Sorry if you dont like my terminology, but there is ONLY a handful, 6 or 7 five start reprints....
Public relations only teaches you how to suger coat bad news, which to me is unethical, I always tell it how I see it, if things are bad there bad. And so far that has been the overwhleming response to m10. If you dont like it then just quit reading.
I did say red was next best to white did I not?
3x Black Zombie
3x Black Vampire
6x White Soldier Based
... I am not going into the rest of the colors but it seemed like a lot to me. I dont like having my decks built for me.
I would disagree I feel they mislead people on what their intentions were... Just make money and have people rebuy cards they own that do something similar or the exact same thing.
No it wasnt the best but it was not the worst either... Heres a history lesson for you on blacks mass removal, but it almost always had something...
What do you work Wizards? If you did I would be sorry you developed a poor product and you are just out to make money and not a good game. America seems to have that backwards right now. Did I hit a soft spot or something.... or are you just blind to what is in front of you...
For someone who has been playing for 15 years building a good core set for wizards should be like riding a bike. I do hope they remember who is important, the people who got them started and have been their long time fans.
The black mass removal spells printed over the years:
Damnation (color shifted for planar chaos only, as wizards said, this was not representative of what they would print in the future, this was just a set for them to show what other colors were capable of having such similar cards if they really stretched the color pie, I dont honestly believe they will ever reprint damnation and until wizards even gives a hint that they might, I certainly would bet that they wouldnt)
Decree of Pain (costs 8 mana)
Do or Die (only kills half their creatures and they get to keep the pile they want, certainly not a bad card, but its not completely removing all the creatures)
Forced March (creatures with casting cost x or less BBBX, situational, and much of the time can be quite expensive to kill everything you might want to kill, still not a bad card in its day and good enough for casual play)
Hellfire (destroys all non-black creatures, but deals 3+X damage to you where x is the number of creatures you killed and costs 5 mana, ouch x.x)
Overwhelming forces (portal 3, see decree of pain, costs 8 mana)
Plague wind (destroys all your opponant's creatures, costs 9 mana though)
Rain of Daggers (like plague wind, but you take 2 damage for each creature you kill, costs 6 mana)
Reiver Demon (terrors everything, costs 8 mana though and you have to play it from your hand)
Living Death (mass destruction/reanimation card, situational though)
Living End (see living death)
Bane of the Living (have to play it morphed first, then unmorph for BBX to give all creatures -x-x, wasnt a bad card, but expensive to get the effect off)
Havoc Demon (affect goes off when it goes to the graveyard (-5-5 to all creatures) not bad, but the creature itself still costs 7 mana)
Kagemaro First to Suffer (sac it to give all creatures -x-x where x is the number of cards in your hands, saw some play during kamigawa block days, not that that says much <.<)
Mutilate (quite possibly the best and most likely to get reprinted of the better black mass removal spells, the closest thing to a black wrath I think we will see reprinted, as once again damnation I would say was a 1 time thing, still situational though as it requires controlling a lot of swamps to make it good).
The abyss actually just kills one creature a turn, certainly not something I would call mass removal ala wrath et all.
That said, black certainly has had a decent number of mass removal cards over the years, however in recent history (aside from the color shifted likely one-time-only damnation), all of the black mass removal is eithor situational, has a nasty drawback, or costs a ton of mana to cast (save for the previously mentioned mutilate if you are playing with urborg or a mono-black deck)
Sure black has been known to some extent for mass removal, but for the most part the mass removal wouldnt be good enough for constructed play most of the time (excluding damnation which once again I dont believe will ever see print again, and Mutilate, my cantidate for best good black wrath affect that has the greatest chance of seeing the light of day again, if Zendikar ends up being mono-color based, I expect to see cards like this come back, as well as plenty of other good mono-color cards.
Oh and as an aside to Kev. Not sure where you have been looking, but Jace is going for around $10-12 each now, and Garruk is hovering at around $16 now. So no, you cannot get 4 Jace for 1 Garruk.
Also the reason for constantly reprinting cancel and naturalize is likely for limited (sealed/draft) and because it makes sense that a card like naturalize or cancel would be in the core set.
um, to be fair....garruk has seen reprint 3 times at the moment.
1, lloryn
2, duel of the planeswalker
3, m10
jace on the other hand...
1, lloryn
2, jace vs chandra
3, book promo card (yes there is another jace card out that that didn't get much advertisement. take a look, its out there)
4, m10
I know its still a few months away but Garruk is getting his own Duel deck, which will put both of them at 4 reprints a piece, so this comparrison really isn't all that valid.
Originally posted by Hermit Man : "but wizards seems to have sacrificed the ability of the core set to act as a stabilizer in standard to simply be geared entirely toward limited"
I agree with the idea that Core sets should be the basis for decks in Standard, but the truth is that if you look every season in Standard since sixth edition (I´ve been playing standard since then) and I´ve noticed that only a few staples have been used from core sets to make decks in Standard, usually decks take the main cards from other sets.
With staples I want to say cards like (duress, counterspell, wrath of god) and a few more.
I believe that are a few reasons why many people get angry with a core set, because wizards don´t
give them their favourite staples.
Just look at tenth edition and see how many cards from this set are being played in standard now.
Perhaps with the word stabilizer you mean : "wizards give me more counterspells and wrath of god and good lands"... or I may be wrong.
White got a major overhaul with an improved creature base and spells.If this is what happens when Wrath was removed I wish they would have done it sooner.
Blue still counters and draws cards. It got a decent selection of creatures and some combat tricks and mill abilities that I can't wait to abuse. I believe by not printing better counters or card drawing they can flesh them out in the expansions.
I love blacks new vampires and zombies. Thank God Scathe Zombie is history!!!!
Red gots some great cards from the past and hopefully the remaining commons are cool.
Green got a massive overhaul too with improved spells and a good creaturebase. Can't wait to see the rest.
Artifacts disappointed me unfortunatly. I love Darksteel Colossus but why the charms????
I won't complain until Zen about mass removal. With the new rotation system having mass removal in zen just means were spending 1 extra mana on burial for wrath effect in white. The tribal theme argument is overstated mostly because wizards interpretation of white's unity theme is to print soldiers this time around with tribal relations. If you use that to disreguard soldier tribal cards you just have the cycle of lords plus a quasi vampire lord mythic. (pumps all black creature though so that shouldn't probaly count.)
And what's wrong with the new wrath? Its basically akroma's vengence losing cycling to be able to torch walkers.
4. umm... guess what I dont care about new players...
And therein lies our problem. Wizards, as a business, does care about acquiring new customers. Everything in this set is designed to get new players into the game and keep them there. I learned to play the game in Mirrodin, which I think was a brilliant set for a beginner, since the decks practically built themselves, making learning the rules the number one priority. This is what's happening in M10 with the soldiers and powerful red cards. New players typically hate powerful counter spells too, so limiting them in an intro set is a good idea (btw I'm a primarily a blue player now, here's hoping for some good blue cards in Zendikar). Once players are into the game, they can be introduced to the finer points of Magic, including deck building.
On a side note, new players are the ones who pay Wizards money, since they're the ones who buy booster packs to increase their collection.
I can get why Jump is in the set, but seriously why not Leap instead?
The same reason Smash didn't make it: core set cards should have linear effects.
I'm not saying simple, mind you; Warp World has long rules text, but it does one thing. This means no cantrips.
I really like this set. It has a little bit of everything for everyone. It has the cards, like the goblin and elf lords that will see constructed play. It has the cards for beginners, it has cards for limited.
A good set should have all of those things. Maybe I'm wrong here, but it has seems that for a long time most of the core set cards have been ignored by constructed players and sucked for limited. The fact that people are creating M10 decks that could be competitive and there are limited cards that people are excited about pulling shows that M10 does not suck, is not a bad set, it is doing something that hasn't been done in a while, making people excited about a core set.
Some people need to get over the fact that a set will not be geared toward their personal preference of playing. There a lot of different types of Magic players and WotC, as a business, tries to make each of them happy. That is what they should try to do, and I for one feel like they have done a nice job with that with what we have seen/know of the set.
Edit: @Masked_Legend: I think WotC has said it is no longer marketing the core set as a pure beginner set. They want beginners to start with the set, but they want expert players to buy the set too. I do agree it should not be judged like an expansion set, but it shouldn't be judged as a "kiddy" set either. I feel it is somewhere in between.
1. Colors are severely imbalanced. White is obviously the best followed by Red, then Green, Black and Blue.
By what measure?
2. Focused to much on tribal crap. It almost feels like a tribal set to me. I dont mind a few cards in each color but for heaven's sake it really looks like they over did it.
There's one lord for each color, except for Black, which gets two, one of which is Mythic, and White, which gets four in a sense, as well as Crusade+. Incidentally, White is the color that endorses the group working together, so it fits. A few cards got changed creature types so we don't have a bunch of cards running around that don't mix. Mobilization was in Tenth and there's seven soldiers in it, and two of those were in blue, and almost none were any good. So, in M10, we have decent typed cards so what we see in our packs actually work together.
But that's it. We don't see anything else depending on creature types-just a small nod to it, same as previous core sets. Just because something's not a tribal set doesn't mean it can't have tribal elements.
3. Renaming of cards with good names for no reason with near or identical functionality is a mistake and highlights wizards lack of creativity and inability to design new cards, as well as attempting to force players to rebuy cards they already own, that is crooked. (Terror -> Doom blade). Terror has a lot of history and flavor, "Doom Blade" sounds like it belongs in star trek or star wars.
First of all, the obvious functional changes. Doom Blade against Terror, Elite Veteran versus Savannah Lions, Disentomb versus Raise Dead, Nature's Spiral versus Regrowth...the list goes on. In every case, the change was made to make it more relevant (Veteran becoming a Soldier with the tribal subtheme), more balanced (Nature's Spiral costing only 2...but not letting you get back instants or sorceries), better for multiplayer (Disentomb going for any player), or providing a new baseline and making other abilities relevant (Doom Blade ditching the regeneration clause.).
Name changes. Remove Soul versus Essence Scatter. "I'll Remove Soul your Soulless One" doesn't make sense, but there's plenty sense in scattering the essence of a spell in progress. Grizzly Bears are an Earth bear. They don't evoke fantasy, they evoke something in the woods in the backyard of a farm. Runeclaw Bears are still bears, but they're different-when have you seen a bear with runed claws? Doom Blade I'd grant if I didn't play so many JRPGs where that's exactly the kind of spell name I'm used to seeing, but I understand why it rings wrong bells with other people.
As for making us buy more cards? None of these are or were rares. In the cost of one booster pack, you could probably get a playset of each oh so hated functional reprint and still have enough for a candy bar. Yeah, it probably feels like they cheated you or it's a money grab or something, but seriously, pick your battles. Complaining about having to pick up commons and uncommons that you're gonna get three playsets of just by your normal course of play?
4. I fealt there was a serious lack of goal with M10, I fealt they said one thing about design and then went and designed something completely different.
Elaborate. They said they wanted simple, top down, evocative fantasy, and they'd print in new cards if they couldn't find what they needed. They made simple, top down, evocative fantasy, and they printed in new cards when they couldn't find what they needed. I look at this set and I appreciate how absolutely simple but effective it is. It feels to me to be Magic at its purest-simple to pick up and mentally grasp, but complex to master.
5. Lack of Mass Removal (Specifically for black)
Tenth Edition had Wrath of God, Plague Wind, and Pyroclasm. Shards of Alara had Jund Charm and Infest and Caldera Hellion. Conflux had Martial Coup and Volcanic Fallout. Alara Reborn had Zealous Persecution and Fight to the Death.
M10, as of this writing, has Planar Cleansing and Pyroclasm and Magma Phoenix.
"Only unconditional destruction matters, no just low damage!"
Tenth Edition has Wrath of God and Plague Wind. Conflux has Martial Coup. Alara Reborn has Fight to the Death.
M10, as of this writing, has Planar Cleansing.
That's not a lack of mass removal. It's one card low for a set of its size, going by recent years, but it still exists. There's never been a huge amount of mass removal. In the October Standard, we'll have Planar Cleansing and Martial Coup and Fight to the Death in the format, plus whatever Zendikar brings to the table. You can argue all day on whether any of those are viable, but they exist. If you consider that a shortage, well, I don't know what to say.
6. Dual Lands are slightly underwhelming with no enemy dual lands and the only reason their is no enemy dual lands is so they have something to sell next years core with
Or they could put enemy color duals in Zendikar so there's more rare slots in M10 and more rare slots in Zendikar while not actually losing any sort of actual space. Plus, allied colors are that for a reason-if M10 is Pure Magic, with Celestial Purge and Deathmark and such in, which hate on enemy colors, and a set that gives no bonuses for enemy colors, why would there be enemy colored duals? This would be like wondering why Lorwyn didn't have Storm and Madness-it's not the point of the set.
As for the quality of duals, yeah, they suck. In four color decks, maybe. Two and two and a splash decks will work fine with these-the drawback matters on the first three turns at most, and then they do just fine.
7. Why the hell is jump in the set. (Yeah this was a great reprint!, lets print jump instead of any decent counter spell, even spell snare or remand)
I dunno. Why put Lightning Bolt back in? I personally would have liked Flight instead of Jump, but it's essentially the same thing. Why should there be another common counterspell? Why Spell Snare or Remand, of all things, anyway? Blue already has three counterpsells, and all three are at common.
So why Jump? Because it has to be there. Blue is the color of flying. If we're going the Simple Pure Magic route, then there should be a card that tells you exactly what flying is worth-one blue mana. Simple, effective, and exactly what M10 is about.
From the looks of it, you don't like M10 because you felt it would be like an expert level set, and isntead if feels more like a core set. Well, if you don't like it, tell Wizards in the best way possible and don't buy it. Me, personally, I'll be enjoying a nice game of cards where I don't have to worry about my five non basic lands letting me cast my four mana creature that brings out a random one to three cost spell all while hoping my opponent won't get three blue mana together to pick two of four insane options to buy time while he tries to find the card that costs two white mana and two others to reset the board and he stalls for time to get that seventh land to get two blue and red mana and three black mana to do six different effects at once.
While that may be how Magic is right now, it doesn't always have to be that way, and it can still be fun and strategic. That's what M10 is out to prove.
While that may be how Magic is right now, it doesn't always have to be that way, and it can still be fun and strategic. That's what M10 is out to prove.
And right now, it's proving to me how terrible it is going to be.
1.Control is dead (at least the form that has been predominate in magic since it first was created).
2.Aggro has recieved such a massive power boost its stupid.
3.They have completely ruined the game for the sake of flavor (don't get me wrong I love flavor, but so much has been ruined for its sake).
I mean this is the first set ever that has litterally twisted my guts around and made my nauseous.
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LOL!
Did you just claim that black got worse cards than green is M10 so far?
Did you miss Doom Blade, duress, sign in blood, black knight, haunting echoes, tendrils of corruption, liliana vess and mind shatter??
Green has birds of paradise, garruk wildspeaker, great stable stag, overrun, and maybe elvish archdruid (if elves turn out to be good down the road).
I also wouldn't undervalue what blue is getting in this core set. Sleep is a potentially good spell and the two mana counterspells are quite playable. Merfolk looter is no slouch either. Blue always gets insane cards when the expert level sets come around anyway.
Blue always gets insane cards when the expert level sets come around anyway.
But for the next three months, outside of a faeries deck, I see absolutely no reason to even consider playing a blue based deck (and splashing for CC does not make a deck blue based).
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But for the next three months, outside of a faeries deck, I see absolutely no reason to even consider playing a blue based deck (and splashing for CC does not make a deck blue based).
So it's not enough that blue has had the best deck in standard for 80% of the time since faeries were legal? And that faeries is still completely playable and winning tournaments, even after silver bullets were printed for it? And that cryptic command will still be showing up in decks all over standard because it's insanely good?
So it's not enough that blue has had the best deck in standard for 80% of the time since faeries were legal? And that faeries is still completely playable and winning tournaments, even after silver bullets were printed for it? And that cryptic command will still be showing up in decks all over standard because it's insanely good?
Hard to please I guess...
Why the hell must I be forced to play faeries if I want to play a good blue deck? Are you just going to assume every blue mage has the exact same desires and preferences for what they want to play? I hate playing with and against faeries ever since they were printed. I want variety in my decks, and so far I am being pushed into a corner on what I can play at a tournament while hoping to have any shot at winning.
I have said it before and I'll say it again Cryptic Command does not make an entire color good. It only makes people want to splash blue for it. If it wasn't for the insane mana fixing in this format, CC would be confined to faeries and U/x control decks (which won't exist after m10 (that is U/x decks, faeries will still be around)).
I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity and boycotting overpriced singles. Sig this to join the cause for a more affordable Magic the Gathering.
Blue hasn't been ruined forever, it can still be as annoying as ever. MTG has at times seemingly underdeveloped one color, or strategy through out it's game play so one type of playing doesn't become dominant. Every colour gets some hate now and then - it's just blues turn in M10 and Zendikar, the same thing happened to Green with Mirridon and White in Time Spiral (my two favourite colours). Blue will have its day again, just calmdown and stop complaining. And you can't say control didn't get a good finisher with te Djinn of Wishes.
Why the hell must I be forced to play faeries if I want to play a good blue deck? Are you just going to assume every blue mage has the exact same desires and preferences for what they want to play? I hate playing with and against faeries ever since they were printed. I want variety in my decks, and so far I am being pushed into a corner on what I can play at a tournament while hoping to have any shot at winning.
I have said it before and I'll say it again Cryptic Command does not make an entire color good. It only makes people want to splash blue for it. If it wasn't for the insane mana fixing in this format, CC would be confined to faeries and U/x control decks (which won't exist after m10 (that is U/x decks, faeries will still be around)).
well, in most formats each color only has 1 true tier 1 deck. in standard right now there are a variety of decks that are viable and several of them have blue, including the BEST deck (faeries). other options include UW lark and merfolk (a recent high finish can be found here: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=29154)
overall i don't think there's much to complain about with blue RIGHT NOW. once LOR block leaves we'll see... zen could bring a ton of goods. and yes, i do agree that blue in m10 looks pretty terrible.
And you can't say control didn't get a good finisher with the Djinn of Wishes.
.
Yes I can because the Djinn sucks as a finisher (compared to meloku, morphling (even under new combat rules), cognivore, teferi, dralnu (B/U admittedly), Oona (who sees next to no play right now), clique, hell even sower is a better finisher than the djinn). I do not want to pay four mana to have a ~30% chance of hitting a land or doing next to nothing, and only be able to do it three times. And before you say anything ponder only fixes the top three, and is not really a good card.
I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity and boycotting overpriced singles. Sig this to join the cause for a more affordable Magic the Gathering.
I'll be doing a Limited analysis once we have the complete spoiler.
I think Blue mages are heavily underestimating Sleep, though.
I strongly agree with this. I think sleep has a lot of potential, especially with wrath gone.
Also, sorry if I missed it but why the complaints about blue's finishers? Did we also want the color of ultimate card advantage and tempo gain to have the best finishers so that it can kill you in 2 turns once it takes control of the game?
Meloku was massively overpowered... massively. Morphling was also in it's day. Mistbind Clique was part of a cycle that had a big drawback, and was the only member that actually made it's drawback into a benefit by having flash, which made it insane. The other members of that cycle were complete garbage compared to clique... It was a creature cycle where blue won by a mile and had an amazing P/T curve. That's good design?
More appropriate finishers for blue are in line with Kiega the Tide Star and Oona. And if I'm not mistaken no color save red in M10 so far has gotten finishers as good as either of those cards. That's generally because they save cool finishers for expert level sets.
Meloku was massively overpowered... massively. Morphling was also in it's day. Mistbind Clique was part of a cycle that had a big drawback, and was the only member that actually made it's drawback into a benefit by having flash, which made it insane. The other members of that cycle were complete garbage compared to clique... It was a creature cycle where blue won by a mile and had an amazing P/T curve. That's good design?
QFT.
It's not good design, but because people expect there to be a Blue finisher printed that is ridiculous in the terms of card economy, with a solid power and toughness for its cost, that can dominate the board while its in play, Time Walks the opponent at instant speed, and is immune to most forms of removal, when there isn't such a finisher any other options availible "suck" because they are not as good as what was once had.
Now, I don't think Djinn of Wishes is an amazing finisher, but it is a good potential one. People might be forgetting that Ponder is seeing reprint, which combos exceedingly well with the Djinn. Also, there are plenty of decent Blue creatures that came out of Shards that could fulfill the role of finisher, Esper or not. By the time the ability becomes relevant, I am pretty sure a well made U/w/b deck could employ Ethersworn Adjudicator as a finisher well enough.
Oh wait, nevermind. It dies to everything! The world is ending! Nothing that doesn't have Protection from Red or Black or Shroud is good. And when it has Shroud, it sucks because, even though its a 9/9 for 7, it can just be chump blocked all the time...
The difference between a bad Magic player and a good Magic player is realizing that what they have at their disposal now is what matters, not what they had at their disposal a few months ago. Formats shift. Power levels fluctuate. Right now, we have some of the best removal ever availible in Standard at one time. Nonetheless, we also have many excellent creatures. If you're so strung out on the fact that very few creatures in the format are immune to everything (and none are save perhaps Kalonian Behemoth and Inkwell Leviathan might be considered such, except that Martial Coup is still awesome), then kill your opponent with Jace Beleren.
As far as it all goes: Yes, I think Blue did get a bit of the shaft when it comes to M10, but not nearly as much so as people think. Yes, by all appearances White and Red, and to a lesser extent Green, seem to have walked away with the lion's share of good cares. Yes, I am still disappointed in the overall power level of some of Black's keystone abilities, mainly mass discard (anything that is not Duress- Mind Rot sucks, period) and tutoring (Diabolic Tutor, also sucks). However, we nonetheless have until Zendikar to continue playing with Lorwyn and Shadowmoor and all the ridiculously good cards contained therein. And when Zendikar rolls around, hopefully a few of the holes will be filled.
Won't it be nice for them to print a Wrath variant in Zen that isn't almost automatically discounted because people would just rather play Wrath?
Because Jace totally compares in power level to Garruk, right? Also, thanks for mentioning all those great blue cards from before Lorwyn, stressing my point. The two modern ones that you pose are multicolor and the wall, while good is not precisely a hot player.
I get what your saying. Garruk is powerful. But to be honest, so is Jace. He's actually cheaper to cast than garruk.
Blue has been powerful. and if you think blue hasn't gotten anything lately, you're not looking at the shards. each shard represents one main color along with its allied colors. Green is focused in Naya and blue is in Esper. Blue is the color of artifacts in the set, and master transmuter is a good card. inkwell leviathan isn't bad either. And don't forget blue is in conjunction with allot of colors throughout Alara Block. While, it may not be highly seen in conflux or shards, it has seen some use in alara reborn which is an ALL GOLD set. blue wouldn't have anything 'good' mono-colored. so take a breath.
and look what your getting upset about...a core set. its a beginning set. wait until the next block to get upset. what im thinking is black and blue will come back strong then. i think delve is going to come back.
ok, so garruk is 20. jace is 11 according to cardkingdom.com. the book promo is 24.95. that IS higher than garruk. you're not looking at the price. its actually 2 jaces to 1 garruk.
as for cryptic? its 21.00, and primal? its 5.00. so while looking at that bit of information, both blue and green are equal according to the planeswalker/command comparison. just in different price slightly. with blue in the higher price bracket.
What you're forgetting is we are talking blue. bloodbraid elf and maelstrom pulse has nothing to do with this. wall of denial and meddling mage do have blue in their cost.
I know its still a few months away but Garruk is getting his own Duel deck, which will put both of them at 4 reprints a piece, so this comparrison really isn't all that valid.
note that i said at the beginning 'at the moment.' i met currently. there will be four garruks when the bg due deck hits.
I can understand a lot of people's "problem" with the functional reprints (example: Essence Scatter as the new Remove Soul). When I first read that Magic 2010 was to be 1/2 new cards, I was both surprised and jazzed. When cards became spoiled that were functional reprints, my eyes rolled.
"Really? So Rosewater will glibly tell us all that they're new cards because they have a new name? Ugh."
But, after going through the spoiler (210/249 cards spoiled), I have to say it is not that big of a deal to me. It would have been nice to play my Remove Soul and not buy 4x Essence Scatter, but I think I can spend the twenty cents on a playset and not bat an eye. As pointed out in other threads, this does add to the EDH card pool a bit.
While I'm underwhelmed that Wrath of God (a very iconic card, in my opinion) did not get reprinted, and we didn't get Damnation as a consolation prize and the dual lands are "meh", I still want to draft the set and have fun casting Bogardan Hellkite...which will be countered by Essence Scatter.
The black mass removal spells printed over the years:
Damnation (color shifted for planar chaos only, as wizards said, this was not representative of what they would print in the future, this was just a set for them to show what other colors were capable of having such similar cards if they really stretched the color pie, I dont honestly believe they will ever reprint damnation and until wizards even gives a hint that they might, I certainly would bet that they wouldnt)
Decree of Pain (costs 8 mana)
Do or Die (only kills half their creatures and they get to keep the pile they want, certainly not a bad card, but its not completely removing all the creatures)
Forced March (creatures with casting cost x or less BBBX, situational, and much of the time can be quite expensive to kill everything you might want to kill, still not a bad card in its day and good enough for casual play)
Hellfire (destroys all non-black creatures, but deals 3+X damage to you where x is the number of creatures you killed and costs 5 mana, ouch x.x)
Overwhelming forces (portal 3, see decree of pain, costs 8 mana)
Plague wind (destroys all your opponant's creatures, costs 9 mana though)
Rain of Daggers (like plague wind, but you take 2 damage for each creature you kill, costs 6 mana)
Reiver Demon (terrors everything, costs 8 mana though and you have to play it from your hand)
Living Death (mass destruction/reanimation card, situational though)
Living End (see living death)
Bane of the Living (have to play it morphed first, then unmorph for BBX to give all creatures -x-x, wasnt a bad card, but expensive to get the effect off)
Havoc Demon (affect goes off when it goes to the graveyard (-5-5 to all creatures) not bad, but the creature itself still costs 7 mana)
Kagemaro First to Suffer (sac it to give all creatures -x-x where x is the number of cards in your hands, saw some play during kamigawa block days, not that that says much <.<)
Mutilate (quite possibly the best and most likely to get reprinted of the better black mass removal spells, the closest thing to a black wrath I think we will see reprinted, as once again damnation I would say was a 1 time thing, still situational though as it requires controlling a lot of swamps to make it good).
The abyss actually just kills one creature a turn, certainly not something I would call mass removal ala wrath et all.
That said, black certainly has had a decent number of mass removal cards over the years, however in recent history (aside from the color shifted likely one-time-only damnation), all of the black mass removal is eithor situational, has a nasty drawback, or costs a ton of mana to cast (save for the previously mentioned mutilate if you are playing with urborg or a mono-black deck)
Sure black has been known to some extent for mass removal, but for the most part the mass removal wouldnt be good enough for constructed play most of the time (excluding damnation which once again I dont believe will ever see print again, and Mutilate, my cantidate for best good black wrath affect that has the greatest chance of seeing the light of day again, if Zendikar ends up being mono-color based, I expect to see cards like this come back, as well as plenty of other good mono-color cards.
Oh and as an aside to Kev. Not sure where you have been looking, but Jace is going for around $10-12 each now, and Garruk is hovering at around $16 now. So no, you cannot get 4 Jace for 1 Garruk.
Also the reason for constantly reprinting cancel and naturalize is likely for limited (sealed/draft) and because it makes sense that a card like naturalize or cancel would be in the core set.
I know its still a few months away but Garruk is getting his own Duel deck, which will put both of them at 4 reprints a piece, so this comparrison really isn't all that valid.
I agree with the idea that Core sets should be the basis for decks in Standard, but the truth is that if you look every season in Standard since sixth edition (I´ve been playing standard since then) and I´ve noticed that only a few staples have been used from core sets to make decks in Standard, usually decks take the main cards from other sets.
With staples I want to say cards like (duress, counterspell, wrath of god) and a few more.
I believe that are a few reasons why many people get angry with a core set, because wizards don´t
give them their favourite staples.
Just look at tenth edition and see how many cards from this set are being played in standard now.
Perhaps with the word stabilizer you mean : "wizards give me more counterspells and wrath of god and good lands"... or I may be wrong.
White got a major overhaul with an improved creature base and spells.If this is what happens when Wrath was removed I wish they would have done it sooner.
Blue still counters and draws cards. It got a decent selection of creatures and some combat tricks and mill abilities that I can't wait to abuse. I believe by not printing better counters or card drawing they can flesh them out in the expansions.
I love blacks new vampires and zombies. Thank God Scathe Zombie is history!!!!
Red gots some great cards from the past and hopefully the remaining commons are cool.
Green got a massive overhaul too with improved spells and a good creaturebase. Can't wait to see the rest.
Artifacts disappointed me unfortunatly. I love Darksteel Colossus but why the charms????
Lands are great!!!!
And what's wrong with the new wrath? Its basically akroma's vengence losing cycling to be able to torch walkers.
And therein lies our problem. Wizards, as a business, does care about acquiring new customers. Everything in this set is designed to get new players into the game and keep them there. I learned to play the game in Mirrodin, which I think was a brilliant set for a beginner, since the decks practically built themselves, making learning the rules the number one priority. This is what's happening in M10 with the soldiers and powerful red cards. New players typically hate powerful counter spells too, so limiting them in an intro set is a good idea (btw I'm a primarily a blue player now, here's hoping for some good blue cards in Zendikar). Once players are into the game, they can be introduced to the finer points of Magic, including deck building.
On a side note, new players are the ones who pay Wizards money, since they're the ones who buy booster packs to increase their collection.
I'm not saying simple, mind you; Warp World has long rules text, but it does one thing. This means no cantrips.
A good set should have all of those things. Maybe I'm wrong here, but it has seems that for a long time most of the core set cards have been ignored by constructed players and sucked for limited. The fact that people are creating M10 decks that could be competitive and there are limited cards that people are excited about pulling shows that M10 does not suck, is not a bad set, it is doing something that hasn't been done in a while, making people excited about a core set.
Some people need to get over the fact that a set will not be geared toward their personal preference of playing. There a lot of different types of Magic players and WotC, as a business, tries to make each of them happy. That is what they should try to do, and I for one feel like they have done a nice job with that with what we have seen/know of the set.
Edit: @Masked_Legend: I think WotC has said it is no longer marketing the core set as a pure beginner set. They want beginners to start with the set, but they want expert players to buy the set too. I do agree it should not be judged like an expansion set, but it shouldn't be judged as a "kiddy" set either. I feel it is somewhere in between.
By what measure?
There's one lord for each color, except for Black, which gets two, one of which is Mythic, and White, which gets four in a sense, as well as Crusade+. Incidentally, White is the color that endorses the group working together, so it fits. A few cards got changed creature types so we don't have a bunch of cards running around that don't mix. Mobilization was in Tenth and there's seven soldiers in it, and two of those were in blue, and almost none were any good. So, in M10, we have decent typed cards so what we see in our packs actually work together.
But that's it. We don't see anything else depending on creature types-just a small nod to it, same as previous core sets. Just because something's not a tribal set doesn't mean it can't have tribal elements.
First of all, the obvious functional changes. Doom Blade against Terror, Elite Veteran versus Savannah Lions, Disentomb versus Raise Dead, Nature's Spiral versus Regrowth...the list goes on. In every case, the change was made to make it more relevant (Veteran becoming a Soldier with the tribal subtheme), more balanced (Nature's Spiral costing only 2...but not letting you get back instants or sorceries), better for multiplayer (Disentomb going for any player), or providing a new baseline and making other abilities relevant (Doom Blade ditching the regeneration clause.).
Name changes. Remove Soul versus Essence Scatter. "I'll Remove Soul your Soulless One" doesn't make sense, but there's plenty sense in scattering the essence of a spell in progress. Grizzly Bears are an Earth bear. They don't evoke fantasy, they evoke something in the woods in the backyard of a farm. Runeclaw Bears are still bears, but they're different-when have you seen a bear with runed claws? Doom Blade I'd grant if I didn't play so many JRPGs where that's exactly the kind of spell name I'm used to seeing, but I understand why it rings wrong bells with other people.
As for making us buy more cards? None of these are or were rares. In the cost of one booster pack, you could probably get a playset of each oh so hated functional reprint and still have enough for a candy bar. Yeah, it probably feels like they cheated you or it's a money grab or something, but seriously, pick your battles. Complaining about having to pick up commons and uncommons that you're gonna get three playsets of just by your normal course of play?
Elaborate. They said they wanted simple, top down, evocative fantasy, and they'd print in new cards if they couldn't find what they needed. They made simple, top down, evocative fantasy, and they printed in new cards when they couldn't find what they needed. I look at this set and I appreciate how absolutely simple but effective it is. It feels to me to be Magic at its purest-simple to pick up and mentally grasp, but complex to master.
Tenth Edition had Wrath of God, Plague Wind, and Pyroclasm. Shards of Alara had Jund Charm and Infest and Caldera Hellion. Conflux had Martial Coup and Volcanic Fallout. Alara Reborn had Zealous Persecution and Fight to the Death.
M10, as of this writing, has Planar Cleansing and Pyroclasm and Magma Phoenix.
"Only unconditional destruction matters, no just low damage!"
Tenth Edition has Wrath of God and Plague Wind. Conflux has Martial Coup. Alara Reborn has Fight to the Death.
M10, as of this writing, has Planar Cleansing.
That's not a lack of mass removal. It's one card low for a set of its size, going by recent years, but it still exists. There's never been a huge amount of mass removal. In the October Standard, we'll have Planar Cleansing and Martial Coup and Fight to the Death in the format, plus whatever Zendikar brings to the table. You can argue all day on whether any of those are viable, but they exist. If you consider that a shortage, well, I don't know what to say.
Or they could put enemy color duals in Zendikar so there's more rare slots in M10 and more rare slots in Zendikar while not actually losing any sort of actual space. Plus, allied colors are that for a reason-if M10 is Pure Magic, with Celestial Purge and Deathmark and such in, which hate on enemy colors, and a set that gives no bonuses for enemy colors, why would there be enemy colored duals? This would be like wondering why Lorwyn didn't have Storm and Madness-it's not the point of the set.
As for the quality of duals, yeah, they suck. In four color decks, maybe. Two and two and a splash decks will work fine with these-the drawback matters on the first three turns at most, and then they do just fine.
I dunno. Why put Lightning Bolt back in? I personally would have liked Flight instead of Jump, but it's essentially the same thing. Why should there be another common counterspell? Why Spell Snare or Remand, of all things, anyway? Blue already has three counterpsells, and all three are at common.
So why Jump? Because it has to be there. Blue is the color of flying. If we're going the Simple Pure Magic route, then there should be a card that tells you exactly what flying is worth-one blue mana. Simple, effective, and exactly what M10 is about.
From the looks of it, you don't like M10 because you felt it would be like an expert level set, and isntead if feels more like a core set. Well, if you don't like it, tell Wizards in the best way possible and don't buy it. Me, personally, I'll be enjoying a nice game of cards where I don't have to worry about my five non basic lands letting me cast my four mana creature that brings out a random one to three cost spell all while hoping my opponent won't get three blue mana together to pick two of four insane options to buy time while he tries to find the card that costs two white mana and two others to reset the board and he stalls for time to get that seventh land to get two blue and red mana and three black mana to do six different effects at once.
While that may be how Magic is right now, it doesn't always have to be that way, and it can still be fun and strategic. That's what M10 is out to prove.
Made by Bookworm10
Syncopate anybodies?
Thanks to syndarion of Aeternal Studios for the awesome Sig.
Standard: MWLC All-InFect Illusion Control(MTGO)
EDH(MODO): :symg::symu::symb:The Mimeoplasm:symg::symu::symb: 6-2-0 in 4player
And right now, it's proving to me how terrible it is going to be.
My H/W list
1.Control is dead (at least the form that has been predominate in magic since it first was created).
2.Aggro has recieved such a massive power boost its stupid.
3.They have completely ruined the game for the sake of flavor (don't get me wrong I love flavor, but so much has been ruined for its sake).
I mean this is the first set ever that has litterally twisted my guts around and made my nauseous.
I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity and boycotting overpriced singles. Sig this to join the cause for a more affordable Magic the Gathering.
Did you just claim that black got worse cards than green is M10 so far?
Did you miss Doom Blade, duress, sign in blood, black knight, haunting echoes, tendrils of corruption, liliana vess and mind shatter??
Green has birds of paradise, garruk wildspeaker, great stable stag, overrun, and maybe elvish archdruid (if elves turn out to be good down the road).
I also wouldn't undervalue what blue is getting in this core set. Sleep is a potentially good spell and the two mana counterspells are quite playable. Merfolk looter is no slouch either. Blue always gets insane cards when the expert level sets come around anyway.
But for the next three months, outside of a faeries deck, I see absolutely no reason to even consider playing a blue based deck (and splashing for CC does not make a deck blue based).
I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity and boycotting overpriced singles. Sig this to join the cause for a more affordable Magic the Gathering.
So it's not enough that blue has had the best deck in standard for 80% of the time since faeries were legal? And that faeries is still completely playable and winning tournaments, even after silver bullets were printed for it? And that cryptic command will still be showing up in decks all over standard because it's insanely good?
Hard to please I guess...
Why the hell must I be forced to play faeries if I want to play a good blue deck? Are you just going to assume every blue mage has the exact same desires and preferences for what they want to play? I hate playing with and against faeries ever since they were printed. I want variety in my decks, and so far I am being pushed into a corner on what I can play at a tournament while hoping to have any shot at winning.
I have said it before and I'll say it again Cryptic Command does not make an entire color good. It only makes people want to splash blue for it. If it wasn't for the insane mana fixing in this format, CC would be confined to faeries and U/x control decks (which won't exist after m10 (that is U/x decks, faeries will still be around)).
I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity and boycotting overpriced singles. Sig this to join the cause for a more affordable Magic the Gathering.
As for M10, I'm loving it - really, really good.
well, in most formats each color only has 1 true tier 1 deck. in standard right now there are a variety of decks that are viable and several of them have blue, including the BEST deck (faeries). other options include UW lark and merfolk (a recent high finish can be found here: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=29154)
overall i don't think there's much to complain about with blue RIGHT NOW. once LOR block leaves we'll see... zen could bring a ton of goods. and yes, i do agree that blue in m10 looks pretty terrible.
Yes I can because the Djinn sucks as a finisher (compared to meloku, morphling (even under new combat rules), cognivore, teferi, dralnu (B/U admittedly), Oona (who sees next to no play right now), clique, hell even sower is a better finisher than the djinn). I do not want to pay four mana to have a ~30% chance of hitting a land or doing next to nothing, and only be able to do it three times. And before you say anything ponder only fixes the top three, and is not really a good card.
I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity and boycotting overpriced singles. Sig this to join the cause for a more affordable Magic the Gathering.
I think Blue mages are heavily underestimating Sleep, though.
I strongly agree with this. I think sleep has a lot of potential, especially with wrath gone.
Also, sorry if I missed it but why the complaints about blue's finishers? Did we also want the color of ultimate card advantage and tempo gain to have the best finishers so that it can kill you in 2 turns once it takes control of the game?
Meloku was massively overpowered... massively. Morphling was also in it's day. Mistbind Clique was part of a cycle that had a big drawback, and was the only member that actually made it's drawback into a benefit by having flash, which made it insane. The other members of that cycle were complete garbage compared to clique... It was a creature cycle where blue won by a mile and had an amazing P/T curve. That's good design?
More appropriate finishers for blue are in line with Kiega the Tide Star and Oona. And if I'm not mistaken no color save red in M10 so far has gotten finishers as good as either of those cards. That's generally because they save cool finishers for expert level sets.
QFT.
It's not good design, but because people expect there to be a Blue finisher printed that is ridiculous in the terms of card economy, with a solid power and toughness for its cost, that can dominate the board while its in play, Time Walks the opponent at instant speed, and is immune to most forms of removal, when there isn't such a finisher any other options availible "suck" because they are not as good as what was once had.
Now, I don't think Djinn of Wishes is an amazing finisher, but it is a good potential one. People might be forgetting that Ponder is seeing reprint, which combos exceedingly well with the Djinn. Also, there are plenty of decent Blue creatures that came out of Shards that could fulfill the role of finisher, Esper or not. By the time the ability becomes relevant, I am pretty sure a well made U/w/b deck could employ Ethersworn Adjudicator as a finisher well enough.
Oh wait, nevermind. It dies to everything! The world is ending! Nothing that doesn't have Protection from Red or Black or Shroud is good. And when it has Shroud, it sucks because, even though its a 9/9 for 7, it can just be chump blocked all the time...
The difference between a bad Magic player and a good Magic player is realizing that what they have at their disposal now is what matters, not what they had at their disposal a few months ago. Formats shift. Power levels fluctuate. Right now, we have some of the best removal ever availible in Standard at one time. Nonetheless, we also have many excellent creatures. If you're so strung out on the fact that very few creatures in the format are immune to everything (and none are save perhaps Kalonian Behemoth and Inkwell Leviathan might be considered such, except that Martial Coup is still awesome), then kill your opponent with Jace Beleren.
As far as it all goes: Yes, I think Blue did get a bit of the shaft when it comes to M10, but not nearly as much so as people think. Yes, by all appearances White and Red, and to a lesser extent Green, seem to have walked away with the lion's share of good cares. Yes, I am still disappointed in the overall power level of some of Black's keystone abilities, mainly mass discard (anything that is not Duress- Mind Rot sucks, period) and tutoring (Diabolic Tutor, also sucks). However, we nonetheless have until Zendikar to continue playing with Lorwyn and Shadowmoor and all the ridiculously good cards contained therein. And when Zendikar rolls around, hopefully a few of the holes will be filled.
Won't it be nice for them to print a Wrath variant in Zen that isn't almost automatically discounted because people would just rather play Wrath?
I get what your saying. Garruk is powerful. But to be honest, so is Jace. He's actually cheaper to cast than garruk.
Blue has been powerful. and if you think blue hasn't gotten anything lately, you're not looking at the shards. each shard represents one main color along with its allied colors. Green is focused in Naya and blue is in Esper. Blue is the color of artifacts in the set, and master transmuter is a good card. inkwell leviathan isn't bad either. And don't forget blue is in conjunction with allot of colors throughout Alara Block. While, it may not be highly seen in conflux or shards, it has seen some use in alara reborn which is an ALL GOLD set. blue wouldn't have anything 'good' mono-colored. so take a breath.
and look what your getting upset about...a core set. its a beginning set. wait until the next block to get upset. what im thinking is black and blue will come back strong then. i think delve is going to come back.
ok, so garruk is 20. jace is 11 according to cardkingdom.com. the book promo is 24.95. that IS higher than garruk. you're not looking at the price. its actually 2 jaces to 1 garruk.
as for cryptic? its 21.00, and primal? its 5.00. so while looking at that bit of information, both blue and green are equal according to the planeswalker/command comparison. just in different price slightly. with blue in the higher price bracket.
What you're forgetting is we are talking blue. bloodbraid elf and maelstrom pulse has nothing to do with this. wall of denial and meddling mage do have blue in their cost.
note that i said at the beginning 'at the moment.' i met currently. there will be four garruks when the bg due deck hits.
Standard
BGDamn AggroBG
RGWild DragonsRG
Time Spiral Block
BRPing and DieBR
"Really? So Rosewater will glibly tell us all that they're new cards because they have a new name? Ugh."
But, after going through the spoiler (210/249 cards spoiled), I have to say it is not that big of a deal to me. It would have been nice to play my Remove Soul and not buy 4x Essence Scatter, but I think I can spend the twenty cents on a playset and not bat an eye. As pointed out in other threads, this does add to the EDH card pool a bit.
I'm trying to focus on the coolness of the cards, rather than "This color got the shaft". An uncommon functional reprint of Savannah Lions? Sweet! Another Merfolk Lord? Awesome! Ball Lightning and Lightning Bolt* join Bloodbraid Elf for some good times! Deathmark and Flashfreeze are back, along with Tendrils of Corruption and Birds of Paradise.
While I'm underwhelmed that Wrath of God (a very iconic card, in my opinion) did not get reprinted, and we didn't get Damnation as a consolation prize and the dual lands are "meh", I still want to draft the set and have fun casting Bogardan Hellkite...which will be countered by Essence Scatter.
*M10 Lightning Bolt flavor text is a-w-e-s-o-m-e
i think i'd rather them take 10 cards out of print than put cheap costing counterspells in.