I really think this card is being undervalued, isn't forcing your opponent to play slower and around your spells exactly what control wants? Not to mention late game when this isn't important it becomes another card at the very least and in a better situation a flash 2/2 flying Drake that draws you a card for U. sounds pretty amazing to me. Man people are spoiled now.
Has no one who has posted played legacy? Suspecting your opponent has Daze in hand means you play around it on turns 1-3. Which means you're not casting the spells you want to be casting because you need them to land. If your opponent plays around this card, then you're getting what you want which is time to make land drops.
For Standard or Modern, this only affects your turn two onward, but the amount of time that your opponent is using all their mana during turns 2-4 is quite high. Also, there's nothing saying you can't have OTHER counterspells in your deck for when they wait a turn to play something, at which point you can cycle this card.
It would be great if it actually cost 1 (like Force Spike) or 0 (like Daze). The whole point of counters like these are to be effective in the first 3 turns of the game. At 2 mana, it can't be played turn 1, and from turn 2 on, it's considerably worse than Mana Leak as a counterspell. Holding up 1 mana is not difficult. This spell is trash.
He stated WotC learned their lesson. I replied they didn't because they printed another powerful card with (almost) the same effect.
Just getting the timeline right: The comment about having learnt a lesson about Thoughtseize was made as a response concerning the outcome after they reprinted it in Theros.
Which card they printed afterwards are you refering to again?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
He stated WotC learned their lesson. I replied they didn't because they printed another powerful card with (almost) the same effect. In modern, where everything is aggressively costed it is not unusual for Inquisition to be a non-lifeloss Thoughtsieze. Apart from that they did not print the card in standard once, they printed it twice! So much for learning.
The original point was the discussion about oppressiveness of counterspells. I claim that this is completely biased. T1 Thoughtsieze/Inquisition can ruin your game almost as well as well played counterspell. If the card wasn't bonkers it wouldn't be top 1 overall card in modern and in 83% of decks. My point was that what Wizards is doing is basically a cop out. They don't want to make a strong counterspell in standard (or modern) because they don't want to deal with balancing it.
Also a lot of the talk of oppressiveness of counterspells comes from Legacy. Legacy has the best counters ever printed. It is not just one card that's good, its a fistful of them! Yet Wizards doesn't let a single well costed, truly great counter into Modern. Or standard.
Saying that it will be an apocalypse is not convincing due to 20+ years of this game's history. The current standard sucks with exactly 0 counterspells involved! I do not see a convincing, non biased reason to keep counters trash tier.
Modern is not really relevant to the current conversation. Also, with regard to the bolded statement above, literally the best deck in standard is playing countermagic. Right now. You undermine your credibility by making un-researched statements.
Some combination of negate, ceremonious rejection and dispel are in every sideboard for the deck. Almost every match up brings in one or more of them, depending on which is the right tool for the job.
Has no one who has posted played legacy? Suspecting your opponent has Daze in hand means you play around it on turns 1-3. Which means you're not casting the spells you want to be casting because you need them to land. If your opponent plays around this card, then you're getting what you want which is time to make land drops.
The HUGE difference that you conveniently forget to mention is that Daze can be cast for free. And land destruction actually happens with Wasteland, making Daze more effective over a longer period of time. This card costs 2 mana, in a format with no land destruction. It's *****.
Has no one who has posted played legacy? Suspecting your opponent has Daze in hand means you play around it on turns 1-3. Which means you're not casting the spells you want to be casting because you need them to land. If your opponent plays around this card, then you're getting what you want which is time to make land drops.
For Standard or Modern, this only affects your turn two onward, but the amount of time that your opponent is using all their mana during turns 2-4 is quite high. Also, there's nothing saying you can't have OTHER counterspells in your deck for when they wait a turn to play something, at which point you can cycle this card.
It would be great if it actually cost 1 (like Force Spike) or 0 (like Daze). The whole point of counters like these are to be effective in the first 3 turns of the game. At 2 mana, it can't be played turn 1, and from turn 2 on, it's considerably worse than Mana Leak as a counterspell. Holding up 1 mana is not difficult. This spell is trash.
Those days are over. You need to stop thinking about what was, because those that was once, and now is...well, now. Besides, let's go back all the wy to your favorite spell, Force of Will. The rest of that cycle was trash for other colors. So stop feeling so entitled, please. This spell is decent enough.
As someone who plays blue in Modern, I think another unplayable counterspell is pretty bad. This is a worse Miscalculation, which could have easily seen a reprint instead of this. This card would be amazing at 1cmc. But at 2? Probably not as much. At least not in Modern where all the best threats and spells only cost 1-2 mana anyway.
In hindsight I think it was probably unreasonable to hope for a Miscalculation reprint. WotC did say they wanted stronger answers in standard, but they also seem to have no intention of a blue-based Counter deck ever being good even at the FNM level ever again because it drives new players away with a vengeance.
We are in a format with Torrential Gearhulk at the top end of Disallow, Metallic Rebuke, Glimmer of Genius, Confirm Suspicions, Revolutionary Rebuff, and Insidious Will (they didn't know it in testing but such a deck also has Horribly Awry and Void Shatter still legal as well). Miscalculate would have been SO GOOD for that deck since you can cycle it early and then from turn 6-on force opponents to play around Torrential Gearhulk which is a heck of a mind game. This is before we even consider that a cheap counter with cycling would be entering a format with Delirium and Drake Haven.
For making a new card that puts them in a weird place though. Basically the option becomes 2U to counter for 2 (with cycling U still), or 1U to counter for 1 (since U to counter for one is "stricly better than Force Spike", not a thing they intend to do in Standard I imagine). I think they made the right choice as we already have two great 3CMC counters. This will see some amount of Standard play for sure.
Sadly that means it won't see any Modern play most likely. I also wish it was common; it would be unlikely to compete with Daze, Miscalculation, Rune Snag, Mana Leak, and Spell Pierce in pauper but would at least be interesting. I think folks had their hopes up for an unreasonable expectation though, and are being way harder on this card than is warranted.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Sufferer of EDHD
Commander - Currently Playing: RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G) RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B) WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG
Modern is not really relevant to the current conversation.
This.
Also, with regard to the bolded statement above, literally the best deck in standard is playing countermagic. Right now. You undermine your credibility by making un-researched statements.
Which is the best deck? I hear people mentioning Mardu more than any blue deck recently, but I'm usually lacking behind.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
Judging this card based on it's merits in Modern alone is completely missing the point. Of course it's bad (I think?) in Modern, I'm mainly interested in it's applications in Standard. Blue is currently doing fine in Modern but really needs the push in Standard. This alone probably won't cut it but it is an interesting card, much more so then the fifty shades of Cancel we've been getting for the past decade or so.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
In my dream, the world had suffered a terrible disaster. A black haze shut out the sun, and the darkness was alive with the moans and screams of wounded people. Suddenly, a small light glowed. A candle flickered into life, symbol of hope for millions. A single tiny candle, shining in the ugly dark. I laughed and blew it out.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
I don't understand all of the hate on counterspells. Sure, some people don't like playing against control. Well I don't like playing grindy creature mirrors. If a game is designed well, then there should be a wide variety of viable strategies so that everyone can play a deck that they like. So long as they provide the tools for other strategies to combat control, it's not a problem.
Look at it this way: the "fun" in a game of magic comes from (1) your deck & (2) your opponent's deck. Proper game design allows everyone to play with a deck they like and sometimes play against decks that they don't like, rather than forcing some people to play with a deck that they don't like and always play against decks that they like. For example, in modern, I play control. I always get to play a control deck, so we could say that I'm always having 50% fun, at least. So my range of fun is 50% (I hate playing against burn) - 100% (against, say, other fair decks). If there wasn't a moderately viable control deck, I would probably play Jund, a deck I'm pretty meh about. So my range of fun would be something like 25% - 75%. That's why I would never want to ban burn out of the format, because I recognize that a lot of people do enjoy those aggro strategies, and I want them to be able to play a deck they enjoy too. Moreover, I think that having a diverse format vastly raises the skill ceiling. Being able to play against a wide variety of archetypes requires greater skill than just playing against a few.
I also think that it's fair to talk about modern here. New standard sets are the only source of new cards for modern, just like standard, so why can't we talk about modern here? I could say "don't talk about standard here, obviously this card was just designed for limited" and I'm making the exact same argument.
Modern is not really relevant to the current conversation.
This.
Also, with regard to the bolded statement above, literally the best deck in standard is playing countermagic. Right now. You undermine your credibility by making un-researched statements.
Which is the best deck? I hear people mentioning Mardu more than any blue deck recently, but I'm usually lacking behind.
If I'm up on MY information, standard is a Three-deck format:
1. Mardu Vehicles (curving Toolcraft Exemplar into Heart of Kiran or Scrapheap Scrounger into removal into Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is preetttyyy good)
2. CopyCat Combo (many variations, but the best is four-colored using Attune to the Aether and Aether Hub to smooth its mana. It runs some amount of counterspells and Torrential Gearhulks as a plan B for its combo Plan A)
3. Temur Tower (a RUG Control deck with energy generation, Torrential Gearhulks, tons of instant counter and burn spells, and its signature spell Dynavolt Tower to tie things together)
So, counterspells (specifically Negate and Disallow) are definitely a big thing in standard currently.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Sufferer of EDHD
Commander - Currently Playing: RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G) RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B) WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG
I think what we Modern exclusive players need to accept is that Blues chances of getting a strict upgrade in counters, depends on Dev making a mistake.
Modern is not really relevant to the current conversation.
This.
Also, with regard to the bolded statement above, literally the best deck in standard is playing countermagic. Right now. You undermine your credibility by making un-researched statements.
Which is the best deck? I hear people mentioning Mardu more than any blue deck recently, but I'm usually lacking behind.
If I'm up on MY information, standard is a Three-deck format:
1. Mardu Vehicles (curving Toolcraft Exemplar into Heart of Kiran or Scrapheap Scrounger into removal into Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is preetttyyy good)
2. CopyCat Combo (many variations, but the best is four-colored using Attune to the Aether and Aether Hub to smooth its mana. It runs some amount of counterspells and Torrential Gearhulks as a plan B for its combo Plan A)
3. Temur Tower (a RUG Control deck with energy generation, Torrential Gearhulks, tons of instant counter and burn spells, and its signature spell Dynavolt Tower to tie things together)
So, counterspells (specifically Negate and Disallow) are definitely a big thing in standard currently.
Temur Tower (5.38%) unfortunately does not belong in this discussion.
Folks are not judging this card on its own merits. They desire a new amazing counterspell, and thus they are focusing more on the CMC and first line of rules text while ignoring the cheap cycling ability. This card is a cycler that has the off-chance potential to trade up in mana by countering a 3 or 4 CMC spell. It is a good card. There is nothing wrong with it. And for limited, I'm happy this is uncommon.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Follow me on Twitch if you're interested in watching competitive league drafts.
Play MTGO? Check out my latest MTGO finance articles on Quiet Speculation.
Has no one who has posted played legacy? Suspecting your opponent has Daze in hand means you play around it on turns 1-3. Which means you're not casting the spells you want to be casting because you need them to land. If your opponent plays around this card, then you're getting what you want which is time to make land drops.
For Standard or Modern, this only affects your turn two onward, but the amount of time that your opponent is using all their mana during turns 2-4 is quite high. Also, there's nothing saying you can't have OTHER counterspells in your deck for when they wait a turn to play something, at which point you can cycle this card.
It would be great if it actually cost 1 (like Force Spike) or 0 (like Daze). The whole point of counters like these are to be effective in the first 3 turns of the game. At 2 mana, it can't be played turn 1, and from turn 2 on, it's considerably worse than Mana Leak as a counterspell. Holding up 1 mana is not difficult. This spell is trash.
Those days are over. You need to stop thinking about what was, because those that was once, and now is...well, now. Besides, let's go back all the wy to your favorite spell, Force of Will. The rest of that cycle was trash for other colors. So stop feeling so entitled, please. This spell is decent enough.
I for one would actually like to see a counterspell that is playable in Modern again. With the minor exception of Izzet Charm, we haven't seen a new Modern-playable counterspell since Spell Pierce.
Has no one who has posted played legacy? Suspecting your opponent has Daze in hand means you play around it on turns 1-3. Which means you're not casting the spells you want to be casting because you need them to land. If your opponent plays around this card, then you're getting what you want which is time to make land drops.
For Standard or Modern, this only affects your turn two onward, but the amount of time that your opponent is using all their mana during turns 2-4 is quite high. Also, there's nothing saying you can't have OTHER counterspells in your deck for when they wait a turn to play something, at which point you can cycle this card.
It would be great if it actually cost 1 (like Force Spike) or 0 (like Daze). The whole point of counters like these are to be effective in the first 3 turns of the game. At 2 mana, it can't be played turn 1, and from turn 2 on, it's considerably worse than Mana Leak as a counterspell. Holding up 1 mana is not difficult. This spell is trash.
Those days are over. You need to stop thinking about what was, because those that was once, and now is...well, now. Besides, let's go back all the wy to your favorite spell, Force of Will. The rest of that cycle was trash for other colors. So stop feeling so entitled, please. This spell is decent enough.
I for one would actually like to see a counterspell that is playable in Modern again. With the minor exception of Izzet Charm, we haven't seen a new Modern-playable counterspell since Spell Pierce.
If those spells work, why do you need new ones? And if they do need ones, why do they have to be better? You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Has no one who has posted played legacy? Suspecting your opponent has Daze in hand means you play around it on turns 1-3. Which means you're not casting the spells you want to be casting because you need them to land. If your opponent plays around this card, then you're getting what you want which is time to make land drops.
For Standard or Modern, this only affects your turn two onward, but the amount of time that your opponent is using all their mana during turns 2-4 is quite high. Also, there's nothing saying you can't have OTHER counterspells in your deck for when they wait a turn to play something, at which point you can cycle this card.
It would be great if it actually cost 1 (like Force Spike) or 0 (like Daze). The whole point of counters like these are to be effective in the first 3 turns of the game. At 2 mana, it can't be played turn 1, and from turn 2 on, it's considerably worse than Mana Leak as a counterspell. Holding up 1 mana is not difficult. This spell is trash.
Those days are over. You need to stop thinking about what was, because those that was once, and now is...well, now. Besides, let's go back all the wy to your favorite spell, Force of Will. The rest of that cycle was trash for other colors. So stop feeling so entitled, please. This spell is decent enough.
I for one would actually like to see a counterspell that is playable in Modern again. With the minor exception of Izzet Charm, we haven't seen a new Modern-playable counterspell since Spell Pierce.
If those spells work, why do you need new ones? And if they do need ones, why do they have to be better? You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Except they don't work. There is not a single tier 1 Control deck in Modern. None of the top 50 most-played nonland cards in Modern are counterspells. Blue is the weakest color in the format. Only 3 of the 50 most-played cards in the format are blue. Blue interactive players have almost no options in Modern. Why can't we have a strong counterspell for the format?
Most of the time, you'll be cycling this card to thin your deck. Every once in a while, the opponent has to tap out to cast a spell, and then you strike. Few things are more frustrating than being one mana short of saving your spell.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
I also think that it's fair to talk about modern here. New standard sets are the only source of new cards for modern, just like standard, so why can't we talk about modern here? I could say "don't talk about standard here, obviously this card was just designed for limited" and I'm making the exact same argument.
This is an extremely important key point. Legacy gets constant innovation and expansion through supplementary sets. While Standard cards rarely ever break into Legacy, the format gets LOTS of support through weird random Commander/Conspiracy/etc kinds of cards. Modern does not have this luxury and can ONLY get its cards through Standard. Therefore, the viability of new cards in Standard are vitally important to the long term health of Modern. That's why cards like this are so monumentally disappointing. Force Spike along is already fairly bad and Miscalculation would have been borderline playable. This card is worse than both of them. Fatal Push was an amazing gift to eternal formats, and I wish we could get some more cards like that: mediocre in Standard, but reliant on a conditional requirement that is good in older formats.
Judging this card based on it's merits in Modern alone is completely missing the point. Of course it's bad (I think?) in Modern, I'm mainly interested in it's applications in Standard. Blue is currently doing fine in Modern but really needs the push in Standard. This alone probably won't cut it but it is an interesting card, much more so then the fifty shades of Cancel we've been getting for the past decade or so.
How is blue doing fine in Modern but is weak in Standard? In Standard, Copycat (which plays a decent amount of blue) is arguably the best deck and 8 of the top 50 cards (including 4 of the top 10) are blue. In Modern, the only tier 1 blue decks (as of the last metagame breakdown on Modern Nexus) are Affinity and Bant Eldrazi, neither of which are really blue decks, and only 3 of the top 50 (and 1 of the top 10) cards are blue.
It would be great if it actually cost 1 (like Force Spike) or 0 (like Daze). The whole point of counters like these are to be effective in the first 3 turns of the game. At 2 mana, it can't be played turn 1, and from turn 2 on, it's considerably worse than Mana Leak as a counterspell. Holding up 1 mana is not difficult. This spell is trash.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Just getting the timeline right: The comment about having learnt a lesson about Thoughtseize was made as a response concerning the outcome after they reprinted it in Theros.
Which card they printed afterwards are you refering to again?
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
Modern is not really relevant to the current conversation. Also, with regard to the bolded statement above, literally the best deck in standard is playing countermagic. Right now. You undermine your credibility by making un-researched statements.
Some combination of negate, ceremonious rejection and dispel are in every sideboard for the deck. Almost every match up brings in one or more of them, depending on which is the right tool for the job.
The HUGE difference that you conveniently forget to mention is that Daze can be cast for free. And land destruction actually happens with Wasteland, making Daze more effective over a longer period of time. This card costs 2 mana, in a format with no land destruction. It's *****.
none
Modern
UBG B/U/G control
BBB MBC
WUR Control
WWW Prison
RRR Goblins
Legacy
BBB Pox
UBG B/U/G Control
UWU StoneBlade
UW Miracle Control
As someone who plays blue in Modern, I think another unplayable counterspell is pretty bad. This is a worse Miscalculation, which could have easily seen a reprint instead of this. This card would be amazing at 1cmc. But at 2? Probably not as much. At least not in Modern where all the best threats and spells only cost 1-2 mana anyway.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
We are in a format with Torrential Gearhulk at the top end of Disallow, Metallic Rebuke, Glimmer of Genius, Confirm Suspicions, Revolutionary Rebuff, and Insidious Will (they didn't know it in testing but such a deck also has Horribly Awry and Void Shatter still legal as well). Miscalculate would have been SO GOOD for that deck since you can cycle it early and then from turn 6-on force opponents to play around Torrential Gearhulk which is a heck of a mind game. This is before we even consider that a cheap counter with cycling would be entering a format with Delirium and Drake Haven.
For making a new card that puts them in a weird place though. Basically the option becomes 2U to counter for 2 (with cycling U still), or 1U to counter for 1 (since U to counter for one is "stricly better than Force Spike", not a thing they intend to do in Standard I imagine). I think they made the right choice as we already have two great 3CMC counters. This will see some amount of Standard play for sure.
Sadly that means it won't see any Modern play most likely. I also wish it was common; it would be unlikely to compete with Daze, Miscalculation, Rune Snag, Mana Leak, and Spell Pierce in pauper but would at least be interesting. I think folks had their hopes up for an unreasonable expectation though, and are being way harder on this card than is warranted.
RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR
WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG
GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG
GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G)
RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW
UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B)
WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG
This.
Which is the best deck? I hear people mentioning Mardu more than any blue deck recently, but I'm usually lacking behind.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=11439737#post11439737
Reality is only what man allows it to be. Few shape it so that many may accept it.
Look at it this way: the "fun" in a game of magic comes from (1) your deck & (2) your opponent's deck. Proper game design allows everyone to play with a deck they like and sometimes play against decks that they don't like, rather than forcing some people to play with a deck that they don't like and always play against decks that they like. For example, in modern, I play control. I always get to play a control deck, so we could say that I'm always having 50% fun, at least. So my range of fun is 50% (I hate playing against burn) - 100% (against, say, other fair decks). If there wasn't a moderately viable control deck, I would probably play Jund, a deck I'm pretty meh about. So my range of fun would be something like 25% - 75%. That's why I would never want to ban burn out of the format, because I recognize that a lot of people do enjoy those aggro strategies, and I want them to be able to play a deck they enjoy too. Moreover, I think that having a diverse format vastly raises the skill ceiling. Being able to play against a wide variety of archetypes requires greater skill than just playing against a few.
I also think that it's fair to talk about modern here. New standard sets are the only source of new cards for modern, just like standard, so why can't we talk about modern here? I could say "don't talk about standard here, obviously this card was just designed for limited" and I'm making the exact same argument.
If I'm up on MY information, standard is a Three-deck format:
1. Mardu Vehicles (curving Toolcraft Exemplar into Heart of Kiran or Scrapheap Scrounger into removal into Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is preetttyyy good)
2. CopyCat Combo (many variations, but the best is four-colored using Attune to the Aether and Aether Hub to smooth its mana. It runs some amount of counterspells and Torrential Gearhulks as a plan B for its combo Plan A)
3. Temur Tower (a RUG Control deck with energy generation, Torrential Gearhulks, tons of instant counter and burn spells, and its signature spell Dynavolt Tower to tie things together)
So, counterspells (specifically Negate and Disallow) are definitely a big thing in standard currently.
RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR
WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG
GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG
GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G)
RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW
UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B)
WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG
Spirits
Temur Tower (5.38%) unfortunately does not belong in this discussion.
UR Blue-Red Control
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
UWR Jeskai Control
I for one would actually like to see a counterspell that is playable in Modern again. With the minor exception of Izzet Charm, we haven't seen a new Modern-playable counterspell since Spell Pierce.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Have you seen Modern? They don't work.
UR Blue-Red Control
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
UWR Jeskai Control
Except they don't work. There is not a single tier 1 Control deck in Modern. None of the top 50 most-played nonland cards in Modern are counterspells. Blue is the weakest color in the format. Only 3 of the 50 most-played cards in the format are blue. Blue interactive players have almost no options in Modern. Why can't we have a strong counterspell for the format?
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Most of the time, you'll be cycling this card to thin your deck. Every once in a while, the opponent has to tap out to cast a spell, and then you strike. Few things are more frustrating than being one mana short of saving your spell.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
C Long Live Eldrazi C
This is an extremely important key point. Legacy gets constant innovation and expansion through supplementary sets. While Standard cards rarely ever break into Legacy, the format gets LOTS of support through weird random Commander/Conspiracy/etc kinds of cards. Modern does not have this luxury and can ONLY get its cards through Standard. Therefore, the viability of new cards in Standard are vitally important to the long term health of Modern. That's why cards like this are so monumentally disappointing. Force Spike along is already fairly bad and Miscalculation would have been borderline playable. This card is worse than both of them. Fatal Push was an amazing gift to eternal formats, and I wish we could get some more cards like that: mediocre in Standard, but reliant on a conditional requirement that is good in older formats.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
How is blue doing fine in Modern but is weak in Standard? In Standard, Copycat (which plays a decent amount of blue) is arguably the best deck and 8 of the top 50 cards (including 4 of the top 10) are blue. In Modern, the only tier 1 blue decks (as of the last metagame breakdown on Modern Nexus) are Affinity and Bant Eldrazi, neither of which are really blue decks, and only 3 of the top 50 (and 1 of the top 10) cards are blue.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.