On the behalf of Blue mages everywhere let me reiterate that these 3 cards represent a slap in the face.
I'm not counting the merfolk lord because, come on, who cares about another merfolk lord
Thank you. Especially if this is the real Jeff Cunningham. As a current pro, these cards make me absolutely sick. Aaron and the development team need to be slapped
I said it in the other thread, if Counterspell exists in a format, it basically says, "spells with a converted mana cost 5 or greater can't be played." You cannot have a two-mana counter not be situational. Counters that are good in both the early and late game break the game. That's simply how it works.
Yeah, I know, right? Like that one time there was that cool Fires of Yavimaya deck that nobody played because Counterspellbroke the format made the Timmies cry. Oh wait... nvm.
Blue has no identity right now. There are zero mono blue decks that are viable, where the other four colors have mono colored decks that place well in tournaments.
Blue has one powerful card, Jace. That's it. And as we've seen in the past several tournament, even a $50 mythic isn't enough to top 8 in tournaments, let alone win one.
Here's an idea, lets replace Lightning Bolt with 1R Sorcery, deal 3 Damage. That's the power level of cards that blue has to work with.
It has zero strong counters. Zero strong card draw cards. Nothing.
Yes, if you work 10x as hard as the rest of the field, you can make these cards work(to a degree). But then, at the end of the day, all the hard work goes down the toiled when someone "skills" there way to a win via BBE>Blightning.
This is the end result of the systematic attempts by Wizards to dumb down the game. Mission Accomplished Wizards.
I would have been happy with another Broken Ambitions/Power Sink/Condescend/Syncopate, or any other X-spell counter. Honestly, anything but these. Even Miscalculation is decent. Been playing counters long enough to know that X-costed Counters are balanced enough to keep seeing print or something close to Rune Snag, without the build up, even that would be decent, but not too powerful (it will still make players consider them and maybe wait to have 2 mana open for the counter just like people did when Mana Leak was legal)
Thank you. Especially if this is the real Jeff Cunningham. As a current pro, these cards make me absolutely sick. Aaron and the development team need to be slapped
(rolls his eyes)
The more I read comments like this, the more it makes me feel for the Wizards staff. Since when has magic players been such drama queens.....oh ya, always.
Any Magic player that doesn't have an axe to grind with Blue can clearly see the power disparity between the blue and the rest of the field. It's silly that blue keeps getting these sorry excuse for counters/card draw cards. Pathetic.
OMG. Turn 2 coralhelm commander. Turn three merfolk lord, turn four level up twice, swing with a 4/4 flying merfolk and have 2 mana up. turn five play as normal, level up bit by bit. D: COLORLESS LEVEL COST. As for dude recall, green red and black seem to have little difficulty getting eldrazi spawn tokens, perhaps it's worth testing?
Blue is the best color in every other major format, and has often been the best color in standard in the past. Stop being so whiny, it's high time other colors got a chance to shine.
And seriously, did people just expect Wizards to reprint Ancestral Recall? Possibly the most undercosted spell in the game's history, of course it needs to have a very significant additional cost associated with it. This is esp. true due to their track record of trying to print "fixed" versions of previously broken cards, e.g. Yawgmoth's Bargain, Lion's Eye Diamond.
I am sick and tired of people coming up out of the blue (heh) polluting topics with "suck it up"s and "stop whining"s. I honestly don't care whether blue sucks or blue should suck. Just goddamn stop posting either way. Wanna be on topic? Say what everybody else is saying and oh my, its the godawful truth: that card sucks and is a parody.
Relax, it's just a common, you're acting like it's the end of magic.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from Caranthir »
Yawgmoth, the ruler of Phyrexia, Lord of the Wastes, Father of Machines, is DEAD. He's passed on. He is no more! He has ceased to be! He is expired and gone to meet his maker! He is a stiff! Bereft of life, he rests in peace! He kicked the bucket, He has shuffled off his (apparently)mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!
I tried out the new Ancestral in a UGR EldraziRamp deck, worked kinda good actually. Nitting 3 more cards before saccing the Spawns to another Drone or a titan is pretty slick. Just thought I'd let you know.
Pact Of Recall 0
Instant
~ is blue.
Draw three cards.
At the beginning of your next upkeep pay U. If you don't, you lose the game.
That would be broken even if you would have to pay of each color for the rest of the game.
Now this common would be very good if it was tap 3 creatures and insane if it was instant.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Original quote byTacosnape "All ideas that give me knowledge without any effort involved on my part are good ideas. Chop chop, my dear fellow."
DCI L2 Judge GP:Madrid 2010 45th GP:Amsterdam 2011 74th GP:London 2013 67th Bazaar of Moxen 2013 32nd
Exactly. The card sucks, its just a measly bad pick for limited, and seeing god knows how many pages of "blue is dead boohoo" and "suck it up, blue needs to be crap" is retarded.
This is an example of "you can't evaluate cards in a vacuum". You're right, "Dude Recall" (god can we get the real name soon) would be poor in many limited formats, ZZW included.
However, Rise of the Eldrazi looks to be a very slow format where board stalls will be fairly common. Add in the ubiquitous-ness of the Eldrazi Spawn tokens and I don't think it will be too hard to cast this at all. Plus it's only U to cast, so if you draw into your game changing spell, you can probably toss it right onto the board (as opposed to most draw 3 spells which generally spend most of your mana for the turn). Also note that the Eldrazi Spawn can still be sacced for mana after you tapped them for Dude Recall!
Also, even outside of limited, cards like these have utility. "Jump through a hoop, get a powerful effect" cards like this are often favorites among casual deckbuilders. It doesn't have to be tournament-playable to be useful.
my standard u/w merfolk deck could use deprive and that lord definitely. wow that lord is good... only problem, i now have three ardent plea targets, spreading seas, sejiri merfolk, and now this commander... sigh. playtest... playtest.
maybe not deprive after all, its a cascade target and halimar isn't always available to bounce... =/ cancel and mindbreak do the job anyway.
so the easiest plays for blue atm is to either delay/grief/deny into a finisher or setup board presence then delay/grief/deny into a win. both requiring major deck manipulation and game control. but possible still most def.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
~Intelligence is Bliss; Ignorance is Denial.
Skill is an ability that relates more so to the type of deck that's built and how said player pilots it. It also relates to the ability to assess the board and use the cards available to you in the most optimal way relative to each situation.
When a deck is filled with above par cards and every play is solid, there comes a diminishing need to "think" for the lack of wanting to use a better word.
Ok, with concern to Dude Recall, the first thing I thought of when I saw it was a little enchantment from Worldwake called Quest for Renewal. You know, the 1G enchantment that gets a counter when a ceature you control becomes tapped and when is has FOUR or more counters on it, creatures you control untap during each other players untap phases? Yeah, remember that one? So, Bant could become quite nice to play, especially Bant allies. Those little ally soldier tokens just got even more of a purpose in the universe. Regardless, Dude Recall plus Quest for Renewal is broken.
Onward to Deprive. So, everyone is complaining about a 2 CMC counter that lets you reuse a ETB effect of a land, and trigger extra landfall? Wow, you know, yeah that sucks. Being able to play a tap land turn three if you need to (Halimar Depths), and then still counter something is juuuuust horrible. Cause it is totally all about ramping in control. Totally. So, ehm, maybe run these, along with other counterspells (Flashfreeze, Negate, Essence Scatter)? A little variety and versatility doesn't hurt. Seems like this would work well in conjunction with some Hedron Crabs and Oracle of Muldaya. Hey, that is a blue card and a green card! Blue/green mill/control with a ridiculous card draw capability. And yes, I know that Wizards seems to be stuffing the blue deck = milling deck equation down everyones throat, but lets look at who blue's golden boy is. Jace, personality wise, is all about the milling. ALL about it. So, perhaps that is why the theme seems to be centered on milling for blue. They are looking for some story/game continuity. I have no complaints. At least it isn't Jund, and with a 2CMC hard counter, it may have a chance against Jund.
Using bad cards to make other bad cards a little better was never a good idea. Besides would you play four Quest for Renewals in your deck for this off chance to use it with recall?
Just trying to make sense out of how to use what blue has been given, instead of pining for counterspells and cryptics.
Yeah, because massive tempo loss is totally cool and not a problem at all against a fast deck. Also taking an ETB tapped deck back to your hand won't make the tempo loss even worse and is naturally the right play here
Again. Just trying to find a way to make these things work. Perhaps you should just play Legacy and Vintage. There you get ridiculously broken blue cards with absolutely no tempo loss! yay. Got any better suggestions? Besides the obvious "not using them and playing something other than control" suggestion?
Just trying to make sense out of how to use what blue has been given, instead of pining for counterspells and cryptics.
Again. Just trying to find a way to make these things work. Perhaps you should just play Legacy and Vintage. There you get ridiculously broken blue cards with absolutely no tempo loss! yay. Got any better suggestions? Besides the obvious "not using them and playing something other than control" suggestion?
I think the point is that no matter what you do with blue, you'll be using bad cards. Stop calling everyone who points out blue's crap cards a whiner. Playing with bad cards is still playing with bad cards, even its "all you have to work with".
An interesting combo with the new recall would be Emerakul's Hatcher + Recall for a quick 4 tapped bodies and 3 cards for 3UR and two cards form your hand. Its not amazing, but if this UR becomes super popular, I could see it happening.
As for the counterspell, this thing was meant to be a late game card, anyone who casts this in the early game, unless it's for the threat that needs to be dealt with quitckly is not using it right. This kind of card is much better right after a DoJ, so you can keep them from re-growing their board. And as previously mentioned you can use it with halimar depths to make sure that you at least don't run out of gas when you need it.
Then they should bring back spell snare but make it counter converted cost 2 or less spells. It would be comparable to Inquisition of Kozilek and good for blue's early game.
The thing I have a hard time understanding is that WotC isn't printing good Counters because it hurts people's feelings to get a card countered. How is getting a card countered any worse than having it ripped from your hand? Is it any worse?
For myself, I'm quite sick of getting BBE -> Blightninged. But the broken part is Cascade, with slightly overpowered discard. Given how broken Cascade is and how it hoses counterspell, had counterspell beaten Cascade then counterspell would have been broken too.
I hope they are paying attention to whether a new mechanic hoses counterspells or not. In the way past, counterspell was prevalent and hosed mechanics like Buyback and "As an additional cost,..." cards; I remember hoping that they make some effects get past counterspells, so my Harrows among other stuff wouldn't be essentially unplayable.
Ravnica block saw a mechanic that hoses counterspells, Replicate, in particular Gigadrowse as a way to get Dragonstorm through. It ended up getting a little bit out of control! But Cascade goes way beyond that, tends to be overpowered themselves, and hoses counterspells with the same ferocity as Replicate did.
I don't know if anyone has noticed, but in Zendikar block they seem to revert to "one counterspell gets the whole thing" mode. Take for example Wolfbrair Elemental; as powerful as it is, the 2/2s are countered along with the 4/4. This I think is reasonable; at the right timing, Essence Scatter does more than Terminate. The exceptions are now carefully controlled to cost 10, 12 and 15.
It appears that they are aware of the interaction between the mechanics and counterspell (which is the class of spells that most often hoses or is hosed by a mechanic, depending on how the mechanic is templated), and I hope they are. And I think it's fair to make counterspell a "cure-all" 1-for-1; unlike before, now we do have a healthy power level of counterspell hosers (Stag, Summoning/Ricochet Trap).
I hope they make this a norm in the future... Instead of trying to tell Cancel to stop Blast, BBE and Blightning again.
lay bare is the worst counterspell ever. and i agree deprive is for later in the game, but i disagree that dude recall and quest for renewal is a bad idea in the right deck. it isn't draw-go, but it is draw three + near vigilance for your stuff for GU1. Could be a nice mid game play for a G/U token deck.
The merfolk is pretty good but won't have a home. There's hardly any good merfolk in standard. In legacy, I can't picture merfolk deck wanting to tap out. They already have enough lords.
Deprive isn't that bad. But counters are out of fasion. There's no way counters can match the power of BBE into anything. Counters are just terrible when there are so many ways to get around them. Go back a few years...counters answered nearly all problems. Nowadays, decks can attack from multiple angles: manlands, creature recursion (bloodghast style), PWs, uncounterable spells.
The counterspell reprint is coming eventually. I'd hardly think counterspell is that good in the face of cascade, manlands and now the levelers which can slip under the radar and grow into Akroma sized beats.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Wizards could put $100 bills in packs and people would complain about how they were folded." - from Dr Jeebus's Sig
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Thank you. Especially if this is the real Jeff Cunningham. As a current pro, these cards make me absolutely sick. Aaron and the development team need to be slapped
Yeah, I know, right? Like that one time there was that cool Fires of Yavimaya deck that nobody played because Counterspell
broke the formatmade the Timmies cry. Oh wait... nvm.Blue has one powerful card, Jace. That's it. And as we've seen in the past several tournament, even a $50 mythic isn't enough to top 8 in tournaments, let alone win one.
Here's an idea, lets replace Lightning Bolt with 1R Sorcery, deal 3 Damage. That's the power level of cards that blue has to work with.
It has zero strong counters. Zero strong card draw cards. Nothing.
Yes, if you work 10x as hard as the rest of the field, you can make these cards work(to a degree). But then, at the end of the day, all the hard work goes down the toiled when someone "skills" there way to a win via BBE>Blightning.
This is the end result of the systematic attempts by Wizards to dumb down the game. Mission Accomplished Wizards.
(rolls his eyes)
The more I read comments like this, the more it makes me feel for the Wizards staff. Since when has magic players been such drama queens.....oh ya, always.
And seriously, did people just expect Wizards to reprint Ancestral Recall? Possibly the most undercosted spell in the game's history, of course it needs to have a very significant additional cost associated with it. This is esp. true due to their track record of trying to print "fixed" versions of previously broken cards, e.g. Yawgmoth's Bargain, Lion's Eye Diamond.
Like:
Pact Of Recall 0
Instant
~ is blue.
Draw three cards.
At the beginning of your next upkeep pay U. If you don't, you lose the game.
1800+ in Limited
3-0ing after drafting 17 non-basics in Cube
Relax, it's just a common, you're acting like it's the end of magic.
11-3-1 @ GP Copenhagen: Top Stories of Grand Prix Copenhagen
That would be broken even if you would have to pay of each color for the rest of the game.
Now this common would be very good if it was tap 3 creatures and insane if it was instant.
DCI L2 Judge
GP:Madrid 2010 45th
GP:Amsterdam 2011 74th
GP:London 2013 67th
Bazaar of Moxen 2013 32nd
This is an example of "you can't evaluate cards in a vacuum". You're right, "Dude Recall" (god can we get the real name soon) would be poor in many limited formats, ZZW included.
However, Rise of the Eldrazi looks to be a very slow format where board stalls will be fairly common. Add in the ubiquitous-ness of the Eldrazi Spawn tokens and I don't think it will be too hard to cast this at all. Plus it's only U to cast, so if you draw into your game changing spell, you can probably toss it right onto the board (as opposed to most draw 3 spells which generally spend most of your mana for the turn). Also note that the Eldrazi Spawn can still be sacced for mana after you tapped them for Dude Recall!
Also, even outside of limited, cards like these have utility. "Jump through a hoop, get a powerful effect" cards like this are often favorites among casual deckbuilders. It doesn't have to be tournament-playable to be useful.
maybe not deprive after all, its a cascade target and halimar isn't always available to bounce... =/ cancel and mindbreak do the job anyway.
so the easiest plays for blue atm is to either delay/grief/deny into a finisher or setup board presence then delay/grief/deny into a win. both requiring major deck manipulation and game control. but possible still most def.
Skill is an ability that relates more so to the type of deck that's built and how said player pilots it. It also relates to the ability to assess the board and use the cards available to you in the most optimal way relative to each situation.
When a deck is filled with above par cards and every play is solid, there comes a diminishing need to "think" for the lack of wanting to use a better word.
YAY DEPRAVE!!!!...
It's about time we had any kind of hard counter for 2cmc. It's just Zendikar's version of Familiar's ruse it WILL see play.
Gfast animals slow shildrenG
51-18-4 (retired as of 6-4-11)
Seems kinda good.
Onward to Deprive. So, everyone is complaining about a 2 CMC counter that lets you reuse a ETB effect of a land, and trigger extra landfall? Wow, you know, yeah that sucks. Being able to play a tap land turn three if you need to (Halimar Depths), and then still counter something is juuuuust horrible. Cause it is totally all about ramping in control. Totally. So, ehm, maybe run these, along with other counterspells (Flashfreeze, Negate, Essence Scatter)? A little variety and versatility doesn't hurt. Seems like this would work well in conjunction with some Hedron Crabs and Oracle of Muldaya. Hey, that is a blue card and a green card! Blue/green mill/control with a ridiculous card draw capability. And yes, I know that Wizards seems to be stuffing the blue deck = milling deck equation down everyones throat, but lets look at who blue's golden boy is. Jace, personality wise, is all about the milling. ALL about it. So, perhaps that is why the theme seems to be centered on milling for blue. They are looking for some story/game continuity. I have no complaints. At least it isn't Jund, and with a 2CMC hard counter, it may have a chance against Jund.
Just trying to make sense out of how to use what blue has been given, instead of pining for counterspells and cryptics.
Again. Just trying to find a way to make these things work. Perhaps you should just play Legacy and Vintage. There you get ridiculously broken blue cards with absolutely no tempo loss! yay. Got any better suggestions? Besides the obvious "not using them and playing something other than control" suggestion?
I think the point is that no matter what you do with blue, you'll be using bad cards. Stop calling everyone who points out blue's crap cards a whiner. Playing with bad cards is still playing with bad cards, even its "all you have to work with".
Norn Queen of Hive Fleet Pesc
Monster Hunter Lover!
As for the counterspell, this thing was meant to be a late game card, anyone who casts this in the early game, unless it's for the threat that needs to be dealt with quitckly is not using it right. This kind of card is much better right after a DoJ, so you can keep them from re-growing their board. And as previously mentioned you can use it with halimar depths to make sure that you at least don't run out of gas when you need it.
Just my two cents.
Epic Sig by: Myself
Mindsplicer of [House Dimir]
For myself, I'm quite sick of getting BBE -> Blightninged. But the broken part is Cascade, with slightly overpowered discard. Given how broken Cascade is and how it hoses counterspell, had counterspell beaten Cascade then counterspell would have been broken too.
I hope they are paying attention to whether a new mechanic hoses counterspells or not. In the way past, counterspell was prevalent and hosed mechanics like Buyback and "As an additional cost,..." cards; I remember hoping that they make some effects get past counterspells, so my Harrows among other stuff wouldn't be essentially unplayable.
Ravnica block saw a mechanic that hoses counterspells, Replicate, in particular Gigadrowse as a way to get Dragonstorm through. It ended up getting a little bit out of control! But Cascade goes way beyond that, tends to be overpowered themselves, and hoses counterspells with the same ferocity as Replicate did.
I don't know if anyone has noticed, but in Zendikar block they seem to revert to "one counterspell gets the whole thing" mode. Take for example Wolfbrair Elemental; as powerful as it is, the 2/2s are countered along with the 4/4. This I think is reasonable; at the right timing, Essence Scatter does more than Terminate. The exceptions are now carefully controlled to cost 10, 12 and 15.
It appears that they are aware of the interaction between the mechanics and counterspell (which is the class of spells that most often hoses or is hosed by a mechanic, depending on how the mechanic is templated), and I hope they are. And I think it's fair to make counterspell a "cure-all" 1-for-1; unlike before, now we do have a healthy power level of counterspell hosers (Stag, Summoning/Ricochet Trap).
I hope they make this a norm in the future... Instead of trying to tell Cancel to stop Blast, BBE and Blightning again.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10800035#post10800035
Deprive isn't that bad. But counters are out of fasion. There's no way counters can match the power of BBE into anything. Counters are just terrible when there are so many ways to get around them. Go back a few years...counters answered nearly all problems. Nowadays, decks can attack from multiple angles: manlands, creature recursion (bloodghast style), PWs, uncounterable spells.
The counterspell reprint is coming eventually. I'd hardly think counterspell is that good in the face of cascade, manlands and now the levelers which can slip under the radar and grow into Akroma sized beats.