Fire is the precursor to civilization and technology, and commonly represents intelligence in non-magic fiction.
But in magic FIRE DUMB GRARGGGH
QFT.
But, I must say, Green/Blue is the color of intelligence. Blue is education; Green is experience. any 18th century philosophy course will tell you that. If I didn't respect every color for what it was, my partial taste would veer to G/U.
Red is the color of passion and inexplicable drive (you ask a red mage 'why?', and you get 'why not? It felt right'. This mentality is close to green's 'it is what it was meant to be' policy, and why they get along pretty well; they respect and don't impose upon each other). which leaves me confused as to how a tinkerer and delver do not have respective opposites on the red side. Red is a combination of resourcefulness and experience, which are both forms of intelligence. The drive to deconstruct can pertain some construction. a blue scholar creating engineered explosives leaves me somewhat awry.
And why does red have to be narrow but white doesnt? this is retarded logic. if this thread wanted to be anal about color characteristics, every single white creature in the magic universe should have some form of defender and pacifism. Being the color of protection, peace, unity, and red is 'the color of war', there is no reason for white to ever take the offensive stance... right?
Exactly. Stop giving red crappy drawbacks for doing what it has lived for doing for decades, fighting, living passionately, and laughing all the way throughout. The only self-inflicting, encumbering, start hard-finish weak type of red mage that makes sense to me is the one leading a goblin army; this makes sense only because of the nature of the goblins. An army of warriors? The only thing that should ever reasonably beat it is a mass of huge beasts. And if White represents the perfect defense, Red is the perfect weapon. Clashing, these two should be equals in their own right, yet one of these colors *cough cough* has dominion over them all apparently.
One thing that honestly bothers me is how I haven't seen forger or smith on a red card for quite a few sets now.
Also, Dwarves ARE extremely rich... in multicolor (R/W) design. Orcs, Moggs, barbarians, overall, are the higher intelligence species over goblins in red's color pie. Elementals are the truer forms of passion for red (and green). These are the tribes that need more love.
There are tons of fictional references to Red. But I shall contribute a historical one:
THE MOTHER*****ING MONGOLS! unstoppable, brilliant at winning a fight, caring for nothing the thrill of life and enjoying the thought of beating everything life threw at them. They were *crafty*, *resourceful*, *ruthless*, *experienced*, and the best of their time at fighting. In an academic setting, Im sure they would fail; in a Republic, I'm sure they would feel like they could not thrive.
I am personally ecstatic that there is an almost unanimous agreement on green needing more interactive creatures to represent the color's adaptive quality.
Great, Great, and seriously something MaRo's team needs to consider.
the more debatable aspect of this article is green removal (and subsequently bacteria and viruses).
Green should never have a removal spell. Never. The desire to eliminate life is not green. Hence the inability for wizards to justify cards like hornet sting and bee sting.
Yet the voracity of certain species cannot be ignored in green's pie either. Point being, this is what a virus or bacteria would and should do. Bacteria and viruses have bodies; they should not be considered just a spell but a body that either ceases to exist [the sacrifice effect on mogg fanatic] when claiming a host [the damage dealt to a creature] or grows in response to claiming life like this on a stick.
Using acidic slime as the posterboy, This is everything a green creature should be. And to be honest, for it's cmc to p/t level, I could even see this printed with flash on it.
I disagree strongly with the article. The problem isn't with Green, it is with Blue, Black, and White.
Green is the color of growth, epitomized by land search and mana ramp. And it's the color of giant dinosaurs, behemoths, and wurms. These are beautifully flavorful, complimentary aspects of the color, with powerful synergy.
Unfortunately, terribly designed cards like Doom Blade, Path to Exile, and Vapor Snag keep getting printed. And having your eight mana, 9/9 fatty countered, pacified, bounced, or removed for just 1 or 2 mana is such a tempo swing it ends games. This ensures that 95% of all green creatures will never see competitive play. In fact, it pushes the average converted mana cost of all playable creatures in each format down to match the cost of the prevalent removal, generally making the most efficient 1 and 2 drops central to the format.
The only fatties that will ever be played in an environment like this are ones that are so ridiculously pushed that they're still good even if they get answered for 1 mana. Enter the Titans. But whoops - every color gets those. Sorry Green!
And therein lies the other problem. The fatty creature color generally gets the worst fatties. Angels, demons, dragons, and vampires get cool abilities like flying, lifelink, first strike, firebreathing, and so on. They steal creatures, ping stuff, protect themselves, and are all around nifty. Big green creatures, though, are generally just vanilla, and rarely even have trample. And when Green finally does a get a fatty that can compete - most recently, Primeval Titan - R&D feels a need to make sure that all the other colors get matching fatties that are as good or better.
Hahaa. yeah this.
The Japanese should have learned a dark ritual or two to doom blade or remove the eye blight of a dinosaur, Godzilla. Seriously though. "destroy... creature" needs to be more costly.
Removal should have stayed here. I personally like the 4cmc counter we received in DKA. its how a counter should be. why does it take less energy (CMC - x) to stop a force in motion (CMC)? it should take more.
Referencing the article, the only things I really agreed with, Plagues and Adaptation.
bacteria and viruses arent intentionally virulent, they just desire to prolong their existence. they wish to just be... sometimes that 'be'ing requires the atmosphere of a human lung... or cranium. So if people wind up dying... it can't be helped! Green is not the color of Life, but a color of the Life Cycle; death is an accepted part of it.
On adapting, the earlier post about resilience is brilliant. Green wants to survive. Indeed. So green should represent 'survivability' more. mechanics like hexproof, deathtouch, and fight should be faaaarrrrr more widespread/ evergreen.
Also, why dont green creatures adapt to the conditions of the battlefield more often? green creatures with ' whenever a [insert card type or color here] enters the battlefield (or whenever a player plays a ____ spell), this creature [does something that corresponds to the type of card played]. Werewolves were a good and overdue first step. but we should have been beyond casting two spells in a turn to trigger an effect at this point.
Elves was the best deck in standard. and it gained nothing as a standard deck to combat the now better midrange and control decks except for lead the stampede.
This was my favorite aggro deck.
I will deckbuild for a little to improve on it but Leyline of Vitality had a hard enough time keeping archdruid and ezuri safe from pyroclasm. now there's Slagstorm and BSZ to worry about. Makes me wanna drop my monu's.
Brazilian vamps is the way to go for now as they have reach outside of board presence and the ability to steal games in the result of a sweep. Plus recursion.
Elves will have to go midrange/Gain some reliable reach or control synergy with the tribe or bust and let G/X midrange take over.
^ it wasn't sandbox on my end. if it was that BSZ would hit for -2 by t3. i was sandboxing for your knights. which still isn't that amazing. my sandbox would discard your t2 play and have 2 BSZ's drawn by t4. I purposely didn't do it that way so you can see what your running is nothing like clockwork.
And a point isn't invalid when there a better options to negate certain said points. my argument is your deck is too slow for comp, mono white aggro can recover faster and can even have a blowout with the strength of cards used. Knights take too long to get it together and longer to recover.
Note: Who would have an early creature game and playset BSZ in the same deck?
? what key turn? do you have creatures? I play it. simply. i dont wait till I'm threatened. that was generally the idea around my last post, I dont lose anything from doing so except for having a ready bsz to let off in my hand.
Seriously, this is what BSZ and 8 enablers allow me to comfortably do:
you t1:Knight
me t1: attrition or pass doesn't matter much
You t2: Knight/swing (for 2, impossible but you can have it for the example)
me t2: sphere/chalice
you t3: Knight/swing (for 4, Likely if you drew the right cards and I did 0 disruption)
me t3: BSZ (I should have 4 mana here but lets entertain) for -1/-1 (positive it should kill the t1 knight looking at half the lists and cuts the p/t of your field down in half)
how much damage even in god hand (Not saying this is godhand particular; this is setting up the tribe early which is ideal, am i wrong?) would that be over the course of three turns... 4-6? I clear your board and keep the removal count in my deck up; you have to start your tribe over. Even if you kept every creature on board, i gave myself time by reducing the strength of your knights to insect tokens.
After seeing my opp play the first knight, I'm well aware of what is being played. and my thought is what do you plan on reliably achieving t5 wins against?
Not anything black.
wanna know how I know? i review threads like this, bring the info to my playgroup, and ensue the benefits of risk. And I'm far from one of the best players you can find, well not that far, but IMO you playing silence or HotP to not end the game isn't worth it. and if your not playing it early, youre playing it late which means your creatures are subject to any butt ☺☺☺☺ery a competitive list will have prepared against decks faster than yours in this meta (I.E. red aggro/WW).
Imagine what kind of advice you would get from top players about going tribal. I was one of the first to boast a Nocturnusless vamps build, I know a bit about tribes and potential. Knights do not have reach, nor do they punish sweeping. They swing balls out into infect at fnm and -1/-1 counters sweep competitively.
It's pretty to look at I suppose. but realistically, General white aggro is better than going tribal.
I think it nice to promote new archetypes but i feel this one in particular will bring about a lot of disppointment.
Maybe splashing a different color and thinning out knight density as some one suggested? Nah.
personally I've planned on sweepers. and when I see them I'll side in my sun's zenth or elpeth. swarm recovery.
^ This. This is the best possible answer vs decks prepped for aggro. and the only cards that do so arent even knight related. Tokens are better than Knights atm.
(1)first off, how can it be a staple in EVERY list, when it isn't even legal yet and no one has played Mirrodin Besieged competitively.
I am not arguing that it wont be played. Zenith is an excellent card, and definetly will see play..but the way you stated it, just isn't true yet. Secondly, I run 3x Brave the Elements main deck, so pyroclasm, slagstorm, and arc trail don't scare me as much.
If you are very concerned about playing against the zenith, you can splash blue for mana leak, black for memoricide, or play more conservatively. Because I run 3x Honor of the Pure and 3x Ajani Goldmane, my creatures usually have a toughness of at least 3-4, (2)so they are going to have to cast Zenith for 5-7. Another answer for mono white would be more recursion.
Massacre Wurm is the only other card that could cause us problems, but by the time he comes out we are above 2 toughness.
a little bit a realism for you:
1. Inkmoth, Gsz, Bsz are the three most expensive rares in MBS, prices comparable to the mythics. Someone is buying them.
That aside, inventing realities is as bad as lying, and it would have been more appropriate to say 'BSZ is going to be' because youre right it isnt, but is it going to be.
2. casting it for 5-7 is probably what you would do. casting it for 4-5 is perfect for me. comes with a free shuffle, you have a weaker board (for the massacre i have every intention of getting my hands on), and thats a removal spell back in my deck.
that overextension you are doing is where i drop my enablers (chalice) and disruption (anything black has). Black as a color is very powerful as a control element atm. I'm actually not quite sure what its lacking that cant be attained through the use of artifacts. Bonehoard is literally gravy as a finisher in any deck.
Point I'm making here is that creatures that need to band, tribes technically, can be disrupted very easily and can be shut down before ever setting up. the fact that the best creature sweeper is in the color with targeted hand, deck and graveyard attrition means that to be playing creatures requires that they all, not all but most in the very least, be highly efficient stand alone.
Also, Midrange is going/bound to make an appearance. That and Aggro doesnt have anything that will remain T1 IMO. Its best options are to either splash for counters or splash for disruption/reach. Which is aggro with a controllish setup. or Midrange.
Brazilian vamps might stick around, but thats not really aggro either way.
Kraken, agreed, is the best one drop for archi. Treasure mage is the best three drop. But coralhelm might not be as useful as thrummingbird or even Plated Seastrider for this deck.
Generating mana and stabilizing is the most important thing for this deck the first three turns. Aggressive creatures like Coralhelm Commander, and even thrummingbird on a bad setup, isn't the best choice because of low toughness and the fact that you really want your blue creatures to be turning sideways for architect. Not attacking.
4 cards that are all decent, 2 are cheap, one is dbl prolif, and last one is lux cannon 5 and 6 (which IMO is better than DForce if you already have Slagstorm in the list). This is only referring to cards that interact with Throne of Geth.
has anyone discussed how Black is one of the most played colors and that Black Sun's Zenith is a staple in every list that isnt vamps (They might just run Slagstorm.)?
Tribes that dont punish removal and sweepers (anything not vamps) wont last long enough in comp standard.
Elves are taking a dive after rotation and knights aren't better than elves IMO.
QFT.
But, I must say, Green/Blue is the color of intelligence. Blue is education; Green is experience. any 18th century philosophy course will tell you that. If I didn't respect every color for what it was, my partial taste would veer to G/U.
Red is the color of passion and inexplicable drive (you ask a red mage 'why?', and you get 'why not? It felt right'. This mentality is close to green's 'it is what it was meant to be' policy, and why they get along pretty well; they respect and don't impose upon each other). which leaves me confused as to how a tinkerer and delver do not have respective opposites on the red side. Red is a combination of resourcefulness and experience, which are both forms of intelligence. The drive to deconstruct can pertain some construction. a blue scholar creating engineered explosives leaves me somewhat awry.
And why does red have to be narrow but white doesnt? this is retarded logic. if this thread wanted to be anal about color characteristics, every single white creature in the magic universe should have some form of defender and pacifism. Being the color of protection, peace, unity, and red is 'the color of war', there is no reason for white to ever take the offensive stance... right?
Exactly. Stop giving red crappy drawbacks for doing what it has lived for doing for decades, fighting, living passionately, and laughing all the way throughout. The only self-inflicting, encumbering, start hard-finish weak type of red mage that makes sense to me is the one leading a goblin army; this makes sense only because of the nature of the goblins. An army of warriors? The only thing that should ever reasonably beat it is a mass of huge beasts. And if White represents the perfect defense, Red is the perfect weapon. Clashing, these two should be equals in their own right, yet one of these colors *cough cough* has dominion over them all apparently.
One thing that honestly bothers me is how I haven't seen forger or smith on a red card for quite a few sets now.
Also, Dwarves ARE extremely rich... in multicolor (R/W) design. Orcs, Moggs, barbarians, overall, are the higher intelligence species over goblins in red's color pie. Elementals are the truer forms of passion for red (and green). These are the tribes that need more love.
There are tons of fictional references to Red. But I shall contribute a historical one:
THE MOTHER*****ING MONGOLS! unstoppable, brilliant at winning a fight, caring for nothing the thrill of life and enjoying the thought of beating everything life threw at them. They were *crafty*, *resourceful*, *ruthless*, *experienced*, and the best of their time at fighting. In an academic setting, Im sure they would fail; in a Republic, I'm sure they would feel like they could not thrive.
I'm a fan of both. Great designs guys.
Great, Great, and seriously something MaRo's team needs to consider.
the more debatable aspect of this article is green removal (and subsequently bacteria and viruses).
Green should never have a removal spell. Never. The desire to eliminate life is not green. Hence the inability for wizards to justify cards like hornet sting and bee sting.
Yet the voracity of certain species cannot be ignored in green's pie either. Point being, this is what a virus or bacteria would and should do. Bacteria and viruses have bodies; they should not be considered just a spell but a body that either ceases to exist [the sacrifice effect on mogg fanatic] when claiming a host [the damage dealt to a creature] or grows in response to claiming life like this on a stick.
That said the 'stings' on a sacrificial body makes more sense.
That aside: I must admit and point out to the rest of this thread that adaptation is not something that has been ignored whatsoever; it has just been dispersed and isolated mostly within certain cards and somewhat this //gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?type=+[ooze">||subtype=+[ooze]||text=+[ooze]&color=+@([G])"]tribe.
Using acidic slime as the posterboy, This is everything a green creature should be. And to be honest, for it's cmc to p/t level, I could even see this printed with flash on it.
Hahaa. yeah this.
The Japanese should have learned a dark ritual or two to doom blade or remove the eye blight of a dinosaur, Godzilla. Seriously though. "destroy... creature" needs to be more costly.
Removal should have stayed here. I personally like the 4cmc counter we received in DKA. its how a counter should be. why does it take less energy (CMC - x) to stop a force in motion (CMC)? it should take more.
Referencing the article, the only things I really agreed with, Plagues and Adaptation.
bacteria and viruses arent intentionally virulent, they just desire to prolong their existence. they wish to just be... sometimes that 'be'ing requires the atmosphere of a human lung... or cranium. So if people wind up dying... it can't be helped! Green is not the color of Life, but a color of the Life Cycle; death is an accepted part of it.
On adapting, the earlier post about resilience is brilliant. Green wants to survive. Indeed. So green should represent 'survivability' more. mechanics like hexproof, deathtouch, and fight should be faaaarrrrr more widespread/ evergreen.
Also, why dont green creatures adapt to the conditions of the battlefield more often? green creatures with ' whenever a [insert card type or color here] enters the battlefield (or whenever a player plays a ____ spell), this creature [does something that corresponds to the type of card played]. Werewolves were a good and overdue first step. but we should have been beyond casting two spells in a turn to trigger an effect at this point.
Good call on Pognify though.
This was my favorite aggro deck.
I will deckbuild for a little to improve on it but Leyline of Vitality had a hard enough time keeping archdruid and ezuri safe from pyroclasm. now there's Slagstorm and BSZ to worry about. Makes me wanna drop my monu's.
Brazilian vamps is the way to go for now as they have reach outside of board presence and the ability to steal games in the result of a sweep. Plus recursion.
Elves will have to go midrange/Gain some reliable reach or control synergy with the tribe or bust and let G/X midrange take over.
I expect two midrange archetypes to pop up. Some type of evolution of elves and something with Tezz in it.
And a point isn't invalid when there a better options to negate certain said points. my argument is your deck is too slow for comp, mono white aggro can recover faster and can even have a blowout with the strength of cards used. Knights take too long to get it together and longer to recover.
? what key turn? do you have creatures? I play it. simply. i dont wait till I'm threatened. that was generally the idea around my last post, I dont lose anything from doing so except for having a ready bsz to let off in my hand.
Seriously, this is what BSZ and 8 enablers allow me to comfortably do:
you t1:Knight
me t1: attrition or pass doesn't matter much
You t2: Knight/swing (for 2, impossible but you can have it for the example)
me t2: sphere/chalice
you t3: Knight/swing (for 4, Likely if you drew the right cards and I did 0 disruption)
me t3: BSZ (I should have 4 mana here but lets entertain) for -1/-1 (positive it should kill the t1 knight looking at half the lists and cuts the p/t of your field down in half)
how much damage even in god hand (Not saying this is godhand particular; this is setting up the tribe early which is ideal, am i wrong?) would that be over the course of three turns... 4-6? I clear your board and keep the removal count in my deck up; you have to start your tribe over. Even if you kept every creature on board, i gave myself time by reducing the strength of your knights to insect tokens.
After seeing my opp play the first knight, I'm well aware of what is being played. and my thought is what do you plan on reliably achieving t5 wins against?
Not anything black.
wanna know how I know? i review threads like this, bring the info to my playgroup, and ensue the benefits of risk. And I'm far from one of the best players you can find, well not that far, but IMO you playing silence or HotP to not end the game isn't worth it. and if your not playing it early, youre playing it late which means your creatures are subject to any butt ☺☺☺☺ery a competitive list will have prepared against decks faster than yours in this meta (I.E. red aggro/WW).
Imagine what kind of advice you would get from top players about going tribal. I was one of the first to boast a Nocturnusless vamps build, I know a bit about tribes and potential. Knights do not have reach, nor do they punish sweeping. They swing balls out into infect at fnm and -1/-1 counters sweep competitively.
It's pretty to look at I suppose. but realistically, General white aggro is better than going tribal.
I think it nice to promote new archetypes but i feel this one in particular will bring about a lot of disppointment.
Maybe splashing a different color and thinning out knight density as some one suggested? Nah.
^ This. This is the best possible answer vs decks prepped for aggro. and the only cards that do so arent even knight related. Tokens are better than Knights atm.
Conqueror's Pledge/Elspeth Tirel/White Sun's Zenith/Hero of Bladehold (makes soldiers) = all better cards to use in conjunction with brave the elements/ajani goldmane/honor of the pure.
a little bit a realism for you:
1. Inkmoth, Gsz, Bsz are the three most expensive rares in MBS, prices comparable to the mythics. Someone is buying them.
That aside, inventing realities is as bad as lying, and it would have been more appropriate to say 'BSZ is going to be' because youre right it isnt, but is it going to be.
2. casting it for 5-7 is probably what you would do. casting it for 4-5 is perfect for me. comes with a free shuffle, you have a weaker board (for the massacre i have every intention of getting my hands on), and thats a removal spell back in my deck.
that overextension you are doing is where i drop my enablers (chalice) and disruption (anything black has). Black as a color is very powerful as a control element atm. I'm actually not quite sure what its lacking that cant be attained through the use of artifacts. Bonehoard is literally gravy as a finisher in any deck.
Point I'm making here is that creatures that need to band, tribes technically, can be disrupted very easily and can be shut down before ever setting up. the fact that the best creature sweeper is in the color with targeted hand, deck and graveyard attrition means that to be playing creatures requires that they all, not all but most in the very least, be highly efficient stand alone.
I dare say yes.
------------------
I agree with Lost.
Also, Midrange is going/bound to make an appearance. That and Aggro doesnt have anything that will remain T1 IMO. Its best options are to either splash for counters or splash for disruption/reach. Which is aggro with a controllish setup. or Midrange.
Brazilian vamps might stick around, but thats not really aggro either way.
Unfortunately it hasn't really gained anything.
Generating mana and stabilizing is the most important thing for this deck the first three turns. Aggressive creatures like Coralhelm Commander, and even thrummingbird on a bad setup, isn't the best choice because of low toughness and the fact that you really want your blue creatures to be turning sideways for architect. Not attacking.
Myr Sire
Ichor Wellspring
Core prowler
Spine of Ish Sah
4 cards that are all decent, 2 are cheap, one is dbl prolif, and last one is lux cannon 5 and 6 (which IMO is better than DForce if you already have Slagstorm in the list). This is only referring to cards that interact with Throne of Geth.
IF Sphere of the Suns is used in conjunction with Mox opal, odd deck techs like Frantic Salvage might work out.
There's alot going on for machine's right now.
Tribes that dont punish removal and sweepers (anything not vamps) wont last long enough in comp standard.
Elves are taking a dive after rotation and knights aren't better than elves IMO.