while i agree strongly white got some amazing cards... i do see some potential here. i mean let's face it, you really never know which cards will be effective with Rav. as for Fishliver Oil... i rather like it, esp with the saviors cards that allow you to swap/change land.
and i'm thrilled they are keeping Mind Bend around for a bit longer. now i just need to see what artifacts they keep around from 8th...
I was absolutely blindsided by what I saw in the spoiler, especially after reviewing how much better was presumed to be in 9th Edition. After looking through the cards is listed to contain, I am appalled at the gap in quality. I can understand that the core set is to represent the broad flavor of a color and provide fundamental aspects of its personality. I can even relate to the deliberate weakening has undergone in recent sets. What I don’t understand is how long must continue to suffer for all the past R&D mistakes, stemming back as far as Urza Block or further yet Alpha, Beta, Unlimited. Urza Block is about to cycle out of Extended with the rest of the veteran sets. The Time Twins and Ancestral Recall have been all but relegated to limited play in Vintage. Isn't it about time to let recover?
Countermanded I know that many felt the time for cards like Counterspell to rotate out was overdue, but who said anything about the act of countering spells? As the Core set’s number increase, so decreases its number of counter spells. Even thought it was limited in quality I expected to see Vex or Thoughtbind, but never imagined that would be reduced to three counter spells: Mana Leak, Remove Soul and Rewind.
Powerplayed! How low has sunk at the hands of R&D when the most powerful cards in the color are Battle of Wits and Traumatize. Only one of them provides a win condition, but who in their right mind would play a deck containing more than 200 cards in formats where speed is everything? Traumatize is a good card for what it does, but it will never win a game outright. I do have to say that Polymorph is a decent card, but being a sorcery in a speed environment makes me feel it will be a turn too late kind of card. Take a moment of silence to ponder the loss of Bribery.
Mind Bend-over I would never have expected Chill to return and I knew Hibernation was questionable, but how can Baneful Stare and Withering Gaze be considered color hosers? Hosers are supposed to be a card that provide difficulty or set back for an opposing color? At the very least Wrath of Marit Lage tried to offer some relief against :symr:. Drawing cards is a good thing, but what good are cards in hand when you are the least offensive color and are opposing arguably the two most aggressive colors? No not only are they lackluster hosers, they are mana hungry on-turn spells to boot, which brings me to my next question: has all card drawing been slowed to sorcery speed? The spell casting card drawing certainly has shifted that way. I was so sure that with its unrestriction in Vintage and its not being on the reprint policy list that Stroke of Genius was a shoo-in cookie is repayment for the dilution of the standard card pool. Bzzzt, wrong answer! What's next for card draw, all creature abilities will have errata stating they can only be used whenever its controller could play a sorcery?
with Envy I remember a time when those loyalists would balk at every new expansion and every cycling of the core set, exclaiming how was getting the shaft. Those players are stymied at how :symu:’s been given the middle mana symbol, to the point where those times don’t look so bad anymore. Someone stated that in some past article, MaRo explained that R&D balances the game between sets. I can understand that, but why is R&D trying to balance the game seemingly spanning all of Magic beginning with Alpha, Beta and Unlimited? The only thing that would make this list understandable is if R&D is trying to balance a game where they are taking Ancestral, the Time Twins and perhaps Mana Drain into consideration.
Resolution I knew that was going to get drained a bit more than other colors over the last few and next several sets, but enough already. In all honesty, I thought the hosing of was over once 8th came out. With Kamigawa introducing Meloku, I figured that had paid its dues and that come 9th Edition, would begin to bounce back from being a secondary, splash color. Unless the list provided is incorrect, my hopes were to no avail, still sucks, even worse now. I never realized that Spiketail Hatchling was so over powering or that stealing something (Bribery) was too good for :symu:.
I’ve been playing magic for over ten years and in that time I have played all colors, monochorme or combinations of colors, and I can plainly say that as one who enjoys playing I’m not looking forward to the next two years. I understand the shift in the color wheel. I understood the reclassification of interrupts. I can even understand the necessity for weakening :symu:. But to the degree R&D has taken it boggles the mind. It's been a continuous underling theme that 9th was to be a revolutionary set that would elevate core sets to an expert level. No matter how solid :symw:’s list is and the other colors prove to be, in the eyes of players R&D as not only failed but been malicious in doing so.
I'm excited about Plagiarize. And both Annex and Sea's Claim together? With Shifting Borders in Kami block, the blue land-destruction deck might return. Polymorph and Cowardice are great combo enablers, glad to see them again.
In fact, this looks like a very Johnny list. I wonder if they're setting blue up as the 'combo color' and cutting away its control possibilities. Hmmn, but if they were doing that, they would have reprinted Intruder Alarm. Hmmn.
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Uh, its that way RIGHT NOW in case you didn't notice - Big Blue Beatstick and Air Elemental were both in 8th...
Quote from chaosof99 »
BTW, how would you design color hosers for blue? Also, since when where color hosers in blue played, other than Hibernation, which also so absolutely no play while in 8th.
Have you not seen basicly every MUC deck in Standard right now running 3 Hibernations on the sideboard to deal with all the mono-green decks out there?
Personally, I think they should print a card that's Hibernation for red. Cause Wrath of Marit Leige is pretty lousy IMO.
Also, the Randy Beuhler article that was referenced features a fan vote for Hibernation in 8E or not. And the answer the following week was overwhelmingly yes...
What else would you have like to have seen on this list? Aside from the strictly better versions of those cards (which are saved for block and are going to be juicy in RAV), it looks like this list covers all of blue's CORE bases. I'm just curious as to what you think would have been better.
large, cheap fliers? super check
3 counters? check
bounces? check
unblockability in instant, enchantment, and creature forms? check
land swapping? check
creature stealing? check
card drawing in instant, enchantment, and creature forms? check
library manipulation? check
library hosing? check
color hosing? check
WHAT?! Oh, i get it. It's because wandering ones is so good it would to have taken up a rare slot and completely break the standard format all over again.
I was absolutely blindsided by what I saw in the spoiler, especially after reviewing how much better was presumed to be in 9th Edition. After looking through the cards is listed to contain, I am appalled at the gap in quality. I can understand that the core set is to represent the broad flavor of a color and provide fundamental aspects of its personality. I can even relate to the deliberate weakening has undergone in recent sets. What I don’t understand is how long must continue to suffer for all the past R&D mistakes, stemming back as far as Urza Block or further yet Alpha, Beta, Unlimited. Urza Block is about to cycle out of Extended with the rest of the veteran sets. The Time Twins and Ancestral Recall have been all but relegated to limited play in Vintage. Isn't it about time to let recover?
Countermanded I know that many felt the time for cards like Counterspell to rotate out was overdue, but who said anything about the act of countering spells? As the Core set’s number increase, so decreases its number of counter spells. Even thought it was limited in quality I expected to see Vex or Thoughtbind, but never imagined that would be reduced to three counter spells: Mana Leak, Remove Soul and Rewind.
Powerplayed! How low has sunk at the hands of R&D when the most powerful cards in the color are Battle of Wits and Traumatize. Only one of them provides a win condition, but who in their right mind would play a deck containing more than 200 cards in formats where speed is everything? Traumatize is a good card for what it does, but it will never win a game outright. I do have to say that Polymorph is a decent card, but being a sorcery in a speed environment makes me feel it will be a turn too late kind of card. Take a moment of silence to ponder the loss of Bribery.
Mind Bend-over I would never have expected Chill to return and I knew Hibernation was questionable, but how can Baneful Stare and Withering Gaze be considered color hosers? Hosers are supposed to be a card that provide difficulty or set back for an opposing color? At the very least Wrath of Marit Lage tried to offer some relief against :symr:. Drawing cards is a good thing, but what good are cards in hand when you are the least offensive color and are opposing arguably the two most aggressive colors? No not only are they lackluster hosers, they are mana hungry on-turn spells to boot, which brings me to my next question: has all card drawing been slowed to sorcery speed? The spell casting card drawing certainly has shifted that way. I was so sure that with its unrestriction in Vintage and its not being on the reprint policy list that Stroke of Genius was a shoo-in cookie is repayment for the dilution of the standard card pool. Bzzzt, wrong answer! What's next for card draw, all creature abilities will have errata stating they can only be used whenever its controller could play a sorcery?
with Envy I remember a time when those loyalists would balk at every new expansion and every cycling of the core set, exclaiming how was getting the shaft. Those players are stymied at how :symu:’s been given the middle mana symbol, to the point where those times don’t look so bad anymore. Someone stated that in some past article, MaRo explained that R&D balances the game between sets. I can understand that, but why is R&D trying to balance the game seemingly spanning all of Magic beginning with Alpha, Beta and Unlimited? The only thing that would make this list understandable is if R&D is trying to balance a game where they are taking Ancestral, the Time Twins and perhaps Mana Drain into consideration.
Resolution I knew that was going to get drained a bit more than other colors over the last few and next several sets, but enough already. In all honesty, I thought the hosing of was over once 8th came out. With Kamigawa introducing Meloku, I figured that had paid its dues and that come 9th Edition, would begin to bounce back from being a secondary, splash color. Unless the list provided is incorrect, my hopes were to no avail, still sucks, even worse now. I never realized that Spiketail Hatchling was so over powering or that stealing something (Bribery) was too good for :symu:.
I’ve been playing magic for over ten years and in that time I have played all colors, monochorme or in combination with other colors, and I can plainly say that as one who enjoys playing I’m not looking forward to the next two years. In understand the shift in the color wheel. I understood the reclassification of interrupts. I can even understand the necessity for weakening :symu:. But to the degree R&D has taken it boggles the mind. It's been a continuous underling theme that 9th was to be a revolutionary set that would elevate core sets to an expert level. No matter how solid :symw:’s list is and the other colors prove to be, in the eyes of players R&D as not only failed but been malicious in doing so.
I can perfectly understand why you would want to see blue back on track- not too powerful but on the level with all the other colors.
The days of blue hosing should have been over long ago, but the true nature of the problem is much more complicated and much more disturbing. This problem lies at the very heart of what blue is. You see, 3 types of counterspells in the base set is all that blue needs. It can run 4 of each of those, 4 Hinder, and 4 Condescend for a total of 20 counterspells. All blue decks in all of standard, whether mono or 2-color are basically using all the same cards, just in varying amounts. MUC and U/G control play so eerily similar. The slight differences are that MUC runs more counters and plays it slow, while U/G takes short term risks to build up its mana base and use Eternal Witness to get back its precious few-er counters/bounce/Bribery. Both decks run Meloku and Shackles.
My point is that it takes very few different cards to assemble several archetypes. Blue is so efficient in what it does, it can take the most watered down crap versions of its staples and still do effectively the same as it did before. How often does Mana Leak play any differently than a Counterspell? Not very often. Usually its either too early in the game to matter or the opponent has to tap out for the big ass bomb they were going to play anyways. The only times when Mana Leak is significantly worse than Counterspell is when the opponent is mana flooded or they are drawing weaker cards late game...and if they are, aren't you winning anyways? In this sense I could argue that Counterspell is just a win-more version of Mana Leak. Hinder costs only one mana more and the slow control deck usually waits to counter more expensive mid-game cards anyways. The role of the counterspell is so potent and influential it can be wrapped in an uglier package and still serve the same role.
So at what point since Invasion block when they decided to do something about blue, did blue ever get weak? I didn't think about this until today but damn is it disturbing. Around the time of Invasion block there were U/W Control and U/B Control. Powerful even in the days of Fires, these were still solid decks backed by money rares like Absorb and Undermine and served as its main competitors. There were even those awesome U/G decks featuring Mystic Snake. With the coming of Oddy block the U/B Control deck evolved into the horrific Psychatog deck. At the same time U/G Madness was also powerful. (I know you guys already know this, its old ****, but its necessary for my explanation.) These decks went unchallenged when it came to metagame influence, but still neither was completely invincible. I remember how sites struggled to come up with solutions to 'tog, leading to single minded decks like Frog in a Blender and the fun factor of the game was put into question- many wanted Fact or Fiction to be smote by the banhammer, after being tired of having to pcik between 3 good cards and 2 really good cards. After the release of Onslaught block things got much better as FoF rotated out along with many other of blue's tools and as non-blue decks like Astral Slide and Goblin Bidding were able to play just as well as the blue decks, sometimes even better. All was good for quite some time yet people were still sick of the no-rare cheapo blue decks. Surely with the release of Mirrodin this evil color will be laid to rest with the proverbial kick in the balls! Oh how wrong these people were! Broodstar Affinity was the new flavor of the season, whose only colored cards were blue (and sometimes red in the form of Shrapnal Blast). The deck was as cheap to build as the ones before it, except this time it had the horrible side effect of requiring no skill to play. However, after the release of Darksteel people caught on to a more efficient affinity build-Raffinity. The deck was a monster unrivaled in degeneracy by any deck since the Combo Winter. Sadly, the 4 month period between the release of Darksteel and Fifth Dawn, before the introduction of Vedalken Shackles, was the only time in Magic's history that blue has not been the most powerful color, tied for the most powerful color, or the second most powerful color in Standard. After the release of Fifth Dawn the U/G archetype was born and was able to compete against Raffinity much better than any other deck except maybe T&N which was just as good. After Raffinity's spine and entrails were ripped out, blue rose above the rest and now sits as Tier 1 in mono-color form. Blue is at its strongest today since the days of 'tog, except this time it doesn't even need help from a secondary color.
R&D has ended up right back where it started unintentionally. Since they made Skullclamp and the Affinity mechanic I wouldn't put this above them. They need to save face by using the what I call the 'Nuclear Option' so that this evil color doesn't have the will to rise from the ashes after rotation. That may sound harsh, but blue is once again heading down the dangerous path that caused it to be "hosed" in the first place. This time it must be done right, the very integrity of the color wheel depends upon it!!!! :tongue2:
You did not read [url="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mr168"]"The Troubled One"[/url] by Mark Rosewater, did you?
Yes I did. And dispite being a player, I agreed with it. I have no problem with having needed to be weakened. I understood why they had to rotate Counterspell and lessen the power of the color's card drawing capability. I never expected to be given all powerful cards up and down its 9th list, but I did expect some showing that has suffered enough. Compare the card quality of in 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th and you'll see a steady decline of from 6th to the list presented for 9th.
Quote from Mark Rosewater, "The Troubled One" »
All R&D has been trying to do during the last several years is bring blue in line with the other colors. It's not our intent to hose blue but when you go from where blue was to where blue needs to be, it's clearly a step down in power level. I like to think of the entire process as R&D empowering the four other colors of the game. Allow the “siblings” to not have to live in their brother's shadow. But that's all a matter of perspective.
So, if you're a fan of blue, why are we hosing it? Because it's needs to be hosed. If you honestly think that it doesn't deserve it, then either you don't understand where blue's power level was in relation to the other colors or you just enjoy the game having a spoiled child (which means you don't appreciate the importance of a balanced color wheel).
To the fans of all the other colors, you're welcome.
If you look at the opening letter, you'll notice that it's dated May 25, 2002. Meaning that has been undergoing changes for three years and several expansions and save the unknown interaction between and during Madness, :symu:'s been pretty much a sidekick. I have no quaalms about weakening :symu:, which has been accomplished in many ways, foremost the shift of some abilities and characterisitics to other colors, such as redirection (I expect Shunt in 9E:symr:) and cheap fliers, now a thing.
However... If you [url="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mr168a"]continue[/url]d and reread the letter in the second link at the bottom of MaRo's article where numbers where used to illustrate the letter's information, take note that all but three cards (Opposition, Counterspell and Fact or Fiction) in sections 1, 2, 4 and 5 are either rotating out of Extended or haven't been legal in Extended for years. As for Affinity, yes got some really good affinity based cards, but notice that none of them were banned in T2.
Quote from chaosof99 »
Blue had so much time in the sun already, it just needs to get put into some trouble now. I also don't realy see what you are complaining about with Mono-Blue Control being one of the Top Decks in T2 and at least a third to the half of the Extended Decks playing blue..
What time in the sun, recently? Sure Urza Block was nuts, Yes has three of the most powerful card in magic, but what does that have to do with the Standard and Extended formats? The sole reason M:symu:Control was a popular deck was due to a card that isn't even :symu:. However, Pithing Needle's release in Saviors, a card I feel has been way overdue, has easily dropped M:symu:Control a peg or two. I firmly believe you'll see much less of it at Regionals. As for the application of in Extended, realize that Extended is not going to be the same come 9th Edition and all of the Urza and Mercadian block based combo with their Tempst card advantage go away leaving Extended searching for new decks and answers to Affinity, which isn't driven by :symu:, but artifacts. Extended will be a rebirth of old T2 where the closest thing to a deck would have involved Psychatog and Upheaval were it not for the speed Extended will continue to have post rotation. is now a support color. Even in Madness, merely supported the beatdown. Without a another color, lacks any backbone.
Quote from chaosof99 »
BTW, how would you design color hosers for blue? Also, since when where color hosers in blue played, other than Hibernation, which also so absolutely no play while in 8th. There also was a nice [url=http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/rb25]article[/card] once about that matter. Also the loss of Bribery isn't very much to whine about, since it only returned in 8th once. Cards come and go and there still is Confiscate.
How would I design color hosers for :symu:? Hibernation would still be my choice for the anti:symg:. As much as I like the card, I think Chill would be too much a hoser to give against :symr:, but there are other candidates. Candidates
Of all the cards listed, I know Suffocation is out for the damage it deals. Hibernation is pretty close to Evacuation so I might forgo it. I'd choose the Dual Candidates of Essence Leak and High Seas.
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Well, blue 9th,um, sucks? Seriously, there's no good countermagic, the card drawing is slow (why the hell did they take out Concentrate? Was drawing 3 on turn 4 too good? Idiots). From this list, I guess blue is the color of sucking now. Stupid WotC...
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"The imagination is not a State: it is the Human existence itself." - William Blake
Woot! I can finally bring back my Battle of Wits deck to T2!!!! But wow, Wizards is seriously against hosers in 9th Edition. First they **** up the COPs, and Karma and Sanctimony in White, and now with Blue we see the dissapearance of hibernation and Wrath of merit liege.
You guys are too busy comparing blue to the previous core sets/ revised editions.
You should be comparing it to the power level of the other colors in 9th. When I compare it like that, while white is definately the strongest, I feel like all of the colors got essentially the same treatment: A great, solid base that's fairly equal in power level.
This is the core set, and isn't really meant to be played as a stand-alone. From comments I've read at Wizards.com, the route they're seeking is to use the core set for all of the blah baseline cards, and supplement them with the Block expansions, which now have more design space. Simply because they establish the color pie's base in the Core Set, they can deal with the intricacies in the Block sets. This was Kamigawa's problem with Arcane; they had no choice but to use up their arcane slots on the baseline color pie stuff, and didn't have room to get overly creative. Personally, I think Ravnica is going to be great because of this reason.
peace
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imaginary pet is cool especialy with one with nothing
Holy ****, this guy is Jesus and Buddha's bastard love-child. He cracked the code. Or wait, maybe they haven't seen it yet. Uh, I cracked the code! Hooray for EvilDuck! Yay me! Yay for me!
I just noticed the bastards took out Unsummon. Unsummon? Un-****ing-summon?! Gwah! Idiots!
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"The imagination is not a State: it is the Human existence itself." - William Blake
WTH:swear:, Where's my beloved Sage Owl?:mad1: I hate Wizards now!!!:swear:
Nice to see Imaginary Pet, Clone, and Polymorph back.
Are the 2 drakes really needed? They only cost 1 difference and they not even that great either.
Traumatize can work in a draft if you use it with black too. and I Guess Reminisce is acting as it's counter spell.
Too bad there is so few counter-spells in 9th but what we have is cool.
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Eventually all you blue mages will have to accept your seat of weakness. Blue hasn't been good for a long time, and the only thing saving it now is Vedalken Shackles, which is in itself an artifact and not even blue. Blue is being put in the position where it belongs: A splash color, because that's all it does is make little splashes now
/taunting of blue mages
I'm really happy to have Traumatize back. I admittedly was hoping Haunting Echoes would accompany it, but maybe in Ravnica Or not, who knows? Not me! But it's still awesome
If you look at the In/Out list, blue didn't really lose that much. Bribery's the biggest hit, but blue regains Sleight of Hand and picks up what could possibly be some techy new stuff, I'm personally hoping BOW becomes the next big deck in Standard. Weak blue in a Core Set might mean we'll have strong blue in Ravnica.
Alas, poor blue. It got totally shafted in 9th. Utterly, compared to everybody else. I'm glad to see only:
Boomerang
Clone
Counsel of the Soratami
Evacuation
Exhaustion
Fleeting Image
Imaginary Pet
Mahamoti Djinn
Mana Leak
Mind Bend
Phantom Warrior
Remove Soul
Rewind
Sleight of Hand
Temporal Adept
Thieving Magpie
Thought Courier
Trade Routes
Traumatize
Zur’s Weirding
Even on that list, a number of the cards are very specialized, and will most likely never see real Standard play. Poor blue.
Some "good" flyers for limited environment, as ever...
Some crappy counters, some crappy *sorcery-speed* drawers...
A few nice spells... no Bribery. meh.
Glad I always disliked blue... They could just ban the islands, no-one is ever going to play U anymore.
and i'm thrilled they are keeping Mind Bend around for a bit longer. now i just need to see what artifacts they keep around from 8th...
OUT IN 9th:
IN:
Thank you. Information added to first post.
Countermanded
I know that many felt the time for cards like Counterspell to rotate out was overdue, but who said anything about the act of countering spells? As the Core set’s number increase, so decreases its number of counter spells. Even thought it was limited in quality I expected to see Vex or Thoughtbind, but never imagined that would be reduced to three counter spells: Mana Leak, Remove Soul and Rewind.
Powerplayed!
How low has sunk at the hands of R&D when the most powerful cards in the color are Battle of Wits and Traumatize. Only one of them provides a win condition, but who in their right mind would play a deck containing more than 200 cards in formats where speed is everything? Traumatize is a good card for what it does, but it will never win a game outright. I do have to say that Polymorph is a decent card, but being a sorcery in a speed environment makes me feel it will be a turn too late kind of card. Take a moment of silence to ponder the loss of Bribery.
Mind Bend-over
I would never have expected Chill to return and I knew Hibernation was questionable, but how can Baneful Stare and Withering Gaze be considered color hosers? Hosers are supposed to be a card that provide difficulty or set back for an opposing color? At the very least Wrath of Marit Lage tried to offer some relief against :symr:. Drawing cards is a good thing, but what good are cards in hand when you are the least offensive color and are opposing arguably the two most aggressive colors? No not only are they lackluster hosers, they are mana hungry on-turn spells to boot, which brings me to my next question: has all card drawing been slowed to sorcery speed? The spell casting card drawing certainly has shifted that way. I was so sure that with its unrestriction in Vintage and its not being on the reprint policy list that Stroke of Genius was a shoo-in cookie is repayment for the dilution of the standard card pool. Bzzzt, wrong answer! What's next for card draw, all creature abilities will have errata stating they can only be used whenever its controller could play a sorcery?
with Envy
I remember a time when those loyalists would balk at every new expansion and every cycling of the core set, exclaiming how was getting the shaft. Those players are stymied at how :symu:’s been given the middle mana symbol, to the point where those times don’t look so bad anymore. Someone stated that in some past article, MaRo explained that R&D balances the game between sets. I can understand that, but why is R&D trying to balance the game seemingly spanning all of Magic beginning with Alpha, Beta and Unlimited? The only thing that would make this list understandable is if R&D is trying to balance a game where they are taking Ancestral, the Time Twins and perhaps Mana Drain into consideration.
Resolution
I knew that was going to get drained a bit more than other colors over the last few and next several sets, but enough already. In all honesty, I thought the hosing of was over once 8th came out. With Kamigawa introducing Meloku, I figured that had paid its dues and that come 9th Edition, would begin to bounce back from being a secondary, splash color. Unless the list provided is incorrect, my hopes were to no avail, still sucks, even worse now. I never realized that Spiketail Hatchling was so over powering or that stealing something (Bribery) was too good for :symu:.
I’ve been playing magic for over ten years and in that time I have played all colors, monochorme or combinations of colors, and I can plainly say that as one who enjoys playing I’m not looking forward to the next two years. I understand the shift in the color wheel. I understood the reclassification of interrupts. I can even understand the necessity for weakening :symu:. But to the degree R&D has taken it boggles the mind. It's been a continuous underling theme that 9th was to be a revolutionary set that would elevate core sets to an expert level. No matter how solid :symw:’s list is and the other colors prove to be, in the eyes of players R&D as not only failed but been malicious in doing so.
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In fact, this looks like a very Johnny list. I wonder if they're setting blue up as the 'combo color' and cutting away its control possibilities. Hmmn, but if they were doing that, they would have reprinted Intruder Alarm. Hmmn.
Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass slaughter can be hilarious.
Uh, its that way RIGHT NOW in case you didn't notice - Big Blue Beatstick and Air Elemental were both in 8th...
Have you not seen basicly every MUC deck in Standard right now running 3 Hibernations on the sideboard to deal with all the mono-green decks out there?
Personally, I think they should print a card that's Hibernation for red. Cause Wrath of Marit Leige is pretty lousy IMO.
Also, the Randy Beuhler article that was referenced features a fan vote for Hibernation in 8E or not. And the answer the following week was overwhelmingly yes...
Eighth Edition: Hibernation or no?Hibernation628471%No258929%Total8873100%
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large, cheap fliers? super check
3 counters? check
bounces? check
unblockability in instant, enchantment, and creature forms? check
land swapping? check
creature stealing? check
card drawing in instant, enchantment, and creature forms? check
library manipulation? check
library hosing? check
color hosing? check
I think this list could have been worse. I'm just glad there are no Wandering Ones along with the Fugitive Wizard.
peace
WHAT?! Oh, i get it. It's because wandering ones is so good it would to have taken up a rare slot and completely break the standard format all over again.
Anyway. Traumatize. Fun.
BUT PLEASE, NO MORE BATTLE OF WITS DECKS!!!
(sorry if this has already been suggested. i dont have time to read 8 pages)
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I can perfectly understand why you would want to see blue back on track- not too powerful but on the level with all the other colors.
The days of blue hosing should have been over long ago, but the true nature of the problem is much more complicated and much more disturbing. This problem lies at the very heart of what blue is. You see, 3 types of counterspells in the base set is all that blue needs. It can run 4 of each of those, 4 Hinder, and 4 Condescend for a total of 20 counterspells. All blue decks in all of standard, whether mono or 2-color are basically using all the same cards, just in varying amounts. MUC and U/G control play so eerily similar. The slight differences are that MUC runs more counters and plays it slow, while U/G takes short term risks to build up its mana base and use Eternal Witness to get back its precious few-er counters/bounce/Bribery. Both decks run Meloku and Shackles.
My point is that it takes very few different cards to assemble several archetypes. Blue is so efficient in what it does, it can take the most watered down crap versions of its staples and still do effectively the same as it did before. How often does Mana Leak play any differently than a Counterspell? Not very often. Usually its either too early in the game to matter or the opponent has to tap out for the big ass bomb they were going to play anyways. The only times when Mana Leak is significantly worse than Counterspell is when the opponent is mana flooded or they are drawing weaker cards late game...and if they are, aren't you winning anyways? In this sense I could argue that Counterspell is just a win-more version of Mana Leak. Hinder costs only one mana more and the slow control deck usually waits to counter more expensive mid-game cards anyways. The role of the counterspell is so potent and influential it can be wrapped in an uglier package and still serve the same role.
So at what point since Invasion block when they decided to do something about blue, did blue ever get weak? I didn't think about this until today but damn is it disturbing. Around the time of Invasion block there were U/W Control and U/B Control. Powerful even in the days of Fires, these were still solid decks backed by money rares like Absorb and Undermine and served as its main competitors. There were even those awesome U/G decks featuring Mystic Snake. With the coming of Oddy block the U/B Control deck evolved into the horrific Psychatog deck. At the same time U/G Madness was also powerful. (I know you guys already know this, its old ****, but its necessary for my explanation.) These decks went unchallenged when it came to metagame influence, but still neither was completely invincible. I remember how sites struggled to come up with solutions to 'tog, leading to single minded decks like Frog in a Blender and the fun factor of the game was put into question- many wanted Fact or Fiction to be smote by the banhammer, after being tired of having to pcik between 3 good cards and 2 really good cards. After the release of Onslaught block things got much better as FoF rotated out along with many other of blue's tools and as non-blue decks like Astral Slide and Goblin Bidding were able to play just as well as the blue decks, sometimes even better. All was good for quite some time yet people were still sick of the no-rare cheapo blue decks. Surely with the release of Mirrodin this evil color will be laid to rest with the proverbial kick in the balls! Oh how wrong these people were! Broodstar Affinity was the new flavor of the season, whose only colored cards were blue (and sometimes red in the form of Shrapnal Blast). The deck was as cheap to build as the ones before it, except this time it had the horrible side effect of requiring no skill to play. However, after the release of Darksteel people caught on to a more efficient affinity build-Raffinity. The deck was a monster unrivaled in degeneracy by any deck since the Combo Winter. Sadly, the 4 month period between the release of Darksteel and Fifth Dawn, before the introduction of Vedalken Shackles, was the only time in Magic's history that blue has not been the most powerful color, tied for the most powerful color, or the second most powerful color in Standard. After the release of Fifth Dawn the U/G archetype was born and was able to compete against Raffinity much better than any other deck except maybe T&N which was just as good. After Raffinity's spine and entrails were ripped out, blue rose above the rest and now sits as Tier 1 in mono-color form. Blue is at its strongest today since the days of 'tog, except this time it doesn't even need help from a secondary color.
R&D has ended up right back where it started unintentionally. Since they made Skullclamp and the Affinity mechanic I wouldn't put this above them. They need to save face by using the what I call the 'Nuclear Option' so that this evil color doesn't have the will to rise from the ashes after rotation. That may sound harsh, but blue is once again heading down the dangerous path that caused it to be "hosed" in the first place. This time it must be done right, the very integrity of the color wheel depends upon it!!!! :tongue2:
Yes I did. And dispite being a player, I agreed with it. I have no problem with having needed to be weakened. I understood why they had to rotate Counterspell and lessen the power of the color's card drawing capability. I never expected to be given all powerful cards up and down its 9th list, but I did expect some showing that has suffered enough. Compare the card quality of in 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th and you'll see a steady decline of from 6th to the list presented for 9th.
If you look at the opening letter, you'll notice that it's dated May 25, 2002. Meaning that has been undergoing changes for three years and several expansions and save the unknown interaction between and during Madness, :symu:'s been pretty much a sidekick. I have no quaalms about weakening :symu:, which has been accomplished in many ways, foremost the shift of some abilities and characterisitics to other colors, such as redirection (I expect Shunt in 9E:symr:) and cheap fliers, now a thing.
However... If you [url="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mr168a"]continue[/url]d and reread the letter in the second link at the bottom of MaRo's article where numbers where used to illustrate the letter's information, take note that all but three cards (Opposition, Counterspell and Fact or Fiction) in sections 1, 2, 4 and 5 are either rotating out of Extended or haven't been legal in Extended for years. As for Affinity, yes got some really good affinity based cards, but notice that none of them were banned in T2.
What time in the sun, recently? Sure Urza Block was nuts, Yes has three of the most powerful card in magic, but what does that have to do with the Standard and Extended formats? The sole reason M:symu:Control was a popular deck was due to a card that isn't even :symu:. However, Pithing Needle's release in Saviors, a card I feel has been way overdue, has easily dropped M:symu:Control a peg or two. I firmly believe you'll see much less of it at Regionals. As for the application of in Extended, realize that Extended is not going to be the same come 9th Edition and all of the Urza and Mercadian block based combo with their Tempst card advantage go away leaving Extended searching for new decks and answers to Affinity, which isn't driven by :symu:, but artifacts. Extended will be a rebirth of old T2 where the closest thing to a deck would have involved Psychatog and Upheaval were it not for the speed Extended will continue to have post rotation. is now a support color. Even in Madness, merely supported the beatdown. Without a another color, lacks any backbone.
How would I design color hosers for :symu:? Hibernation would still be my choice for the anti:symg:. As much as I like the card, I think Chill would be too much a hoser to give against :symr:, but there are other candidates.
Candidates
Candidates
Dual Candidates:
Of all the cards listed, I know Suffocation is out for the damage it deals. Hibernation is pretty close to Evacuation so I might forgo it. I'd choose the Dual Candidates of Essence Leak and High Seas.
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I can understand toning it down, but getting rid of it completely?
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Why. Why!!
Meh.
<Qzilla> losing to girls at magic is such a high
You should be comparing it to the power level of the other colors in 9th. When I compare it like that, while white is definately the strongest, I feel like all of the colors got essentially the same treatment: A great, solid base that's fairly equal in power level.
This is the core set, and isn't really meant to be played as a stand-alone. From comments I've read at Wizards.com, the route they're seeking is to use the core set for all of the blah baseline cards, and supplement them with the Block expansions, which now have more design space. Simply because they establish the color pie's base in the Core Set, they can deal with the intricacies in the Block sets. This was Kamigawa's problem with Arcane; they had no choice but to use up their arcane slots on the baseline color pie stuff, and didn't have room to get overly creative. Personally, I think Ravnica is going to be great because of this reason.
peace
Holy ****, this guy is Jesus and Buddha's bastard love-child. He cracked the code. Or wait, maybe they haven't seen it yet. Uh, I cracked the code! Hooray for EvilDuck! Yay me! Yay for me!
I just noticed the bastards took out Unsummon. Unsummon? Un-****ing-summon?! Gwah! Idiots!
"Stoned players can't attack, block, or play spells or abilities."
Nice to see Imaginary Pet, Clone, and Polymorph back.
Are the 2 drakes really needed? They only cost 1 difference and they not even that great either.
Traumatize can work in a draft if you use it with black too. and I Guess Reminisce is acting as it's counter spell.
Too bad there is so few counter-spells in 9th but what we have is cool.
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/taunting of blue mages
I'm really happy to have Traumatize back. I admittedly was hoping Haunting Echoes would accompany it, but maybe in Ravnica Or not, who knows? Not me! But it's still awesome
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Unless green is seriously nerfed, Withering Gaze is not going to be anywhere near Hibernation...
No Coastal Piracy or even Curiosity? No Memory Lapse? No Unsummon?!?!
At this point, the best news is Boil has been downgraded to Boiling Seas.
Boomerang
Clone
Counsel of the Soratami
Evacuation
Exhaustion
Fleeting Image
Imaginary Pet
Mahamoti Djinn
Mana Leak
Mind Bend
Phantom Warrior
Remove Soul
Rewind
Sleight of Hand
Temporal Adept
Thieving Magpie
Thought Courier
Trade Routes
Traumatize
Zur’s Weirding
Even on that list, a number of the cards are very specialized, and will most likely never see real Standard play. Poor blue.
Some crappy counters, some crappy *sorcery-speed* drawers...
A few nice spells... no Bribery. meh.
Glad I always disliked blue... They could just ban the islands, no-one is ever going to play U anymore.