I agree there's one thing here everyone overestimates:
How much WotC cares about collectors. Let's look at it from two perspectives:
1. WotC only cares about making money.
Okay. Who makes them more? The players, who need 4 copies of a staple, and will rip open packs to find them, and ultimately bring more players to the table? When you think about it, players are one of the big (if not the biggest) reasons Magic spreads. However, collectors don't bring more, if any, other collectors to the table.
Bottom Line:
Not only do players spend more, but they also multiply.
2. WotC cares about the game (in the sense they care about keeping it fun, enjoyable, and stable).
Well, this one is obvious. Collectors are on the decline, and players are on the rise. The game is designed to be played. Easy pick, players.
So, I agree in Eternal formats (and a legal Force would break extended in half). But what in standard is worth protecting that much? I guess some U/W Protect the Queen might be pretty good, but even then, I doubt it would see too much play in standard.
You've got to be kidding me.
Do you understand how ridiculous powerful Force of Will is? And no, the card disadvantage does not balance it out, because card advantage is not everything in Magic, and what Force of Will provides is definitely worth exiling a card from your hand. Can you imagine a Standard where you can drop Jace and have counter back up while you're tapped out? Blue would be the dominant color until the two cards were no longer legal together. Not to mention how excellent it is at protecting combo pieces, or an essential creature. If you think Force of Will would not be played in Standard you obviously have never played with or against the card, because it's inherent power was there from the time it was legal in Standard.
It could be reprinted. It's not as busted as everyone thinks especially in a format without cheap card draw. I have seen a few Vintage deck lists from the pros at TMD lately that run 3 FoW, that should tell you something if you're in the "it's too broken" camp.
Sure it's a great card, so is Lightning Bolt. People said that one was never coming back either. It could happen.
It definitely won't be reprinted for Standard play. However, we've been hearing a lot of rumors of Wizards trying to find a way to get more Legacy cards in the market. Perhaps something like an equivalent to Masters Edition on mtgo? It'd probably sell like hotcakes(I know I'd buy several cases >.<)
FoW will never be re-printed for standard use. If it is, I will eat a playset of Alliance copies.
Just because I can, I'm holding you to this. I don't think it'll be reprinted in a Standard-legal set, but I don't think it's too powerful to be. If Extended was a big deal, it could get banned. In Standard, it's not overpowered by any means: as people have said, there's really no way to get back that card you lost unlike the formats it's legal in.
Just because I can, I'm holding you to this. I don't think it'll be reprinted in a Standard-legal set, but I don't think it's too powerful to be. If Extended was a big deal, it could get banned. In Standard, it's not overpowered by any means: as people have said, there's really no way to get back that card you lost unlike the formats it's legal in.
I do not think that is really the issue. The inherent card disadvantage is nothing of real consequence when it means you can play powerful sorcery speed cards like Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Baneslayer Angel and hold counter back up while you're tapped out. A deck like Chapin's UW control deck ran Cancel, of all things, so I am pretty sure it would run Force and not bat an eye at the little card loss that makes up for the potential enormous tempo gain. Using card economy as an end all be all of means to determine power level is very shortsighted, because it does not take into account the role that tempo plays in a game of Magic. Blue decks having the ability to run out their most powerful spells with solid assurance that they will be able to deny their opponent their next most powerful threat or answer while tapped out would make the color head and shoulders better. If they were to do a Force-style counter, expect something closer to Disrupting Shoal or Thwart.
FoW will never be re-printed for standard use. If it is, I will eat a playset of Alliance copies.
Less tasty than Burger King, more expensive than going out. Yowch.
But seriously, I have to question the power of Force in the current standard. Yes, I have played with and against it. Is it good, for example, to counter a BBE with it? What if that BBE cascaded into Blightning? It's still a 2 for 1, and you take 4 no matter what you counter. What about countering just a plain hardcast Blightning? You lose two cards, neither of which is a land, for what? An extra 2 life? Combo isn't exactly huge in standard right now anyway, so the combo disruption/protection isn't really valid.
Less tasty than Burger King, more expensive than going out. Yowch.
But seriously, I have to question the power of Force in the current standard. Yes, I have played with and against it. Is it good, for example, to counter a BBE with it? What if that BBE cascaded into Blightning? It's still a 2 for 1, and you take 4 no matter what you counter. What about countering just a plain hardcast Blightning? You lose two cards, neither of which is a land, for what? An extra 2 life? Combo isn't exactly huge in standard right now anyway, so the combo disruption/protection isn't really valid.
Saying Force of Will is bad because it would be a mediocre answer to the best play in Standard is like saying having a bullet proof vest is bad because it won't stop a rocket-powered grenade. And yes, countering the Blightning is still probably worth it, even if is only really gaining you 2 life. Not to mention those two cards won't be in Standard forever, and with the loss of Cascade Force would become a dominant card in the metagame, if it was not already.
A purely defensive spell can't really be broken, imo, unless it's does something totally insane in addition to its main purpose or lets you retain card parity. If it doesn't do one of those things, it can't be broken really. A FoW that drew you a card would be broken, because there would be literally no measurable drawback.
Once again, I think people just throw the word broken around too much. I'm a little more refined in classifying power level of cards. Just some examples.
I mean, there is a clear distinction between something that is powerful and something that is broken and people need to learn that. I won't disagree that FoW is above the curve, and that it won't be reprinted, but it's not broken. It's just not what Wizards wants to be available. Free spells are difficult to justify.
I am just going to go out right now and say that Force would be perfectly fine in T2. There, I just said it.
Guys, this is 2010, not 2004. The power level on creatures has creeped up to levels that the game hasn't seen in an extremely long time, if at all. For those of you who are crying that Force would ruin T2 if it were reprinted seem to forget that creatures souped-up and better than ever. Several years ago, if an aggro deck played a mid-range threat and it got Forced, the aggro player lost signifcant tempo, which would result in dire consequences -- possibly even sealing the game for the blue player to take over in the late game. Now a mid-range threat like Bloodbraid Elf is pretty much impossible to "answer" with Force. Either way, you're losing a significant amount of card advantage due to cascade. Not only that, cascade provides the aggro player the tempo boost instead of the control player Forcing BBE! The tables have turned.
The power level in creatures has allowed aggro decks to massively increase their threat density without having to sacrifice tempo at the same time. Having a 2 CMC creature Forced is so much less devastating than having a 4 CMC or 5 CMC creature Forced that had the same amount of threat value.
Sacrificing card advantage for tempo gain is so much worse now for blue than it ever has been. Aggro decks have a much higher threat density than they did several years ago... and if you're 2-for-1ing yourself to counter threats, you only leave yourself open to when your opponent drops their real must-answer cards.
I think that if force got reprinted, we'd see a shift in Jund to play maindeck mind rots, and less people playing vampires. It'd probably knock Jund off the map.
Having played force in multiple decks in multiple formats, I can assure you that while it is good, there are many situations where you'll be wishing it were anything else, even a Cancel. The card disadvantage it causes is pretty serious, and without good ways to recover those cards, the second force you draw can be downright awful.
Polymorph decks would dominate standard if FoW was reprinted. Especially with all these ridiculously massive Eldrazi creatures hitting the format. Insanity.
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No but control decks would be the thing. Play 4 jaces and 4 Forces and 4 Baneslayers and randoms draw and counters. Go ahead try and kill Baneslayer Angel I dare you even if I have no mana on board.
FoW probably wouldn't do a whole lot until Cascade rotates, but after that it could cause some serious issues:
1. If blue gets more good card draw, FoW becomes busted in control decks again.
2. A blue/x aggro deck can really get ahead, because they start dropping their creatures and don't need mana to counter your answers/other creatures, so they can go ball to the wall without worrying.
FOW wouldn't be that amazing in standard. I've even tried standard decks as if it were legal to see how good it would be. Most of the time, I ended up burning 2 counterspells every time I had to pitch it. Sure, it was neat sometimes, but not really that amazing. The real problem with FOW in standard is more the 'Wall of Bull☺☺☺☺.' Counterspell got the axe because it was too easy to keep UU open to bluff it. Afterall, the problem never fell with being able to counter everything. The threat of Counterspell is far higher than its power level. FOW is even worse because said wall is theoretically always up. While today's counterspells are pretty powerful by historical standard, they make it unlikely that you can counter any spell at any time for less than 1UU. That makes the guessing game a bit more fun for the opponent, especially weaker players since they can likely resolve some kind of spell, unhindered. In addition to that we have counterspell hosers like Terra Stomper and Vexing Shusher. Now, in practice, their uncounterability is pointless since it's rare that any good player would want to counter them rather than just kill them, they're a nice security blanket since they don't have to be forced through. I think that might just be the trick to getting Counterspell back someday, though. If people would stop complaining about counter hosers that don't really matter, Wizards might print more uncounterable cards (especially huge fat) and then, Counterspell will be fine again since it won't be taking out all the fun monsters. They'll die to the 10 cent Doom Blade like always.
^No it wouldn't, FoW is powerful in legacy because theres a bunch of stuff that needs to be countered turn 1 when you don't have any other answers. In standard it would be horrible in control decks because of the limited draw power in blue right now. If Force was in standard it might see play as a 1 or 2 of but definitely not 4 of.
there are WAY more "playable" draw cards in standard then in legacy, legacy uses ponder, brainstorm and maybe standstill in some decks?
Couriers capsule, mind spring and the new landfall one all see some sort of play in standard.With that said FOW would be hugely busted in extended so a reprint is a bad idea imo.
So, I agree in Eternal formats (and a legal Force would break extended in half). But what in standard is worth protecting that much? I guess some U/W Protect the Queen might be pretty good, but even then, I doubt it would see too much play in standard.
And you'd be wrong. It's a free counterspell. Free. You don't understand how big that is. Blue would once again become the beat all color. I would personally prefer to see blue get some creature control than FoW. At least then other colors would have a chance. FoW is too powerful.
And you'd be wrong. It's a free counterspell. Free. You don't understand how big that is. Blue would once again become the beat all color. I would personally prefer to see blue get some creature control than FoW. At least then other colors would have a chance. FoW is too powerful.
QFT for all eternity.
You might as well say Fireblast is fair because it requires you to sacrifice Mountains, making it a 1 for 3. That's not the point. The point is how powerful an effect can be when it is totally free. Consider the common lands from Zendikar and Worldwake; mostly dismissed at first glance, Teetering Peaks proves that even an almost free 'spell' can be good, the Worldwake ones go further, all 5 of them being solid cards, their free 'spell' usually worth the awkwardness of the land coming into play tapped. A free counterspell that costs you a life and two cards is stronger than any of these; if you think Blue decks in Extended would not run Force again Zoo, well, how much better is letting a Wild Nacatl hit the field turn one and probably proceeding to lose 3+ life over the next few turns when compared to losing 2 cards and 1 life? Not like you'll care how much card advantage you have when you're life total has been dropped below ten by the start of your 4th turn.
The only aspect of the current Standard that might keep the strength of Force of Will in check if it was reprinted in Rise or M11 would be Cascade (which is an absurdly powerful mechanic itself)- in a Standard without Bloodbraid Elf, Force of Will and Jace, the Mind Sculptor would reign supreme.
Sure, you can Force a threat against Zoo, but they will have lost very little tempo from doing so, because they run so many cheap threats. The overall increased threat density and power level of proactive cards makes it so you can ill-afford to lose card advantage when they drop another salvo of threats you are almost required to counter.
And you'd be wrong. It's a free counterspell. Free. You don't understand how big that is. Blue would once again become the beat all color. I would personally prefer to see blue get some creature control than FoW. At least then other colors would have a chance. FoW is too powerful.
You clearly don't play much standard. You're saying that it's going to wreck up a format in which there are no other good counters (albeit there are a couple passable ones)? Against BBElf? Even with force backup it would be a gambit to run out a Jace against jund. I'd be inclined to agree with you if cascade were already rotated out of standard, but I would be agreeing strictly on the lines that Jace is ridiculous and force would make him better, and it would not have anything to do with force of will. Force is definitely a good card, but has been stated it is not possible to consider cards like force to be broken (as it is strictly an answer) and it is possible to conceive of formats where it is less than good.
You clearly don't play much standard. You're saying that it's going to wreck up a format in which there are no other good counters (albeit there are a couple passable ones)? Against BBElf? Even with force backup it would be a gambit to run out a Jace against jund. I'd be inclined to agree with you if cascade were already rotated out of standard, but I would be agreeing strictly on the lines that Jace is ridiculous and force would make him better, and it would not have anything to do with force of will. Force is definitely a good card, but has been stated it is not possible to consider cards like force to be broken (as it is strictly an answer) and it is possible to conceive of formats where it is less than good.
... I dont know where to start...
Lets start with this. Would it be ok to print this card.
0
instant
lose one life
Add UUUUU to your mana pool, only play counterspells with this mana.
Kicker 3UU You may instead counter target spell and not lose a life.
If you say yes either you have never tapped two islands and cast counterspell, returned an island for daze and pitched a card to FOW a goyf/gamebreaker/answer.
FOW provides more tempo than BBE, I dont think you have ever cast it. Period. It would be like asking for a reprint of gush and I pray you didn't have to click that busted card because its just stupidly unfair.
Heres a better example. Replace 4 cancel in chapins deck with FOW, see how many games jund wins. I am guessing its under 30% instead of near even with perfect play. I also dont see any other deck in the format within a mile of Jace.dec after that.
How much WotC cares about collectors. Let's look at it from two perspectives:
1. WotC only cares about making money.
Okay. Who makes them more? The players, who need 4 copies of a staple, and will rip open packs to find them, and ultimately bring more players to the table? When you think about it, players are one of the big (if not the biggest) reasons Magic spreads. However, collectors don't bring more, if any, other collectors to the table.
Bottom Line:
Not only do players spend more, but they also multiply.
2. WotC cares about the game (in the sense they care about keeping it fun, enjoyable, and stable).
Well, this one is obvious. Collectors are on the decline, and players are on the rise. The game is designed to be played. Easy pick, players.
Honestly, I don't feel it's right for standard, because it doesn't really fit, especially in a format where blightning is dominant, and quite a bit of CA is generated from ripping cards out your opponents hands rather than putting them in yours. However, I feel they need to eventually reprint staples for the eternal scene, else they go stagnant. These articles are all really good at explaining why.
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/18794_Insider_Trading_The_Cost_of_Cards_The_Rise_of_Magics_Popularity_Part_1_of_3.html
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/18824_Insider_Trading_The_Cost_of_Cards_Mr_Bleiweiss_goes_to_Washington_Part_2_of_3.html
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/18849_Insider_Trading_The_Cost_of_Cards_On_Foils_and_One_Last_Reserved_List_Thought_Part_3_of_3.html
You've got to be kidding me.
Do you understand how ridiculous powerful Force of Will is? And no, the card disadvantage does not balance it out, because card advantage is not everything in Magic, and what Force of Will provides is definitely worth exiling a card from your hand. Can you imagine a Standard where you can drop Jace and have counter back up while you're tapped out? Blue would be the dominant color until the two cards were no longer legal together. Not to mention how excellent it is at protecting combo pieces, or an essential creature. If you think Force of Will would not be played in Standard you obviously have never played with or against the card, because it's inherent power was there from the time it was legal in Standard.
Sure it's a great card, so is Lightning Bolt. People said that one was never coming back either. It could happen.
Ignoring standard completely, printing Force of Will would simply destroy Extended. As a format, it would be useless.
FoW will never be re-printed for standard use. If it is, I will eat a playset of Alliance copies.
Just because I can, I'm holding you to this. I don't think it'll be reprinted in a Standard-legal set, but I don't think it's too powerful to be. If Extended was a big deal, it could get banned. In Standard, it's not overpowered by any means: as people have said, there's really no way to get back that card you lost unlike the formats it's legal in.
I do not think that is really the issue. The inherent card disadvantage is nothing of real consequence when it means you can play powerful sorcery speed cards like Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Baneslayer Angel and hold counter back up while you're tapped out. A deck like Chapin's UW control deck ran Cancel, of all things, so I am pretty sure it would run Force and not bat an eye at the little card loss that makes up for the potential enormous tempo gain. Using card economy as an end all be all of means to determine power level is very shortsighted, because it does not take into account the role that tempo plays in a game of Magic. Blue decks having the ability to run out their most powerful spells with solid assurance that they will be able to deny their opponent their next most powerful threat or answer while tapped out would make the color head and shoulders better. If they were to do a Force-style counter, expect something closer to Disrupting Shoal or Thwart.
Less tasty than Burger King, more expensive than going out. Yowch.
But seriously, I have to question the power of Force in the current standard. Yes, I have played with and against it. Is it good, for example, to counter a BBE with it? What if that BBE cascaded into Blightning? It's still a 2 for 1, and you take 4 no matter what you counter. What about countering just a plain hardcast Blightning? You lose two cards, neither of which is a land, for what? An extra 2 life? Combo isn't exactly huge in standard right now anyway, so the combo disruption/protection isn't really valid.
Saying Force of Will is bad because it would be a mediocre answer to the best play in Standard is like saying having a bullet proof vest is bad because it won't stop a rocket-powered grenade. And yes, countering the Blightning is still probably worth it, even if is only really gaining you 2 life. Not to mention those two cards won't be in Standard forever, and with the loss of Cascade Force would become a dominant card in the metagame, if it was not already.
Yawgmoth's Will is broken, Balance is broken, Ancestral Recall is broken. None of these are really defensive spells either.
Once again, I think people just throw the word broken around too much. I'm a little more refined in classifying power level of cards. Just some examples.
Under powered: Mindless Null
Balanced: Terminate
Above the curve: Bloodbraid Elf, Force of Will
Broken: Ancestral Recall
I mean, there is a clear distinction between something that is powerful and something that is broken and people need to learn that. I won't disagree that FoW is above the curve, and that it won't be reprinted, but it's not broken. It's just not what Wizards wants to be available. Free spells are difficult to justify.
@ PW420: The rocket launcher thing was funny.
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I cube, I play EDH, and I can't afford Legacy. The other formats can suck it.
Guys, this is 2010, not 2004. The power level on creatures has creeped up to levels that the game hasn't seen in an extremely long time, if at all. For those of you who are crying that Force would ruin T2 if it were reprinted seem to forget that creatures souped-up and better than ever. Several years ago, if an aggro deck played a mid-range threat and it got Forced, the aggro player lost signifcant tempo, which would result in dire consequences -- possibly even sealing the game for the blue player to take over in the late game. Now a mid-range threat like Bloodbraid Elf is pretty much impossible to "answer" with Force. Either way, you're losing a significant amount of card advantage due to cascade. Not only that, cascade provides the aggro player the tempo boost instead of the control player Forcing BBE! The tables have turned.
The power level in creatures has allowed aggro decks to massively increase their threat density without having to sacrifice tempo at the same time. Having a 2 CMC creature Forced is so much less devastating than having a 4 CMC or 5 CMC creature Forced that had the same amount of threat value.
Sacrificing card advantage for tempo gain is so much worse now for blue than it ever has been. Aggro decks have a much higher threat density than they did several years ago... and if you're 2-for-1ing yourself to counter threats, you only leave yourself open to when your opponent drops their real must-answer cards.
Having played force in multiple decks in multiple formats, I can assure you that while it is good, there are many situations where you'll be wishing it were anything else, even a Cancel. The card disadvantage it causes is pretty serious, and without good ways to recover those cards, the second force you draw can be downright awful.
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They wouldn't.
Pauper Cube
I cube, I play EDH, and I can't afford Legacy. The other formats can suck it.
1. If blue gets more good card draw, FoW becomes busted in control decks again.
2. A blue/x aggro deck can really get ahead, because they start dropping their creatures and don't need mana to counter your answers/other creatures, so they can go ball to the wall without worrying.
FoW should not be standard legal again.
[[b]B]DCI Level 2 Judge[/B][/b]Doesn't do much against Zoo though.
there are WAY more "playable" draw cards in standard then in legacy, legacy uses ponder, brainstorm and maybe standstill in some decks?
Couriers capsule, mind spring and the new landfall one all see some sort of play in standard.With that said FOW would be hugely busted in extended so a reprint is a bad idea imo.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10800035#post10800035
And you'd be wrong. It's a free counterspell. Free. You don't understand how big that is. Blue would once again become the beat all color. I would personally prefer to see blue get some creature control than FoW. At least then other colors would have a chance. FoW is too powerful.
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You might as well say Fireblast is fair because it requires you to sacrifice Mountains, making it a 1 for 3. That's not the point. The point is how powerful an effect can be when it is totally free. Consider the common lands from Zendikar and Worldwake; mostly dismissed at first glance, Teetering Peaks proves that even an almost free 'spell' can be good, the Worldwake ones go further, all 5 of them being solid cards, their free 'spell' usually worth the awkwardness of the land coming into play tapped. A free counterspell that costs you a life and two cards is stronger than any of these; if you think Blue decks in Extended would not run Force again Zoo, well, how much better is letting a Wild Nacatl hit the field turn one and probably proceeding to lose 3+ life over the next few turns when compared to losing 2 cards and 1 life? Not like you'll care how much card advantage you have when you're life total has been dropped below ten by the start of your 4th turn.
The only aspect of the current Standard that might keep the strength of Force of Will in check if it was reprinted in Rise or M11 would be Cascade (which is an absurdly powerful mechanic itself)- in a Standard without Bloodbraid Elf, Force of Will and Jace, the Mind Sculptor would reign supreme.
Sure, you can Force a threat against Zoo, but they will have lost very little tempo from doing so, because they run so many cheap threats. The overall increased threat density and power level of proactive cards makes it so you can ill-afford to lose card advantage when they drop another salvo of threats you are almost required to counter.
You clearly don't play much standard. You're saying that it's going to wreck up a format in which there are no other good counters (albeit there are a couple passable ones)? Against BBElf? Even with force backup it would be a gambit to run out a Jace against jund. I'd be inclined to agree with you if cascade were already rotated out of standard, but I would be agreeing strictly on the lines that Jace is ridiculous and force would make him better, and it would not have anything to do with force of will. Force is definitely a good card, but has been stated it is not possible to consider cards like force to be broken (as it is strictly an answer) and it is possible to conceive of formats where it is less than good.
... I dont know where to start...
Lets start with this. Would it be ok to print this card.
0
instant
lose one life
Add UUUUU to your mana pool, only play counterspells with this mana.
Kicker 3UU You may instead counter target spell and not lose a life.
If you say yes either you have never tapped two islands and cast counterspell, returned an island for daze and pitched a card to FOW a goyf/gamebreaker/answer.
FOW provides more tempo than BBE, I dont think you have ever cast it. Period. It would be like asking for a reprint of gush and I pray you didn't have to click that busted card because its just stupidly unfair.
Heres a better example. Replace 4 cancel in chapins deck with FOW, see how many games jund wins. I am guessing its under 30% instead of near even with perfect play. I also dont see any other deck in the format within a mile of Jace.dec after that.
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