The original question's answer depends upon the format in question.
For Standard, the answer is "probably". I had this really long explanation written out giving examples of spells which, although maybe not as efficient as Lightning Bolt, are still very good but I erased all that so that I wouldn't type a wall of text that no one bothers to read. Suffice it to say that even after HOU is released, 70% of all creatures in Standard will have a toughness of 3 or less--as long as your removal is doing 3 or more damage (or is hard removal like Never // Return) then your strategy is fine. This is also why sorcery-speed sweepers like Sweltering Suns are actually very good in the current format.
For Modern/Legacy, the answer is clearly "no". New spells are nowhere near as efficient as older ones...except for Fatal Push. That spell seems to have caught on rather quickly. I will ask, though, why no one is using Horribly Awry when 43 out of the 50 most-played creatures in Modern have a cmc less than or equal to 4? *shrug* It is not possible for Wizards to make removal spells which are more efficient than the ones currently being used without creating some truly broken spells and that is not likely to happen any time soon.
Their is slightly better removal and I'm overjoyed we got instant speed artifact destruction in Abrade for Red. FINALLY! As you know what was the last instant speed artifact destruction that red got? Smash to Smithereens in Magic Orgins. Which according to my calculations, Magic Origins was almost two whole years ago. Like if Hour of Devastation came out on July 17th instead of 14th, it would be two years exact.
Now if only I could have Lava Spike but at instant speed. Yes the "3 damage to target player" for at instant speed doesn't exist.
I think the removal makes the cut. It definitely feels like they are trying to both make the bombs matter and make removal better which comes off a bit weird.
I think most of the removal in this set was mostly printed and balanced looking forward, to be good for the upcoming. Since I feel that they've almost given up on anything involving the artifact set being healthy. (sure it got nods and a few cards, but not as much as if they were panicking and trying to save it.)
I think the removal makes the cut. It definitely feels like they are trying to both make the bombs matter and make removal better which comes off a bit weird.
I think most of the removal in this set was mostly printed and balanced looking forward, to be good for the upcoming. Since I feel that they've almost given up on anything involving the artifact set being healthy. (sure it got nods and a few cards, but not as much as if they were panicking and trying to save it.)
I read something about Kaladesh being MaRo's pride and joy, or something similar, just before Kaladesh block started up.
If that was the case, I wonder if that's changed in any way.
I do think the "answers" have been sprinkled in HOU, but not the "answers" folks were expecting. It's probably still too early to expect the second coming of Doom Blades, Lightning Strikes and Hero's Downfalls (as flavourful as all of these cards would have been in this set, if I'm being frank).
Look, we can talk all we want about removal being weak or only for limited or whatever, but the stats say that there are still control decks in the format. And I don't just mean midrange decks, I mean real reactive control decks - there are blue-red decks with lots of counterspells, and there are white-blue decks with sweepers and Oblivion Ring variants.
I would welcome Lightning Strike or Searing Spear (if we're emphasizing Chandra's straight fire!) coming back to Standard, but control is far from dead.
And for another thing, I remember very well when Rise of the Eldrazi was the newest set, and the core sets were full of Lightning Bolt and Doom Blade and Mana Leak. Everybody was all over these forums saying "Well, whatever card we're discussing just dies to Doom Blade, so you'd better not be caught dead playing any creature that doesn't have at least one sorcery stapled to it". I never want to return to those days. Never.
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Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not watching.
They said we'd start to see the effects of a change in philosophy with HOD and yes, we do see that. Various board wipes with different swings on it, some more pinpoint answers and in general a lot more 'answerish' effects as we've seen before. Now, they may not be your bread-and-butter Lightning Strike/Hero's Downfall or what have you, but they are pushing more and more of these effects into standard. HoD has more of it than most of Kaladesh + Amonkhet COMBINED, so I don't know what y'all on about with "Broken promises" and all that.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
If you don't like wizards current set design like situational, overcosted removal for over powered creatures stop playing standard. That's what I did, I got tired of waiting for standard to be fun again. Standard is nothing but a midrange love fest and it isn't going to change any time soon.
The original question's answer depends upon the format in question.
For Standard, the answer is "probably". I had this really long explanation written out giving examples of spells which, although maybe not as efficient as Lightning Bolt, are still very good but I erased all that so that I wouldn't type a wall of text that no one bothers to read. Suffice it to say that even after HOU is released, 70% of all creatures in Standard will have a toughness of 3 or less--as long as your removal is doing 3 or more damage (or is hard removal like Never // Return) then your strategy is fine. This is also why sorcery-speed sweepers like Sweltering Suns are actually very good in the current format.
For Modern/Legacy, the answer is clearly "no". New spells are nowhere near as efficient as older ones...except for Fatal Push. That spell seems to have caught on rather quickly. I will ask, though, why no one is using Horribly Awry when 43 out of the 50 most-played creatures in Modern have a cmc less than or equal to 4? *shrug* It is not possible for Wizards to make removal spells which are more efficient than the ones currently being used without creating some truly broken spells and that is not likely to happen any time soon.
Because Horribly Awry is creature only as you point out. If it was to Counter Spell what IOK is to Discards, that would be different.
A big problem with removal in standard recently is that it matches up very poorly with vehicle aggro decks. The red removal that was instant speed doesn't hit hard enough to take down a Heart of Kiran or Aether Harvester and artifact removal was weak due their previous philosophy of not printing cards good against the block theme. "Premium" black removal was either expensive or sorcery speed, with grasp as an exception. Fatal push is good against aggressive vehicle decks, but it suffered for a long time due to a terrible interaction with saheeli/cat and aetherworks marvel combo decks. From the looks of it, Hour of Devastation does do a lot to fix this problem. Abrade is an excellent red removal spell that also hits Heart, unsummoning a vehicle nets you even more tempo than usual, and Hour of Glory probably pulls its weight as a 1-2 of catch all answer. We're also getting an excellent counterspell in the form of Supreme Will, and Nimble Obstructionist is some solid interaction against both planeswalkers and vehicles.
IMO vehicles are probably a good thing to have in Magic, since they give aggro decks game against control so they aren't just dead to a sweeper. The problem is the first vehicles were pushed a tick too far during a time when removal and wraths were at a more restrained power level than ever before.
Their is slightly better removal and I'm overjoyed we got instant speed artifact destruction in Abrade for Red. FINALLY! As you know what was the last instant speed artifact destruction that red got? Smash to Smithereens in Magic Orgins. Which according to my calculations, Magic Origins was almost two whole years ago. Like if Hour of Devastation came out on July 17th instead of 14th, it would be two years exact.
Now if only I could have Lava Spike but at instant speed. Yes the "3 damage to target player" for at instant speed doesn't exist.
Iwould prefer à sorcery Lightning bolt to an instant Lava spike.
Would the first be too powerful ?
We already have that. Its called Chain Lightning. Yes its got additional effect but its basically sorcery speed Lightning Bolt most of the time unless you are playing against something like Burn/Sligh in the mirror OR you are battling Goblins.
The original question's answer depends upon the format in question.
For Standard, the answer is "probably". I had this really long explanation written out giving examples of spells which, although maybe not as efficient as Lightning Bolt, are still very good but I erased all that so that I wouldn't type a wall of text that no one bothers to read. Suffice it to say that even after HOU is released, 70% of all creatures in Standard will have a toughness of 3 or less--as long as your removal is doing 3 or more damage (or is hard removal like Never // Return) then your strategy is fine. This is also why sorcery-speed sweepers like Sweltering Suns are actually very good in the current format.
For Modern/Legacy, the answer is clearly "no". New spells are nowhere near as efficient as older ones...except for Fatal Push. That spell seems to have caught on rather quickly. I will ask, though, why no one is using Horribly Awry when 43 out of the 50 most-played creatures in Modern have a cmc less than or equal to 4? *shrug* It is not possible for Wizards to make removal spells which are more efficient than the ones currently being used without creating some truly broken spells and that is not likely to happen any time soon.
Horribly Awry is just a worse Essence Scatter with a marginally useful exile clause, and Essence Scatter sees zero play.
Cards have to be absurdly pushed to make a dent in Modern. If you're looking for Modern goodies in Standard, you're not gonna find much.
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Level 1 Judge
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
Am I crazy to think that removal could be pushed harder if they simple brought back Protection? I realize they love the simplicity of Indestructible, but the conditional nature of Protection would seem to help the metagame far more in terms of a more open field of spell offerings.
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For Standard, the answer is "probably". I had this really long explanation written out giving examples of spells which, although maybe not as efficient as Lightning Bolt, are still very good but I erased all that so that I wouldn't type a wall of text that no one bothers to read. Suffice it to say that even after HOU is released, 70% of all creatures in Standard will have a toughness of 3 or less--as long as your removal is doing 3 or more damage (or is hard removal like Never // Return) then your strategy is fine. This is also why sorcery-speed sweepers like Sweltering Suns are actually very good in the current format.
For Modern/Legacy, the answer is clearly "no". New spells are nowhere near as efficient as older ones...except for Fatal Push. That spell seems to have caught on rather quickly. I will ask, though, why no one is using Horribly Awry when 43 out of the 50 most-played creatures in Modern have a cmc less than or equal to 4? *shrug* It is not possible for Wizards to make removal spells which are more efficient than the ones currently being used without creating some truly broken spells and that is not likely to happen any time soon.
Now if only I could have Lava Spike but at instant speed. Yes the "3 damage to target player" for at instant speed doesn't exist.
I think most of the removal in this set was mostly printed and balanced looking forward, to be good for the upcoming. Since I feel that they've almost given up on anything involving the artifact set being healthy. (sure it got nods and a few cards, but not as much as if they were panicking and trying to save it.)
I read something about Kaladesh being MaRo's pride and joy, or something similar, just before Kaladesh block started up.
If that was the case, I wonder if that's changed in any way.
I do think the "answers" have been sprinkled in HOU, but not the "answers" folks were expecting. It's probably still too early to expect the second coming of Doom Blades, Lightning Strikes and Hero's Downfalls (as flavourful as all of these cards would have been in this set, if I'm being frank).
I would welcome Lightning Strike or Searing Spear (if we're emphasizing Chandra's straight fire!) coming back to Standard, but control is far from dead.
And for another thing, I remember very well when Rise of the Eldrazi was the newest set, and the core sets were full of Lightning Bolt and Doom Blade and Mana Leak. Everybody was all over these forums saying "Well, whatever card we're discussing just dies to Doom Blade, so you'd better not be caught dead playing any creature that doesn't have at least one sorcery stapled to it". I never want to return to those days. Never.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Because Horribly Awry is creature only as you point out. If it was to Counter Spell what IOK is to Discards, that would be different.
Spirits
IMO vehicles are probably a good thing to have in Magic, since they give aggro decks game against control so they aren't just dead to a sweeper. The problem is the first vehicles were pushed a tick too far during a time when removal and wraths were at a more restrained power level than ever before.
Horribly Awry is just a worse Essence Scatter with a marginally useful exile clause, and Essence Scatter sees zero play.
Cards have to be absurdly pushed to make a dent in Modern. If you're looking for Modern goodies in Standard, you're not gonna find much.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."