I'm hoping we get an Ugin versus X duel deck in the future will all these awesome alternate art cards.
You mean Ugin Vs Bolas... Right?
I would certainly hope, but we've already got Bolas alternates up the wazoo. I'd be interested in a mash-up of the two duel deck types: Ugin vs Eldrazi.
Sure, poly-morphing may fit blue's color pie philosophy or whatever. But not mechanically.
In that case, why not have a green Nekrataal?, because hunters are in green's color pie.
Sure, poly-morphing may fit blue's color pie philosophy or whatever. But not mechanically.
In that case, why not have a green Nekrataal?, because hunters are in green's color pie.
Why do people always complain when Blue gets nice things, but no one bats an eye when White or Black gets amazing cards? Elspeth, Brimaz, Thoughtseize, Hero's Downfall, Gray Merchant, Whip of Erebos, Doomwake Giant, Siege Rhino, and now the Grand Master and Monastery Mentor. I'm not saying any of these cards are broken, but people shouldn't be complaining that Blue gets Reality Shift when Black and White get great cards more often than Blue nowadays.
Sure, poly-morphing may fit blue's color pie philosophy or whatever. But not mechanically.
In that case, why not have a green Nekrataal?, because hunters are in green's color pie.
Why do people always complain when Blue gets nice things, but no one bats an eye when White or Black gets amazing cards? Elspeth, Brimaz, Thoughtseize, Hero's Downfall, Gray Merchant, Whip of Erebos, Doomwake Giant, Siege Rhino, and now the Grand Master and Monastery Mentor. I'm not saying any of these cards are broken, but people shouldn't be complaining that Blue gets Reality Shift when Black and White get great cards more often than Blue nowadays.
They aren't complaining about Blue getting nice things. They're complaining about what they perceive to be a breach of the color pie and what Blue is capable of doing. It's the same people that won't just drop it and realize that they're not Wizards R&D and it's not up to them what blue is and isn't capable of. Oh, and that act like it's something Blue does all the time instead of extremely rarely.
Sure, poly-morphing may fit blue's color pie philosophy or whatever. But not mechanically.
In that case, why not have a green Nekrataal?, because hunters are in green's color pie.
Why do people always complain when Blue gets nice things, but no one bats an eye when White or Black gets amazing cards? Elspeth, Brimaz, Thoughtseize, Hero's Downfall, Gray Merchant, Whip of Erebos, Doomwake Giant, Siege Rhino, and now the Grand Master and Monastery Mentor. I'm not saying any of these cards are broken, but people shouldn't be complaining that Blue gets Reality Shift when Black and White get great cards more often than Blue nowadays.
They aren't complaining about Blue getting nice things. They're complaining about what they perceive to be a breach of the color pie and what Blue is capable of doing. It's the same people that won't just drop it and realize that they're not Wizards R&D and it's not up to them what blue is and isn't capable of. Oh, and that act like it's something Blue does all the time instead of extremely rarely.
TL;DR - People like to incessantly whine.
These are the same people that argue with Mark Rosewater ON HIS TUMBLR even though he's the freakin' Color Pie Guru.
So wait, is every ugin's fate pack gonna come /with/ Ugin? If so, that's nuts.
no. each pack has 4 cards. 1 Basic land, 1 Token and 2 alt-art promos from KTK/FRF. Those 2 cards will be commons/uncommons and every once in a while you'll get a rare. alt-art Ugin is the only mythic is this 'promo set' and will appear in much less quantity.
One thing has to be said Reality Shift is as blue as it can get. Deal with it.
MaRo has a podcast series. I've listened to nearly every single one and I would recommend them HIGHLY to anyone who loves this game and wants to know MUCH MORE about its underpinnings, history, and design theory.
In one of them, a fairly recent one if memory serves, he spends a good bit of time talking about a hypothetical card 'Green Terror'.
Sorcery - 1G
You may play ~ anytime you could play an Instant.
Put a 1/1 Saproling with Deathtouch into play. It fights another creature.
While Green Terror is not right, the proposed card is 'as green as it can get', no? MaRo points this out immediately. This card is 100% fine from a flavor-standpoint.
He then explains why this card still SHOULD NOT see print despite not technically violating ANY part of Green's pie. He goes on record as declaring this is bad card design.
Yes, Blue gets Polymorph, but this card is REAAAAALY pushing that argument.
Look. I personally am GLAD this card exists and I am excited to play with it. It will serve a valuable purpose in Limited and will certainly shake things up in Modern.
My only real objection here is naked hypocrisy with which people defend 'Blue gets everything, precedent-precedent-precedent, why do you get so unreasonable about things?' and then turn around with 'White/Black/Green/Red OMFG can't have THAT EFFECT it will COMPLETELY UPEND THE NATURAL ORDER OF THE GAME.'
My only real objection here is naked hypocrisy with which people defend 'Blue gets everything, precedent-precedent-precedent, why do you get so unreasonable about things?' and then turn around with 'White/Black/Green/Red OMFG can't have THAT EFFECT it will COMPLETELY UPEND THE NATURAL ORDER OF THE GAME.'
They aren't complaining about Blue getting nice things. They're complaining about what they perceive to be a breach of the color pie and what Blue is capable of doing. It's the same people that won't just drop it and realize that they're not Wizards R&D and it's not up to them what blue is and isn't capable of. Oh, and that act like it's something Blue does all the time instead of extremely rarely.
These are the same people that argue with Mark Rosewater ON HIS TUMBLR even though he's the freakin' Color Pie Guru.
Um
This makes about as much sense as saying "Who are YOU to say Skullclamp is overpowered, you aren't Wizards R&D"
Nobody is arguing about what the color pie IS, because the color pie IS, literally, any card Wizards prints in those colors. They're talking about what they think the color pie OUGHT TO be and would make Magic a more balanced, and better, game. And when blue gets incredible creatures and great removal, while green gets 7-mana creatures and lame sorceries, yeah, they're going to "whine"
Sure, poly-morphing may fit blue's color pie philosophy or whatever. But not mechanically.
In that case, why not have a green Nekrataal?, because hunters are in green's color pie.
Why do people always complain when Blue gets nice things, but no one bats an eye when White or Black gets amazing cards? Elspeth, Brimaz, Thoughtseize, Hero's Downfall, Gray Merchant, Whip of Erebos, Doomwake Giant, Siege Rhino, and now the Grand Master and Monastery Mentor. I'm not saying any of these cards are broken, but people shouldn't be complaining that Blue gets Reality Shift when Black and White get great cards more often than Blue nowadays.
It's not about blue getting nice things. It's about blue being able to do anything any other color can do.
Why do people always complain when Blue gets nice things, but no one bats an eye when White or Black gets amazing cards? Elspeth, Brimaz, Thoughtseize, Hero's Downfall, Gray Merchant, Whip of Erebos, Doomwake Giant, Siege Rhino, and now the Grand Master and Monastery Mentor. I'm not saying any of these cards are broken, but people shouldn't be complaining that Blue gets Reality Shift when Black and White get great cards more often than Blue nowadays.
It's not about blue getting nice things. It's about blue being able to do anything any other color can do.
Also remember that "people" refers to many different people. Different people complain about different things.
These are the same people that argue with Mark Rosewater ON HIS TUMBLR even though he's the freakin' Color Pie Guru.
No they are not. I am part of the people that agrees with Maro that every color should have a weakness. That Hornet Sting is a mistake even if it's awful. And that the color pie ideals exist for a reason.
One thing has to be said Reality Shift is as blue as it can get. Deal with it.
Do you care to explain further please?
Maybe it's a nonsensical debate because it doesn't has a real impact in magic. Just like Hornet Sting is a middle finger to the color pie ideals, but it doesn't matters anyway because the card has almost no play potential.
Or maybe it is another straw on the camel's back.
Think of any major strategy. There's a mono blue deck representative for any of them and with very different styles in competitive MTG through the history. Aggro, tempo, midrange, ramp, combo, control. Blue is just the most flexible color, and it can do anything it wants.
Now, don't take this as a rant post, just an interesting discussion of what a color limitations should be. My favorite colors are blue and green, but I like how each has some weaknesses they can't overcome by themselves unless you pick another color (or at least it should be).
Maybe it's okay if blue can do everything in the color pie as long as it's a weakened version...
If this is considered thread derailing, feel free to move it somewhere else.
This is a list of things I remembered mono-blue can do, even if they are inefficient, if blue wants to do it, blue can do it.
Card draw? Counter-spells? Artifact friendliness? Those are considered to be the core of blue. Time walking is almost blue exclusive, along with boomerang effects and clone effects.
Apparently eureka could have been blue and not green: Show and Tell, Dream Halls, Omniscience.
Efficient beaters? Every color gets some, but Delver of secrets is among the best beaters printed.
Big scary monsters? Every color gets some, but Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur is nightmare material.
Token production? Any color gets some.
Direct damage? Psionic Blast (This may be worst example, but still a testimony that blue has at least a representative of any other thing another color could do).
Life gain? Illusions of Grandeur.
Mana denial? Stasis, or Armaggedon style, there's Sunder.
Creature removal? polymorphing like in Reality Shift. And control magic
Mass creature removal? Evacuation and friends.
Recursion? Time Twister effects, Snapcaster Mage.
Reanimation? Blue tips there with False Demise and Body Double.
Efficient card searching? Blue doesn't has and will never have Demonic Tutor, but no other color will ever get Brainstorm, Ponder, Impulse or Dig Thrugh Time.
Ramp? Not strictly speaking ramp, but since blue has artifact affinity, if blue wants to ramp, it does at least easier than white or red can get access to permanent ramp. Also, bad blue ramp but still typical ramp: Dreamscape Artist.
The only thing blue doesn't gets up to this day, is permanent ways of dealing with permanents such as disenchant, stone rain or terminate effects, unless you consider polymorphing and boomeran-ing.
Which get me to the point: if blue wants to do it, it can do it.
Maybe that's blue's philosophy in itself. Knowledge and preparation can get you anything you want, even if it's a longer road.
Or wizards just likes to keep blue being the most flexible color because MTG player base favorite color is usually blue because it has been historically the best color, and in order to pander to us (I consider myself in that boat, can't deny I love blue as well), they keep that trend.
Think of any major strategy. There have always been a mono blue deck that's been competitive through MTG's history. Aggro, tempo, midrange, ramp, combo, control.
That is patently false.
Competitive mono U decks are few and far between.
It happens, sure, but mono W and mono B are almost always better,
and don't even get me started on mono R.
It astounds me that people still think Blue has a larger slice of the pie than White, Green, or Black.
They may have been a bit... generous to Blue in the past,
but these days it's quite a bit more balanced than a lot of you make it out to be.
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
Thing is, in this day and age, creatures are the primary focus of magic. WotC wants the game to revolve around them as much as possible, and in order to do so, each color needs some way of dealing with them. Black does this with a variety of different kill spells, some sweepers, discard, deathtouch, and recently with big butts to survive. Red does this with burn, temporary theft, pump, first strike, and can't block effects. Green does it with fight, pump, deathtouch, fog and generally being bigger. White does it with exile effects (a lot of which are temporary), protection, first strike, and usually the biggest sweepers. Blue? Blue uses bounce, countermagic, lockdown effects, permanent theft, and polymorphing. Reality shift is just blue creature "removal". Every color needs it, every color gets it.
Think of any major strategy. There have always been a mono blue deck that's been competitive through MTG's history. Aggro, tempo, midrange, ramp, combo, control.
That is patently false.
Competitive mono U decks are few and far between.
It happens, sure, but mono W and mono B are almost always better,
and don't even get me started on mono R.
It astounds me that people still think Blue has a larger slice of the pie than White, Green, or Black.
They may have been a bit... generous to Blue in the past,
but these days it's quite a bit more balanced than a lot of you make it out to be.
My mistake, I worded that differently than what I wanted it to.
I wanted to say that blue has covered all the archetypes in one way or another.
My argument was not one about the power level of blue per se, but about strategy diversity.
Of course the strategy needs to be powerful enough to see competitive play, but my intention was not trying to say that blue was oppressively powerful, just that it is the most flexible color, getting a wide array of tools, usually powerful enough to be considered in competitive play.
Now, when was the last time you saw a mono-green control deck? Even at a kitchen table? There was Lost in the Woods for limited, which was hilarious.
Mono-Black tempo? Mono-white combo? Mono-red ramp?
Thing is, in this day and age, creatures are the primary focus of magic. WotC wants the game to revolve around them as much as possible, and in order to do so, each color needs some way of dealing with them. Black does this with a variety of different kill spells, some sweepers, discard, deathtouch, and recently with big butts to survive. Red does this with burn, temporary theft, pump, first strike, and can't block effects. Green does it with fight, pump, deathtouch, fog and generally being bigger. White does it with exile effects (a lot of which are temporary), protection, first strike, and usually the biggest sweepers. Blue? Blue uses bounce, countermagic, lockdown effects, permanent theft, and polymorphing. Reality shift is just blue creature "removal". Every color needs it, every color gets it.
Now, this is a good argument to help blue there. If at least white and black had Force of Will equivalents, there would be more color diversity in legacy (black could have a Thoughtseize version of Force of Will, and white could have a "your opponents can't win the game this turn, you can't lose the game this turn. If your life total would be reduced to less than 1, it's reduced to 1 instead. Sources opponents control can't make you sacrifice permanents this turn.").
And brainstorm/ponder level consistency tools for non-blue decks.
Maybe this kind of mechanic would be overall helpful for the health of modern. Especially since wizards seems to allow creature based combos.
Now, this is a good argument to help blue there. If at least white and black had Force of Will equivalents, there would be more color diversity in legacy (black could have a Thoughtseize version of Force of Will, and white could have a "your opponents can't win the game this turn, you can't lose the game this turn. If your life total would be reduced to less than 1, it's reduced to 1 instead. Sources opponents control can't make you sacrifice permanents this turn.").
And brainstorm/ponder level consistency tools for non-blue decks.
Maybe this kind of mechanic would be overall helpful for the health of modern. Especially since wizards seems to allow creature based combos.
How rare will these ugin be? Ill be getting a alternative just for collection just like the sdcc ones
I'm assuming quite rare. I'm bringing a stack of fetchlands along with one of my foil Thoughtseizes and some other foil planeswalkers for trade in case someone at my prerelease opens one. But I wouldn't be surprised if no one at my store opens one, since you aren't even guaranteed a rare from the Ugin's Fate booster packs. My guess is that it would be about as likely as pulling a planeswalker from one of those mini-booster packs back when they still made them (you weren't guaranteed a rare in those packs, either).
Think of any major strategy. There have always been a mono blue deck that's been competitive through MTG's history. Aggro, tempo, midrange, ramp, combo, control.
That is patently false.
Competitive mono U decks are few and far between.
It happens, sure, but mono W and mono B are almost always better,
and don't even get me started on mono R.
It astounds me that people still think Blue has a larger slice of the pie than White, Green, or Black.
They may have been a bit... generous to Blue in the past,
but these days it's quite a bit more balanced than a lot of you make it out to be.
My mistake, I worded that differently than what I wanted it to.
I wanted to say that blue has covered all the archetypes in one way or another.
My argument was not one about the power level of blue per se, but about strategy diversity.
Of course the strategy needs to be powerful enough to see competitive play, but my intention was not trying to say that blue was oppressively powerful, just that it is the most flexible color, getting a wide array of tools, usually powerful enough to be considered in competitive play.
Now, when was the last time you saw a mono-green control deck? Even at a kitchen table? There was Lost in the Woods for limited, which was hilarious.
Mono-Black tempo? Mono-white combo? Mono-red ramp?
Thing is, in this day and age, creatures are the primary focus of magic. WotC wants the game to revolve around them as much as possible, and in order to do so, each color needs some way of dealing with them. Black does this with a variety of different kill spells, some sweepers, discard, deathtouch, and recently with big butts to survive. Red does this with burn, temporary theft, pump, first strike, and can't block effects. Green does it with fight, pump, deathtouch, fog and generally being bigger. White does it with exile effects (a lot of which are temporary), protection, first strike, and usually the biggest sweepers. Blue? Blue uses bounce, countermagic, lockdown effects, permanent theft, and polymorphing. Reality shift is just blue creature "removal". Every color needs it, every color gets it.
Now, this is a good argument to help blue there. If at least white and black had Force of Will equivalents, there would be more color diversity in legacy (black could have a Thoughtseize version of Force of Will, and white could have a "your opponents can't win the game this turn, you can't lose the game this turn. If your life total would be reduced to less than 1, it's reduced to 1 instead. Sources opponents control can't make you sacrifice permanents this turn.").
And brainstorm/ponder level consistency tools for non-blue decks.
Maybe this kind of mechanic would be overall helpful for the health of modern. Especially since wizards seems to allow creature based combos.
This comes across as whining about what blue used to get. Most of the things you are complaining about are things in the past, and most of it was the pretty far past. The worst part is that a lot of your arguments about the past are incorrect as well. Mono-black has had plenty of tempo decks. Mono-white combo is a fringe deck in current legacy and modern. I played a mono-red ramp deck in Standard 4 years ago at FNMs, and won with it. I'm not going to sit here and try to make sure theres an instance of each one, but Im sure I could if I tried.
This card is squarely in blues color pie. Furthermore, I'll be shocked if this shows up in any high-tiered decks. It's not very good.
It should be obvious that I am not a blue fan by my avatar (etc) but one of the things that annoys me to no end is when people who don't like blue cry about it incessantly. One could make the argument that blue is the weakest color in standard right now (I think the argument would be pointless since all of the colors are pretty evenly matched, with green maybe a tiny bit out front.)
I can't help but to see your arguments as incredibly immature.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Rules Advisor as of 4/23/10
Regarding Stoneforge Mystic
Quote from oranges2 »
This guy, would either eat up several turns worth of mana to get a slow permanent that relies on your already have some board presence (after wasting said mana), or dies without generating any advantage.
This card is squarely in blues color pie. Furthermore, I'll be shocked if this shows up in any high-tiered decks. It's not very good.
Apologies, for English is my 2nd language, but how exactly is this card "squarely" in blue's colour pie? The only other card I could find to permanently! unconditionally! exile! an opponents! creature was Curse of the Swine, a fairly new card.
Also, I honestly don't get all those comparisons to Pongify. If it would destroy the creature then yes, very similar. But it exiles, which makes it quite different(=better) to me. The only similar thing is that it is removal with a possible positive upside to the creature's controller, but that is it.
This card is squarely in blues color pie. Furthermore, I'll be shocked if this shows up in any high-tiered decks. It's not very good.
Apologies, for English is my 2nd language, but how exactly is this card "squarely" in blue's colour pie? The only other card I could find to permanently! unconditionally! exile! an opponents! creature was Curse of the Swine, a fairly new card.
Also, I honestly don't get all those comparisons to Pongify. If it would destroy the creature then yes, very similar. But it exiles, which makes it quite different(=better) to me. The only similar thing is that it is removal with a possible positive upside to the creature's controller, but that is it.
It's been argued that destroy is less blue than exile since you're essentially transforming the creature you're targeting into this manifest creature (so the original no longer exists). it seems to make flavor sense.
This card is squarely in blues color pie. Furthermore, I'll be shocked if this shows up in any high-tiered decks. It's not very good.
Apologies, for English is my 2nd language, but how exactly is this card "squarely" in blue's colour pie? The only other card I could find to permanently! unconditionally! exile! an opponents! creature was Curse of the Swine, a fairly new card.
Also, I honestly don't get all those comparisons to Pongify. If it would destroy the creature then yes, very similar. But it exiles, which makes it quite different(=better) to me. The only similar thing is that it is removal with a possible positive upside to the creature's controller, but that is it.
Off the top of my head, this will be the 7th time blue has gotten this effect, and it'll be the third block in a row. In addition to Curse of the Swine, Mass Polymorph also exiled. The important part of the card is the transformation though, that is certainly a blue ability. The change to exile happened because it makes more flavor sense. In flavor land, transforming a creature shouldn't kill it, it just makes it a new thing, but with destroy effects you can target indestructible creatures (like the gods) and end up keeping your God and getting an Ape out of it. That doesn't make sense. Also, what if turn my Grizzly Bear into an Ape token, then next turn return my Grizzly Bear to the field right next to the Ape token. That also doesn't make flavor sense.
The card fits into blues color pie, and the change to exile probably makes the card worse in more instances that will matter competitively. This card is fine.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Rules Advisor as of 4/23/10
Regarding Stoneforge Mystic
Quote from oranges2 »
This guy, would either eat up several turns worth of mana to get a slow permanent that relies on your already have some board presence (after wasting said mana), or dies without generating any advantage.
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I would certainly hope, but we've already got Bolas alternates up the wazoo. I'd be interested in a mash-up of the two duel deck types: Ugin vs Eldrazi.
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Sure, poly-morphing may fit blue's color pie philosophy or whatever. But not mechanically.
In that case, why not have a green Nekrataal?, because hunters are in green's color pie.
Why do people always complain when Blue gets nice things, but no one bats an eye when White or Black gets amazing cards? Elspeth, Brimaz, Thoughtseize, Hero's Downfall, Gray Merchant, Whip of Erebos, Doomwake Giant, Siege Rhino, and now the Grand Master and Monastery Mentor. I'm not saying any of these cards are broken, but people shouldn't be complaining that Blue gets Reality Shift when Black and White get great cards more often than Blue nowadays.
They aren't complaining about Blue getting nice things. They're complaining about what they perceive to be a breach of the color pie and what Blue is capable of doing. It's the same people that won't just drop it and realize that they're not Wizards R&D and it's not up to them what blue is and isn't capable of. Oh, and that act like it's something Blue does all the time instead of extremely rarely.
TL;DR - People like to incessantly whine.
(Also known as Xenphire)
These are the same people that argue with Mark Rosewater ON HIS TUMBLR even though he's the freakin' Color Pie Guru.
Give it to some other color just once and everyone just completely comes unhinged. (MaRo is
usuallyalways leading the charge.)Not Blue though.
It is perhaps the single oldest joke in all of Magic. Just get used to it.
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Give it to some other color just once and everyone just completely comes unhinged. (MaRo is
usuallyalways leading the charge.)Not Blue though.
It is perhaps the single oldest joke in all of Magic. Just get used to it.
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Reality Shift is as blue as it can get. Deal with it.
not always. see Domri and Ashiok for example
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BUGWhip your assBUG
no. each pack has 4 cards. 1 Basic land, 1 Token and 2 alt-art promos from KTK/FRF. Those 2 cards will be commons/uncommons and every once in a while you'll get a rare. alt-art Ugin is the only mythic is this 'promo set' and will appear in much less quantity.
MaRo has a podcast series. I've listened to nearly every single one and I would recommend them HIGHLY to anyone who loves this game and wants to know MUCH MORE about its underpinnings, history, and design theory.
In one of them, a fairly recent one if memory serves, he spends a good bit of time talking about a hypothetical card 'Green Terror'.
Sorcery - 1G
You may play ~ anytime you could play an Instant.
Put a 1/1 Saproling with Deathtouch into play. It fights another creature.
While Green Terror is not right, the proposed card is 'as green as it can get', no? MaRo points this out immediately. This card is 100% fine from a flavor-standpoint.
He then explains why this card still SHOULD NOT see print despite not technically violating ANY part of Green's pie. He goes on record as declaring this is bad card design.
Yes, Blue gets Polymorph, but this card is REAAAAALY pushing that argument.
Look. I personally am GLAD this card exists and I am excited to play with it. It will serve a valuable purpose in Limited and will certainly shake things up in Modern.
My only real objection here is naked hypocrisy with which people defend 'Blue gets everything, precedent-precedent-precedent, why do you get so unreasonable about things?' and then turn around with 'White/Black/Green/Red OMFG can't have THAT EFFECT it will COMPLETELY UPEND THE NATURAL ORDER OF THE GAME.'
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Well blue shifts reality
Um
This makes about as much sense as saying "Who are YOU to say Skullclamp is overpowered, you aren't Wizards R&D"
Nobody is arguing about what the color pie IS, because the color pie IS, literally, any card Wizards prints in those colors. They're talking about what they think the color pie OUGHT TO be and would make Magic a more balanced, and better, game. And when blue gets incredible creatures and great removal, while green gets 7-mana creatures and lame sorceries, yeah, they're going to "whine"
UR Blue-Red Control
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
UWR Jeskai Control
It's not about blue getting nice things. It's about blue being able to do anything any other color can do.
It's not about blue getting nice things. It's about blue being able to do anything any other color can do.
Also remember that "people" refers to many different people. Different people complain about different things.
No they are not. I am part of the people that agrees with Maro that every color should have a weakness. That Hornet Sting is a mistake even if it's awful. And that the color pie ideals exist for a reason.
Do you care to explain further please?
Maybe it's a nonsensical debate because it doesn't has a real impact in magic. Just like Hornet Sting is a middle finger to the color pie ideals, but it doesn't matters anyway because the card has almost no play potential.
Or maybe it is another straw on the camel's back.
Think of any major strategy. There's a mono blue deck representative for any of them and with very different styles in competitive MTG through the history. Aggro, tempo, midrange, ramp, combo, control. Blue is just the most flexible color, and it can do anything it wants.
Now, don't take this as a rant post, just an interesting discussion of what a color limitations should be. My favorite colors are blue and green, but I like how each has some weaknesses they can't overcome by themselves unless you pick another color (or at least it should be).
Maybe it's okay if blue can do everything in the color pie as long as it's a weakened version...
If this is considered thread derailing, feel free to move it somewhere else.
This is a list of things I remembered mono-blue can do, even if they are inefficient, if blue wants to do it, blue can do it.
Card draw? Counter-spells? Artifact friendliness? Those are considered to be the core of blue.
Time walking is almost blue exclusive, along with boomerang effects and clone effects.
Apparently eureka could have been blue and not green: Show and Tell, Dream Halls, Omniscience.
Efficient beaters? Every color gets some, but Delver of secrets is among the best beaters printed.
Big scary monsters? Every color gets some, but Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur is nightmare material.
Token production? Any color gets some.
Direct damage? Psionic Blast (This may be worst example, but still a testimony that blue has at least a representative of any other thing another color could do).
Life gain? Illusions of Grandeur.
Mana denial? Stasis, or Armaggedon style, there's Sunder.
Creature removal? polymorphing like in Reality Shift. And control magic
Mass creature removal? Evacuation and friends.
Recursion? Time Twister effects, Snapcaster Mage.
Reanimation? Blue tips there with False Demise and Body Double.
Efficient card searching? Blue doesn't has and will never have Demonic Tutor, but no other color will ever get Brainstorm, Ponder, Impulse or Dig Thrugh Time.
Ramp? Not strictly speaking ramp, but since blue has artifact affinity, if blue wants to ramp, it does at least easier than white or red can get access to permanent ramp. Also, bad blue ramp but still typical ramp: Dreamscape Artist.
The only thing blue doesn't gets up to this day, is permanent ways of dealing with permanents such as disenchant, stone rain or terminate effects, unless you consider polymorphing and boomeran-ing.
Which get me to the point: if blue wants to do it, it can do it.
Maybe that's blue's philosophy in itself. Knowledge and preparation can get you anything you want, even if it's a longer road.
Or wizards just likes to keep blue being the most flexible color because MTG player base favorite color is usually blue because it has been historically the best color, and in order to pander to us (I consider myself in that boat, can't deny I love blue as well), they keep that trend.
Edit: grammar mistakes and bad wording.
That is patently false.
Competitive mono U decks are few and far between.
It happens, sure, but mono W and mono B are almost always better,
and don't even get me started on mono R.
It astounds me that people still think Blue has a larger slice of the pie than White, Green, or Black.
They may have been a bit... generous to Blue in the past,
but these days it's quite a bit more balanced than a lot of you make it out to be.
Reprint Stasis!
Control needs more love.
EDH:
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm
WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW
WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
My mistake, I worded that differently than what I wanted it to.
I wanted to say that blue has covered all the archetypes in one way or another.
My argument was not one about the power level of blue per se, but about strategy diversity.
Of course the strategy needs to be powerful enough to see competitive play, but my intention was not trying to say that blue was oppressively powerful, just that it is the most flexible color, getting a wide array of tools, usually powerful enough to be considered in competitive play.
Now, when was the last time you saw a mono-green control deck? Even at a kitchen table? There was Lost in the Woods for limited, which was hilarious.
Mono-Black tempo? Mono-white combo? Mono-red ramp?
Now, this is a good argument to help blue there. If at least white and black had Force of Will equivalents, there would be more color diversity in legacy (black could have a Thoughtseize version of Force of Will, and white could have a "your opponents can't win the game this turn, you can't lose the game this turn. If your life total would be reduced to less than 1, it's reduced to 1 instead. Sources opponents control can't make you sacrifice permanents this turn.").
And brainstorm/ponder level consistency tools for non-blue decks.
Maybe this kind of mechanic would be overall helpful for the health of modern. Especially since wizards seems to allow creature based combos.
unmask is a thoughtseize version of Fow
I'm assuming quite rare. I'm bringing a stack of fetchlands along with one of my foil Thoughtseizes and some other foil planeswalkers for trade in case someone at my prerelease opens one. But I wouldn't be surprised if no one at my store opens one, since you aren't even guaranteed a rare from the Ugin's Fate booster packs. My guess is that it would be about as likely as pulling a planeswalker from one of those mini-booster packs back when they still made them (you weren't guaranteed a rare in those packs, either).
This comes across as whining about what blue used to get. Most of the things you are complaining about are things in the past, and most of it was the pretty far past. The worst part is that a lot of your arguments about the past are incorrect as well. Mono-black has had plenty of tempo decks. Mono-white combo is a fringe deck in current legacy and modern. I played a mono-red ramp deck in Standard 4 years ago at FNMs, and won with it. I'm not going to sit here and try to make sure theres an instance of each one, but Im sure I could if I tried.
This card is squarely in blues color pie. Furthermore, I'll be shocked if this shows up in any high-tiered decks. It's not very good.
It should be obvious that I am not a blue fan by my avatar (etc) but one of the things that annoys me to no end is when people who don't like blue cry about it incessantly. One could make the argument that blue is the weakest color in standard right now (I think the argument would be pointless since all of the colors are pretty evenly matched, with green maybe a tiny bit out front.)
I can't help but to see your arguments as incredibly immature.
Rules Advisor as of 4/23/10
Regarding Stoneforge Mystic
Apologies, for English is my 2nd language, but how exactly is this card "squarely" in blue's colour pie? The only other card I could find to permanently! unconditionally! exile! an opponents! creature was Curse of the Swine, a fairly new card.
Also, I honestly don't get all those comparisons to Pongify. If it would destroy the creature then yes, very similar. But it exiles, which makes it quite different(=better) to me. The only similar thing is that it is removal with a possible positive upside to the creature's controller, but that is it.
It's been argued that destroy is less blue than exile since you're essentially transforming the creature you're targeting into this manifest creature (so the original no longer exists). it seems to make flavor sense.
UR Blue-Red Control
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
UWR Jeskai Control
Creature transformation is blue. Ovinomancer Polymorph Mass Polymorph Pongify Rapid Hybridization Curse of the Swine
Off the top of my head, this will be the 7th time blue has gotten this effect, and it'll be the third block in a row. In addition to Curse of the Swine, Mass Polymorph also exiled. The important part of the card is the transformation though, that is certainly a blue ability. The change to exile happened because it makes more flavor sense. In flavor land, transforming a creature shouldn't kill it, it just makes it a new thing, but with destroy effects you can target indestructible creatures (like the gods) and end up keeping your God and getting an Ape out of it. That doesn't make sense. Also, what if turn my Grizzly Bear into an Ape token, then next turn return my Grizzly Bear to the field right next to the Ape token. That also doesn't make flavor sense.
The card fits into blues color pie, and the change to exile probably makes the card worse in more instances that will matter competitively. This card is fine.
Rules Advisor as of 4/23/10
Regarding Stoneforge Mystic