I have been thinking a lot about force of will
I understand the arguments for not reprinting it, I of course would love it to be reprinted, I do not have any, and the $100 price tag is to high for me. On the other hand there are lots of people who have purchased them and their collection should not be reduced in price. However, this card is a staple and is required to balance power. If force of will did not exist legacy and vintage would be a who could combo first game.
So lets go with the argument that it will not be reprinted. How about something similar, but worse. I see a 6 casting cost counter spell with an alternate cost. Lets say discard a basic island and pay 3 life. This makes it worse in every way. Would make modern less combo and give a bunch of players a card that they would need to break into vintage/legacy. It may hurt force of will's price a little but it would still be the better card.
Any thoughts about this? What recommendations would you make?
Since Islands are not blue and discarding can have rather different consequences from exiling, your "worse in every way" force of will design is dropping some clues that you might not have the background for an informed opinion on the issue.
Foil exists, so there already is an alternative free hard counter. It sees virtually no play, except occasionally as FoWs 5-6. Your proposed card is probably better than it, as even with the basic restriction and higher cost to hard cast plus life loss, you only two for one yourself rather than 3 for 1 yourself. Foil will never be reprinted in a standard legal set, so it is unlikely your card ever would be.
That said, being printed in a standard legal set is irrelevant if you are only worried about availability in Legacy and Vintage, rather than getting FoW into modern. FoW is an uncommon, and thus not on the reserved list. Wizards can reprint it at any time. The existence of Commander, premium decks, planechase, and from the vault give them an opportunity to reprint FoW in limited quantities to expand supply without degrading prices to extensively. Sure, a From the Vault reprint wouldn't leave the price at $100, but at $35 retail, and potentially no other money cards (as has happened before), the price will probably settle at $30, probably more for the originals. In fact, that's pretty much what happened to JTMS when he got reprinted in FtV 20, he went from about $100 to about $30, and now he's about $80 again. So yes, if FoW availability becomes a problem, expect it to be reprinted in limited release special product like FtV or Commander. Same for Wasteland.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
So lets go with the argument that it will not be reprinted. How about something similar, but worse. I see a 6 casting cost counter spell with an alternate cost. Lets say discard a basic island and pay 3 life.
foil mental misstep (turned out to be too good).
Also: your version of force of will is better than original. Yes, I'd rather much toss an island rather than an ancestral, tinker, or jace.
Any thoughts about this? What recommendations would you make?
Before recommendations can be given, First you have to ask: WHY isn't wizards reprinting it? It isn't in the reserve list. It's a staple and thus if reprinted will lead to a lot of people snapping it up. It won't break standard.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Since Islands are not blue and discarding can have rather different consequences from exiling, your "worse in every way" force of will design is dropping some clues that you might not have the background for an informed opinion on the issue.
so lets discuss I agree with you Exile is worse than discard so lets make that change. I disagree with your opinion that in and opinion section of a forum you think my opinion should not matter.
Foil exists, so there already is an alternative free hard counter.
Yes there is and you are correct, I actually have 4 of them and use them in casual decks, however using it is like giving your opponent an ancestral recall. Starting a game with 4 cards in hand pretty much means you are going to lose.
I realize Wizards could reprint it, I do not think they will. Why do you think they have not reprinted it in... what about 15 years? I am guessing because it would upset the people who have 20 of them, but its just my opinion, I do not know why they have not, I do not work for them. My thought is that if you are not reprinting print something comparable.
Good point about rather tossing and island over an ancestral, tinker, or jace I would say to make that change as well.
Since Islands are not blue and discarding can have rather different consequences from exiling, your "worse in every way" force of will design is dropping some clues that you might not have the background for an informed opinion on the issue.
A basic island restriction may indeed be worse for several reasons. First, the decks that run FoW often have fewer basic islands than blue cards, making it less likely to be online at any given moment (and practically useless in a deck like Vintage Tendrils). Second, the card requires you to keep land in hand for it to work, which is much weaker than keeping a blue spell in hand. Jace or Tinker are better than a basic island, no doubt, but you need islands to cast them. Playing with FoW, you generally don't change your style to keep a card in hand, it just happens because your mana limits how fast you can cast spells (yes, there are corner cases, but it doesn't come up very often). Playing with this card, you would be much more likely to hit a point where you have to decide whether to make a land drop or hold onto the island n case your opponent tries to show and tell. Yes, Daze puts you back a land drop, but it does so re-actively, so you would have already gotten a chance to use the land's mana, and you don't have to go back a land drop until you actually have to counter a spell (you don't have to keep yourself back a land drop just in case), and it also doesn't set you back a card. Discarding does indeed have different consequences than exiling, but with a basic island those consequences are minimal. Yes, it helps the single Treasure Cruise you are allowed to run in Vintage a small amount, and it helps Deathrite Shaman (though you likely aren't running many basic islands in his deck), and it is actually good with goyf, but this isn't like discarding a blue card, which could let you reanimate it or Snapcaster it.
Yeah, his card isn't "strictly" worse than FoW, but it is worse in every aspect. Will there be occasional cases where certain aspects are better? Yes. Will they each be worse the vast majority of the time? Yes. Taken together, is the card worse then FoW in most decks, but especially in decks that run FoW? You betcha. It would be much better in draft, and might help push a Standard mono blue or two color control deck with a lot of basic islands, and Merfolk would like it since its one of the few decks in Legacy that runs a lot of basic islands and can afford to ditch them due to aether vial. Maybe you are the one who isn't qualified to have an informed opinion on this issue.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Worse in every way suggests he thought it was strictly worse. I didn't say it wasn't generally worse.
I didn't assert that I'm qualified to have an opinion on the issue. I don't have an opinion on the issue. I don't play enough Legacy to have a good opinion on the issue. I just play enough Magic to know that Islands aren't blue, and to know that knowing Islands aren't blue is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for suggesting changes to a card that exiles a blue card.
If he didn't mean strictly worse, than he's welcome to come in and revise his statement, but "worse in every way" means pretty much exactly that.
Worse in every way suggests he thought it was strictly worse. I didn't say it wasn't generally worse.
I didn't assert that I'm qualified to have an opinion on the issue. I don't have an opinion on the issue. I don't play enough Legacy to have a good opinion on the issue. I just play enough Magic to know that Islands aren't blue, and to know that knowing Islands aren't blue is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for suggesting changes to a card that exiles a blue card.
If he didn't mean strictly worse, than he's welcome to come in and revise his statement, but "worse in every way" means pretty much exactly that.
Wizards has, in the past, used controlling or discarding a land type as a proxy for controlling or discarding a card of the color of mana that land type produces. See Foil, and other free alternate cost cards from Masques block. In no way did he imply that islands are blue, and as I said WotC has already shown they are willing to substitute islands for blue cards for this effect. The reason for this is that these restrictions (blue card and island for instance) are meant to ensure that the free spells can only be cast in decks that would be capable of paying their mana cost and avoid breaking the color pie. They didn't want hard counters available to mono green for instance. So they required the exile of a blue card on FoW to ensure you'd be running blue, and an island on foil for the same reason. Of course, the basic land restriction lets you run it in a deck that is all artifacts with a bunch of islands, but at that point its a blue deck that just runs very few blue cards. On the other hand, FoW's restriction is easier to get around now that hybrid mana exists, and you could actually run it in a mono green deck that happens to run a bunch of U/G hybrid cards like Snakeform, with no blue mana sources in sight.
"Strictly Worse" is loaded language, but worse in every way is not.Worse in every way is as likely, if not more likely, to imply that every aspect of the card is generally worse than it is to imply that every aspect is worse in every situation. The former is true for every aspect of his card except discard vs exile, which considering that it is a basic island being discarded, is meaningless in most situations and barely advantageous in the corner cases where it matters. Note also that he didn't say that each aspect is worse in every way, only that the card is, implying that the aspects were all worse without implying they were strictly worse. Of course, we're quibbling over nuance at this point, but I think I've demonstrated why you calling him out the way you did in your first post was both unnecessary and ironic. You probably should be qualified to have an opinion on an issue before you decide you are capable of determining whether someone else is.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
I do see everyone's point, and opinion, I myself do not play much vintage and legacy. I do understand that without force of will either there will be 20 more cards on the banned/redistricted list or the game would be determined by who won the coin toss. There is no situation in magic that can always be worse than another. Exile is worse than discard till I have a Misthollow Griffin in my hand, then suddenly I would rather be exiling the card. Worse in every way would trying to look at the card in the most general sense and making it so that under normal conditions (most of the time) it would be worse. But at least usable Foil does the same thing but its draw back is so bad it is next to unusable (until I have ensnaring bridge out, See I made foil better than Force of will)
I will change my statement to "Generally speaking worse but not necessarily in every way, and in no way do I mean all the time, and definitely not in every circumstance. We will call it worse in 90% of the time in which it is intended to be used. To be more specific I would like you to turn to page 39 article 4 line 7 of your not always strictly worse than force of will booklet...."
Thank you for the discussion input and ideas, Does anyone know why Force has not been reprinted?
While not a direct copy of Force, they all have similar properties.
At some point Force will be reprinted. It's not on the RL and it's already seen a Judge foil reprint. Just give it time.
Shoal is the only one that is really comparable to FoW, as it is the only one that is a counter spell. Misdirection only works on spells that target, and then only if there is another legal target. The effect is truly different. Commandeer hits much more, and is arguably a stronger effect than FoW against non creature spells as stealing an artifact or walker is strong. Shoal is a hard counter, its just generally worse in every way (yes, it ca be hard cast for less against 0,1, and 2 cmc spells and doesn't cost you 1 life, so it isn't STRICTLY worse). As you said, it will be reprinted when it needs to be. They held off online until it crept on $200, then slipped it into Vintage Masters. IRL, its an uncommon, so they can reprint it without violating the reserved list.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I understand the arguments for not reprinting it, I of course would love it to be reprinted, I do not have any, and the $100 price tag is to high for me. On the other hand there are lots of people who have purchased them and their collection should not be reduced in price. However, this card is a staple and is required to balance power. If force of will did not exist legacy and vintage would be a who could combo first game.
So lets go with the argument that it will not be reprinted. How about something similar, but worse. I see a 6 casting cost counter spell with an alternate cost. Lets say discard a basic island and pay 3 life. This makes it worse in every way. Would make modern less combo and give a bunch of players a card that they would need to break into vintage/legacy. It may hurt force of will's price a little but it would still be the better card.
Any thoughts about this? What recommendations would you make?
Zane
That said, being printed in a standard legal set is irrelevant if you are only worried about availability in Legacy and Vintage, rather than getting FoW into modern. FoW is an uncommon, and thus not on the reserved list. Wizards can reprint it at any time. The existence of Commander, premium decks, planechase, and from the vault give them an opportunity to reprint FoW in limited quantities to expand supply without degrading prices to extensively. Sure, a From the Vault reprint wouldn't leave the price at $100, but at $35 retail, and potentially no other money cards (as has happened before), the price will probably settle at $30, probably more for the originals. In fact, that's pretty much what happened to JTMS when he got reprinted in FtV 20, he went from about $100 to about $30, and now he's about $80 again. So yes, if FoW availability becomes a problem, expect it to be reprinted in limited release special product like FtV or Commander. Same for Wasteland.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
foil
mental misstep (turned out to be too good).
Also: your version of force of will is better than original. Yes, I'd rather much toss an island rather than an ancestral, tinker, or jace.
Do shocklands hurt the price of dual lands?
Before recommendations can be given, First you have to ask: WHY isn't wizards reprinting it? It isn't in the reserve list. It's a staple and thus if reprinted will lead to a lot of people snapping it up. It won't break standard.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
so lets discuss I agree with you Exile is worse than discard so lets make that change. I disagree with your opinion that in and opinion section of a forum you think my opinion should not matter.
Foil exists, so there already is an alternative free hard counter.
Yes there is and you are correct, I actually have 4 of them and use them in casual decks, however using it is like giving your opponent an ancestral recall. Starting a game with 4 cards in hand pretty much means you are going to lose.
I realize Wizards could reprint it, I do not think they will. Why do you think they have not reprinted it in... what about 15 years? I am guessing because it would upset the people who have 20 of them, but its just my opinion, I do not know why they have not, I do not work for them. My thought is that if you are not reprinting print something comparable.
Good point about rather tossing and island over an ancestral, tinker, or jace I would say to make that change as well.
A basic island restriction may indeed be worse for several reasons. First, the decks that run FoW often have fewer basic islands than blue cards, making it less likely to be online at any given moment (and practically useless in a deck like Vintage Tendrils). Second, the card requires you to keep land in hand for it to work, which is much weaker than keeping a blue spell in hand. Jace or Tinker are better than a basic island, no doubt, but you need islands to cast them. Playing with FoW, you generally don't change your style to keep a card in hand, it just happens because your mana limits how fast you can cast spells (yes, there are corner cases, but it doesn't come up very often). Playing with this card, you would be much more likely to hit a point where you have to decide whether to make a land drop or hold onto the island n case your opponent tries to show and tell. Yes, Daze puts you back a land drop, but it does so re-actively, so you would have already gotten a chance to use the land's mana, and you don't have to go back a land drop until you actually have to counter a spell (you don't have to keep yourself back a land drop just in case), and it also doesn't set you back a card. Discarding does indeed have different consequences than exiling, but with a basic island those consequences are minimal. Yes, it helps the single Treasure Cruise you are allowed to run in Vintage a small amount, and it helps Deathrite Shaman (though you likely aren't running many basic islands in his deck), and it is actually good with goyf, but this isn't like discarding a blue card, which could let you reanimate it or Snapcaster it.
Yeah, his card isn't "strictly" worse than FoW, but it is worse in every aspect. Will there be occasional cases where certain aspects are better? Yes. Will they each be worse the vast majority of the time? Yes. Taken together, is the card worse then FoW in most decks, but especially in decks that run FoW? You betcha. It would be much better in draft, and might help push a Standard mono blue or two color control deck with a lot of basic islands, and Merfolk would like it since its one of the few decks in Legacy that runs a lot of basic islands and can afford to ditch them due to aether vial. Maybe you are the one who isn't qualified to have an informed opinion on this issue.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
I didn't assert that I'm qualified to have an opinion on the issue. I don't have an opinion on the issue. I don't play enough Legacy to have a good opinion on the issue. I just play enough Magic to know that Islands aren't blue, and to know that knowing Islands aren't blue is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for suggesting changes to a card that exiles a blue card.
If he didn't mean strictly worse, than he's welcome to come in and revise his statement, but "worse in every way" means pretty much exactly that.
Wizards has, in the past, used controlling or discarding a land type as a proxy for controlling or discarding a card of the color of mana that land type produces. See Foil, and other free alternate cost cards from Masques block. In no way did he imply that islands are blue, and as I said WotC has already shown they are willing to substitute islands for blue cards for this effect. The reason for this is that these restrictions (blue card and island for instance) are meant to ensure that the free spells can only be cast in decks that would be capable of paying their mana cost and avoid breaking the color pie. They didn't want hard counters available to mono green for instance. So they required the exile of a blue card on FoW to ensure you'd be running blue, and an island on foil for the same reason. Of course, the basic land restriction lets you run it in a deck that is all artifacts with a bunch of islands, but at that point its a blue deck that just runs very few blue cards. On the other hand, FoW's restriction is easier to get around now that hybrid mana exists, and you could actually run it in a mono green deck that happens to run a bunch of U/G hybrid cards like Snakeform, with no blue mana sources in sight.
"Strictly Worse" is loaded language, but worse in every way is not.Worse in every way is as likely, if not more likely, to imply that every aspect of the card is generally worse than it is to imply that every aspect is worse in every situation. The former is true for every aspect of his card except discard vs exile, which considering that it is a basic island being discarded, is meaningless in most situations and barely advantageous in the corner cases where it matters. Note also that he didn't say that each aspect is worse in every way, only that the card is, implying that the aspects were all worse without implying they were strictly worse. Of course, we're quibbling over nuance at this point, but I think I've demonstrated why you calling him out the way you did in your first post was both unnecessary and ironic. You probably should be qualified to have an opinion on an issue before you decide you are capable of determining whether someone else is.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
I will change my statement to "Generally speaking worse but not necessarily in every way, and in no way do I mean all the time, and definitely not in every circumstance. We will call it worse in 90% of the time in which it is intended to be used. To be more specific I would like you to turn to page 39 article 4 line 7 of your not always strictly worse than force of will booklet...."
Thank you for the discussion input and ideas, Does anyone know why Force has not been reprinted?
While not a direct copy of Force, they all have similar properties.
At some point Force will be reprinted. It's not on the RL and it's already seen a Judge foil reprint. Just give it time.
BUWGRChilds PlayGRWUB
BUWGR Highlander GRWUB
UBSquee's Shapeshifting PetBU
BW Multiplayer Control WB
RG Changeling GR
UR Mana FlareRU
UMerfolkU
B MBMC B
Shoal is the only one that is really comparable to FoW, as it is the only one that is a counter spell. Misdirection only works on spells that target, and then only if there is another legal target. The effect is truly different. Commandeer hits much more, and is arguably a stronger effect than FoW against non creature spells as stealing an artifact or walker is strong. Shoal is a hard counter, its just generally worse in every way (yes, it ca be hard cast for less against 0,1, and 2 cmc spells and doesn't cost you 1 life, so it isn't STRICTLY worse). As you said, it will be reprinted when it needs to be. They held off online until it crept on $200, then slipped it into Vintage Masters. IRL, its an uncommon, so they can reprint it without violating the reserved list.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!