Blue always has Rapid Hybridization! ( The rules really should make the casting player say "You're welcome!" to resolve it. )
I don't think Black needs enchantment removal. I could see some sort of indirect sacrifice card, though e.g. "Target player sacrifices an enchantment, a creature, or an artifact."
As has been said, B's method of "removing" enchantments is through targeted discard. They're sorcery speed and ineffective when the enchantment is already in play, but that's just part of B's weakness. R has it worse since it has zero ways to interact with enchantments save for expensive board wipes like Worldfire.
The closest I could see black getting to artifact/enchantment removal would be generic permanent edicts. Even then, it would probably be at a premium mana cost or double-sided.
And the opponent may very well have enough scapegoat permanents to protect the artifact/enchantment that you truly wanted dead.
As Vorthospike said, black being unable to deal with enchantments and artifacts is intentional, every color should have a weakness. The same way, green can't destroy creatures, red can't destroy enchantments and blue can't destroy anything at all. Yes, they are a few exceptions, but they are from many years ago when the color pie wasn't that strict (Gate to Phyrexia) or are considered design errors (Chaos Warp and Beast Within).
The color pie also encourages blue to be able to properly interact with the stack as well as every permanent type. The color pie is therefore flawed with blue's current existence.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Life is a beautiful engineer, yet a brutal scientist.
As Vorthospike said, black being unable to deal with enchantments and artifacts is intentional, every color should have a weakness. The same way, green can't destroy creatures, red can't destroy enchantments and blue can't destroy anything at all. Yes, they are a few exceptions, but they are from many years ago when the color pie wasn't that strict (Gate to Phyrexia) or are considered design errors (Chaos Warp and Beast Within).
The color pie also encourages blue to be able to properly interact with the stack as well as every permanent type. The color pie is therefore flawed with blue's current existence.
Isn't the balance that blue generally can't stop a threat once it resolves?
Yep, so the recipe for the pie can be altered. The pie thing is silly to me since wizards doesn't abide by it. I would like a 1 cost black 1\1 creature that taps for a mana at the cost of 1 life.
Somewhat off topic, but I've always questioned hand destruction being black's domain. It makes sense to me only because it's always been like that, but I kind of wish it would jump to blue. From a flavor stand point, it makes much more sense, dealing with the mind and such. And hell, black has gotten much better at drawing cards, so no reason why blue can't get a piece of black
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: UWR Breach, UWB Esper control
Legacy: UW RiP/Helm, UR Sneak and Show
Yep, so the recipe for the pie can be altered. The pie thing is silly to me since wizards doesn't abide by it. I would like a 1 cost black 1\1 creature that taps for a mana at the cost of 1 life.
They very carefully abide by it. It has evolved over time, and things shift, but those are shifts in what colors get, not a lack of abiding by the color pie.
As Vorthospike said, black being unable to deal with enchantments and artifacts is intentional, every color should have a weakness. The same way, green can't destroy creatures, red can't destroy enchantments and blue can't destroy anything at all. Yes, they are a few exceptions, but they are from many years ago when the color pie wasn't that strict (Gate to Phyrexia) or are considered design errors (Chaos Warp and Beast Within).
The color pie also encourages blue to be able to properly interact with the stack as well as every permanent type. The color pie is therefore flawed with blue's current existence.
Isn't the balance that blue generally can't stop a threat once it resolves?
Bounces things that can follow up and counter, and for creatures has the ability to polymorph with Pognify and Rapid Hybridization. While there's a downside, blue is still a self contained color to answer problems. It's mainly the existence of good counters and bounce that makes blue as strong as it is with power creep with polymorph as a sometimes food.
The main issue with countering effects is that they tend to be hoarded into blue, while white has lost Disenchant it has gained access to Oblivion Ring effects. It is these areas where the color pie is still more opinion than game play functionality. Thus leaving red in a consistent state with self imposed limitations, but no real answers to complex questions. This is why there has been so much experimentation with red over the last half decade, and there are still resounding issues with the color.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Life is a beautiful engineer, yet a brutal scientist.
That all colours have strengths and weaknesses does not mean that every colour must have some permanent-type it cannot deal with (although I guess you could say that blue cannot deal with lands).
Red is the master of direct damage, which is a huge up-side. It therefore needs other drawbacks.
Bouncing + countering, while a solution, does require a lot of set-up and often cards. Consequently, blue becomes a slow colour and can loose to agressive strategies.
That all colours have strengths and weaknesses does not mean that every colour must have some permanent-type it cannot deal with (although I guess you could say that blue cannot deal with lands).
Red is the master of direct damage, which is a huge up-side. It therefore needs other drawbacks.
Bouncing + countering, while a solution, does require a lot of set-up and often cards. Consequently, blue becomes a slow colour and can loose to agressive strategies.
Because blue is the only color that properly interacts with the stack, whereas red traditionally only has been direct damage and shatter. A part of the "I hate counterspells" problem comes down to that there are so few other counters outside of blue along without the capacity to interact with the card at all while on the stack. This is why Sligh outpacing counter control was seen as an upside, however shifting more towards board control effects such as Oblivion Ring have also weakened some of red's capacity to deal with problems by burning them.
Blue can do tempo, control, and aggro.
Red has the capacity to be a "sort of" control deck such as wildfire. Frankly, while I have no issue with the limitations on them. I would have preferred to see Chaos Warp to be within red's color pie as well as counterspells for sorcery and instants. While retaining white's tax effects, black doing misdirection, and green being able to have protective creature effects. That would've offered a far less damning problem for blue with the stack. I do like the countering activated ability as it stands now in the current paradigm, but would prefer it to show up a bit more.
They've moved away from spells and more towards permanents, which has been lovely. However, red still retains the "must burn quickly" and that has taken out of a lot of red's potential to find an identity. Since the piece mail approach adding in ritual effects, looting, pinging, whilst the only real effective ability is temporary cloning and rituals. Pinging has been underwhelming as always, whilst looting is an upgrade from "discard at random."
Black discard is the new counterspell, and presuming that Doom Blade remains the standard for kill creature effects, then black has a bright future depending on the effect. The game can take on a bit more power in certain areas without overbalancing problems, arguably it may come that there's too little power in specific spells that makes for the games weakness whenever we see something like Thoughtseize without Lightning Bolt and other aggressive spells.
Black can deal with enchantments premptively and post emptively.
Blue has bounce, mill, and counter.
White can destroy.
Green can destroy.
Red has nothing, that is why red lacks a control strategy. Frankly, the term "punisher" applying to red and seeing red function as a color for punishment in EDH has shown that the strategy can work. If the cards are built with the effect in mind for the metagame properly, but this is totally unexplored within block design space.
Maro takes the separation of colors a little too seriously, is the issue. Once upon a time, colors could do what their allied colors did, just at a much high cost. So black could get enchantment removal at 4B and sorcery speed, or something.
More realistically, though, black just needs it's drain aspect back. It should have cards like Curse Artifact for enchantments while red should card Ancient Runes but for enchantments as well. There are ways for both black and red to deal with enchantments that don't violate the color pie.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Cyme we inne frið, fram the grip of deaþ to lif inne ðis smylte land.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Blue always has Rapid Hybridization! ( The rules really should make the casting player say "You're welcome!" to resolve it. )
I don't think Black needs enchantment removal. I could see some sort of indirect sacrifice card, though e.g. "Target player sacrifices an enchantment, a creature, or an artifact."
UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU's prison: blue is the new orange is the new black.
Mizzix Of The Izmagnus : wheels on fire... rolling down the road...
BSidisi, Undead VizierB: Bis zum Erbrechen
GTitiania, Protector Of ArgothG: Protecting Argoth, by blowing it up!
GYisan, The Wanderer BardG: Gradus Ad Elfball.
Duel EDH: Yisan & Titania.
In Progress: Grand Arbiter Augustin IV duel; Grenzo, Dungeon Warden Doomsday.
And the opponent may very well have enough scapegoat permanents to protect the artifact/enchantment that you truly wanted dead.
The color pie also encourages blue to be able to properly interact with the stack as well as every permanent type. The color pie is therefore flawed with blue's current existence.
Modern
Commander
Cube
<a href="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-lists/588020-unpowered-themed-enchantment-an-enchanted-evening">An Enchanted Evening Cube </a>
That was moved to Red - Seething Song, Geosurge, Desperate Ritual
Legacy: UW RiP/Helm, UR Sneak and Show
They very carefully abide by it. It has evolved over time, and things shift, but those are shifts in what colors get, not a lack of abiding by the color pie.
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!
Bounces things that can follow up and counter, and for creatures has the ability to polymorph with Pognify and Rapid Hybridization. While there's a downside, blue is still a self contained color to answer problems. It's mainly the existence of good counters and bounce that makes blue as strong as it is with power creep with polymorph as a sometimes food.
The main issue with countering effects is that they tend to be hoarded into blue, while white has lost Disenchant it has gained access to Oblivion Ring effects. It is these areas where the color pie is still more opinion than game play functionality. Thus leaving red in a consistent state with self imposed limitations, but no real answers to complex questions. This is why there has been so much experimentation with red over the last half decade, and there are still resounding issues with the color.
Modern
Commander
Cube
<a href="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-lists/588020-unpowered-themed-enchantment-an-enchanted-evening">An Enchanted Evening Cube </a>
Red is the master of direct damage, which is a huge up-side. It therefore needs other drawbacks.
Bouncing + countering, while a solution, does require a lot of set-up and often cards. Consequently, blue becomes a slow colour and can loose to agressive strategies.
Cubetutor Peasant'ish-Funbox
Project: Khans of Tarkir Cube (cubetutor)
Because blue is the only color that properly interacts with the stack, whereas red traditionally only has been direct damage and shatter. A part of the "I hate counterspells" problem comes down to that there are so few other counters outside of blue along without the capacity to interact with the card at all while on the stack. This is why Sligh outpacing counter control was seen as an upside, however shifting more towards board control effects such as Oblivion Ring have also weakened some of red's capacity to deal with problems by burning them.
Blue can do tempo, control, and aggro.
Red has the capacity to be a "sort of" control deck such as wildfire. Frankly, while I have no issue with the limitations on them. I would have preferred to see Chaos Warp to be within red's color pie as well as counterspells for sorcery and instants. While retaining white's tax effects, black doing misdirection, and green being able to have protective creature effects. That would've offered a far less damning problem for blue with the stack. I do like the countering activated ability as it stands now in the current paradigm, but would prefer it to show up a bit more.
They've moved away from spells and more towards permanents, which has been lovely. However, red still retains the "must burn quickly" and that has taken out of a lot of red's potential to find an identity. Since the piece mail approach adding in ritual effects, looting, pinging, whilst the only real effective ability is temporary cloning and rituals. Pinging has been underwhelming as always, whilst looting is an upgrade from "discard at random."
Black discard is the new counterspell, and presuming that Doom Blade remains the standard for kill creature effects, then black has a bright future depending on the effect. The game can take on a bit more power in certain areas without overbalancing problems, arguably it may come that there's too little power in specific spells that makes for the games weakness whenever we see something like Thoughtseize without Lightning Bolt and other aggressive spells.
Black can deal with enchantments premptively and post emptively.
Blue has bounce, mill, and counter.
White can destroy.
Green can destroy.
Red has nothing, that is why red lacks a control strategy. Frankly, the term "punisher" applying to red and seeing red function as a color for punishment in EDH has shown that the strategy can work. If the cards are built with the effect in mind for the metagame properly, but this is totally unexplored within block design space.
Modern
Commander
Cube
<a href="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-lists/588020-unpowered-themed-enchantment-an-enchanted-evening">An Enchanted Evening Cube </a>
More realistically, though, black just needs it's drain aspect back. It should have cards like Curse Artifact for enchantments while red should card Ancient Runes but for enchantments as well. There are ways for both black and red to deal with enchantments that don't violate the color pie.