well.
Blue has dominated magic for YEARS. R&D admits this. It's true. So all the complaining about losing ponder and mana leak and other such cards is just beyong me. White loses it's best wrath, Red has lost Lighting bolt, Black is fairly terrible outside of zombies and green lost Giant Spider (Come on Wizards...get it together).
Have blue players really been on top for so long that they can't let another color be the top dog just for a little bit? I think this is why people say blue players have such a big ego. For some reason blue players think they DESERVE to be on top.
I don't know. It just baffles me.
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What does it need to bring to be able to do that without being broken?
Delver is a good card. SCM is a good card. Delver is in no way dominating standard. It's just a tier one deck.
Sure, in early magic, blue has some mistakes. But now, people are complaining about things that have made a relatively small splash on the standard pool. Sure, SCM and Delver are legacy playable. SCM is a card that had to be printed though, and Delver still dies to pretty much all removal in the game. People are also neglecting that, in comparison to Nacatl, Nacatl was not banned for power level reasons but because it was believed that banning Nacatl would be the best shot at diversifying aggro away from Zoo in the modern meta.
I'm kind of meandering, but I suppose the point is that blue is having the power level of draw and counters both lowered. Delver came about because of R&D's attempt to find an additional niche for blue in more tempo creatures, but it came out a little too strong. Oh well. You can still interact with it. Blue is clearly being depowered to the point where I'd say its not even the best color in standard. That's probably white or green. People who say its still way too powerful are just fooling themselves.
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well... there was 5th edition...
...and pretty much every set until m10. so... yeah.
yeah, its pretty much just this. a lot of people only notice blue when its winning because of the way the games play out and their own bias against counterspells, or tempo loss. when their preferred nonblue color is on top, things are hunky dory. the minute they lose in a way they don't enjoy its OMG THATS BROKEN RAWR I WANT TO PLAY HOW I WANT TO PLAY WHO CARES HOW YOU WANT TO PLAY I'M RIGHT YOU'RE WRONG BLUE IS TOO GOOD
I think you are looking at it with a little bias. Blue started our miles above every other color. Its spells were truly broken back when the game was in its infancy. Bringing blue down to everyone elses power level seems fair.
The power of Mana leak is it hits anything. Hard counters that hit anything are too powerful for Standard. If they allow those type counters it leads to blues dominance. By making counters situational (remove soul and negate) or tempo (remand and delay) It balances the format.
The problem with that thinking this is blue mages have been so use to counters that hit everything, it seems as if they are getting screwed, when in reality its just changing the way blue will be played in the future.
I understand the concern, but I think its a bit premature. Lets have this talk after RTR is released and rotation is upon us.
Are you talking block? Because up till about a year ago green has been almost unplayable as a stand along color. Before that time, it was elf ball and that was a very fragile deck, so I dont know where you get green has been a power house since 4E. Good support color? Ill give it that, but at times all the colors have been good support colors.