I'm very glad this got printed. Searing Spear really needed to stick around assuming they weren't going to give us Lightning Bolt or Incinerate, which is fine for Standard IMO. I just don't get why they do functional reprints. Its just another card you have to buy. It would be one thing if it were a functional reprint of Lightning Bolt which would add to more formats than just Standard (which would be bad news bears for modern I think. Well good for burn in modern but I think it would take burn as a deck type over the top. 8 Lightning Bolts in a deck would be teh nootz). Its quite another thing when the functional reprint is just a card that just "needs" to be available to balance standard.
Still, glad to have it.
They would just ban Lightning Bolt and it's counterpart anyway.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Post Ravnica Allegiance Type 2 - WUB Control
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
The point is that they should have made something different. Sure, Incinerate is bad for the health of the game, so make some other kind of value. The only spell that should have 3 damage with no other upsides or downsides is Lightning Bolt. Every 2cc burn spell needs an upside to it or it's strictly worse than dozens of other cards that exist, and that is bad design. Two damage with devotion 4+ for four damage would have been great, for example. Or Magma Jet. Hell, three damage with scry 1 would be fine.
You're already getting Magma Jet!
I really wonder how much whining a functional reprint of Magma Jet (as opposed to actual Magma Jet) would have generated.
This card is fine. Searing Spear did totally acceptable work last year and it will continue to do so. It isn't "bad design" to put cards in the format that are good for the format. Fireball has shared a format with Devil's Play, Red Sun's Zenith, Banefire and Comet Storm and not gotten NEARLY this kind of entitled shrilling.
I like this and I like it much more than I do Searing Spear, simply because lightning strikes are much more natural than hot spears and I'm unnaturally drawn to lightning and electricity.
I'd like to say that Wizards has been careful to avoid the mistake they made back in 1995 when both Lightning Bolt and Incinerate were in Standard together, but the truth of the matter is that they've manage to roll Sligh into the Moneyball game with insane burn cards like Mizzium Mortars. They might as well have just reprinted Lightning Bolt and called it a day.
As for the quality of this card, I lean heavily on the idea that burn is burn, and burn is never bad. That's not to say that burn is always good. Shock is far from good, but it's just as far from bad. Lava Axe toes the line of bad, especially compared with Beacon of Destruction or pretty much any halfway decent X-burn spell, but it really shines with cards that let you cast spells without paying their mana costs, such as Jhoira of the Ghitu and Djinn of Wishes, without being almost uncastable on its own like Searing Wind.
All that said, while Lightning Strike certainly makes me long for old-school burn, it's still a good card and well worth using in budget Standard.
I wonder what colors Keranos will be. We have five monocolored gods, which means we'll probably see one or two cycles of multicolored gods. I'm hoping for five allied-colored gods and five enemy-color gods; pretty much one god for each Ravnica guild would make me happy.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Any sufficiently analyzed Magic is indistinguishable from Science!"
Every 2cc burn spell needs an upside to it or it's strictly worse than dozens of other cards that exist, and that is bad design.
How is that bad design? The card's quality is a matter of context. They are obviously printing the card for the sake of any Eternal formats because there is already a glut of spells in those formats of that power level. There is little reason to give Modern, by example, any more powerful burn spells than it has. So, the added benefit needs to exist in real time.
However, if the spell is not competing with any other spells at that mana cost for a near similar card effect, then no, it doesn't need to do something more for the one mana. It can depending what that effect, but it's not bad design to over design your set. That's actually the opposite of bad design.
Making "strictly" worse cards is not the standard on which to base the design of a card. In modern Magic, each card is designed relatively to the context it will see play in. In the case of Lightning Strike, it has been designed in the context of Theros Limited and Standard. The comments I made regarding Incinerate apply here as well. If they needed the spell to do anything, it would do that.
Remember that Wizards wants the enchantment theme to be fun, if not playable. If the quality of removal in the format is too strong, a big part of that theme, Auras, Heroic and Bestow, will be considerably worse. Maybe instead of flinging out catch all phrases like "This is bad design" you should ask yourself "Why would they design X?". In the case of a block with a heavy enchantment theme, one can imagine that they purposefully toned down some of the removal in order to make that theme have some more breathing space.
Lastly, there's complexity creep. They weren't going to put 2 Uncommon red removal spells in the set together, which means one would either need to be simple and be common (like Lightning Strike) or complicated and be rare (like Mizzium Mortars). Given that Red already has a few premier constructed quality removal spells, making an acceptably powerful common targeted red removal spell is not bad design.
I wonder what colors Keranos will be. We have five monocolored gods, which means we'll probably see one or two cycles of multicolored gods. I'm hoping for five allied-colored gods and five enemy-color gods; pretty much one god for each Ravnica guild would make me happy.
or it's strictly worse than dozens of other cards that exist, and that is bad design.
This isn't true. Might as well start saying things like Ancestral Visions and Brainstorm are bad design because Ancestral Recall is better or since Time Walk is infinitely better than Time Stretch and Temporal Mastery those two shouldn't exist. It was determined Bolt wasn't healthy for standard (if you disagree about that it's a different argument entirely), and they wanted lightning flavor, so they made this to suit the metagame. It's an extra mana, so what? That doesn't make it bad design.
It's not that Lightning Bolt isn't healthy, but it is not the baseline for over all power level of red removal. It is a pushed card. That's why it isn't likely to stay in print for long periods of time any more. Pushing Commons isn't easy to do, but it is an excellent example of one. Though it's far less likely to happen, Counterspell is another. It is pushed because the card costs less than is comfortable. While Lightning Strike and Cancel are cards that would see some amounts of play if you desperately wanted those effects, you might go out of your way to play Lightning Bolt and Counterspell because of how strong their effect is at such a reduced cost.
Neither of those will play it because they both have much better options, like Lightning Bolt and Incinerate among others. If you look at the cost to value ratio of every burn spell ever printed in the common slot, this and Searing Spear are near the bottom.
I was sure planning on using it. Replacing Fire Ambush seems like a good idea.
I honestly cant understand how anyone can justify this card. Creatures are gigantic now, bolt is far from broken in todays standard, and this plainly sucks.
Things like this are what makes me not want to play standard. And I wont.
Thats ok. Limited will always welcome your skills and EDH will always embrace your creativity.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I fear I won't have much time to play Magic these days.
I get to watch worlds develop around me.
I get to watch great leaders, terrible oppressors, and trend setters rise and fall.
Limited, Standard, Modern, everything is a different playing field I feel I can observe, but will not actually touch.
I look forward to the stories I will hear.
And more so to the ones I will watch unfold first hand.
Isn't the unknown exciting?
I honestly cant understand how anyone can justify this card. Creatures are gigantic now, bolt is far from broken in todays standard, and this plainly sucks.
Things like this are what makes me not want to play standard. And I wont.
Same card as Searing Spears...
Wizards Think what We are Stupid for Cash twice for the same card. Bad movement for old players...
I can just imagine those corporate fat cats now - laughing about how the stupid player base will be forced to buy cases upon cases of cards in order to get yet another playset of $0.05 commons...
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Of course you should fight fire with fire. You should fight everything with fire."
—Jaya Ballard, task mage
redthirst is redthirst, fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse. He was the leader of the Fires of Salvation, the only clan I'm aware of to get modded off the forums so hard they made their own forums.
Degenerate? Sure. Loudmouth? You bet. Law abiding? No ****ing way.
I'm really indifferent to this card returning. It's fine. It's fair. It gets the job done.
The only thing is I'm still scratching my head about when reprinting a card with a different name is justified. Is flavor really THAT important that you need to introduce a new card just to change the name?
Magma Jet has been forgotten for some reason. Jet + Strike = your guaranteed 8 slots for every red deck you build from now until rotation.
Stop being lame, and love it already!!!
actually, strike and shock will compete,depending on how early you need removal and how many three toughness there is. magma jet might actually be the card cut as you may need both early removal and three toughness burn.
How is the discussion for this card 17 pages? It's a functional reprint...not exactly anything new or exciting.
Or is it just 17 pages of people thinking they're adding something new and profound to the thread by posting "Hurr, why not just reprint searing spear/lightning bolt?"
The answer is flavor in the case of searing spear (for the lightning god) and power in the case of lightning bolt, as I'm sure has been explained a dozen times in this thread by exasperated people.
Please try to refrain from clogging threads by saying the same things that people have already said. People might appreciate having more than one post per page with relevant content in it.
In the interest of actually staying on topic...I'm wondering whether people will favor this or Magma Jet for standard, or just use both. Seems like the majority of critters are either 2 power or 4+, so seems like Magma Jet will be better.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Trolljutai, YOLOghan, Swagumgar, Bromoka, and Derptarka, the Elder Dragons.
How often is this really, really different from Incinerate?
Yes, that sounds like a great argument in favour of Incinerate, but since this is only fractionally weaker, I think it is a better print. Incinerate is wordy, it would need to be Uncommon. Making regeneration irrelevant makes regeneration weaker, which in turn makes creatures with it weaker in the format as a whole. There's no need for regeneration to be hated on unnecessarily, which means searing Spear or this is better unless you specifically need a way to deal with a powerful creature with regeneration that is warping the format.
Reprinting Incinerate when the added text would not serve any purpose except push a bunch of otherwise playable creatures out of the format is NOT good for Magic. This is the same reason they changed Wrath of God into Day of Judgment, and Terror into Doomblade. If some day there was a creature that regenerating warping Standard, or let's say somehow Lotleth Troll had ended up being the best creature in the format and every deck was playing 4, then yes, Incinerate away. But until that happens, we don't need to kill an otherwise acceptable creature ability and harm otherwise good cards so players can feel like their are playing with a "good card" instead of an acceptable one.
It's grossly egotistical and verges on masturbatory when people keep making these comparisons.
The only regen card that's even been played this standard is lotleth troll. It's so ridiculously unlikely that people wouldn't have run that card in decks like zombies JUST because incinerate was there to provide a viable answer. If wizards really cared that much about regen there would be more regen cards around. As it stands there are close to none that get played. In other words regen creatures are no more playable than they were because there are almost no good regen creatures anywaay. Searing spear already had absolutely no reason to exist, and the same applies to lightning strike.
actually, strike and shock will compete,depending on how early you need removal and how many three toughness there is. magma jet might actually be the card cut as you may need both early removal and three toughness burn.
Ok do they not have spears on Theros? Is there some lame reason why Wizards could not have reprinted Searing Spear? "Oh i dont like the name Searing Spear, lets change it to Lightning Strike instead" Not that i am complaining much. I likes my 3 damage spells but it just irks me that they remake and rename exsisting cards when the original will do just fine.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
They would just ban Lightning Bolt and it's counterpart anyway.
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Idaho State Champ: 2011
States '12: 5th place.
You're already getting Magma Jet!
I really wonder how much whining a functional reprint of Magma Jet (as opposed to actual Magma Jet) would have generated.
This card is fine. Searing Spear did totally acceptable work last year and it will continue to do so. It isn't "bad design" to put cards in the format that are good for the format. Fireball has shared a format with Devil's Play, Red Sun's Zenith, Banefire and Comet Storm and not gotten NEARLY this kind of entitled shrilling.
Standard: W/R Aggro
I like this very much.
As for the quality of this card, I lean heavily on the idea that burn is burn, and burn is never bad. That's not to say that burn is always good. Shock is far from good, but it's just as far from bad. Lava Axe toes the line of bad, especially compared with Beacon of Destruction or pretty much any halfway decent X-burn spell, but it really shines with cards that let you cast spells without paying their mana costs, such as Jhoira of the Ghitu and Djinn of Wishes, without being almost uncastable on its own like Searing Wind.
All that said, while Lightning Strike certainly makes me long for old-school burn, it's still a good card and well worth using in budget Standard.
I wonder what colors Keranos will be. We have five monocolored gods, which means we'll probably see one or two cycles of multicolored gods. I'm hoping for five allied-colored gods and five enemy-color gods; pretty much one god for each Ravnica guild would make me happy.
How is that bad design? The card's quality is a matter of context. They are obviously printing the card for the sake of any Eternal formats because there is already a glut of spells in those formats of that power level. There is little reason to give Modern, by example, any more powerful burn spells than it has. So, the added benefit needs to exist in real time.
However, if the spell is not competing with any other spells at that mana cost for a near similar card effect, then no, it doesn't need to do something more for the one mana. It can depending what that effect, but it's not bad design to over design your set. That's actually the opposite of bad design.
Making "strictly" worse cards is not the standard on which to base the design of a card. In modern Magic, each card is designed relatively to the context it will see play in. In the case of Lightning Strike, it has been designed in the context of Theros Limited and Standard. The comments I made regarding Incinerate apply here as well. If they needed the spell to do anything, it would do that.
Remember that Wizards wants the enchantment theme to be fun, if not playable. If the quality of removal in the format is too strong, a big part of that theme, Auras, Heroic and Bestow, will be considerably worse. Maybe instead of flinging out catch all phrases like "This is bad design" you should ask yourself "Why would they design X?". In the case of a block with a heavy enchantment theme, one can imagine that they purposefully toned down some of the removal in order to make that theme have some more breathing space.
Lastly, there's complexity creep. They weren't going to put 2 Uncommon red removal spells in the set together, which means one would either need to be simple and be common (like Lightning Strike) or complicated and be rare (like Mizzium Mortars). Given that Red already has a few premier constructed quality removal spells, making an acceptably powerful common targeted red removal spell is not bad design.
This was confirmed for the next two sets, yes.
Karador EDH
Comments on decks welcome: http://tappedout.net/users/AradonTemplar/
Currently developing Set 1 of 3, 'Shadow': http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=436885
I was sure planning on using it. Replacing Fire Ambush seems like a good idea.
Thats ok. Limited will always welcome your skills and EDH will always embrace your creativity.
I get to watch great leaders, terrible oppressors, and trend setters rise and fall.
Limited, Standard, Modern, everything is a different playing field I feel I can observe, but will not actually touch.
I look forward to the stories I will hear.
And more so to the ones I will watch unfold first hand.
Isn't the unknown exciting?
Because it was so bad in the current standard?
Posted from MTGsalvation.com App for Android
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!
I can just imagine those corporate fat cats now - laughing about how the stupid player base will be forced to buy cases upon cases of cards in order to get yet another playset of $0.05 commons...
—Jaya Ballard, task mage
As someone who plays a lot of red, I love that look of dismay and resignation.
The world is on fire
and you are here to stay and burn with me.
The only thing is I'm still scratching my head about when reprinting a card with a different name is justified. Is flavor really THAT important that you need to introduce a new card just to change the name?
You will never see Lightning Bolt in standard again, just as the blue mages will never see Counterspell again.
On another note, this is good news for any decks running red after rotation.
Her Shop on Etsy
THS-KTK: Rabble Red
RTR-THS: Dega Midrange
INN-RTR: Boros Humans
SOM-INN: B/u Control
Modern: Mono-Black Infect
Stop being lame, and love it already!!!
Ever heard of the time spiral block? or Homelands?
cuz it looks like he is playing a fire guitar. it's the worst art ever
actually, strike and shock will compete,depending on how early you need removal and how many three toughness there is. magma jet might actually be the card cut as you may need both early removal and three toughness burn.
Or is it just 17 pages of people thinking they're adding something new and profound to the thread by posting "Hurr, why not just reprint searing spear/lightning bolt?"
The answer is flavor in the case of searing spear (for the lightning god) and power in the case of lightning bolt, as I'm sure has been explained a dozen times in this thread by exasperated people.
Please try to refrain from clogging threads by saying the same things that people have already said. People might appreciate having more than one post per page with relevant content in it.
In the interest of actually staying on topic...I'm wondering whether people will favor this or Magma Jet for standard, or just use both. Seems like the majority of critters are either 2 power or 4+, so seems like Magma Jet will be better.
The only regen card that's even been played this standard is lotleth troll. It's so ridiculously unlikely that people wouldn't have run that card in decks like zombies JUST because incinerate was there to provide a viable answer. If wizards really cared that much about regen there would be more regen cards around. As it stands there are close to none that get played. In other words regen creatures are no more playable than they were because there are almost no good regen creatures anywaay. Searing spear already had absolutely no reason to exist, and the same applies to lightning strike.
I'm sorry, but I'd NEVER pick Shock over Jet.
Many thanks to DNC at Heroes of the Plane Studios
Play modern. Best of both worlds.