People are getting excited aboiut this card, and I keep thinking I *must* be reading this card wrong, because it doesn't even seem good, let alone broken/unfair/whatever. Rapid Hybridization seems way better than this, and that sees fringe play at the most. Exiling is nice, but it's not relevant enough to make this worth paying another mana to use this over Rapid Hybridization. It making a 2/2 isn't even better than Rapid Hybridization making a 3/3 because the 2/2 could change into something way more difficult to deal with, whereas the 3/3 is a constant, predictable threat. Taking away Siege Rhino's ETB effect by forcefully manifesting it is nice and everything but it's not going to save you from the 4/5 Rhino your opponent flips on you.
These polymorph-esque cards in blue basically never see play. Curse of the Swine sees zero standard play, and Rapid Hybridization saw minimal standard play, only seeing play because monoblue devotion didn't have any other options for removal. They're only appealing when you're downsizing big creatures, but when you need removal against smaller creatures, these start to look horrible. When your opponent is swarming you with smaller creatures, like in an aggro deck, replacing one of their attackers with a 2/2 is not a winning strategy. Even if you're killing something like Goblin Rabblemaster, you're not really slowing them down much. You traded a card for a card, but gave them something in return, which they can now use to keep killing you. Especially if you're playing control, that 2/2 is going to need to be dealt with at some point.
These cards don't really do anything against control--yes, you can target your own creature in response to removal but that isn't a reason to run the card--and they're very bad against aggro, so you're left with a card that is decent when your opponent has already cast their huge creatures that they likely have already gotten value out of. Certainly, you'd rather face a 2/2 than a Mantis Rider. But I'd rather cast Murderous Cut, Path to Exile, Stoke the Flames, or really any other kind of removal spell so that the problem vanishes completely, rather than give myself another permanent I have to deal with.
This card is good when you have a strong field presence, and can therefore safely ignore the manifested card--which sometimes you can't even do if it's something like a god or Polukranos--or when you're at least at parity. But if you're behind, this card does nothing to put you ahead---it only puts you slightly less behind. It's card disadvantage and it provides you no real gain in tempo unless, again, you're already winning.
If monoblue is a thing this standard, this card is certainly appealing because monoblue doesn't *have* any other options. But that doesn't make it good.
Except if it's any ETB trigger then it's been nullified since it's already in play. No Lightning Helix will be attached to that Rhino if it's been Manifest with Reality Shift.
BUT you draw your opponent a card! Instead of drawing that rhino he got it drawn by your card at the cost of loosing its ETB ability. Don't forget that this way your opponent has a 2/2 in play (with 0 mana investment and 0 card investment), which can become potentially bigger and he could have gotten another usefull card, which was below the rhino.
And most people arguing about how you can "nullify" a bolt or reduce the value of a rhino - the same argument can be made for the other side - you could also just have turned a completely useless land into a 2/2 creature and improved your opponents draw step (because you removed the useless card from the top of his library).
The effect of the manifest is random and while it can sometimes hurt your oppoennt it can also benefit him greatly!
Except if it's any ETB trigger then it's been nullified since it's already in play. No Lightning Helix will be attached to that Rhino if it's been Manifest with Reality Shift.
BUT you draw your opponent a card! Instead of drawing that rhino he got it drawn by your card at the cost of loosing its ETB ability. Don't forget that this way your opponent has a 2/2 in play (with 0 mana investment and 0 card investment), which can become potentially bigger and he could have gotten another usefull card, which was below the rhino.
And most people arguing about how you can "nullify" a bolt or reduce the value of a rhino - the same argument can be made for the other side - you could also just have turned a completely useless land into a 2/2 creature and improved your opponents draw step (because you removed the useless card from the top of his library).
The effect of the manifest is random and while it can sometimes hurt your oppoennt it can also benefit him greatly!
Hmmm I hadn't looked at it that way. Thx for the insight.
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I'm assuming we're talking about standard and possibly modern, because we all know what will happen in a format where cards like Sensei's Divining Top, and Scroll Rack see play.
How common are scry effects in standard at the moment?
But odds are there's less than a 40% chance at least that it's a card they can use.
Just pulling up a random decklist for Abzan Midrange, they have 14 creatures in a 60 card deck. Roughly, that's about a 25% chance that i's something they can use. The other 45% of the time it's something they can't.
Regardless, it's blue hard removal at instant speed, with an upside for sure, but it's a variable upside.
its a 25% chance that they can flip it up. Its also a 41% chance that you upgraded their land into a 2/2. and a 33% chance that you turned a noncreature spell into a 2/2 they they can still use to attack and block.
This isn't "hard" removal. At the absolute least this gives them a 2/2. I don't think Jeskai tokens is going to be THAT upset when you discard a card to turn their seeker into a vanilla 2/2. This card is utterly useless against any deck trying to go wide.
If anything, the added utility of being able to blank a removal spell along with scry/courser shenanigans will make this powerful.
This is absolutely hard removal. It is hard removal with a downside but it is still hard removal.
It could potentially be worse too, a land for instance. I think the evaluation of this card boils down to schema, deck design, and implementation. Since it can exile any non-hexproof creature, to include indestructible, it's more than worth the risk to reset the board with a vanilla 2/2 instead of say Stormbreath Dragon. This card is also a tempo play and excludes cards from being used with Whip of Erebos. It has several strategic layers which makes it flexible and invariably usable in many strategies where blue is employed. It will be the best blue removal/tempo card in standard, this may not be saying much, but it's does say something.
But odds are there's less than a 40% chance at least that it's a card they can use.
Just pulling up a random decklist for Abzan Midrange, they have 14 creatures in a 60 card deck. Roughly, that's about a 25% chance that i's something they can use. The other 45% of the time it's something they can't.
Regardless, it's blue hard removal at instant speed, with an upside for sure, but it's a variable upside.
its a 25% chance that they can flip it up. Its also a 41% chance that you upgraded their land into a 2/2. and a 33% chance that you turned a noncreature spell into a 2/2 they they can still use to attack and block.
You were looking at one variant of Abzan Midrange. Other variants run 20-24 creatures, which is 33% to 40%.
That card originated in Planar Chaos, so I'm not sure it's a good basis for an argument. Also, it's not a Polymorph effect. At least this new card is more of a polymorph than Pongify, since it can bring out a new creature instead of leaving the opponent with a crappy vanilla with low stats. (although this polymorphing will likely be rare)
But odds are there's less than a 40% chance at least that it's a card they can use.
Just pulling up a random decklist for Abzan Midrange, they have 14 creatures in a 60 card deck. Roughly, that's about a 25% chance that i's something they can use. The other 45% of the time it's something they can't.
Regardless, it's blue hard removal at instant speed, with an upside for sure, but it's a variable upside.
its a 25% chance that they can flip it up. Its also a 41% chance that you upgraded their land into a 2/2. and a 33% chance that you turned a noncreature spell into a 2/2 they they can still use to attack and block.
You were looking at one variant of Abzan Midrange. Other variants run 20-24 creatures, which is 33% to 40%.
However, if you want the skies free of fliers then this card allows you to keep the airways free and clear for your birds. It seems impossible to evaluate this card in a vacuum where one side wants to label this hard removal then the other side ready to dismiss it all together as some kind of limited only card. It has so many strategic uses, not all matchups will allow this card to shine, but in a world where flying, monsterous, trample, and indestructible exist there will be a use for this card in blue constructs. For every negative result I'm sure I can come up with a positive this card can give. It has some serious potential, but no one will really know until we sleeve it up. I know I'm going to give it a whorl, it's certainly better than Void Snare.
I love how many people are mistaking a potential loss of a card for an actual loss of a card.
The top card of your library is a mystery, it could be a boat! It could be a brand new car! It could be NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Stupid! You SO STUPID! (Kudos to those that get the references.)
Yes, sometimes the top card of your library will be exactly what you wanted to draw, and sometimes it'll be in the way of what you wanted to draw.
And none of this matters because Manifest is a 5-color mechanic, so it has to show up in all five colors. And this is one of the ways to do it for blue. Blue doesn't like chaos the way red does, but that's more to do with manifest as a concept than to do with this card.
As to the whole Exile vs. Aura vs. Graveyard vs. Deck aspect. Graveyard is right out, not only does it do nothing to give non-white colors answer to a primary White keyword (Indestructible), it requires use of "can't be regenerated" and leads flavor fails with recursion. Many people have brought up 'random isn't blue' which clearly means they don't want the thing shuffled back into the library. So its either bottom of the library or bust. And I'm sure every Comm player would love to have Blue get a 1U cry about the fact your General is never coming back card. This leaves Aura (wordy, clunky, incredibly weak to everything), and Exile (not those things). For simplicity sake, that makes Exile the choice here.
Technically you could give it a hanging trigger of 'if the token would leave the battlefield send the card exiled this way to their graveyard' but that's just as wordy and not strictly helpful to anyone not running recursion. So mostly I think people should stop crying over exiled creatures.
Add me to the list of people less than thrilled about this card (reality shift). Blue didn't need more tools and the power level on this is pretty high and it seems better in the non-rotating formats.
I also think it's a flavor fail. It doesn't feel blue, even if blue traditionally has polymorph style effects. Flavor wise exile is very very white. And manifest feels very very not blue, probably green. To me this feels more like a WG card than a blue card. If this card had been GW or (G/W)(G/W) it would have made more sense. It doesn't really feel like the thing you're exiling is changing into the manifest, it feels more like the manifest is being drawn into the wake of something that's been banished by a powerful force.
This is straight card disadvantage.
Nobody calling it "card advantage"or a :"2-for-1" knows what "card advantage" or "2-for-1" mean.
EDIT:
And w/r/t Exiling in place of Polymorph's destroy, isn't the fact that you can't reanimate a polymorphed creature alongside the creature that it has polymorphed into a straight-out Vorthos-y upgrade?
I also think it's a flavor fail. It doesn't feel blue, even if blue traditionally has polymorph style effects. Flavor wise exile is very very white. And manifest feels very very not blue, probably green. To me this feels more like a WG card than a blue card. If this card had been GW or (G/W)(G/W) it would have made more sense. It doesn't really feel like the thing you're exiling is changing into the manifest, it feels more like the manifest is being drawn into the wake of something that's been banished by a powerful force.
I'm sorry to say but your outright incorrect about the flavor. It is in fact 100% in blue. Blue has an always will be the color of transformation. In fact there is little that is green about the card and almost nothing that is white. MaRo (ie. the only person who you should listen to in regards to color pie whether or not you like it) has been very clear and has very informative posts/podcasts/articles on the subject. If you'd like you can PM me and I'll get your some evidence.
I also think it's a flavor fail. It doesn't feel blue, even if blue traditionally has polymorph style effects. Flavor wise exile is very very white. And manifest feels very very not blue, probably green. To me this feels more like a WG card than a blue card. If this card had been GW or (G/W)(G/W) it would have made more sense. It doesn't really feel like the thing you're exiling is changing into the manifest, it feels more like the manifest is being drawn into the wake of something that's been banished by a powerful force.
I'm sorry to say but your outright incorrect about the flavor. It is in fact 100% in blue. Blue has an always will be the color of transformation. In fact there is little that is green about the card and almost nothing that is white. MaRo (ie. the only person who you should listen to in regards to color pie whether or not you like it) has been very clear and has very informative posts/podcasts/articles on the subject. If you'd like you can PM me and I'll get your some evidence.
I just explained why the effect doesn't really feel like a transformation, hence why it doesn't really feel blue.
On a tangent, MaRo is great and all, but he's hardly the only person to go to for color pie opinions. Hence we see stuff like the 'infamous' hornet queen. He's also a self-professed blue fan, and hence prone to being way more lenient with what he thinks is blue than with the other colors, as well as prone to over-generalization. If you go to the roots of what makes things a color, blue, black, and green all have different flavors of transformation. Black typically has some level of unnatural transformation - demonic or unholy type changes, corruption, etc. The key trait of transformation in black is that something typically becomes larger/more evil/darker. Blue has transfiguration style effects - turning on thing into another thing, and particularly transformations that are due to an application of knowledge. Lastly green has natural transformations - the growth over time, metamorphosis, and evolution.
If Reality Shift managed to fit one of these color pie flavors, than it could fit clearly in one color. But it doesn't. It feels like a hard exile spell towing a weaker summon spell along as a downside. If it felt like a hard transformation I completely agree it'd belong in blue, but it doesn't feel like one at all.
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I just explained why the effect doesn't really feel like a transformation, hence why it doesn't really feel blue.
On a tangent, MaRo is great and all, but he's hardly the only person to go to for color pie opinions. Hence we see stuff like the 'infamous' hornet queen.
It "feeling" like transformation to you is fine, but to others (obviously including r&d) it does. I don't think we can argue what you feel.
However I can argue your MaRo point. In fact he one of the only people who can be quoted on the topic. In case you were unaware he is not a dictator of magic so cards like Hornet Queen or Song of the Dryads or Hornet Sting will sometimes slip through because (up until recently) other members of R&D either become distracted/care less/enjoy pushing boundaries about color pie. Simply because a card exists does not justify it in pie unless it is accepted by those whose job it is to justify color pie. Interestingly enough, that IS MaRo's job.
That being said, color pie mistakes "should" be lessened in the future as MaRo has recently (in the last year or so) had a large and serious meeting about color pie integrity and it's need for the health of magic.
In short: Reality Shift is as blue as it gets. And while I understand that people do not "personally" like it, in the grand scheme of things that doesn't matter. If you dislike the card, don't play with it. But don't incorrectly identify the problem as one of color balance and not individual bias.
Blue has transfiguration style effects - turning on thing into another thing, and particularly transformations that are due to an application of knowledge.
i don't understand this at all. thats exactly what reality shift does. is your problem that it doesn't destroy the thing like polymorph or rapid hybridization? because you seem to be contradicting yourself. blue is the color of time manipulation and this card fits that flavor perfectly. there is a shift into a reality in which the targeted creature has never existed. i'll say it again, just because you don't like something does not mean it's a bad idea or design (or that you are in any way correct about flavor).
and i hate to say it but you should really listen to jivanmukta. he has some kind of weird mindlink with MaRo and predicted a relevant response about the color pie from MaRo's tumblr in another thread about song of the dryads the exact same day it was posted.
This effect, point of fact, could not be in Green or White the way it is. Green is NOT allowed to kill other players creatures this way, given how Song of the Dryads and Beast Within are both considered violations. And White is not allowed to exile creatures freely anymore (Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares are both considered too close to Black to be White effects anymore), not without the creature being able to return, guilt by action, or guilt by design.
Edit: Just linking to a few things MaRo has said on this subject: Here, Here, and Here.
People saying this card isn't blue are just crazy. This is not so much different from:
Card to make a point 1U
Instant
Turn target creature facedown. Remove it from combat.
Which is 100% blue effect (Ixidron). Blue is the color of transformation and this is one transformation spell. In fact it transforms your creature into the soul manifestation of another being. It's two transformations in one.
I also think people here have a huge issue with the exile clause. Exile does not have a (fixed) flavor meaning. Exile is something to make cards works mechanically, nothing but that. In this case, it's there to avoid you zombifying the transformed creature's body which would be a flavor fail. It also avoids the flavor fail of a indestructible creature being immune to transformation spells.
Add me to the list of people less than thrilled about this card (reality shift). Blue didn't need more tools and the power level on this is pretty high and it seems better in the non-rotating formats.
I also think it's a flavor fail. It doesn't feel blue, even if blue traditionally has polymorph style effects. Flavor wise exile is very very white. And manifest feels very very not blue, probably green. To me this feels more like a WG card than a blue card. If this card had been GW or (G/W)(G/W) it would have made more sense. It doesn't really feel like the thing you're exiling is changing into the manifest, it feels more like the manifest is being drawn into the wake of something that's been banished by a powerful force.
Whenever people start saying things like "blue didn't need more tools" I just assume they play a lot of eternal formats. Yeah, blue doesn't need more tools there, but R&D focuses new sets around standard for a reason, and this is far from being broken or even great in standard. I think it'll see play, but it will most certainly not warp standard in any way. They can't just not give blue anything good in new sets because it's overpowered in older formats. They try to keep the colors balanced for standard play, and for the most part they do a good job with it. The only recent exception I can think of off the top of my head is black being way too powerful by the end of RTR/Theros standard.
This is a blue effect. It has always been a blue effect. White does get more exile than other colors, but exile is not just a white thing; every single color gets access to exile, they just use it in different ways. Blue uses it in polymorph effects, which I actually think is much better than 'destroy' since it keeps the polymorphed creature from being reanimated, which is a flavor fail and can sometimes lead to power-level problems with reanimation decks polymorphing their own creatures then bringing them right back.
People also seem to not understand what 'hard' removal is. A hard removal spell causes your opponent to have fewer creatures than before it resolved. Replacing one creature for another creature is not, in any way, hard removal. This spell has the potential to advance the board state in your favor. It does not do so outright, though, as your opponent still has a creature after this spell resolves. Not to mention that 2/2 they get may well become an even bigger threat depending on what was on top of their deck at the time, which you may very well not know. If your opponent has one creature on the battlefield and you're both top-decking, this will not remove their threat. It'll buy you some time by replacing a bigger threat, but it is in no way equivalent to drawing a hero's downfall which is actually hard removal.
I can't help but notice not one Reality Shift has shown up yet in the Pro Tour, except for the one that was 7th picked in draft. How is that possible when the card is CLEARLY so busted?! [/sarcasm]
Because this is a modern pro tour? Nobody expected it in modern. Anyway the only place it belongs in standard is mono-blue, or maybe blue-green. Neither of these are hot commodities yet.
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Current Awesome Deck: UWAll-In GiftsWU Consistent, Resiliant, and way overpowered, making multiple 4/4s per turn.
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWUFree Stuff MidrangeUWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
These polymorph-esque cards in blue basically never see play. Curse of the Swine sees zero standard play, and Rapid Hybridization saw minimal standard play, only seeing play because monoblue devotion didn't have any other options for removal. They're only appealing when you're downsizing big creatures, but when you need removal against smaller creatures, these start to look horrible. When your opponent is swarming you with smaller creatures, like in an aggro deck, replacing one of their attackers with a 2/2 is not a winning strategy. Even if you're killing something like Goblin Rabblemaster, you're not really slowing them down much. You traded a card for a card, but gave them something in return, which they can now use to keep killing you. Especially if you're playing control, that 2/2 is going to need to be dealt with at some point.
These cards don't really do anything against control--yes, you can target your own creature in response to removal but that isn't a reason to run the card--and they're very bad against aggro, so you're left with a card that is decent when your opponent has already cast their huge creatures that they likely have already gotten value out of. Certainly, you'd rather face a 2/2 than a Mantis Rider. But I'd rather cast Murderous Cut, Path to Exile, Stoke the Flames, or really any other kind of removal spell so that the problem vanishes completely, rather than give myself another permanent I have to deal with.
This card is good when you have a strong field presence, and can therefore safely ignore the manifested card--which sometimes you can't even do if it's something like a god or Polukranos--or when you're at least at parity. But if you're behind, this card does nothing to put you ahead---it only puts you slightly less behind. It's card disadvantage and it provides you no real gain in tempo unless, again, you're already winning.
If monoblue is a thing this standard, this card is certainly appealing because monoblue doesn't *have* any other options. But that doesn't make it good.
But this definitely is going to be more powerful in Modern/Legacy than in standard.
There are a lot more morph creatures running around right now that could have been better than the one you exiled.
BUT you draw your opponent a card! Instead of drawing that rhino he got it drawn by your card at the cost of loosing its ETB ability. Don't forget that this way your opponent has a 2/2 in play (with 0 mana investment and 0 card investment), which can become potentially bigger and he could have gotten another usefull card, which was below the rhino.
And most people arguing about how you can "nullify" a bolt or reduce the value of a rhino - the same argument can be made for the other side - you could also just have turned a completely useless land into a 2/2 creature and improved your opponents draw step (because you removed the useless card from the top of his library).
The effect of the manifest is random and while it can sometimes hurt your oppoennt it can also benefit him greatly!
Hmmm I hadn't looked at it that way. Thx for the insight.
Cult of the Succubi Eating Kitten and Brotherhood of Hamsters - Zombie One/Hulking One - Brotherhood of Hamsters disapproves of Damage on the Stack amputation, the corruption of Mythics,
and the "Major changes to Extended" in July 2010. You aborted our cards., but we approve of the Modern format. Even if it doesn't ha ve Carrion Feeder or Caller of the Claw in it.Dex: http://deckbox.org/users/Egementium_instructoid
How common are scry effects in standard at the moment?
Oh Rider, my heart will go on...
its a 25% chance that they can flip it up. Its also a 41% chance that you upgraded their land into a 2/2. and a 33% chance that you turned a noncreature spell into a 2/2 they they can still use to attack and block.
This is absolutely hard removal. It is hard removal with a downside but it is still hard removal.
You were looking at one variant of Abzan Midrange. Other variants run 20-24 creatures, which is 33% to 40%.
http://mtgtop8.com/archetype?a=289&meta=52&f=ST
C Kozilek C
GB Gitrog GB
G Titania G
WU Brago WU
GB MerenGB
Duel Commander Decks
UR Keranos UR
BRG Jund BRG
GR Tron GR GW Tron GW
C Eldrazi Tron (SB) C
BG Lantern Control BG
UW Control (SB) UW
once you start running Fleecemane Lion and friends I would say you are abzan aggro and not abzan midrange.
The top card of your library is a mystery, it could be a boat! It could be a brand new car! It could be NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
Stupid! You SO STUPID!(Kudos to those that get the references.)Yes, sometimes the top card of your library will be exactly what you wanted to draw, and sometimes it'll be in the way of what you wanted to draw.
And none of this matters because Manifest is a 5-color mechanic, so it has to show up in all five colors. And this is one of the ways to do it for blue. Blue doesn't like chaos the way red does, but that's more to do with manifest as a concept than to do with this card.
As to the whole Exile vs. Aura vs. Graveyard vs. Deck aspect. Graveyard is right out, not only does it do nothing to give non-white colors answer to a primary White keyword (Indestructible), it requires use of "can't be regenerated" and leads flavor fails with recursion. Many people have brought up 'random isn't blue' which clearly means they don't want the thing shuffled back into the library. So its either bottom of the library or bust. And I'm sure every Comm player would love to have Blue get a 1U cry about the fact your General is never coming back card. This leaves Aura (wordy, clunky, incredibly weak to everything), and Exile (not those things). For simplicity sake, that makes Exile the choice here.
Technically you could give it a hanging trigger of 'if the token would leave the battlefield send the card exiled this way to their graveyard' but that's just as wordy and not strictly helpful to anyone not running recursion. So mostly I think people should stop crying over exiled creatures.
I also think it's a flavor fail. It doesn't feel blue, even if blue traditionally has polymorph style effects. Flavor wise exile is very very white. And manifest feels very very not blue, probably green. To me this feels more like a WG card than a blue card. If this card had been GW or (G/W)(G/W) it would have made more sense. It doesn't really feel like the thing you're exiling is changing into the manifest, it feels more like the manifest is being drawn into the wake of something that's been banished by a powerful force.
Nobody calling it "card advantage"or a :"2-for-1" knows what "card advantage" or "2-for-1" mean.
EDIT:
And w/r/t Exiling in place of Polymorph's destroy, isn't the fact that you can't reanimate a polymorphed creature alongside the creature that it has polymorphed into a straight-out Vorthos-y upgrade?
I'm sorry to say but your outright incorrect about the flavor. It is in fact 100% in blue. Blue has an always will be the color of transformation. In fact there is little that is green about the card and almost nothing that is white. MaRo (ie. the only person who you should listen to in regards to color pie whether or not you like it) has been very clear and has very informative posts/podcasts/articles on the subject. If you'd like you can PM me and I'll get your some evidence.
I just explained why the effect doesn't really feel like a transformation, hence why it doesn't really feel blue.
On a tangent, MaRo is great and all, but he's hardly the only person to go to for color pie opinions. Hence we see stuff like the 'infamous' hornet queen. He's also a self-professed blue fan, and hence prone to being way more lenient with what he thinks is blue than with the other colors, as well as prone to over-generalization. If you go to the roots of what makes things a color, blue, black, and green all have different flavors of transformation. Black typically has some level of unnatural transformation - demonic or unholy type changes, corruption, etc. The key trait of transformation in black is that something typically becomes larger/more evil/darker. Blue has transfiguration style effects - turning on thing into another thing, and particularly transformations that are due to an application of knowledge. Lastly green has natural transformations - the growth over time, metamorphosis, and evolution.
If Reality Shift managed to fit one of these color pie flavors, than it could fit clearly in one color. But it doesn't. It feels like a hard exile spell towing a weaker summon spell along as a downside. If it felt like a hard transformation I completely agree it'd belong in blue, but it doesn't feel like one at all.
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It "feeling" like transformation to you is fine, but to others (obviously including r&d) it does. I don't think we can argue what you feel.
However I can argue your MaRo point. In fact he one of the only people who can be quoted on the topic. In case you were unaware he is not a dictator of magic so cards like Hornet Queen or Song of the Dryads or Hornet Sting will sometimes slip through because (up until recently) other members of R&D either become distracted/care less/enjoy pushing boundaries about color pie. Simply because a card exists does not justify it in pie unless it is accepted by those whose job it is to justify color pie. Interestingly enough, that IS MaRo's job.
That being said, color pie mistakes "should" be lessened in the future as MaRo has recently (in the last year or so) had a large and serious meeting about color pie integrity and it's need for the health of magic.
In short: Reality Shift is as blue as it gets. And while I understand that people do not "personally" like it, in the grand scheme of things that doesn't matter. If you dislike the card, don't play with it. But don't incorrectly identify the problem as one of color balance and not individual bias.
i don't understand this at all. thats exactly what reality shift does. is your problem that it doesn't destroy the thing like polymorph or rapid hybridization? because you seem to be contradicting yourself. blue is the color of time manipulation and this card fits that flavor perfectly. there is a shift into a reality in which the targeted creature has never existed. i'll say it again, just because you don't like something does not mean it's a bad idea or design (or that you are in any way correct about flavor).
and i hate to say it but you should really listen to jivanmukta. he has some kind of weird mindlink with MaRo and predicted a relevant response about the color pie from MaRo's tumblr in another thread about song of the dryads the exact same day it was posted.
Edit: Just linking to a few things MaRo has said on this subject: Here, Here, and Here.
Card to make a point 1U
Instant
Turn target creature facedown. Remove it from combat.
Which is 100% blue effect (Ixidron). Blue is the color of transformation and this is one transformation spell. In fact it transforms your creature into the soul manifestation of another being. It's two transformations in one.
I also think people here have a huge issue with the exile clause. Exile does not have a (fixed) flavor meaning. Exile is something to make cards works mechanically, nothing but that. In this case, it's there to avoid you zombifying the transformed creature's body which would be a flavor fail. It also avoids the flavor fail of a indestructible creature being immune to transformation spells.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
Whenever people start saying things like "blue didn't need more tools" I just assume they play a lot of eternal formats. Yeah, blue doesn't need more tools there, but R&D focuses new sets around standard for a reason, and this is far from being broken or even great in standard. I think it'll see play, but it will most certainly not warp standard in any way. They can't just not give blue anything good in new sets because it's overpowered in older formats. They try to keep the colors balanced for standard play, and for the most part they do a good job with it. The only recent exception I can think of off the top of my head is black being way too powerful by the end of RTR/Theros standard.
This is a blue effect. It has always been a blue effect. White does get more exile than other colors, but exile is not just a white thing; every single color gets access to exile, they just use it in different ways. Blue uses it in polymorph effects, which I actually think is much better than 'destroy' since it keeps the polymorphed creature from being reanimated, which is a flavor fail and can sometimes lead to power-level problems with reanimation decks polymorphing their own creatures then bringing them right back.
People also seem to not understand what 'hard' removal is. A hard removal spell causes your opponent to have fewer creatures than before it resolved. Replacing one creature for another creature is not, in any way, hard removal. This spell has the potential to advance the board state in your favor. It does not do so outright, though, as your opponent still has a creature after this spell resolves. Not to mention that 2/2 they get may well become an even bigger threat depending on what was on top of their deck at the time, which you may very well not know. If your opponent has one creature on the battlefield and you're both top-decking, this will not remove their threat. It'll buy you some time by replacing a bigger threat, but it is in no way equivalent to drawing a hero's downfall which is actually hard removal.
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWU Free Stuff Midrange UWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
My greatest hits:
GURFate Reforged Temur Ascendancy COMBORUG
GUDragons of Tarkir Whisperwood Forever UG