Should it be shown that he is the one and only authority behind the current color pie. Any threads like these should probably be closed and the creators of said thread should be referred to a maro sticky.
Or the people posting things like this on said thread could actually read the original post...
Yes, I get what you saying. It appears your thread spawned a color pie debate.
Other than obvious things, like his job, what "source" could you possible be looking for?
This is all very, very subjective. OBVIOUSLY. Trying to pretend like there's a way to define an objective "winner" in this debate is just ridiculous.
Actually, there is a winner, and it's not subjective. From what I gather according to what Jiv has posted, Maro is the ultimate defining entity of the current state of the color pie. There is no reason for me to debate this anymore. Those arguing that Song of the Dryads are within Green are wrong. I am no longer in that camp until a new head designer states otherwise.
Yes, it appears to me there are inconsistencies with Maro's previous rulings. It's okay. People can make mistakes. No big deal. However, it wasn't very obvious to me when I'm told other people employed by wizards are also designing cards, and cards like song of the dryads are allowed to make the cut and see print. This is misleading to me.
But it is very clear now and I will point out to anyone otherwise that they are clearly wrong and do not understand the how the color pie works.
Oh good, that solves the problem. Case closed. Everyone go home now. I would have loved to be there for that speech. I think it's hilarious he waited 20 years to make his "big speech" and that he even called it a speech. That guy is too much.
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Of course it's ok to break the color pie in limited situations when they want to push flavor over the base function of the pie. How else will we get more examples of why it's ok to break the pie all the time?
Of course it's ok to break the color pie in limited situations when they want to push flavor over the base function of the pie. How else will we get more examples of why it's ok to break the pie all the time?
The issue I have is that sometimes Maro seems to see the color pie as flavor only, but in other cases like this he talks about the restrictions that the color pie needs to present, why it's good for the game, etc. They are two entirely different things. So of course, the player base is confused as to what in the world is being talked about when he opens his mouth about color.
So, the real debate is which version of the color pie is the actual one. Either fundamental restrictions are in design, or it's flavor only that design upholds. And, which version of the pie should it uphold? On that, it's pretty clear to me that on creature removal, card draw and several other things critical to the creature oriented games that Maro wants everyone to be having, you just can't deny them to certain colors without not seeing those colors played. And seeing as how Pongify, Harmonize, etc, continue to get printed, evidently design agrees with that. And Maro is out in left field when he says criticizes another design team's printing of a Green card that kills creatures.
As to his opinion on Standard playing better than Eternal formats because of color pie mistakes, the more relevant reason why all the Legacy Delver decks look the same no matter the colors is because the lands are there that allow 3 color decks full of 1 drops. Because one day design sat down with the competition committee, who then presented the problem that Green and White weren't getting any play in events. The alternatives were either break the color pie, or make it so everyone could build multicolor decks. Then, Onslaught block happened, and everyone loved fetch lands. Maro became lead designer, his first block was Ravnica, a multicolor block, and then every block after that included cards that broke the mechanical restrictions of color pie. Talking about color pie restrictions now is like old men talking about how cool the world was before cell phones. The only ones interested in the conversation are nostalgic, and no one takes any of the arguments seriously.
The issue I have is that sometimes Maro seems to see the color pie as flavor only, but in other cases like this he talks about the restrictions that the color pie needs to present, why it's good for the game, etc. They are two entirely different things. So of course, the player base is confused as to what in the world is being talked about when he opens his mouth about color.
So, the real debate is which version of the color pie is the actual one. Either fundamental restrictions are in design, or it's flavor only that design upholds. And, which version of the pie should it uphold? On that, it's pretty clear to me that on creature removal, card draw and several other things critical to the creature oriented games that Maro wants everyone to be having, you just can't deny them to certain colors without not seeing those colors played. And seeing as how Pongify, Harmonize, etc, continue to get printed, evidently design agrees with that. And Maro is out in left field when he says criticizes another design team's printing of a Green card that kills creatures.
As to his opinion on Standard playing better than Eternal formats because of color pie mistakes, the more relevant reason why all the Legacy Delver decks look the same no matter the colors is because the lands are there that allow 3 color decks full of 1 drops. Because one day design sat down with the competition committee, who then presented the problem that Green and White weren't getting any play in events. The alternatives were either break the color pie, or make it so everyone could build multicolor decks. Then, Onslaught block happened, and everyone loved fetch lands. Maro became lead designer, his first block was Ravnica, a multicolor block, and then every block after that included cards that broke the mechanical restrictions of color pie. Talking about color pie restrictions now is like old men talking about how cool the world was before cell phones. The only ones interested in the conversation are nostalgic, and no one takes any of the arguments seriously.
I don't understand. Almost every time I see someone ask him a color pie question on his blog, he is quick to point out that flavor is a bad justification because you can make a flavor justification for anything.
I don't understand. Almost every time I see someone ask him a color pie question on his blog, he is quick to point out that flavor is a bad justification because you can make a flavor justification for anything.
It was the justification behind the breaking of the color pie in Scars of Mirrodin, Mirrodin Besieged, and New Pherexia, which he either was the head designer or helped design. (I thought thosse sets were wonderful by the way.)
The issue I have is that sometimes Maro seems to see the color pie as flavor only, but in other cases like this he talks about the restrictions that the color pie needs to present, why it's good for the game, etc. They are two entirely different things. So of course, the player base is confused as to what in the world is being talked about when he opens his mouth about color.
So, the real debate is which version of the color pie is the actual one. Either fundamental restrictions are in design, or it's flavor only that design upholds. And, which version of the pie should it uphold? On that, it's pretty clear to me that on creature removal, card draw and several other things critical to the creature oriented games that Maro wants everyone to be having, you just can't deny them to certain colors without not seeing those colors played. And seeing as how Pongify, Harmonize, etc, continue to get printed, evidently design agrees with that. And Maro is out in left field when he says criticizes another design team's printing of a Green card that kills creatures.
As to his opinion on Standard playing better than Eternal formats because of color pie mistakes, the more relevant reason why all the Legacy Delver decks look the same no matter the colors is because the lands are there that allow 3 color decks full of 1 drops. Because one day design sat down with the competition committee, who then presented the problem that Green and White weren't getting any play in events. The alternatives were either break the color pie, or make it so everyone could build multicolor decks. Then, Onslaught block happened, and everyone loved fetch lands. Maro became lead designer, his first block was Ravnica, a multicolor block, and then every block after that included cards that broke the mechanical restrictions of color pie. Talking about color pie restrictions now is like old men talking about how cool the world was before cell phones. The only ones interested in the conversation are nostalgic, and no one takes any of the arguments seriously.
I don't understand. Almost every time I see someone ask him a color pie question on his blog, he is quick to point out that flavor is a bad justification because you can make a flavor justification for anything.
Something being a bad justification isn't going to stop it from being used.
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Tantarus: It didn't make the gaka greifer level, so it should be fine
The issue I have is that sometimes Maro seems to see the color pie as flavor only, but in other cases like this he talks about the restrictions that the color pie needs to present, why it's good for the game, etc. They are two entirely different things. So of course, the player base is confused as to what in the world is being talked about when he opens his mouth about color.
So, the real debate is which version of the color pie is the actual one. Either fundamental restrictions are in design, or it's flavor only that design upholds. And, which version of the pie should it uphold? On that, it's pretty clear to me that on creature removal, card draw and several other things critical to the creature oriented games that Maro wants everyone to be having, you just can't deny them to certain colors without not seeing those colors played. And seeing as how Pongify, Harmonize, etc, continue to get printed, evidently design agrees with that. And Maro is out in left field when he says criticizes another design team's printing of a Green card that kills creatures.
As to his opinion on Standard playing better than Eternal formats because of color pie mistakes, the more relevant reason why all the Legacy Delver decks look the same no matter the colors is because the lands are there that allow 3 color decks full of 1 drops. Because one day design sat down with the competition committee, who then presented the problem that Green and White weren't getting any play in events. The alternatives were either break the color pie, or make it so everyone could build multicolor decks. Then, Onslaught block happened, and everyone loved fetch lands. Maro became lead designer, his first block was Ravnica, a multicolor block, and then every block after that included cards that broke the mechanical restrictions of color pie. Talking about color pie restrictions now is like old men talking about how cool the world was before cell phones. The only ones interested in the conversation are nostalgic, and no one takes any of the arguments seriously.
I don't understand. Almost every time I see someone ask him a color pie question on his blog, he is quick to point out that flavor is a bad justification because you can make a flavor justification for anything.
Something being a bad justification isn't going to stop it from being used.
No one is saying not to use a card. People just need to understand that just because something exists doesn't mean it should or that more of it should.
Something being a bad justification isn't going to stop it from being used.
No one is saying not to use a card. People just need to understand that just because something exists doesn't mean it should or that more of it should.[/quote]
I think he's talking about using the justification, not the card.
MaRo would be alot better off making "the super color pie graph" AKA a pie graph stating x gets 1 4 8 and 9 y gets 2 3 6 and 7 , and z gets 1&2 rarely but never 8 and 9.
bad example may be bad, but I mean we have the storm scale, a visual representation with his exact views would set a lot of things closer to line, as well as show the design philosophy in regards to 90% percent of cards, while allowing random oddball color bleeds or experiments to be toyed with by design
Here's another point of view, is it unreasonable to see a shift in Pacifism effects to green? I mean, looting has become a red thing recently, card draw was pretty much absent from green between Legends and Planar Chaos, etc. Because that's basically what this is, a Pacifism + Creeping Mold/Oblivion Ring hybrid.
The conversation has ended. King Mark hath spoken. Though I will say his decisions are solely based on his own ideas, some of which are completely arbitrary. He complains that anything can be justified by flavor, but he uses the same concept in his design. And if fanboys really want to debate that with me, too bad, because I'm pretty much done here. Just leaving my last 2c on the matter and blowing this pop-sickle stand. It's been real.
Honestly I think it is really ludicrous that MaRo would say this about Commander, certainly when he doesn't play the format. I think the upcoming Commander decks are the most excited I have been for a Magic product in years. I am also a huge fan of Planar Chaos. I personally love it when colors bend the rules on the color pie, but I also feel that the cards still need to justify why they are doing so thematically. The Song of Dryads is a great example of this. Enchanted permanent is a tree - awesome. I also think it's pretty crappy that some colors are greatly restricted by their ability to play the game, and others are not. MaRo may believe that these restrictions are a core part of the game, but when your players are asking for tools and your aren't giving them what they want, you are going to turn people off. Red and black need ways that don't suck and are thematically appropriate to deal with enchantments. Black needs a way that doesn't suck and is thematically appropriate to deal with artifacts. Neither of these changes will be a particularly big deal in legacy, they should probably not be printed in standard, but in Commander they would be momentous changes that would shake the game up in a significant, and I believe positive, way. Ultimately - everything I have seen about the upcoming Commander set has been wildly positive. Maybe MaRo should pay attention and let these guys design more stuff.
Honestly I think it is really ludicrous that MaRo would say this about Commander, certainly when he doesn't play the format. I think the upcoming Commander decks are the most excited I have been for a Magic product in years. I am also a huge fan of Planar Chaos. I personally love it when colors bend the rules on the color pie, but I also feel that the cards still need to justify why they are doing so thematically. The Song of Dryads is a great example of this. Enchanted permanent is a tree - awesome. I also think it's pretty crappy that some colors are greatly restricted by their ability to play the game, and others are not. MaRo may believe that these restrictions are a core part of the game, but when your players are asking for tools and your aren't giving them what they want, you are going to turn people off. Red and black need ways that don't suck and are thematically appropriate to deal with enchantments. Black needs a way that doesn't suck and is thematically appropriate to deal with artifacts. Neither of these changes will be a particularly big deal in legacy, they should probably not be printed in standard, but in Commander they would be momentous changes that would shake the game up in a significant, and I believe positive, way. Ultimately - everything I have seen about the upcoming Commander set has been wildly positive. Maybe MaRo should pay attention and let these guys design more stuff.
Dude, red can take out Circle of Protection: Red with Chaos Warp, Disk, and a few things other things that cost a bunch of mana, or using a few turns of tapping and putting counters on it.
Mara is the guru though, and he's done a magnificent of using his color pie theory to make sure each color in magic is balanced.
In Standard/Modern/Limited. The dudes a God when it comes to that.
In Commander..... not so much.
I think an important piece of the puzzle is what tone he was actually saying this in; was it "I hate hate hate hate commander and all it stands for!", or "Yeah, I don't like this card, but it's being printed because Commander/Legacy could use it"? I think too many of use jumped on the first one, to be honest.
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
Who's responsible for Song of the Dryads? All this gnashing of teeth makes me want to give that person a high five.
I believe the design might have come from Aaron Forsythe, MaRo's boss. Why not try treading on your boss's toes... Even MaRo knows where his boundaries are.
Aaron's in charge of the green deck.
Now I won't say there're too many color pie violations, and I won't call them frequent. If it happens a few times every year, out of a few hundred new cards printed, I don't think the sky will fall. But yes, there'll be questions aim at color pie violations all the time.
Also take note that we've been getting more designers and developers who's core isn't Magic, but other games. Some of them do not subscribe to the MaRo bible, and as such sometimes seeps through the RnD process and into the printers. That said, do not expect any violations while MaRo is in charge of design sets, unless he was sleeping.
So where can we expect such violations, if they were to exist? Core sets, and supplementary ones. Ding, ding! Commander is one of them.
It was the justification behind the breaking of the color pie in Scars of Mirrodin, Mirrodin Besieged, and New Pherexia, which he either was the head designer or helped design. (I thought thosse sets were wonderful by the way.)
And much like Planar Chaos, he has later said that he made a mistake by allowing that much bleed in order to push the flavor of the set.
And of course, the colour pie is not a finished product. There are constant re-evaluations going on to fix up perceived problems. For example, they've decided that card drawing is too important to be limited in only a handful of colours, so red is now getting some very red feeling brands of card drawing - looting and "exile, but can cast that turn" effects. They are also looking for new combat mechanics to give to blue so eventually they will find one and add it to blue's colour pie.
On top of that you have the usual temporary stretching of the colour pie that goes on in every block, where some aspect of the colour pie gets stretched in some direction, like exile effects in during a graveyard set. This stretching is then put back in the next block, but then a new type of stretching takes effect, and for eternal sets, all of this stretching really adds up.
I don't understand. Almost every time I see someone ask him a color pie question on his blog, he is quick to point out that flavor is a bad justification because you can make a flavor justification for anything.
Exactly, Maro says that the color pie is about mechanical restrictions. It's not, because one day competitions sat down with design and told them how just stopping the print of Ancestral Recall wasn't enough to make non-Blue colors playable. But then, Maro goes on and on as if these mechanical restrictions are possible, good for the game, what have you. What he's saying just doesn't match reality, is the worst part.
If what you are talking about is Vigilance, Trample, Regenerate, etc, maybe these restrictions are possible. But if you're talking about card draw, creature removal, mana accel, to name a few, that issue was raised and resolved 20 years ago when competitions noticed every deck had the same colors.
I don't understand. Almost every time I see someone ask him a color pie question on his blog, he is quick to point out that flavor is a bad justification because you can make a flavor justification for anything.
Exactly, Maro says that the color pie is about mechanical restrictions. It's not, because one day competitions sat down with design and told them how just stopping the print of Ancestral Recall wasn't enough to make non-Blue colors playable. But then, Maro goes on and on as if these mechanical restrictions are possible, good for the game, what have you. What he's saying just doesn't match reality, is the worst part.
If what you are talking about is Vigilance, Trample, Regenerate, etc, maybe these restrictions are possible. But if you're talking about card draw, creature removal, mana accel, to name a few, that issue was raised and resolved 20 years ago when competitions noticed every deck had the same colors.
The colors don't need access to every mechanic to be balanced. Three out of four decks in the Proven section in Standard don't play Blue. Evidently, non-Blue colors are playable, because they stopped printing stuff like Ancestral Recall and started printing Jace's Ingenuity, which is a balanced card-draw spell. Many people play non-Blue EDH decks. Not having access to specific mechanics doesn't make colors unplayable. Giving one color access to cards that cost 1/5 of what they should makes the other colors unplayable.
The color pie makes the game more interesting. If you want to play Red, you have to accept that you're not going to get much card draw. Burn decks are really strong in Modern right now. Some use Treasure Cruise, some don't, and the ones without it are doing just as well.
As far as inability to deal with certain permanent types in EDH goes, note that artifacts and colorless spells more or less take care of this problem as long as you're willing to wipe the board: Nevinyrral's Disk, Oblivion Stone, Perilous Vault, All Is Dust, Eye of Doom, Spine of Ish Sah, and now Unstable Obelisk. That's three cards that wipe artifacts, creatures, and enchantments as well as one card that forces sacrifice of all colored permanents plus three that destroy one or more of any permanent type. And you can go deeper if you're willing to pay more mana. So monogreen can deal with creatures, monored can deal with enchantments, and monoblack can deal with artifacts and enchantments. Personally I consider the first three excellent sweepers in any deck that wants sweepers. They're either slow or cost a lot of mana, but the instant-speed activation shines in my experience. All Is Dust also rocks. Monocolor decks should only have issues with certain permanent types if they're not willing to run such sweepers or can't afford them in $ terms. (Not all decks want to wipe the board.)
I don't understand. Almost every time I see someone ask him a color pie question on his blog, he is quick to point out that flavor is a bad justification because you can make a flavor justification for anything.
Exactly, Maro says that the color pie is about mechanical restrictions. It's not, because one day competitions sat down with design and told them how just stopping the print of Ancestral Recall wasn't enough to make non-Blue colors playable. But then, Maro goes on and on as if these mechanical restrictions are possible, good for the game, what have you. What he's saying just doesn't match reality, is the worst part.
If what you are talking about is Vigilance, Trample, Regenerate, etc, maybe these restrictions are possible. But if you're talking about card draw, creature removal, mana accel, to name a few, that issue was raised and resolved 20 years ago when competitions noticed every deck had the same colors.
The colors don't need access to every mechanic to be balanced. Three out of four decks in the Proven section in Standard don't play Blue. Evidently, non-Blue colors are playable, because they stopped printing stuff like Ancestral Recall and started printing Jace's Ingenuity, which is a balanced card-draw spell. Many people play non-Blue EDH decks. Not having access to specific mechanics doesn't make colors unplayable. Giving one color access to cards that cost 1/5 of what they should makes the other colors unplayable.
The color pie makes the game more interesting. If you want to play Red, you have to accept that you're not going to get much card draw. Burn decks are really strong in Modern right now. Some use Treasure Cruise, some don't, and the ones without it are doing just as well.
Modern is a very different beast in this regard. It is, in fact, the point where the backlash against traditional blue first started; note that Counterspell last saw print in 7th edition (not counting supplements).
Honestly, within supplemental products, I feel like the mechanical restrictions of the color pie do not actually matter significantly. There are 3 main formats that benefit from supplements: Legacy, Vintage, and EDH. All 3 of those already have access to off-pie cards from older editions, so printing a card like this really just helps to round out those inconsistencies. I just wish they'd help white and red out with some good CA options (although I don't care that much since I'm BUG-4-life).
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Yes, I get what you saying. It appears your thread spawned a color pie debate.
No. I'm arguing the current color pie isn't up for debate if there is a singular authority. These links appear to state exactly that.
Actually, there is a winner, and it's not subjective. From what I gather according to what Jiv has posted, Maro is the ultimate defining entity of the current state of the color pie. There is no reason for me to debate this anymore. Those arguing that Song of the Dryads are within Green are wrong. I am no longer in that camp until a new head designer states otherwise.
Yes, it appears to me there are inconsistencies with Maro's previous rulings. It's okay. People can make mistakes. No big deal. However, it wasn't very obvious to me when I'm told other people employed by wizards are also designing cards, and cards like song of the dryads are allowed to make the cut and see print. This is misleading to me.
But it is very clear now and I will point out to anyone otherwise that they are clearly wrong and do not understand the how the color pie works.
So it's okay to break the pie sometimes, if everyone agrees on it, but not other times. Okay.
Oh good, that solves the problem. Case closed. Everyone go home now. I would have loved to be there for that speech. I think it's hilarious he waited 20 years to make his "big speech" and that he even called it a speech. That guy is too much.
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The issue I have is that sometimes Maro seems to see the color pie as flavor only, but in other cases like this he talks about the restrictions that the color pie needs to present, why it's good for the game, etc. They are two entirely different things. So of course, the player base is confused as to what in the world is being talked about when he opens his mouth about color.
So, the real debate is which version of the color pie is the actual one. Either fundamental restrictions are in design, or it's flavor only that design upholds. And, which version of the pie should it uphold? On that, it's pretty clear to me that on creature removal, card draw and several other things critical to the creature oriented games that Maro wants everyone to be having, you just can't deny them to certain colors without not seeing those colors played. And seeing as how Pongify, Harmonize, etc, continue to get printed, evidently design agrees with that. And Maro is out in left field when he says criticizes another design team's printing of a Green card that kills creatures.
As to his opinion on Standard playing better than Eternal formats because of color pie mistakes, the more relevant reason why all the Legacy Delver decks look the same no matter the colors is because the lands are there that allow 3 color decks full of 1 drops. Because one day design sat down with the competition committee, who then presented the problem that Green and White weren't getting any play in events. The alternatives were either break the color pie, or make it so everyone could build multicolor decks. Then, Onslaught block happened, and everyone loved fetch lands. Maro became lead designer, his first block was Ravnica, a multicolor block, and then every block after that included cards that broke the mechanical restrictions of color pie. Talking about color pie restrictions now is like old men talking about how cool the world was before cell phones. The only ones interested in the conversation are nostalgic, and no one takes any of the arguments seriously.
I don't understand. Almost every time I see someone ask him a color pie question on his blog, he is quick to point out that flavor is a bad justification because you can make a flavor justification for anything.
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It was the justification behind the breaking of the color pie in Scars of Mirrodin, Mirrodin Besieged, and New Pherexia, which he either was the head designer or helped design. (I thought thosse sets were wonderful by the way.)
Something being a bad justification isn't going to stop it from being used.
EDH:
RNorin the WaryR <-Link! (Primer - Mono Red Control)
GUEdric, Spymaster of TrestUG <- Link! (Mini-Primer - Dredge)
Duel Commander:
WUGeist of Saint TraftUW <- Link! (Aggro-Control)
BGSkullbriar, the Walking GraveGB <- Link! (Aggro)
BUGDamia, Sage of StoneGUB <- Link! (Extinction Control)
Church of the Wary
No one is saying not to use a card. People just need to understand that just because something exists doesn't mean it should or that more of it should.
No one is saying not to use a card. People just need to understand that just because something exists doesn't mean it should or that more of it should.[/quote]
I think he's talking about using the justification, not the card.
bad example may be bad, but I mean we have the storm scale, a visual representation with his exact views would set a lot of things closer to line, as well as show the design philosophy in regards to 90% percent of cards, while allowing random oddball color bleeds or experiments to be toyed with by design
Dude, red can take out Circle of Protection: Red with Chaos Warp, Disk, and a few things other things that cost a bunch of mana, or using a few turns of tapping and putting counters on it.
Mara is the guru though, and he's done a magnificent of using his color pie theory to make sure each color in magic is balanced.
In Commander..... not so much.
I think an important piece of the puzzle is what tone he was actually saying this in; was it "I hate hate hate hate commander and all it stands for!", or "Yeah, I don't like this card, but it's being printed because Commander/Legacy could use it"? I think too many of use jumped on the first one, to be honest.
I believe the design might have come from Aaron Forsythe, MaRo's boss. Why not try treading on your boss's toes... Even MaRo knows where his boundaries are.
Aaron's in charge of the green deck.
Now I won't say there're too many color pie violations, and I won't call them frequent. If it happens a few times every year, out of a few hundred new cards printed, I don't think the sky will fall. But yes, there'll be questions aim at color pie violations all the time.
Also take note that we've been getting more designers and developers who's core isn't Magic, but other games. Some of them do not subscribe to the MaRo bible, and as such sometimes seeps through the RnD process and into the printers. That said, do not expect any violations while MaRo is in charge of design sets, unless he was sleeping.
So where can we expect such violations, if they were to exist? Core sets, and supplementary ones. Ding, ding! Commander is one of them.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
And much like Planar Chaos, he has later said that he made a mistake by allowing that much bleed in order to push the flavor of the set.
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On top of that you have the usual temporary stretching of the colour pie that goes on in every block, where some aspect of the colour pie gets stretched in some direction, like exile effects in during a graveyard set. This stretching is then put back in the next block, but then a new type of stretching takes effect, and for eternal sets, all of this stretching really adds up.
Green doesn't typically get fliers, but blue does. Solution? Make something like a Trygon Predator.
Exactly, Maro says that the color pie is about mechanical restrictions. It's not, because one day competitions sat down with design and told them how just stopping the print of Ancestral Recall wasn't enough to make non-Blue colors playable. But then, Maro goes on and on as if these mechanical restrictions are possible, good for the game, what have you. What he's saying just doesn't match reality, is the worst part.
If what you are talking about is Vigilance, Trample, Regenerate, etc, maybe these restrictions are possible. But if you're talking about card draw, creature removal, mana accel, to name a few, that issue was raised and resolved 20 years ago when competitions noticed every deck had the same colors.
The colors don't need access to every mechanic to be balanced. Three out of four decks in the Proven section in Standard don't play Blue. Evidently, non-Blue colors are playable, because they stopped printing stuff like Ancestral Recall and started printing Jace's Ingenuity, which is a balanced card-draw spell. Many people play non-Blue EDH decks. Not having access to specific mechanics doesn't make colors unplayable. Giving one color access to cards that cost 1/5 of what they should makes the other colors unplayable.
The color pie makes the game more interesting. If you want to play Red, you have to accept that you're not going to get much card draw. Burn decks are really strong in Modern right now. Some use Treasure Cruise, some don't, and the ones without it are doing just as well.
Modern is a very different beast in this regard. It is, in fact, the point where the backlash against traditional blue first started; note that Counterspell last saw print in 7th edition (not counting supplements).
Honestly, within supplemental products, I feel like the mechanical restrictions of the color pie do not actually matter significantly. There are 3 main formats that benefit from supplements: Legacy, Vintage, and EDH. All 3 of those already have access to off-pie cards from older editions, so printing a card like this really just helps to round out those inconsistencies. I just wish they'd help white and red out with some good CA options (although I don't care that much since I'm BUG-4-life).