Yes, it is. You lose 1 life and 1 card advantage to prevent something from occuring, which is most effective against combo and least against aggro/good stuff where all of the cards are redundant.
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Pauper: UB Wight Phantasm RB Burn UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
the faster your deck is and the less cards in your opponents deck actually matter the better the effect becomes.
For example, if you run an aggro deck and the only card that really stops you is a Wrath of God you can just tap out all you like as long as you can counter it, you win the game.
Same for combo decks. If you can assemble your combo and all that matters is that 1 hate card, you can just counter it and win the game.
In every format of constructed (Legacy/Vintage) its legal, its important to keep the format at least somewhat in check against turn 1 combo decks, which would otherwise have a much higher win% if no free counterspell would be available that you have to play around if you can.
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However, in slower formats with a more variety of threats, it becomes a more and more bad deal to spend 2 cards to counter 1.
If neither card is particular important, you are losing card advantage, and it doesnt really help you enough, especially as it requires you to play enough blue cards, which is also not an automatic task to ask for (much easier in older formats, as they have the other strong blue cards and a insane strong mana with fetch lands and duals to play blue almost for free).
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So yes, Force of Will is totally fine, but it is an important piece of a puzzle and shapes a format if the stars align to make it worth playing.
Trust me, you'd rather have strong control cards (and this is really a blue staple in eternal formats) than a format without them. And this card is pretty much only bad to combo decks: Aggro and to a lesser extent midrange decks really don't mind it (because it's just card advantage to them), but combo decks need specific cards to win.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
I think force of will is the most fair card in legacy. I was just on a modern forum where we were discussing how the person on the play has a 54% percentage to win game 1 compared to the opponent on the draw. Force of will is the card that rewards the player on the draw.
Similarly, Force of will helps to prevent the "battle of sideboards" you see in modern. It helps to keep combo decks in check. (I'm not an advocate of force in modern. I personally enjoy both legacy and modern, legacy a bit more)
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I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
I play it in Commander, and, honestly, I'd say NO, but I like doing unfair things.
As someone who runs FoW in two Commander decks, it's even more fair in Commander than in Legacy/Vintage, since you're compounding the card disadvantage with having multiple opponents.
No. But its the only thing holding the unfair format of legacy together. So i'd never call for its banning.
Its unfair in that the typical issue with counters is that you also have to delay your game plan to prevent your opponents play. FoW allows you to have your cake and eat it to.
It may not have been fair back when it was in it's standard format, but it is totally fair in the formats where it's legal.
As someone who was playing Standard back then, it was a completely fair card. All it really did was prevent Blue decks from auto-scooping to an untimely Armageddon. You didn't simply FOW something at the first opportunity, since it was inherently card disadvantage to do so.
Its unfair in that the typical issue with counters is that you also have to delay your game plan to prevent your opponents play. FoW allows you to have your cake and eat it to.
FoW forces you to delay yourself in a different way: holding an extra blue card, instead of holding up mana.
I think it's fair. It slows your opponent, but it costs not insignificant resources, and it doesn't advance your own game beyond keeping you alive, outside of things like Thing in the Ice or prowess decks.
The only way I can see a counterspell being unfair is something like Mana Drain, it stops the other player and buys you time, but it also provides a huge resource advantage. A card that just counters, in my mind inherently cannot be unfair, no matter how well it counters
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Project Booster Fun makes it less fun to open a booster.
No! Force of Will is not a fair card, but it's a necessary evil that we need in the older format, otherwise the ban list would be insanely long. The ban list would be so long that nobody would want to play in the older formats.
I play it in Commander, and, honestly, I'd say NO, but I like doing unfair things.
As someone who runs FoW in two Commander decks, it's even more fair in Commander than in Legacy/Vintage, since you're compounding the card disadvantage with having multiple opponents.
And a lot of Commander decks depend heavily on recursion. Maybe not graveyard shenanigans, but just recursion to get cards back where you only have one or two viable variants, e.g. how many Intruder Alarms exist other than the original? Exiling is more permanent: You can either use one of like, three cards that gets things back from exile, exile Misthollow Griffin or Torrent Elemental, or hope for a political favor from the guy with the Eldrazi processors. (If it's an answer or a Stax-style incremental threat or even if you're playing fish, this is possible. If it's a combo piece, don't hold your breath.)
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Wishes can help with exile return. Burning Wish specifically can get you any other Wish spell you own. If you own the set, run a Burning Wish and it'll let you get back almost anything that's exiled.
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They just couldn't put 7th edition into Modern because of the card borders? Seriously? Count me out.
Wishes can help with exile return. Burning Wish specifically can get you any other Wish spell you own. If you own the set, run a Burning Wish and it'll let you get back almost anything that's exiled.
What? Half the reason for why "remove from game" got its name changed to "exile" in Magic 2010 was to hammer home the fact that cards that fetch from "outside of the game" do not interact with the exile zone. This is even more obvious in light of the fact that Coax From the Blind Eternities lists the two locations as entirely separate. Heck, all of the wishes say they can't grab cards from exile on their gatherer rulings.
Wishes can help with exile return. Burning Wish specifically can get you any other Wish spell you own. If you own the set, run a Burning Wish and it'll let you get back almost anything that's exiled.
What? Half the reason for why "remove from game" got its name changed to "exile" in Magic 2010 was to hammer home the fact that cards that fetch from "outside of the game" do not interact with the exile zone. This is even more obvious in light of the fact that Coax From the Blind Eternities lists the two locations as entirely separate. Heck, all of the wishes say they can't grab cards from exile on their gatherer rulings.
Anyway, as you can see, it's still more than fair in EDH. It's basically used there to shut down combo decks that catch you with your pants down, and even then, you also have Thwart and Daze, where the "downside" might end up being an upside (e.g., landfall, Stax decks featuring Winter Orb). There's also Foil in the same vein, but for reanimator.
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
UB Wight Phantasm
RB Burn
UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Legacy:
R Burn
CG-Post
For example, if you run an aggro deck and the only card that really stops you is a Wrath of God you can just tap out all you like as long as you can counter it, you win the game.
Same for combo decks. If you can assemble your combo and all that matters is that 1 hate card, you can just counter it and win the game.
In every format of constructed (Legacy/Vintage) its legal, its important to keep the format at least somewhat in check against turn 1 combo decks, which would otherwise have a much higher win% if no free counterspell would be available that you have to play around if you can.
----
However, in slower formats with a more variety of threats, it becomes a more and more bad deal to spend 2 cards to counter 1.
If neither card is particular important, you are losing card advantage, and it doesnt really help you enough, especially as it requires you to play enough blue cards, which is also not an automatic task to ask for (much easier in older formats, as they have the other strong blue cards and a insane strong mana with fetch lands and duals to play blue almost for free).
----
So yes, Force of Will is totally fine, but it is an important piece of a puzzle and shapes a format if the stars align to make it worth playing.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Card is fair and awesome!
BGGRock
Modern
BRGJund
BBGRock
Without it, you'll see far more broken decks, and make far more bannings/restrictions necessary.
Fair ot not, it's necessaru and keeps the game fairer.
But, ues, it is a fair card.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
On phasing:
Similarly, Force of will helps to prevent the "battle of sideboards" you see in modern. It helps to keep combo decks in check. (I'm not an advocate of force in modern. I personally enjoy both legacy and modern, legacy a bit more)
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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Its unfair in that the typical issue with counters is that you also have to delay your game plan to prevent your opponents play. FoW allows you to have your cake and eat it to.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
What could be more fair? It's certainly fairer than Counterspell.
Oh, you mean it's 'unfair' that there's a card that can stop your completely 'Fair' Turn One win combo? Oh. Well, tell me more..
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As someone who was playing Standard back then, it was a completely fair card. All it really did was prevent Blue decks from auto-scooping to an untimely Armageddon. You didn't simply FOW something at the first opportunity, since it was inherently card disadvantage to do so.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
Not at all in the sense that the rest of the world, including Timmy the Scrub(/Casual MtG Dabbler) use the word.
The only way I can see a counterspell being unfair is something like Mana Drain, it stops the other player and buys you time, but it also provides a huge resource advantage. A card that just counters, in my mind inherently cannot be unfair, no matter how well it counters
**Legacy**
Grixis Delver
16post
**Standard**
I'll let you know if/when i go back to Standard. I hate pulling cards i can't use.
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
And a lot of Commander decks depend heavily on recursion. Maybe not graveyard shenanigans, but just recursion to get cards back where you only have one or two viable variants, e.g. how many Intruder Alarms exist other than the original? Exiling is more permanent: You can either use one of like, three cards that gets things back from exile, exile Misthollow Griffin or Torrent Elemental, or hope for a political favor from the guy with the Eldrazi processors. (If it's an answer or a Stax-style incremental threat or even if you're playing fish, this is possible. If it's a combo piece, don't hold your breath.)
When it was in Type 2, it was still fair: It mostly made it so blue didn't insta-scoop to Armageddon, Winter Orb, or some weird Greed variant that makes you skip your draw step.
On phasing:
**Legacy**
Grixis Delver
16post
**Standard**
I'll let you know if/when i go back to Standard. I hate pulling cards i can't use.
What? Half the reason for why "remove from game" got its name changed to "exile" in Magic 2010 was to hammer home the fact that cards that fetch from "outside of the game" do not interact with the exile zone. This is even more obvious in light of the fact that Coax From the Blind Eternities lists the two locations as entirely separate. Heck, all of the wishes say they can't grab cards from exile on their gatherer rulings.
**Legacy**
Grixis Delver
16post
**Standard**
I'll let you know if/when i go back to Standard. I hate pulling cards i can't use.
The four things that can get other cards you own back from exile are Pull from Eternity, Riftsweeper, Runic Repetition, and Coax from the Blind Eternities. Oh damn, I can't say it, you'll have to say it.
Anyway, as you can see, it's still more than fair in EDH. It's basically used there to shut down combo decks that catch you with your pants down, and even then, you also have Thwart and Daze, where the "downside" might end up being an upside (e.g., landfall, Stax decks featuring Winter Orb). There's also Foil in the same vein, but for reanimator.
On phasing: