Seeing as blue had just lost Rune Snag, Delay, Mana Leak, and a slew of other situational counters, Broken Ambitions was one of the only options worth running that countered most spells. The only other real options were Cryptic Command, which cost 4, and Cancel/Faerie Trickery which just weren't good enough compared to all the turn two counters.
Broken Ambitions wasn't actually that good of a card, and neither is Syncopate. The only reason it would see play is if no other good counterspells are printed in the set -which, in all honesty, is actually somewhat likely. Wizards has decided to stop supporting its real playerbase as of late in favor of catering to children.
Casual players are the ones paying wizards more money than tournament players ever will, its always been this way man, always. If you don't like that, you should stop buying cards now.
Wizards is scared of blue dominating the meta anyways because it HAS dominated the meta since Zen/Scars standard with Caw-Blade, AND now with WU Delver, not to mention Delver melded the meta into a speed fest due to how fast it could be come a 3/2.
Standard is still going to be a speed fest due to Overload, Abrupt Decay, Radkos spells, Golgari nonsense, etc.
As for the two cards, Syncopate is too slow to see play in anything other than limited. Smiter is legit as **** though, because it can be splashed in any sideboard, including the Jund Sideboard. Its also a 4/4 for 3 mana which is insane in itself.
This honestly sounds like Wizards looked at what Konami did recently to TCG players who had wanted Crush Card Virus for so long, only for it to get banned about a month before the pack containing CCV was released.
This ruling basically turned Legacy into a money format in terms of tournaments.
This game will have Final Fantasy 4, Romancing Saga 2, and, interestingly enough, Magic The Gathering characters. The down side to the Magic characters? Only one is a Plainswalker and it is...Nicol Bolas.
Yeah, let me rephrase that. The only Plainswalker is one of the most powerful Magic characters to ever walk this earth, who will either be written as a fail villain who gets blown away by everyone else or he blows everyone else's **** up to a million pieces.
The other three are Birds of Paradise, Serra Angel, and Shivan Dragon. It'll be interesting to see how these three are written in.
Sorry about the italics, but I copied and pasted the name from another site, so the italics are making me look like a douche.
with lightning bolt coming back it most likely means incinerate, and shock are gone, plus we dont know what the other colors will be receiving, WOTC always tends to balance stuff out so we could be getting COP:Red and Worship plus creatures now are way better then they were back in 4th ed. So I seriously doubt its such a power creep, heck they already reprinted a similar version of swords so I doubt thats so much of a power creep.
I myself am not sure still. We'll just have to wait and see then.
If there wasn't enough evidence, from Maro's article today:
No way he says that if Lightning Bolt isn't back. Why reference a card that hasn't been printed in X number of years to make the point about printing cards that are simple and intuitive for new players.
Because its the biggest power creep ever for a single color? Seriously, burn becomes too good with Lightning Bolt, Ball Lightning, Incinerate, and Shock all legal. Hell we DO have Incinerate, and that alone is balanced.
Also, 5 damage for two mana each turn says Lightning Bolt isn't coming back. Its just too powerful. In any format.
Why, you've provided convincing invisible evidence for your baseless opinion against the existing evidence leaning towards the contrary. Why, thank you good sir. Very profound of you.
No offense, but;
Russian Wizards website =/= Official Wizards website. The official site doesn't even have the art work on it.
Well obviously not with the same name, but with a different one, like "Lighting Strike" or something that fits the flavor of a lighting bolt hitting you in the face.
I don't think Lighting is even confirmed and I myself don't believe its coming back until Wizards themselves say it is. This could be for a new version of lightning bolt too.
I was almost late for my prerelease. When I got there a buddy of mine said I would be late to my own funeral.
I ended up going 3-2 with Bant. I dominated when I switched to Bant tho. I WAS playing 5CC before, but I drew nothing half the time when I DID play 5CC.
You know why the Tea Parties happened? Rich people and Republicans. They want their Bush Taxes back to they can take advantage of the poor even more.
Enter Texas, who is not only full of rich people, but it is also a thriving place of commerce and their economy is well off. But you know what? Who will they trade with? The US? The one thing they get more money from? And what currency would they use?
Texas cannot and will not secede. You know why? Because their state would go into a economic depression so bad people would leave almost immediately.
Casual players are the ones paying wizards more money than tournament players ever will, its always been this way man, always. If you don't like that, you should stop buying cards now.
Wizards is scared of blue dominating the meta anyways because it HAS dominated the meta since Zen/Scars standard with Caw-Blade, AND now with WU Delver, not to mention Delver melded the meta into a speed fest due to how fast it could be come a 3/2.
Standard is still going to be a speed fest due to Overload, Abrupt Decay, Radkos spells, Golgari nonsense, etc.
As for the two cards, Syncopate is too slow to see play in anything other than limited. Smiter is legit as **** though, because it can be splashed in any sideboard, including the Jund Sideboard. Its also a 4/4 for 3 mana which is insane in itself.
This ruling basically turned Legacy into a money format in terms of tournaments.
This game will have Final Fantasy 4, Romancing Saga 2, and, interestingly enough, Magic The Gathering characters. The down side to the Magic characters? Only one is a Plainswalker and it is...Nicol Bolas.
Yeah, let me rephrase that. The only Plainswalker is one of the most powerful Magic characters to ever walk this earth, who will either be written as a fail villain who gets blown away by everyone else or he blows everyone else's **** up to a million pieces.
The other three are Birds of Paradise, Serra Angel, and Shivan Dragon. It'll be interesting to see how these three are written in.
Sorry about the italics, but I copied and pasted the name from another site, so the italics are making me look like a douche.
http://www.square-enix.co.jp/lov2/
Link is here.
In limited, its busted as all hell.
I myself am not sure still. We'll just have to wait and see then.
Because its the biggest power creep ever for a single color? Seriously, burn becomes too good with Lightning Bolt, Ball Lightning, Incinerate, and Shock all legal. Hell we DO have Incinerate, and that alone is balanced.
Also, 5 damage for two mana each turn says Lightning Bolt isn't coming back. Its just too powerful. In any format.
No offense, but;
Russian Wizards website =/= Official Wizards website. The official site doesn't even have the art work on it.
Well obviously not with the same name, but with a different one, like "Lighting Strike" or something that fits the flavor of a lighting bolt hitting you in the face.
That full art makes me think we AREN'T getting a reprint of Lightning Bolt but a watered down version of it.
Also, the first card to me looks new. So do the third and fourth. All of them look new to me.
I ended up going 3-2 with Bant. I dominated when I switched to Bant tho. I WAS playing 5CC before, but I drew nothing half the time when I DID play 5CC.
Enter Texas, who is not only full of rich people, but it is also a thriving place of commerce and their economy is well off. But you know what? Who will they trade with? The US? The one thing they get more money from? And what currency would they use?
Texas cannot and will not secede. You know why? Because their state would go into a economic depression so bad people would leave almost immediately.